There’s no such thing as a smart sports bet, but the first one I ever made was, by any measure, particularly stupid. It was late January 2022, and mobile-gaming apps had become legal in New York only a few weeks earlier. I had successfully ignored all of them until I saw Joe Burrow, the quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals, walk into Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City for the AFC Championship game wearing a sherpa coat, black turtleneck, huge gold chain, and rimless sunglasses.

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.Yesterday, voters in Ohio rejected a ballot measure that would have raised the threshold for amending the state constitution.

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, I put this question to readers: “Donald Trump is guilty of deplorable actions, under indictment for multiple crimes, and yet remains the most popular candidate with voters in the Republican Party’s presidential primary.

So many of my friends are what I’d call “garden curious.” The dream is simple: ample backyard space where they can grow their own food, compost, and live out their most cherished ideas for a greener life. The reality: Time and space are limited.
But no one needs to wait for the perfect conditions to grow something. In my own experience with Lazy-Girl Gardening, I’ve seen the best results when I’ve embraced low-stakes experiments focused on food I love.

Officially, abortion had nothing to do with the constitutional amendment that Ohio voters rejected today. The word appeared nowhere on the ballot, and no abortion laws will change as a result of the outcome.Practically and politically, however, the defeat of the ballot initiative known as Issue 1 was all about abortion, giving reproductive-rights advocates the latest in a series of victories in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

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.A four-day workweek sounds great in theory. But what would it take to actually make the practice sustainable?First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
When small-town pride sounds like anger
Is social media making America’s murder surge worse?
The gender war is over in Britain.

Fatalism can be a fan’s best friend. When the United States’ women’s team began this World Cup, I wanted the best to transpire, but my mind kept warning me that the team was destined for the worst. It was painfully evident that the squad wasn’t well-coached and that injuries to crucial players left it unable to surmount bad tactics. From the opening game, I watched the rest of the tournament in search of another nation that I could adopt as my own if the U.S. flamed out.

I remember the first time I saw the floaty rock. It was the middle of night, and I was facing the insomniac’s dilemma: to reach for the phone or not. I reached and opened Twitter—this was two weeks ago; the new name hadn’t yet sunk in—on the theory that a scroll through my feed might achieve some hypnotic effect, creating an opening for sleep to take hold. That’s when I saw the blurry video.