Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.A lot has happened this year. Today, we’re reflecting on what The Atlantic covered in 2020. Below is a non-exhaustive list of must-read stories, including some of our standout work on the coronavirus, America’s racial reckoning, and the election.

Photographs by Ricardo NagaokaShould American cities defund their police departments? The question has been asked continually—with varying degrees of hope, fear, anger, confusion, and cynicism—since the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day. It hung over the November election: on the right, as a caricature in attack ads (call 911, get a recording) and on the left as a litmus test separating the incrementalists from the abolitionists.

Editor’s Note: Every Monday, Lori Gottlieb answers questions from readers about their problems, big and small. Have a question? Email her at dear.therapist@theatlantic.com. Dear Therapist,I need help with grieving and my feelings of anger toward this microscopic virus that has taken my father. I know that even when somebody is terminally ill, there’s no way to be fully prepared for loss.

At 10 o’clock one morning this November, Rob Beal’s bosses summoned him and his co-workers onto a mysterious Zoom call. Beal had spent more than two years working as a coach for AbleTo, which provides mental-health services to people through apps, videochats, and calls, like Uber for anxiety.Beal, a 50-year-old former attorney, had devoted himself to his job coaching people through AbleTo’s anxiety and depression programs.

For years, social-media platforms had held firm: Just because a post was false didn’t mean it was their place to do anything about it. But 2020 changed their minds.At the end of May, Twitter for the first time labeled a tweet from the president of the United States as potentially misleading. After Donald Trump falsely insisted that mail-in voting would rig the November election, the platform added a message telling users to “get the facts.

This year’s 50 Best came together a little differently than before. Just five years ago we could address a fledgling podcastsphere with the 50 best episodes of the year—not shows. Now, something like 1.5 million podcasts exist. Even if only half of those were active in 2020 we still couldn’t possibly hear them all, no matter how pathological our dedication to listening.