showing an article based on date it was published

July 3, 2023

<?php
  // Fetching all the Navbar Data
  require('./includes/nav.inc.php');

  $current_date = date("Y-m-d");
  error_reporting(0);
?>

<!-- Article List Container -->
<section class="py-1 category-list">
  <div class="container">
    <h2 class="headings">Artikel
      <?php
      echo "<h2> $current_date </h2>"
      ?>
    </h2>
    <div class="card-container">
      <?php

        // Article Query to fetch maximum 5 random articles
        $articleQuery = " SELECT category.category_name, category.category_color, article.*
                          FROM category, article
                          WHERE article.category_id = category.category_id
                          AND article.article_date <= {$current_date}
                          AND article.article_active = 1
                          ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 5";
        // Running Article Query 
        $result = mysqli_query($con,$articleQuery);

        // Row stores the no of rows in the return data from Query
        $row = mysqli_num_rows($result);
        

        // If query has any result (records) => If any articles are present
        if($row > 0) {
          
          // Fetching the data of particular record as an Associative Array
          while($data = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
            
            // Storing the article data in variables
            $category_color = $data['category_color'];
            $category_name = $data['category_name'];
            $category_id = $data['category_id'];
            $article_id = $data['article_id'];
            $article_title = $data['article_title'];
            $article_image = $data['article_image'];
            $article_desc = $data['article_description'];
            $article_date = $data['article_date'];

i want my news portal to only appear for a given date and not show up before that date. like a scheduled article. so he can display past or current news. in this screenshot, that article was supposed to be published on august 3rd 2023.

is there a mistake with my sql query? any suggestion?