Today's Liberal News

Ghana’s Grudge Match

This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.When Ghana meets Uruguay tomorrow, the Black Stars will be out for redemption—or vengeance, depending on how you look at it.Twelve years ago in South Africa, Ghana were on the verge of becoming the first African team to make it to the semifinals of a World Cup, the first in the tournament’s history to be hosted by an African nation.

Why Did the Oath Keepers Do It?

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.What did the Oath Keepers and other militia groups really think they would achieve by attacking American democracy and losing everything? I suspect they wanted only one thing: to escape the boredom of their own lives.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

This COVID Winter Will Be Different

December is here and with it comes the third winter of the pandemic. With holiday travel and indoor family gatherings, the season has brought tragic spikes in COVID cases the past two years. Are we in for more of the same, or will this winter be different?The Atlantic deputy editor Paul Bisceglio talks with the staff writer Katherine Wu about what to expect.

Rights Advocates to NYC Mayor Adams: You Can’t Arrest Your Way Out of Housing & Mental Health Crisis

New York Mayor Eric Adams announced this week that police and emergency medical workers will start hospitalizing people with mental illness against their will, even if they pose no threat to others. Rights groups and community organizations have slammed the move as inhumane and are demanding better access to housing and other support for people struggling with mental illness and homelessness. “That does require funding. That does require investment.

Oath Keepers Founder Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy for Plotting to Violently Overthrow U.S. Gov’t

Jurors in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday found Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy for plotting to keep Donald Trump in power after the 2020 election, resulting in the deadly January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Kelly Meggs, who led the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, was also convicted of seditious conspiracy, and three other insurrectionists were found guilty of other felonies.

NYC DA Asks Judge to Drop Murder Charges Against Domestic Abuse Survivor Tracy McCarter

In a remarkable courtroom scene, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg asked a New York judge Monday to dismiss murder charges against Tracy McCarter, who says she acted in self-defense when her estranged husband died from a stab wound in the chest in 2020. Bragg campaigned on a promise to fight to free McCarter of murder charges, though, when elected, advocates say his actions initially fell short.

What would Harry Reid do right now? Threaten to cancel Christmas to save the country

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are staring down the double-barreled threat of multiple, critical deadlines and the knowledge that the House is going to be turned over to a raft of incompetent maniacs in a little more than one month’s time. The two leaders allowed their members to come back from the election on Nov. 8 and accomplish very little, then take the full Thanksgiving week—and the days book-ending it—off.

Interior Department will relocate three tribal communities threatened by climate change

The Interior Department announced on Wednesday that three tribal communities will be relocated due to climate change-worsened erosion effectively making their homes uninhabitable. The Newtok Village and Native Village of Napakiak in Alaska will receive $25 million a piece from the agency for the move, as will the Quinault Indian Nation in Washington. Around $135 million will be spent in these efforts, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contributing $17.7 million.

Democratic Rep. Donald McEachin dies at 61 after a decades-long career in Virginia politics

Rep. Donald McEachin, a Democrat elected to represent Virginia’s 4th Congressional District in 2016, died Monday at the age of 61, just weeks after winning a fourth term. McEachin’s chief of staff said in her statement, “Valiantly, for years now, we have watched him fight and triumph over the secondary effects of his colorectal cancer from 2013. Tonight, he lost that battle.”

It will be up to Republican Gov.

Expiration Dates Are Meaningless

For refrigerators across America, the passing of Thanksgiving promises a major purge. The good stuff is the first to go: the mashed potatoes, the buttery remains of stuffing, breakfast-worthy cold pie. But what’s that in the distance, huddled gloomily behind the leftovers? There lie the marginalized relics of pre-Thanksgiving grocery runs. Heavy cream, a few days past its sell-by date. A desolate bag of spinach whose label says it went bad on Sunday.

The State of Free Speech

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.One year ago, our staff writer Conor Friedersdorf started the newsletter Up for Debate, a forum that gives the ideas of media commentators and Atlantic readers equal weight and aims to represent the full range of the political spectrum.

Ode to the French Baguette

I remember you, baguette. I made thousands of you.That’s one of the nice things about being a baker (which I was, for a few glorious years): You’re as ancient as Egypt, but you’re also Andy Warhol in an apron, mass-producing your art object. Baguettes in glowing dozens, repeating editions and series of baguettes, out of the great oven and onto the metal rack.