Israel’s democracy is still intact, but the country has already lost something essential.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Fatigue can shatter a person.
“I saw the movie ‘they’ don’t want you to see.”
American family life should not be this volatile.
Utter CollapseAs Israel nears the end of a week of turmoil, its democracy remains intact.
Republicans rejected a Democratic bid to re-up PEPFAR via the annual defense policy bill.
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.Question of the WeekI’m still rounding up your emails about the song “Fast Car” and coverage of race in journalism––they’ll run early next week and then we’ll be back on our regular newsletter schedule.
Krysten Wagner, a Los Angeles–based TikTok influencer, is defending her decision to promote products on TikTok while wearing a face mask that’s on sale for $50. In a video from June, Wagner squeezes white cream from a shiny blue tube and begins applying it to her taut, perfectly clear skin. “If you’re not familiar,” she says, smearing the cream on her forehead, “you can now shop in the TikTok app.
“DEMOCRACY INTERCEPTED,” reads the headline of a new special package in the journal Science. “Did platform feeds sow the seeds of deep divisions during the 2020 US presidential election?” Big question.
Thursday’s estimate from the Commerce Department indicated that the gross domestic product picked up from the 2% growth rate in the January-March quarter.
A shocking new investigation by Insider reveals patrol dogs in U.S. prisons have attacked at least 295 people since 2017, with Virginia setting dogs on prisoners more than any other state. These attacks can leave people with grievous physical and psychological scars, sometimes permanently disabling and disfiguring them. The report also finds ties between procedures in U.S. prisons and the abuses committed by U.S.
An Ohio police officer filmed unleashing a police dog on an unarmed Black truck driver during a July 4 traffic stop has been fired. We speak with legal scholar Madalyn Wasilczuk, who has helped represent teenagers in Louisiana attacked by police dogs and who says that dogs do not receive the proper amount of scrutiny when used in policing. “They’re seen as these valorized K-9 cop heroes, and we don’t focus so much on the real violence that they do,” says Wasilczuk.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Delaware halted a plea deal reached between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors in which the president’s son would avoid facing prosecution on a separate gun charge by pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges. Trump-appointed Judge Maryellen Noreika said the deal lacked legal precedent, and identified several sections of the agreement that were interpreted differently by the prosecution and defense.
The administration is proposing rules to force them to cover mental health like other care.
The Republicans’ health care hopes are riding on the must-pass bills.
Four veterans are dead and the projected budget for the system has ballooned to more than $50 billion.
The push to own the economy, by literally branding it with the president’s name, is not without risk.
Kurdish peace activist Kani Xulam is in New York City after his solo 300-mile, 24-day walk from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to the United Nations headquarters. His arrival Monday coincided with the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, which partitioned Kurdistan into four parts — British Iraq, French Syria, Turkey and Iran — which left the Kurdish people without a recognized sovereign state.
Any sign of regret or reprimand from the former president has vanished as he prepares to face federal criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
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.Elon Musk has a long history with the letter X. What does it signify?First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
Moralism is ruining cultural criticism.
The 2024 election could be the end of the cases against Donald Trump.
The wrath of Goodreads
American girlhood culture is really strange.
Earlier today, three witnesses came before Congress to testify about their experiences with unidentified flying objects. A former Navy pilot spoke of the mysterious objects that he has seen with his own eyes and through radar, and how frequently pilots encounter them in the air. A retired Navy commander described the time he pulled his jet up to a Tic Tac–shaped object hovering over the ocean, then watched it suddenly speed up and vanish.
Economic forecasters increasingly see a soft landing for the economy, a win for President Joe Biden.
The bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer makes the Wolverine State the 22nd state to outlaw the controversial treatment.
Kennedy, who is himself running for president, but as a Democrat, recently opined that the COVID-19 virus was engineered to spare Chinese and Jewish people.
Bruno Joseph Cua will serve one year in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, assaulting a police officer and sitting in a Senate floor chair reserved for the vice president.
Medicaid expansion is set to begin October 1 if Republican lawmakers fund it.
Eran Schwartz looks like a fighter pilot. The 40-something appeared last week on the Israeli television show Ofira and Berkowitz—a black V-neck T-shirt over his trim, athletic chest; his black hair cut short—to defend his decision to end his service in the air-force reserves. “We’re not the ones who tore up the social contract,” he said. “We swore to serve a state that is Jewish and democratic.
Last week, at a Fox News town hall (where else?), former President Donald Trump called China’s despot, Xi Jinping, a “brilliant” guy who “runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” Lest anyone doubt his admiration, Trump added that Xi is “smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There’s nobody in Hollywood like this guy.”Trump is not alone.
We speak with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump about two recent cases of anti-Black racism making headlines in the United States: Florida’s new curriculum standards that teach students the “benefits” of transatlantic slavery to enslaved people, and a set of lawsuits against Northwestern University accusing the school’s athletic teams of widespread and institutionalized hazing, including physical, racial and sexual abuse.
This week, a witness to the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 revealed for the first time that he overheard a New York police officer asking if Malcolm’s assassin was “with us.” The eyewitness, Mustafa Hassan, spoke Tuesday alongside Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz and civil rights attorney Ben Crump at a press conference at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. Democracy Now! spoke to Hassan at the press conference.
If, as seems likely, Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee next year, the 2024 elections will be a referendum on several crucial issues: the prospect of authoritarianism in America, the continuation of a vibrant democracy, the relationship between the executive branch and the other two branches of government, and much else of grave significance.It will also be a referendum on whether Trump will ever be held legally accountable for his actions.
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea Monday, hours after a second American nuclear-armed submarine arrived in South Korea. Meanwhile, peace activists are gathering in Washington, D.C., for a national mobilization to call on President Biden and Congress to officially end the Korean War, 70 years after the signing of the July 27, 1953, Korean Armistice that ended active military conflict.
The Republicans’ health care hopes are riding on the must-pass bills.
Four veterans are dead and the projected budget for the system has ballooned to more than $50 billion.