Today's Liberal News

Why Would Meta Download So Much Porn?

Editor’s note: This work is part of AI Watchdog, The Atlantic’s ongoing investigation into the generative-AI industry.
Amid tech companies’ ongoing efforts to vacuum up as much data as possible to train AI models, Meta has taken public posts from its own platforms, scraped massive amounts of content from the rest of the internet, and pirated millions of books to train its AI models.

“Farmers of the Sea”: PBS Film Profiles Puerto Rican Fishermen on the “Frontlines of Climate Change”

Filmmaker Juan Carlos Dávila’s new film for PBS, Farmers of the Sea, documents climate change’s threats to the fishing industry and food security in Vieques, Puerto Rico. For islands in the Caribbean, explains Dávila, “we are situated geographically in one of the frontlines of climate change. [We’re] not only facing stronger hurricanes now, [but] we could face food shortages, especially the islands that depend so much on the food that comes from the sea.

Report from San Juan: New Bill Targets Citizenship Rights as Puerto Rico Marks 10 Years of PROMESA

After failing to overturn birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court, Republican legislators are turning to new tactics to disenfranchise people born on U.S. soil. Their latest targets are those born to noncitizen or permanent resident parents in U.S. territories like Puerto Rico, where the Supreme Court has said citizenship is granted by statute and full constitutional protections do not apply.

“Cockroach Democracy”: Arundhati Roy on India’s Youth-Led Protest Movement & Modi’s Collapsing Support

A youth-led protest movement in India is demanding an end to the country’s status quo. Sparked by the leak of national exam questions, tens of thousands of young people have taken to the streets. They are protesting under the banner of the Cockroach Janta (People’s) Party — a new party named to reflect the words of India’s chief justice, who compared unemployed youth to cockroaches and parasites. The movement has only swelled in response to a violent crackdown on protesters.

“America First or Israel First?” Ex-Israeli Negotiator Daniel Levy on Saudi Nuclear Deal, Iran & More

The status of a newly signed U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal is in question after President Trump made the surprise announcement that the deal is off unless Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel. The deal paves the way for Saudi civil nuclear development, although critics warn that it could lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the politically volatile Middle East.

Trump Says Images of Bombed Iran School Could Be “AI” But Study Confirms U.S. Killed 140+ in Strike

On February 28, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, missiles landed on Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in the Iranian city of Minab, in a civilian area near the Strait of Hormuz. At least 121 schoolchildren were killed along with 26 teachers. Forensic Architecture and Sky News analyzed the attack, finding that the neighborhood was bombed a second time while families and rescuers were still on the ground.

The Art of the Giveaway

What kind of negotiator gives the other side everything that it wants with the hope of eventually getting something in return?
It’s a question that even some of President Trump’s own allies are asking after his administration signed a landmark deal to develop a civilian nuclear program in Saudi Arabia using American technology.

North Carolina’s Threat to Legal Assistance for the Poor

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.
When Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina in September 2024, it left behind it a trail of death and destruction—and a huge number of legal headaches.

The War Is Lost. Now Fix What It Broke.

The sooner we acknowledge that the United States has lost the war with Iran and stop fighting, the better. Because we now have a lot of work to do.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was pressed to explain before the Senate what the United States had accomplished in its war with Iran. Sputtering with fury at times, he claimed that Washington had won “a historic military victory.

The Trump Family Sparks a Revolution in Albania

In the summer of 2021, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, were cruising the Mediterranean by yacht when they stopped for a swim off the Adriatic coast. They splashed over to an island and hiked, barefoot, across its hilly, rugged terrain. “Effectively that’s how we found it,” the president’s eldest daughter would later recount.
The Albanian island that the Trump heirs stumbled on, Robinson Crusoe–like, is called Sazan, once the site of a top-secret military base.

How the American Office Became Inevitable

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
One of the most gruesome murders in 19th-century America happened in a New York City office, just across the street from city hall. In 1841, Samuel Adams, a printer of no apparent relation to the famous Revolutionary, paid a visit to John Colt, the author of a popular bookkeeping manual and brother to a famous gunmaker. Adams had gone to see Colt about the $1.

As Mamdani Calls on Trump to Arrest Netanyahu, Genocide Scholar Decries Israel’s Ongoing Impunity

Israeli American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov says Israel’s assault on Gaza predicts “the future of genocide,” with the perpetrator not only enjoying impunity for crimes against humanity but also profiting from the death and destruction. He says Israeli leaders will almost certainly escape accountability because international allies, including the United States and many European states, have failed to uphold international law.

“Enough Is Enough”: Mohsen Mahdawi Says New Deportation Threat Seeks to Silence Palestine Activism

Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, whose arrest by masked and hooded ICE agents when he arrived for his naturalization interview to become a U.S. citizen made national headlines last year, is facing a new deportation threat after a three-judge panel overturned a lower court ruling that had freed him from ICE custody. Mahdawi was involved in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, where he was a student, demanding an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.