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 several hours last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi sat before the House Judiciary Committee with one apparent mission: Don’t back down.
A post on X claimed to be a simple message from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Stay active; eat well. But the 90-second video it shared, called “Secretary Kennedy and Kid Rock’s Rock Out Work Out,” seems designed to be bewildering. Here was Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The president stopped in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old district to defend his economic record.
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
ChatGPT and food-delivery droids came to my campus at roughly the same time, in the 2022–23 academic year. My response—cranky, tweedy—was hopelessly on brand for a history professor. The chatbot and the droid appeared to be in league, robotic species on the vanguard of civilizational collapse.
Updated with new questions at 2:50 p.m. ET on February 19, 2026.
If you put any stock in the ability of IQ tests to assess intelligence, we humans have spent the past century steadily getting smarter. (And if you don’t put any stock in them, well, we humans have steadily gotten better at IQ tests.)
Because IQ is a standardized measure, humankind’s average score still sits at 100—but this isn’t your granddaddy’s 100.
U.K. police have arrested the former Prince Andrew, the brother of King Charles, on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was previously sued in 2021 by Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of multiple instances of sexual assault when she was underage. The lawsuit was settled out of court shortly after it was filed, but Mountbatten-Windsor was allowed to keep his royal title and privileges at the time.
Following violent and indiscriminate sweeps of immigrant communities across the United States, the number of people in ICE detention has increased 75% since President Trump returned to the Oval Office. Yet, as the number of lawsuits against the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign skyrockets, the federal government has continued to jail people indefinitely. Although judges across the U.S.
We continue our conversation with attorney Laura Marquez-Garrett and victim advocates Lori Schott and Lennon Torres about their fight to hold tech giants accountable for the damaging and even deadly effects of social media addiction on children and young adults. We’re also joined by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who blew the whistle on several of the company’s harmful and manipulative practices in 2021.
Meta — the parent company of social media platforms Facebook and Instagram — and Google are on trial in Los Angeles following a lawsuit accusing them of fueling and profiting from addictive behaviors aimed at children and young adults.
Mariana van Zeller joins Felix Salmon for a look into the hidden economics of black and gray markets.
Alphabet issues century bonds, the majority of Trump’s tariffs were paid by US citizens, and Felix defends fakes.
Regrettably, I must support the Dunkin’ commercial.
The billionaire wanted the Post to die, because a vigorous, well-resourced newspaper does not help his bottom line.
Lawmakers delayed negotiations despite a drumbeat of warnings. That was just the first problem.
They want the Supreme Court to allow physicians to buck the medical establishment when they advise patients and the public.
The health secretary turned his agencies toward skepticism of processed food and vaccines, but he’s faced pushback at every turn — including from Republicans.
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.
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.
If you are reading this on the East Coast, congratulations on the warmer weather you’re finally getting this week. It was cold and snowy for a while there. Here in the West, we wish we’d been in your shoes. Spare a thought for the tens of millions of us who live on the other side of the continent, where a catastrophe is unfolding.
In Colorado, where I live and grew up, this winter has been especially warm and dry. Last year closed with the warmest December in the history of recordkeeping.
If you put any stock in the ability of IQ tests to assess intelligence, we humans have spent the past century steadily getting smarter. (And if you don’t put any stock in them, well, we humans have steadily gotten better at IQ tests.)
Because IQ is a standardized measure, humankind’s average score still sits at 100—but this isn’t your granddaddy’s 100.
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.
Any legislation titled with a backronym is automatically suspect, and the SAVE America Act—that’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility—is no exception.
President Trump called Commissioner Marty Makary to the White House to discuss his frustration with the agency handling of vaccine issues, sources told POLITICO.
Agence Zoom / Getty
Mikaela Shiffrin of Team USA celebrates her gold-medal win in women’s slalom on Day 12 of the Winter Olympics at Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre, on February 18, 2026. On her final opportunity to medal in this Olympics, Shiffrin won by a margin of 1.5 seconds, following numerous disappointments in previous Olympics.
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts
On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, David opens with a warning about President Trump’s escalating efforts to bend American institutions to his will.
