Today's Liberal News

Publishing’s New Microgenre

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.
Book publishing has, let’s say, a complicated relationship with artificial intelligence. Earlier this month, Anthropic settled a lawsuit brought by authors and publishers, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion after training its chatbot, Claude, on pirated text; hundreds of such copyright lawsuits against data-scraping tech companies are still making their way through the courts.

“I’m Not Going to Give Up”: Leonard Peltier on Indigenous Rights, His Half-Century in Prison & Coming Home

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman sat down with longtime political prisoner and Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier for his first extended television and radio broadcast interview since his release to home confinement in February. Before his commutation by former President Joe Biden, the 81-year-old Peltier spent nearly 50 years behind bars. Peltier has always maintained his innocence for the 1975 killing of two FBI officers.

Robert Redford the Activist: Hollywood Icon Was Lifelong Champion of Environment & Independent Film

Robert Redford, the legendary Oscar-winning director, actor and activist, died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. Redford was a longtime environmental activist who served for five decades as a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He was also the creator of the Sundance Film Festival, which he helped grow into one of the largest independent film festivals in the world.

Trump Uses “Black Criminality” Myth to Take Over Black-Led Cities: Memphis Rep. Justin J. Pearson

President Trump signed an order authorizing the deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday. The order also creates a so-called safe task force, which Trump claims will address violent crime in the city. Law enforcement officers from several federal agencies will also be dispatched to Memphis, including the FBI, DEA, ICE and Homeland Security.
“This is nothing more than a power play for more authoritarianism from this administration,” says Justin J.

David Letterman on the Threats to Late-Night Hosts

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Yesterday, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was suspended indefinitely. It’s a shocking moment for free speech, given the order in which events unfolded. Earlier that day, FCC Chair Brendan Carr had suggested on a conservative podcast that ABC and its affiliates consider taking steps against Kimmel, saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.

Kennedy’s Anti-Vaccine Council Is Going After the Easy Targets

Three months into its tenure, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked vaccine advisory committee has taken down one of its easiest targets.
Today, its members voted to limit the national guidance for a childhood vaccine that has helped protect infants against some of the most dangerous and fast-spreading viral diseases in the United States.

AI’s Emerging Teen-Health Crisis

On Tuesday afternoon, three parents sat in a row before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism. Two of them had each recently lost a child to suicide; the third has a teenage son who, after cutting his arm in front of her and biting her, is undergoing residential treatment. All three blame generative AI for what has happened to their children.
They had come to testify on what appears to be an emerging health crisis in teens’ interactions with AI chatbots.

Mike Pence: Donald Trump Has Not ‘Changed the Republican Party’

In a conversation with Tim Alberta at The Atlantic Festival, former Vice President Mike Pence discussed his conservatism, the state of free speech on the right, and his relationship with President Donald Trump.
Alberta asked Pence about ABC’s decision last night to “indefinitely suspend” the comedian Jimmy Kimmel. The network’s move came after Kimmel said “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.

David Letterman’s Jimmy Kimmel Reaction: ‘We All See Where This Is Going, Correct?’

The 78-year-old comic legend David Letterman arrived onstage at The Atlantic Festival today carrying a list of presidents he’d mocked in his 33 years as the longest-running late-night comedy host in American history. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama—he’d made fun of them all (especially, he added with a chuckle, Clinton and Bush II).

MAHA fights back

Make America Healthy Again groups are planning rallies from coast to coast in defense of the health secretary after some lawmakers denounced him.