Today's Liberal News

“Dark Day for Journalism”: Egypt Shutters Independent News Site Mada Masr, Detains Editor

A court in Cairo has ordered the closure of the independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr. The court also ordered the site’s editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, to be detained until she pays a fine of over $50,000. She was convicted on charges of managing an unlicensed website. Mada Masr is “the flagship independent media outlet in Egypt and a pillar of independent media in the region,” says Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Drop Site News, who previously worked at Mada Masr.

Trump Is Already Undermining Confidence in Midterm Election Results from Alaska to California: ACLU

A competitive Senate race has gripped the once reliably Republican state of Alaska. If Democratic challenger Mary Peltola wins the election against incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, it could tip the balance of power in Washington. Attorneys for Peltola and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have submitted a motion to dismiss a Department of Justice lawsuit filed last week that seeks to block the certification of the election results in Alaska if Sullivan loses.

Hegseth Fires a Top General

Earlier this week, the Pentagon’s chief planner, Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia, was ousted from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No explanation was given. This comes at an inopportune moment, given that President Trump may be planning to relaunch the war on Iran. Sylvia, the former commander of the 101st Airborne Division, becomes the latest in a long line of senior officers who have been shown the door since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon almost two years ago.

Why Wouldn’t Google Tell Me Who Won the 2020 Election?

For anyone who isn’t angling for a job in the Trump administration, “Who won the 2020 presidential election?” should be an easy question. But when I asked Google’s AI Mode—the AI function built into its search bar—about the race earlier today, the bot clammed up.

Trump Is Closing From Behind

Modern political history offers few examples of closing arguments that appear more out of touch, self-defeating, or downright bizarre than what Donald Trump has offered his fellow Republicans ahead of next week’s midterm elections. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan told voters to consider Jimmy Carter’s presidency and ask themselves, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?,” it helped turn a tight race into a Reagan landslide.

A Stress Test for Prediction Markets

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Brazil’s incumbent president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was reelected on Sunday night. Not everyone saw it coming.
For weeks, many U.S. pundits had been suggesting that he would lose, thanks to the growing power of the South American right and the lingering curse of incumbency.

How Elon Musk Turned on Ukraine

On October 11, a confidential memo went out to military officers across Ukraine, urging them to brace for a catastrophe. Donald Trump had decided earlier that week to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia and to begin buying its diesel fuel. Based on that shift in White House policy, the memo foresaw another act of American betrayal: the loss of access to the Starlink satellite network, which Ukraine uses to operate its drone fleet.

Will Ousting Netanyahu Change Anything for Palestinians? Diana Buttu on Upcoming Israeli Elections

Israeli parliamentary elections are being held on Tuesday, the first since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack and Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently embroiled in a corruption scandal in Israel, is up for reelection. On Friday, after two Israeli soldiers were killed at a checkpoint near Hebron, just days before Israeli polls are set to open, Netanyahu announced heavy restrictions on the movement of Palestinians out of the West Bank.

When ICE Comes for a MAGA Supporter

Last year, the conservative evangelical blogger Samuel Sey published an article on his blog, Slow to Write, defending the Trump administration’s plan for mass deportations from a Christian perspective. “Christian ethics do not denounce deportations,” he wrote. “They demand it.” Born in Ghana and a resident of Canada before he moved to the United States, Sey went on to write that “America doesn’t owe anything to people born outside of the country—including me.

Flying Across the World to Vote

Photographs and videos by Dana Golan
Since the beginning of the Gaza war, a record number of Israelis have left the country. More than 10 percent of the electorate now lives abroad, and the country generally does not allow absentee ballots: Those who want to vote in today’s election, the first since October 7, need to be there in person.
An estimated 67,000 Israeli expats have traveled thousands of miles—and spent thousands of dollars—to return home.