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The Trump campaign’s post yesterday about the “Third World” went beyond Trump’s known obsession with migrant crime to highlight an embrace of the “Great Replacement” theory.

Karen Lewis, a therapist in Washington, D.C., talks with a lot of frustrated single people—and she likes to propose that they try a thought exercise.
Imagine you look into a crystal ball. You see that you’ll find your dream partner in, say, 10 years—but not before then. What would you do with that intervening time, freed of the onus to look for love?
I’d finally be able to relax, she often hears. I’d do all the things I’ve been waiting to do.

A basic fact of thermodynamics is coming to haunt every foot of train track in the United States. Heat makes steel expand, moving its molecules farther apart, and as hot days become hotter and more frequent, rail lines are at risk of warping and buckling more often.
Any fix must deal with this fundamental truth of physics. Railroads can slow their trains down, which avoids adding more heat.

The first time Angel Giuffria saw the logo on her bionic hand, she felt a sense of pride. She was born without the lower half of her left arm, and started wearing a prosthesis at six weeks old. Back then, it had a beige cover—a design that was meant to mimic skin, but looked obviously fake. This new hand abandoned any unsettling attempt at imitation. Instead, it had a Star Wars–like aesthetic. Giuffria was delighted.

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.
In embracing the elimination of taxes on tips, a policy proposal recently promoted by Donald Trump, Kamala Harris is neutralizing any advantage Trump might have gained from it—at little to no cost to her own campaign.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

The novelist Gary Shteyngart recently asked Donald Trump’s supporters on X to “check out RFK Jr.,” noting that the idiosyncratic candidate has “many interesting things to say about lots of stuff.” We asked Shteyngart if he himself would vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This was his response.
I’m a lifelong registered Republican who has voted for Donald J. Trump in the past five presidential elections. But lately I have been looking at Robert F. KENNEDY Jr.

Last week, civilians in Russia experienced something new—something Chechens, Georgians, Syrians, Ukrainians, and other civilians in the path of Russia’s military have known about for decades. After Russian tanks withdraw and shelling stops, Moscow holds certain hot spots in stasis. They become “gray zones”: neither at war nor fully at peace, wrecked by heavy artillery, psychologically traumatized and economically ruined, under Russia’s boot but subject to its neglect.