Today's Liberal News

Ramaswamy and the Rest

The epigraph for the first 2024 Republican presidential debate came from Vivek Ramaswamy. “It is not morning in America. We’re living in a dark moment,” he said, midway through the melee in Milwaukee. He seemed to speak for every candidate on the stage during a dour and punchy evening on Fox News.Ramaswamy was a fitting messenger for the mantra, because the debate was his coming out party. He was, if not definitively the winner of the debate, clearly the main character.

The Book-Piracy Problem

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.Last week, The Atlantic published an investigation revealing that tens of thousands of pirated books are being used to train major generative-AI programs.

Prigozhin’s Death Heralds Even More Spectacular Violence

Updated at 8:20 p.m. ET on August 23, 2023Vladimir Putin’s Russia has long been a land of mysterious deaths. In 1998, soon after he had been appointed head of the security services, Galina Starovoitova, a parliamentarian who believed in bringing democracy to Russia, was gunned down in the stairwell of her apartment building in St. Petersburg.

Yevgeny Prigozhin May Have the Last Laugh

Initial reports suggest that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the ruthless mercenary leader of the Wagner Group, has been killed. Although confirmed details are scant, his private plane has allegedly crashed or been shot down, an event that many have interpreted as an assassination. Prigozhin probably knew to stay away from windows in high buildings, so it seems plausible that Vladimir Putin took him out at 28,000 feet instead.Coup plotters rarely die of old age.

A Very Public Execution in Russia

A plane carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary chief who led a short-lived mutiny two months ago, crashed today in a sparsely populated area northwest of Moscow. According to Russian media, Prigozhin and at least one of his top commanders are dead.

“It’s Always About Oil”: CIA & MI6 Staged Coup in Iran 70 Years Ago, Destroying Democracy in Iran

We look at the 70th anniversary of the August 19, 1953, U.S.- and U.K-backed coup in Iran, which took place two years after Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry that had been controlled by the company now known as British Petroleum. “If nationalization in Iran of oil was successful, this would set a terrible example to other countries where U.S.

“They Fired on Us Like Rain”: Saudis Accused of Killing Hundreds of Ethiopian Refugees at Border

We speak to the author of a new Human Rights Watch report that details how border guards in Saudi Arabia have killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers — many of whom are fleeing human rights abuses in Ethiopia’s Tigray region — trying to cross the Yemen-Saudi border since March 2022. The report documents Saudi border guards shooting women and children, firing explosive weapons at migrants and “executing” people at close range.

Debating Trump Is Pointless

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.Donald Trump has decided to skip the Republican presidential debates. That’s just as well: Debating Trump is demeaning to everyone involved, and it serves no purpose.