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.Like astrology signs and the Enneagram, the psychological framework of attachment theory has become a popular blueprint for understanding the self. But as my colleague Faith Hill wrote last weekend in The Atlantic, the four attachment “types” aren’t as cut-and-dried as they may seem.

Marvel movies have never been excessively attached to the real world, given their affinity for Norse gods, alien warriors, flying wizards, and the like. Still, some of these films had at least a vague sense of tactility, and perhaps the most grounded hero was plucky little Ant-Man, played by Paul Rudd, the perfect smirking everyman of the 21st century. Ant-Man’s power is that he can get very small (though sometimes he’ll switch it up and get very large).

In second grade, I stopped being able to do math. One night I went to do my long-division homework and I couldn’t figure it out. My mom demanded that I sit with my math teacher because my sudden inability made no sense. Two weeks later, I was sent home with a disciplinary note for turning in only empty or incorrect homework and was accused of not paying attention in class.Up until then I had been a “good” student, a “smart” girl.

In 1968, three astronauts were sent to orbit the moon. On Christmas Eve, during their fourth lap, the astronaut Bill Anders was preparing to take a series of images of the lunar surface when he spotted the Earth rising above the horizon. The photo he snapped would become known as Earthrise.Humanity had seen a few images of the planet before, but not like this.

“Sometimes a journey must end for a new one to begin,” the Panic! at the Disco lead singer Brendon Urie wrote in an Instagram post last month announcing the band’s separation after 19 years. Urie, the band’s only remaining original member, said that he and his wife were expecting their first child (who has since been born), and that, going forward, his focus would be on family.

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.Updated at 8:05 p.m. ET on February 13, 2023Over the past few weeks, U.S. military aircraft have shot down four “objects” over North America, one of which U.S. officials claim was a Chinese surveillance balloon. This is unusual but not a cause for panic.

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.Last week, I asked for your thoughts on preparing for natural disasters.Ed takes stock of his setup:
I live in the country, so I am in a better position than many others.

For many Americans, wearing a mask has become a relic. But fighting about masks, it seems, has not.Masking has widely been seen as one of the best COVID precautions that people can take. Still, it has sparked ceaseless arguments: over mandates, what types of masks we should wear, and even how to wear them. A new review and meta-analysis of masking studies suggests that the detractors may have a point.

In the pre-balloon era, China was busily engaged in a charm offensive. Following October’s Communist Party congress, at which Xi Jinping won an unprecedented third term in office, Beijing made moves to stifle the combative and confrontational group of diplomats known as wolf warriors. Xi hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the capital, and condemned Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The tone of China’s leading diplomats noticeably softened.

The North American skies, it turns out, contain lots of unidentified objects. That is the unremarkable conclusion from a remarkable weekend in which fighter jets downed a trio of separate flying things—over Alaska, northern Canada, and Lake Huron. This weekend’s sky wars followed the identification and eventual downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon earlier this month, only after it had traversed the continental United States and was safely over U.S. waters.