Today's Liberal News

Who Said It: Marissa Mayer, or Odysseus?

Late last year, Marissa Mayer was struggling with what felt like an impossible task. Her daughter Marielle was turning 10, and Marielle’s teacher wanted three bullet points summarizing what made her special. Mayer—the former chief executive of Yahoo and a pioneer at Google, where she was the first female engineer—likes cracking a hard problem. But she felt overwhelmed by the range and complexity of potential answers.
So Mayer asked her personal A.I. assistant, Dazzle.

The Illusion of ‘Radical Transparency’

One of the curiosities of Donald Trump’s enduring (if perhaps weakening) grip on his supporters is how they praise him as someone who “tells it like it is.” Trump’s gatekeepers have similarly declared this to be “the most transparent administration in history,” pointing to, among other things, Trump’s willingness to open his sycophantic Cabinet meetings to live media coverage as proof that nothing is being obscured.

“Dark Day for Journalism”: Egypt Shutters Independent News Site Mada Masr, Detains Editor

A court in Cairo has ordered the closure of the independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr. The court also ordered the site’s editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, to be detained until she pays a fine of over $50,000. She was convicted on charges of managing an unlicensed website. Mada Masr is “the flagship independent media outlet in Egypt and a pillar of independent media in the region,” says Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Drop Site News, who previously worked at Mada Masr.

Trump Is Already Undermining Confidence in Midterm Election Results from Alaska to California: ACLU

A competitive Senate race has gripped the once reliably Republican state of Alaska. If Democratic challenger Mary Peltola wins the election against incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, it could tip the balance of power in Washington. Attorneys for Peltola and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have submitted a motion to dismiss a Department of Justice lawsuit filed last week that seeks to block the certification of the election results in Alaska if Sullivan loses.

How the Campaign War Chests Are Being Spent

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts
In the weeks heading into next week’s midterm election, President Trump has been crisscrossing the country trying to gin up enthusiasm among his base at rallies—where he’s gone on Islamophobic rants and inexplicably praised a candidate’s backside.

Islamophobia Is Trump’s Closing Midterm Gambit

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.
They say that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but President Trump and his allies have found a new low: open bigotry against Muslims.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

Maybe you’ve seen the ad: A man and a woman are loading a shopping cart. The woman tells the man he must return a carton of eggs. “We have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”
The woman explains that grocery prices are rising because the United States gives so much aid to Israel. “It’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,” the woman explains. “Don’t they get universal health care too?” the man asks.