Today's Liberal News

Don’t Be Misled by GPT-4’s Gift of Gab

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.Yesterday, not four months after unveiling the text-generating AI ChatGPT, OpenAI launched its latest marvel of machine learning: GPT-4. The new large-language model (LLM) aces select standardized tests, works across languages, and can even detect the contents of images.

What Stanford Law’s DEI Dean Got Wrong

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Question of the WeekI was overwhelmed by your responses to last week’s question on cars! So for now, I’m going to hold off on a new question and promise to send out your excellent thoughts in the next newsletter.

The Rogue Theory That Gravity Causes IBS

Bad things happen to a human body in zero gravity. Just look at what happens to astronauts who spend time in orbit: Bones disintegrate. Muscles weaken. So does immunity. “When you go up into space,” says Saïd Mekari, who studies exercise physiology at the University of Sherbrooke, in Canada, “it’s an accelerated model of aging.” Earthbound experiments mimicking weightlessness have revealed similar effects.

How Please Stopped Being Polite

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.      Growing up in a strict household, I was taught to honor etiquette; I still call my elders “sir” and “ma’am,” and I always say thank you. But I almost never use the word please.

Nora Ephron’s Revenge

In the 40 years since Heartburn was published, there have been two distinct ways to read it. Nora Ephron’s 1983 novel is narrated by a food writer, Rachel Samstat, who discovers that her esteemed journalist husband is having an affair with Thelma Rice, “a fairly tall person with a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs, never mind her feet, which are sort of splayed.

The Nord Stream Bombing: Jeremy Scahill on Why U.S. Remains Most Likely Culprit in Pipeline Sabotage

Questions continue to swirl about who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in September. Last month, the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported the sabotage was carried out by the U.S. Navy with remotely triggered explosives during NATO exercises. The U.S. has denied the claim. We speak to The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill about his latest article, “Conflicting Reports Thicken Nord Stream Bombing Plot.

Jeremy Scahill on Growing Proxy War Between U.S. and Russia & Downing of U.S. Drone in Black Sea

A U.S. drone crashed in international waters Tuesday after being intercepted by Russian fighter jets over the Black Sea. According to U.S. officials, one of the Russian warplanes collided with the MQ-9 Reaper drone and damaged its propeller, but Russia denies the aircraft made contact. The incident occurred about 75 miles southwest of Crimea and marks another blow to relations between the two nuclear-armed powers.

East Palestine Toxic Train Crash Shows Plastics Industry Toll on Planet. Will U.S. Ban Vinyl Chloride?

Five weeks after the Norfolk Southern toxic train derailment and so-called controlled burn that blanketed the town with a toxic brew of at least six hazardous chemicals and gases, senators grilled the CEO of Norfolk Southern over the company’s toxic train derailment. The company has evaded calls to cover healthcare costs as residents continue to report headaches, coughing, fatigue, irritation and burning of the skin.

Climate & Indigenous Activists Decry Biden’s Approval of Willow Oil Drilling Project in Arctic

The Biden administration has approved a massive oil and gas development in Alaska known as the Willow project, despite widespread opposition from environmental and conservation groups that argue Willow will amount to a carbon bomb. The administration also announced Sunday it will ban future oil and gas leasing for 3 million acres of federal waters in the Arctic Ocean and will limit drilling in a further 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska’s North Slope.