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.
As the Israel-Hamas war continues, breathless headlines sometimes conceal more than they reveal.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
David A. Graham: “The Stormy Daniels testimony spotlights Trump’s misogyny.
Donald Trump has often loved to talk about his sexual prowess. He boasted to Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush about grabbing women’s crotches nonconsensually. He called the New York Post and begged them to run a headline bragging that Marla Maples, then his girlfriend and later his second wife, considered their relationship the “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had!” He bragged that he had so much sex that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was “my personal Vietnam.
Everyone, for so long, has been worried about the honeybees. Governments, celebrities, social-media users, small businesses, multinational conglomerates—in the two decades or so since news emerged that American honeybees were disappearing, all manner of entities with a platform or a wallet have taken up and abandoned countless other causes, but they can’t quit trying to save the bees.
In 2022, at least 18 states enacted bee-related legislation.
Gaza solidarity protests continue at college campuses across the nation — as does the police crackdown. This comes as more than 50 chapters of the American Association of University Professors have issued a statement condemning the violent arrests by police at campus protests. At Dartmouth College last week, police body-slammed professor and former chair of Jewish studies Annelise Orleck to the ground as she tried to protect her students.
In Rafah, we speak with Gaza-based journalist Akram al-Satarri about Israel tightening restrictions on humanitarian aid, refusing a ceasefire deal and planning to invade the city where over a million Palestinians are sheltering. Israel’s military seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, blocking humanitarian aid from entering the besieged territory, and trapping Palestinians under heavy Israeli bombardment.
Even after Hamas accepted a Gaza ceasefire proposal Monday, Israeli forces moved in with tanks to seize the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Israel says the ceasefire deal falls short of its demands, and Hamas has called for “international intervention.” Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy says the limited information and political maneuvering of all parties raises more questions than answers right now, but the core issue is whether all parties can maintain a sustained end to hostilities.
When George Schappell came out as transgender in 2007, he joined a population at the center of medical and ethical controversy. Schappell was used to this. He had been born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1961 with the left side of his face, some of his skull, and a portion of his brain conjoined with those of his sister, Lori. Following doctors’ advice, their parents put them in an institution for children with intellectual disabilities.
The guardian of the special relationship—the historical but possibly mythical bond between the United States and the United Kingdom—is a short woman with discerning blue eyes and a penchant for glittering headbands.
The role of an ambassador has always been strange. They’re expected to be fun—to flit around comfortably at galas and cocktail parties, charming guests and making inroads with important people while waiters weave around with platters of deviled eggs.
Federal health officials estimate that roughly 100,000 people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will sign up for subsidized plans through the health insurance marketplace over the next year under the rule.
Dairy cows in nine states are infected and hospitals are looking to the government for guidance.
Anti-abortion and abortion-rights groups fear the Kennedy scion will peel off voters disillusioned with Trump and Biden.
The legislation, which is expected to be soon signed into law by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, will preserve access to the procedure for millions of women.
The president is getting more micro in his economic sales pitch as the landscape loses its luster.
Friday’s government report showed that last month’s hiring gain was down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 in March.
Biden and Trump are both campaigning on warped economic statistics, cherry-picking weird data from the Covid crisis.
By any measure, it amounted to a strong month of hiring.
The concern is that higher rates are putting pressure on households and businesses looking to borrow, weighing on hiring, investment and the housing market.
Nearly seven months of constant bombardment, siege and obstruction of aid deliveries have annihilated the healthcare system in Gaza. Last week, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that around 600,000 Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have access to any kind of healthcare. The World Health Organization has said that Israel is “systematically dismantling” the health system in Gaza. Only 11 hospitals out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are partially functioning.
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.
In The Atlantic’s newest cover story, Anne Applebaum details the onslaught of antidemocratic propaganda flooding the United States. If only Americans weren’t so ready to believe so much of it.
“I’m not going to talk about my specific meetings with world leaders. I’m just not going to do that. This anecdote shouldn’t have been in the book and as soon as it was brought to my attention, I made sure that that was adjusted.
“I am a professor! I am a professor of economics!” said Caroline Fohlin, face down, pinned to the ground by police at Emory University, in Atlanta, during campus demonstrations in late April. Her glasses had been thrown from her face, her head knocked against the concrete. While Fohlin’s words might be taken to suggest entitlement—a belief that her faculty status should confer immunity—I heard something else: an appeal to neutrality.
In April, when Judge Juan Merchan first heard arguments about whether Donald Trump was violating a gag order in his criminal case in Manhattan, he sharply and skeptically questioned the former president’s attorneys, accusing one of “losing all credibility.” When he found Trump in contempt last week, he did so in a detailed, impassioned ruling that defended his gag order and the need for political speech.
The second time around, things were less tense.
Police have now arrested more than 2,500 students at pro-Palestine protests across the U.S., yet students continue to call for an end to the war on Gaza and universities’ investment in companies that support Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
The World Food Programme is warning northern Gaza has reached a “full-blown” famine that is spreading south. This comes after the Israeli military has spent months blocking the entry of vital aid into Gaza, attacking humanitarian aid convoys and opening fire on Palestinian civilians waiting to receive lifesaving aid.
As the death toll in Gaza soars to more than 34,700, Israeli authorities have taken Al Jazeera off the air in Israel and ordered Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate ahead of an Israeli offensive. “The Israeli government is trying to conceal what’s happening in Gaza and trying to intimidate Al Jazeera … and delegitimize the whole coverage,” says Al Jazeera’s managing editor Mohamed Moawad, explaining this is “a strategy” to “try to make sure that the story doesn’t reach the world.
Federal health officials estimate that roughly 100,000 people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will sign up for subsidized plans through the health insurance marketplace over the next year under the rule.
Anti-abortion and abortion-rights groups fear the Kennedy scion will peel off voters disillusioned with Trump and Biden.
Dairy cows in nine states are infected and hospitals are looking to the government for guidance.
The legislation, which is expected to be soon signed into law by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, will preserve access to the procedure for millions of women.
The president is getting more micro in his economic sales pitch as the landscape loses its luster.