Today's Liberal News

80 Years After Nuremberg Trials, U.S. Leads Assault on ICC & International Law: Wolfgang Kaleck

Eight decades after the Nuremberg trials against Nazi war criminals, the Trump administration has launched an all-out assault on the International Criminal Court, primarily over the tribunal’s pursuit of Israeli leaders for war crimes committed in Gaza. In his recent address to the United Nations, President Donald Trump called the ICC a “rogue institution” and urged other states to abandon it, and his administration has vowed to dismantle it through sanctions and other pressure tactics.

A Terrible Way to Die, a Terrifying Way to Survive

At about 6 p.m. last night, the Supreme Court lifted a temporary stay placed on the execution of Christa Pike, a Tennessee woman who was found guilty of joining two accomplices in murdering a classmate in 1995, when Pike was 18 years old. Roughly an hour and a half later, Pike, who has spent 30 years on death row, was strapped to a gurney in Tennessee’s death chamber for lethal injection.

The 14 Movies to Look Out for This Fall

The Princess Bride. The Shawshank Redemption. Almost Famous. Over the course of its 51-year history, the Toronto International Film Festival has hosted notable films of all genres and styles. The 2026 edition, which concluded in mid-September, curated movies from rising talent and established filmmakers alike, including a modern-day Nigerian-set remake of Mrs.

I’m Calling for a Pause in the Development of the Universal Bone Dissolver

Allow me to introduce myself. For the past nine years, I have been the leader of a small, advanced company that is generally unknown to the public but of some renown within my field. We are one of the many teams of engineers working to develop what most people call (somewhat inexactly) the Universal Bone Dissolver.
It sounds like a frightening idea, I know. Science fiction has certainly taught us to be wary of a machine with the power to dissolve all human bones.

What Trump Misunderstands About Modern Media

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
As modern American journalism began taking shape before the Civil War and newspapers were entering the world at staggering rates, the novelist Cornelius Mathews wondered at what point the profusion should stop, or whether it should stop at all.

Pete Hegseth, Idea Guy

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.
Pete Hegseth seems to imagine himself as a man of big ideas. Perhaps you’ve worked with someone like that: Every organization has “idea hamsters,” who spin in their wheels and toss out suggestions of wildly varying quality.

“Berlin 4” Lawyer on Pro-Palestine Protest Crackdown & Germany’s Unconditional Support for Israel

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman is in Berlin, Germany, this week, where the crackdown on pro-Palestine speech is shaped by the German policy of Staatsräson, or “reason of state.” The concept refers to Germany’s commitment to the existence of the Israeli state in light of the Holocaust. Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in 2023, Staatsräson has manifested itself as German military aid to Israel and heavy policing of Palestine activism inside Germany.