Tag: police officers
Tyre Nichols’s Death: Can Memphis Change Its Police Culture?
On Sunday morning, the Reverend Earle Fisher was trying to keep his sermon toned down. He’s the pastor at Abyssinian Baptist, but he was guest-preaching at the more buttoned-down Trinity Christian Methodist Episcopal. The thing is that low-energy Earle Fisher still outpaces most ministers at their most fervid, and this was no typical Sunday.
Fisher, one of Memphis’s most prominent criminal-justice activists, was preaching just two days after the release of video footage of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols
What Is Up With the Weight-Loss Industry?
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.
Question of the Week
In “The Weight-Loss-Drug Revolution Is a Miracle—And a Menace,” my colleague Derek Thompson grappled with the rise of the drug Ozempic, the latest in a long line of much-hyped ways to lose weight and perhaps the
Why Beijing Wants Jimmy Lai Locked Up
HONG KONG—When Beijing imposed the national-security law on Hong Kong in 2020, its goal was not simply to stifle free expression and lock up dissenters. The idea was to subordinate every institution in the city, leaving the “one country, two systems” framework that granted autonomy to the Chinese territory an empty slogan. Henceforth Beijing would no longer tolerate criticism from Hong Kong, or protests on its streets.
With the prodemocracy movement of 2019–20 effectively crushed, the Hong Kong government and
Welcome to Elon Musk’s Casino
Recently, comedy clubs have begun doing this thing that seemed, when I first encountered it, both wildly hypocritical and more than a little sad.
I first noticed this new phenomenon at the Comedy Cellar, in Manhattan’s West Village. The Cellar, which was more or less my second home during my early 30s, is a warm and intimate-to-the-point-of-claustrophobia club that I have loved unconditionally. So it was particularly distressing the first time I saw a bouncer distributing padded envelopes and
Who Leaves, Who Stays – The Atlantic
When U.S. troops abruptly left Afghanistan after 20 years, the consequences were devastating both for the people who remained and for those who managed to escape. For many women in Afghanistan, their lives changed dramatically in a matter of days. Women and girls who had previously gone to work and to school were suddenly forced entirely out of public life.
Bushra Seddique, a journalist and fellow at The Atlantic, was one of those women. The decision that she, her
What Does the Philadelphia D.A. Larry Krasner Do Now?
Larry Krasner has been at the forefront of the progressive-prosecutor movement since becoming Philadelphia’s district attorney in 2017. Which means that he has also been at the center of an unending storm.
Krasner has faced relentless battles with the police union, other local elected officials, and Republicans who control the Pennsylvania state legislature and are now making an unprecedented effort to impeach him. He’s also won support from many community leaders and criminal-justice-reform advocates. On Wednesday he reached a milestone:
1990s Policing: Overrated or Underrated?
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.
Question of the Week
On Tuesday, Joe Biden declared that, “when it comes to public safety in this nation, the answer is not defund the police. It’s fund the police.” He was speaking in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. “I know we expect
The One Parenting Decision That Really Matters
A recent study calculated that in the first year of a baby’s life, parents face 1,750 difficult decisions. These include what to name the baby, whether to breastfeed the baby, how to sleep-train the baby, what pediatrician to take the baby to, and whether to post pictures of the baby on social media. And that is only year one.
How can parents make these decisions, and the thousands to come? They can always turn to Google, but it’s easy to
The Numbers Are All Wrong in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta
This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, a case that is seeking to limit the scope of a decision the Court made less than two years ago. In July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that Congress never annulled the Muscogee Nation reservation. After the McGirt ruling, an additional five reservations in the state were affirmed by lower courts—meaning that more than 40 percent of Oklahoma is now legally Indian
These Afghan Women Are Being Hunted by the Taliban
Perhaps you missed the Taliban’s statement on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The Islamic Emirate calls for restraint by both parties,” Afghanistan’s new rulers announced on February 25. They emphasized “diplomatic neutrality,” while urging “dialogue” and demanding that “all sides need to desist from taking positions that could intensify violence.” But on the day the war started, with the world distracted by Putin’s invasion, Talib fighters began going house to house in Kabul in pursuit of the regime’s supposed enemies.