Today's Liberal News

“Top of the World”: Remembering the Restaurant Workers Killed Atop World Trade Center in 9/11 Attack

A new documentary titled Top of the World tells the story of Windows on the World, the legendary restaurant atop the World Trade Center, through the eyes of its former employees. Windows on the World served guests for 25 years, until the morning of September 11, 2001, when it was destroyed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Seventy-nine workers and 91 diners were killed.

“Terrorizing Our City”: ICE Targets Immigrants in Danbury, CT, Including at School Bus Stops

We go to Danbury, Connecticut, where residents held a mass demonstration this week to protest recent immigration arrests and to support the city’s immigrant community. Danbury, like many other communities across the United States, has been the target of a spike in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, including local reports of ICE arresting parents at school bus stops.

“They Got Zero Notice”: 2,500 Workers Laid Off as Tyson Foods Shutters Meatpacking Plant in Illinois

Tyson Foods, the United States’ largest meatpacking and processing company, shuttered a beef processing facility in Joslin, Illinois, last month, laying off more than 2,500 primarily immigrant workers “virtually overnight.” Although Tyson Foods CEO and President Donnie King made over $34 million last year, nearly 800 times more than the median Tyson worker, the company cites a historic 75-year low in the U.S. cattle herd as a primary reason for the closure.

Abstract

Fruit flies exposed
to many dead fruit flies
lose their fat stores,
die more quickly
than those kept naive.
I who have lived long now
and will die of my living,
not of my grief,
and more than once
from a public garden
stole roses—
red ones and pink ones,
scented and not—
stammer before these
troubled and truthful fruit flies.
This poem appears in the October 2026 print edition.

This Tiny E-Reader Is the Single Best Piece of Technology in Years

No matter how you read it, The Power Broker is a serious undertaking. The paperback weighs as much as a brick; to avoid lugging around all 1,344 pages, people have cut it apart at the spine and chunked it into sections. Others have organized in-person Power Broker marathon readings that run continuously for three full days. I decided to try something else.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve spent 10 hours paging through Robert Caro’s masterpiece on an e-reader the size of a credit card.

What’s the Matter With Moderation?

One simple rule shapes Kansas politics: Republicans win statewide. In U.S. Senate races, the GOP has prevailed without interruption for more than 90 years. But the rule has a corollary, which accounts for the occasional Democratic governor. A Republican thought to be too extreme, too ideological, or too big for their britches can be beaten by a centrist Democrat when the wind blows just right.

Six Movies to Get You in the Fall Mood

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.
September has arrived, bringing the first hints of fall: cooler days, changing leaves, and the urge to revisit comfort watches. Below, The Atlantic’s writers and editors recommend six films that put them in an autumn spirit.

AI Is Already Making Us Less Human

Many people think that AI is going to gain consciousness and take over the world, but I’ve never been among them. That’s mostly because I believe the human mind contains depths and complexities that AI and its engineers do not fathom and will never match. As the neuroscientist Anil Seth wrote earlier this year, “The more you delve into the intricacies of the biological brain, the more you realize how rich and dynamic it is, compared to the dead sand of silicon.