We speak with Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, about high-level U.S.-Cuban migration talks held last week in Washington. He says U.S. policies that expedite permanent residency for Cubans in the United States play a major role in the movement of people between the two countries, but adds that the main driver of migration is the decadeslong U.S. embargo.
At today’s hearing on Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority appeared poised to give him what he most desires in the case: further delays that virtually preclude the chance that he will face a jury in his election-subversion case before the November election.
But the nearly three hours of debate may be even more significant for how they would shape a second Trump term if he wins reelection.
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.
Over the past decade, sleep has become better understood as a core part of wellness. But the stressors of modern life mean that Americans are getting less of it.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The Supreme Court goes through the looking glass on presidential immunity.
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
“Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of murdered Christian children at the Passover festival,” the Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin wrote in The Atlantic in 1911. “Of course that was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing.
Here are a few things that Donald Trump’s lawyer says a president ought to be immune from prosecution for doing:
selling nuclear secrets
employing the U.S. military to assassinate a political rival
launching a coup
During a Supreme Court hearing this morning, John Sauer, representing the former president, argued that each of these actions could be understood as an “official act” of the president, and that no current or former president may be charged with crimes for doing them.
In the pandemic winter of 2020, Katie, my family’s 14-year-old miniature poodle, began coughing uncontrollably. After multiple vet visits, and more than $1,000 in bills, a veterinary cardiologist diagnosed her with heart failure. Our girl, a dog I loved so much that I wrote an essay about how I called her my “daughter,” would likely die within nine months.
Katie survived for almost two years.
Student protests calling for university divestment from Israel and the U.S. arms industry have rocked campuses from coast to coast. The nonviolent protests, which have been characterized as “antisemitic” for their criticism of Israel, have been met with an intensifying police crackdown as university administrators threaten academic discipline and arrests. On Wednesday, local and state troopers violently arrested dozens at the University of Texas at Austin.
Amnesty International has released its annual report assessing human rights in 155 countries. The report highlights Israel’s assault on Gaza with evidence of war crimes continuing to mount, as well as U.S. failures to denounce rights violations committed by Israel. It also points to Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, and the rise of authoritarianism and massive rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar.
At least 320 bodies have been discovered buried in a mass grave at the destroyed Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, just weeks after a similar mass grave containing up to 400 bodies was discovered amid the ruins of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Some of the bodies, which include children, medical staff and patients, appear to have been executed or buried alive. Meanwhile, Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza as its assault of the beleaguered enclave surpasses 200 days.
Half of voters in a new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll support states making their own laws about abortion access, compared with just 35 percent who oppose that.
Doctors say they fear that following their medical judgment could cost them their license or land them in jail.
What happened in North Carolina is playing out across the U.S. as large employers try to limit the costs of the expensive new generation of weight-loss drugs.
The move highlights the deepening divide between the more socially conservative wing of the party, which opposes abortion on moral grounds, and the more populist, MAGA branch.
Biden and Trump are both campaigning on warped economic statistics, cherry-picking weird data from the Covid crisis.
By any measure, it amounted to a strong month of hiring.
The concern is that higher rates are putting pressure on households and businesses looking to borrow, weighing on hiring, investment and the housing market.
Last month’s job growth was up from a revised gain of 229,000 jobs in January.
The president’s team thinks it’s had a historically successful first term, delivering victories on the economy, climate, drug pricing and more. But many Americans aren’t feeling it.
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 the past couple of years, scientists have watched with growing concern as a massive outbreak of avian flu, also known as H5N1 bird flu, has swept through bird populations. Recently in the U.S., a farm worker and some cattle herds have been infected. I spoke with my colleague Katherine J.
So: You’ve decided to force a multibillion-dollar technology company with ties to China to divest from its powerful social-video app. Congratulations! Here’s what’s next: *awful gurgling noises*
Yesterday evening, the Senate passed a bill—appended to a $95 billion foreign-aid package—that would compel ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to sell the app within about nine months or face a ban in the United States.
The move clears the path for a similar vote in the Senate — which appears to have the support to pass the measure.
Columbia University shut down all in-person classes on Monday, and faculty and staff were encouraged to work remotely. “We need a reset,” President Minouche Shafik said, in reference to what she called the “rancor” around pro-Palestinian rallies on campus, as well as the arrest—with her encouragement—of more than 100 student protesters last week.
The year was 2006. Popular music was, for women, a pretty desolate landscape. Songs such as “My Humps” and “Buttons” served up shimmering, grinding strip-pop, while dull, minor-key objectification infused “Smack That,” “Money Maker,” and similar tracks. In the video for “London Bridge,” the singer and former child star Fergie gave a lap dance to a silent, immotive King’s Guardsman, barely pausing to lick his uniform. For “Ms.
We speak with Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, about high-level U.S.-Cuban migration talks held last week in Washington. He says U.S. policies that expedite permanent residency for Cubans in the United States play a major role in the movement of people between the two countries, but adds that the main driver of migration is the decadeslong U.S. embargo.
Hundreds of climate activists gathered at the global headquarters of Citigroup in New York on Wednesday to demand the banking giant stop financing fossil fuel companies. The protests come on the heels of a first-of-its-kind Earth Day hearing where environmental activists from around the world gathered in New York this week to condemn what they call Citigroup’s environmental racism. Citibank is the world’s second-largest funder of coal, oil and gas.
Months ago, a State Department panel urged the Biden administration to disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid over serious human rights abuses, including rape and torture. According to ProPublica, Secretary of State Blinken received the recommendation in December but has still not taken any action.
Thousands of Jewish Americans and allies gathered in Brooklyn on Tuesday for a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover, held just a block from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to protest ongoing U.S. support for the Israeli assault on Gaza. “Too many of our people are worshiping a false idol,” said award-winning author and activist Naomi Klein, one of several speakers at Tuesday’s rally. “They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it.
Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Brooklyn on Tuesday when Jewish New Yorkers and allies gathered for what they called a “Seder in the Streets to Stop Arming Israel” on the second night of Passover. The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel.
The challenge concerning Idaho hospitals’ obligation to provide abortions during medical emergencies would have national ripple effects.
What happened in North Carolina is playing out across the U.S. as large employers try to limit the costs of the expensive new generation of weight-loss drugs.