Every organization devoted to mass death needs a charmless, bespectacled, blank-eyed chief operating officer who inspires no one but keeps the gears of murder turning. Ayman al-Zawahiri was Osama bin Laden’s Himmler. President Biden and most Americans will see his death as just revenge for the three thousand innocents killed by Al Qaeda in the United States on September 11, 2001—and so it is. But I have to admit that Zawahiri’s end leaves me cold.
“It wasn’t the stiff, uptight, you know, kind of snobby-type atmosphere at the PGA tour,” the Georgia Republican said.
He bashes “kangaroo court” on his podcast, aims to stiff Sandy Hook families who’ve been targeted with threats by his followers.
The first Jan. 6 insurrectionist to stand trial has now received his sentence, as a federal judge hands down 87 months of prison time for militia recruiter Guy Reffitt, who traveled to Washington, D.C., for the insurrection with multiple guns. Fellow aspirational election-nullifier Sen.
Years ago, before our nation devolved into a fascist Cracker Barrel that lets Texas Sen. Ted Cruz loiter in the bathrooms for unnervingly long periods of time, Fox News and Donald Trump jumped into bed together. They eventually birthed a creepy vestigial twin with no host, and it instantly latched onto our body politic like a Peruvian spider monkey mistaking Rep. Louie Gohmert’s head for a remaindered Sara Lee pound cake.
The United States killed the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a drone strike this weekend in Kabul. I already kind of miss him. Zawahiri came from an older generation of jihadists—he was 71—and was in many ways the kind of terrorist one wants. For a decade or more he had no known good ideas. He told young upstarts to shelve their own good ideas, and never got around to them. He was a black hole of charisma.
Trident Mortgage, a mortgage company that billionaire Warren Buffett’s company owns, was recently the target of a Department of Justice probe into claims of redlining that ended in what officials are calling the second-largest redlining settlement in the Justice Department’s history. It is the first such agreement the Justice Department has secured with a mortgage company, officials said in a news release on Wednesday.
An asylum-seeking parent who has filed a lawsuit against the federal government after being separated from her son under the previous administration’s zero-tolerance policy said they were never even given a chance to hug goodbye. Instead, M.S.E., as she is known in court documents, said her son, identified only as J.M., could only wave as officers ripped him and other children from their parents for legally seeking asylum.
“M.S.E.
A researcher confirmed earlier media reports indicating former President Donald Trump may receive hefty tax breaks for having his ex-wife buried on the Trump-owned golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. Ivana Trump, 73, died in her Manhattan home on July 14 from “blunt impact injuries” to her torso, The Washington Post reported of an autopsy report from New York City’s chief medical examiner.
The unlikely-to-pass bill demonstrates “that there’s now bipartisan support and majority support” in the U.S. Senate to protect abortion, Democrat Tim Kaine said.
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.Would you rather watch a video of a man you don’t know rescue a sloth, or read your cousin’s take on the January 6 hearings? Meta is betting on the former.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Of course Joe Biden has rebound COVID.
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.Last week, I asked, “Is there class prejudice in the United States? If so, describe how it works.”Our first response is from J, an educator who grew up in Texas in a family that was poor at times and middle class at others.
Writing about the dead is difficult business. Whenever I write about my mother, I spend a lot of time struggling to recall: How did she take her coffee? What music made her dance? When she laughed, did she throw her head back, like I do? My ability to answer these questions—to try to create an honest portrait of her on the page—is constrained by the five and a half years we spent together before she died.
Canvassers are going door to door to lay out the stakes of Tuesday’s referendum.
We spend the hour with an activist who replaced Angela Davis on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List: Bernardine Dohrn, a leader in the radical 1960s organization called the Weather Underground. When Dohrn and her activist husband Bill Ayers literally went underground to avoid arrest, they then raised a family as they continued to fight for revolution. Now a new podcast that was created, written and hosted by their son, Zayd Ayers Dohrn, explores their family history.
Experts say the sites pose a public health threat that is likely to grow.
Biden’s new positive test is an example of a rebound Covid-19 case, a phenomenon that has happened in some cases after people take Paxlovid.
The package would permit negotiation on drug pricing in Medicare and appears to have a path to passage.
The new doses, which come amid widespread complaints over access to treatments and vaccines, bring the total number secured so far to 1.1 million.
The people with knowledge of the matter said the declaration is expected as soon as the end of the week.
The move can offer the agency a better understanding of how far and fast the virus is spreading.
Suddenly, overnight, real progress has been teed up for the White House.
Republicans are poised to cast aside all the economic technicalities and bash Democratic candidates up and down the midterm ballot over an economy that is already deeply unpopular with voters in both parties.
Slower wage growth could help bring down prices and ultimately mean less sting for the average worker.
The first case of monkeypox behind bars was reported in Chicago this week, and health experts are warning that jails could accelerate the spread as they are dangerously unprepared to combat against a virus that spreads through close physical contact. We speak with Dr. Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer for New York City’s Correctional Health Services, whose new op-ed for The Hill is headlined ”CDC must act to prevent monkeypox explosion in prisons.
As tens of millions of people in the United States live under heat alerts this summer, we look at conditions faced by those in prisons and jails with poor cooling systems and lack of access to running water. “Although heat has been an ongoing issue in Texas, this year it’s exacerbated by a staffing crisis that’s been years in the making,” says Keri Blakinger, the first formerly incarcerated reporter for The Marshall Project.
Before a deal emerged this week on a bill to address the climate emergency, six congressional staffers were arrested Monday on Capitol Hill as they held a nonviolent civil disobedience protest inside the office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, urging him to reopen negotiations on the bill. We speak with Saul Levin, one of the staffers who was arrested, and discuss the role the action had in pushing the bill forward.
President Biden is hailing a Senate bill negotiated by Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer as “the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis.” While it faces hurdles before passage, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act would invest $369 billion into renewable energy and other measures to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
As the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) invests millions in Democratic primaries to defeat progressives who support Palestine, we speak to one of the candidates: Michigan Congressmember Andy Levin, whose primary is on Tuesday. He is a self-described Zionist who supports a two-state solution, but earlier this year a former president of AIPAC described him as “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress to the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The speaker of the House said the trip would “reaffirm America’s strong and unshakeable commitment to our allies.