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.The feminist writer and activist Ellen Willis is best known for defining the idea of pro-sex feminism in the 1980s. But only a little while later, Willis noticed that women’s liberated sexuality had turned out to be, as she put it, “often depressingly shallow, exploitative, and joyless.

Ah, the sounds of late summer. Pass a pool, and hear the happy yelps of kids splashing around. Sit outside at night, and bask in the soothing buzz of cicadas hidden in the trees. Open the internet, and hear the terrifying howling of outer space.Thank NASA for that last one. The space agency recently shared a clip online of sound coming from a cluster of galaxies about 250 million light-years from Earth.

In the spring of 1989, a 21-year-old Iraqi university student named Ali came home and made a shocking discovery: On the living-room table of his family’s home was a copy of The Satanic Verses. A friend of Ali’s father had smuggled Salman Rushdie’s controversial book from London, removing its distinctive blue cover and hiding it in his luggage. This was like finding a bomb.

On the list of perfect pet parents, Mikel Delgado, a professional feline-behavior consultant, probably ranks high. The Ph.D. expert in animal cognition spends half an hour each evening playing with her three torbie cats, Ruby, Coriander, and Professor Scribbles. She’s trained them to take pills in gelatin capsules, just in case they eventually need meds. She even commissioned a screened-in backyard catio so that the girls can safely venture outside.

Bed Bath & Beyond is a struggling home-goods retailer whose underlying business is so bad that stories about the company carry headlines like “Bed Bath & Beyond’s Big Dilemma: Can It Survive?” But for most of August, Bed Bath & Beyond was also one of the hottest stocks on Wall Street, rising almost 500 percent in a matter of weeks. And that strange divergence happened for just one reason: Meme-stock mania made a sudden and unexpected return.

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.The daughter of a prominent Russian fascist was killed in a car bombing in Moscow. Most Americans have no idea who the Dugin family is, but this event could have serious repercussions in Russia and Ukraine.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Mike Pence owes the country an explanation.

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.

In the middle of July, three big blue billboards went up in and around Jackson, Mississippi. Pregnant? You still have a choice, they informed passing motorists, inviting them to visit Mayday.Health to learn more. Anybody who did landed on a website that provides information about at-home abortion pills and ways to get them delivered anywhere in the United States—including parts of the country, such as Mississippi, where abortions are now illegal under most circumstances.

In a lecture written shortly before his death, the Italian writer Italo Calvino extolled the virtues of lightness in literature. After decades of writing stories, novels, and essays, he had reached a realization: “My method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight.” Life is heavy, and the writerly task of conveying its truths can be equally weighty.