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In the 18 years I have been reporting at the Pentagon, military leaders have rarely been delighted to see me. Over the years, I have had heated conversations with generals, spokespeople, and civilian leaders. I have reported news that the department officials didn’t want publicized, as well as information they were eager to share.

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.
As Patricia Lockwood’s second novel, Will There Ever Be Another You, begins, the protagonist is visiting Scotland with her family. That will be her last moment of relative normalcy, because in the very next chapter, she catches COVID, which changes her dramatically. She has a fever that won’t go away, and struggles to recognize faces, write, and read.

President Donald Trump recently ordered his attorney general to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, and tonight, the Department of Justice delivered an indictment of Comey for lying to Congress. Comey, for his part, insists on his innocence. But the charges against Comey are not just about the president’s abuse of his power for personal retribution. They represent a test of the president’s plans for the future.

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.
Alan Greenspan knows a thing or two about underpants. American history’s second-longest-tenured Fed chairman also knows a thing or many about recessions, obviously, and the two are related: Sales of men’s underwear, Greenspan once reportedly suggested, are inversely proportional to economic anxiety.

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present. Sign up here.
Could be the weather, could be the news, could be the state of my digestion, but right now I’m in the mood for a proper American poet-buffoon.

As the leader of a young conservative political movement that helped Donald Trump win a second presidential term, Charlie Kirk accomplished a lot in his too-short life. But at Kirk’s packed memorial in Arizona last weekend, his admirers proclaimed that the slain activist now stands to become something even more powerful and potentially lasting: a martyr.

While out of power, the American right was unified in complaining about the left’s speech policing. Now that Republicans control the White House and Congress, free-speech rights and values are dividing the coalition. One camp thinks Republicans should refrain from policing speech; the other favors policing the left’s speech. The second camp seems ascendant, unfortunately, while the first has failed to turn its beliefs into policy.
The Jimmy Kimmel controversy illustrates the fissure.