Today's Liberal News

Six White Mississippi “Goon Squad” Cops Get Lengthy Prison Sentences for Torturing Black Men

In Mississippi, six former sheriff’s deputies have been sentenced to between 10 and 40 years in prison for raiding a home and torturing, shooting and sexually abusing two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in January 2023. The six former deputies, all of whom are white, called themselves the “Goon Squad” and have been linked to at least four violent attacks on Black men since 2019. Two of the men attacked and tortured by the group subsequently died.

U.S. Said It Was Calling for a Gaza Ceasefire, But Its U.N. Resolution Didn’t Say That: Phyllis Bennis

At the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia have vetoed a U.S. draft resolution on the war in Gaza. The U.S. resolution appeared to call for a ceasefire, but it was written in a way to make the resolution unenforceable. Our guest Phyllis Bennis says this was mere “wordplay” and a “convoluted” attempt by the Biden administration to play both sides, as it comes under increasing internal and external criticism over its close relationship with Israel.

“Humanitarian Violence” in Gaza: Architect Eyal Weizman on Mapping Israel’s “Genocidal Campaign”

A new report by the research group Forensic Architecture counters Israel’s argument at the International Court of Justice that it followed humanitarian policies to safeguard civilian life in Gaza. South Africa argued in January before the ICJ that Israel was guilty of genocide during its war on Gaza. The report argues that what Israel says are humanitarian evacuations in Gaza actually amount to the forced displacement of Palestinians, which is a war crime.

Beijing Is Ruining TikTok

By all rights, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, should be one of the world’s most respected companies. The technology start-up has created an innovative social-media platform with global appeal—an achievement that puts ByteDance in the elite ranks of Facebook and X.
There’s a single reason the company doesn’t get that respect: It’s Chinese.

Most of This Island Disappeared in Just a Decade

This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine.
Before the sea started taking house-size bites out of Nyangai, this small tropical island off the coast of Sierra Leone hummed with activity. I first visited in 2013 while documenting the construction of a school on a neighboring island. It was a cloudless day in April. A group of teenagers was busy setting up a sound system for a party. Old men chatted and smoked in the shade of palm trees.

The Joys of Chronic Rewatching

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.
Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Stephanie Bai, an associate editor whose byline you might recognize from past editions of The Daily.

Night Shift in the Home for Convalescents

There is much in this drawer that is no longer in use:
a notebook with ribbon to mark passages
once of some importance, a tortoiseshell comb sadly
made of tortoise shell, a prayer book bound
in mother-of-pearl. Mother-of-pearl.
And sounds: a blurring of bees in the air
no longer heard in the wild.
Everything at once, she had said. All that you
remember must be written down.
Bed linens sailing the wind, curtains flaring
beyond the windscreens, lilacs soon to lie on the ground.

Six White Mississippi “Goon Squad” Cops Get Lengthy Prison Sentences for Torturing Black Men

In Mississippi, six former sheriff’s deputies have been sentenced to between 10 and 40 years in prison for raiding a home and torturing, shooting and sexually abusing two Black men, Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker, in January 2023. The six former deputies, all of whom are white, called themselves the “Goon Squad” and have been linked to at least four violent attacks on Black men since 2019. Two of the men attacked and tortured by the group subsequently died.

U.S. Said It Was Calling for a Gaza Ceasefire, But Its U.N. Resolution Didn’t Say That: Phyllis Bennis

At the U.N. Security Council, China and Russia have vetoed a U.S. draft resolution on the war in Gaza. The U.S. resolution appeared to call for a ceasefire, but it was written in a way to make the resolution unenforceable. Our guest Phyllis Bennis says this was mere “wordplay” and a “convoluted” attempt by the Biden administration to play both sides, as it comes under increasing internal and external criticism over its close relationship with Israel.

“Humanitarian Violence” in Gaza: Architect Eyal Weizman on Mapping Israel’s “Genocidal Campaign”

A new report by the research group Forensic Architecture counters Israel’s argument at the International Court of Justice that it followed humanitarian policies to safeguard civilian life in Gaza. South Africa argued in January before the ICJ that Israel was guilty of genocide during its war on Gaza. The report argues that what Israel says are humanitarian evacuations in Gaza actually amount to the forced displacement of Palestinians, which is a war crime.

Conspiracy Theories About the Moscow Attack Are Unnecessary

Updated at 2:05 p.m. ET on March 23, 2024
A decade ago, when foreign fighters were flowing into Syria, the Islamic State’s capital, Raqqa, became a sort of Epcot of global jihad: New arrivals from different nations clustered together in their national groups. If you were a recent arrival from France or just wanted to know where to get a croissant, you could visit a café full of French people and ask. Tens of thousands of foreign fighters came from places as distant as Chile and Japan.

Is the Biden-Netanyahu Relationship Rupturing?

Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here.  
Republicans are on the offensive this week against what they say is Democrats’ lack of support for Israel following Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s recent criticism of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Inner World of the Teen

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Teens exist in the murky space between youth and maturity—and in decades past, when the teen babysitter was a staple of American life, adults seemed to understand that.

The Real Issue With Netflix’s 3 Body Problem

This story contains mild spoilers for Netflix’s 3 Body Problem.
In Cixin Liu’s novel The Three-Body Problem, a scientist being manipulated by an extraterrestrial force is told to look up at the sky one night and watch the universe “wink” at him. The effect—akin to stars blinking on and off in unison—won’t be visible to Miao Wang’s naked eye; he has to use special glasses to observe the cosmic microwave background radiation.