This article contains light spoilers through the fourth season of Stranger Things.Somehow, even thousands of viewing minutes in, my synapses numbed by a cinematic universe so squelchy that it induces visceral anxiety, I still don’t really know how to feel about Stranger Things. It’s hard to even say exactly what it is. TV watchers today are accustomed to streaming works that coalesce, murkily, somewhere between film and television.
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.
When Michelle Stokes noticed a necrotic wound on her cat, Jellyfish, last July, she and her husband had to call about 50 vets before finding one that could squeeze them in.The local emergency animal hospital was so backed up that it said the wound—serious but not yet life-threatening—wasn’t really an emergency. Jellyfish didn’t have a regular vet, because Stokes and her husband had just moved to the Cleveland area.
College-sports traditionalists were appalled last week when the Big Ten athletic conference announced that it will add UCLA and the University of Southern California to its membership in 2024—creating a seismic shift in the college-sports landscape that will generate millions of dollars in revenue for the two California powerhouse programs.This reorganization is the strongest indicator yet that college sports is cannibalizing itself.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday it will hear oral arguments in a case experts warn could be one of the greatest threats to U.S. democracy since the deadly January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. In October, the court will hear Moore v. Harper — a case which seeks to reinstate gerrymandered congressional maps that were struck down by North Carolina’s highest court.
Boston officials claim they had no prior knowledge of a march through the city by about 100 members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front on Saturday. Local anti-fascist organizers contronted the marchers, who also attacked a local Black artist named Charles Murrell.
The death toll in Monday’s mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, has risen to seven after another victim died from their injuries. The suspect has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder over the massacre that also left scores of people injured, including nine people who remain hospitalized. Police say he legally purchased five weapons, including the high-powered rifle used in the shooting, despite visiting his home in 2019 over threats of violence.
In some states, the legal status of abortion has flipped back and forth multiple times since the Supreme Court’s decision last month.
They are avoiding the fallout from the Roe decision to ensure eased rules are extended beyond the pandemic.
For USAID’s Atul Gawande, the challenge is helping vulnerable populations while the world battles multiple crises at once.
South Dakota Republican Kristi Noem didn’t endorse an abortion.
Fears have mounted that the central bank might trigger a recession sometime in the next year with its aggressive rate action.
Things are so dire that central bank policymakers might hike rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, a move not taken in almost 30 years.
America’s rampant inflation is imposing severe pressures on families, forcing them to pay much more for food, gas and rent.
As the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, we speak with law professor Michele Goodwin, who has written extensively about how the criminalization of abortion polices motherhood. She discusses how on the eve of the court’s oral arguments in the Dobbs case in November, she wrote about how an abortion saved her life. She describes how the U.S.
The Fox News host responded to the Highland Park shooting with a bizarre set of reasons why it isn’t about guns.
“Yesterday should have been the day to come together with family and friends to celebrate,” the vice president said in Chicago before going to Highland Park.
Another holiday weekend is behind us, and with it another spate of mass shootings because that’s how America works now. A Georgia grand jury has now subpoenaed key allies of Donald Trump as part of an investigation into a potentially criminal effort by Trump and others to pressure state officials into altering vote totals on his behalf; one of those subpoenaed is Sen. Lindsey Graham, who made his own inquiries as to how vote totals might be changed.
It’s no wonder Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t release a Republican policy platform for the midterms. Everything they do is awful. Their platform might as well say, “Eat shit, America. You’re stuck with us now.”
After Cronenberg-ing our country to the point where 10-year-old rape victims are now forced to travel out of state to end their pregnancies, conservatives are putting the screws to LGBTQ kids in new and creative ways.
What a big surprise that The New York Times’ resident climate science denier Bret Stephens thinks the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v.
On Monday, Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy faced off against CF Montreal. After the game, veteran Galaxy midfielder Sacha Kljestan came into the press room, sat down in front of the microphone, and said he would be keeping his comments and appearance “really brief” because he didn’t plan on answering any questions about the game. That elicited laughs from the reporters on hand, but the California-born Kljestan wasn’t making jokes.
A police department located in a neighborhood just outside Detroit, Michigan, is in hot water after a Boy Scouts field trip to the department’s shooting range revealed officers are using photos of Black men holding guns as target practice.
VICE News reports the Boy Scout troop discovered the targets while exploring the headquarters of the Farmington Hills Police Department in April.
Don’t stop me just because you’ve heard this story before, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson is once again fighting for his political life. And once again, this time it might be the end. After yet another scandal, once again made worse by an absurdly stupid cover-up, two very senior members of Johnson’s government—his finance minister and his health minister—quit in disgust.Is the game really up, then? For anyone else, the answer would surely be yes.
By far the most arresting character in Thor: Love and Thunder, the twenty-bajillionth Marvel movie, is the splendidly named villain Gorr the God Butcher. Bald, covered in scars, and draped in monklike robes, Gorr (played by Christian Bale) is a vengeful wraith who wields a mystical blade and has only one goal in mind: killing gods. Any deity he can get his hands on, no matter the faith or civilization they belong to.
These 145 Republicans really want you to forget that they lied to you and tried to thwart a presidential election right after an attempted coup.
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.At the start of a different week, I might have written about many things, including politics. But not today. Instead, I am watching a group of my fellow citizens deal with a slaughter of defenseless people on a summer day at a parade.First, here’s more from The Atlantic.
When Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, came to Senegal last February for an economic summit, he took a break from conference rooms in the capital city of Dakar to get his hands dirty, literally, as he learned to make compressed-earth blocks from a mix of iron-rich soil, sand, water, and a bit of cement. His block-making tutorial was part of a groundbreaking event for a cultural institute promoting German-language study.
“We know who your family is, and we’re going to get you … gonna get your wife, gonna get your kids,” one caller said.
Among the new developments on abortion access: a possible filibuster carveout, more state legal battles and an announcement from Google.
In the end, Uber Pool had to go. By mid-March 2020, chunks of America were already in lockdown, AMC had boarded up its movie theaters, and the country’s toilet-paper reserves were getting wiped out. The novel coronavirus was here, and sharing rides with strangers in a different stranger’s car had become yet another part of life upended by the pandemic.