Updated at 9:30 p.m. ET on June 28, 2023When you order something online, getting that thing from the warehouse into your hot little hands is hard. Internet commerce is designed to obscure that difficulty—packages are supposed to alight on your welcome mat as though dropped there by the delivery fairy—but challenges persist, and they are only getting worse. There are just too many doorsteps, and too many things that need to alight on them.
On Monday, in an 11-minute speech, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the convicted criminal who leads the Wagner mercenary group, reflected on his brief revolt against the Russian government. It was the capstone to a tense and confusing geopolitical crisis—and it took the form of a voice memo on the popular app Telegram, where it was subject to a form of instant feedback. Reviews have been mixed: 155,600 fire emoji to 131,900 clown emoji.
War with Mexico? It’s on the 2024 ballot, at least if you believe the campaign rhetoric of more and more Republican candidates.In January, two Republican House members introduced a bill to authorize the use of military force inside Mexico. They were not know-nothings from the fringes of the MAGA caucus. One was Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy Seal who received a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
In Honduras, communities are fighting back against privatization and foreign exploitation after Honduran President Xiomara Castro and Congress repealed a law that established so-called Economic Development and Employment Zones, where private companies have “functional and administrative autonomy” from the national government.
Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, says it’s “grotesque and immoral” that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, higher than homicide and respiratory illness, citing recent findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Why do we hear so much about crime rates and opioids and gun violence in America, but poverty kills more people than all of those things?” asks Barber.
The Supreme Court’s term is ending this week with rulings on several blockbuster cases. On Tuesday, voting rights advocates welcomed a decision in a major election law case that preserved checks and balances in elections. In a 6-3 decision, the justices dismissed the so-called independent state legislature theory that state lawmakers have nearly unlimited power to make rules for federal elections.
It’ll be years before many blue-state efforts to expand abortion access have an impact.
The 10-page document reveals no proof of either a lab leak or an animal host.
The company is pushing back a promotional campaign three weeks to get past the news.
Not everything played out the way people expected.
Inflation slowed to just 4% in May.
Saturday marked the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that saw the conservative majority overturn Roe v. Wade and end the federal right to abortion. Abortion rights activists rallied in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere across the country to demand access to reproductive healthcare.
“He should be ashamed of himself,” the former New Jersey governor said.
“The appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner,” a spokesperson for Giuliani said.
The former president came up with a new phrase for himself — but not everyone agrees.
The high court has not launched an investigation into claims of ethics violations against Justice Thomas, lawmakers said in a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts.
“I was talking and just holding up papers,” the former president said.
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.Last week, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg announced their plans to duke it out in a cage fight. But this potential feud is less important than what it tells us about how Musk is influencing the rules of engagement in Silicon Valley.
In rejecting the independent state legislature theory, a thoroughly right-wing Supreme Court sent the message that it will not simply accept whatever ludicrous partisan legal theory its comrades in the conservative legal movement come up with. At least, not every single time.
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 asked readers what subject they would want to see debated and who the participants would be.Replies have been edited for length and clarity.J.E.
Donald Trump is not an articulate speaker, but he is an effective one, because he understands the power of the spoken word and deftly wields tone and inflection. One reason the tape of him boasting about sexual assault was such a bombshell was that you could actually listen to Trump saying it all in his inimitable manner.
The push to own the economy, by literally branding it with the president’s name, is not without risk.
Statins, one of the most extensively studied drugs on the planet, taken by tens of millions of Americans alone, have long had a perplexing side effect. Many patients—some 5 percent in clinical trials, and up to 30 percent in observational studies—experience sore and achy muscles, especially in the upper arms and legs.
Veteran national security reporter James Risen joins us for an in-depth look at his new book, The Last Honest Man, about the work of Senator Frank Church to rein in the FBI, CIA and other agencies after the Vietnam War, Watergate and other fiascos had shaken the public’s trust in the U.S. government.
As former President Donald Trump faces Espionage Act charges, newly leaked audio reveals he showed a classified Pentagon document to multiple people in 2021 detailing a plan to attack Iran, contradicting Trump’s recent claim that he did not have classified documents. We speak with veteran national security reporter James Risen, who says Trump is a thief and should not be compared to whistleblower Reality Winner or others, but also notes, “I am no fan of the Espionage Act.
The Kremlin says it has dropped criminal charges against Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries after he attempted to lead an aborted mutiny against the Russian military. Prigozhin has reportedly arrived in Belarus. We speak with James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Intercept, who covered the 1991 attempted coup in Moscow and says Prigozhin may have had a chance to complete his march on Moscow and topple the government, but he lost his nerve.
GOP lawmakers say President Joe Biden is using PEPFAR to promote abortion rights.
It’ll be years before many blue-state efforts to expand abortion access have an impact.
The 10-page document reveals no proof of either a lab leak or an animal host.
The company is pushing back a promotional campaign three weeks to get past the news.