Today's Liberal News

‘I Am a Practicing Catholic and I Am a Proud Jew’

The Jewish cemetery in Ferrara, Italy, is a melancholy place nestled against the walls that encircle the medieval city. Its 800 gravestones are bunched in clusters amid overgrown grass, fallen leaves, and brooding trees. The impressive expanse is evidence of what had been, before the Second World War, a large, vibrant Jewish community, now reduced to a few dozen souls.

How a Muslim Movie Star Triumphed in Hindu-Nationalist India

In early September, Jawan, or “Soldier,” Indian cinema’s latest mega-budget extravaganza, registered the highest opening-day gross in Bollywood history. The film’s success cemented the remarkable renaissance of Shah Rukh Khan, the country’s biggest movie star, after a turbulent phase in the era of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: Censorship, Harassment Intensifies on Campus Amid Gaza War

A free speech battle is playing out on college campuses, as students, professors and others advocating for Palestinian rights across the United States are facing racist attacks and retaliation that threaten their safety and livelihoods. These attacks aim to suppress criticism of Israel and U.S. support of its actions in Gaza. This comes as the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution “condemning Hamas and antisemitic student activities on college campuses.

“The Day After Tomorrow”: Israeli Hostage Negotiator on Freeing Captives & Building Lasting Peace

According to the latest update from the Israeli military, Hamas is still holding at least 229 hostages captured during its October 7 incursion into southern Israel. The group has stated that they will not release all hostages until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. To discuss the release thus far of four hostages and prospects for future releases, we speak to Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate a critical hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas in 2011.

Gaza Poet Who Inspired Nonviolent Protests Is Injured in Israeli Airstrike; 5 Relatives Killed

Palestinian poet Ahmed Abu Artema was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike on October 24 that also killed five members of his family, including his 12-year-old son. Artema helped inspire the Great March of Return, a series of nonviolent protests in Gaza starting in 2018 when thousands of Palestinians marched to the militarized fence separating them from their ancestral homes inside Israel, braving deadly Israeli sniper fire that killed hundreds and injured thousands more.

The 2024 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

What Mike Johnson’s Rise Tells Us About the GOP

Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here. The House of Representatives finally has a new speaker. After a bruising battle and several weeks without a leader, Republicans have elected Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana to be the 56th speaker of the House.

A Halloween Reading List for Adults

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 believe in chasing the ghost of my former lighthearted self,” my colleague Faith Hill wrote last year. And “if there’s one day when I might almost catch up, it’s Halloween: the most ridiculous, inherently childish holiday, and perhaps the one grown-ups need most.

Spiders Might Be Quietly Disappearing

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine.Jumping spiders are an obsession for me. But it wasn’t always so.Although never a spider hater or an arachnophobe, I was pretty ambivalent about them for most of my life. Then I learned about jumping spiders: I’ve reported on their impressive vision (as good as a cat’s in some ways!), their surprising smarts (they make plans!), and the discovery that they have REM-like sleep (and may even dream!). I was hooked.

Where Is Mike Johnson’s Ironclad Oath?

On August 16, 1867, a young farmer named Alfred McDonald Sargent Johnson walked into the courthouse of Cherokee County, Georgia. He had an oath to swear.The effects of the Civil War were still visible in Canton, a village of about 200 people and the county seat. For one thing, that makeshift courthouse was inside a Presbyterian church—its predecessor having been torched by William Tecumseh Sherman’s men shortly before their march to the sea.