Today's Liberal News

The U.S. is broken. Civics education might just save it

America has been Facebookified. You need look no further than the rash of people poisoning themselves using livestock dewormer to see the reach of the self-identified experts spouting conspiracy theories and quackery—not just on Facebook, but through all the channels and social media available. Distrust in the establishment has become so entrenched that they’ll turn to someone their aunt’s choir director’s cousin talked to for medical advice.

When the Climate Crisis Becomes Unignorable

Every week, our lead climate reporter brings you the big ideas, expert analysis, and vital guidance that will help you flourish on a changing planet. Sign up to get The Weekly Planet, our guide to living through climate change, in your inbox.In retrospect, last week was an interlude.

Michael K. Williams on Being Typecast

Michael K. Williams was known most famously for his portrayal of Omar Little on HBO’s The Wire. Other roles included Chalky White on Boardwalk Empire—also within the HBO family—as well as Professor Marshall Kane on NBC’s Community.In 2018, The Atlantic’s marketing team and HBO joined forces for a series called Question Your Answers, a collection of short films meant to challenge our certainties.

The Plan to Stop Every Respiratory Virus at Once

Updated at 3:00 p.m. ET on September 7, 2021When London vanquished cholera in the 19th century, it took not a vaccine, or a drug, but a sewage system. The city’s drinking water was intermingling with human waste, spreading bacteria in one deadly outbreak after another. A new comprehensive network of sewers separated the two. London never experienced a major cholera outbreak after 1866.

You Can Never Forget Michael K. Williams

First comes a whistled tune—“The Farmer in the Dell,” delivered with extra menace. Then the sight of him—Omar Little, played by Michael K. Williams, stalking the streets of Baltimore in a billowing duster concealing a shotgun. Omar was the most indelible character on The Wire, one of TV’s greatest dramas, and the show was most viewers’ introduction to Williams, a captivating screen presence who was found dead yesterday in Brooklyn at the age of 54.

The Writer Who Saw All of This Coming

Three years after the release of her novel Fates and Furies—a literary bisection of marriage and privilege that was praised variously by President Barack Obama and Amazon (yes, Amazon) as the best book of 2015—Lauren Groff was sitting in a lecture theater at Harvard University, thinking about medieval nuns. She wasn’t in the market for a new book. She usually has a dozen or so different concepts in different stages of fruition orbiting within the solar system of her mind.

“Some Kids Left Behind”: After 9/11, No Safety Measures at Stuyvesant H.S. Led to Sickness & Death

As we look at the public health crisis that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City, we speak with Lila Nordstrom, a student in 2001 at Stuyvesant High School, which neighbors ground zero and was reopened while the site was still burning and releasing toxic smoke and dust. “Our school wasn’t just next to the World Trade Center site, but we were also in the center of the clean-up operations,” says Nordstrom.

Joe Zadroga: My 9/11 Responder Son Died from Exposure to Ground Zero as Officials Denied Connection

As we look at “9/11’s Unsettled Dust” and the massive environmental and public health crisis that followed the 9/11 attacks in New York City 20 years ago this week, we speak with Joe Zadroga, father of New York police officer James Zadroga, who died of a respiratory illness after assisting in rescue efforts at ground zero. He says government officials spent years denying his son’s symptoms were related to ground zero rescue efforts.

“9/11’s Unsettled Dust”: Bush’s EPA Hid Health Risks from Toxic Dust at Ground Zero & Thousands Died

As this week marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we look at an enraging new documentary, “9/11’s Unsettled Dust,” on the impact of the toxic, cancer-causing smoke and dust that hung over ground zero and how the Environmental Protection Agency put Wall Street’s interests before public health and told people the air was safe to breathe.