Today's Liberal News

California’s Math Misadventure Is About to Go National

When I decided to read every word of California’s 1,000-page proposal to transform math education in public schools, I learned that even speculative and unproved ideas can end up as official instructional policy. In 2021, the state released a draft of the California Mathematics Framework, whose authors were promising to open up new pathways into science and tech careers for students who might otherwise be left behind.

Daniel Clowes Is Ready to Face the Truth

Across five decades, the cartoonist Daniel Clowes has written about a wide array of outcasts: the high-school best friends wrestling with their transition into adulthood; the middle-aged grouch searching for the daughter he never knew; the sex-obsessed malcontent fixated on his ex-girlfriend; the many other dropouts, weirdos, and natural-born screwups who feel drawn from real life.

Survived & Punished: Meet Tracy McCarter, a Nurse Jailed, Then Cleared, for Stabbing Abusive Husband

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month, and we look at how Black and Brown survivors of domestic abuse are further criminalized by police and prisons — and how activists have been organizing to win their freedom. In her first broadcast interview, we speak with Tracy McCarter, a nurse and grandmother who was jailed after her abusive husband, a white man, died of a stab wound when she defended herself during an altercation.

Top Cuban Diplomat Seeks Probe of D.C. Embassy Attack & End to “Unbearable” U.S. Sanctions

Cuba has released footage showing an individual throwing two Molotov cocktails inside the Cuban Embassy compound in Washington, D.C., last Sunday, condemning it as a terrorist attack. An investigation is underway, but no arrests have been made. Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío says the country is demanding a speedy investigation, adding that it is the latest in a series of attacks against Cuban diplomatic missions in recent years.

Nazi Veteran Honored in Canada Was Part of Wave of Collaborators Harbored in West: Lev Golinkin

Poland says it’s preparing to seek the extradition of a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi after he received a standing ovation in the Canadian House of Commons last week following a speech by visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Yaroslav Hunka was invited by the speaker of the House, who has since resigned his post, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized for the episode on Wednesday.

Fearing Ethnic Cleansing, 90,000 Armenians Flee Nagorno-Karabakh After Azerbaijan Military Blitz

The government of Nagorno-Karabakh is dissolving itself after decades of struggle for autonomy from Azerbaijan, just days after Azerbaijani forces carried out a military blitz to seize the breakaway region, which has a majority of ethnic Armenians. More than half the territory’s 120,000 people have reportedly fled to Armenia, while thousands more remain without food, shelter and clean drinking water.

A ’90s Blockbuster That Holds Up

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.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is our staff writer Olga Khazan.

Love Is Not Always Song, but the Swelling

in the throat before a cry. It is my father,
changing his god because my mother asked.
After the baptism, his curly hair wet and
cold like an animal caught out in the snow.
Fleeing from my grandmother, who rushed
after him with butcher knives not yet wiped clean
of pigeon meat, the untucked bits of herhijab licking the air behind her like a shadow.
You need to go back to Egypt, she had said.
Sometimes, home is not a home, but a claw
lodged inside you.

A Crucial Barrier Against Hurricanes Is at Risk

This article originally appeared in Hakai Magazine.Two weeks after Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Atlantic Canada on September 24, 2022, Jeff Ollerhead found himself staring at an upended boardwalk in Prince Edward Island National Park. Damaged by the storm—one of the strongest cyclones ever recorded in Canada—Greenwich Beach was still closed to the general public.

Here’s to a New Generation of Classic Cars

Here they come, two by two, the classic cars of America. The 1970s muscle cars, the ’60s coupes, and the ’50s sedans—“kandy-kolored” (to borrow Tom Wolfe’s phrase) beauties that came off the line in the golden age before the catalytic converter, when rich black smoke pooled above the beach lot where the boys gathered.

Taylor Swift Is Too Famous for This

Has Taylor Swift ever been more popular, more all-powerful, more white Beyoncé than she is right now? She’s in the middle of an era-defining tour that is literally called the Eras Tour. A concert-film version of the show is about to arrive in theaters nationwide—she dropped the news a few weeks ago, and within hours, Hollywood studios were scrambling to get their movies out of her way. The bracelets are everywhere.