Today's Liberal News

Mike Pence’s 11th Commandment

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.Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment was: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” This weekend, Mike Pence—like most of the GOP field—struggled mightily to criticize Donald Trump while barely mentioning Trump’s name.

The AI Crackdown Is Coming

In April, lawyers for the airline Avianca noticed something strange. A passenger, Robert Mata, had sued the airline, alleging that a serving cart on a flight had struck and severely injured his left knee, but several cases cited in Mata’s lawsuit didn’t appear to exist. The judge couldn’t verify them, either. It turned out that ChatGPT had made them all up, fabricating names and decisions. One of Mata’s lawyers, Steven A.

Trump Is Acting Like He’s Cornered

In some ways, Donald Trump’s mental state is more transparent than nearly any public figure’s: He has no shame, little discretion, and ample channels to broadcast his feelings in real time. Yet his constant stream of consciousness and always elevated dudgeon make it hard to parse the finer fluctuations in his mood.Even so, the former president’s public behavior since Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted him last week suggests a man feeling cornered.

Working Class Does Not Equal White

That the words working class are synonymous in the minds of many Americans with white working class is the result of a political myth. As the award-winning historian Blair LM Kelley explains in her new book, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class, Black people are more likely to be working-class than white people are.Kelley’s Black Folk opens our minds up to Black workers, narrating their complex lives over 200 years of American history.

Seven Books That Will Make You Put Down Your Phone

When I teach a literature class to undergraduates, one of my most important tasks is to help my students relearn how to read in the age of distraction. I assign them an exercise: Set a timer for 20 minutes and dive into a book, no phone in sight, and don’t stop before the alarm goes off. They frequently tell me that time moves differently when they do this.

Pregnant Woman’s False Arrest in Detroit Shows “Racism Gets Embedded” in Facial Recognition Technology

A shocking story of wrongful arrest in Detroit has renewed scrutiny of how facial recognition software is being deployed by police departments, despite major flaws in the technology. Porcha Woodruff was arrested in February when police showed up at her house accusing her of robbery and carjacking. Woodruff, who was eight months pregnant at the time, insisted she had nothing to do with the crime, but police detained her for 11 hours, during which time she had contractions.

Trump & the KKK Act: Carol Anderson on Reconstruction-Era Voting Rights Law Cited in Trump Indictment

On Thursday, former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to trying to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss. Trump appeared before a magistrate judge in Washington’s federal courthouse two days after he was indicted. A key part of the election interference charges Trump faces relates to a Civil War-era rights law that protects the right of citizens to have their vote counted.

FBI & Colorado Springs Police Sued for Targeting & Spying on Racial Justice Protesters

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has sued the FBI, the Colorado Springs Police Department and local officers for illegally spying on local activist Jacqueline “Jax” Armendariz Unzueta and the Chinook Center, a community organizing hub in Colorado Springs. “This was one of the worst moments of my life,” says Unzueta, who describes the investigation by law enforcement as “incredibly invasive.

Center for Countering Digital Hate Vows to Keep Monitoring Hate Speech on X Despite Elon Musk Lawsuit

After the Center for Countering Digital Hate reported that hate speech has soared on the website formerly known as Twitter, now rebranded as “X,” Elon Musk responded by filing a lawsuit against the center over the research, calling the group “evil” and its CEO Imran Ahmed a “rat.” X accuses the watchdog group of unlawfully accessing data to “falsely claim it had statistical support showing the platform is overwhelmed with harmful content.