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This month, a small group of Nebraska state senators found themselves in a position to potentially shape the outcome of the 2024 election.

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If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were president, this is the kind of Cabinet he might appoint: Vani Hari, a.k.a. the “Food Babe” influencer; The Biggest Loser’s Jillian Michaels; the conservative psychologist Jordan B. Peterson and his daughter, the raw-meat enthusiast Mikhaila Peterson Fuller; and 18-year-old Grace Price, a self-identified citizen scientist.

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Earlier this month, the self-identified “white nationalist” Donald Trump adviser Laura Loomer said that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.”
Asked what he thought of Loomer’s remarks, the GOP vice-presidential candidate, J. D.

In the United States, home heat pumps have been gaining traction (and government subsidies) as highly energy-efficient replacements for gas-fired boilers and furnaces. They vary in size, but most of the units being hyped by environmentalists and installed nationwide measure just a few square feet. In Stockholm’s Hammarbyverket plant, which is by some measures the world’s largest heat-pump plant, each of the seven electric-powered heat pumps is the size of a two-story house.

For years now, AI has undermined the public’s ability to trust what it sees, hears, and reads. The Republican National Committee released a provocative ad offering an “AI-generated look into the country’s possible future if Joe Biden is re-elected,” showing apocalyptic, machine-made images of ruined cityscapes and chaos at the border. Fake robocalls purporting to be from Biden urged New Hampshire residents not to vote in the 2024 primary election.

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.
Mark Robinson is pointing a finger at artificial intelligence amid the recent revelations about disturbing comments he allegedly made on a porn site.

This year, just like last year, the nearly 200,000 kids in Chicago’s public elementary schools spent recess indoors during the first week of school, when the heat index hit 114 degrees. In the past few weeks, outdoor activities were canceled at schools in and around Washington, D.C., where temperatures exceeded 100 degrees last month, and in Southern California too.

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.