When I spoke with Sam Bankman-Fried three weeks ago, he was crypto’s golden boy. Worth about $15 billion, this quirky 30-year-old led one of the industry’s largest empires. Over the past few years, he’s palled around with Bill Clinton, graced the cover of Fortune magazine, and turned himself into a three-letter initialism: SBF. Toward the end of our rambling, 90-minute interview, Bankman-Fried dropped a casual hint at the state of his finances.
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.This was probably the most chaotic week for the social-media business in years, maybe ever. I called my colleague Charlie Warzel, who has been tweeting (and writing) through it, for a recap and his prediction for what comes next.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Early on Wednesday morning, while I was scrolling through Twitter in order to learn the midterm-election results in the most piecemeal and confusing fashion possible, I noticed something a little off.
Probably the best day for climate action in American political history was August 7, 2022, when the Senate overcame 30 years of sclerosis and passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the country’s first comprehensive climate bill. After that day, the bill’s adoption into law was all but assured, and it sailed through the House and reached the president’s desk.But perhaps the second most important day for American climate policy was this past Tuesday.
Rupert Murdoch, Rich Lowry, Mike Pompeo, and company: Welcome to the resistance!These conservative luminaries are among the many credentialed members of the right who have criticized former President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the Republican Party’s historically underwhelming performance in the midterm elections. They are right to do so: Voters rejected not only many of Trump’s handpicked candidates but also his attacks on democracy and claims about stolen elections.
A new Oxfam analysis finds the investments of the world’s richest people are emitting 3 million tons a year — more than a million times the average person’s output. The report, titled “Carbon Billionaires,” suggests a wealth tax could help fund urgent climate action in developing countries.
Voters in Nevada and a handful of cities across the United States appear poised to expand the use of ranked-choice voting in the aftermath of Tuesday’s midterm elections. The election method allows voters to select multiple candidates in descending order of preference. It is used in many other countries, and supporters say it can reduce polarization and give more voice to independent voters.
We speak with Congressmember-elect Delia Ramirez, who won her election for Illinois’s newly redrawn 3rd Congressional District Tuesday, making her the first Latina elected to Congress from Illinois. Ramirez is a progressive Democratic state representative who is the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants and the wife of a DACA recipient. She campaigned on expanding healthcare and housing access for working people, as well as passing the DREAM Act.
Their loss of state supreme court races in Ohio and North Carolina could imperil the future of the procedure in two of the country’s most populous states
Members of the state House refused to budge on their proposal to ban abortion starting at conception with exceptions for rape, incest and if the life of the pregnant person is in danger.
A surge in turnout among people motivated by the erosion of abortion rights carried Democrats to victory in multiple races.
The Republican-controlled state, where lawmakers have long resisted Medicaid expansion, is the seventh in the last five years to do so at the ballot box — and likely the last to do so for some time.
The results could affect reproductive rights for millions of Americans.
Inflation has cooled only slightly and job growth remains strong.
A new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll suggests voters’ views of the economy are baked in.
Housing investment, though, plunged at a 26 percent annual pace, hammered by surging mortgage rates.
According to an NBC News poll released Sunday, 70 percent of registered voters expressed interest in the upcoming election as a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale.
Pittsburgh community organizer Summer Lee was elected the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress after winning the state’s 12th Congressional District in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Lee, currently a state representative, faced off against Republican Mike Doyle — who happened to share the same name as the outgoing Democratic incumbent.
A $100,000 reward is being offered to track down those responsible for the hate crime.
“The president laid into me,” Pence recalls in his new memoir.
More than 24 hours after the last polls closed on Tuesday, the House has still not been called for either party. Remarkably, Democrats still have a path to hold on to a majority of 218 seats, though it’s quite narrow and would require multiple close races to fall their way out west. Let’s break down exactly which seats Democrats need to win in order to retain the majority.
UPDATE: Friday, Nov 11, 2022 · 7:40:04 AM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
Borozens’ke, Kherson region. Liberation 🥰 pic.twitter.
Former House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, has defeated two white-supremacist- and QANON-friendly opponents to keep the Oregon governor’s seat in Democratic hands.
Kotek has been Speaker since 2013, a tenure during which had to deal with the Republican challenger, the former House Republican Leader Christine Drazan, and her hijinks.
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After Democrats’ stunning victories in Georgia two years ago—Joe Biden’s extraordinary win in November, followed by the Senate-shaking triumphs of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in January—Peach State Republicans reacted with a furor. State lawmakers passed an enormous package of voting restrictions all designed to make sure they wouldn’t experience such humiliation again.
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I can hardly believe it, but Lauren Boebert is on the verge of losing!
Even though she represents a red district in Colorado, she is neck-and-neck with her Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch. But the election is not over! The margin keeps changing as more votes are counted, and it’s very possible Boebert could surge ahead. But there’s something very important we can do to ensure she doesn’t.
“When I Endorsed him, it was as though, to use a bad term, a nuclear weapon went off,” the former president said Thursday.
The former state House speaker, who makes history as one of the nation’s first two openly lesbian governors, defeated Republican Christine Drazan.
“The performance of the governor in the suburban districts around New York City … cost us the seats,” said Maloney, House Democrats’ campaign chair.
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.My colleague David Frum wrote this week that Tuesday’s midterm was the latest loss for Donald Trump and a major win for newly reelected Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has a chance at the GOP crown.
In COVID terms, the middle of last autumn looked a lot like this one. After a rough summer, SARS-CoV-2 infections were down; hospitalizations and deaths were in a relative trough. Kids and workers were back in schools and offices, and another round of COVID shots was rolling out. Things weren’t great … but they weren’t the most terrible they’d ever been. There were vaccines; there were tests; there were drugs.