Today's Liberal News

An FTX Executive Who Broke With the Others

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.Sam Bankman-Fried won people over through his reputation as a civically minded progressive. Last week, an FTX executive who cut a different figure—that of a “budding Republican mega-donor”—pleaded guilty to two charges ahead of his former boss’s trial.

A Single Website Has a Choke Hold on Surfing

Matt Warshaw still remembers the jolt of horror he felt when the camera went up. It was September 2000, a decade since he quit his job as the editor of Surfing magazine and fled the crowded breaks of Southern California for the cold, isolated waves of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. When he saw the cam on the flagpole at a beachfront house his friend was renting, he was livid, certain that the website it broadcast to, Surfline, would bring crowds to his favorite spot.

Car Hackers Are Out for Blood

When a group of German hackers breached a Tesla, they weren’t out to remotely seize control of the car. They weren’t trying to access the owner’s WiFi passwords, nor did they want a way to steal credit-card numbers from a local electric-vehicle charging network.Their target was its heated seats.The Tesla in question was equipped with heated rear seats, but the feature is hidden behind a paywall and activated only after the driver forks over $300. To get around that, three Ph.D.

What Russia Got by Scaring Elon Musk

One evening in September 2022, a group of Ukrainian sea drones sped out into the Black Sea, heading for Russian-occupied Crimea. Their designers—engineers who had been doing other things until the current war began—had carefully targeted the fast, remote-controlled, explosive-packed vessels to hit ships anchored in Sebastopol, the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

“The Other 9/11”: Ariel Dorfman on 50th Anniversary of U.S.-Backed Coup in Chile That Ousted Allende

We look at the 50th anniversary of what is sometimes called the “other 9/11” — the U.S.-backed coup in Chile, when General Augusto Pinochet ousted President Salvador Allende and inaugurated almost two decades of brutal military rule. Allende died in the presidential palace on September 11, 1973, marking the end of Chile’s first socialist government.

Morocco: Earthquake Death Toll at 2,500; Criticism Grows over King’s Response to Humanitarian Crisis

We get an update from Morocco, which has declared three days of mourning after the strongest earthquake to hit the region in at least a century. About 2,500 people died in the 6.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country on Friday, with another 2,500 injured and the death toll expected to rise. The epicenter was in the High Atlas Mountains located about 44 miles from Marrakech, where many villages remain largely inaccessible and lack both electricity and running water.

Mexico Decriminalizes Abortion in Major Step Forward for Reproductive Rights in Latin America

In a unanimous decision, Mexico’s Supreme Court issued a historic ruling Wednesday decriminalizing abortion on the federal level. While laws banning the procedure are still in place in a majority of Mexican states, people in those states can now receive abortions at federal medical facilities run the country’s public health system, and states will be barred from penalizing those patients and providers.

Spain: Soccer Head Faces Sexual Assault Charge for World Cup Forced Kiss; Women Players Strike over Pay

Spain’s national prosecutor has announced a criminal investigation into Luis Rubiales, the head of Spain’s soccer federation, after he forcibly kissed Spanish soccer star Jenni Hermoso during the recent World Cup trophy ceremony. Hermoso filed a sexual assault complaint against Rubiales, who has been temporarily suspended by soccer’s international governing body FIFA but has refused to step down voluntarily. No permanent sanctions have been announced.

Democratic Republic of Congo Faces “Worst Hunger Catastrophe” as Mineral Extraction Enriches the Few

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is seeing a dramatic deterioration of infrastructure and displacement of citizens as a result of armed violence, flooding and the world’s largest hunger crisis. In recent months, rampant violence of armed groups has forced more than half a million people to flee their homes, while the United Nations says some 3,000 families also lost their homes after recent intense flooding and mudslides in the eastern part of the country.

Earthquakes Are a Special Kind of Nightmare

On Friday, around 11:11 p.m. local time, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake exploded through the High Atlas mountains in Morocco, not far from the populous city of Marrakesh. People as far away as Spain and Portugal felt a strange vibration ripple beneath their feet. But millions in Morocco felt the planet shake and splinter, jolt and disintegrate, before thousands of the most unfortunate were greeted by tectonic rage. At least 2,100 people are dead, and that number is expected to rise.

Where End-of-Life Care Falls Short

This article originally appeared in Undark Magazine.When Kevin E. Taylor became a pastor 22 years ago, he didn’t expect how often he’d have to help families make gut-wrenching decisions for a loved one who was very ill or about to die.

The Joy and the Shame of Loving Football

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.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is the staff writer and author Mark Leibovich.