Updated at 9:40 p.m. ET on February 1, 2024
A little monster lives on my wrist, and every day, I wake up prepared to do battle with it. Most days, I lose.
That gremlin is an Apple Watch, which, like all fitness trackers, is designed to nudge users toward healthy behaviors. Apple uses three digital rings to measure a person’s daily activity in different ways. Each one has a bright color and a simple name. The blue “Stand” ring prompts you to, well, stand more.

Scot Peterson served for many years as a school resource officer in Broward County, Florida. His job was largely uneventful—he might catch a kid vaping or break up a fight—until just after Valentine’s Day 2018. That day, a gunman walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 people. Shortly after, a video circulated showing Peterson taking cover beside a wall while the gunman was inside shooting.

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
It’s Black History Month again. And this February is our quadrennial Super Black History Month, where we get a whole extra leap day to squeeze in some bonus Black history. That’s roughly 4 percent more Black history than usual, more than enough time for one sitting of the 1998 NBC miniseries The Temptations.

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.
Republicans need to recover their senses about the dire moral and strategic tests Ukraine and the West face in Europe.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The nonsensical impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas
“What I found in San Francisco”
Chicken Littles are ruining America.

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, I asked readers, “What is the state of local journalism where you live, and how does it affect your community?”
Replies have been edited for length and clarity.

When Donald Trump was impeached, and then impeached again, some Republicans warned that repeated uses of the process would lead to it being degraded and meaningless. House Republicans are now determined to prove that was true.
Early this morning, the House Homeland Security Committee narrowly voted, along party lines, to advance articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security. The full body is expected to consider the impeachment next week.

There’s something fundamentally excessive about winter sports. Instead of curling up with a book or Netflix when the weather turns cold, winter athletes wrestle with inordinate layers and high-tech gear just to make it through the day without frostbite. They sprint across ice with knives strapped to their feet and hurtle down mountains at speeds generally reserved for interstate highways. They fall off ski lifts—or are trapped overnight in them.

I have to give some credit to Matthew Vaughn’s new film, Argylle, for one thing: It is not—repeat, not—based on anything. An action movie with a reported near–$200 million budget and no connection to any preexisting intellectual property should be thrilling, a glorious throwback to the days when big films could just be about people punching and shooting each other without referencing some other storytelling universe.