Editor’s Note: Panelists on Washington Week With The Atlantic joined to discuss growing opposition to President Trump’s attacks on Iran and what winning a war with unclear objectives could like.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump delivered his first national address since the war with Iran began more than a month ago. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined to discuss the president’s remarks, and more.
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.
The more popular something gets, the less appealing it can start to feel. Take The Pitt: Suddenly, everyone’s watching it and everyone’s talking about it. At a certain point, the excitement starts to make you feel like you should be into it—and just like that, you don’t want to watch it anymore.
In 1976, Karen Batchelor was a young mother desperate for mental stimulation. One day, she went to a library in Detroit to explore her family’s history and unexpectedly found an Irish ancestor who had served as a Revolutionary War soldier on the Pennsylvania frontier. Batchelor, who is Black, was even more surprised when a librarian told her that this discovery qualified her for membership in Daughters of the American Revolution.
At first, in the early days and weeks and even years of my dad’s struggle with dementia, he just seemed more deeply himself. Bruce Jay Parker had always been quirky, in ways that generally delighted his friends and acquaintances, and frequently embarrassed his wife and two daughters. Now he was, simply, more so.
The graduates of America’s most elite universities dominate our economy and culture so disproportionately that the statistics can seem like a mathematical glitch. Students at Ivy League schools and the similarly selective University of Chicago, Duke, Stanford, and MIT together comprise less than half a percent of America’s undergraduate population.
The iconic reality show promised its contestants the chance to build a career, but only the creators found real success.
A flurry of activity renewed concerns about insider trading in the Trump administration.
Physicians from countries Trump deemed national security threats are reaching the end of their visas without responses to their renewal applications.
The president’s health care policies are on the ballot in a crucial Senate race.
The health secretary, a member of America’s most famous Democratic family, told the audience at CPAC that his father and uncle would have endorsed Trump’s decisions on Iran and Ukraine.
The Alaska Republican senator is up for reelection and facing a barrage of critical ads.
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.
President Donald Trump has taken one risk after another that could have destabilized the American economy. Iran is the latest crisis to test U.S. economic resilience.
The president stopped in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old district to defend his economic record.
Maryland-based spice company, McCormick, is absorbing Unilever’s food division in a massive “takeunder.
Maryland-based spice company, McCormick, is absorbing Unilever’s food division in a massive “takeunder.
Things aren’t giving way just yet—but they’re getting shakier and shakier.
New guidance, and the promise of a new rule, are expected to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood starting in 2027.
Updated at 5:34 p.m. ET on April 3, 2026
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.
Since January, the Trump administration has effectively blockaded nearly all oil shipments to Cuba, causing conditions on the island to deteriorate dramatically.
The drama of The Drama isn’t a total secret—if you’re looking to spoil the button-pushing premise for yourself, a quick Google search will do the trick. But the writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s new film hinges on the viewer’s reaction to one character’s shocking revelation. The film doesn’t linger on its provocation, however; instead it sits with the moment’s ramifications in ways both darkly funny and sneakily challenging.
Swim out to the pelagic zone of your sea of knowledge, then dive, dive, dive.
And by the way, did you know that if all the salt in the world’s oceans were extracted and dried out, a layer of it could cover the entirety of the Earth’s land?
The layer, in case you’re interested, would be more than 500 feet thick.
Have a great weekend!
Find previous questions here, and to get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
This week, my colleague Lily Meyer investigated “what happened to the radicals.” In her article, she was writing about a type of plot shared by several recent books, as well as the Oscar-winning film One Battle After Another.
Late last month, a large crowd gathered in downtown San Francisco to demand that the AI industry stop developing more powerful bots. Holding signs and banners reading Stop the AI Race and Don’t Build Skynet, the protesters marched through the city and gave speeches outside the offices of Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI. The crowd demanded that these companies halt efforts to create superintelligent machines—and, in particular, AI models that can develop future AI models.
We speak with Palestinian activist Leqaa Kordia, who was freed on March 16 after spending more than a year in an ICE jail in Texas. She was arrested in 2025 as part of the Trump administration’s campaign to target student activists and others who advocated for Palestinian rights.
Kordia was born in the occupied West Bank and lives in New Jersey. She was arrested in 2024 during the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia University.
Democrats and voting advocacy groups have filed lawsuits against President Trump’s sweeping new executive order to limit mail-in voting ahead of this year’s midterm elections. “This is clearly an attempt for the president to pick his own voters,” says Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who is legally challenging Trump’s order.
