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When Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned today in protest of the Iran war, he blamed everyone except the person who launched it.
Updated at 6:54 p.m. ET on March 17, 2026
In February 2025, Donald Trump nominated Joe Kent, a 2020-election conspiracy theorist with links to the Proud Boys and white supremacists, as head of the National Counterterrorism Center. What could possibly go wrong?
Kent’s beliefs did not complicate his tenure, during which Trump continued smearing minorities and insisting the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. The sticking point, rather, became the war in Iran.
It’s quietly reshaping Main Street medicine. Your wallet—and health—might suffer as a result.
A jury in Texas has convicted eight people in the first federal anti-terror case since the Trump administration declared “antifa” a terror group. Nine defendants alleged to be members of an “antifa terror cell” stood trial on federal and state charges including rioting, using explosives and attempted murder. The charges stemmed from their attendance at an anti-ICE protest outside the Prairieland ICE jail on July 4, during which fireworks were set off and a police officer was shot and wounded.
Cuba’s electrical grid has collapsed. The island-wide blackout comes amid a harsh U.S. oil blockade and recent comments from President Donald Trump that he wants to “take” Cuba. No oil shipments have reached the country, located just south of Florida, in three months, compounding a humanitarian crisis caused by decades of severe U.S. sanctions. “Sanctions are literally killing people right now,” says Cuban journalist Daniel Montero with Belly of the Beast, speaking from Havana.
We get an analysis of the Trump administration’s Iran war strategy from former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Harrison Mann. “From day two of this war, the Trump administration has not known what to do and how to get out of this,” says Mann, who resigned from the U.S. Army’s Defense Intelligence Agency in 2024 over the Biden administration’s policy in Gaza.
How long will the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran last? Regime change in Iran will not be as “easy and quick” as U.S. warmongers may have initially believed, says Iranian American political analyst Trita Parsi. Israel claims that it has successfully assassinated Iran’s powerful security chief Ali Larijani, who Parsi says could have played a role in future ceasefire negotiations.
Live Nation’s settlement with the Justice Department is a big step toward accountability—and cheaper ticket prices.
The McDonald’s CEO took the tiniest bite of their biggest burger—and the internet went wild.
Hillary Frey and Anna Szymanski join Emily Peck to unpack the wild ride that was ‘Industry’ season 4.
More states are giving tax breaks to businesses that help employees sign up for Obamacare using an authority Trump created.
Current grants run out on April 1.
A conference in Washington this week showcases mainstream and alternative health practices, a teen beauty queen and scientists.
Clinics are pleading with Congress and HHS for answers amid “radio silence” about the imminent expiration of Title X funding.
Outward’s hosts sit down with the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven.
The neighborhood changes, the church moves, people forget and remember “the AIDS years,” but AIDS isn’t over.
The AIDS cocktail opens new possibilities. And MCC San Francisco tries to use the experience of AIDS to make bigger social change.
The church’s minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
President Donald Trump has taken one risk after another that could have destabilized the American economy. Iran is the latest crisis to test U.S. economic resilience.
The president stopped in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old district to defend his economic record.
A brief swing through the farm state underscored administration fears about the midterms.
Sixty-one percent of voters told a CNN poll released Friday that they disapprove of the way Trump is handling the economy.
The global economy has been rocked by the war in the Middle East, with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatening energy flows and sending the price of oil soaring to its highest level in years. The United Nations Security Council responded to the unprovoked U.S.-Israeli war by passing a resolution this week condemning Iran — specifically for its attacks on U.S.
Mitu Gulati explains how the pervasive use of boilerplate is creating a legal crisis.
Mitu Gulati explains how the pervasive use of boilerplate is creating a legal crisis.
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.
Mike Pence should have been a warning to J. D. Vance about the inevitable abasement in store once you join a ticket with Donald Trump.
As a result of the ruling, HHS has postponed a planned meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices this week.
Two months ago, when President Trump was threatening to annex Greenland, I spoke with Danish and other European officials who warned of lasting damage to the system of alliances that the United States created after the Second World War, above all NATO.
At the time, this seemed like a theoretical proposition.
