Today's Liberal News

How ‘Pro-Life’ Lost all Meaning

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 pro-life movement may have won the battle two years ago today, but they’re losing the war—and turning an entire generation away from their cause.

Pain Doesn’t Belong on a Scale of Zero to 10

Over the past two years, a simple but baffling request has preceded most of my encounters with medical professionals: “Rate your pain on a scale of zero to 10.”
I trained as a physician and have asked patients the very same question thousands of times, so I think hard about how to quantify the sum of the sore hips, the prickly thighs, and the numbing, itchy pain near my left shoulder blade. I pause and then, mostly arbitrarily, choose a number.

‘I Am Pleasing to Everyone’

Netflix is out with a new delectable documentary series, America’s Sweethearts, about tryouts for the 2023 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Why should I, someone who’s never reviewed anything other than a book, be the one to review it? For starters, a sick day had granted me the ability to guzzle it down in a single seven-hour stretch.

Meet Maha Hussaini, Gaza Journalist Whose Courage Award Was Rescinded After Pro-Israel Smear Campaign

We go to Gaza to speak with Palestinian journalist Maha Hussaini after the International Women’s Media Foundation came under fire for rescinding its Courage in Journalism Award to her following a smear campaign. Hussaini is an award-winning journalist and human rights advocate who has extensively documented Israel’s war on Gaza since October, including reporting on the mass displacement of Palestinians while being repeatedly displaced herself.

Will Israel Expand Its War into Lebanon? Rami Khouri on Netanyahu’s Latest Threats

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the Israeli military plans to shift its focus to Lebanon, from where attacks on Israel by Hezbollah have escalated in recent months. “The Lebanon-Israel border is more dangerous than ever because of the capabilities that Hezbollah has,” says Palestinian American journalist Rami Khouri. He explains how the balance of power has shifted in the region, but warns of the potentially “devastating” effects of a full-scale war in Lebanon.

“These Are Not Just Threats”: Rep. Ayanna Pressley on Project 2025 & Dangers of a Second Trump Term

Democratic Congressmember Ayanna Pressley is a founding member of a congressional task force aiming to stop the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” the moniker given to a Donald Trump-associated political plan to reduce the power of the federal government and push forward socially conservative policies. Pressley calls Project 2025 an “extreme manifesto” and explains why she has made preventing its coming into fruition a top priority during the 2024 election.

AIPAC vs. Jamaal Bowman: Rep. Ayanna Pressley on Pro-Israel Lobby Push to Defeat Pro-Ceasefire Lawmaker

Tuesday is the culmination of the most expensive primary race in U.S. history in New York’s 16th Congressional District. Democratic Congressmember Jamaal Bowman, a former Bronx middle school principal and one of the first to call for a ceasefire in Gaza in October, is being challenged by a former corporate executive, George Latimer, who was encouraged to run by the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC.

“Green Border”: Agnieszka Holland’s New Film Shows “Impossible Choices” Facing Refugees in Europe

The new film Green Border, from acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland, dramatizes the humanitarian crisis facing millions of migrants seeking refuge in Europe. It tells the true story of how refugees from the Middle East and Africa became trapped in 2021 at the so-called green border between Poland and Belarus, through the perspectives of refugees, border guards and refugee rights activists.

First Illinois Latina Rep. Praises Biden’s New Immigration Executive Order But Slams Border Shutdown

President Joe Biden’s latest executive order on immigration gives legal protections to about half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens, preventing their deportation and providing a streamlined pathway to citizenship for them and their children. The announcement is being welcomed by immigrant rights groups, but comes just weeks after Biden signed another order giving himself far-reaching power to shut down the U.S. border with Mexico to limit asylum requests.

Readers Don’t Trust Dirty Tricks

In March of 2002, Milly Dowler, age 13, left her home in Walton-on-Thames for the last time. After she disappeared, her parents called the police. A search began. Blanket news coverage followed. In those days, probably a dozen British tabloids and half a dozen higher-brow broadsheets all chased the same stories. In an effort to beat his newspaper’s rivals, an investigator employed by News of the World, one of those tabloids, hacked into Dowler’s cellphone.

India Is Building a Mega-River

This article originally appeared in Hakai Magazine.
In India, severe water shortages in one part of the country often coincide with acute flooding in another. When these dual tragedies occur, Indians are often left wishing for a way to balance out the inequities—to turn one region’s excess into a salve for the other.
Soon, they may get their wish.

The Problem With ‘In Demand’ Jobs

Even in the 1990s, at the peak of free-trade fever in Washington, Congress knew that globalization would be rough on some folks. Opening the economy up to cheap imports from Canada, Mexico, and China was bound to undercut domestic industries and cost many American workers their jobs. On top of that, welfare reform eliminated or sharply cut benefits for many families.

A Beloved Show That Needs to Finally End

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.
Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained.