Today's Liberal News

The Self-Importance of Luxury Dining

A few years ago, during the coronavirus pandemic, Daniel Humm had an epiphany. Human reliance on animal products was cooking the planet, and, as a chef, reducing his reliance on them could be part of a solution. When his New York City restaurant, Eleven Madison Park—which had once been named the world’s best restaurant—reopened, it would be free of animal products, making it the first three-Michelin-star dining room to bear that distinction.

The American Car Industry Can’t Go On Like This

Last year, Ford CEO Jim Farley commuted in a car that wasn’t made by his own company. In an effort to scope out the competition, Farley spent six months driving around in a Xiaomi SU7. The Chinese-made electric sedan is one of the world’s most impressive cars: It can accelerate faster than many Porsches, has a giant touch screen that lets you turn off the lights at your house, and comes with a built-in AI assistant—all for roughly $30,000 in China.

How to Make Life Feel a Little Nicer

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Last month, I wrote about my attempt to self-rejuvenate through small moments of joy, and I asked readers to submit some tips of their own. Boy, did you come through. Two clear themes emerged in the dozens of replies we received.

What Does ‘Genius’ Really Mean?

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
“When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives impromptu solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder,” J. Brownlee Brown wrote in 1864. His Atlantic article had a simple headline: “Genius.

Photos: Wildfires Rage Across Southern Europe

Pedro Nunes / Reuters
People look on as a wildfire approaches in Trancoso, Portugal, on August 13, 2025.Patricia De Melo Moreira / AFP / Getty
A man tries to extinguish a wildfire with a tree branch in Trancoso on August 12, 2025.Marcelo Del Pozo / Reuters
A person watches as a helicopter draws water at Atlanterra Beach on August 12, 2025, a day after many locals and tourists were evacuated from Tarifa, Spain, because of wildfires.

Israel Has “Deliberate Strategy” of Killing Palestinian Journalists Like Anas al-Sharif: U.N. Expert

Global condemnation is mounting over the assassination of one of the most prominent journalists in Gaza, Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, along with four of his colleagues at the network and a sixth journalist — the freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khalidi.
The killing of al-Sharif and his colleagues is “really murder,” says Irene Khan, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression. “It is not killing in the context of war.

What Happened When Canada Gave Citizens the Right to Die

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Nine years after Canada legalized assisted death—known formally as Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID—doctors are struggling to keep up with demand, Elaina Plott Calabro reports in a feature for our September issue.

The Awkward Adolescence of a Media Revolution

There’s a quiet revolution in how millions of Americans decide what’s real. Trust is slipping away from traditional institutions—media, government, and higher education—and shifting to individual voices online, among them social-media creators. The Reuters Institute reports that this year, for the first time, more Americans will get their news from social and video platforms—including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X—than from traditional outlets.

Yes, Stephen Miller Is Surrounded By Criminals

Thank goodness the National Guard is being called in. Lawlessness in D.C. is rampant, and someone needs to take a stand!
Stephen Miller was correct to point out that D.C. is awash in crime. Everywhere he looks: criminals. He can barely take three steps without running into one. From the moment he arrives at work in the morning until the second he leaves, one crime after another, piling horrendously high.