Today's Liberal News

How Contradictions Power Barbie

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.After a turbo-charged, months-long marketing campaign, Barbie was finally released in theaters this week. In between dance routines and jokes, the movie invites us to ask questions about feminism and the lines between commerce and art.

America’s Corporate Tragedy

I was a child soldier in the California grape strikes, my labors conducted outside the Shattuck Avenue co-op in Berkeley. There I was, maybe 7 or 8 years old, shaking a Folgers coffee can full of coins at the United Farm Workers’ table where my mother was garrisoned two to three afternoons a week. I did most of my work alongside her, but several times an hour I would do what child soldiers have always done: served in a capacity that only a very small person could.

The Book Behind Oppenheimer

This is an edition of the revamped Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.I’ve always been curious about what it feels like for an author to see their work translated into another medium. The question seems particularly interesting with a film like Oppenheimer, the biopic directed by Christopher Nolan that opened in theaters this week. It tells the life story of J.

The Surprising Key to Understanding the Barbie Film

This article contains spoilers for the film Barbie.The Greta Gerwig–directed Barbie is like a Barbie superfan’s imagination run wild. There are elaborately choreographed dance numbers for the dolls. The dialogue pokes easygoing, knowing fun at Mattel’s products.

“The Wind Knows My Name”: Novelist Isabel Allende on Child Separation from the Nazis to U.S. Border

In an in-depth interview about her work, we speak with Isabel Allende, one of the world’s most celebrated novelists, author of 26 books that have sold more than 77 million copies and have been translated into 42 languages. Her books include The House of the Spirits, Paula and Daughter of Fortune, and her latest novel is The Wind Knows My Name, which looks at the trauma of child-family separation, from Nazi Germany to the U.S.

“Immensely Invisible”: Immigrant Women in ICE Jails Face Sexual Abuse Despite Reforms, Report Reveals

A damning new investigation by journalists Maria Hinojosa and Zeba Warsi examines how immigration officials have failed to properly address complaints of sexual abuse from people held in detention centers. The report from Futuro Investigates and Latino USA details how women in jails run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have been sexually abused, often in a medical setting when they are at their most vulnerable.

The grift goes on: Supporters of indicted Chinese billionaire donate thousands to Santos’ campaign

Why would anyone donate to Rep. George Santos’ reelection campaign? Santos was indicted in May by the federal government on 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, stealing public funds, and lying on federal disclosure forms. He has pleaded not guilty.

This week, House Democrats put Republicans on the spot by introducing a resolution to censure Santos for his many lies about his background.

The Whitewashing of Neo-Nazis: Lev Golinkin & Ben Makuch on How Far Right Is Exploiting Ukraine War

Multiple reports are reinvestigating the neo-Nazi fighters and militias involved in the war both in Russia and Ukraine. “You have neo-Nazis on both sides of this conflict,” says Ukrainian American journalist Lev Golinkin, a longtime reporter on the far right in Ukraine and Russia who is critical of the Western media’s normalization of groups like the Azov Battalion.

William Arkin: CIA Is Playing “Outsize Role” in Ukraine Despite Biden Pledge Not to Send U.S. Forces

A new investigation reveals the extent of the CIA’s involvement in the war in Ukraine, where the agency operates clandestinely in what, under a formal declaration of war, would be the domain of the military. We’re joined on the show by the author of the investigation, William Arkin, a national security reporter and senior editor at Newsweek, who says that the CIA has “got its hand in a little bit of everything” in Ukraine.

Could Facebook messages be used in abortion-related prosecution?

Shefali Luthra
Health Reporter, The 19th

Your trusted source for contextualizing abortion news. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

A Nebraska case involving a mother who illegally gave her daughter an abortion pill has put renewed attention on the role digital information and communication could play in prosecutions around abortion.

The Wild-Card Candidates

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.A Trump-Biden rematch is inevitable in 2024, even though polling has shown that most Americans wish it weren’t (and even though the former president is possibly facing a third indictment).

Ukraine Update: Putin quits grain deal, putting Russia’s own shipping in danger

Russia has ended the grain corridor deal, which allowed Ukraine to export agricultural products through the Black Sea. China was the largest recipient of those products, receiving almost one-quarter of them. A significant percentage went through United Nations food programs to Africa, making them a key weapon in the fight against hunger. Being a purveyor of cruelty and misery, Russia doesn’t care.