Today's Liberal News

The People Who Are Still Convinced Kamala Won

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.
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: Partisan claims of fraud in the presidential election. Elaborate statistical analyses. Reports of shadowy, closed-door doings. All of this, they say, points to one conclusion: The results were compromised, and the real winner was kept out of the White House.

Does Trump Really Think Ukraine Can Win?

Today, President Donald Trump threw one of the most important tenets of his own foreign policy into a 180-degree turn, reversing course without even slowing down. Trump has always been overly deferential to Vladimir Putin, including enabling the Russian president’s war in Ukraine. Now Trump appears to be signaling that he’s fed up with the Kremlin. But is he?
Trump’s latest policy reversal came after he spoke to the United Nations General Assembly for nearly an hour today.

Brendan Carr’s Half-Empty Threat

As chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Alfred Sikes took the agency’s duty to foster broadcasting in “the public interest” seriously. Sikes, a conservative who was appointed by George H. W. Bush in 1989, engaged in a long-running battle against Howard Stern’s employer, Infinity Broadcasting, levying repeated fines against its stations for violating rules against broadcasting “indecent” material when children were in the audience.

A Censored Rap Legend Has Advice for Jimmy Kimmel

Luther Campbell, the front man for one of the most controversial rap groups in history, has advice for Jimmy Kimmel and for any media executives trying to decide how to respond to the Trump administration’s attempts to censor disfavored speech: You’ve got to fight. He would know. When the government came after him and his music, he fought, and he won, creating a legal precedent that still protects artists and entertainers who offend the sensibilities of those in power.

ICE Assaults Congressional Candidate Kat Abughazaleh at Chicago Protest

Illinois Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was thrown to the ground by ICE agents on Friday during a protest outside the Broadview Processing Center in Chicago, where immigrant detainees are held. At least 10 people were arrested as federal agents fired pepper balls and tear gas into the crowd, which was there to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown known as “Operation Midway Blitz.

No Secret Police Act: CA Gov. Signs Law Against Masked ICE Agents; Feds Say They Won’t Comply

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the No Secret Police Act into law this week, banning all law enforcement — including federal immigration agents — from covering their faces while conducting raids in the state.
“What this law is trying to do is to take us back from the era of routine masking based on completely foundationless officer claims of fear,” says Eva Bitran, the director of immigrants’ rights at the ACLU of Southern California.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah Is Free: Family Celebrates Political Prisoner’s Release in Egypt

Egypt’s best-known political prisoner, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, was granted a presidential pardon on Monday and has reunited with his family after spending most of the last 12 years in prison. The writer and political dissident was a leading voice in the 2011 Arab Spring protests that toppled the Mubarak dictatorship, and he has been repeatedly targeted by the current authoritarian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Trump Tells Pregnant Women to ‘Fight Like Hell’ Not to Take Tylenol

At a press conference today, President Donald Trump dispensed one clear piece of medical advice to American parents in a rambling, repetitive monologue: Don’t. Take. Tylenol. He told pregnant women that they could help keep their children safe from autism by not taking the drug whenever they could avoid it (“fight like hell,” he instructed). He advised parents not to give Tylenol to their young children.

Trump Offers a Golden Ticket

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.
One thing we know about President Donald Trump: He loves gold. His hotels, his golf clubs, his private living quarters, his proprietary high-top sneakers and coffee grounds—all of it is to some extent coated in the same opulent shade.

Chatbait Is Taking Over the Internet

Hours deep into a recent migraine, I turned to ChatGPT for help. “How do I get my headache to stop?” I asked. The bot suggested that I drink water and pop a Tylenol—both of which I had already tried, and neither of which had helped. ChatGPT then made a tantalizing offer: “If you want, I can give a quick 5-minute routine right now to stop a headache.” This sounded too good to be true, but I was desperate, so I let ChatGPT guide me through a breathing and massage exercise. It didn’t work.