Today's Liberal News

The Lights Go Down on Stan Twitter

When X was blocked in Brazil on Saturday—the result of a legal skirmish between the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, and Alexandre de Moraes, a justice on Brazil’s Supreme Court—a sizable crater was left behind. More than 20 million people lost access to the site, yet the effect was about more than numbers. Brazilian users have played an unusually large role in developing the site’s well-known super-fan culture. Now they’re gone, and they’re not sure whether they’ll get to come back.

Paralympics Photo of the Day: Double Gold

Michael Steele / Getty
Oksana Masters of Team USA celebrates winning the Women’s H5 Road Race on day eight of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games, on September 5, 2024. This win is Masters’ second gold medal of the 2024 Paralympic Games, after she placed first in the Para Cycling Road Women’s H4-5 Individual Time Trial the day before.

Religious Education and the Meaning of Life

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
In a 1927 Atlantic article, the Episcopal priest Bernard Iddings Bell leveled quite the original insult at college students: They were becoming “mental and ethical jellyfish.” These students were drifters and conformists, Bell complained; they lacked standards and had no real understanding of truth, beauty, or goodness.

Elon Musk Has the ‘Off’ Switch

Since Starlink first beamed down to Brazil two years ago, hundreds of communities in the Amazon that were previously off the grid found themselves connected to the rest of the world. Here was the purest promise of SpaceX’s satellite internet—to provide connectivity in even the most remote places on Earth—fulfilled. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, received a medal from the Brazilian government.

How U.S. College Administrators Are “Dreaming Up Ways to Squash Gaza Protests”

As the fall term gets underway for students across the United States, we speak with journalist and academic Natasha Lennard about how college administrators are attempting to quash Gaza solidarity actions following mass protests at campuses across the country in the spring. One example is New York University, which recently updated its student policy to make criticisms of Zionism potentially punishable under its anti-discrimination rules.

“Campus Has Become Unrecognizable”: Columbia Prof. Franke Faces Firing After DN Interview on Gaza

Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke last appeared on Democracy Now! in January to discuss an attack on Columbia’s campus targeting pro-Palestinian student activists with a foul-smelling liquid that led to multiple hospitalizations. Following her interview, Franke now faces termination after two Columbia professors filed a complaint against her claiming she had created a hostile environment for Israeli students; she also became a target for Republican lawmakers.

EXCLUSIVE: Northwestern Suspends Journalism Professor Steven Thrasher After Gaza Solidarity Protest

We speak with journalist, author and academic Steven Thrasher, the chair of social justice reporting at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He was singled out by name during a congressional hearing about pro-Palestine protests on college campuses earlier this year, with one Republican lawmaker calling him a “goon” for protecting students in an encampment from violent arrest.

Lax Gun Laws a “Death Sentence”: Georgia Teen Kills 4 in Deadliest School Shooting of 2024

A 14-year-old student opened fire Wednesday at a high school in Winder, Georgia, just outside Atlanta, killing two fellow students — both also 14 years old — and two teachers, while injuring at least nine others. The teen shooter, who used an AR-platform-style weapon in his deadly rampage, surrendered to school resource officers and faces multiple murder charges as an adult. The violence in Georgia marks the deadliest U.S.

The New Yorker Publishes 2005 Haditha, Iraq Massacre Photos Marines “Didn’t Want the World to See”

After nearly two decades of obstruction by the U.S. military, The New Yorker has obtained and published 10 photos of the aftermath of the 2005 Haditha massacre, when U.S. marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians in revenge for an IED bombing that killed a service member. The graphic images show dead Iraqi men, women and children, many of them shot in the head at close range. The victims ranged in age from 3 to 76.

Stores Are Small Now

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 era of the teeny store is upon us. Spend time in some of America’s prime shopping destinations, and you may be presented with just a few racks of clothing or a small collection of shoes. You might enjoy a lovely floral display and a comfy spot to sit, but you won’t be offered options.

It Matters If It’s COVID

You might have already guessed this from the coughs and sniffles around you, but a lot of people are sick right now, and a lot of them have COVID. According to the CDC’s latest data, levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater are “very high” in every region of the country; national levels have been “very high” for about a month.

Trump’s Red-Pill Podcast Tour

One weirdness of listening to Donald Trump talk for any length of time is that, amid the syllable minestrone, he occasionally says something that is both intelligible and honest.
One such moment came during his appearance on the popular podcast hosted by the computer scientist Lex Fridman this week. “To get the word out,” Trump said, is important in politics, and television was becoming “a little bit older and maybe less significant.