Today's Liberal News

From “Alligator Alcatraz” to Gaza: U.S. Companies Line Up for Lucrative Gaza Contracts Under Trump

At least a dozen people have died in Gaza as winter storms batter displaced Palestinians forced to shelter in makeshift tents among the rubble of collapsing buildings severely damaged by Israeli bombing. That rubble is being eyed by U.S.-based contractors, who are already vying for lucrative contracts to rebuild Gaza under the Trump-backed ceasefire deal.

This Is What Presidential Panic Looks Like

The president of the United States just barged into America’s living rooms like an angry, confused grandfather to tell us all that we are ungrateful whelps.
When a president asks for network time, it’s usually to announce something important. But tonight, Donald Trump did not give anything like a normal speech or address.

Trump’s ‘Peace President’ Claim Isn’t Holding Up

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Last week, the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado made a daring escape from her home country to Norway, where she was honored as winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

$1,776 Checks for the Military

This story was updated on December 17 at 9:39 p.m. ET
President Donald Trump’s prime-time address tonight included an Oprah-style You get a car! And you get a car! reveal for members of the U.S. military. Specifically, he said that he was giving troops a “war dividend,” a onetime bonus check pegged to a sum with deep patriotic significance: $1,776.
“The checks are already on the way,” Trump said during his address, promising them to more than 1.4 million troops.

Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Titian? Tiepolo? Almost …

Updated with new questions at 4 p.m. on December 17, 2025.
When I visited the Snapple website this week, I was served one of the drink brand’s famous fun facts: that a jiffy is an “actual time measurement equaling 1/100th of a second.” Fun indeed! And arguably even a little bit true!
In 2013 in The Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance courageously exposed that many of Snapple’s bottle-cap facts were false.

How Crypto Is Turning America Into a Kleptocracy

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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the shooting at Bondi Beach and the rise of anti-Semitic violence globally. He discusses what willing governments can do to crack down on radicals and prevent future acts of violence.
Then David is joined by Will Thomas, a professor at the Michigan Ross School of Business, to discuss Thomas’s paper “Crypto Kleptocracy.

How Did Epstein Get Rich? The New York Times Investigates His “Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons”

As the Trump administration is expected to release investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein later this week, a recent New York Times investigation delves into one of the biggest mysteries about the deceased sexual predator: how the college dropout with no financial training rose through the world of finance and amassed his wealth, which enabled his abuse and insulated him from scrutiny for decades.

Chile’s Trump? Ariel Dorfman on the Election of Pinochet Admirer José Antonio Kast

José Antonio Kast has won Chile’s presidential election, with the far-right leader getting about 58% of the vote in Sunday’s runoff against Jeannette Jara, a member of the Communist Party who served as labor minister under outgoing President Gabriel Boric. Kast has openly praised former U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet and is the son of a Nazi who fled Germany after World War II. Kast campaigned on fighting crime and carrying out mass deportations of immigrants.

A Path to WWIII? Greg Grandin on Venezuela, Trump’s “Madman Doctrine” & More

President Trump has ordered what he called a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, as the United States escalates pressure on the government of President Nicolás Maduro. The move comes amid a major U.S. military buildup in the region and days after U.S. forces seized an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil. Since September, the U.S.