The nation’s most scrutinized museum director showed up to Congress this week acutely aware of her audience. Anthea Hartig, the head of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, referred to the institution as “your” museum. She emphatically affirmed her love of this country. She even cited her family’s Revolutionary War roots.
If you’re confused about whether you can eat the shredded lettuce on your Doritos Locos tacos again, you’re not alone. I cover food safety for a living—and I love Taco Bell—and I’m not sure when I’ll be comfortable living más.
At the end of last week, the worst concerns about the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak seemed to be behind us.
For nearly five months, Donald Trump and his Cabinet have been misleading the American people about the war in Iran. When the president makes statements about the war, they are full of wishful thinking, hyperbole, and outright lies. He has devoted a full address to the topic only once—a rambling prime-time speech nearly four months ago that contained little substance.
Yesterday, OpenAI made an alarming disclosure: An assortment of its most advanced AI models, including one that has not yet been released, had autonomously broken out of the company’s internal systems and hacked into the databases of another tech firm, Hugging Face, to steal some information.
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On this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts questioning whether the Trump administration has any plan at all to meet the challenge of debt and deficits.
Then, David is joined by Vincent Smith, director of agricultural policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and professor emeritus of economics at Montana State University.
On February 28, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, missiles landed on Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in the Iranian city of Minab, in a civilian area near the Strait of Hormuz. At least 121 schoolchildren were killed along with 26 teachers. Forensic Architecture and Sky News analyzed the attack, finding that the neighborhood was bombed a second time while families and rescuers were still on the ground.
The U.S. is continuing to strike Iran for an 11th straight day. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday revealed the cost of the war on Iran has soared to over $37 billion during an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee. However, independent estimates and media reports based on internal leaks suggest the true figure is much higher. Hegseth is now seeking $80 billion more from Congress, including $67 billion for the war on Iran.
Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in Miami after British authorities issued new rape and sex trafficking charges against them. The brothers, dual British-U.S. citizens, are prominent in the far-right, hypermasculine online community known as the “manosphere.” They previously lived in Romania, where in 2023 prosecutors filed a criminal indictment against them for human trafficking, while Andrew faces a rape charge.
The rush to build more data centers is driving up electricity costs.
From Chipotle to Chopt, the cyclosporiasis outbreak is causing an implosion of sales—and an explosion of problems elsewhere.
It looks like Bending Spoons’ bet on nostalgia brands like AOL, Vimeo, and Evernote is playing off after its big IPO this week.
Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth explains what we learn when markets are shaped by big ethical questions.
With drug deaths plummeting, state officials are wary of halting harm reduction initiatives.
The Trump administration said Monday Americans in Congo, where Ebola is spreading, must spend three weeks in a third country before coming home.
John Cornyn, Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis are leaving the Senate after warring with Trump, but they still can block the president’s appointees.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on Medicaid fraud in Minnesota has upended finances and disrupted access to care.
Outward’s hosts sit down with the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven.
The neighborhood changes, the church moves, people forget and remember “the AIDS years,” but AIDS isn’t over.
The AIDS cocktail opens new possibilities. And MCC San Francisco tries to use the experience of AIDS to make bigger social change.
The church’s minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
Millions of people across North America have experienced hazardous air pollution this month as nearly a thousand active wildfires continue to rage in Canada. In addition to releasing hazardous chemicals and smoke darkening skies across the continent, the fires in Canada have also disproportionately impacted Indigenous communities, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes.
The Trump administration is back at war. It just doesn’t want to admit it.
In the 11 days since the United States resumed its air strikes against Iran, neither President Trump nor any other senior administration official has publicly addressed the campaign. U.S. forces began by striking Iranian military facilities but later expanded to attacking civilian infrastructure that the administration says is being used for military purposes.
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When J. D. Vance announced the title of his new book, some bookworms noticed a curious convergence. The vice president’s first book is Hillbilly Elegy, a title that closely parallels Appalachian Elegy, a poetry collection by the radical Black feminist author bell hooks.
Every Iraqi prime minister since the fall of Saddam Hussein has inherited the same impossible job: Convince Washington that Iraq is not slipping entirely into Iran’s orbit while convincing Tehran that it is not becoming an American outpost.
Iraq’s new prime minister now faces that challenge under the most trying of circumstances. The United States and Iran are at war—and Iraq sits between them. When I met with Ali al-Zaidi during his visit to Washington, D.C.
Anthropic has poached such an array of high-profile professors that it has become a punch line in academia. “‘I’m joining Anthropic’ is the new meme right now,” Subbarao Kambhampati, a computer-science professor at Arizona State University (who has not joined Anthropic), told us. This month, the AI company hired the chair of UC Berkeley’s department of electrical engineering and computer science, presumably to help build more capable bots.
The deferrals are part of a nationwide crackdown on health fraud in government programs.
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Three times in recent months, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has absolved military aviators caught on camera busting flight regulations. The message to pilots is clear: As long as what you do looks cool and puts on a show for the public, you can break flight rules without consequences.
The tech company Flock, makers of traffic cameras that automatically record and log car license plates for law enforcement agencies, is facing increasing scrutiny over accusations that its vast, AI-sorted database has created a new, nationwide mass surveillance system.
The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup has concluded, with Spain defeating Argentina to claim the coveted title. Spain’s national team players accepted the championship trophy at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium alongside FIFA President Gianni Infantino and his close ally, United States President Donald Trump.