Today's Liberal News

Three Years into Genocide, “The IDF Is Still Hunting Gazans”: Palestinian Journalist Akram al-Satarri

In Gaza, October 7, 2023, is viewed as the beginning of the genocide. Over the past three years, Israel killed over 74,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, but many believe that number is a vast undercount. The killing continues despite a so-called ceasefire that took effect about a year ago.
“Every single aspect of the life of the people of Gaza has changed once and forever,” since October 7, says Akram al-Satarri, a Gaza-based journalist.

‘Nothing About This Was Inevitable’

The second floor of OpenAI’s old headquarters had a theme. Each room was named after one of the most important inventions in human history: “Clock,” “Fire,” and, of course, “AGI,” or artificial general intelligence. I saw this in the spring of 2024, when I was interviewing some of the company’s researchers about recent technical advances. At the time, ChatGPT was still making embarrassing arithmetic errors, and the notion that the bot would ever rival human intelligence was dubious.

Trump’s Team of Mercenaries

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Kimberly Guilfoyle was so close to getting it right.
The Trump hanger-on—former fiancée to Don Jr. and the current ambassador to Greece—was exchanging messages with a man named Eric Deters, according to a bombshell Wall Street Journal story last night.

Anne Carson’s Seductive Strangeness

Anne Carson, who won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature today, doesn’t write masterpieces or door-stoppers, and she has no interest in emulating the great works of the past—including those of past laureates. Despite her training as a classicist and her celebrated skill as a translator, she would likely have little to say about the authenticity of film adaptations of The Odyssey.

The Oil Crisis America Saw Coming

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
In December 1987, The Atlantic had some reassuring news for readers: The next oil crisis didn’t have to happen.
The United States had already endured the oil shocks of the 1970s, and Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, a pair of then-married environmentalists, argued in this magazine that the country had learned from the experience. The U.S.

What I Saw at New York’s Anti-Israel October 7 Rallies

Yesterday was a reminder of the difficulty that the pro-Palestine left has with showing grace even for the dead. On the third anniversary of the day that Hamas gunmen and freelance killers arrived in Israel on motorcycles and paragliders and trucks, and slaughtered children and grandparents and mothers and fathers and dancing young people, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani put out a statement that was empathetic and modulated in tone … for about 50 words.

Afghanistan, 25 Years Later: Journalist Emran Feroz on the Legacy of “America’s Longest War”

This week marks 25 years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the beginning of what would become the longest war in U.S. history. After installing a pro-Western government in Kabul in December 2001, U.S. and other NATO troops would remain in the country for the next two decades battling a stubborn insurgency — until a chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021 that saw the Taliban return to power.

“The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist”: Daniel Roher, Tristan Harris Discuss New Film

As the development of artificial intelligence accelerates, more voices inside and outside the industry are warning that the technology poses major risks to humanity. The new film, The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, features interviews with leading AI executives, researchers, as well as critics, who all voice similar concerns. Since the film’s release earlier this year, a number of AI-driven hacks and other incidents have further alarmed people studying this topic.

“She Put Her Body on the Line”: Maricarmen, 87, Dies; Her Eviction Sparked Spain Housing Protests

The 87-year-old pensioner in Spain whose eviction from her lifelong home sparked nationwide protests has died. María del Carmen Abascal, better known as Maricarmen, died on Wednesday just hours before she was set to sign a new rental agreement. She was forcibly removed from her Madrid apartment last month on a stretcher after the private investment company that owns the building hiked her rent. After massive public outcry, the landlord had agreed to allow her back into her apartment.