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.The teachers, nurses, and child-care workers who haven’t already left their jobs because of low pay and stress are hitting their limit.
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he 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.Question of the WeekWhy are men and boys struggling? What should we do about it?Send your responses to conor@theatlantic.com or simply reply to this email.
Todd Field’s new film, Tár, opens with a scene that should feel inherently uncinematic: an onstage Q&A. The conversation, between Lydia Tár (played by Cate Blanchett) and Adam Gopnik (gamely playing himself), is the kind of hoity-toity event that’d be a coveted ticket for a certain highbrow milieu. Tár is the preeminent conductor of her generation.
Of all the nicknames I have for my cat Calvin—Fluffernutter, Chonk-a-Donk, Fuzzy Lumpkin, Jerky McJerkface—Bumpus Maximus may be the most apt. Every night, when I crawl into bed, Calvin hops onto my pillow, purrs, and bonks his head affectionately against mine. It’s adorable, and a little bit gross. Tiny tufts of fur jet into my nose; flecks of spittle smear onto my cheeks.Just shy of a decade ago, cuddling a cat this aggressively would have left me in dire straits.
On a recent weeknight in Punta Gorda, Florida, a bird thief cut the power at a strip mall. It was roughly 2 a.m., a time when cockatoos and cockatiels are asleep; and also when, with its security cameras knocked offline, one might slip inside the coral-stucco storefront of the Parrot Outreach Society, a local rescue-and-adoption group with close to 100 animals on-site.
The administration’s plans to create a new accelerator for Covid vaccines and treatments has hit a wall.
On Tuesday evening, Russia was trying to establish a defensive line across their holdings in the Kherson area that stretches between the town of Bruskynske on the west and Mylove on the east. This is designed to halt the rapid Ukrainian advance in northern Kherson. It’s unclear if this effort has been in any sense successful, but it does seem to have temporarily halted the “take a village as fast as you can reach it” parade that has gone on for the last three days.
Young people shouldn’t have to worry about their basic rights, dignities, and protections from harassment and abuse, but of course, thanks to Republicans, they do. Conservatives haven’t been shy about demonizing and isolating LGBTQ+ youth—and especially trans youth—from their peers if they think it’ll get them more votes in the midterm elections.
Again: There is no underlying Republican philosophy. None at all, aside from an insistence that anything a Republican does is good and anyone who criticizes a Republican is bad. Republican voters don’t care if you have sex with minors (Matt Gaetz), help cover up the sexual abuse of student-athletes (Jim Jordan), troll local malls looking for teen girls to sexually assault (Roy Moore), or commit actual treason against the republic (Donald What’s-His-Name).
In the Republican race to put forward the most repulsive agenda possible, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida is definitely outpacing his GOP counterparts.
Sure, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent his colleagues running when he introduced a national 15-week abortion ban and pledged that a GOP-controlled Congress would give it a vote.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
The Oath Keepers trial, in which senior leaders of the right-wing extremist group are accused of plotting violence at the January 6 insurrection, began Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors played a secret audio recording Tuesday of a meeting held by the Oath Keepers after the 2020 election in which founder Stewart Rhodes discussed plans to bring weapons to the capital to help then-President Trump stay in office.
Mass protests in Haiti are condemning rising fuel prices and demanding the resignation of the U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ariel Henry. For nearly two months, street protests likened to a civil war have rocked the island nation’s capital Port-au-Prince after the government announced it would raise heavily subsidized fuel prices. We speak to Haitian activist Vélina Élysée Charlier about rising gang violence and how criminal groups are supported by the government.
We go to Puerto Rico to look at how the island is recovering from Hurricane Fiona, a Category 1 storm that left much of the island without electricity and clean water. President Biden has promised a $60 million relief package, but some doubt the aid will be distributed swiftly and in a manner that will truly protect the island from future storms, given the failed U.S. response after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
As President Biden meets with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and survivors of Hurricane Ian, the deadliest storm to hit the state in decades, we get an update from Florida state Representative Michele Rayner on relief efforts underway and the housing crisis exacerbated by the storm. Republicans like Governor DeSantis are “more concerned about sticking it to Joe Biden than actually making sure that they can take care of their people,” says Rayner.
The push to heed warning from public health experts faces buzzsaw of end-of-year budgeting.
A look inside the state health department’s battle against three simultaneous disease outbreaks
It’s a rare moment for a Fed chair to toss aside all political considerations and ignore frantic investors.
The Fed’s interest rate hikes have fueled market turmoil by boosting the value of the dollar and feeding higher borrowing costs.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has pledged to do whatever it takes to curb inflation.
Despite the signs of moderating price increases, inflation remains far higher than many Americans have ever experienced and is keeping pressure on the Federal Reserve.
The plan touted by the U.S. Treasury secretary aims to diminish the Kremlin’s revenue while preserving the global oil supply.
We speak to world-renowned political dissident Noam Chomsky and political writer Vijay Prashad about the Russian war in Ukraine, now in its eighth month. When it comes to continuing the war rather than negotiating a peace settlement, “the United States and Britain are pretty isolated on this,” says Chomsky.
Prosecutors cannot present the evidence at the upcoming trial of an analyst who served as a primary source for Christopher Steele’s report.
Another hour, another map of the northern area of Russian occupation in the Kherson area. Over the course of Tuesday, and into the evening, Ukraine has continued to press southward, bringing the area liberated since Sunday, in this one part of this one oblast, to an astounding 1,600 square kilometers.
Ukraine has now reclaimed about a third of the formerly Russian occupied area on the west side of the Dnipro River.
The 40 or so insurrectionists being held in the Washington, D.C., jail while awaiting trial—having proven their susceptibility to conspiracy theories and disinformation by engaging in criminal behavior at the Jan. 6 Capitol siege—not only have become convinced of their own martyrdom, which they’ve been using to raise funds for their cause. They’re also convinced that they’d have better conditions being held at Guantanamo Bay than in D.C.
On Monday, the public learned that Donald Trump packed up the classified documents himself, tried to get an attorney to lie about returning everything, and that some of the items the National Archives was most interested in—including the letter from President Barack Obama and Trump’s correspondence with Kim Jung Un—are still missing.
Another day, another Republican trying to turn the general public against a vulnerable, marginalized population. This time, we can look at a recent campaign ad from Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who decided to use trans folks as a scapegoat to try and get reelected in Kentucky, as covered by LGBTQ Nation. In the big picture, we’ve seen conservatives accuse trans girls of ruining the chances of cis girls to play sports and earn titles and scholarships.
Mere days ago, when Dr. Mehmet Oz’s biggest political liability was that he was an out-of-touch carpetbagger who likes to push fake remedies (e.g., Donald Trump) on lonely, desperate people, it looked like the only office he might actually have a shot at winning was dog catcher.
Yeah, about that. If Derp Oz himself was thinking along those lines, he can fuggetaboutit.
The Georgia Republican accused the transportation secretary of trying to “emasculate the way we drive” by supporting electric cars.