Today's Liberal News

Our Photo Editor’s Must-See Images

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.My colleague Alan Taylor has published thousands of photo essays in his time at The Atlantic. I spoke with him about the art of telling a visual story and which photos have stuck with him over the years.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

People Aren’t Falling for AI Trump Photos (Yet)

On Monday, as Americans considered the possibility of a Donald Trump indictment and a presidential perp walk, Eliot Higgins brought the hypothetical to life. Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, an open-source investigations group, asked the latest version of the generative-AI art tool Midjourney to illustrate the spectacle of a Trump arrest. It pumped out vivid photos of a sea of police officers dragging the 45th president to the ground.Higgins didn’t stop there.

Blue Check Marks Were Always Shameless

Many years ago, when picking up my teenage daughter from an outdoor mall, I found myself surrounded by her friends. “You’re verified,” one of them said, gushing. At first I thought this was some new youth slang term for “cool” or even “uncool.” But alas, she was referring to Twitter. I had a blue check on the service. That kind of verified.

The Candidate and the Spy: James Bamford on Israel’s Secret Collusion with Trump to Win 2016 Race

In his new book, Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence, investigative journalist James Bamford reveals that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched a secret Israeli agent to the United States in the spring of 2016 to help Donald Trump win the presidential election. The agent met with advisers to Trump and offered to share secret intelligence with the campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Rep. Ro Khanna on Regulating Banks, TikTok, China, Ukraine & His Vote on the “Horrors of Socialism”

We speak with Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, regulating the banking sector, and how Federal Reserve interest rate hikes contributed to the banking crisis. Silicon Valley Bank was based in Khanna’s district in California, and he has criticized fellow Democrats who supported a 2018 bill that weakened oversight for some banks.

The U.S. Owes Iraq “Just Compensation”: Muslim Peacemaker Sami Rasouli on 2003 Invasion & Aftermath

As we continue to look back on the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we’re joined by Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi native who immigrated to the United States over 35 years ago and became a successful restaurateur and beloved member of the community in Minneapolis. After the U.S. invasion of his home country in 2003, he moved back to Iraq, where he founded the Muslim Peacemakers, a group that works to promote and practice nonviolent conflict resolution and intervention.