Today's Liberal News

Red Bathrobe

You’re standing in the doorway in my red bathrobe,
one arm stretched out into the sun, a cigarette burning at the tip.
You’re leaning on the jamb, talking
about ghosts or contrails, the loneliness of Tony Soprano,
the compound eye of the housefly.
And so, Beloved, I can’t tell you it’s useless—
despite your intentions, the smoke billows in.
I ruined it between us.
Oh, you helped—I admit that.
But the dernier cri is: I hurt you and you left.
Such an old story.

Six Books That Music Lovers Should Read

Music, of all art forms, is uniquely tied up with memory. It’s stitched into the fabric of daily life: Think about the mixtape you made for your first crush, the pop star whose posters were plastered in your teenage bedroom, the album that got you through your divorce, the jam band whose tour you followed across the country. All provide tantalizing insights into your past—and present—selves.It’s no wonder, then, that the best music writing gets personal.

What Many Progressives Misunderstand About Fighting Climate Change

Since the 1960s, fighting for the environment has frequently meant fighting against corporations. To curb pollution, activists have worked to thwart new oil drilling, coal-fired power plants, fracking for natural gas, and fuel pipelines. But today, Americans face a climate challenge that can’t be solved by just saying no again and again.Decarbonizing the economy will require an unprecedented amount of new energy investment.

Three Conversations With Donald Trump

“Can you believe these are my customers?” Donald Trump once asked while surveying the crowd in the Taj Mahal casino’s poker room. “Look at those losers,” he said to his consultant Tom O’Neil, of people spending money on the floor of the Trump Plaza casino. Visiting the Iowa State Fair as a presidential candidate in 2015, he was astounded that locals fell in line to support him because of a few free rides in his branded helicopter.

Is AI Art a ‘Toy’ or a ‘Weapon’?

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our coverage of The Atlantic Festival. Learn more and watch festival sessions here.
Earlier this year, the technology company OpenAI released a program called DALL-E 2, which uses artificial intelligence to transform text into visual art. People enter prompts (“plasticine nerd working on a 1980s computer”) and the software returns images that showcase humanlike vision and execution, veer into the bizarre, and might even tease creativity.

“Model America”: Family of Phillip Pannell, Killed by White NJ Cop in ’90, Still Struggles for Justice

A new series examines how protests that erupted over a police killing three decades ago offer important lessons for the Black Lives Matter movement today. We speak to the family of Phillip Pannell, a 16-year-old Black boy who was fatally shot in the back in 1990 by a white police officer later acquitted for the killing. Pannell is the subject of “Model America,” a new four-part series by MSNBC that looks at the racial divide in the U.S.

Ukraine update: Welcome to the Army of Russia!

On Saturday morning, the news from the front is … pretty much what it was yesterday. At Bakhmut, Russia has launched a series of new attacks from the south, all of which have apparently been repelled. Same as always. At Lyman, there are reports that Russian forces have withdrawn and that Ukraine is preparing a final push into the city. Same as pretty much every day this week. 

As always, right click on the map and open in another tab to see a larger image.

What happens to the children who are wards of the state?

This article was originally published at Prism

The daily emailed list of children wrongfully detained in the county’s juvenile detention center is a constant source of concern for Andrea Lubelfeld, who took over as chief of the Cook County Juvenile Justice Division last August.

Afghanistan vet says Afghan allies who risked lives are ‘deserving to resettle in the U.S.’

U.S Marine veteran Joseph Dietzel writes in Military Times that he had no idea his interpreter Mustafa Aahangaran would become one of his closest friends after being deployed to Afghanistan back in 2010. Dietzel writes that before his deployment, he’d never even met anyone from Afghanistan before.

He said the two soon became “practically inseparable,” sharing meals and stories throughout a dangerous mission.

The Bonfire of the Headscarves

No one can predict how a revolution starts. Nor can anyone know when one injustice will be what causes a people’s fury to overcome their fear. In 2011, in Tunisia, a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, sparked an uprising by setting himself on fire. In 2022, in Iran, the death in police custody of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, has brought Iranians onto the streets in every corner of the country.