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Gather round and let me tell you a fantastical tale of the past, when government shutdowns were highly unusual. They didn’t even occur until the 1980s, and none lasted for more than three days until 1995. We’re now in the sixth shutdown since the start of the Clinton administration.

Updated with new questions at 4:20 p.m. ET on October 23, 2025.
In the 1950s, the TV quiz show Twenty-One stumbled upon a viewership-boosting strategy that for a brief period of time would be all the rage: cheating. The program fixed winners and losers, coached contestants, and generally dabbled in malfeasance. Other shows followed suit, scandal ensued, and Congress—Congress!—got involved.

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Many stressed-out people are attracted to eastern meditation, believing that it will give them relief from their “monkey mind” and lower their anxiety about life. Unfortunately, the monkey usually wins because people find the mental focus required for meditation devilishly hard. On a trip last year to India, I asked a Buddhist teacher why Westerners struggle so much with the practice.

Jeremy Strong has, of late, been prone to transformation on-screen. In last year’s The Apprentice, he became a late-in-life Roy Cohn, the venomous mentor to Donald Trump—all bluster with a thick Bronx accent and short temper. He earned plaudits for his dedication to sinking into the role, and his first Oscar nomination. Next year, he’ll play Mark Zuckerberg—older and cannier—in Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to The Social Network.

College campuses today have a reputation for being hostile to right-leaning students. As a recent graduate who became a conservative in college, I can’t say I entirely agree. Yes, we’re outnumbered, and yes, our ideas often get disregarded. Being a conservative might be socially disadvantageous. But if you want to know where the real political energy is on campuses, it’s on the right.

Two days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, his signature podcast was back on the air. To honor Kirk’s memory, four of his closest colleagues hosted an episode of The Charlie Kirk Show. They gathered inside his old studio at Turning Point USA’s headquarters, keeping an empty chair for Kirk. Directly to the right sat Jack Posobiec, a conservative influencer. “I know the seat looks empty, but it’s not,” Posobiec 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.
With each new communication medium comes new opportunities for politicians to get themselves into trouble. Congress demanded that letters from envoys to the French government be turned over in the XYZ Affair, thwarting President John Adams’s desire to maintain a tenuous peace with France.

Updated with new questions at 5:10 p.m. ET on October 22, 2025.
In the 1950s, the TV quiz show Twenty-One stumbled upon a viewership-boosting strategy that for a brief period of time would be all the rage: cheating. The program fixed winners and losers, coached contestants, and generally dabbled in malfeasance. Other shows followed suit, scandal ensued, and Congress—Congress!—got involved.

According to Sam Altman, your web browser is outdated. “AI represents a rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be,” OpenAI’s CEO said yesterday when announcing the company’s latest product: ChatGPT Atlas.
In this new AI-powered browser, ChatGPT becomes the central mechanism for surfing the internet. From any webpage in Atlas, you can click an “Ask ChatGPT” button to open a side conversation with the chatbot.

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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with an urgent warning about TikTok’s looming deal with Trump-aligned insiders—a move David calls the “biggest giveaway since the days of the railway grants.” He argues that the American media landscape has been quietly transformed, and political power has shifted from legacy outlets to algorithmic platforms loyal to the president.