Today's Liberal News

Law Prof. Katherine Franke Accuses Columbia of Empowering Trump by Agreeing to $400M “Ransom Note”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon says Columbia University is on track to regain its federal funding after the Ivy League institution yielded to the Trump administration’s demands on Friday. The demands include banning face masks on campus, hiring 36 new security officers with greater power to arrest and crack down on students and appointing a “senior vice provost” to oversee the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.

A Rare Moment of Bipartisan Disbelief

But really, who among us hasn’t inadvertently shared secret plans about an imminent military strike on Yemen with the editor in chief of The Atlantic?
Wait, what?
Occasionally, Washington gets hit with one of those stories. The kind that halts the busy company town in its divided tracks. Everyone seems to unite, at least briefly, in disbelief. A single dominant topic comes along and crushes everything, and all the rest is suddenly beside the point.

Trump Goes After the Messenger

President Donald Trump didn’t know what Signal was.
Shortly before facing reporters yesterday afternoon, Trump was told by aides about a story publishing in The Atlantic disclosing that the magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been accidentally added to a group chat on the messaging app Signal, two White House officials told me on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

RFK Jr. and the Pepperoni-Pizza Paradox

If there was a mascot to represent everything that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sees wrong with food, it would be Big Daddy’s Primo Pizza. A staple of school cafeterias, Big Daddy’s pizza bills itself as an “over-the-top exceptional slice to entice students” that’s made with whole-wheat flour. It’s mass-produced in a factory with industrial additives so that it just needs to be reheated right before serving.

But Her Emails?

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Nothing revitalizes an old franchise like an ambitious crossover event, and this week, two of the dominant memes of the first Trump administration came back and combined forces: But her emails! and There’s always a tweet.

Dear James: Is This Sexless Marriage Over?

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.
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Dear James,
My best friend has been married to her husband for nearly 10 years, and it’s fair to say that their sex life is dead.

“Much Worse Than Ever Before”: Abubaker Abed Reports from Gaza as Israel Weighs Broader Invasion

We go to Gaza for a report on the brutal conditions of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians from Abubaker Abed, a 22-year-old journalist who has recently been diagnosed with malnutrition as a result of Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip. “It’s unending misery,” says Abed. “We’re here stranded. We’re seeing the systematic killing of everyone, as Israel is targeting every single one here in Gaza.

Oscar-Winning Palestinian Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal Brutally Beaten in Mob Attack by Israeli Settlers

Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning Palestinian director of No Other Land, was attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, arrested by Israeli soldiers and held overnight. The group entered their village and started the assault shortly after residents broke their daily Ramadan fast. Ballal’s No Other Land co-director Basel Adra witnessed the attack.