Today's Liberal News

How Charlie Kirk’s Death Will Change His Message

As the leader of a young conservative political movement that helped Donald Trump win a second presidential term, Charlie Kirk accomplished a lot in his too-short life. But at Kirk’s packed memorial in Arizona last weekend, his admirers proclaimed that the slain activist now stands to become something even more powerful and potentially lasting: a martyr.

What Republicans Can Do If They Really Want to Protect Free Speech

While out of power, the American right was unified in complaining about the left’s speech policing. Now that Republicans control the White House and Congress, free-speech rights and values are dividing the coalition. One camp thinks Republicans should refrain from policing speech; the other favors policing the left’s speech. The second camp seems ascendant, unfortunately, while the first has failed to turn its beliefs into policy.
The Jimmy Kimmel controversy illustrates the fissure.

Israel Killed 31 Journalists in Yemen in Deadliest Attack on Press in 16 Years

The Committee to Protect Journalists says recent Israeli strikes on newspaper offices in Yemen killed 31 journalists and media support workers, making it the deadliest attack on journalists anywhere in the world in 16 years. CPJ said the attack was the second-deadliest attack on the press ever recorded by the organization. “These are civilians,” says Niku Jafarnia, Middle East and North Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch.

West African Asylum Seekers Sent Home Despite Risk of Torture, After Being Deported by U.S. to Ghana

More than a dozen West African men who were deported to Ghana by the United States have since been returned to their home countries by the Ghanaian government, despite legitimate fears of torture or persecution at home. Ghana is one of a growing list of countries that have signed “third country agreements” with the United States to accept U.S. deportees.

Where Are the Detainees? Hundreds of “Alligator Alcatraz” Prisoners Disappear from ICE Database

Hundreds of people who were once detained at the troubled immigration jail in the Florida Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” have disappeared. Democracy Now! speaks with Shirsho Dasgupta, a Miami Herald reporter who found that, as of late August, about two-thirds of the 1,800 immigrants who were held there in July have gone missing from ICE’s online database, with their families and attorneys unable to locate them.

ICE Assaults Congressional Candidate Kat Abughazaleh at Chicago Protest

Illinois Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was thrown to the ground by ICE agents on Friday during a protest outside the Broadview Processing Center in Chicago, where immigrant detainees are held. At least 10 people were arrested as federal agents fired pepper balls and tear gas into the crowd, which was there to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown known as “Operation Midway Blitz.

Is This ‘America First’?

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.
Standing on the United Nations General Assembly dais yesterday, President Donald Trump had a message for the global leaders and representatives in attendance: “Your countries are going to hell.”
What for? The “failed experiment of open borders,” according to the president.

Ukraine’s Plan to Starve the Russian War Machine

In one section of a sprawling warehouse in central Ukraine, workers have stacked what appear to be small airplane wings in neat rows. In another section, a group of men is huddled around what looks like the body of an aircraft, adjusting an electronic panel. In makeshift locations elsewhere in Ukraine, workers are producing these electronic panels from scratch: This company wants to use as few imported parts as possible, avoiding anything American, anything Chinese.

The MAGA Media Takeover

American mass media has been transformed in these early months of President Donald Trump’s second administration.

America’s Zombie Democracy

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.
We are living in an authoritarian state.
It didn’t feel that way this morning, when I took my dog for his usual walk in the park and dew from the grass glittered on my boots in the rising sunlight. It doesn’t feel that way when you’re ordering an iced mocha latte at Starbucks or watching the Patriots lose to the Steelers. The persistent normality of daily life is disorienting, even paralyzing.