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 me, playing squash is not about achievement. That’s what makes it so much fun.

A jury in New York today put a price on Donald Trump’s inability to keep his mouth shut, awarding the writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit.
It’s the second time a jury has ordered Trump to pay Carroll. She alleged in 2019 that Trump raped her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s. When Trump denied it, Carroll sued him for defamation and battery. Last May, a jury found Trump liable for assaulting her and awarded her $5 million.

Waiting to obtain justice from an international tribunal is a bit like waiting for the messiah: You are not likely to find what you’re looking for anytime soon, but the pastime remains popular. Today the International Court of Justice announced its first ruling in a case brought by South Africa against Israel, alleging genocide in Gaza. South Africa had sought a preliminary ruling that would force Israel to stop fighting while a full case could be heard.

All of a sudden, the U.S. has become the biggest liquid-natural-gas exporter in the world. Supplied by a souped-up hydraulic-fracturing industry, and spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has hampered European gas access, LNG export terminals are being built on a monumental scale throughout the U.S. Gulf Coast, in places so beset by climate disasters that homes there are now deemed uninsurable.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague today made an initial ruling, four weeks after an application from South Africa that accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. The court ordered Israel to ensure that its military does not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians, to immediately improve humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and to prevent and punish genocidal incitement against Palestinians.

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 strong economy could work in Joe Biden’s favor in the coming election, but only if consumers’ attitudes stay positive too.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Elise Stefanik’s Trump audition
The Daily Show is better than this.
Americans can’t decide what it means to grow up.

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.
In a 1998 Atlantic cover story, William H. Calvin offered perhaps the best oceanography lesson to appear in a major national magazine.

Out on the savannas of East Africa, lions have always loomed large. Clocking in at several hundred pounds apiece and capable of ending a zebra’s life in a single swift bite, they’re veritable food-web royalty.
But in certain parts of their habitat, these hefty carnivores are now under threat from an unlikely and petite new nemesis: an invasive ant, puny enough to fit inside a hollowed-out sesame seed. The two creatures rarely, if ever, directly interact.

Were anyone in denial that this would be an election year ruled by conflict and nonsense, a wake-up call came in the form of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest. Performing on the variety show, the rock band Green Day changed one line from their 2004 song “American Idiot”: “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” became “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.” Thus was born the first culture skirmish of 2024.
Social media lit up with salutes from the left and complaints from the right.