Today's Liberal News

Lora Kelley

How America Lost Sleep

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.
Over the past decade, sleep has become better understood as a core part of wellness. But the stressors of modern life mean that Americans are getting less of it.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The Supreme Court goes through the looking glass on presidential immunity.

How Bird Flu Is Shaping People’s Lives

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.
For the past couple of years, scientists have watched with growing concern as a massive outbreak of avian flu, also known as H5N1 bird flu, has swept through bird populations. Recently in the U.S., a farm worker and some cattle herds have been infected. I spoke with my colleague Katherine J.

The College Financial-Aid Scramble

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.
An attempt to simplify federal financial-aid forms led to a bureaucratic mess. That may shape where students go to college—and whether they enroll at all.

The Paradoxes of Modern Dating

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.
More than a decade after Tinder introduced the swipe, many Americans are sick of dating apps. As I explored in a recent article for The Atlantic, the cracks are starting to show in what looked to be the foundation of modern dating.

Finding Jurors for an Unprecedented Trial

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.
Updated at 6:17 p.m. ET on April 16, 2024
Donald Trump is among the most famous and most polarizing people alive. The task of selecting 12 impartial jurors who can render a fair verdict in the criminal trial of a former president is a first for America’s court system.

Where the Future of Abortion Access Lies

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.
To win over more voters on the issue of abortion, Donald Trump has tried to push responsibility onto the states—whose varied approaches, even just in recent weeks, demonstrate the uncertain future of abortion access.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Matt Gaetz is winning.

Why Tax Filing Is Such a Headache

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.
Yes, the American tax code is complicated. But a web of other forces makes the country’s tax-filing system much trickier than it needs to be.
First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
Clash of the patriarchs
Israeli rage reaches new levels.
In MAGA world, everything happens for a reason.

America Is Sick of Swiping

Modern dating can be severed into two eras: before the swipe, and after. When Tinder and other dating apps took off in the early 2010s, they unleashed a way to more easily access potential love interests than ever before. By 2017, about five years after Tinder introduced the swipe, more than a quarter of different-sex couples were meeting on apps and dating websites, according to a study led by the Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld.

The Tough Sell of the Third-Party Candidate

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.
Third-party and independent candidates are never all that popular in American presidential elections. But this year, fear of handing the election to Donald Trump is making an outsider run radioactive.

Why Beyoncé Keeps Reinventing Herself

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.
One week ago, Beyoncé released a sprawling 27-track album, the second in a promised trilogy. In the days since, it has dominated conversations about country music in America.

Why Beyoncé Keeps Reinventing Herself

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.
One week ago, Beyoncé released a sprawling 27-track album, the second in a promised trilogy. In the days since, it has dominated conversations about country music in America.

The Big Money of College Basketball

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.
My personal foray into college-basketball fandom comes at a transformational time for the sport, as players accept major promotional deals and gambling reshapes the economics of the game.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Losing Game

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.
Sam Bankman-Fried was uncommonly comfortable with gambling and taking risks. Today, he received a sentence of 25 years in prison, and a judge determined he was sorry for making bad bets—but not remorseful for playing his dangerous game.

How Climate Change Is Making Allergy Season Worse

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.
Rising temperatures are leading to what my colleague Yasmin Tayag has called an “allergy apocalypse.

Trump’s Lucky Break

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.
Donald Trump has built up his reputation as a rich guy. When he ended up unable to cover a massive bond, the courts threw him a lifeline, but just for now.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The aftermath of the Baltimore bridge collapse
The Supreme Court is shaming itself.

Is the Shorter Workweek All It Promises to Be?

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.
A new bill advocates for a 32-hour workweek. Can this approach cure what ails American workers?
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
How it all went wrong for Eric Adams
It’s not the economy. It’s the pandemic.

How America Got Scammed

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.
People are more susceptible to scams than they may think—and Americans are losing more money to fraud than ever.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Donald Trump’s ego has crash-landed.
Christine Blasey Ford testifies again.
Universities have a computer-science problem.

The Hidden Toll of Surviving Layoffs

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.
Workers who keep their jobs after layoffs are considered the lucky ones. Still, dealing with the stress and guilt of a changed workplace can be harrowing for those unsure if they will be next.

Could a TikTok Ban Actually Happen?

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.
Efforts to crack down on TikTok are picking up momentum in Congress. What was once a Trump-led effort boosted by Republicans has since become a bipartisan priority for lawmakers hoping to look tough on China in an election year.

What Jimmy Kimmel Did Right

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.
Last night, Jimmy Kimmel presided over a surprisingly normal Academy Awards show. The program ran smoothly with no true upsets.

Biden Is Serious About His Candy-Bar Crusade

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.
In his State of the Union address last night, President Joe Biden took on a new symbolic foe: shrinkflation. In attacking the practice, he’s trying to signal that he’s aligned with the common American against corporate greed—even if it’s not clear what he can actually do about the problem.

America’s False Virus Equivalence

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.
This month marks four years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. My colleague Katherine J. Wu recently published an article about what is driving the U.S. government to frame COVID-19 as being flu-like—and the problems with that approach.

A Leap Day Tradition With a Dark Side

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.
A calendar is a site of order.

Two Theories for Americans’ Dire Economic Outlook

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.
Even as many measures show that the economy is thriving, Americans have been feeling down lately—especially about grocery prices.

What Nikki Haley Is Trying to Prove

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.
Nikki Haley faces terrible odds in her home state of South Carolina and beyond, but she has vowed to keep going. Beyond her own political ambitions, her campaign may be about trying to send a message to the Republican Party.

When Private Equity Comes for a Public Good

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.
In some states, public funds are being poured into the child-care industry—and private-equity groups are seeing an attractive target for investment.

What Companies Owe Retirees

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.
IBM’s new pension program may not change the game for workers. But it raises big questions about what companies owe their employees, and how existing retirement structures could better serve them.
First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
Texas’s social-media law is dangerous.

What the President Is Doing on TikTok

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.
The president of the United States is now on TikTok. Joe Biden’s campaign launched an account during the Super Bowl on Sunday, kicking things off with a post about the game captioned “lol hey guys.

The Ex Factor in Valentine’s Day Marketing

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.
Brands seem to have zeroed in on the ultimate relatable situation: a romance gone bad. Cue the ex-based marketing promotions.
First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
What Tom Suozzi’s win means for Democrats
Carry-on baggage has reached a “breaking point.

What Was That Super Bowl Ad Even Selling?

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.
Celebrities were all over last night’s Super Bowl ads. Did the stars overpower the brands they were supposed to be selling?
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The good Republicans’ last stand
The presidency is not a math test.