Fatalism can be a fan’s best friend. When the United States’ women’s team began this World Cup, I wanted the best to transpire, but my mind kept warning me that the team was destined for the worst. It was painfully evident that the squad wasn’t well-coached and that injuries to crucial players left it unable to surmount bad tactics. From the opening game, I watched the rest of the tournament in search of another nation that I could adopt as my own if the U.S. flamed out.

I remember the first time I saw the floaty rock. It was the middle of night, and I was facing the insomniac’s dilemma: to reach for the phone or not. I reached and opened Twitter—this was two weeks ago; the new name hadn’t yet sunk in—on the theory that a scroll through my feed might achieve some hypnotic effect, creating an opening for sleep to take hold. That’s when I saw the blurry video.

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.Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment was: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” This weekend, Mike Pence—like most of the GOP field—struggled mightily to criticize Donald Trump while barely mentioning Trump’s name.

In April, lawyers for the airline Avianca noticed something strange. A passenger, Robert Mata, had sued the airline, alleging that a serving cart on a flight had struck and severely injured his left knee, but several cases cited in Mata’s lawsuit didn’t appear to exist. The judge couldn’t verify them, either. It turned out that ChatGPT had made them all up, fabricating names and decisions. One of Mata’s lawyers, Steven A.

In some ways, Donald Trump’s mental state is more transparent than nearly any public figure’s: He has no shame, little discretion, and ample channels to broadcast his feelings in real time. Yet his constant stream of consciousness and always elevated dudgeon make it hard to parse the finer fluctuations in his mood.Even so, the former president’s public behavior since Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted him last week suggests a man feeling cornered.

That the words working class are synonymous in the minds of many Americans with white working class is the result of a political myth. As the award-winning historian Blair LM Kelley explains in her new book, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class, Black people are more likely to be working-class than white people are.Kelley’s Black Folk opens our minds up to Black workers, narrating their complex lives over 200 years of American history.

When I teach a literature class to undergraduates, one of my most important tasks is to help my students relearn how to read in the age of distraction. I assign them an exercise: Set a timer for 20 minutes and dive into a book, no phone in sight, and don’t stop before the alarm goes off. They frequently tell me that time moves differently when they do this.