This week, Israel released an appalling video featuring five female Israeli soldiers taken captive at Nahal Oz military base on October 7. Fearful and bloody, the women beg for their lives while Hamas fighters mill around and alternately threaten to kill them and compliment their appearance. The captors call the women “sabaya,” which Israel translated as “women who can get pregnant.

Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here.  
As the vice-presidential sweepstakes continues, Republicans are vying for a slot as former President Donald Trump’s potential running mate.

This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine.
There’s an old adage about oysters: During months whose names don’t contain the letter r—May, June, July, and August—it’s best to stay away.
An oyster eaten outside these months should have a satisfying snap, like al dente pasta, says Shina Wysocki, the farm director at Chelsea Farms, in Washington State. That slightly firm texture is a sign that you’re eating a sexually immature oyster.

Even as Donald Trump relies on unprecedented support from Black and Latino voters, he is embracing policies that would expose their communities to much greater police surveillance and enforcement. The policies that Trump is pledging to implement around crime and policing in a second presidential term would reverse the broad trend of police reform that accelerated after the murder of George Floyd, four years ago today.

They did not break the mold when they made Glen Powell. That’s not to say the actor isn’t talented—after first really noticing him as a strapping baseball hunk in the filmmaker Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!, I figured Hollywood would take quick notice of his charms. Since then, he’s vaulted to fame in movies such as Set It Up, Top Gun: Maverick, and Anyone but You.

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.
The yellow school bus has remained remarkably consistent over the past century. But as a smaller share of kids ride the bus, its role is shifting.

Doctors often have a piece of advice for the rest of us: Don’t Google it. The search giant tends to be the first stop for people hoping to answer every health-related question: Why is my scab oozing? What is this pink bump on my arm? Search for symptoms, and you might click through to WebMD and other sites that can provide an overwhelming possibility of reasons for what’s ailing you.

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.
When George Miller started dreaming up his first Mad Max movie, in the late 1970s, he had just a vague sense of the world it would be set in; he knew only that his independent debut feature would be action-packed and shot cheaply in the Australian countryside.

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
This week, we published two essays about new books featuring unusual, surprising female protagonists.

In August 2022, the U.S. passed the most ambitious climate legislation of any country, ever. As the director of President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council at the time, I helped design the law. Less than two years later, the Inflation Reduction Act has succeeded beyond my wildest hopes at unleashing demand for clean energy.