Today's Liberal News

Day Laborer Dies Fleeing ICE: Family Mourns, Community Demands Answers

Family and community members are mourning 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, a father and grandfather from Guatemala who died while attempting to escape an anti-immigrant raid at a Home Depot in California last week. Montoya, a day laborer who had lived and worked in the United States for about three years, was struck and killed by a car while fleeing across a nearby freeway.

EXCLUSIVE: Fired State Dept. Official Speaks Out, Suggested Condolences for Killed Gaza Journalists

Shahed Ghoreishi was fired from his position as a press officer for Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the U.S. State Department earlier this week. While no official explanation was given, Ghoreishi was involved in multiple departmental disputes over how to characterize U.S. positions on Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the killings of Palestinian journalists.

“Commander-in-Cheat”: After Texas, Trump’s Redistricting Push Goes National

Democrats and Republicans are locked in a historic battle over congressional representation as Texas Republicans gerrymander the state’s district maps to flip five Democratic seats, at the request of President Trump. California Governor Gavin Newsom says he is fighting “fire with fire,” signing legislation to hold special elections for the public to approve a new gerrymandered map of their own.

Smithsonian Head Lonnie Bunch in 2020 on Telling “Unvarnished” History, Meeting Trump & More

President Trump said Tuesday the Smithsonian Institution was too narrowly focused on negative aspects of U.S. history, including “how bad slavery was.” Trump’s social media post minimizing the horrors of chattel slavery came after the White House ordered a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions in order to ensure they align with Trump’s interpretation of U.S. history.

Irresistible Contentment

I am talking my way back to the poem’s turn
and where it might lie outside my skirted body,
a corded place where bluish sky paints my attention,
and empties itself into a golden silence—
without talk or sound. Phrases now feel
perversely sentient and yet devilishly
wrong. Every night I talk with the hope
that speech itself will burn me
its one true alphabet.

Seven Summer-Weekend Reads

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 this late-summer weekend, read stories on what having a crush can teach you about yourself, the rise and fall of computer-science degrees, and how, exactly, America got so mean.
There Are Two Types of Dishwasher People
And only one of them really knows how to load it.

If You Must Play One Sport, Make It Tennis

The U.S. Open is one of the few occasions a year when tennis really gets its due in America. More than 1 million people—including Simone Biles, Aaron Judge, and other top athletes—shelled out for tickets last year, feverish heat be damned. Ticket sales this year are up by 8 percent. The sold-out after-party, featuring the band Odesza, will transform New York’s Louis Armstrong Stadium from tennis court to dance club.

What Parents Lose When They Don’t Read to Their Kids

The moment my oldest child was born, I reached for an anthology of Romantic poetry that I have owned for decades and began reading. “Sweet joy befall thee,” I said to my baby, through tears, bestowing a blessing with the words of William Blake.
The benediction was unplanned.

The Real Reason American Socialists Don’t Win

If Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, wins this fall’s election, he will occupy the most powerful executive position of any American socialist. At the moment, the closest contenders are two mayors in California and a county executive in Maryland. No wonder, then, that American socialists have begun to dream big.

The Bolton Raid Feels Like a Warning

FBI directors don’t customarily announce raids in progress. But early this morning, Kash Patel celebrated the search of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s home as agents were rolling into his suburban-Maryland driveway: “NO ONE is above the law … @FBI agents on mission,” Patel wrote on X. Agents also executed a search warrant at Bolton’s office in Washington, D.C.