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.I spoke with my colleagues Karen Hao and Charlie Warzel this afternoon about the tensions at the heart of the AI community, and how Sam Altman’s firing may ironically entrench the power of a tech giant.
Phillip Fisher, Jr. helped connect faith leaders in Philadelphia with the extremist “parental rights” group.
In 2021, Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka, two of the world’s most highly lauded athletes, walked away from major competitions to protect their mental health. In a field that elevates “toughness” and “grit,” both drew major attention for candidly prioritizing wellness above achievement.
Donald Trump is an old man.He’s 77 years old. When Trump was born, Harry S. Truman was president and Perry Como topped the year’s pop charts. Betty White hadn’t yet started her career in film. Israel and Pakistan didn’t exist. Korea was a unified country, and Vietnam was not. The pioneering computer ENIAC was just four months old.Trump’s cultural references are dated, and only getting more so. Elton John and the Rolling Stones headline his rally playlists.
Not long ago, the idea that a former president—or major-party presidential nominee—would face serious legal jeopardy was nearly unthinkable. Today, merely keeping track of the many cases against Donald Trump requires a law degree, a great deal of attention, or both.In all, Trump faces 91 felony counts across two state courts and two different federal districts, any of which could potentially produce a prison sentence.
Israeli and Palestinian peace activists are mourning 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver after she was confirmed killed on October 7 during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived. She was previously thought to be held hostage. Silver co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation, sat on the board for the human rights group B’Tselem and was an active member of Women Wage Peace.
We continue our coverage of Israel’s unrelenting 45-day bombardment of Gaza, where health officials say the overall death toll has topped 13,000 since October 7. Writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada joins Democracy Now! to discuss the global protests calling for a ceasefire, the ongoing hostage negotiations, and Israel’s failure to prove Hamas ran a command post underneath Al-Shifa Hospital.
Over the weekend, at least 82 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on Jabaliya refugee camp, including multiple United Nations schools sheltering Palestinians. At least 85 incidents of Israeli bombing have impacted 67 facilities run by the United Nations relief agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in the last two months.
Some employers are dropping coverage of Ozempic and Wegovy. Connecticut is taking a different approach.
The GOP-controlled House has proposed a deep cut to the former president’s AIDS-fighting program.
Support for abortion cuts across party lines, performing significantly better at the ballot box than Biden and other Democrats.
Rapid adoption of artificial intelligence is cause for enthusiasm and worry, experts say.
Sen. Bernie Sanders held up the vote for months in a failed effort to push President Joe Biden to do more on drug pricing.
Top White House aides reviewed private polling showing Biden’s economic message falling flat and suggesting paths toward a turnaround.
Can Democrats overcome their college-campus branding and reclaim the working class?
The new strategy UAW President Shawn Fain announced Friday signaled the strike could start having broader implications for the economy.
Protesters in Atlanta held a week of action to stop the construction of the massive $90 million police training complex known as “Cop City” in the Weelaunee Forest. This comes as activists have been organizing for a citywide referendum on the project which officials have tied up in court. Meanwhile, 61 people facing RICO, or racketeering, and domestic terrorism charges appeared in court this month as the state tries to characterize them as “militant anarchists.
As the United Nations calls again for a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian health officials are warning thousands of women, children and sick people could soon die as Israel continues its bombardment of Gaza. Gaza is also facing a second day of a communications blackout. “Gaza City itself is a hollow shell” where “the streets have been turned into graveyards” and “the smell of death is everywhere,” says independent journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous.
As protests for a ceasefire in Gaza continue around the United States, the Jewish-led peace organization IfNotNow helped organize Wednesday’s protest at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The protesters held hands to block the entrance to the building and were met with pepper spray and police use of force. “Let’s be clear that police escalated the protest,” says Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow.
Ruth Ben-Artzi, the niece of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, joins Democracy Now! to call for the Netanyahu government to focus efforts on releasing Israeli hostages and to stop the bombing. A professor of political science at Providence College, Ben-Artzi recently joined prominent Rhode Island rabbis, Jewish leaders and Israelis demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
The MSNBC anchor slammed the new House speaker’s condemnation of one Republican as being totally at odds with his praise of the former president.
The MSNBC host exposes the “total sycophants” lining up for jobs with the former president.
The former president explains how the then-first lady responded to claims he arranged a golden showers show at a Moscow hotel.
Updated at 12:32 a.m. ET on November 20, 2023To truly understand the events of the past 48 hours—the shocking, sudden ousting of OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, arguably the figurehead of the generative-AI revolution, followed by reports that the company was in talks to bring him back, and then yet another shocking revelation that he in fact would not return—one must understand that OpenAI is not a technology company.
The president and first lady honored the life and legacy of Rosalynn Carter by saying she “walked her own path, inspiring a nation and the world along the way.
They expressed admiration for her lifelong service and mental health advocacy.
When a Saturday Night Live parody song begins, there’s usually a moment of anticipation where you wonder what the punch line is going to be. That was the case last night as a group of female cast members began a ballad about their aloof spouses, one wondering, “Is he dreaming of another woman he wants more than me?”Then the sketch cut to what the men were thinking. What was on their mind: The Roman empire, of course.
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.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer and the author of our Up for Debate newsletter.
This article was originally published by High Country News.Chunks of carbon-rich frozen soil, or permafrost, undergird much of the Arctic tundra. This perpetually frozen layer sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, sometimes storing it for tens of thousands of years beneath the boggy ground.The frozen soil is insulated by a cool wet blanket of plant litter, moss, and peat. But if that blanket is incinerated by a tundra wildfire, the permafrost becomes vulnerable to thawing.
On Labor Day weekend, 35 excited guests arrived at a campground in Newark, Ohio, for a retreat dedicated to “fat joy”—a place where people could swim, dance, do yoga, roast marshmallows, and sleep in cabins with others who had been made to feel guilty about their weight. The point of Camp RoundUp was “really diving into the joy of being at summer camp, the joy of being a fat little kid again,” Alison Rampa, one of the organizers, told me.