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President Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the economy seems to be dropping, according to a recent poll from The New York Times.
Cigarettes have always been noxious to me: As a kid, I stole my grandpa’s Marlboros and hid them deep in a trash bin. In college, Chesterfields made the kisses of a woman I loved taste carcinogenic. When I lived in Spain, smoky air in my favorite bar made my lungs burn. And no law has spared me more irritation than California’s trailblazing 1990s bans on indoor smoking. Yet I vehemently insist on the right of my fellow humans to smoke.
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.
A familiar dilemma: You open Netflix, determined to watch something new. Twenty minutes of scrolling later, after having rejected dozens of perfectly fine options, you land on a movie you’ve seen many times before.
Photographs by Caroline Gutman
Representative Thomas Massie, the renegade Kentucky Republican who fiercely guards his political independence, doesn’t love being on President Trump’s bad side. He would prefer not to have the president’s allies spend millions to defeat him in a primary. In fact, if Massie had his way, he’d be working for Trump right now.
The Apple CEO is stepping down and leaving behind a legacy that has surprised everyone.
On average, American families have each spent about $1,744.75 on tariffs.
NewsNation promised “news for all Americans.” Its struggles show why neutrality may be impossible in modern media.
The powerhouse of American citrus is suffering a brutal decline. Everyone has a theory about why.
Imagine not being able to feed your kid because of a mistake on a piece of paperwork.
GOP leadership wants a narrow party-line bill, but rank-and-file seek to extend block on funds to family planning clinics.
New disclosures show health industry firms and trade groups are spending more than ever to influence Washington.
Add abortion and psychedelics to the list of reasons many Republicans oppose Casey Means.
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.
“We have to take care of ourselves because we can’t rely on one foreign partner,” Mark Carney said in a video address. “We can’t control the disruption coming from our neighbors.
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 rise of online prediction markets has allowed people to bet on virtually any news event. For a small group of traders, the war with Iran has been a windfall. A number of lucrative, well-timed bets related to the war totaling over $1 billion have raised alarm over people connected to the Trump administration possibly using inside information to profit.
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The opening moments of the 1982 film Blade Runner introduce viewers to a world of artificially intelligent beings that are “virtually identical” to humans.
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In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel talks with the business writer Ed Elson about the rise of the “clip economy”—the idea that short video clips pulled from podcasts, livestreams, and other long-form content have become the dominant unit of online media, not just a promotional tool.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy this week blasted the MAHA PAC as a “moral and ethical mess.
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One of my favorite works on the history of ideas is an episode of the podcast 99% Invisible, titled “Whomst Among Us Let the Dogs Out.” For most of the show, an artist named Ben Sisto investigates the origins of Baha Men’s 2000 earworm, “Who Let the Dogs Out,” tracing the song back, across multiple versions, to a chant from a 1986 Texas high-school football game.
Despite reassuring economic data, many Americans say their day-to-day costs are still rising.
Cheney Orr / Reuters
A reveler smokes cannabis at the Mile High 420 Festival in Denver on April 20, 2026.Alex Nicodim / Inquam Photos / Reuters
Young people take part in an initiation ritual where they are tossed into the air by others using a rug, during a spring festival in Brașov, Romania, on April 17, 2026.Martin Meissner / AP
Artists perform during the opening of Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industrial-technology trade fair, in Hannover, Germany, on April 19, 2026.
In the new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, authors Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff look at the worldview that shaped Elon Musk and the ideology that has coalesced around him. They call Muskism “an operating system for the 21st century.”
Musk runs rocket company SpaceX, AI startup xAI, electric car maker Tesla and the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Four people were arrested on Wednesday in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn after gathering in support of Carmella Charrington, a homeowner fighting eviction from her longtime family home.
Israeli forces killed the prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday despite a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Khalil and her colleague, photographer Zeinab Faraj, were reporting from southern Lebanon when an Israeli drone struck a car near them, killing two civilians. Khalil and Faraj sought shelter in a nearby building, but then Israel struck that building, as well.
