Today's Liberal News

Ukraine update: Russia’s big counterattack at Kharkiv has so far come to nothing

At the beginning of May, Russian forces still occupied the ring of towns and villages just outside Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. From that position, they rained down a constant barrage of artillery into the city, damaging over half the apartment buildings and homes, reducing some neighborhoods to smoldering wreckage, and making anything that looked like normal day-to-day life impossible.

Nuts & Bolts—Inside a Democratic campaign: Precinct committee races

How often have you heard Harry S. Truman’s phrase: “The most important job I ever held was that of precinct committeeman”? If you are involved in local and state politics, you may have heard this phrase quite often. Depending on who you ask within the Democratic establishment, precinct committee persons can be incredibly important or of very little consequence.

After 10 years of DACA, advocates want permanent protections for immigrant youth

This article was originally published at Prism

On June 15, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program officially turned 10. The program has allowed over 600,000 “dreamers,” young, undocumented immigrants who were largely raised in the U.S., to apply to work and study in the country without fearing deportation since former President Barack Obama signed the executive order in 2012. But the program has faced continuous legal challenges.

Ars Poetica With Mother and Dogs

I turn and don’t expect my mother’s face
                               I ask how did you enter this poem
she says it wasn’t easyshe is dressed in my favorite horse-print silk sheath
                               and dripping lake water
says she wore it to trick my loverI want to ask how could you but instead
  &nb

Truly Humbled to Be the Author of This Article

“I was humbled to be awarded an honorary degree by the London School of Economics earlier this week. Thank you so much for this prestigious honour!”— Tweet from Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central BankWhenever I feel particularly humble, I tweet about myself. I have never earned an honorary degree from the London School of Economics, but if I ever did, I’d certainly tweet the hell out of it.

North Carolina Is a Warning

The ad that signaled the coming catastrophe for democracy in North Carolina appeared just four days before the November 2012 election. As the ad opened, a woman’s voice wondered aloud whether voters “can trust Sam Ervin IV to be a fair judge.” Ervin, captured in black and white, looks shifty, moving his eyes back and forth before turning his head suddenly as if he is on the run.

If It Can Happen in San Francisco, It Can Happen Anywhere

The San Francisco School Board recently returned the admissions policy at Lowell, the city’s most prestigious public high school, to the merit-based system that it had used for more than a century. Thus ended a short-lived lottery introduced in the name of racial equity. The board also abandoned a campaign to erase “The Life of Washington,” a WPA-era mural at George Washington High School by the artist Victor Arnautoff.

Rock Never Dies—But It Does Get Older and Wiser

Updated at 9:22 a.m. ET on July 2, 2022.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.It’s been a week full of ghastly revelations and depressing events, so let’s step away from the stress of politics and think about music heading into this holiday weekend.But first, here are three great stories from The Atlantic.

A Portrait of the Artist Who Never Makes Art

We encounter Bran, the narrator of Nell Zink’s new novel, Avalon, just as she leaves a party where something pivotal and distressing has happened to her. We know that it is pivotal because we immediately cut back in time to Bran’s childhood, and much of the novel becomes an inexorable march toward that fateful night. We also have some warning that the account we are about to hear is a fragile memory: “I have trouble recounting my childhood in chronological order.

Meet the Dutch Doctor Helping Expand Abortion Access by Mailing Safe & Legal Pills Worldwide

As activists across the U.S. are mobilizing to defend reproductive rights, we speak to the Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, who has dedicated her life to circumventing anti-abortion laws, including providing abortions on ships in international waters and sending abortions pills around the world. She also discusses navigating censorship on social media platforms, telemedicine, the future of contraception and more.