Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized this week, and apparently, the president of the United States didn’t know about it—for days.Austin was admitted to Walter Reed Hospital following complications from an “elective procedure” on New Year’s Day, according to a statement from the Pentagon.

Editor’s Note: Washington Week With The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here. On Friday, the day before the third anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, President Joe Biden delivered his first speech of the new year at Valley Forge in battleground Pennsylvania, and warned voters about what’s at stake this November.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.Gathering with family can be a chance to observe up close how multiple generations live their lives. One fascinating instance I’ve been thinking about lately: the way people interact with their phones.

Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries? No, not the current president. The former one.House Republicans recently launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, premised on the claim that he is hiding, in the words of Speaker Mike Johnson, “millions of dollars in payments from America’s foreign adversaries.” As yet, they have produced no evidence to back up the idea that Biden profited.

This article was originally published by Quanta Magazine.Earth’s fate rests on a coin flip.In 5 billion years, our sun will balloon into a red giant star. Whether Earth survives is an “open question,” Melinda Soares-Furtado, an astrophysicist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says. Sure, Earth could be swallowed by the sun and destroyed. But in some scenarios, Earth escapes and is pushed farther out into the solar system.

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.Moderation is usually a good idea. But must we commercialize the concept?First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The GOP completes its surrender.
Who’s afraid of calling Donald Trump an insurrectionist?
There was never such a thing as “open” AI.

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.Question of the WeekIf you could question leaders of academic institutions under oath, like a member of Congress, forcing them to contend with any aspect of higher education in America, what would you ask them?Send your responses to conor@theatlantic.

Peggy was my first dog—the dog I waited 28 patient years for. I finally met her on August 15, 2015. She was eight weeks old, covered in filth after a 14-hour ride from Georgia to New York, and inexplicably still adorable. Floppy ears. Jet-black muzzle. Meaty little forepaws. We didn’t plan it this way, but my partner and I rescued her on the same day we moved in together. Peggy represented a new phase of my life: the beginning of my chosen family.

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.Last year, I read something like 40 books, not counting all of the titles I picked up and abandoned out of disinterest, the ones I half-skimmed for work, or the advance copies I read 20 pages of. Depending on your point of view, that number may seem impressive or underwhelming.

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.One morning a couple of years ago, during the awkward hour between my eldest daughter’s school drop-off and her sister’s swim lesson, I stopped at a coffee shop. There, I ran into the father of a boy in my daughter’s class. He was also schlepping a younger child around, and as we got to talking, I learned that we had a lot in common.