Today's Liberal News

Here’s How the AI Crash Happens

The AI boom is visible from orbit. Satellite photos of New Carlisle, Indiana, show greenish splotches of farmland transformed into unmistakable industrial parks in less than a year’s time. There are seven rectangular data centers there, with 23 more on the way.
Inside each of these buildings, endless rows of fridge-size containers of computer chips wheeze and grunt as they perform mathematical operations at an unfathomable scale.

Are the Democrats Overthinking This?

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
Did you hear about the new Democratic Party postmortem on the 2024 election? Perhaps I need to be more specific: There’s this one, that one, and also this one, and probably more that I’m missing.

Today’s Atlantic Trivia

Updated with new questions at 4:45 p.m. ET on October 30, 2025.
It’s said that the 17th- and 18th-century polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was the last person to know everything. He was a whiz at philosophy, law, logic, science, engineering, politics—the works. But there was also simply less to know back then; the post–Industrial Revolution knowledge explosion killed the universal genius.
Which is to say that I bet Leibniz wouldn’t know the full oeuvre of K-pop if he were alive today.

The Validation Machines

The internet of old was a vibrant bazaar. It was noisy, chaotic, and offbeat. Every click brought you somewhere new, sometimes unpredictable, letting you uncover curiosities you hadn’t even known to look for. The internet of today, however, is a slick concierge. It speaks in soothing statements and offers a frictionless and flattering experience.
This has stripped us of something profoundly human: the joy of exploring and questioning. We’ve willingly become creatures of instant gratification.

The Atlantic Announces Jonathan Haidt and Eugene Robinson as Contributing Writers

Today The Atlantic is announcing that Jonathan Haidt, who has written a number of hugely significant stories for The Atlantic, and Eugene Robinson, one of the most well-known and influential journalists and columnists, will both become contributing writers. The Atlantic will now be the primary home for Jonathan’s most ambitious essays and features, and Eugene joins us most recently from The Washington Post, where he worked for three decades.

U.N. Votes Overwhelmingly to Denounce U.S. Embargo on Cuba as Hurricane Melissa Batters Island

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the U.S. embargo on Cuba for the 33rd consecutive year, with just seven opposed, including the United States, Israel and Ukraine. The vote came as Cuba was battered by Hurricane Melissa, causing widespread damage.
We get an update from the eastern Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba with Liz Oliva Fernández, a reporter with Belly of the Beast, who says the U.S.

Mass Killings Reported in Sudan as RSF Seizes El Fasher; 460 Killed at Hospital

Sudan’s military is accusing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of killing at least 2,000 people since seizing control of El Fasher in the Darfur region, including some 460 at the Saudi Maternity Hospital. Meanwhile, tens of thousands have fled.
“What’s happening is no less than a … campaign of destruction and annihilation,” says Mathilde Vu, Sudan advocacy manager at the Norwegian Refugee Council, speaking to Democracy Now! from Kenya.

“Extraordinarily Destabilizing Decision”: Trump Denounced over Call to Immediately Resume Nuclear Tests

President Trump has directed the Pentagon to resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992. He made the announcement just before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss trade relations. Dr. Ira Helfand, former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a leading campaigner against nuclear proliferation, says the White House needs to “clarify” Trump’s intentions, and urges countries to recommit to nuclear disarmament.