Why did Michael Brown die in Ferguson, Mo.? As Amy Davidson writes in the New Yorker, he didn’t die at night. He died on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Different witnesses tell different stories, but everyone agrees the teenager was unarmed and that his arms were in the air and that he was shot by the police. In a news conference, the St. Louis County police chief said he wasn’t sure how many times Ferguson had been shot — “more than just a couple, but not much more.” Davidson writes: “When counting bullets, ‘just” and ‘not much more’ are odd words to choose.”
Meanwhile, conservative columnist Charles C.W. Cooke writes in the National Review that many on the right are making the wrong choices in how they talk about Brown’s death.
New York Times film critic A.O. Scott on Robin Williams: He was a warp-speed force of nature. And more.
Iraq prime minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been a headache for two American presidents. The question in Iraq is whether he’ll make it for a third. Via the New York Times.
Six reasons Obama is bombing Iraq but not Syria. Via Vox.
In case you think the abortion health laws are really about health safety, here’s a statistic for you: You’re 40 times more likely to die from a colonoscopy than from an abortion. Via ThinkProgress.
Ron Fournier asks in the National Journal whether we would rally behind Barack Obama if there were another 9-11. “It’s a scary question,” he writes, “because how we respond to an attack is almost as important as how we prevent one.”
[Widely circulated photo of man identified as Louis Head, Michael Brown’s stepfather. Via International Business Times.]
