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.I used to think of myself as a gun-control conservative—I supported both the right to own firearms and the interest of the state to limit that right—but America’s gun culture isn’t about rights. It’s about performative insecurity.
Gas prices in the U.S. are close to $5 a gallon, President Joe Biden’s approval rating is 36 percent, and the first phenomenon has a lot to do with the second. But the factors that have driven gas prices higher are largely out of Biden’s control, at least in the near term. So it wasn’t a shock when he announced yesterday that he was asking Congress to suspend the 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal gas tax for three months.
Police officers have a vested interest in keeping illegal guns off the streets, a difficult-enough task already. Now the United States Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen has found unconstitutional the New York law that strictly limited who could carry a firearm in public in the nation’s largest metropolis. At one blow, this ruling ends a restriction that has for decades helped hold down the number of guns in private hands in New York City.
As best as I can tell, the puff-sleeve onslaught began in 2018. The clothing designer Batsheva Hay’s eponymous brand was barely two years old, but her high-necked, ruffle-trimmed, elbow-covering dresses in dense florals and upholstery prints—bizarro-world reimaginings of the conservative frocks favored by Hasidic Jewish women and the Amish—had developed a cult following among weird New York fashion-and-art girls.
The agency decided the company’s applications fail to show that their products are appropriate for the protection of public health.
Hundreds of public health and civil society organizations have denounced the World Trade Organization for approving a text last week that they say leaves in place intellectual property barriers that will continue to limit global access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. We host an in-depth discussion about the WTO’s move, and what should come next, with two global health justice advocates, Mihir Mankad and Fatima Hassan.
We speak with food systems experts Sofía Monsalve Suárez and Rachel Bezner Kerr about how to prevent a looming global food shortage. The global food crisis “is not a food shortage crisis” yet, says Suárez, secretary general of FIAN International, a human rights organization working for the right to food and nutrition. “The problem is access to food, that people don’t have money to pay for food, that people are jobless.
Experts are warning of a pending global food shortage due to the climate crisis, blocked grain shipments amid the Ukraine war, and a lack of humanitarian aid. Joining us from Mogadishu, Somalia, Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, says poorer countries in Africa aren’t able to financially compete with richer countries to afford basic staples like wheat.
A massive 5.9-magnitude earthquake that struck southeastern Afghanistan early Wednesday has killed more than 1,000 people, according to local officials, though the death toll is expected to rise. The earthquake comes as the United Nations reports nearly half of Afghanistan’s population already faces acute hunger. Thousands more have been injured and lost their homes along with everything they own.
Shots will be be available for children from 6 months to 5 years as early as next week.
The Iowa Supreme Court cleared the way for lawmakers to severely limit or even ban abortion in the state.
Now the CDC’s vaccine expert panel will review for recommendation to the CDC director.
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.
Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro spoke to Democracy Now! in 2018 about his vision for the country after he placed second in the presidential election, losing to right-wing politician Iván Duque. Petro is a former M-19 guerrilla and the former mayor of Bogotá. “A new progressivism is emerging,” explained Petro.
The California Democratic slammed the extremist congresswoman for inciting violence and shared audio of a call threatening his children.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 coup attempt will be adding more public hearings to its schedule due to the continued revelation of new evidence; those hearings will be held “later in July,” says committee chair Bennie Thompson. In the meantime committee members are being provided with beefed-up security due to threats of violence by pro-coup Trump supporters.
I’ve never understood Ukraine’s defense of Severodonetsk. I posted this image on May 26…
… and wrote:
I circled Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the map above as a reminder, that even if Russia takes Severodonetsk (probable) and Lysychansk (less probable), any such advance will crash at the gates of [the] heavily fortified cities [of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk], with clear supply lines and artillery support to their west.
Having already confirmed its intent to force people who become pregnant to bear unwanted children under the penalty of criminal laws and state-sanctioned vigilante harassment, the United States Supreme Court is now poised to ensure those and all future generations continue to endure the harsh miseries of uncontrolled climate change.
Black immigrant domestic workers who were already vulnerable in their workplace settings have continued to struggle more than two years since the onset of the pandemic, new survey findings show. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Black Worker Initiative and the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) said that 37% of respondents from a survey of 1,000 domestic workers revealed the’ve had difficulty finding work.
In spite of it being Pride Month, Republicans aren’t making it easy for LGBTQ+ folks and allies to have many recent wins to celebrate. One victory comes to us thanks to Democratic Gov. David Ige, however, as he signed not one, not two, but three pro-LGBTQ+ bills into law to help protect and serve queer folks in Hawaii, as reported by the Los Angeles Blade.
The extremist Republican mocked Pete Buttigieg for taking paternity leave but now says the role of the father is “fundamental to the family.
For the first time, the U.S. government is formally acknowledging the scope of its former policy aimed at erasing Native American identity.
Looking to get out of town for the July 4 holiday, key lawmakers have agreed on a stopgap — for now.
A federal appeals court ruled that a state law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel is not an unconstitutional violation of free speech.
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.I am appalled, as so many Americans are, that Donald Trump and his team assaulted our elections, but today I’m thinking about how the assault on election officials across the nation is an even deeper wound that will take years to heal.But first, here are three great new stories from The Atlantic.
Adult friendships can be tricky to maintain. People move away from their college town as schooling ends, careers begin and monopolize our time, socializing at happy hours can start to lose its appeal as you get older. And during the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Americans moved from cities full of their friends to less populated areas.
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.
Finding signs to worry about the future of American democracy is not hard, but few are quite so painful and acute as the cognitive dissonance displayed by Rusty Bowers this week.Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona State House, was the star witness during yesterday’s hearing of the U.S. House’s January 6 committee. Bowers calls himself a conservative Republican, and he has the record to back that claim up.