Today's Liberal News

The Lie at the Heart of the Western

Anne Rearick / Agence vu / ReduxA gentleman comes from the East Coast to make his fortune. When the train lets him off in a dusty Wyoming town, he encounters an array of cowpunchers, card sharps, and ne’er-do-wells, whose coarse manners shock and intrigue him. At the saloon, he’s treated to their opinions on the local women, as well as one man’s boast that he never forgets a face—so long as that face is white.

Against the Parts of Me That Think They Know Anything

They want to put out the light of God with their mouths—want, like the sovereignty of the dead, extending just short of flesh. Theirtoday is broken, they suggest tomorrow, who right now is dancing in the sun withputty over his eyes. Like an ocean coughing up trash, I’m squeezing Godout from my pores, intention throbbing like a moon. Which ofthe jokes I told was best—the difference between man and light?Light won’t ask for your tongue. Good joke, the taste of lemon.

America Didn’t Need Sports After All

The night that sports began shutting down was the night that the United States began shutting down. On March 11, 2020, an announcer at the Oklahoma City Thunder’s home arena told fans just before tip-off that the evening’s game had been postponed. Within an hour, the visiting Utah Jazz revealed that a player—soon identified as the center Rudy Gobert—had tested positive for COVID-19, and the NBA also declared that it was indefinitely suspending the season.

The Surprising Key to Combatting Vaccine Refusal

Why wouldn’t someone want a COVID-19 vaccine?Staring at the raw numbers, it doesn’t seem like a hard choice. Thousands of people are dying of COVID-19 every day. Meanwhile, out of the 75,000 people who received a shot in the vaccine trials from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax, zero died and none were hospitalized after four weeks.

A Playlist for Your Next Walk

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.When asked to curate an hour of new music for Atlantic readers to listen to while walking, my mind immediately went to Sophie Xeon, the brilliant electronica producer who died at age 34 in January.

The Assassination of Malcolm X: Ex-Undercover Officer Admits Role in FBI & Police Conspiracy

The FBI and New York Police Department are facing renewed calls to open their records into the assassination of Malcolm X, after the release of a deathbed confession of a former undercover NYPD officer who admitted to being part of a conspiracy targeting Malcolm. In the confession, Raymond Wood, who died last year, admitted he entrapped two members of Malcolm’s security team in another crime — a plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty — just days before the assassination.

“The Whole System Needs to be Indicted”: Attorney Benjamin Crump on Overhauling U.S. Policing

The Democratic-led House of Representatives is expected to vote next week on a sweeping police reform bill that would ban chokeholds, prohibit federal no-knock warrants, establish a National Police Misconduct Registry and other measures. The legislation, known as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021, is in response to a series of high-profile killings of Black people in 2020 and the nationwide racial justice uprising they sparked.