Today's Liberal News

Kate Aronoff: The Climate Crisis Can’t Take 4 More Years of Trump. We Must Push Biden from the Left

After massive outcry from activists and young voters, debate moderator Chris Wallace questioned President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden about the climate crisis at the first presidential debate. He did not include it in his initial list of debate topics. Kate Aronoff, author and staff writer at The New Republic, says she didn’t expect climate change to come up, but was unsurprised by the responses.

Donald and Melania Trump both test positive for COVID-19

Shortly before 1 AM ET on Friday morning, Donald Trump tweeted that both he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19. On Thursday evening, Trump aide Hope Hicks, who had been traveling with Trump’s campaign this week, tested positive. Hicks was with Trump when he held a large rally in Duluth, Minnesota, on Wednesday and had previously joined him at the presidential debate on Tuesday in Cleveland, Ohio.

Photos of the Week: Pentagonal Grid, Oil Drums, Scorched Wine

A rocket in Nagorno-Karabakh, flowered hills in Australia, alpine cattle herds in Germany, salt production in Turkey, the Washington Prayer March 2020, projections on the the Sydney Opera House, coronavirus burials in Indonesia, scenes from Paris Fashion Week, protests in Mexico City, fire damage in California, and much more.

Put down that dystopia: Let two short films challenge you with visions of a hopeful future

In 2019, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) teamed with illustrator Molly Crabapple to create a short film called A Message from the Future. That film presented something extraordinarily rare when it comes to looking ahead these days: optimism.

After what seems like an endless parade of dystopias in literature and film, the short film, in which Crabapple illustrates scenes to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s narration, seems almost shocking in its optimism.

House passes $2.2 trillion in COVID-19 relief, negotiations continue, and Senate GOP gets restless

It’s been 139 days since the House passed the $3.4 trillion HEROES Act, which Mitch McConnell has refused to take up. To put an exclamation point on that, and on the ongoing critical need for assistance to America, the House passed a slimmed-down version at $2.2 trillion.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been every day this week, sometimes multiple times a day.

Fox News reporter leaves anchor speechless with rant on Trump’s failure to denounce white supremacy

Donald Trump and his administration’s inability to just condemn white supremacy and domestic terrorist groups straight out is extraordinary. One the one hand, it isn’t surprising because Trump’s administration is as clear an example of white supremacist leadership as our country has seen in the modern era. On the other hand, it is surprising that they continue to try and parse language and pigheadedly refuse to do it from an optics stand point.

The Atlantic Daily: The Firsts

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.Aaron TurnerIn the years following Brown v. Board of Education, thousands of children desegregated America’s schools. “The task that fell to them was a brutal one,” our senior editor Rebecca J. Rosen writes.

Can We Still Go to Mars?

Elsewhere in the solar system, a NASA rover is on its way to Mars. It carries, among other things, several pieces of spacesuit material. Designers want to see how the samples fare in the planet’s dusty, radiation-laden environment—the sturdy fabrics of the suit’s exterior, the cut-resistant fibers of its gloves, the shatterproof plastic of the bubble helmet that might someday reflect the soft light of a Martian sunset.

An Ancient Town Submerged: Hasankeyf Underwater

Last year, I featured photos of the efforts made to move parts of the ancient Turkish town of Hasankeyf to a new location, as a massive dam project was about to cause the Tigris River to rise and flood the area. A year later, the reservoir behind Ilisu Dam has largely filled up, inundating the historic town and surrounding archaeological sites, despite years of protests by residents and activists.

Mothers’ Careers Are at Extraordinary Risk Right Now

(moises Saman / Magnum)Being a mother has long been a liability at work. But with work, school, and child care now happening under one roof for so many families, working mothers are at unprecedented risk of experiencing a pandemic-size motherhood penalty.The struggle faced by working mothers is a key focus of the new 2020 Women in the Workplace Report by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, which I co-authored.

Kingdom of Silence: 2 Years After Khashoggi Murder, New Film Explores Deadly U.S.-Saudi Alliance

Two years ago, in a story that shocked the world, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul for marriage documents and was never seen again. It was later revealed that Khashoggi — a Saudi insider turned critic and Washington Post columnist — was murdered and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents at the direct order of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Pandemic of Repression: Modi Government Crushes Dissent While Ignoring India’s 6 Million COVID Cases

As India becomes just the second country to hit 6 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, we speak to journalist Rana Ayyub in Mumbai, who was recently hospitalized after testing positive for the disease. India’s lead pandemic agency says an antibody study suggests more than 60 million people in the country have already been infected with the coronavirus — 10 times the official count but still a small fraction of its population of 1.3 billion.