Today's Liberal News

‘Lamb walking into a slaughterhouse’: Three Florida educators die of COVID-19 complications

Within 24 hours, two teachers, a teaching assistant, and a graduate of Broward County Public Schools in Florida have died after testing positive for COVID-19, the local teacher’s union president told CNN. The three educators were unvaccinated. The recent deaths, like the some 1,000 reported last week throughout the state, have done little to motivate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to reverse his stance after banning schools from implementing mask requirements.

Biden’s Betrayal of Afghans Will Live in Infamy

There’s plenty of blame to go around for the 20-year debacle in Afghanistan—enough to fill a library of books. Perhaps the effort to rebuild the country was doomed from the start. But our abandonment of the Afghans who helped us, counted on us, staked their lives on us, is a final, gratuitous shame that we could have avoided.

The Deep Strangeness of the Catholic Church’s Latest Scandal

Once, it was said that the eyes were the windows to the soul. Now the cellphone is. Consider Jeffrey Burrill, a man who regularly logged in to the gay dating app Grindr and whose cellphone emitted signals marking his visits to gay bars and a Las Vegas gay bathhouse. Hardly a story there, you might say.Except Jeffrey Burrill was Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, the secretary-general of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Postcards From the Living

I light incense on the stovetop, trail cinders
through an empty house. I’ve decided to believein the power of ashes: Here I am,
buying fruit, mending torn shirts, brushing teethin cramped bathrooms, living
someplace new. Wish you were here.I sprinkle sandalwood dust on the ribbon
from my first 5K, the token from my first solo trip—milestones so small and unremarkable,
only you could understand and be proud.

The Messiest Phase of the Pandemic Yet

The numbers are remarkable. More than 100 million people in the United States have likely been infected by SARS-CoV-2 and 167 million people are fully vaccinated. Yet despite this huge population of people with at least some level of immunity, the Delta variant has sent case and hospitalization numbers soaring. Florida is on its way to having twice as many people hospitalized now than during any previous wave, when essentially no one was vaccinated.

The Atlantic Daily: This Is Heat Season, Not Summer

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This week, a damning climate-change report from the United Nations warned of Earth’s catastrophic warming.

Will the U.S. Pass a Point of No Return?

This is the latest installment in a series that began back in 2019, with an article I did for the print magazine on Americans’ long-standing obsession with the decline-and-fall narrative of Rome.Many people wrote in to agree, disagree, or otherwise react. The online discussion begins here. But the most sustained line of response has been from my friend Eric Schnurer, a writer and long-time advisor to state and local governments.