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 Donald Trump, social media is a fundamental component of the presidency. He shares his thoughts freely and constantly; world-shaking announcements that other presidents might have reserved for prime-time speeches, he posts online.
Many Americans—and much of the rest of the world—have become inured to Donald Trump’s strange rants. When he shouts about sharks, when he drones on about his brilliant uncle, when he casually ponders violating the Constitution, his supporters try to dress his statements up as some kind of strategy: He’s not lost touch with reality, you see. He’s doing the weave, or he’s owning the libs. He’s fighting the fake news and flooding the zone. He knows what he’s doing.
“cool use case of chatgpt work i heard last night:
connect your family calendars and explain your kids’ interests.
every morning for the drive to school, have it make a podcast that talks about one kid’s soccer game that afternoon, one kid’s upcoming birthday, some news, etc.
Steven Quay is in final vetting to run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Within months of having her first child, Samantha Savran began hearing from family and friends that she should have a second. Doing so would be the greatest “gift” that she and her husband could give their son, people told them.
At first, Savran agreed. Growing up with a brother, she had liked having a live-in playmate and confidant. But the more she thought about her situation, she grew hesitant. Her birth experience had been traumatic.
If you go to Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, you may be able to purchase, for a mere $69.99, a plastic receptacle shaped as a Trojan horse. The horse is used in the film as an image of moral decline. But the repurposing of a sinister instrument of war into a popcorn container hints at the malleability of the conceit: A Trojan horse contains unexpected multitudes.
We look at the life and legacy of Dominican American historian, activist and prison abolitionist Dr. Johanna Fernández, who died on July 30 after a long battle with cancer. She was 55 years old. As a professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, Fernández was a leading scholar of the Young Lords, the radical 1960s civil rights organization founded in Chicago and New York and modeled on the Black Panthers.
A live chat with Felix Salmon and Lee Buchheit hosted by the Library of Mistakes.
More than 70 years after the kidnapping, torture and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi, a major new photography exhibit and companion book ask how the world would be different “If Emmett Till Lived.” The Black teenager’s brutal murder, as well as his open-casket funeral that displayed his mutilated body, shocked the United States in 1955 and became a galvanizing moment in the civil rights movement. If Till had lived, he would be just over 85 years old today.
Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general cleared a major hurdle this week after two Republican senators who had raised concerns agreed to back him. Blanche gave written assurances that a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” designed to pay Trump allies would not be resurrected, and that a settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service only gave the president retroactive immunity from audits rather than perpetual protection.
Leopold Aschenbrenner’s A.I.-focused portfolio was plummeting before Ken Griffin snapped up most of it.
Cyclosporiasis’ rebranding as “explosive diarrhea” has brought our collective attention to food safety concerns and the MAGA-cultivated Taylor Farms.
Beth Gardiner explains how we ended up holding the (plastic) bag for Big Oil’s wastefulness.
The rush to build more data centers is driving up electricity costs.
From Chipotle to Chopt, the cyclosporiasis outbreak is causing an implosion of sales—and an explosion of problems elsewhere.
In a heated interview with Dana Bash, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attacked Anthony Fauci and the media.
Lawmakers agree that the bill is flawed. But hostilities between insurers and doctors could stymie their efforts to fix it.
The case challenging Mehmet Oz’s “faithfulness to Congressional intent” will continue.
The Health secretary said the group Congress had directed the money, to vaccinate children in poor countries, was using dangerous shots. The administration says it has secured reforms.
Outward’s hosts sit down with the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven.
The neighborhood changes, the church moves, people forget and remember “the AIDS years,” but AIDS isn’t over.
The AIDS cocktail opens new possibilities. And MCC San Francisco tries to use the experience of AIDS to make bigger social change.
The church’s minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
During Thursday’s segment about the risks of artificial intelligence, we shared a quote from author Naomi Klein that we later discovered was AI-generated. Klein has written about the proliferation of the fake quote on her Substack and joins Democracy Now! to discuss the growing difficulty of verifying online information.
“These companies are creating digital doppelgangers of us, trying to monetize our identities,” says Klein.
Once upon a time, it was practically de minimis for either political party to disavow a candidate facing allegations of domestic violence. But now is not that time.
Based on the FBI’s preliminary assessment, Iranian-linked hackers may be responsible for a coordinated cyberattack targeting the water-supply systems of at least seven states. No evidence suggests that the attack poisoned the water or made it unsafe to drink. But any attack on critical infrastructure is cause for concern. The very fact that these alarming hacks could be traced to Iran would seem to support President Trump’s claims about the danger the country poses to the United States.
The acting attorney general made the remarks during a private call with faith leaders.
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.
Fundamental realignments in the way Americans vote are rare, but predictions that they have occurred are not. Nearly as soon as Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential race in November 2024, people started saying the election represented a new era.
Tyler Vanwert / Reuters
People watch as massive plumes of smoke rise from a wildfire in Spokane, Washington, on August 1, 2026, in this screengrab obtained from a social-media video.David Ryder / Reuters
Wildfire smoke hangs in the sky above Spokane, Washington, as the Old Trails Fire burns nearby on August 3, 2026.David Ryder / Reuters
A charred vehicle lies on the side of a road in Spokane on August 2, 2026.