Today's Liberal News

How to Read the Epstein Files Like an Expert

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Sometime in the next 15 days, the Justice Department is set to release a huge cache of files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The release, mandated under a law passed by Congress last month, has been the subject of a great deal of anticipation—but not a lot of clarity.

Pete Hegseth’s Weak Excuses

The report from the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s investigation into Signalgate, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s transmission of the details of a U.S. military option in Yemen to a group on Signal—including, by mistake, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg—have now been released to the American public. Its conclusions are unequivocal and brutal: Pete Hegseth endangered the success of a U.S. military operation and put the lives of American military personnel at risk.

The Strange Disappearance of an Anti-AI Activist

Before Sam Kirchner vanished, before the San Francisco Police Department began to warn that he could be armed and dangerous, before OpenAI locked down its offices over the potential threat, those who encountered him saw him as an ordinary, if ardent, activist.
Phoebe Thomas Sorgen met Kirchner a few months ago at Travis Air Force Base, northeast of San Francisco, at a protest against immigration policy and U.S. military aid to Israel.

The Atlantic Announces Michael Leibel as Senior Editor

Today The Atlantic is announcing that Michael Leibel will join as senior editor for community. Michael begins on Monday, and will lead efforts to engage with our readers more closely, including building a larger forum for conversation on the website and app. Michael spent the past eight years at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, leading audience, social-media, and video-curation strategy.

Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Might As Well Keep Going

Updated with new questions at 3:30 p.m. ET on December 4, 2025.
I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer’s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that the good people of the college learn less.
“I found the astronomer of the university gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends,” he wrote.

West African Asylum Seekers Find Safe Haven in NYC Volunteer-Run Kitchen

Amid escalating ICE raids in New York City, Democracy Now!’s Messiah Rhodes spoke to immigrants and advocates supporting newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers from West Africa with hot meals, legal advice and job training. “When I help the people here, the people will help me one day,” Guinean immigrant Abdul Karim, a cook at Cafewal weekday kitchen, told Rhodes.

“Making America White Again”: Trump Further Restricts Immigration, Ramps Up ICE Raids

Immigrant rights advocate Murad Awawdeh joins us to discuss Donald Trump’s nationwide anti-immigrant crackdown and how it’s manifested in Trump’s hometown of New York City, where hundreds of New Yorkers recently blocked a federal immigration raid targeting street vendors from West Africa before it even started. “This has never been about vetting. This has never been about security and safety. It’s about cruelty,” says Awawdeh about the Trump administration’s persecution of immigrants.

Will Hegseth Go? Defense Secretary Faces Anger from Congress over Boat Strikes, Signal Chat

“Pete Hegseth, much like the president he serves, sees himself as, essentially, above the law, as unconstrained by legal procedure.” Foreign policy analyst Matt Duss discusses the brewing conflict within the Trump administration over the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including his involvement in a leaked announcement of U.S. strikes on Yemen in March and the chain of command behind U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.