The first person I saw when I walked into the Pentagon for the final time was Jimmy. I don’t even know his last name, but I know his story. Before he started work at the labyrinthine headquarters of America’s armed forces, he was a medic in the Marine Corps. For the past 21 years, he has been a building police officer and an unofficial, affable greeter.
“Interviews are NOT real anymore.” So reads the opening caption of a TikTok posted in September, punctuated by the skull-and-crossbones emoji. In the video, a young woman interviews for a job on a video call. She has a smartphone propped up against her laptop screen, so she can read off the responses that an AI app has composed for her: “Um, yeah, so, one of my key strengths is my adaptability.” She’s got a point.
Updated with new questions at 3:55 p.m. ET on October 15, 2025.
Atlantic Trivia reaches Week 3, which is by definition the most trivial of all: The word trivia originally referred to places where three (tri-) roads (-via) met in a crossing. If those slouch Romans had been more industrious builders, we might be playing quintivia or even septivia today.
Until recently, open support for Hamas in the United States was confined to the far left. The national chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which circulated talking points supporting the October 7 attacks, has lately declared on Instagram “DEATH TO COLLABORATORS.” But the notorious terrorist organization has found a new defender: President Donald Trump.
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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with observations about the ongoing government shutdown, how it could be a strategic mistake for Republicans, and why this political standoff is best understood as a “quasi-election” about the rule of law itself.
Then Frum is joined by Lord Charles Moore, the authorized biographer of Margaret Thatcher, to mark the centenary of her birth.
There are just weeks to go before the November 4 New York City mayoral election, a virtual rematch of the Democratic primary from earlier this year, when democratic socialist state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for the party nomination. Cuomo is now running for mayor as an independent, but former aide Lindsey Boylan says New Yorkers must not forget why he was forced out of the governor’s mansion four years ago.
As Israel and Hamas exchange living and dead captives as part of a U.S.-backed ceasefire agreement, questions are growing about how sustainable the truce is and whether the two sides will progress to the second and third stages of the plan.
We speak with Rutgers University professor Mark Bray, who fled from the U.S. to Spain with his family after receiving death threats over his scholarship. He is the author of the 2017 book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which explores the history and tactics of anti-fascist movements in Europe, the United States and beyond. Turning Point USA, the conservative campus group founded by Charlie Kirk, had called for Bray’s firing and branded him “Dr. Antifa.
Troy Perry starts the gay/lesbian Metropolitan Community Church. A young lesbian is a regular at the San Francisco congregation when her friend gets sick.
Rescued archival audio takes listeners into the heart of an LGBTQ+ church during the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s and ’90s San Francisco.
Gold prices have skyrocketed this week proving once again proving humans love shiny things.
It began in 2008—and has only proliferated from there.
He built a sports empire on ESPN. Now he wants to see if it’ll win him an Alabama Senate seat.
A Trump administration legal document said HHS initially targeted 1,000 to 1,200 employees for dismissal, and people speaking with POLITICO say the firings focused on the CDC.
Women of reproductive age have long been missing from clinical trials. It’s getting worse where abortion is banned.
Notices of the Trump administration’s reduction-in-force arrived late Friday, several former and current agency employees told POLITICO.
The group of outside experts will also consider shot ingredients like aluminum, as well as the timing and order of vaccines, according to a document posted on the agency’s website.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Trump’s strength with Republicans on the economy could prove to be a boon for the GOP.
A survey from the liberal-leaning group Somos Votantes shows Latino voters are souring on the president.
Privately, aides concede voters remain uneasy about prices but argue their policies are beginning to turn things around.
“Deserves to be called out,” says the president of the United States about a fawning magazine cover.
“On some levels, I understand that this is like a breakup.” So said Marc Maron on his podcast last week, monologuing in his garage for a final time. WTF With Marc Maron wrapped its 16-year run yesterday; the comedian interviewed Barack Obama, a conversation recorded in Obama’s office. The chat was something of a victory lap for Maron, who made headlines for interviewing the then-president 10 years prior. (Back then, the pair met on the host’s home turf.
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When prices are high and global conflicts destabilize the world, some investors start looking backwards—away from an uncertain future and toward the predictability of the past. And what’s older and more dependable than gold?
Last week, amid widespread geopolitical turmoil and a weakening U.S.
Atlantic Trivia reaches Week 3, which is by definition the most trivial of all: The word trivia originally referred to places where three (tri-) roads (-via) met in a crossing. If those slouch Romans had been more industrious builders, we might be playing quintivia or even septivia today.
That three-way intersection semantically drifted to mean “an open place,” which morphed into “public,” which turned into “commonplace”—hence, trivial. Read on for questions that are anything but.
Restlessness is deeply rooted in American mythology. We are a country of pilgrims, engaged in a lifelong search for what Ralph Waldo Emerson called an “original relation to the universe”—a unique understanding of the world that doesn’t rely on the traditions or teachings of past generations. Those who internalize this expectation will walk, trek, and seek—anything to shed an inherited skin and find an undiscovered self they can inhabit. If only skin, inherited or not, were so easy to shed.
