Today's Liberal News

Israel’s Use of Starvation as a Weapon of War Brings Gaza to the Brink of Famine

Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, as Israeli forces continue to severely restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid, food and medical supplies to millions inside the besieged territory. “It is not possible to create a famine by accident,” says Alex de Waal, an expert on the subject who serves as the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University.

After Losing Nearly 100 Relatives in Gaza, Palestinian American Doctor Refuses to Meet with Blinken

We speak with Dr. Tariq Haddad, a Palestinian American leader who refused to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week in protest of the Biden administration’s ongoing support of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Instead, the doctor wrote a 12-page letter to Blinken admonishing the latter for his role in the deaths of nearly 100 of his family members. “I wanted him to see me and see Palestinians as human beings, not as some part of a political game,” says Haddad.

How Seven Companies Took Over the Stock Market

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 Magnificent Seven—a nickname for the highest-flying tech stocks—have lately been buoying the S&P 500. Fun cowboy name aside, the stocks’ outsize impact on the market is raising eyebrows.

An Airtight Ruling Against Trump

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On July 24, 1974, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, ordering President Richard Nixon to produce the Watergate tapes, the president turned to his chief of staff, Alexander Haig, to understand what had just happened. He later recounted the exchange in his memoirs:
“Unanimous?” I guessed.
“Unanimous. There’s no air in it at all,” he said.

A Godzilla Movie That’s Actually Terrifying

Next month, Hollywood’s latest Godzilla movie will hit theaters. Titled Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, it will join Warner Bros.’ “MonsterVerse,” a glitzy American spin on a formula that Toho Pictures began in 1954 with the original Godzilla. The film features a fearsome monster doing battle with King Kong and other beasts, while an all-star cast looks on in horror.

Neal Stephenson’s Most Stunning Prediction

Science fiction, when revisited years later, sometimes doesn’t come across as all that fictional. Speculative novels have an impressive track record at prophesying what innovations are to come, and how they might upend the world: H. G. Wells wrote about an atomic bomb decades before World War II, and Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel, Fahrenheit 451, features devices we’d describe today as Bluetooth earbuds.

A Rare Moment Americans Could All Share

People across an angry and divided nation were given a magical, unifying moment on Sunday. We needed it.
The singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, 59, returned to the Grammy Awards 35 years after she won the Grammy for Best New Artist. Her working-class ballad “Fast Car” was nominated for both Record and Song of the Year. At the Grammys in 1989, Chapman performed her song solo, playing her acoustic guitar.

“Unconscionable”: American Pediatrician Who Worked in Gaza Hospital Recalls Horrors of Israel’s War

Democracy Now! speaks with Dr. Seema Jilani, a pediatrician who spent two weeks in Central Gaza volunteering in the Al-Aqsa Hospital emergency room. “I saw the fall of a hospital before my very own eyes,” says Jilani, who shares recorded voice notes from her time in the besieged territory while trying to save children in a health system collapsing under Israeli pressure and bombing. “I have never treated this many war-wounded children in my career.

Dissent Grows Inside Biden Administration over Gaza Policy as Blinken Holds Talks in Middle East

Secretary of State Tony Blinken is on his fifth trip to the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, reportedly pushing for a pause to Israel’s assault on Gaza and for Hamas to release all remaining hostages. Blinken’s trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank comes in the wake of U.S. strikes in Syria, Iraq and Yemen against militant groups across the region. “There’s not a lot of goodwill or faith right now for the U.S.

The Weirdest Presidential Election in History

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.
We are heading into a rematch that promises to be weirder than any presidential election we’ve ever experienced. Let’s review where things stand.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
What Joni Mitchell proved at the Grammys
Silicon Valley’s new start-ups are city-states.

Hurricanes Are Too Fast for Category 5

At 149 miles an hour, the world’s fastest roller coaster, Formula Rossa in Abu Dhabi, is so quick that riders must don goggles to protect their eyes from the wind. But even the formidable Formula Rossa is no match for the 157-mile-an-hour-plus winds of a Category 5 hurricane, which can collapse a home’s walls and cave in its roof. And yet, according to a new paper, Category 5 may itself be no match for several recent hurricanes.

GoFundMe Is a Health-Care Utility Now

GoFundMe started as a crowdfunding site for underwriting “ideas and dreams,” and, as GoFundMe’s co-founders, Andrew Ballester and Brad Damphousse, once put it, “for life’s important moments.” In the early years, it funded honeymoon trips, graduation gifts, and church missions to overseas hospitals in need. Now GoFundMe has become a go-to for patients trying to escape medical-billing nightmares.
One study found that, in 2020, the number of U.S.

Flu Shots Need to Stop Fighting ‘Something That Doesn’t Exist’

In Arnold Monto’s ideal vision of this fall, the United States’ flu vaccines would be slated for some serious change—booting a major ingredient that they’ve consistently included since 2013. The component isn’t dangerous. And it made sense to use before. But to include it again now, Monto, an epidemiologist and a flu expert at the University of Michigan, told me, would mean vaccinating people “against something that doesn’t exist.

Israel’s Use of Starvation as a Weapon of War Brings Gaza to the Brink of Famine

Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, as Israeli forces continue to severely restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid, food and medical supplies to millions inside the besieged territory. “It is not possible to create a famine by accident,” says Alex de Waal, an expert on the subject who serves as the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University.

After Losing Nearly 100 Relatives in Gaza, Palestinian American Doctor Refuses to Meet with Blinken

We speak with Dr. Tariq Haddad, a Palestinian American leader who refused to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week in protest of the Biden administration’s ongoing support of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Instead, the doctor wrote a 12-page letter to Blinken admonishing the latter for his role in the deaths of nearly 100 of his family members. “I wanted him to see me and see Palestinians as human beings, not as some part of a political game,” says Haddad.

“Incandescent” with Rage: Matt Duss on Voter Anger over Biden Support for Netanyahu & Gaza Assault

As the White House steps up its shelling of targets in the Middle East amid regional unrest over Israel’s monthslong assault on Gaza, we discuss the possibility of wider war with Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, now with the Center for International Policy. “The Biden administration’s strategy here is failing,” says Duss.