Today's Liberal News

“There Is an Alternative”: Meet the Israeli & Palestinian “Combatants for Peace” Urging Nonviolence

With Israel and Palestine experiencing the worst violence in decades, we speak with two co-founders of Combatants for Peace, a group composed of people from both sides of the conflict who have committed to nonviolence and peaceful coexistence. Avner Wishnitzer is a former member of Sayeret Matkal, one of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite commando units, and Sulaiman Khatib spent more than 10 years in prison after being arrested as a teenager for an attack on Israeli soldiers.

A Breakthrough in Gene Editing

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 spoke with my colleague Sarah Zhang about a breakthrough in CRISPR therapy, and when it is ethical to use the gene-editing technology.

Why Won’t OpenAI Say What the Q* Algorithm Is?

Last week, it seemed that OpenAI—the secretive firm behind ChatGPT—had been broken open. The company’s board had suddenly fired CEO Sam Altman, hundreds of employees revolted in protest, Altman was reinstated, and the media dissected the story from every possible angle.

Hydrogen Is Just Another Hole for Natural Gas to Fill

In a way, the story of American natural gas is a particularly American story, one of entrepreneurial hustle, booms and busts, and a will to find opportunity where nobody’s looked. Of resourceful self-preservation for the sake of self-preservation alone. Of supply needing demand, and of manufacturing that demand through the means at hand, even if the logic is sometimes tough to follow.

C. J. Rice’s Conviction Is Overturned

Updated at 3:06 p.m. ET on November 28, 2023Last Thursday, C. J. Rice celebrated his 30th birthday at State Correctional Institution–Chester, a Pennsylvania prison just southwest of Philadelphia. Rice has been incarcerated since he was 17, when he was charged with a crime he insists he didn’t commit. But because of a decision yesterday in federal court, he may be free by the time he turns 31. Such an outcome is exceedingly rare in cases like Rice’s.

Remembering Pablo Yoruba Guzmán, Young Lords Co-Founder, Afro-Latino Leader, Legendary NYC Journalist

We remember the legendary activist and journalist Pablo Yoruba Guzmán, who died from a heart attack Sunday at age 73. Guzmán was the former minister of information of the Young Lords Party, the revolutionary social justice group led by Puerto Ricans in the 1960s and ’70s. He later became a beloved print and television reporter, known for his street reporting.

Jeremy Scahill: Israel’s “Lethal Lie” About Al-Shifa Hospital as Hamas Base Was Co-Signed by Biden

The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill deconstructs Israel’s narrative around Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, including unsubstantiated allegations Hamas uses tunnels under the hospital as its command center — tunnels that Israel itself built. “We were told that this was like a Hamas Pentagon,” says Scahill, who describes how the Israeli military’s own evidence disproves its allegations that the hospital was dangerous enough to justify its siege and bombardment.

“Atmosphere of Hate”: AFSC Leader & Palestinian Vermonter on Shooting of 3 College Students

We get an update on the three university students of Palestinian descent who were shot Saturday in Burlington, Vermont. Two were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic at the time of the attack. Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ahmad are now recovering, though Hisham Awartani, who was shot in the spine, has reportedly lost feeling in the lower part of his body. The FBI is reportedly investigating whether the shooting was a hate crime.

The Latest Victims of the Free-Speech Crisis

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the issue of free speech on college campuses has received a new wave of scrutiny. Palestinian student groups have faced threats of censorship for their statements, donors have warned about pulling funding, and employers have blacklisted students who blamed Israel for Hamas’s attack.But as far as free speech is concerned, 2023 has been a relatively normal year for colleges and universities.

Ta-Nehisi Coates and Rashid Khalidi on Israeli Occupation, Apartheid & the 100-Year War on Palestine

In this special broadcast, we air excerpts from a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. The event featured a discussion between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Coates won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia.

“The Mandates of Conscience”: Michelle Alexander on Israel, Gaza, MLK & Speaking Out in a Time of War

“But We Must Speak: On Palestine and the Mandates of Conscience.” That was the name of a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature here in New York, where leading writers and academics came together to speak out against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Speakers included Yasmin El-Rifae of PalFest and the civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.