Today's Liberal News

Lila Shroff

The Gen Z Lifestyle Subsidy

Finals season looks different this year. Across college campuses, students are slogging their way through exams with all-nighters and lots of caffeine, just as they always have. But they’re also getting more help from AI than ever before. Through the end of May, OpenAI is offering students two months of free access to ChatGPT Plus, which normally costs $20 a month.

What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong About the Past

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
Last week, at an event in West Virginia, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fat-shamed the state’s governor, Patrick Morrisey. “The first time I saw him, I said you look like you ate Governor Morrisey,” Kennedy told a laughing crowd. Morrisey has apparently invited Kennedy to be his personal trainer.

It’s a Model of Government Efficiency, but DOGE Wants It Gone

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last night that seeks to give more power to Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to cleave through the supposed “waste, bloat, and insularity” in the federal government. The team is being given broad permission by Trump to disrupt work at key agencies and cut jobs.

Apple Lost the Plot on Texting

For a brief moment earlier this month, I thought an old acquaintance had passed away. I was still groggy one morning when I checked my phone to find a notification delivering the news. “Obituary shared,” the message bluntly said, followed by his name. But when I opened my phone, I learned that he was very much still alive. Apple’s latest software update was to blame: A new feature that uses AI to summarize iPhone notifications had distorted the original text message.