Today's Liberal News

Israel Raids Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp; Director Speaks Out After Being Jailed & Beaten

The Israeli military this week raided the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, a renowned cultural institution whose mission is to fight for Palestinian justice, equality and self-determination. It’s part of a wave of violence Israel has unleashed across the occupied West Bank since October 7, killing 58 people in Jenin alone even as the country intensifies its assault on Gaza. We speak with Freedom Theater artistic director Ahmed Tobasi, who was just released after being held for 24 hours.

“Politics of Memory”: Masha Gessen’s Hannah Arendt Prize Postponed for Comparing Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto

We speak with the acclaimed Russian American writer Masha Gessen, whose latest article for The New Yorker looks at the politics of Holocaust commemoration in Europe. Gessen was scheduled to receive the prestigious Hannah Arendt Prize in Germany on December 15, but the ceremony was postponed after some award sponsors withdrew support over Gessen’s comparison in the article of Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. A smaller award ceremony is set for Saturday.

Feelings and Vibes Can’t Sustain a Democracy

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.Many Americans—of both parties—have become untethered from reality. When the voters become incoherent, electing leaders becomes a reality show instead of a solemn civic obligation.

Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore

You are currently logged on to the largest version of the internet that has ever existed. By clicking and scrolling, you’re one of the 5 billion–plus people contributing to an unfathomable array of networked information—quintillions of bytes produced each day.The sprawl has become disorienting. Some of my peers in the media have written about how the internet has started to feel “placeless”  and more ephemeral, even like it is “evaporating.

A Memorial at the Barn

From the graveled bend on Drew Ruleville Road, the barn is barely visible. A knot of trees obscures its weathered cypress panels; a driver could easily miss the structure from across the bayou. There is no indication that this is the place where Emmett Till was beaten and tortured.That is about to change. In the September 2021 issue of The Atlantic, Wright Thompson reflected on the barn’s history and what its erasure says about how Mississippi remembers the lynching of Emmett Till.

“Tragically Historic”: The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani on the Failure of Yet Another U.N. Climate Summit

After some 200 countries at COP28 agreed to phase down fossil fuels, nations are facing pressure to block new oil and gas projects. A growing number of Democrats are calling on President Biden to stop massive new fossil fuel developments, and climate groups in the U.K. filed a lawsuit to block a massive new oilfield in the North Sea, saying it violates obligations to target net-zero carbon emissions.

​​Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara on IDF Killing AJ Journalist, the 3 Hostages & U.S. Support for Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing growing calls for another ceasefire in Gaza after Israeli troops mistakenly shot dead three Israeli hostages who were shirtless and waving a white flag. This comes as Israel continues to target hospitals, refugee camps and journalists in Gaza. On Friday, Samer Abudaqa, a reporter from Al Jazeera, bled to death after being injured in an Israeli drone strike on a U.N. school.

The Invisible Forces Behind the Books We Read

The ownership of the American publishing house Simon & Schuster has been much in the news over the past couple of years. First Penguin Random House tried to swallow it up, then a fascinating antitrust trial put a bunch of agents and writers on the witness stand. A judge eventually quashed that merger as potentially monopolistic, and more recently, a private-equity fund, KKR, swooped in to buy the company.