Today's Liberal News

The Existential Wonder of Space

Illustrations by Daniele CastellanoOf all the moons in the solar system, Saturn’s largest satellite might be the most extraordinary. Titan is enveloped in a thick, hazy atmosphere, and liquid methane rains gently from its sky, tugged downward by a fraction of the gravity we feel on Earth. The methane forms rivers, lakes, and small seas on Titan’s surface. Beneath the frigid ground, composed of ice as hard as rock, is even more liquid, a whole ocean of plain old H2O.

Florida Has a Right to Destroy its Universities

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Elections have consequences. Florida’s governor has decided to root out wrong-think at one of Florida’s public colleges, and his harebrained meddling will likely harm the school, but he has every right to do it.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

What Makes a Good Cop

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Background

Editor’s Note: Read an interview with Elaine Hsieh Chou about her writing process. Gene called them his good-day-bad-day bagels. When he was having a good day, he’d allow himself a bagel, and when he was having a bad day, he’d also allow himself a bagel. How he landed on bagels was a matter of both convenience and health: New York had no shortage of them and doughnuts upset his blood sugar. But bagels, on the other hand—they possessed an inoffensive, neutral quality.

Elaine Hsieh Chou on the Ethics of ‘Trauma Porn’

Editor’s Note: Read Elaine Hsieh Chou’s new short story “Background.” “Background” is a new story by Elaine Hsieh Chou. To mark the story’s publication in The Atlantic, Chou and Katherine Hu, an assistant editor for the magazine, discussed the story over email. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Tyre Nichols: Video of Fatal Police Beating in Memphis Spurs New Demands for Police Accountability

Memphis police released disturbing footage on Friday showing the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by five former police officers who now face murder charges over the 29-year-old Black father’s death. The videos show officers kicked, punched, electrocuted and struck Nichols with batons for several minutes while he offered almost no resistance. It took more than 22 minutes for medics to appear on site and treat Nichols, who died three days later from his injuries.

“An Intolerable Situation”: Rashid Khalidi & Orly Noy on Israeli Colonialism & Escalating Violence

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories amid an alarming rise in violence, with Israel killing at least 35 Palestinians since the beginning of January. The deadliest incident occurred on Thursday, when Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, killing 10 people, including two children — the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank in two decades.