No franchise in Disney’s deep corporate Rolodex is more odd and misshapen than Tron. The original 1982 film was for years a pop-culture bookend: The tale of a video-game developer who gets zapped into his own software, it was the first movie to significantly use CGI in its production. As visually groundbreaking as it was, Tron is also narratively puzzling—built on an internal logic of digital life that required lots of exposition.
Updated with new questions at 4:40 p.m. ET on October 10, 2025.
Welcome back for another week of The Atlantic’s un-trivial trivia, drawn from recently published stories. Without a trifle in the bunch, maybe what we’re really dealing with here is—hmm—“significa”? “Consequentia”?
Whatever butchered bit of Latin you prefer, read on for today’s questions. (Last week’s questions can be found here.)
To get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.
Writer Cory Doctorow returns to Democracy Now! to discuss his new book Enshittification, which explores the term he coined in 2022 to describe how online platforms like Facebook degrade over time as companies seek to maximize profit at the expense of their users, and it has since become shorthand for describing a pervasive sense of dropping standards across various aspects of modern life.
Enshittification is “the collapse of discipline,” says Doctorow.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, a leading Venezuelan opposition figure. Machado was set to run for president last year, but she was disqualified by the government of President Nicolás Maduro, with fellow opposition leader Edmundo González standing in for her. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council ultimately declared Maduro the winner of the contested election, and he was sworn in for his third term in January.
A ceasefire came into effect in Gaza on Friday after the Israeli government approved the first phase of the U.S.-backed plan to end two years of war in the Palestinian territory. The deal calls for a pause in Israeli attacks, the release of the remaining Israeli captives held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, as well as an influx of badly needed humanitarian aid for the starving population of Gaza.
He built a sports empire on ESPN. Now he wants to see if it’ll win him an Alabama Senate seat.
Trump is bailing out his buddy Javier Milei and Republicans aren’t happy.
Doug Woodham joins Felix Salmon to discuss his book Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon.
NVIDIA has announced a $100 billion investment in OpenAI to build out data centers that use its chips.
The panel voted to undo an action by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. which removed the vaccine from the immunization schedule for pregnant women.
The Trump administration’s move formalizes advice to soften or eliminate previous policies.
The health secretary has made phasing out animal testing part of his Make America Healthy Again plan.
Rural areas that overwhelmingly voted for the president employ a high concentration of doctors on H-1B visas.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Trump’s strength with Republicans on the economy could prove to be a boon for the GOP.
A survey from the liberal-leaning group Somos Votantes shows Latino voters are souring on the president.
Privately, aides concede voters remain uneasy about prices but argue their policies are beginning to turn things around.
The new documentary Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink looks at how hedge funds have gutted newsrooms across the country. The hedge fund strategy of “distressed asset investing” involves buying up industries that are struggling to turn a profit, and then selling off their assets and laying off workers. “You have people who are interested solely in making money off of the newspapers and not in serving the community and doing good journalism,” says director Rick Goldsmith.
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Way back in 2018, before she had ever held any kind of political office, Marjorie Taylor Greene reportedly endorsed a plan to murder former President Barack Obama. “Stage is being set,” she wrote in response to one Facebook commenter’s request to “hang” Obama and Hillary Clinton. “We must be patient.
Updated at 7:13 p.m. ET on October 9, 2025
The origin story of L.A.’s Palisades Fire, according to a criminal complaint announced yesterday, reads like a scene from an art-house film. Shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve, a son of missionaries visits a scenic overlook near the Los Angeles coast. The clearing is known for the Buddha statues hikers leave behind in the hollowed-out stump of a power pole. The man listens to a French rap song about the malaise of modern life.
Updated with new questions at 4:25 p.m. ET on October 9, 2025.
Welcome back for another week of The Atlantic’s un-trivial trivia, drawn from recently published stories. Without a trifle in the bunch, maybe what we’re really dealing with here is—hmm—“significa”? “Consequentia”?
Whatever butchered bit of Latin you prefer, read on for today’s questions. (Last week’s questions can be found here.)
To get Atlantic Trivia in your inbox every day, sign up for The Atlantic Daily.
László Krasznahorkai, who won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature today, is not the easiest writer to read. His sentences can go on for hundreds of pages; his plots don’t resolve, they dissolve; and his persistent mood is existential dread. But the Hungarian novelist’s central theme is easily parsed and sadly evergreen. Krasznahorkai writes about the stultifying effects of political oppression, but he also writes in defiance of people’s readiness to accept them.
The Upper West Side deli where I meet Benny Safdie is filled with a particular kind of grumpy old-school Manhattanite. They’re the type of figure who has tended to populate the filmmaker’s movies: many of them neurotic, and more concerned with finding a means to their own ends than placating the people around them. With his brother, Josh, Benny has built a career on his fascination with these occasionally surly characters, often men on the downswing.
The group of outside experts will also consider shot ingredients like aluminum, as well as the timing and order of vaccines, according to a document posted on the agency’s website.
Israeli forces have abducted over 500 peace activists over the past week who were sailing to Gaza in an effort to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged territory. Organizers of the Global Sumud Flotilla say most of the participants were sent to Ktzi’ot Prison, notorious for harsh and abusive conditions. Some have reported physical abuse, humiliation and inhumane treatment by Israeli soldiers.
President Donald Trump says Israel and Hamas have agreed to the “first phase” of a U.S.-backed ceasefire deal for Gaza. The 20-point roadmap includes a swap of captives and a phased Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, though details on many of the planks remain sketchy. Democracy Now! spoke with Palestinian and Israeli analysts on how to interpret the peace plan.
“We’re now at a fork in the road,” says Mouin Rabbani, a Palestinian Middle East analyst.
