Today's Liberal News

Ukraine update: The tank isn’t dead, but the helicopter…

On Halloween, Russia lost three helicopters. Minimum. That included an Mi-8 transport helicopter shot down near Berestove, close to the Bakhmut front lines and a pair of Ka-52 attack helicopters that came too near Ukrainian positions in Kherson oblast. In addition, a widely-circulated video reportedly shows a Russian dissident sabotaging Russian helicopters at Veretye Air Base inside Russia on October 30. At that air base, three helicopters were reportedly lost on Monday.

‘No great risk of dying from pregnancy,’ says Ohio Republican who’s never heard of maternal death

People really need to stick to speaking about their expertise, and in some cases, not speak at all. Republicans across the country are speaking loudly and wrongly about reproductive health and, in at least one case, even body-shaming everyone who opposes the right wing’s ideas about bodily autonomy while doing so.

Ohio state Rep. Bill Dean doubled down on recent comments, calling rising U.S.

The Dark Heart of the Republican Party

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.January 6 was not an outlier. Laughing over a hammer attack on an old man, the GOP has completed its transition from a political party to a brutal mob.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

A Rapper Who Spoke Quietly and Had a Big Impact

One of the ironies of recent music history is that Migos, the band of Atlanta rappers who reshaped hip-hop in the mid-2010s, is known for something called the “triplet flow.” The term is musicological, describing the convulsive vocal cadence that took over pop thanks to them. But the term is also apt given that Migos were a trio related by blood.

Yasmin Tayag Joins The Atlantic as a Staff Writer, with Damon Beres Recently Hired as Senior Editor Focused on Technology

Yasmin Tayag will join The Atlantic’s editorial team this month, when she will become a staff writer. Over the past year, in her work as a freelancer, Yasmin has contributed extensively to The Atlantic, including a number of pandemic-related pieces where she reported on the effects of Americans’ low booster numbers, how we can’t quit hygiene theater, and whether we should be masking again.

Justice Jackson’s Crucial Argument About Affirmative Action

Yesterday, an hour and a half into the marathon hearings about whether colleges can use race as a factor in admissions decisions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson began to rub her temples as she looked down at her notes.“We’re entertaining a rule where some people can say what they want about who they are and have that valued in a system,” she said. “And I’m worried that that creates an inequity in the system with respect to being able to express our identity.

We’re Giving Up on the (Frog) Pandemic

It was December of 1996 when Karen Lips turned up the first bodies—and finally felt an ember of hope. As a graduate student working in the muggy forests of Central America, she’d noticed that an as-yet-unnamed culprit had been stripping the area of its frogs. Regions that had once rung with a chorus of croaks were silent and still, but no one had found the carcasses that could speak to a cause.

Who Killed Malcolm X? New York to Pay $36 Million for Two Men Wrongfully Jailed For 1965 Murder

The city and state of New York have agreed to pay $36 million to settle lawsuits on behalf of two men wrongly convicted and imprisoned for decades for the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X. Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam were exonerated last year for the murder after investigators found “serious miscarriages of justice” in the case. They each spent more than 20 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, and Islam died in 2009 before his record was cleared.

Supreme Court Poised to Strike Down Affirmative Action in Cases Brought By Conservative Activist

The majority-conservative Supreme Court appears poised to strike down race-conscious college admissions decisions, after hearing arguments Monday against Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The plaintiffs argued the admissions process discriminates against white and Asian American applicants by giving priority consideration to Black, Hispanic and Native American applicants.

Ukraine update: Putin threatens as grain deal falls apart, but ends up impotent as usual

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UPDATE: Tuesday, Nov 1, 2022 · 1:05:33 AM +00:00

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kos

Russia has serious problems keeping their artillery operational. 

Novolyubivka, Luhansk Oblast, footage of the Ukrainian HIMARS strike that destroyed a modern 5-gun Russian MSTA SM2 battery. https://t.co/4IcRG0royX pic.twitter.com/6wcnjFO96C— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) November 1, 2022

Daaaamn….

In stinging rebuke of hypocrisy, woman reveals her sexual assault happened at church, not drag show

The Republican attack on books written by LGBTQ authors may have met its match in an ally who spoke out at a Tennessee library board meeting last Wednesday. Up against claims that books exploring gender were “age-inappropriate” and attacks from community members who used the controversy to spread homophobic hate, Jessee Graham, a resident of Columbia, showed the Maury County Library Board she would not sit idly and let her community be torn apart.

‘My nephew’s death has left us devastated’: Migrant deaths along southern border hit horrific high

El Paso Times this past summer reported a rising number of migrant deaths in the region, many losing their lives due to heat exposure and drowning in dangerous canals. That report said that at least 37 migrants had died in the region since October 2021, approaching the death toll of 39 during the previous fiscal year. Advocates in that report warned of “a major human rights crisis at the border.”

They have been horrifically, tragically correct.

As pre-midterm dread creeps in, let me be yet another voice for optimism

My biennial election season freakout has begun! If scientists could find a way to harness my nervous energy in the days leading up to elections, they’d be able to power a small town for a year—or Rudy Giuliani’s liver for about 20 minutes. (Allegedly!)

But this year, along with my usual hefty slice of wry dread, I’m offering up something a little different: a message of hope.

Instead of obsessively refreshing 538.