For its many flaws, the world of cryptocurrency has bequeathed to the English language a vivid new verb: rug-pulling. As its idiom-derived name suggests, rug-pulling is when a crypto developer hypes up a new coin or new project, gets ordinary people to invest in it, and then—all at once—shuts it down in such a way that they take all of their investors’ cash with them.

On March 6, 2021, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia delivered the decisive 50th Democratic vote to help pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. The stimulus package provided relief checks to most American families, expanded a child tax credit to combat poverty, and bolstered federal support to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Astronomy can be, in some ways, a bit like the classic board game Clue. Scientists explore a sprawling but ultimately contained world, collecting pieces of information and testing out theories about a big mystery. You can’t cover every corner, but with the right combination of strategy and luck, you can gather enough clues to make a reasonable guess at the tidy answer—who, where, and how—enclosed in a little yellow envelope at the center of it all.

When they write, authors can choose to imagine fantastical worlds, or to follow the lives of celebrities or presidents. Describing the banality of the day-to-day—our relationships, the spaces we inhabit, and our jobs—can seem less glamorous and more difficult. But there’s plenty of fascinating territory to explore in writing about the workplace—including the blurry line, especially in modern times, between our personal lives and our professional ones.

In times of crisis, Britain’s arcane constitution seems absurd—often because it is absurd. Questions emerge to which no one ever seems entirely sure of the answer.

“I know that there are many who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia,” President Joe Biden wrote last week in an op-ed in The Washington Post. Among those disagreeing is the publisher of The Washington Post, who denounced Biden for “going … on bended knee” (surely he meant “meeting on bended knee,” unless Biden is flying to Jeddah from Tel Aviv on a magic carpet) to “shake the bloody hand” of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

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.In the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, some prosecutors say they simply won’t enforce abortion laws. It’s an audacious gesture—that probably won’t make much difference.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
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In my third year of reporting on the coronavirus pandemic, I find woodpeckers, which can ram their heads against hard surfaces about 20 times a second, to be incredibly relatable.