Today's Liberal News

“Firestorm”: MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff on Anniversary of L.A. Fires & “America’s New Age of Disaster”

We speak with journalist Jacob Soboroff about his new book and ongoing reporting about the Los Angeles fires one year ago, when destructive infernos razed entire neighborhoods, killing 30 people and displacing over 100,000 more. The book Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster provides a detailed look at how the fires unfolded, the emergency efforts and the political response.

Trump’s Plan to Seize Greenland Would “Militarize the Arctic,” Trample Indigenous Rights

Following the U.S. attack on Venezuela, the Trump administration has renewed its campaign to take over Greenland, which has been controlled by Denmark for more than 300 years. The White House says it’s considering “a range of options,” including the use of military force. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that if the U.S. were to attack Greenland, it would spell the end of NATO.

How Donald Trump Broke With His Own Foreign Policy

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.
Until recently, Donald Trump was consistent about this: The time for the United States to police the world, enforcing laws and norms, was over. “We are going to take care of this country first before we worry about everybody else in the world,” he told The New York Times in 2016.

The Early Days of American Imperialism

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
Exactly 39 years after Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was first published in The Atlantic, Mark Twain scratched out a new version. “Battle Hymn,” which Twain considered “beautiful and sublime,” was in need of revision.

Trump Has Odd Views on Domestic Terrorism

On January 6, Donald Trump’s administration published an apologia for the Trump supporters whom he incited to storm the Capitol five years earlier. The next day, Stephen Miller, in response to news that an ICE agent had shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, lambasted the Democratic Party on X for “inciting a violent insurrection.”
The juxtaposition of the January 6 anniversary and the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota the next day is a coincidence of timing.

How Sweetgreen Became Millennial Cringe

Last spring, Sweetgreen did something shocking, at least insofar as the menu adjustments of a fast-casual salad chain can be described that way: It added fries. In interviews, the company’s “chief concept officer,” Nicolas Jammet, paid lip service to “reevaluating and redefining fast food,” but I suspect that Sweetgreen was also “reevaluating and redefining” how to make money in a world that appeared poised to move on from buying what the company was trying to sell.

I Tried to Be the Government. It Did Not Go Well.

Photographs by Jason Andrew
People look at you differently when you carry a Geiger counter. Or, at least, when you carry a Geiger counter and exclaim things like “Much less radiation here than you might expect!” But how else are you to know that the radiation in your food is at acceptable levels?
They have government inspectors for this, you might say. It is their job.
That was before Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency started hacking away at our bureaucracy.

Trump Vows to “Indefinitely” Control Venezuela’s Oil as U.S. Seizes Two More Oil Tankers

U.S. forces have seized two more oil tankers with links to Venezuela, days after the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro along with his wife, making former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez the new leader of the country. “This is a decapitation without regime change,” says Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez. “The political system in Venezuela remains intact.

“Terror & Chaos”: Minneapolis Reels After ICE Agent Fatally Shoots Renee Good, Mother of 3

We speak with two people who responded to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis Wednesday. Trump administration officials claim the agent acted in self-defense, but local officials, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, reject that claim.
“This could happen to you in your city,” says Robin Wonsley, member of the Minneapolis City Council.