Today's Liberal News

“Deeply Illegal, Unconstitutional”: Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Ban Reaches Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments this week on the constitutionality of President Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship. An executive order, signed on Trump’s first day back in office, declares children born to parents without permanent legal status would no longer be automatically granted citizenship.
The policy “is deeply illegal, unconstitutional and morally wrong,” says Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.

MAHA Has Been Given an Impossible Task

When he was interviewed onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked a question unlikely to be on anyone’s mind in the midst of upheaval in the department he oversees and a conflict in the Middle East: “Who’s stronger—you or Secretary of War Pete Hegseth?”
The exchange was emblematic of the role that Kennedy and other HHS officials played during the four-day conference.

Pete Hegseth Is Vice Signaling

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 term virtue signaling refers to an annoying moral peacocking that has less to do with politics than with self-gratification. It’s the dinner guest who feels compelled to comment on the climate impact of every course.

A Game Plan for the AI Boom

Thore Graepel may have been the first human to be vanquished by a superintelligence. In 2015, on his first day as a researcher at Google DeepMind, he was challenged to play against the earliest iteration of AlphaGo—a computer program developed by DeepMind that would prove so effective at the ancient-Chinese game of weiqi (or Go, as it is commonly known in the West) that it changed how humans play it, and then upended the field of AI itself.

Does the Constitution Protect This Congresswoman From Trump?

The Trump administration has made a habit of pressing criminal charges against Americans observing and protesting harsh immigration-enforcement tactics, using the power of the executive branch to intimidate and punish those who visibly dissent from the president’s political agenda. In many ways, the prosecution of LaMonica McIver is in line with this general approach.

Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Sondheim Tunes

“I chose and my world was shaken, so what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not.” 
— Stephen Sondheim in a lyric presumably inspired by playing trivia
And by the way, did you know that Sondheim wrote exclusively with Blackwing 602 pencils, the flat-tailed, lightweight instrument also favored by John Steinbeck? They were discontinued while Sondheim was still writing, but he had purchased boxes and boxes of them just in case.

“The Institutions Have Not Collapsed”: Prof. Ali Kadivar on Iran’s Resilience to U.S.-Israeli War

As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran enters its second month, President Donald Trump has said he wants “to take the oil” and seize Kharg Island, Iran’s key export hub in the Persian Gulf. President Trump’s comments come as 3,500 U.S. troops began arriving in the region on Friday, with The Washington Post reporting that the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of potential ground combat in Iran.

Report from Beirut: “Hearts Are Very, Very Heavy” After Israeli Strikes Target Journalists, Medics

We speak with journalist Lylla Younes in Beirut as Israel vows to expand its invasion of Lebanon and occupy much of the country. This comes as an Israeli strike targeted a marked press car in southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing Ali Shoeib of Al-Manar TV, reporter Fatima Ftouni of Al Mayadeen TV, and her brother, freelance cameraman Mohamed Ftouni. Israel’s military said it had targeted Shoeib, accusing him of being a Hezbollah intelligence operative, without providing evidence.

NYC Palestine Activist Nerdeen Kiswani Speaks Out After Being Target of Assassination Plot

New York police say they foiled an assassination attempt against Palestinian American activist Nerdeen Kiswani. She describes the terror of finding out about the plot and why it reflects the “impunity” with which Zionist groups have targeted pro-Palestine voices.
“It really made me feel even more vulnerable than I already do as a Palestinian activist,” says Kiswani, co-founder of the group Within Our Lifetime.

No Kings: Rep. Omar, Sen. Sanders, Bruce Springsteen, Jane Fonda, Joan Baez at Massive St. Paul Rally

An estimated 8 million people took part in anti-Trump protests across the United States on Saturday as part of the No Kings movement, with the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and the administration’s anti-immigrant crackdown animating many participants. One of the largest rallies took place in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where federal immigration agents killed U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January.