Board games are hostage situations. “C’mon, it’s fun!” your brother or so-called friend says, and then for the next two or eight hours you’re stuck. Rules are read, cardboard chits are distributed, and rounds of wit or chance (or both) transpire. But it is fun, because the joy of gaming first involves accepting arbitrary rules just to feel the sensation of having embraced them.And yet, board games are terrible.
In the past, I’ve leaned on the great Arab proto-sociologist Ibn Khaldun to explain modern life.
We speak with award-winning journalist and author Jeff Sharlet, who has spent the last decade reporting on the growing threat of fascism across the United States. In his new book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, Sharlet says the language of “civil war” has become central to right-wing rhetoric, mainstreamed by former President Donald Trump, Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has spent the last four years locked up at the Belmarsh high-security prison in London, where he has been fighting extradition to the United States on espionage charges. He faces up to 175 years in prison if convicted. This week, amid growing concerns about Assange’s health, Reporters Without Borders attempted to become the first NGO to visit with Assange since his arrest four years ago.
We speak with Joshua Yaffa, a close friend of Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal reporter who has been jailed in Russia since his arrest last week, when he was accused of trying to obtain state secrets related to the Russian military — days after the United States indicted a Russian man in Brazil on espionage charges. Gershkovich’s parents left the Soviet Union for the United States before he was born, and he has reported in Russia since 2017.
Abortion is headed for the ballot in several swing states as activists clash over limits.
The nationwide ruling holds that the health panel that decided what services insurers must cover is unconstitutional.
The fall of Roe has upended the traditional political battle lines.
At least 11 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors.
Jerome Powell “stepped up and took a flamethrower to the regulations,” the senator said.
The government said prices increased 0.4% last month, just below January’s 0.5% rise.
“I can’t think of a time when there’s been greater uncertainty,” the president said.
The president promised a lot last year. Here’s how we graded him on some of those pledges.
The former president and his sons targeted the daughter of the judge handling Trump’s case on Tuesday.
Abortion trafficking is now a felony offense in the state, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Additionally, Kansas passed a law banning transgender youth from playing on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
With the move, Democrat Phil Murphy declared his state a “safe haven” for anyone receiving or providing gender-affirming care.
The star basketball player said the Tigers should celebrate with former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama rather than Joe and Jill Biden.
It’s a measure of Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party that his unprecedented criminal indictment is strengthening, not loosening, his grip.Trump was on the defensive after November’s midterm election because many in the GOP blamed voter resistance to him for the party’s disappointing results.
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.After his arraignment in New York, a weary Donald Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago, where he made a rambling and disjointed statement. (To call it a “speech” would be too generous.
For the past decade or so, the social internet has been largely controlled by secretive algorithms. Designed by tech companies to capture attention and drive engagement, they determine which posts end up in your feeds and which sink like a rock, never to be seen again. These algorithms play a role in polarization, rocketing ordinary people to overnight fame, and the spread of extreme, violence-provoking content.
In his speech last night to his supporters at Mar-a-Lago, made several hours after he was arraigned in Manhattan on 34 felony counts, Donald Trump took aim at Juan Merchan, the judge in the case.“I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family, whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris and now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign, and a lot of it,” Trump said.
As students across the United States today join a nationwide school walkout to demand lawmakers take action on gun control, we go to Tennessee, where Republicans are trying to expel three Democratic lawmakers for supporting student-led gun control protests at the state Capitol after last week’s school shooting in Nashville.
We get an update on a major victory for progressives in Chicago’s mayoral race, where union organizer and former teacher Brandon Johnson narrowly defeated Paul Vallas in a runoff election Tuesday. Johnson called for community investment, while Vallas, who was backed by the police union, focused his campaign on crime.
Democrat-backed Judge Janet Protasiewicz won a high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race Tuesday, giving liberals a majority on the court for the first time since 2008 and renewing hopes the state’s abortion ban can be reversed. Protasiewicz’s rival, former Justice Dan Kelly, had support from Republicans and anti-abortion groups.
As we cover the historic arraignment of former President Donald Trump, we look at the crimes for which he has not been charged. We speak with Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate. Nader says that though “all presidents violate laws,” Trump has “taken it to a new and diverse height.
Donald Trump has been formally charged with 34 felonies in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday. After surrendering to authorities at a New York courthouse, Trump was placed under arrest and fingerprinted. He then appeared in a courtroom, where he pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to hush-money payments he paid out during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump is the first U.S. president to ever be charged with a crime.
The nationwide ruling holds that the health panel that decided what services insurers must cover is unconstitutional.
The fall of Roe has upended the traditional political battle lines.
At least 11 states have now enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for minors.