In the hours before Hurricane Otis made landfall, everything aligned to birth a beast. The hurricane, which arrived near Acapulco, Mexico, early this morning, had an improbable combination of terrible traits. It was small and nimble, as tropical storms go, which reduced the amount of data points available to forecasters and made it harder to track. It came toward land at night, which is the least ideal time for a chaos-inducing event to hit a population center.

President Joe Biden and his national-security team began their time in office in 2021 intending to concentrate on confronting China’s rise. The state of the world has not allowed such a singular focus. First came the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power. Next was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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.Last week, as observers characterized the recent attack on Israel as that country’s 9/11, I asked, “What did you learn from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and America’s responses to them?”Replies have been edited for length and clarity.

Japan is home to an untold number of conveniences and delights that American consumers regularly go without: Faster public transit! Better sunscreen! Lychee KitKats! But as we head into sick season, one Japanese invention would be especially welcome on the U.S. market: an antiviral pill that appears to shorten COVID symptoms, might protect against chronic disease, and doesn’t taste like soapy grapefruit.

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.Robert Menendez has held on to his Senate seat and retained the loyalty of many Democratic colleagues through past scandals. But, given the current political environment and the gravity of the charges he now faces, many fellow Democrats have had enough—and voters might turn on him too.

The symmetry is striking: two lawyers, two different eras of Donald Trump’s career, and two courtrooms in different regions of the country. The lessons from Jenna Ellis and Michael Cohen, however, are the same. Loyalty to Trump is seldom returned, with disastrous results for those who offer it.In an Atlanta courtroom today, Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for Trump, pleaded guilty to a single felony count of aiding and abetting false statements.

Just about everything you do on the internet is filtered through a handful of tech companies. Google is synonymous with search, Amazon with shopping; much of that happens on phones made by Apple. You might not always know when you’re interacting with the tech giants. Google and Meta alone capture something like half of online ad revenue in the United States. Movies, music, workplace software, and government benefits are all hosted on Big Tech’s data servers.

The man I am looking at is very hot. He’s got that angular hot-guy face, with hollow cheeks and a sharp jawline. His dark hair is tousled, his skin blurred and smooth. But I shouldn’t even bother describing him further, because this man is self-evidently hot, the kind of person you look at and immediately categorize as someone whose day-to-day life is defined by being abnormally good-looking.This hot man, however, is not real.

There’s something sermonic about the speeches of Shawn Fain, the president of the currently striking United Auto Workers. Since autoworkers began targeted work stoppages following the expiration of their contract on September 15, Fain has regularly addressed the public—and his message has a uniquely moral cast.“I’ve been without,” he told me last month.