Today's Liberal News

The Guard That Won’t Be Changing

Many Democrats of a certain age took the same message from the party’s 2024 debacle: Voters are sick of the old guard and craving younger, more aggressive leaders. Better to retire on your own terms than suffer the fate of Joe Biden, forced to stand down from his reelection campaign after a public humiliation. Nancy Pelosi, the 86-year-old former speaker, announced her exit from the House, as did her longtime lieutenant, 87-year-old Steny Hoyer.

The Singularity Is Not What It Seems

One evening in early August, Sam Stowers and several neighbors packed into an apartment near San Francisco’s Alamo Square and pondered the beginning of the end.
Stowers and his guests, many of whom work in the AI industry, were gathered to watch a newly released YouTube video in which two OpenAI researchers divulged new details about an alarming cybersecurity breach.

Why the Flock Backlash Has Gotten So Intense

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As corporate names go, Flock is cleverly flexible. It evokes the many cameras that compose the company’s surveillance system and also a group of sheep, protected by a watchful shepherd.

The Backlash Against Polyester Has Gone Too Far

Lately, the men of the internet who are obsessed with self-optimization have found a new fixation: their underwear. Many standard pairs use polyester or spandex, or sometimes both. What are they doing to the environment and their bodies, wearing clothes that shed all of those microplastics and leach forever chemicals? They want the underwear of their ancestors—underwear made from natural fibers.

Trump Meant It Literally When He Said He Was Taking the Oil

“We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Donald Trump said when he announced the capture of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January. And lo and behold, it has come to pass.
Trump announced last week that he had made a deal with Venezuela to develop its oil reserves. Well, not so much a “deal” as a payment by Venezuela of tribute at gunpoint.

U.S. Deports Thousands to Countries They Don’t Know Under Secretive “Third Country” Deal

As part of its mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration is secretly deporting immigrants to countries that they have no ties to. CNN correspondent Isobel Yeung recently traveled to the Central African Republic, which in recent months has accepted dozens of immigrants who had previously been granted deportation protections because they risk facing torture in their home countries. Despite the fact that the State Department warns U.S.

The Biggest Oil Deal or Theft at Gunpoint? U.S. Claims Majority Control of Venezuela’s Oil Reserves

The U.S. has struck a deal to take majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil reserves, nine months after the U.S. military abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in a raid on Caracas and two months after The New York Times revealed that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has become the de facto viceroy of Venezuela, effectively controlling Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources and its government.

Hegseth’s Pentagon Lurches off the Rails

Making Pete Hegseth the secretary of defense was always a huge gamble. A television host with little background in national-security or defense affairs, who topped out as a major in the National Guard, he was nominated based on the same qualification shared by most of Donald Trump’s other appointees: loyalty. And now the price of that gamble is evident.

Dan Driscoll’s Parting Shot

During a White House meeting last week, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll brought his concerns about the future of the Army under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directly to President Trump—a sign of how far tensions between the two Pentagon leaders had escalated, and of the dysfunction inside the building, four people familiar with the conversation told us.

Trump’s Economy Goes to the Polls

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Midterm elections are almost always referendums on the policies of the party in power; President Trump is hoping that Republicans steer into the skid.

Trump’s Hatred of Free Speech Is Intensifying

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.
Desensitization is one of Donald Trump’s most powerful tools: Through repetition, he acclimates Americans to troubling and dangerous ideas. Occasionally, though, his statements and actions are so outrageous that they can still provide a shock.