Today's Liberal News

“They Want to Silence Me”: Columbia Student Mohsen Mahdawi on ICE Jail, Palestine, Activism, Buddhism

In his first live interview since his release from ICE detention, Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi recounts the traumatic experience of his arrest and incarceration. Mahdawi, a green card holder who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was arrested in Vermont on April 14 when he appeared for what he was told would be a citizenship interview, and spent more than two weeks in U.S.

“Surveillance Humanitarianism”: As Gaza Starves, U.S.-Israeli Plan Would Further Weaponize Food

Israel has imposed a complete block on humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 2, with hundreds of trucks with lifesaving aid waiting at the border. Now many of Gaza’s kitchens have closed, and Palestinians face mass starvation as rations run low. We speak with Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine.

The Subtlety of the Macho-Men SNL Sketch

There’s a low-stakes thrill in eavesdropping on strangers from afar, especially if the exchange descends into chaos. Yet a sketch in last night’s season finale of Saturday Night Live—which revolved around two couples at a bar boisterously fighting for a preferred table as two men watched nearby, whiskies in hand—raised the stakes of voyeurism in fascinating ways.

The New Spiritual Leader on Campus

On May 24, 1961, the Yale University chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr. led a group of Freedom Riders on a 160-mile bus ride from Atlanta, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregation laws. The voyage and his subsequent arrest turned Coffin into a national figure in the fight for civil rights. Yet even as he made headlines, Coffin remained committed to another, quieter aspect of his role as a college chaplain.

Old News

I’m more at home in The Past, want though I may
To live in this lonesome place The Present Moment.
I share a stack of magazines with someone
Who reads the new ones from the top. The bottom,
Salted with gilded ephemera, outspent ads
And failing or faded fads, is just my meat.
Praying that I don’t blind myself to horrors
I study the Times online to behold the face
Of fascism and its disregarding hand.

My Shipwreck Story

Illustrations by Dadu Shin
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The Evening was small in the shadow of the other boats. When I arrived at the dock, it was well past midnight, and a misty rain was falling—the edge of a storm far out at sea. Mick, the captain, was blunt and salty; not old, but weathered. He led me on board and pointed down the ladder to the hull, where I immediately got into bed and fell asleep.

How to Make Friendships Last Your Whole Life

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.
Updated at 3:34 p.m. ET on May 18, 2025.
Many analogies have been made of friendship—it’s like shifting seasons, or a plant, or a really good bra—but I picture friendship most clearly as a house, jointly occupied.