Today's Liberal News

The Republicans Who Won’t Quit Trump

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.Prominent Republicans criticized Donald Trump for two years.

BMI Won’t Die

If anything defines America’s current obesity-drug boom, it’s this: Many more people want these injections than can actually get them. The roadblocks include exorbitant costs that can stretch beyond $1,000 a month, limited insurance coverage, and constant supply shortages. But before all of those issues come into play, anyone attempting to get a prescription will inevitably confront the same obstacle: their body mass index, or BMI.

The Dual Threat of Donald Trump

Bill Clinton sometimes joked that the White House was “the crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system,” a sentiment shared by a few other presidents. In the 2024 presidential election, the winner will be remanded to the facility. But in a unique set of circumstances, the loser—whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden—might also face incarceration, in a real federal prison.

Remembering Rosalynn Carter, Former First Lady & Pioneering Advocate for Mental Health Journalism

We look at former first lady Rosalynn Carter’s decadeslong advocacy for mental healthcare in the United States. She died November 19 at the age of 96. Carter campaigned for legislation forcing health insurance to cover mental healthcare and fought to remove stigma around the topic through a fellowship program for journalists. “There are hundreds of fellows that were inspired by Mrs.

UAE Oil CEO Sultan Al Jaber Uses His Role as U.N. Climate Summit President to Push Fossil Fuel Deals

As the largest-ever United Nations climate summit kicks off Thursday in Dubai, we look at how the COP28 president, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is also CEO of the United Arab Emirates state oil company, has used climate summit meetings to lobby countries for oil and gas deals. The Centre for Climate Reporting obtained documents from meeting briefings that include Abu Dhabi National Oil Company talking points.

“There Is an Alternative”: Meet the Israeli & Palestinian “Combatants for Peace” Urging Nonviolence

With Israel and Palestine experiencing the worst violence in decades, we speak with two co-founders of Combatants for Peace, a group composed of people from both sides of the conflict who have committed to nonviolence and peaceful coexistence. Avner Wishnitzer is a former member of Sayeret Matkal, one of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite commando units, and Sulaiman Khatib spent more than 10 years in prison after being arrested as a teenager for an attack on Israeli soldiers.

A Breakthrough in Gene Editing

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.I spoke with my colleague Sarah Zhang about a breakthrough in CRISPR therapy, and when it is ethical to use the gene-editing technology.

Why Won’t OpenAI Say What the Q* Algorithm Is?

Last week, it seemed that OpenAI—the secretive firm behind ChatGPT—had been broken open. The company’s board had suddenly fired CEO Sam Altman, hundreds of employees revolted in protest, Altman was reinstated, and the media dissected the story from every possible angle.

Hydrogen Is Just Another Hole for Natural Gas to Fill

In a way, the story of American natural gas is a particularly American story, one of entrepreneurial hustle, booms and busts, and a will to find opportunity where nobody’s looked. Of resourceful self-preservation for the sake of self-preservation alone. Of supply needing demand, and of manufacturing that demand through the means at hand, even if the logic is sometimes tough to follow.

C. J. Rice’s Conviction Is Overturned

Updated at 3:06 p.m. ET on November 28, 2023Last Thursday, C. J. Rice celebrated his 30th birthday at State Correctional Institution–Chester, a Pennsylvania prison just southwest of Philadelphia. Rice has been incarcerated since he was 17, when he was charged with a crime he insists he didn’t commit. But because of a decision yesterday in federal court, he may be free by the time he turns 31. Such an outcome is exceedingly rare in cases like Rice’s.

Remembering Pablo Yoruba Guzmán, Young Lords Co-Founder, Afro-Latino Leader, Legendary NYC Journalist

We remember the legendary activist and journalist Pablo Yoruba Guzmán, who died from a heart attack Sunday at age 73. Guzmán was the former minister of information of the Young Lords Party, the revolutionary social justice group led by Puerto Ricans in the 1960s and ’70s. He later became a beloved print and television reporter, known for his street reporting.

Jeremy Scahill: Israel’s “Lethal Lie” About Al-Shifa Hospital as Hamas Base Was Co-Signed by Biden

The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill deconstructs Israel’s narrative around Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, including unsubstantiated allegations Hamas uses tunnels under the hospital as its command center — tunnels that Israel itself built. “We were told that this was like a Hamas Pentagon,” says Scahill, who describes how the Israeli military’s own evidence disproves its allegations that the hospital was dangerous enough to justify its siege and bombardment.

“Atmosphere of Hate”: AFSC Leader & Palestinian Vermonter on Shooting of 3 College Students

We get an update on the three university students of Palestinian descent who were shot Saturday in Burlington, Vermont. Two were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic at the time of the attack. Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ahmad are now recovering, though Hisham Awartani, who was shot in the spine, has reportedly lost feeling in the lower part of his body. The FBI is reportedly investigating whether the shooting was a hate crime.