This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
If someone had no relationships—no colleagues to appease, no parents to make proud, no lovers to impress—how might they behave? With those interactions removed, would you be able to glimpse, as Jordan Kisner wrote in our May issue, an “authentic, independent self”? The author Katie Kitamura, whose new novel, Audition, is the subject of Kisner’s essay, isn’t sure.
The first time I booted up the video game Minecraft, in 2011, it was still in its beta-testing infancy—just a hint of the multimedia, kid-friendly powerhouse it’d one day become. I tooled around with total ineptitude in the pixelated forest environment that my avatar had been dumped into, until the sun set and a zombie ate me.
A feature film about life in the occupied West Bank, The Teacher, opens in New York tonight and in theaters across the U.S. next week. The film, which is inspired by true events, centers a Palestinian schoolteacher who struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with supporting his student.
Microsoft fired two workers who protested the company’s ties to Israel’s assault on Gaza at its 50th anniversary celebration last Friday. The workers protested after leaked documents revealed that Microsoft supplies the Israeli military with AI and cloud technology, as well as an Air Force unit known as the Ofek, to build “kill lists.
A lawyer who represents a pro-Palestinian student protester in Michigan was detained Sunday at the Detroit Metro Airport on his way back from a family vacation. Dearborn attorney Amir Makled was separated from his wife and children and asked to surrender his cellphone by Border Patrol agents. “This wasn’t something that was random,” says Makled. “They had a whole profile about me.
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, after the Maryland resident was denied due process rights and deported to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador. But the court remains vague on how exactly this would happen, and the Trump administration has claimed it has no way of ensuring his safe return.
“Trump is back!” they screamed, apparently unaware that the tariffs were his idea in the first place.
He’s turning basic groceries into luxury items.
David Enrich joins to discuss his book on the legal war being waged on journalism.
The looming possibility of slashing Medicaid spending and not extending ACA subsidies has prompted a legislative scramble from Sacramento to Annapolis.
RFK Jr. also said he’s assembling a task force to focus on the issue.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
The president is foreshadowing deals with multiple trading partners in an apparent effort to quell economic anxiety and prove his tariff plan is working.
Recent polls showed Americans were wary of tariffs, even before the president launched his plan to realign the global trade order.
The president’s sweeping tariff plan has thrown markets into chaos and risks sparking a global trade war.
He also said he isn’t worried about stock market turbulence, following the worst week in the market in two years.
The normally bullish Trump over the weekend declined to rule out the possibility of a full-blown recession as his tariff policies threaten to spark a massive global trade war.
As federal agencies face crippling cuts and are forced to cut essential services, President Trump has announced he will seek a $1 trillion budget for the Pentagon, a record-setting number that would mark the highest level of U.S. defense spending since World War II.
This story was updated on April 10, 2025 at 9:27 pm.
America has reached a very dangerous moment, as the Supreme Court’s indulgence of President Donald Trump’s belief in his own untrammeled authority collides with the justices’ expectation that he will abide by their decisions.
Speaker Mike Johnson flashed a grin as he chided reporters in the Capitol this morning: “I told you not to doubt us.” Moments earlier, the House had approved a budget proposal that could allow Republicans to pass the president’s “one big beautiful bill”—a boost for not only Donald Trump’s legislative agenda but also Johnson’s job security.
In fairness to the speaker’s doubters, they had good reason to question whether the budget would pass.
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.
A tension has always existed between President Donald Trump’s push for American retrenchment and his desire to “Make America great again,” but the gulf has grown yawningly wide in the past three months.
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.
Looking at a picture of Abraham Lincoln in October 1860, the 11-year-old Grace Bedell claimed to have solved the problem of Lincoln’s face and wrote him a letter to tell him about it. The presidential candidate was well aware of the problem. As he came into public view in 1860, jokes about Lincoln’s appearance abounded.
At the end of the Season 4 premiere of Hacks, Deborah (played by Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) pose for the cover of a prestigious magazine. Glamorously dressed and impeccably lit, they look ecstatic, beaming in every shot.
The National Institutes of Health is the latest agency to break from Trump’s billionaire adviser.
