Today's Liberal News

The Queerest Thing About Taylor Swift

Over the decades, as it evolved from a slur into a term of tribal pride, the word queer was converted by academics into a verb. To queer a text is to look for hidden, un-straight meaning—to theorize that sexual repression shapes Holden Caulfield’s bad attitude and Nick Carraway’s unreliable narration. Typically, readers queer a work through their interpretation. What the author really meant is, in many cases, unknowable; the text and its effect are what matters most.

“Israel Is Starving Gaza”: Israeli Rights Group B’Tselem Says IDF Is Using Hunger as a Weapon of War

Human rights groups say Israel is using starvation as a weapon in the Gaza Strip as Israel severely restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid, medicine and food supplies to millions inside the besieged and bombed territory. In a new report,” Israeli human rights group B’Tselem lays out how Israel’s decision to cut off electricity, water and international humanitarian aid to Gaza after a 17-year blockade against the territory has led to a very quick collapse of infrastructure.

“The Cost of Inheritance”: Meet the Descendants of Enslavers and Enslaved Fighting for Reparations

We look at The Cost of Inheritance, a new documentary that examines the growing movement for reparations for Black American descendants of people who were enslaved and addressing the historical injustices they have faced. While some of this is being done by city and state commissions tasked with studying reparations, others are attempting to address systemic racism at the local and personal level, as detailed in the film.

“Complete Hypocrisy”: Activist Bree Newsome Bass on Biden Fighting Racism While Funding Gaza Genocide

President Biden delivered his second campaign speech of the year Monday at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a white supremacist gunman killed nine people in 2015. Biden remembered the victims, spoke of the “poison of white supremacy” and assailed his Republican rivals for not taking racism seriously, but Biden’s speech was interrupted at one point by protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, where Israel’s U.S.

A Nightmarish Flight’s Aftermath

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.On Friday, a short flight teetered into near disaster when a chunk of the plane flew off during its ascent. Whatever the results of the pending investigation into what went wrong, the accident comes at a bad moment for Boeing.

‘Plant-Based’ Has Lost All Meaning

Several years ago, I made a New Year’s resolution to eat more plants. Doing so, I assumed, would be better for my health, for animals, and for the planet. Besides, it would be easy: The rise of plant-based meat alternatives, offered by companies such as Impossible Meat and Beyond Meat, made it a breeze to eat less meat but still satisfy the occasional carnivorous urge. I could have my burger and eat it too.Or so I thought.

The NRA Under Siege

When Wayne LaPierre, the longtime leader of the National Rifle Association, announced his resignation on Friday, his opponents may have been tempted to celebrate. But the reality is that his departure does not necessarily change the group’s immediate prospects. The NRA remains under the control of an old guard that comprises mainly LaPierre’s lieutenants.If change is to come quickly to the NRA, it will be through the trial that began in New York today.

“Wake-Up Call”: Mother of Boeing Crash Victim & Boeing Whistleblower on Latest MAX Jet Disaster

The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily grounded scores of Boeing 737 MAX 9 jetliners after a fuselage door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines plane midflight near Portland, Oregon, on Friday. The incident forced the plane to make an emergency landing. The National Transportation Safety Board has revealed Alaska Airlines had concerns about the plane prior to the incident but kept flying it.

Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate: Israel Is Targeting Media in Gaza to Hide Its Atrocities from the World

More than 100 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, when Israel unleashed a ferocious attack on the territory from land, sea and air. On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle killed two more journalists, including Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, who had already lost his wife and other family to Israeli airstrikes.

“Huge Miscalculation”: Biden’s Refusal to Push for Gaza Ceasefire Could Drag U.S. into Middle East War

Middle East policy expert Trita Parsi says President Biden’s reluctance to press Israel for a ceasefire in Gaza has the potential to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran and its allies in the region. On Monday, Israel reportedly killed a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, just days after an airstrike killed a senior Hamas leader in the capital Beirut. Meanwhile, the U.S.

The Last Frontier of Machine Translation

When Google Translate was released, in 2006, I was an eighth grader stumbling through introductory Spanish, and my teacher had little reason to worry about her students using it to cheat. It’s almost hard to remember now, but early machine-translation systems were laughably poor. They could give you the general thrust of, say, a Portuguese website, but they often failed at even basic tasks.

A Vision of Russia as a Country That Runs on Violence

As Vladimir Putin’s army continues to wage war in Ukraine—destroying cities and villages, murdering civilians, and kidnapping children—many people may find themselves probing the culture of modern Russia in an effort to make sense of the atrocities. In the past, those looking to art or literature to better understand Russian society might have picked up works by Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky.