Today The Atlantic is announcing that Michael Leibel will join as senior editor for community. Michael begins on Monday, and will lead efforts to engage with our readers more closely, including building a larger forum for conversation on the website and app. Michael spent the past eight years at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, leading audience, social-media, and video-curation strategy.
After last-minute changes, members complained they didn’t fully understand what they were voting on.
Updated with new questions at 3:30 p.m. ET on December 4, 2025.
I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer’s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that the good people of the college learn less.
“I found the astronomer of the university gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends,” he wrote.
Senate Health Committee Chair Bill Cassidy criticized the decision to invite Aaron Siri, who worked with Kennedy on vaccine-related lawsuits, to present at the CDC meeting.
Amid escalating ICE raids in New York City, Democracy Now!’s Messiah Rhodes spoke to immigrants and advocates supporting newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers from West Africa with hot meals, legal advice and job training. “When I help the people here, the people will help me one day,” Guinean immigrant Abdul Karim, a cook at Cafewal weekday kitchen, told Rhodes.
Immigrant rights advocate Murad Awawdeh joins us to discuss Donald Trump’s nationwide anti-immigrant crackdown and how it’s manifested in Trump’s hometown of New York City, where hundreds of New Yorkers recently blocked a federal immigration raid targeting street vendors from West Africa before it even started. “This has never been about vetting. This has never been about security and safety. It’s about cruelty,” says Awawdeh about the Trump administration’s persecution of immigrants.
Foreign policy analyst Matt Duss discusses the status of Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks and new data on the extent of casualties from the now nearly four-year Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. “For what did these people die? For what reason were they sent into this horrible meat grinder?” asks Duss.
“Pete Hegseth, much like the president he serves, sees himself as, essentially, above the law, as unconstrained by legal procedure.” Foreign policy analyst Matt Duss discusses the brewing conflict within the Trump administration over the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including his involvement in a leaked announcement of U.S. strikes on Yemen in March and the chain of command behind U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Heather Haddon joins Emily Peck to discuss the current challenges and trends she’s reported on in the fast food industry.
Lawmakers want to close a so-called hemp loophole. They might blow up a massive industry in the process.
After US Airways left Pittsburgh high and dry, yinzers finally built an airport on their own terms—and it’s incredible.
Larry Summers’ appalling emails to Jeffrey Epstein aren’t the only reason not to like the guy.
Advocates for European drugmakers say other countries must follow the UK to the bargaining table to stave off tariffs and remain competitive.
Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary convinced Rick Pazdur to take the role to help bring stability to the roiling agency.
States are choosing not to cover the new weight-loss drugs, sacrificing a chance to stem cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
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.
A celebrity contracts HIV, the world finally pays attention to AIDS, and Jim Mitulski preaches to a community tired of people dying from it.
When a lesbian minister is physically assaulted, the church is galvanized. When it happens again, the city is galvanized.
Economic adviser Kevin Hassett dismissed economic bedwetters, saying strong spending bodes well for the economy.
Democrats running on cost-of-living anxieties outperformed Republicans in Tuesday’s elections by greater-than-expected margins. The president chalked it up to partisan lies.
A recent poll found a majority of Americans feel they’re spending more on groceries than they did a year ago.
The Republican nominee has promised tax cuts and economic growth, but the numbers are fuzzy.
President Trump has gutted the U.S. government’s support for AIDS healthcare around the world while ordering an end to commemorations of World AIDS Day, observed annually on December 1. Cuts to U.S. foreign aid are having a disproportionate impact on LGBTQ+ communities in many countries, says journalist and scholar Steven Thrasher, speaking from Uganda. “There are people who’ve been harmed very immediately,” he says.
In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump carried Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District by 22 points. Last night, in a special election to represent the district, the Republican Matt Van Epps won by only nine points, defeating State Representative Aftyn Behn, a Democrat.
Trump celebrated the outcome on Truth Social as a “BIG Congressional WIN,” but the margin of victory in a deep-red district is ominous for Republicans.
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Think of the cattle auctioneer’s chant as a prayer. To the untrained ear, it’s nonsense, a stream of words compressed beyond recognition.
On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the shocking alleged corruption that has informed President Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine and the scandal of the recently proposed “peace plan” by the United States. He goes on to discuss how the many scandals of the Trump presidency make it hard to focus on just one, as it is quickly replaced in the news cycle by another.
The Government Accountability Office report is solidifying GOP opposition to extending expiring subsidies that help people pay for health insurance.
Updated with new questions at 4 p.m. ET on December 3, 2025.
I have much extolled here the value of new knowledge. Let us now hear a counterargument: Some months after Yale gave Mark Twain an honorary degree in 1888, the writer’s schedule cleared up enough for him to pull together a speech advising that the good people of the college learn less.
“I found the astronomer of the university gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends,” he wrote.
