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The plus sign is everywhere in the world of branding. It’s cool (sort of), capacious, and wholly unoriginal. At least it’s difficult to mock.

The Biden administration launched air strikes against Iranian interests in Syria and Iraq Friday, the latest volley in a growing proxy war across the Middle East.
But in a policy paradox, the move appears to be an attempt to deescalate by means of powerful air strikes. The White House felt a need to respond to a drone attack this week in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members, and which the U.S. has blamed on Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq.

In 2018, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, got what was potentially the most lucrative compensation package in history, an incentive-based deal that would earn him stock options worth nearly $56 billion if he hit the contract’s targets. He did exactly that, and ahead of schedule. Over the next few years, Tesla’s market capitalization rose by many multiples: Despite having fallen from its November 2021 peak, it is still worth 10 times more than its value in early 2018.

Not very long ago, the harshest thing Nikki Haley would say about Donald Trump was that “chaos follows him”—a sort of benign jab that creatively avoids causation and suggests mere correlation, like noting that scorched trees tend to appear after a forest fire.
For most of the Republican-primary campaign to date, Haley adopted a carefully modulated approach toward the former president, and reserved most of her barbs for her other primary rivals.

There are just some things you don’t do without preparation. You’re not meant to drive a car without taking lessons and passing a test. You aren’t supposed to scuba dive without certification. You can’t teach—or practice law, or therapy, or cosmetology—without first proving your knowledge. But you can become a parent without any training at all—and that’s a pretty high-stakes position.
Parents today arguably face steeper expectations than ever before.

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.
Over the past few years, Mark Zuckerberg has been somewhat overshadowed by more antic-prone CEOs and flashier technology. But his appearance before the Senate yesterday is a reminder that he’s still very much a power broker of Silicon Valley.

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.