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.Terrorism, like war, is a word we tend to use almost as a reflex to describe anything that horrifies us. But words can lead us to choose policies, and we should be aware of how we use them.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
“Why I own guns and why I’m part of the problem.

During my first semester of teaching while in grad school, I made a habit of showing up to my classroom half an hour early. I was green as a sapling and felt wholly unqualified for the task before me, and I had the vague sense that arriving before anyone else and looking prepared was one way to earn the respect of students who were barely younger than I was.

The true cost of the violence in Gaza and Israel will be measured in children’s lives—those lost to the violence and those forever changed by it.Less than three weeks on from the horrific attack inside Israel and the start of daily bombings of the Gaza Strip, the devastating tally in Israel and Gaza is quickly adding up.

In the last scene of the classic 1968 zombie movie Night of the Living Dead, the hero, Ben, comes out of a cellar with a gun, and the armed vigilantes mistake him for a zombie. They surround him, shoot him, and then burn him with the rest of the ghouls. Ben was played by Duane Jones, a Black actor, and the director, George Romero, has always said he wasn’t making a statement by casting Jones. But when I watched the movie as a young teenager, something about this scene felt significant.

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.In recent weeks, statements about the Israel-Hamas war have emerged from corporations of all kinds. Predictably, they have not all gone over well.

In the hours before Hurricane Otis made landfall, everything aligned to birth a beast. The hurricane, which arrived near Acapulco, Mexico, early this morning, had an improbable combination of terrible traits. It was small and nimble, as tropical storms go, which reduced the amount of data points available to forecasters and made it harder to track. It came toward land at night, which is the least ideal time for a chaos-inducing event to hit a population center.

President Joe Biden and his national-security team began their time in office in 2021 intending to concentrate on confronting China’s rise. The state of the world has not allowed such a singular focus. First came the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power. Next was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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.Last week, as observers characterized the recent attack on Israel as that country’s 9/11, I asked, “What did you learn from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and America’s responses to them?”Replies have been edited for length and clarity.