Today's Liberal News

An All-American Hot-Dog Controversy

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.
Hot dogs. The Fourth of July. An opportunely timed Netflix special. Joey Chestnut’s sponsorship dustup is an all-American tale.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Wildfire smoke is a public-health emergency.
Hussein Ibish: For Hamas, everything is going according to plan.

The Era of Inescapable AI

This is Atlantic Intelligence, a limited-run series in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here.
Earlier this week, Apple announced that it will soon lace its devices with generative AI, bringing “Apple Intelligence” to iPhones, iPads, and Macs later this year. Users will be able to allow the machine to write emails for them, create custom emoji and other synthetic illustrations, transcribe and summarize phone calls, and so on.

A Generation of AI Guinea Pigs

This spring, the Los Angeles Unified School District—the second-largest public school district in the United States—introduced students and parents to a new “educational friend” named Ed. A learning platform that includes a chatbot represented by a small illustration of a smiling sun, Ed is being tested in 100 schools within the district and is accessible at all hours through a website.

You Have Every Reason to Avoid Breathing Wildfire Smoke

Summertime in North America is becoming smoke season. Last summer, when a haze from catastrophic Canadian wildfires hung over the continent—turning Montreal, where I lived at the time, an unearthly gray and my home city of New York a putrid orange—plenty of people seemed untroubled by this reality. Relatively few people wore masks; infamously, an outdoor yoga class continued on a skyscraper terrace in Manhattan.

For Hamas, Everything Is Going According to Plan

The leaders of both Israel and Hamas seem content for the war in Gaza to grind on into the indefinite future. Such is the upshot of their ambiguous, but essentially negative, responses to President Joe Biden’s peace proposal, which is now fully backed by the United Nations Security Council. And the reasons are obvious.

“Better Living Through Birding”: Christian Cooper on Being a Queer Black Man in the Natural World

We continue our conversation with Christian Cooper, author of Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World and host of the Emmy Award-winning show Extraordinary Birder. Cooper shares stories of his life and career, including his longtime LGBTQ activism and how his father’s work as a science educator inspired his lifetime passion for birdwatching. “Birding forces you outside of yourself [and] whatever your woes are,” says Cooper.

Birding While Black: Christian Cooper on NYC Audubon Society’s New Name & Racist Central Park Incident

New York City’s chapter of the Audubon Society has officially changed its name to the New York City Bird Alliance as part of an effort to distance itself from its former namesake John James Audubon, the so-called founding father of American birding. The 19th century naturalist enslaved at least nine people and espoused racist views. Christian Cooper is a Black birder and a longtime board member of the newly minted New York City Bird Alliance.

Supreme Court Protects Access to Mifepristone, But War on Abortion Rights Continues to Escalate

The Supreme Court has unanimously rejected a challenge from anti-abortion groups to the nationwide availability of the abortion medication mifepristone, which is available by mail and can be taken at home in many states. However, advocates warn the far-right-dominated court’s ruling on the FDA’s authority to regulate the pill was purely on procedural grounds, and could even offer a “roadmap” for future challenges. Mifepristone is used in roughly two-thirds of all U.S.

The “Jimmy Clean Hands” Election

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.
Some of the people who once supported Donald Trump seem to want him to win, but without the moral stain of voting for him themselves.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
American women are at a breaking point.

Bridgerton Faces the Limits of Romantic Fantasy

This story contains spoilers for the entirety of Bridgerton Season 3.
The resident bully of Bridgerton, Cressida Cowper, has changed—really. After several humbling seasons on the marriage market, the character played by Jessica Madsen has stopped trying to insult-sling her way to the top of the eligible-bachelorette pile. Instead, in the show’s third season, she makes a bold claim that could cast her out of Regency London’s high society altogether.

What Children Remember About Their Fathers

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.
Father’s Day looks different for each family. For some, it is a moment to celebrate the dad(s) in your life and let them know how much you appreciate them. Maybe it’s with a homemade card, or pancakes, or an afternoon in which a dad is allowed to take a nap and watch replays of the 1998 NBA finals uninterrupted.

The Decline of Streaking

Fifty years ago, you couldn’t watch a live televised event without the possibility that a nude person might beeline past the camera. Streaking burst onto the scene in the 1970s, when media outlets began writing about college fraternities embracing the practice, and it quickly grew into a cultural phenomenon. Streakers crashed the Oscars, the Olympics, Wimbledon, a handful of rugby games, a Pan Am flight, and a plaza on Wall Street.

Palestinian Diplomat: Gaza Ceasefire Only Possible Once Israel Commits to Ending the War

Israel and Hamas are both facing calls to support the U.S.-backed ceasefire and hostage deal that was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council earlier this week. While Hamas has welcomed the proposal, Israeli leaders have yet to publicly commit to its terms, including a full end to the war rather than just a pause in the fighting for the exchange of captives. This comes as a major new U.N.

From Gaza to Sudan, Number of Global Armed Conflicts Reach New Post-WWII High

The world saw the highest number of state-based conflicts last year since the end of World War II, as fighting raged in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and other areas. That’s the finding of a new report from the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Siri Rustad, research director at the Norwegian think tank, tells Democracy Now! that it’s a worrying trend. “The three past years are the three most violent years since the Cold War,” she says.

ProPublica Reporter Defends Work After Samuel Alito Accuses Outlet of Politically Motivated Coverage

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, caught on a secret recording, recently attacked ProPublica for its reporting on Supreme Court ethics. The nonprofit investigative news outlet has spearheaded coverage of possible conflicts of interest among judges on the nation’s top court, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who has accepted millions in gifts and trips from conservative billionaires.

Secret Recording of SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito Offers “Window” into His Conservative Ideology

We speak with filmmaker Lauren Windsor, whose recorded conversations with U.S. Supreme Court justices have sparked the latest firestorm over how the country’s top jurists are ruling on consequential cases. Windsor posed as a conservative activist to speak with Justice Samuel Alito at a June 3 event of the Supreme Court Historical Society, where he appeared to endorse running the U.S. as a Christian theocracy and said he was doubtful about living peacefully with political opponents.