Today's Liberal News

A Thriller That Knows Not to Overstay Its Welcome

Steven Soderbergh films are like buses: There’s always another one coming. This isn’t a complaint, exactly, but the director’s prolific nature is on my mind with each of his new projects—he released Presence two months ago, and he’s already got another one? How much effort could he have put into it? Black Bag, a taut spy thriller starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, is an argument for the filmmaker’s ruthless efficiency.

The Dating Dilemmas Young People Can’t Escape

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning
Dating has never been easy.

Trump’s Attempts to Muzzle the Press Look Familiar

When Viktor Orbán gave a speech in 2022 at a Conservative Political Action Conference gathering in Budapest, he shared his secret to amassing power with Donald Trump’s fan base. “We must have our own media,” he told his audience.
As a Hungarian investigative journalist, I have had a firsthand view of how Orbán has built his own media universe while simultaneously placing a stranglehold on the independent press.

Tesla Takedown: Protests Grow Across the U.S. as Trump & Musk Brand Activists as Terrorists

We speak with Valerie Costa, an organizer behind the grassroots Tesla Takedown movement peacefully protesting outside Tesla showrooms to oppose billionaire owner Elon Musk’s role in government. Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have led mass firings of federal workers and dismantled entire agencies.

What Trump and Musk Want With Social Security

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.
The idea that millions of dead Americans are receiving Social Security checks is shocking, and bolsters the argument that the federal bureaucracy needs radical change to combat waste and fraud. There’s one big problem: No evidence exists that it’s true.

The AI Era of Governing Has Arrived

This is Atlantic Intelligence, a newsletter in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here.
President Donald Trump’s administration is embracing AI. According to reports, agencies are using the technology to identify places to cut costs, figure out which employees can be terminated, and comb through social-media posts to determine whether student-visa holders may support terror groups.

Was Sam Altman Right About the Job Market?

The automated future just lurched a few steps closer. Over the past few weeks, nearly all of the major AI firms—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Amazon, Microsoft, and Perplexity, among others—have announced new products that are focused not on answering questions or making their human users somewhat more efficient, but on completing tasks themselves.

The Literature of the Pandemic

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
Not long after COVID lockdowns began in the U.S. five years ago this week, many readers and writers started to wonder, with a mix of trepidation and curiosity, what the literature about the time period would look like. Half a decade on, we now have at least a small body of work that takes on the pandemic.