Earth, in most renderings, is a smooth sphere with a glossy complexion—a blue marble, as pictures snapped from space have shown us. Earth scientists know that’s not exactly true. Earth, in fact, is an ellipsoid, a little bit squashed at the poles and fat around the equator, not to mention speckled with mountain ranges. And then you have the geoid people—the ones who think of Earth less as an imperfect sphere and more as a lumpy potato.C. K.
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.The week before last I asked readers for their thoughts on the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision.Replies have been edited for length and clarity.R.
With a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced across the United States this year, we speak with Delaware state Senator Sarah McBride about her bid for an open seat in the House of Representatives that could make her the first openly transgender member of Congress. “Trans people are part of the rich fabric of America.
A federal appeals court has ruled the Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth could go into effect for now, reversing a lower court order. It marks the first time a federal court has allowed such a ban on transition care to fully take hold in the United States, amid a wave of Republican-led attacks on trans rights targeting medical care, education, sports and beyond.
The Biden administration is drawing outrage after announcing it will send cluster bombs to Ukraine as part of a new weapons package. When deployed, cluster munitions spread smaller “bomblets” across a wide area and regularly kill civilians, either on initial impact or from unexploded segments that go off later. Their use has been banned by 123 countries that signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the United States, Russia and Ukraine are not signatories to the treaty.
Democrats have long wanted Biden to go after “junk insurance.
Questions linger around how many patients will be able to access the drug with limited coverage from Medicare.
The Biden administration’s new proposal would place further restrictions on short-term health insurance plans.
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 push to own the economy, by literally branding it with the president’s name, is not without risk.
Inflation slowed to just 4% in May.
On the 10th anniversary of the 2013 coup in Egypt when General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed the country’s first democratically elected president from power, we speak with author Shadi Hamid about “Lessons for the Next Arab Spring,” in which he details how the Obama administration helped to kill the democratic uprising across the Middle East.
In Guatemala, election officials have rejected an attempt by the ruling business and political elite to overturn the results of last month’s first round of the presidential election. Sandra Torres, the former first lady, accused of corruption, and her allies challenged the results of June’s first-round elections, which saw the progressive, anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo win second place and force a runoff.
A damning new database reveals thousands of lobbyists are working for fossil fuel companies at the same time they represent hundreds of cities, universities, tech companies and even environmental groups that claim to be taking steps to address the climate crisis. We speak with The Guardian’s environmental reporter Oliver Milman.
This week unprecedented temperatures driven by climate change shattered heat records around the world. More records could be broken soon, as scientists say 2023 is set to be one of the warmest years in the history of planet Earth. “We can’t stop global warming at this point,” says Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. “All we can do is try to stop it short of the place where it cuts civilizations off at the knees.
DeSantis tried to laugh off one news outlet’s subhead before chalking up concerns over his presidential bid to “narratives.
The former chair of the state Democratic Party had been hospitalized since a July 1 collision with another jet ski on Kentucky Lake.
The California governor put GOP leaders on blast on health care, gun control, book bans and more.
Ahead of the NATO summit in Lithuania, the president said that Russia’s war must end before the defense alliance can invite Kyiv to join.
There was war somewhere on the news.
Every day. In America. On the border.War locked away in the darkened envelope
of our stirred, combusting minds.Winter arrived late with its diaphanous
wings & unsalted sidewalks bandagedwith new snow. Dish racks I arranged in
the pantry glistened with dry crusts wherebaked bread or croissants should have
been. In the week of power outages,in the year of hunger, all we had was love,
its fused & infinite grammar, its wet eyes& tenderness for days.
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.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained.Today’s special guest is Atlantic staff writer Elaina Plott Calabro.
This article was originally published by High Country News.The first grainy film clip shows a black bear exploding out of the trail camera’s frame. In another, a mule deer stops munching wildflowers, backs away, and takes off in the opposite direction. In a third, a moose doesn’t move at all but stands there, vigilant.All three animals were reacting to sound bites from boom boxes in the woods, part of a study measuring the effect of outdoor recreationists’ noise on wildlife.
Even by the standards of today’s political ads, the video that recently roiled the Republican presidential race is not particularly subtle. In it, a talking head accuses Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of producing “some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence.” Headlines like “DeSantis Signs ‘Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History’” flit across the screen.
The chef presents me with a nugget of raw meat, tinged yellowish gray, then takes it back and drops it in a pan. “Today, you’re going to be having our whole-muscle chicken filet,” Daniel Davila tells me, searing the morsel. He lets it rest, chars some tomatoes and scallions, and throws together a beurre-blanc sauce. “Kind of a classic,” Davila says.
Democrats have long wanted Biden to go after “junk insurance.
Questions linger around how many patients will be able to access the drug with limited coverage from Medicare.
The Biden administration’s new proposal would place further restrictions on short-term health insurance plans.
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.