The New York Times once dubbed the Princeton professor Robert George, who has guided Republican elites for decades, “the reigning brain of the Christian right.” Last year, he issued a stark warning to his ideological allies. “Each time we think the horrific virus of anti-Semitism has been extirpated, it reappears,” he wrote in May 2023. “A plea to my fellow Catholics—especially Catholic young people: Stay a million miles from this evil. Do not let it infect your thinking.

“In literature written by women, examples of insolence or hostility toward men are extremely rare,” wrote the French novelist Virginie Despentes in a 2021 essay for Literary Hub. “Even as a member of that sex, I’m not allowed to be angry about this.

A heat wave struck Southern California earlier this month. Soon after, large swaths of the region began to burn. All three fires, the Line Fire, the Bridge Fire, and the Airport Fire, are still going.
So far, they’ve engulfed almost 200 square miles, forcing evacuations in four counties and destroying dozens of homes. Southern Californians should know by now that natural disasters threaten our region more than most places in the United States.

How often do things line up this nicely? Those sticks
you gathered from the yard to spare the mower
and piled behind the barn I let dry and used all summer
for kindling. The rate at which you acquired and I burned
them: nearly perfect. I loved this, the way our tiny flames
merged and conspired while we stood watch. Restless,
prodding. How we let them grow from our little stone basin—
standing up, straightening out as if startled from bed.

When my son was a toddler, he liked to run in our driveway until he fell. He would then turn to me to see if he was hurt. If my face betrayed worry or if I audibly gasped, he would wail. If I maintained equanimity, he would brush himself off and get back to running. Learning that I could so powerfully influence his mental state was a revelation. Here was this human being who was counting on me to make sense of the world—not just how to tie his shoes or recite the ABCs, but how to feel.

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.
For your weekend reading list, our editors compiled six great stories. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, and settle in.
A Reading List
The People Who Quit Dating
Being single can be hard—but the search for love may be harder.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon swooped in to give Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic governor, the perfect reason to veto a valuable bill. The proposed Arizona Starter Homes Act sought to legalize smaller dwellings to address the affordability crisis straining the fast-growing state. After the state legislature had already passed the bill, a regional Navy official wrote a letter to Hobbs opposing it. The intervention seemed bizarre, as I noted in an article at the time.