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 few years, Mark Zuckerberg has been somewhat overshadowed by more antic-prone CEOs and flashier technology. But his appearance before the Senate yesterday is a reminder that he’s still very much a power broker of Silicon Valley.
Updated at 9:40 p.m. ET on February 1, 2024
A little monster lives on my wrist, and every day, I wake up prepared to do battle with it. Most days, I lose.
That gremlin is an Apple Watch, which, like all fitness trackers, is designed to nudge users toward healthy behaviors. Apple uses three digital rings to measure a person’s daily activity in different ways. Each one has a bright color and a simple name. The blue “Stand” ring prompts you to, well, stand more.
Scot Peterson served for many years as a school resource officer in Broward County, Florida. His job was largely uneventful—he might catch a kid vaping or break up a fight—until just after Valentine’s Day 2018. That day, a gunman walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 people. Shortly after, a video circulated showing Peterson taking cover beside a wall while the gunman was inside shooting.
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.
It’s Black History Month again. And this February is our quadrennial Super Black History Month, where we get a whole extra leap day to squeeze in some bonus Black history. That’s roughly 4 percent more Black history than usual, more than enough time for one sitting of the 1998 NBC miniseries The Temptations.
On the first day of Black History Month, we take a look at how racism shapes healthcare in America. We speak with Dr. Uché Blackstock about her new book, Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine. The instant New York Times best-selling book tells her family’s story through multiple generations of Black women physicians while revealing the history of racism that created today’s disparities in medical training and treatment in America.
Democracy Now! speaks with filmmaker Nawal Al-Maghafi about her BBC investigative report which reveals new details about how the United Arab Emirates hired American mercenaries to carry out over 100 assassinations in southern Yemen, targeting politicians, imams and members of civil society. Al-Maghafi interviewed several mercenaries for the first time on camera about how they conducted the targeted killings and trained others to run similar operations.
The U.S. continues to launch airstrikes on Yemen in response to the campaign of missile and drone attacks on commercial ships along key global trade routes through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden led by Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis. The Houthi strikes have expanded from targets connected to Israel, in protest of the siege and bombing of Gaza, to ships affiliated with the U.S. and U.K. in what the group calls acts of self-defense.
More than 2.5 million STD cases were reported to the CDC in 2022 — likely a significant undercount given challenges around the country with access to testing.
The strategy shift focuses on Trump’s tax law and poses a simple question to voters: Whose side are you on?
The new manufacturing jobs tied to Biden’s investment plans are coming — but maybe not until after the election.
Friday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate dropped from 3.9% to 3.7%, not far above a five-decade low of 3.4% in April.
A new Amnesty International report titled “The Cost of Doing Business? The Petrochemical Industry’s Toxic Pollution in the USA” documents the health and environmental impact of fossil fuel and petrochemical plants run by corporations like ExxonMobil and Shell along the Houston Ship Channel in Texas, identifying it as a “sacrifice zone” where the harms are disproportionately borne by marginalized communities.
POLITICO invited experts, advocates and legislators to its “How Fast Can We Solve Alzheimer’s” POLITICO live event Wednesday evening, including Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Brett Guthrie.
Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Brett Guthrie spoke at POLITICO’s “How Fast Can We Solve Alzheimer’s” event.
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.
Republicans need to recover their senses about the dire moral and strategic tests Ukraine and the West face in Europe.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The nonsensical impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas
“What I found in San Francisco”
Chicken Littles are ruining America.
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Last week, I asked readers, “What is the state of local journalism where you live, and how does it affect your community?”
Replies have been edited for length and clarity.
When Donald Trump was impeached, and then impeached again, some Republicans warned that repeated uses of the process would lead to it being degraded and meaningless. House Republicans are now determined to prove that was true.
Early this morning, the House Homeland Security Committee narrowly voted, along party lines, to advance articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security. The full body is expected to consider the impeachment next week.
There’s something fundamentally excessive about winter sports. Instead of curling up with a book or Netflix when the weather turns cold, winter athletes wrestle with inordinate layers and high-tech gear just to make it through the day without frostbite. They sprint across ice with knives strapped to their feet and hurtle down mountains at speeds generally reserved for interstate highways. They fall off ski lifts—or are trapped overnight in them.
I have to give some credit to Matthew Vaughn’s new film, Argylle, for one thing: It is not—repeat, not—based on anything. An action movie with a reported near–$200 million budget and no connection to any preexisting intellectual property should be thrilling, a glorious throwback to the days when big films could just be about people punching and shooting each other without referencing some other storytelling universe.
The drugmaker will discontinue development and marketing for Aduhelm, a landmark Alzheimer’s disease treatment.
We speak with an Israeli reporter who covered a major conference in Jerusalem calling for Palestinians to be removed from Gaza in order to rebuild Jewish settlements. The conference was attended by about a third of the Israeli Cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of whom have long been involved in the extremist settler movement in the West Bank.
In a shocking raid on a hospital in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, three Palestinians were killed by undercover Israeli assassins disguised as Muslim women and doctors. Citing no evidence, the Israeli military claimed the three men it targeted were involved in planning an imminent attack and were using the hospital as a hideout. Hospital officials said there was no exchange of fire and that the three men were asleep.
President Biden says he holds Iran responsible for the drone killing of three U.S. soldiers at a base in Jordan and that he has decided on a U.S. response. Tehran has denied any involvement in the attack and threatened to “decisively respond” to any U.S. retaliation. Responsibility for the strike was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a term used to describe a loose coalition of militias that oppose U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The South opens a window on public health insurance for more low-income people.
The stakes of the election go far beyond whether a GOP president signs a bill banning the procedure.
Negotiators on a treaty to guide the world’s response to the next pandemic oppose any requirement to share drugmakers’ intellectual property.
The Biden administration says the facilities need to do more. Home executives say vaccine hesitancy requires a new government message.
Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto was overriden.
The strategy shift focuses on Trump’s tax law and poses a simple question to voters: Whose side are you on?
The new manufacturing jobs tied to Biden’s investment plans are coming — but maybe not until after the election.