Today's Liberal News

A Second Life for My Beloved Dog

Peggy was my first dog—the dog I waited 28 patient years for. I finally met her on August 15, 2015. She was eight weeks old, covered in filth after a 14-hour ride from Georgia to New York, and inexplicably still adorable. Floppy ears. Jet-black muzzle. Meaty little forepaws. We didn’t plan it this way, but my partner and I rescued her on the same day we moved in together. Peggy represented a new phase of my life: the beginning of my chosen family.

Against Counting the Books You Read

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.Last year, I read something like 40 books, not counting all of the titles I picked up and abandoned out of disinterest, the ones I half-skimmed for work, or the advance copies I read 20 pages of. Depending on your point of view, that number may seem impressive or underwhelming.

Why Parents Struggle So Much in the World’s Richest Country

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.One morning a couple of years ago, during the awkward hour between my eldest daughter’s school drop-off and her sister’s swim lesson, I stopped at a coffee shop. There, I ran into the father of a boy in my daughter’s class. He was also schlepping a younger child around, and as we got to talking, I learned that we had a lot in common.

“My Heart Is Still in Gaza”: Palestinian Scientist Flees Israeli Bombs, Begs World to Stop Genocide

In Gaza, the death toll from Israel’s 90-day bombardment has topped 22,600, with another 7,000 people reported missing and presumed dead. As the IDF intensifies its attacks on refugee camps in central and south Gaza — areas deemed by Israel to be safe zones — we speak with Mohammed Ghalayini, an air quality scientist and co-founder of Amplify Gaza Stories, who made the “impossible choice” to flee from Gaza to Britain, where he has dual citizenship.

“Voluntary Migration” or Ethnic Cleansing? Mouin Rabbani on Israel’s Push to Expel Residents of Gaza

Dutch Palestinian policy analyst Mouin Rabbani says Israel is using the Hamas attack of October 7 as a pretext to carry out its “long-standing ambition” to push Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. He notes Israeli officials started proposing mass displacement of civilians to Egypt and other countries almost immediately after fighting began, and that this reflects Zionist policy since even before the founding of the state of Israel.

Extremism in the Military Is a Problem

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.The United States has long been blessed with a civil-military relationship that is a model of democratic and civic stability. Extremism in the ranks, however, is growing—and dangerous.

There Was Never Such a Thing as ‘Open’ AI

At the turn of the century, when the modern web was just emerging and Microsoft was king, a small but growing technology movement posed an existential threat to the company. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO at the time, called one of its core elements “​a cancer that attaches itself” to “everything it touches.

The Plagiarism War Has Begun

Updated at 4:10 p.m. ET on January 4, 2024.When the conservative authors Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet accused Harvard’s Claudine Gay last month of having committed plagiarism in her dissertation, they were clearly motivated by a culture-war opportunity. Gay, the school’s first Black president—and, for some critics, an avatar of the identity-politics bureaucracy on college campuses—had just flubbed testimony before Congress about anti-Semitism on campus.

When Leaders Fail

“That film,” my friend Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general, said to me, “should be shown to all senior national-security officials and military officers. It is the most profound demonstration of what happens in the wake of slovenly strategic thinking.”The occasion was a visit to Israel with a small group of military and national-security experts. The film was a 47-minute compilation of videos taken from dashcams, body cameras, and closed-circuit-television cameras.

AMC Theater Tosses Bishop William Barber for Bringing Disability Chair to See “The Color Purple”

Civil rights leader Bishop William Barber joins us to discuss his calls for more awareness and justice for disabled people after he was kicked out of a Greenville, North Carolina, AMC movie theater last week when he went to see The Color Purple with his 90-year-old mother. Barber was threatened with trespassing and police forcibly removed him from the theater when the manager refused to allow him to use a specialized chair he carries to assist with an arthritic condition.

Can Russia Be Defeated? Nina Khrushcheva on Why “the West Must Face Reality in Ukraine”

As Ukraine and Russia complete an exchange of nearly 500 prisoners amid ongoing hostilities, American news outlets are reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be open to ceasefire talks behind the scenes. But in Moscow, “That’s not how we see it,” says Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the New School and the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Deadly Bombing in Iran Kills Dozens as Tensions Rise Across the Middle East

Twin explosions in the Iranian province of Kerman killed dozens and injured hundreds Wednesday at a memorial for top Revolutionary Guards general Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike four years ago in Iraq. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iran has placed blame on Israel and the U.S, while U.S. officials and regional experts have suggested ISIS as the culprit.