Breaking: Taylor Swift is not simply a voice in our ears or an abstract concept to argue over at parties, but a flesh-and-blood being with a taste for sparkling pajamas and the stamina of a ram. All concerts are conjurings, turning the audience’s idea of a performer into a real thing, but last night’s kickoff of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour in Glendale, Arizona, heightened the amazement with Houdini-escapes-handcuffs physicality.
Let us begin with the obvious thing that just happened: This morning, Donald Trump threatened to summon a mob—for the second time in two years—to his defense. The former president of the United States and a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for the White House in 2024, facing a possible indictment in New York, claimed to know the exact day on which he would be arrested and then called on his supporters to “protest.
His message was brief and all-caps.
The pills are already banned in 13 states with blanket bans on all forms of abortion, and 15 states already have limited access to abortion pills.
The former president demanded supporters “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK” after apparently learning when he’ll be indicted.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.In a 1929 Atlantic article titled “Tragedies of Etiquette,” an anonymous writer details the many surprises contained in a book on women’s etiquette.
As the U.S. barrels toward the next presidential election, the movement that mushroomed after the last one shows no signs of slowing down.
It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Just 15 years after our financial overlords went on a bailout binge, showering bankers with trillions of taxpayer dollars, they’re once again riding to the rescue of the rich while the public watches in horror. Did they learn none of the lessons from the 2008 meltdown?Actually, yes, they did.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was the most consequential political event of the past two decades. But it doesn’t feel that way. It has the faint whiff of youthful indiscretion, an episode that many Americans would rather forget. I was 19. The tenor of that time in American life—after the September 11 attacks—seems ever more foreign to me.
The recently departed under secretary pushed through some of the most significant diversity and equity efforts at the Defense Department.
Lawyers for the FDA are expected to argue that pulling mifepristone would upend reproductive care for U.S. women and undermine the government’s scientific oversight of prescription drugs.
The president hasn’t said if he will sign it, or issue his first veto.
Republican House and Senate leadership have been adamant that they will not cut Social Security and Medicare, but have said less about Medicaid.
In an interview with POLITICO, Fauci dismissed the charge.
Government controls on a lifesaving treatment for opioid use disorder have dissuaded doctors from prescribing it, and pharmacies from carrying it.
The government said prices increased 0.4% last month, just below January’s 0.5% rise.
“I can’t think of a time when there’s been greater uncertainty,” the president said.
The president promised a lot last year. Here’s how we graded him on some of those pledges.
Noting the 3.4 percent jobless rate, the lowest since May 1969, the president said “the Biden economic play is working.
As the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq approaches next week, Democracy Now! begins our look at the Iraq War’s lasting after-effects on Iraqi society and the shape of global politics today. “The story of the past 20 years is a story of destruction, devastation, corruption, incompetence, but also a story of resilience,” says Nadje Al-Ali, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at Brown University and author of several award-winning books on the U.S.
Federal officials are reportedly unable to find a life-size painting of Trump given by the president of El Salvador and golf clubs from the prime minister of Japan.
Republican Mark Gordon also allowed a separate measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature.
A judge ruled that federal prosecutors investigating the potential mishandling of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate will be able to again question a Trump lawyer before a grand jury.
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.The critics and the gamers have written much about The Last of Us, the video game that became a majestic HBO series.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a law adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s civil rights law.
The new law also aims to ensure access to gender affirming healthcare related to distress over gender identity that doesn’t match a person’s assigned sex.
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he 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 I asked for readers’ reflections on the automobile.
By this point, the many defects of AI-based language models have been analyzed to death—their incorrigible dishonesty, their capacity for bias and bigotry, their lack of common sense. GPT-4, the newest and most advanced such model yet, is already being subjected to the same scrutiny, and it still seems to misfire in pretty much all the ways earlier models did. But large language models have another shortcoming that has so far gotten relatively little attention: their shoddy recall.
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There are a few good books I’d happily reread until the spine splits. Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson, is one: I can flip to any page and immediately sink back into the odd, lush world of her red-faced monster, Geryon. The first time I read it, I was gobsmacked.
With the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20, we speak with Oxford University international relations professor Neta Crawford, who says the region is still reeling from the impact of the war. “The story continues. It’s not over,” she says. Crawford is co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, where her latest report pegs the cost of U.S. wars in Iraq and Syria since 2003 at nearly $2.9 trillion. Since the U.S.