Today's Liberal News

“Fear and Terror”: Gaza Photographer Ahmed Zakot on Documenting the Carnage of Israel’s Assault

As Israel continues bombarding the Gaza Strip, we speak with a Palestinian photographer who recently fled the territory with his family. Ahmed Zakot has been documenting Gaza for the last 25 years, and two of his photographs were just featured in a project by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and published by Rolling Stone earlier this month in a piece titled “Gaza’s Carnage Through the Eyes of Palestinian Photojournalists.

“No Palestinian Is Safe”: Renowned Feminist Scholar Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian Arrested in Jerusalem

Israeli police arrested the internationally renowned feminist Palestinian academic Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian at her home in Jerusalem on Thursday on charges of incitement to violence. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who holds both Israeli and U.S. citizenship, was suspended by Hebrew University last month after saying in an interview Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, though the university later reinstated her.

Trump Deflates

Ukraine won. Trump lost.
The House vote to aid Ukraine renews hope that Ukraine can still win its war. It also showed how and why Donald Trump should lose the 2024 election.
For nine years, Trump has dominated the Republican Party. Senators might have loathed him, governors might have despised him, donors might have ridiculed him, college-educated Republican voters might have turned against him—but LOL, nothing mattered. Enough of the Republican base supported him.

The Battle in Congress for Foreign Funding

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Momentum among frustrated right-wing Republicans builds against House Speaker Mike Johnson following his announcement to bring long-stalled foreign-aid bills to a vote this weekend.

It’s Really Hard to Rebuild a Marsh

This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine.
The water in California’s San Francisco Bay could rise more than two meters by the year 2100. For the region’s tidal marshes and their inhabitants, such as Ridgway’s rail and the endangered salt-marsh harvest mouse, it’s a potential death sentence.
Given enough time, space, and sediment, tidal marshes can build layers of mud and decaying vegetation to keep up with rising seas.

Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing

The sight of Bill Boeing was a familiar one on the factory floor. His office was in the building next to the converted boatyard where workers lathed the wood, sewed the fabric wings, and fixed the control wires of the Boeing Model C airplane. there is no authority except facts. facts are obtained by accurate observation read a plaque affixed outside the door.

The Case for Miniatures

Empires and nation-states are remembered for their monuments, but they also leave behind plenty of miniatures. Inside the Egyptian pyramids, within the chamber where the pharaoh’s mummy rests, stand collections of little statues—wooden figurines of mummified servants, clay hippos painted turquoise—to remind the ruler how the world once looked. Academics have complained that miniatures suffer from scholarly neglect.

The Paradoxes of Modern Dating

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More than a decade after Tinder introduced the swipe, many Americans are sick of dating apps. As I explored in a recent article for The Atlantic, the cracks are starting to show in what looked to be the foundation of modern dating.

A Chess Formula Is Taking Over the World

In October 2003, Mark Zuckerberg created his first viral site: not Facebook, but FaceMash. Then a college freshman, he hacked into Harvard’s online dorm directories, gathered a massive collection of students’ headshots, and used them to create a website on which Harvard students could rate classmates by their attractiveness, literally and figuratively head-to-head.

The Languages AI Is Leaving Behind

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Generative AI is famously data-hungry. The technology requires huge troves of digital information—text, photos, video, audio—to “learn” how to produce convincingly humanlike material.

The Hidden Wisdom of Cookbooks

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
The fact that I live close to a dedicated cookbook-and-food-writing store—and that it’s one door down from a specialty market full of bread, cheeses, and confections—is a constant delight, though a mild threat to my household’s financial security.

Eight Cookbooks Worth Reading Cover to Cover

A certain type of person will tell you that they read cookbooks like they do novels. This usually means they flip through them at night, in bed, perhaps with the help of some gentle, warm light and a hot cup of tea. They pore over the notes and instructions that precede each recipe; they dream up menus the way a fiction reader might picture the furniture inside a character’s home. They might flag dishes they want to cook, or they might not. The point of this practice is pleasure, not pragmatism.