A Crackdown Sinks Children Into Lives of Fear by Corina Knoll

Reporting for The New York Times, Corina Knoll explains how the unwelcome federal incursion in Minnesota is terrorizing children. I’ve spent my whole life watching the Republican party wield the desperate need to protect children as an excuse to impose their regressive, moralistic ideals on the U.S. population. It’s always been an obvious lie. I’d like to think the callous treatment of children is this latest manifestation of bigotry as public policy exposes the lie for more people. I’m afraid it won’t. The above image comes from theInstagram account of a California teacher whose students made paper bunnies in tribute to Liam Conejo Ramos, as mentioned in the piece.

In Afghanistan, a Trail of Hunger and Death Behind U.S. Aid Cuts by Elian Peltier, Yaqoob Akbary, and Safiullah Padshah

The Republican administration’s cruelty toward the most vulnerable extends beyond the nation’s borders. Four million children. That’s how many children are at real risk of dying from malnutrition in Afghanistan as a direct result of the current White House gutting the United States Agency for International Development. Four million. In one nation. Now, try to fathom that level of damage to humanity compounded across the globe. For instance, the same edition of The New York Times that includes this article by a trio of reporters also has a piece about centuries-old diseases taking hold again in Africa because of the same budget cuts.

One Last Sundance in Park City by Justin Chang

I wrote earlier this week about my long-distance Sundance Film Festival experience. The yearly celebration of independent cinema has loomed so large for me over the years that the small mountain community where it’s long been staged has an odd pull on me, too, though I set foot there only once, at a time that was months removed from the the festival. I don’t have the personal background to expound on the elegiacal feelings stirred by the last Sundance in Utah, but Justin Chang certainly does. This article is published by The New Yorker.