Today's Liberal News

From ‘I’m Not Mad at You’ to Deadly Shots in Seconds

Donald Trump has sent waves of federal agents to Democratic-run “sanctuary cities” over the past eight months, depicting the operations like episodes in a roving MAGA reality show. The places targeted by the president tend to become temporary sites of protest—and produce fodder for his meme-driven administration’s social-media channels. The relentless pressure on ICE to ramp up deportations has left officers on edge. The neighborhoods they’re targeting are on edge too.

ICE Wasn’t Always Like 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.
On Wednesday, an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three and a U.S. citizen, in the streets of Minneapolis. She was at least the fourth person killed in a shooting by immigration-enforcement officers during Donald Trump’s second term.

AI’s Memorization Crisis

Editor’s note: This work is part of AI Watchdog, The Atlantic’s ongoing investigation into the generative-AI industry.
On Tuesday, researchers at Stanford and Yale revealed something that AI companies would prefer to keep hidden. Four popular large language models—OpenAI’s GPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok—have stored large portions of some of the books they’ve been trained on, and can reproduce long excerpts from those books.

Stand-Up Comedy, All Joking Aside

For someone best known as an actor, Bradley Cooper’s core interest as a filmmaker is perhaps unsurprising. Thus far, he has been entirely consumed by examinations of performance—first digging into a pop musician’s stratospheric career climb in A Star Is Born, then wrestling with Leonard Bernstein’s desire to reimagine classical music in Maestro. Both movies were hefty pieces of entertainment, filled with love, death, and grand human experiences.

How Trump Could Help the People of Iran

Marching alongside a column of protesters through the city of Borujerd in western Iran, a middle-aged woman appeared unperturbed by the blood streaming down her chin. “I am not afraid,” she called out in a video clip posted by Iran International. “I have been dead for 47 years.”
She spoke for many in the crowds of protesters now thronging Iran’s streets.

“Holding Liat”: Former Israeli Hostage Says “There Aren’t Any Conflicts That Are Unsolvable”

Israeli American Liat Beinin Atzili was taken captive during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Over the next two months, her family members, including film director Brandon Kramer, tirelessly advocated for her release, an endeavor now documented in Kramer’s new film, Holding Liat. We speak to Atzili and Kramer about their family’s ordeal and Atzili’s captivity in Gaza, where she was held in isolation alongside another Israeli woman by members of Hamas until November 2023.

“Firestorm”: MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff on Anniversary of L.A. Fires & “America’s New Age of Disaster”

We speak with journalist Jacob Soboroff about his new book and ongoing reporting about the Los Angeles fires one year ago, when destructive infernos razed entire neighborhoods, killing 30 people and displacing over 100,000 more. The book Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster provides a detailed look at how the fires unfolded, the emergency efforts and the political response.

Trump’s Plan to Seize Greenland Would “Militarize the Arctic,” Trample Indigenous Rights

Following the U.S. attack on Venezuela, the Trump administration has renewed its campaign to take over Greenland, which has been controlled by Denmark for more than 300 years. The White House says it’s considering “a range of options,” including the use of military force. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that if the U.S. were to attack Greenland, it would spell the end of NATO.

How Donald Trump Broke With His Own Foreign Policy

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.
Until recently, Donald Trump was consistent about this: The time for the United States to police the world, enforcing laws and norms, was over. “We are going to take care of this country first before we worry about everybody else in the world,” he told The New York Times in 2016.