Many Democrats fumed last month when Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona left the party and changed her affiliation to independent. But her decision has at least one good consequence: It makes Congress more representative of America.After all, “independent” is––per years of Gallup data––typically the country’s most popular party affiliation, with more Americans identifying that way than as Democrats or Republicans.
If one thing unites all Americans, it’s the conviction that paying taxes is a pain. Even those like myself who don’t mind contributing their fair share to keep seniors off the street hate having to fill out all of the paperwork, especially if our taxes are complicated. The Tax Foundation estimates that filling out tax forms eats up 6.5 billion hours of work a year, for an economic cost of something like $313 billion.
Reviews by outside experts and internal officials found serious flaws in the nation’s food-inspection programs after four infant hospitalizations and two deaths were linked to infant formula. But the FDA is still processing the recommendations.
An Arizona court has ruled that abortion doctors cannot be prosecuted under a pre-statehood law that criminalizes nearly all abortions yet was barred from being enforced for decades.
Now some states are making pandemic rules permitting booze-to-go and delivery permanent.
The panels began investigating Aduhelm’s approval and pricing in June 2021, just weeks after it won the FDA’s backing despite questions about the drug’s clinical benefit to patients.
Only now, in this moment in Hollywood, would an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s award-winning novel White Noise by the indie darling Noah Baumbach be funded like a blockbuster. After all, the film isn’t going to make any real money—even though it’s been playing in a few theaters for more than a month, it had its wide release yesterday on Netflix. But for years, the streamer has financed many a master filmmaker’s risky passion project.
Even with last month’s further easing of inflation, the Federal Reserve plans to keep raising interest rates.
We look at a remarkable film that follows how acclaimed playwright Liza Jessie Peterson gave a mesmerizing performance of her one-person play “The Peculiar Patriot” at the Louisiana State Penitentiary known as Angola, before authorities stopped it halfway through.
In 2022, more jails in the United States became death traps, as people faced inhumane conditions in overcrowded facilities amid a lack of mental healthcare, housing and backlash against bail reform. Most of those who died were incarcerated pretrial, and activists say this number is heavily underreported. From New York City to Houston, Texas, jail deaths have reached their highest levels in decades.
In a remarkable development, New York Democrats look likely to defeat Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul’s nomination of Hector LaSalle to be the state’s next chief judge, after progressives raised concern about his conservative judicial record and anti-abortion, anti-labor and anti-bail reform positions.
Brazil has begun three days of national mourning to mark the death of the global soccer icon Pelé at the age of 82. Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pelé was a poor Afro-Brazilian who led the Brazilian national soccer team to its first World Cup title in 1958 at just 17 years old, and ultimately two more times in later years — more than any other player in history.
“The whole persona that he created, the ability to deceive us, is so troubling,” one voter told CNN.
Incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise sent a letter Friday to the Republican conference outlining the agenda for the first few weeks of the session of the Republicans’ tiny new majority. That is, if they can actually get a speaker elected, because they can’t do any business at all until that’s accomplished.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the U.S. Congress, there were moments in his speech that generated spontaneous applause and standing ovations. But there was at least one moment that Zelenskyy likely expected to get a much bigger response from his American audience.
It’s easy to think of Zelenskyy back in Kyiv, planning this trip with his small circle of advisers, wondering just what he might say in order to best serve the needs of Ukraine.
Millions—perhaps billions—of social media users routinely post images of themselves online without thinking too much about it, most simply trusting in the fact that since so many others have done exactly the same thing, then it must be “okay.
Recently, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works convened for a hearing titled “Examining the Impact of Plastic Use and Identifying Solutions for Reducing Plastic Waste.” The final hearing for the committee of the 117th Congress began with Sen. Jeff Merkley discussing the plastic problem, ranging from how plastic does not break down to the ways it has infiltrated seemingly everything through that process.
Because Donald Trump has a finite number of dead ex-wives and just a handful of golf courses on which to bury them, he has to continually come up with creative ways to lower his tax burden. He almost certainly outsources this thankless task to his team of accountants, because fully 80% of his mental energy is devoted to guessing which Pokémon will show up in today’s Happy Meal.
North Korea fired about 70 ballistic missiles in 2022, the most in a single year.
“I think Jan. 6 really disqualifies him for the future. And so, we move beyond that,” said the Arkansas governor, who’s considering his own run for the presidency.
The former president blamed the GOP’s less-than-successful midterm showing on the “abortion issue.
Rep.-elect Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) hasn’t been sworn in to Congress yet, but he’s already clapping back at bad-faith tweets posted by the Republican Party.
Who left his pair of genuine-leather holsters,
Tooled for cowboy cap guns, outside in the rain?
A question my father had to contend with one morning
Some seventy summers ago in Missouri.
He stood in the driveway, late for the office,
Seersucker jacket over one arm,
And weighed his options.
While antiviral pills are plentiful and remain an option for some with weak immune systems, they won’t work for everyone — Pfizer’s Paxlovid interacts with many widely prescribed drugs.
New Year’s resolutions are a time for reflection—a chance to think about the limited time we have on this Earth and how to use it wisely.Oliver Burkeman is a writer who focuses on this nexus of mortality and productivity. He is the author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mere Mortals (4,000 weeks is about the length of the average American’s life span).
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.Good morning, and welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained.Today’s special guest is Xochitl Gonzalez, a best-selling novelist and newly minted Atlantic staff writer.
Noah likes to feed the squirrels naked. I don’t know if he does it this way when I am not here. But like clockwork on the weekend mornings we spend together, the squirrels will start to tap on the window. And Noah will rise from the bed as if responding to a baby monitor. He will stumble to the kitchen, grab a handful of unsalted almonds from a jar in the cabinet, return to the bedroom, and crack the window an inch, popping the almonds out one by one so they land on the sill in a line.
Now some states are making pandemic rules permitting booze-to-go and delivery permanent.
The panels began investigating Aduhelm’s approval and pricing in June 2021, just weeks after it won the FDA’s backing despite questions about the drug’s clinical benefit to patients.
This year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act will empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time.