Today's Liberal News

Gideon Levy on Israel’s “Moral Blindness”: Gaza Babies Freeze; Strikes Kill Medical Workers, Reporters

In northern Gaza, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital says five medical workers were among 50 people killed in Israeli strikes near the hospital. Israeli forces then stormed the hospital and forced hundreds, including patients, into the streets. This all comes as The New York Times has confirmed past reporting by +972 Magazine that on October 7, 2023, Israel loosened military rules meant to protect noncombatants in Gaza.

A Diet Writer’s Regrets

My first byline in a national magazine appeared in the August 8, 1995, issue of Woman’s Day under the headline “What’s Sabotaging Your Diet?” Woman’s Day, that bastion of the checkout line, was known for unironic covers featuring decadent desserts under headlines about healthy eating. This particular issue’s cover featured the title of my article over a photo of a chocolate cake frosted to look like a sunflower.
I was 23, newly married, living in a studio in Brooklyn, and making $18,000 a year.

How Putin Tapped a Well of Ethnic Hatred in Russia

Far-right activists from Russia’s largest nationalist movement, Russkaya Obshchina, donned black camouflage and patrolled multiple cities last month hunting for “ethnic criminals.” They raided dormitories, parks, and construction sites in search of migrants from Central Asia, nabbing six on November 24. On social media, the activists celebrated their “joint raid with law-enforcement officials,” posting a video of themselves leading migrants in chains on their way to deportation.

A Tribute to Blacklisted Lyricist Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz

His name might not be familiar to many, but his songs are sung by millions around the world. Today, we take a journey through the life and work of Yip Harburg, the Broadway lyricist who wrote such hits as “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and who put the music into The Wizard of Oz, the movie that inspired the hit Broadway musical and now Hollywood blockbuster, Wicked.

Star Trek’s Cold War

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.
I retired from a long teaching career a few years ago, but during my later years in the classroom, I offered a course on the Cold War and American pop culture, to try to help younger students understand the fears that dominated so much of American life in the 20th century.

New Yorkers Won’t Stop Complaining About Dogs

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.
“Dogs are so numerous in New York, indeed, that they have already become a nuisance,” the journalist Charles Dawson Shanly wrote in The Atlantic in 1872. He was annoyed by “all the barking … and there is a good deal of it.

The Joy of Reading Books in High School

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Why should a teenager bother to read a book, when there are so many other demands on their time? In this episode of Radio Atlantic: a dispatch from a teenager’s future. We hear from Atlantic staffers about the books they read in high school that stuck with them.

3,100+ Indigenous Students Died at U.S. “Boarding Schools”: WaPo Native American Journalist Dana Hedgpeth

More than 3,100 Indigenous students died at boarding schools in the United States between 1828 and 1970 — three times the number of deaths reported earlier this year by the Department of Interior, according to a new investigation by The Washington Post. Many of the students had been forcibly removed from their families and tribes as part of a government policy of cultural eradication and assimilation.

Meet State Dept. Official Michael Casey, Who Resigned over Gaza After U.S. Ignored Israeli Abuses

After a 15-year career in the Foreign Service, Michael Casey resigned from the State Department in July over U.S. policy on Gaza and is now speaking out publicly for the first time. He was deputy political counselor at the United States Office for Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem for four years before he left. Casey says he resigned after “getting no action from Washington” for his recommendations on humanitarian actions for Palestinians and toward a workable two-state solution.