Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Secret Service can’t recover texts; Biden contemplates emergency climate action

The Secret Service today told the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 coup attempt that they double-checked and sure enough, all of the texts between their agents that day were lost when the agency upgraded to new phones. Why did the agency believe that there was no reason to preserve their own records during a violent attempted coup that endangered the lives of multiple people they were protecting? Good question, and one that the National Archives is asking, as well.

Ukraine update: Russian Navy bravely runs away, FIRMS isn’t firm, and an unlikely secret advance

Early in the invasion of Ukraine, those interested in following the war discovered that they had some friends in high places—places anywhere from 200 to 800 miles above the ground. Not only has intelligence been available in terms of satellite imagery (some of it from free sources), but NASA’s FIRMS Fire Map has become a staple in tracking what’s happening on the front lines and behind the front lines.

Gavin Newsom says Democrats need to ‘organize with more ferocity of focus,’ put GOP ‘on the defense’

It’s only been a couple of weeks since California Gov. Gavin Newsom dragged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in an eviscerating ad. Now, Newsom has other red state governors in his sights—and even the Democratic Party itself.

In an interview on the July 16 episode of The Issue Is, Newsom answered questions about whether or not he’s running for president in 2024. Spoiler alert: He’s not.

The World Is Burning Once Again

In September 2020, the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office published a hypothetical weather forecast for a mid-July day in the year 2050. Forty degrees Celsius in London. (That’s 104 degrees Fahrenheit.) Thirty-eight in Hull (100 degrees F). Thirty-nine in Birmingham (102 degrees F). These were preposterous numbers, never before seen in U.K. weather forecasts, much less felt in reality—until last week.

U.S. Messaging on Monkeypox Is Deeply Flawed

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.As monkeypox cases rise in the U.S., public officials are scrambling to balance concerns about stigmatization with the fact that the disease is largely affecting gay and bisexual men.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The cause of the crime wave is hiding in plain sight.

There Is a Planet With Clouds Made of Sand

Now that the world’s most powerful space telescope is finally up and running, we’re in for a constant stream of stunning images of the universe. Just a ton of galaxies everywhere, more detailed than you’ve ever seen them, and too many stars to count—all of it sparkling with an intensity that humankind hasn’t captured before.Not every interesting image from the James Webb Space Telescope is going to be a pretty picture, though.

The White Liberals’ Burden

When I first arrived in South Africa, in 2009, it still felt as if a storm had just swept through. For most of the 20th century, the country was the world’s most fastidiously organized white-supremacist state.

Legal Scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw: We Must Reclaim Critical Race Theory from Right-Wing Fearmongering

We speak with pioneering scholar and activist Kimberlé Crenshaw about the growing Republican effort to ban critical race theory — an academic field that conservatives have invoked as a catchall phrase to censor a variety of curriculums focusing on antiracism, sex and gender. Crenshaw has launched what she calls a “counterterrorism offensive” against the Republican efforts with a “summer school” inspired by the Freedom Summer movement of the 1960s.

Peter Beinart: The Israel Lobby Is Spending Millions to Defeat Progressive Democrats in Primary Races

Pro-Israel lobby groups have spent “shocking” amounts of money to change the course of multiple Democratic congressional primaries over the past year alone, reports our guest Peter Beinart. The latest is in Maryland, where former Congressmember Donna Edwards is being outspent sevenfold by corporate attorney Glenn Ivey in her bid to win back her old seat in the state’s 4th Congressional District.

News Roundup: Bannon’s trial begins; House still expects delivery of Jan. 6 Secret Service texts

Donald Trump adviser and coup supporter Steve Bannon’s trial for criminal contempt of Congress began with jury selection today; given the glibness with which Bannon ignored House subpoenas, it may be a short trial, indeed. The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 coup is now expecting Secret Service texts from that date to be delivered by tomorrow, after originally being told by Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general that the messages had been deleted.

This skydiving video is all we could talk about today, so we had to share it with you

If there’s one thing social media is good for, it’s recirculating events that have slightly faded from collective memory—or simply happened before viewers were around to see them. While this phenomenon can sometimes (unfortunately) mean folks are spreading misinformation by presenting photos or videos as though they’re current events, other times it’s just a way for people to react to and bond over moments that were, well, viral-worthy.

Florida parents angry over DeSantis’ failure to order COVID vaccines for infants and young children

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is fully engaged when it comes to combating imaginary threats to children such as “critical race theory” and “LGBTQ indoctrination.” But the so-called pro-life governor is AWOL when it comes to protecting children against a life-threatening disease like COVID-19.

Last month, DeSantis distanced his state from the Biden administration’s efforts to vaccinate infants and young children against COVID-19.