Today's Liberal News

Dear James: Do I Need to Be Nice to My Aging Stepfather?

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.
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Dear James,
My late mother’s second husband was pretty mean and made no bones about disliking me in his heyday.

The Sword and the Book

If Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has some notions about strategy, he has been reticent in sharing them. But he does trumpet his commitment to restoring Confederate names to bases and their statues to national military cemeteries, which is absurd and vile. And we know that he thinks civilian academics have little if any place in military education, which is wrong and even more damaging.

“They Kidnapped Me”: L.A. Immigrant Rights Activist Recounts Violent Arrest by Masked Federal Agents

Amanda Trebach, a member of the immigrant rights’ group Unión del Barrio and an ICU nurse, was monitoring ICE operations in the Los Angeles area when she was targeted and arrested herself. Video of the scene shows masked agents in plainclothes forcing her to the ground and briefly kneeling on her head. “They took me into an unmarked vehicle. They did not read me my rights.

Will Russia-Ukraine War End with Diplomacy or on Battlefield? John Mearsheimer vs. Denys Pilash

President Trump says he is working on a “deal” to end the Russia-Ukraine war by hosting a series of meetings between the U.S., European Union, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin is insisting Russia keep areas of Ukraine that it has seized, including the long-contested Donbas region, while Zelensky is asking the U.S. for security guarantees to prevent future invasion by its powerful neighbor.

John Mearsheimer vs. Matt Duss: A Debate on Trump-Putin Summit, Ukraine, Russia & Paths to Peace

As U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska for a high-stakes summit to discuss a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, we host a debate between two foreign policy thinkers about the war, its causes and how it could be brought to a conclusion.
John Mearsheimer is an international relations theorist at the University of Chicago, known for his realist perspective. He has long argued that Western policies are the main cause of the Ukraine crisis.

Trump Buys More Time for Putin

The fallout from Donald Trump’s summit in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week continues to grow. On Friday, Trump flew to an apparently impromptu meeting with Putin, shaming America by greeting like an honored guest the man who’d ignited the largest war in Europe since Hitler.

Zelensky Wasn’t Going to Repeat His Oval Office Disaster

Volodymyr Zelensky clearly learned some lessons from his calamitous Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump back in February. That much was apparent today just from the Ukrainian leader’s outfit. Back then, Zelensky took heat from Trump allies who felt that a suit—and not his trademark wartime ensemble—would have been more appropriate attire for an audience with the American president.

How Does Trump’s Federal Takeover End?

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One week after Donald Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C., the militarization of the city is escalating.
Trump now says that he expects Congress to allow him to maintain control of D.C. police after a legally mandated 30-day limit.

AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event

It is a Monday afternoon in August, and I am on the internet watching a former cable-news anchor interview a dead teenager on Substack. This dead teenager—Joaquin Oliver, killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida—has been reanimated by generative AI, his voice and dialogue modeled on snippets of his writing and home-video footage.

Law and Order: Sandwich Crimes Unit

“WASHINGTON—The Justice Department worker accused of throwing a Subway sandwich at a federal agent was re-arrested by an armed team of at least a half-dozen US Marshals in a dramatic Wednesday night raid, new video shows.
Sean Charles Dunn, 37, was cuffed a second time inside his apartment about a mile northwest of the White House—after being slapped with a felony assault charge.

In Largest Israeli Protest to Date, 1 Million Israelis Demand Gaza Ceasefire to Free Hostages

Massive protests have erupted in Israel, with about 500,000 people marching in Tel Aviv Sunday to demand an end to the war in Gaza. Organizers say 1 million took part in demonstrations across the entire country. Most of the Israelis who were out on the streets “blame Netanyahu” for prioritizing his political survival over an end to the war, says Oren Ziv, reporter and photographer for +972 Magazine.