Today's Liberal News

The Nerds Are Bullies Now

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, two computer geeks worth more than $300 billion put together, are posturing to fight each other in a mixed-martial-arts cage match.

Your Phone Is a Mindfulness Trap

“Let’s travel now to moonlit valleys blanketed with heather,” Harry Styles says to me. The pop star’s voice—just shy of songful, velvet-dry—makes it seem as if we’re at a sleepaway camp for lonely grown-ups, where he is my fetching counselor, and now it’s time for lights out.Styles’s iambic beckoning lies within a “sleep story” in the mindfulness app Calm.

Try Listening to Your Literature

This is an edition of the revamped Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.Audiobooks have never worked for me; as a rule, I don’t listen to them. I recognize this as my own failing, but while one is playing, I’m easily distracted. All it takes is one glance up at a poster on the street, or down at my phone, and I’m tuning out what I’m hearing.

“The Palestine Laboratory”: Antony Loewenstein on How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation

We speak with journalist and author Antony Loewenstein about his new book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. Loewenstein explains that Israel’s military-industrial complex has used the Occupied Palestinian Territories for decades as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that it then exports around the world for profit.

From Drone Strikes to Settler Attacks, Israel Intensifies Effort to “Completely Take Over Palestine”

This week, Israel has launched several attacks on Palestinians with weapons used in the conflict for the first time in nearly 20 years, including deploying U.S.-made Apache helicopter gunships inside the West Bank and firing a targeted assassination aerial strike. Jewish settlers have also raided Palestinian villages in the West Bank, attacking residents and setting fire to homes and vehicles.

As Media Spotlights Titanic Sub, Hundreds of Migrants Who Died in Greek Shipwreck Get Scant Coverage

As many as 700 migrants are feared to have died after an overloaded fishing vessel capsized last week off the coast of Greece. As search and rescue efforts continue with dwindling expectations, the Greek Coast Guard is facing backlash over its failure to help rescue passengers before the boat sank. Most of the migrants were women and children; many were from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria and Palestine.

How a Trip to the Titanic Went So Wrong

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.An expedition to see the remains of the Titanic turned into a tragedy. How did it go so wrong?First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
Why not Whitmer?
The ghost of a once era-defining show
How the vape shops won
Go ahead, try to explain milk.

The Elegant, Utterly Original Comedy of Alex Edelman

In the long and checkered history of possibly terrible impulse decisions, here’s one for the ages: A few years ago, the comedian Alex Edelman decided on a whim to show up uninvited to a casual meeting of white nationalists at an apartment in New York City, and pose as one of them. Why? He was curious. He wanted to see what it would be like to be on the inside of a gathering that would never have knowingly included him, given that he is Jewish.

How Could This Have Happened?

The dreadful saga of the missing Titanic submersible is finally drawing to a close. On Sunday, the vessel, called the Titan, was supposed to take five people on an hours-long, 12,500-foot-deep journey to the wreckage of the Titanic, which rests at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, less than two hours into the tour, the submersible lost contact with its support ship. At a press conference this afternoon, the U.S.

How AI Is Enabling Racism & Sexism: Algorithmic Justice League’s Joy Buolamwini on Meeting with Biden

We speak with Dr. Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, who met this week with President Biden in a closed-door discussion with other artificial intelligence experts and critics about the need to explore the promise and risk of AI. The computer scientist and coding expert has long raised alarm about how AI and algorithms are enabling racist and sexist bias.

Biden Calls Xi Jinping a “Dictator”: China-U.S. Relations and a Growing Multipolar World

Officials in Beijing have denounced U.S. President Joe Biden for describing Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator,” calling it a breach of diplomatic protocol. Biden’s remark at a fundraising event this week came just days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China to help thaw relations at a time of growing competition and suspicion between the two superpowers.

Modi’s State Visit: Biden Embraces Indian Leader Despite Rights Crackdown

President Joe Biden is hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a four-day state visit this week amid growing concerns about the Indian leader’s human rights record. Modi has been prime minister since 2014, during which time he has cracked down on dissent, curtailed the free press, targeted Muslims and other minorities and pushed an aggressive form of Hindu nationalism that violates the pluralistic vision of modern India’s founders.