The Oscars are not built for somber appeals about current events, though the show has tried in the past to balance celebration with seriousness. Sometimes that effort has worked: In 2002, after 9/11, Tom Cruise opened the evening with a vague but elegant speech about needing movie magic “more than ever,” which eased the apparent anxiety in the room.
You know you’ve delivered an Oscars speech for the history books when your fellow nominees are getting teary. Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who won the Best Supporting Actress trophy tonight for her work in The Holdovers, spoke about her career with such earnest passion that she received no shortage of weepy faces from her competitors: Jodie Foster could be seen welling up, as could America Ferrera.
Randolph thanked her mother, her acting teacher, and even her publicist—a funny role reversal.
When Senator Katie Britt of Alabama gave the Republican response to the State of the Union address last Thursday, she introduced herself to America with a bizarre, dramatic speech. Set in a stark kitchen, and veering between folksy and distressed, it was ripe for parody. Naturally, Saturday Night Live would tackle it. But unexpectedly, it did so with the actor Scarlett Johansson—a much more familiar face to many Americans—who handled Britt’s odd performance brilliantly.
Former President Donald Trump, perhaps threatened by President Joe Biden’s well-received State of the Union address, mocked his opponent’s lifelong stutter at a rally in Georgia yesterday. “Wasn’t it—didn’t it bring us together?” Trump asked sarcastically. He kept the bit going, slipping into a Biden caricature. “‘I’m gonna bring the country tuh-tuh-tuh-together,’” Trump said, straining and narrowing his mouth for comedic effect.
Trump has made a new habit of this.
Kate Cox’s fight for an abortion in Texas highlights Dobbs’ knock-on effects.
Gov. Kay Ivey signed the legislation as soon as it reached her desk Wednesday night.
Opponents of the reproductive rights referendum are waging a campaign to discourage voters from signing petitions.
Democrats are working to make abortion and reproductive health care a central issue in the 2024 election.
The announcement is expected to be touted this week, alongside efforts to increase competition in food, housing and other kitchen table issues.
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.
Policymakers were determined to avoid the mistakes of the Great Recession — and they succeeded. But now they are in a mood of “fear and introspection.
“You can’t blame the president when policies go wrong, and then say he’s not responsible if things are going right.
The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7%, just above a half-century low.
In his State of the Union address, President Biden addressed Israel’s assault on Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen amid a relentless bombing campaign and siege.
President Biden delivered his State of the Union address Thursday night. In it, he made his case for a second term ahead of this year’s presidential election, criticizing Republican front-runner Donald Trump without mentioning him by name, and highlighting his administration’s policies to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, reinstate reproductive rights and provide support to Ukraine. Our guest Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher of The Nation, describes current U.S.
In Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in Monday as prime minister for a second time, days after newly elected members of Parliament were seated amid protests by lawmakers from the party of ousted and jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Sharif will lead a coalition government after none of the major parties won a majority of parliamentary seats in February’s election, when Khan supporters accused the military of election tampering.
While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid.
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.
Between the Super Tuesday results and the president’s State of the Union address, a Joe Biden–Donald Trump face-off—the first presidential rematch since the 1950s—has become all but certain.
The end of political centrism continues to be a prevailing theme.
What is the correct distance from which to film a dictator? You could give him a close-up, revealing his psychic wounds, in a biopic or drama. You could turn on a spotlight, make him sing and dance onstage. Perhaps it’s best not to put him on-screen at all, and to focus instead on those who suffered at his hands.
Pablo Larraín, the director of the Oscar-nominated black comedy El Conde, wrestled with this question carefully.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
A Columbia historian said he’d discovered evidence of a lost sacred text with scandalous implications about the life of Jesus. Was it a fake? In a new Atlantic feature, the writer Ariel Sabar reports on the bitter ongoing debate—and the largely unexamined early life of the man who found it.
The millions of people who crowd into New York City’s busiest subway stations every day have recently encountered a sight reminiscent of a frightening, bygone era: National Guard troops with long guns patrolling platforms and checking bags.
After 9/11 and at moments of high alert in the years since, New York deployed soldiers in the subway to deter would-be terrorists and reassure the public that the transit system was safe from attack. The National Guard is now there for a different reason.
Everyone knows AIs are dangerous. Everyone knows they can rattle off breakthroughs in wildlife tracking and protein folding before lunch, put half the workforce out of a job by supper, and fake enough reality to kill whatever’s left of democracy itself before lights out.
Fewer people admit that AIs are intelligent—not yet, anyway—and even fewer, that they might be conscious.
Kate Cox’s fight for an abortion in Texas highlights Dobbs’ knock-on effects.
Gov. Kay Ivey signed the legislation as soon as it reached her desk Wednesday night.
Opponents of the reproductive rights referendum are waging a campaign to discourage voters from signing petitions.
Democrats are working to make abortion and reproductive health care a central issue in the 2024 election.
The announcement is expected to be touted this week, alongside efforts to increase competition in food, housing and other kitchen table issues.
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.
Policymakers were determined to avoid the mistakes of the Great Recession — and they succeeded. But now they are in a mood of “fear and introspection.