Today's Liberal News

The Uncertain Future of the Yellow School Bus

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 yellow school bus has remained remarkably consistent over the past century. But as a smaller share of kids ride the bus, its role is shifting.

Google Is Playing a Dangerous Game With AI Search

Doctors often have a piece of advice for the rest of us: Don’t Google it. The search giant tends to be the first stop for people hoping to answer every health-related question: Why is my scab oozing? What is this pink bump on my arm? Search for symptoms, and you might click through to WebMD and other sites that can provide an overwhelming possibility of reasons for what’s ailing you.

George Miller at the End of the World

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When George Miller started dreaming up his first Mad Max movie, in the late 1970s, he had just a vague sense of the world it would be set in; he knew only that his independent debut feature would be action-packed and shot cheaply in the Australian countryside.

A Different Kind of Female Protagonist

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
This week, we published two essays about new books featuring unusual, surprising female protagonists.

“Why Do Israel’s Bidding?”: Human Rights Advocate Hossam Bahgat Blasts Egypt Policy at Rafah Crossing

Israel’s seizure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt has sparked anger from the Egyptian government, which has warned that Israel is endangering the landmark 1978 Camp David Accords that normalized relations between the two countries. Despite the increasingly critical tone about Israel’s war on Gaza, however, Egyptian authorities have closely coordinated with Israel in decisions around allowing humanitarian aid in through the Rafah crossing and allowing Palestinians out of Gaza.

1,000 Harvard Students Walk Out of Commencement to Support 13 Seniors Barred from Graduation over Gaza

More than a thousand Harvard students walked out of their commencement ceremony yesterday to support 13 undergraduates who were barred from graduating after they participated in the Gaza solidarity encampment in Harvard Yard. Asmer Safi, one of the 13 pro-Palestinian student protesters barred from graduating, says that while his future has been thrown into uncertainty while he is on probation, he has no regrets about standing up for Palestinian rights.

The Next Front in the War Against Climate Change

In August 2022, the U.S. passed the most ambitious climate legislation of any country, ever. As the director of President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council at the time, I helped design the law. Less than two years later, the Inflation Reduction Act has succeeded beyond my wildest hopes at unleashing demand for clean energy.

Will Biden Undermine His Own Climate Goals with New Tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles?

We speak with The New Republic’s Kate Aronoff about how President Biden has unveiled steep tariff increases on various Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, which will quadruple from the current tariff rate of 25% to 100%. “What you see … is Biden really looking to lean into a really quite hawkish position on China,” says Aronoff. She explains why Biden is caught between insulating the American auto industry from competition and allowing affordable EVs to enter U.S.

Trump’s Assassination Fantasy Has a Darker Purpose

When Donald Trump insinuated this week that his successor and the FBI were out to kill him, he showed how central violence has become to his conception of political leadership. The former president declared Tuesday on Truth Social, his social-media platform, that he “was shown reports Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL FORCE).”
Trump has a way of projecting his own vices onto others.

The Trumpian Vertigo of American Politics

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.
Amid the parade of outrages, what we’re feeling isn’t numbness. It’s more like airsickness.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Trump’s money problems are becoming a crisis for the entire country.
Cows have almost certainly infected more than two people with bird flu.