A basic fact of thermodynamics is coming to haunt every foot of train track in the United States. Heat makes steel expand, moving its molecules farther apart, and as hot days become hotter and more frequent, rail lines are at risk of warping and buckling more often.
Any fix must deal with this fundamental truth of physics. Railroads can slow their trains down, which avoids adding more heat.
The first time Angel Giuffria saw the logo on her bionic hand, she felt a sense of pride. She was born without the lower half of her left arm, and started wearing a prosthesis at six weeks old. Back then, it had a beige cover—a design that was meant to mimic skin, but looked obviously fake. This new hand abandoned any unsettling attempt at imitation. Instead, it had a Star Wars–like aesthetic. Giuffria was delighted.
Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the official death toll, though the true casualty figure is likely far higher with thousands of the dead unaccounted for. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have raided towns and villages across the occupied West Bank, and settlers under military protection have repeatedly stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in recent days.
We speak with Wall Street Journal reporter Dana Mattioli about her new book, The Everything War, which examines how Amazon came to dominate the U.S. economy through its “scorched-earth” tactics. “I found just a ton of business practices driven by this toxic culture at Amazon, where the company lied, spied, cheated its way to the top,” she says.
The United Auto Workers has filed federal labor charges against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, accusing them of illegally attempting to threaten and intimidate workers who go on strike. The UAW’s complaint comes in response to comments made by Trump during a discussion with Musk Monday on the social media platform X, which Musk owns.
Why more ultrawealthy people are making sure athletes get paid.
He doesn’t have a 401(k) or IRA and doesn’t own any real estate.
Both the White House and the Harris campaign have envisioned the savings promised by the negotiations as playing a significant role in the run-up to November’s election.
Walz is framing IVF as an issue that affects men, too.
Independent experts gave a psychedelic treatment for PTSD a scathing review. Some in Congress want it approved anyway.
Advocates are seeking to block referendums in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Montana and South Dakota.
“We cannot win if people think we’re headed into a recession,” one Democratic National Committee member said.
Though hiring remains strong, voters blame President Joe Biden for persistent high prices.
The president has a compelling antimonopoly record. But he doesn’t always lean into it. And voters don’t really know of it. The debate could change that.
Fadi Deeb represents Palestine as a shot putter in the 2024 Paralympics and is the only member of Palestine’s Olympic delegation from Gaza. He describes being shot by an Israeli sniper in 2001, which caused his disability; losing many family members in the current Israeli assault on Gaza; and why he feels a great responsibility in representing Palestinians on the world stage.
The move to protect some older Americans from higher costs would come just ahead of the election.
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In embracing the elimination of taxes on tips, a policy proposal recently promoted by Donald Trump, Kamala Harris is neutralizing any advantage Trump might have gained from it—at little to no cost to her own campaign.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The novelist Gary Shteyngart recently asked Donald Trump’s supporters on X to “check out RFK Jr.,” noting that the idiosyncratic candidate has “many interesting things to say about lots of stuff.” We asked Shteyngart if he himself would vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This was his response.
I’m a lifelong registered Republican who has voted for Donald J. Trump in the past five presidential elections. But lately I have been looking at Robert F. KENNEDY Jr.
Last week, civilians in Russia experienced something new—something Chechens, Georgians, Syrians, Ukrainians, and other civilians in the path of Russia’s military have known about for decades. After Russian tanks withdraw and shelling stops, Moscow holds certain hot spots in stasis. They become “gray zones”: neither at war nor fully at peace, wrecked by heavy artillery, psychologically traumatized and economically ruined, under Russia’s boot but subject to its neglect.
That was a crazy public service provided by Elon Musk and X.
The X Spaces interview delivered Donald Trump without makeup or dress-up, talking unselfconsciously: manic, boastful, untruthful, aggrieved, abusive, obsessive, random, ignorant, tedious, bitchy—and ultimately, formless and endless. You might think a major-party presidential nominee would have other claims on his time, some sort of deadline, if only to get some sleep to ready himself for the next day’s campaigning. But no.
Turmoil continues in Venezuela after July’s contested election, in which both President Nicolás Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition claimed victory. The National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner with 51% of the vote, but the opposition has released thousands of vote tally sheets online that, if authenticated, suggest a landslide win for Edmundo González.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt are urging Israel and Hamas to hold a new round of negotiations to finalize a ceasefire deal in Gaza. However, Hamas is urging mediators to enforce the ceasefire terms proposed by President Biden in May that Hamas already agreed to and that Israel rejected. Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin, says U.S.
Iran has rejected a call by France, Germany and the United Kingdom demanding it refrain from any retaliatory attacks over the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31. Tensions also remain high on Israel’s northern border as Lebanon-based Hezbollah vows to respond to the Israeli assassination of its senior military commander Fuad Shukr. On Friday, Israel continued its assassination campaign by killing a Hamas commander in the Lebanese city of Sidon.
One broiling Friday last month, I visited the emergency room of Mayo Hospital, the largest hospital in Pakistan. For more than 150 years, it has stood just outside the Old City of Lahore, not far from the marble domes of the Badshahi Mosque. Every day, more than 1,000 people fill its wards. No one is turned away. Patients come from all corners of Lahore, from the sugarcane fields outside the city and from far-off villages.
