Today's Liberal News

Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Democracy’s Odds

Updated with new questions at 4:40 p.m. ET on January 22, 2026.
In Princeton, New Jersey, a short stroll from the university you have heard of, there lies a little campus home to the Institute for Advanced Study. It was founded in 1930 not to confer degrees nor—God forbid!—to make money, nor even to conduct research toward any end in particular. The institute proclaims that its purpose is “the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

What the Greenland Crisis Teaches Europe About Trump

Yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump announced that he had “formed the framework of a future deal” with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, raising hopes in Europe that the Greenland crisis may have reached an end. The framework reportedly respects Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland and focuses instead on beefing up America’s military presence in the territory, reaching a deal on crucial minerals, and increasing cooperation on both Arctic security and Trump’s Golden Dome missile-defense system.

Your Phone Is a Slot Machine

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
Even before the legendary gunslinger Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead holding aces and eights at a Deadwood poker table, the practice of gambling—as a pastime and an enterprise—has been bound up in American identity.
But for as long as some Americans have loved gambling, others have judged it.

Trump Casually Denigrates NATO’s War Dead

Benni Schmidt Pedersen lives on a small farm in Denmark, where it’s quiet and he can hear if anyone is coming down the gravel road to his home. He’s stricken with PTSD from his time as a soldier in Afghanistan, where five members of his 130-person company died in the American-led war against the Taliban.
I called him today to read him a quote from President Trump about America’s NATO allies: “We’ve never needed them,” Trump said in a Fox Business interview at the World Economic Forum, in Davos.

Born in Evin Prison, Iranian Author on Protests Against “Authoritarian, Theocratic Regime”

Deadly anti-government protests continue to rock Iran in the midst of the country’s spiraling economic crisis. Thousands of civilians are believed to have been shot dead by government forces in the past few weeks. Meanwhile, President Trump continues to threaten military intervention in addition to a harsh new set of economic sanctions that the U.S. introduced this week.

“Catch of the Day”: Latest ICE Operation in Maine Targets Somali Community

Trump’s deportation machine has touched down in Maine. As the state, home to a significant share of the Somali American community, faces a surge of ICE activity, we’re joined by Safiya Khalid, the first-ever Somali American city councilmember for Lewiston, Maine’s second-largest city. Lewiston’s “streets are completely empty” as residents of all immigration statuses fear harassment and violence from unchecked federal agents.

“No Going Back”: Trump Escalates Threats to Take Greenland & Tariff European Allies

Tensions are escalating between the United States and Europe after President Trump threatened to impose tariffs on eight European allies that oppose his push to take over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark. Thousands took part in protests in Greenland and Denmark over the weekend to oppose Trump’s annexation threats.
Julie Rademacher, chair of Uagut, an organization for Greenlanders in Denmark, tells Democracy Now! that Trump’s rhetoric is a threat to everyone.

The Government’s Posts Just Took a Sharp Far-Right Turn

The U.S. Labor Department is embracing Nazi slogans and tropes, the Pentagon’s research office is deploying neo-Nazi graphic elements in its social-media feeds, and the Department of Homeland Security recently posted lyrics mimicking a popular song by a band with ties to an ethno-nationalist social club.
The official social-media channels of the Trump administration have become unrelenting streams of xenophobic and Nazi-coded messages and imagery.