Today's Liberal News

The Internet Is TikTok Now

There are times when, deep into a scroll through my phone, I tilt my head and realize that I’m not even sure what app I’m on. A video takes up my entire screen. If I slide my finger down, another appears. The feeling is disorienting, so I search for small design cues at the margins of my screen. The thing I’m staring at could be TikTok, or it could be one of any number of other social apps that look exactly like it.

Brace for Foreign-Policy Chaos

When Donald Trump completes his once-unthinkable return to the White House, he’ll face a world far more violent and unsettled than when he unwillingly gave up power four years ago.
And his very presence behind the Resolute desk feels destined to destabilize it further.
Trump has offered mysterious plans to bring quick ends to the wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The Place Where I Grew Up Is Gone

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When my family woke up last Thursday, we learned that our friend Arthur Simoneau was missing.
The day before, when the Palisades Fire was heading toward the neighborhood where I grew up and where he still lived, my mom had texted his ex-wife, Jill, to ask if she knew where he was—he’d stayed behind to defend our road from fire before. Jill thought he was out of town, at a hot spring.

Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General Pick, Has History of Corporate Lobbying and Election Denial

In her confirmation hearing Wednesday, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, refused to answer Democrats’ questions about maintaining the Department of Justice’s independence from the president and pursuing his personal vendettas. Bondi also avoided directly answering questions about Trump’s vow to pardon January 6 defendants and refused to say Trump definitively lost the 2020 election.

Daniel Levy, Muhammad Shehada, Jeremy Scahill on Ceasefire Deal, Trump’s Role & Palestine’s Future

We host a roundtable on the planned Gaza ceasefire with former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy of the U.S./Middle East Project, Gazan analyst Muhammad Shehada of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News. We discuss how incoming President Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff pressured Israel to accept the deal and what it reveals about the outgoing Biden administration’s refusal to use its own leverage for the same end.

Report from Gaza: Ceasefire Announcement Raises Hopes, But Israel Kills 81 in New Attacks

We go first to Gaza for reaction from Palestinians to the long-awaited ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas announced Wednesday. When implemented, the deal would mark the first pause in Israel’s relentless attack on the Gaza Strip in over a year. The ceasefire is expected to go into effect Sunday, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has postponed a Cabinet vote required to approve it. Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue to strike civilian-dense areas in Gaza.

America Just Kinda, Sorta Banned Cigarettes

No drug is quite like nicotine. When it hits your bloodstream, you’re sent on a ride of double euphoria: an immediate jolt of adrenaline, like a strong cup of coffee injected directly into your brain, along with the calming effect of a beer. Nicotine is what gets people hooked on cigarettes, despite their health risks and putrid smell. It is, in essence, what cigarette companies are selling, and what they’ve always been selling.

How Netanyahu Misread His Relationship with Trump

Let us now praise Donald Trump. It’s hard for me not to choke on that phrase. But it was his bluster—his demand that Hamas release its remaining hostages before his inauguration, or else “all hell will break out”—that effectively ushered in a cease-fire, the beginning of the end of the Gaza war.  
Although honesty requires crediting Trump, his success was not the product of magical powers or an indictment of Biden-administration diplomacy.

How Worried to Be About Bird Flu

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Over the past several months, bird-flu numbers have been steadily ticking up, especially among farmworkers who interact closely with cows. I spoke with my colleague Katherine J.

No One Will Remember Jack Smith’s Report

Just after noon next Monday, Donald Trump will take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, despite having, four years before, “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”
That is the conclusion of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s effort to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election.