In 1978, Bohdan Klymchak walked out of the Soviet Union and asked for political asylum in Iran. Klymchak was Ukrainian, born near Lviv. In 1949, his family had been deported to Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, after the arrest of his brother as a “Ukrainian nationalist.” In 1957, Klymchak himself was arrested for “anti-Soviet agitation”; even after his release, he remained under constant surveillance.

This is an edition of the revamped Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.On Twitter and talk radio and cable TV, Americans today can easily express and hear echoes of their basest thoughts without too much difficulty—racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, the whole cacophony of hate. But at one time, really knowing what your neighbors were thinking, or seeing who was hiding under the white hood, took some investigating.

Americans’ shopping habits have made us reliant on delivery workers—and helped UPS’s business boom. Now UPS workers are threatening to strike to get a piece of that success.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
When will the Southwest become unlivable?
Learn a foreign language before it’s too late.
The Republican lab-leak circus makes one important point.

It’s getting hard to keep track of all the overlapping climate disasters. In Phoenix, Arizona, the temperature has broken 110 degrees for nearly two weeks running. The waters off the Florida coast are approaching hot-tub hot, and before long, marine heat waves may cover half the world’s oceans. Up north, Canada’s worst wildfire season on record burns on and continues to suffocate American cities with sporadic smoke, which may not clear for good until October.

Earlier this year, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app of all time, reaching 100 million active users in what seemed like an astonishingly brisk two months. Now, just six months later, that record has been usurped: Threads got there in less than a week. According to data from Sensor Tower, a market-intelligence firm, Meta’s Twitter clone had the best launch day of any app in the past decade.The internet is moving faster than ever before.

Below is a list of ideas, arguments, and practical tips from Atlantic stories to help you navigate this heat.
What if we called it heat season, not just summer?
There’s no single too-hot-to-be-outside temperature. Trying to set one might mislead more than it would help.
Heat is becoming the 21st century’s defining human-rights issue.
The denser the city, the less greenery? Not necessarily.
Beware the “wet bulb” temperature.
Consider a white roof.