Today's Liberal News

Photos of Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall Volcano

After several weeks of earthquakes, an eruption began about 25 miles from Reykjavik, Iceland, as Fagradalsfjall volcano began spewing lava into a small valley on March 19. Collected below, some early images from the event.

Ode to Tortillas

there’s two ways to be a Mexican writer
that we’ve discovered so far.you can be the Mexican writer who writes about tortillas
or you can be the Mexican writer who writes about croissants
instead of the tortillas on their plate.(can you be a Mexican writer if you’re allergic to corn?)there’s two ways to be a Mexican writer that are true
& tested. you can write about migration
or you can write about migration.

Why McConnell Gets Away With Filibustering

The filibuster is in trouble. President Joe Biden has come out in favor of reforming it, and Democrats in the Senate are weighing alternatives. But the strongest sign that its days are numbered is that the Republican leader Mitch McConnell is threatening Armageddon if the other party touches it. No one presently—or perhaps ever—in the Senate has practiced the dark art of obstruction as relentlessly as the current minority leader.

The New QAnon Docuseries Is a Gamified Mess

Early in the first episode of Q: Into the Storm, the filmmaker Cullen Hoback makes a confession. “QAnon creeps into your thoughts,” he says, describing how years of investigating the false conspiracy theory that a cabal of powerful elites is engaging in ritualistic child abuse has warped his thinking. “It changes the lens with which you see the world.” Hoback can’t see the number 17 without thinking of its corresponding letter in the alphabet, Q.

The U.S. and China Finally Get Real With Each Other

Thursday night’s very public dustup between United States and Chinese officials in Anchorage, Alaska, during the Biden administration’s first official meeting with China, may have seemed like a debacle, but the exchange was actually a necessary step to a more stable relationship between the two countries.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League Indulges the Fans and No One Else

The film’s official title is Zack Snyder’s Justice League. So when Zack Snyder popped up on the video screen during an HBO Max–hosted virtual watch party last night, the fans went wild—as wild as they could in a chat box, anyway. “This movie is a masterpiece,” a commenter wrote before the film started playing. “Zack I respect you so much,” another gushed.

A Witness to the State’s Power to Kill

In the summer of 2020, the Trump administration followed through on a promise it had made a year earlier. It would, after a 17-year hiatus, resume federal executions. That original announcement detailed plans to execute five people on death row; by the end of the Trump presidency, the number had ballooned to 13—more executions than in the previous 67 years combined.

Our Asian Spring

My mother’s name is Tin Swe Thant. She was born just outside the former capital of Burma (now known as Myanmar), in a humid city on the delta of the Irrawaddy River called Rangoon (now known as Yangon). Names are always changing for the Burmese, and that includes our own names: My mother grew up during the sunset of British colonialism and attended English schools, where she was not allowed to be called Tin Swe Thant, but was instead required to have a Western “school name.

“The Sum of Us”: Heather McGhee on How Racism Undercuts the American Dream for Everyone

Amid a national reckoning with structural racism and the dangers of white supremacy, author Heather McGhee’s new book details how racism in the United States hurts not just people of color but also white people. In “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” McGhee details how zero-sum thinking has worsened inequality and robbed people of all stripes of the public goods and support they need to thrive.