The head of government is caught in a series of scandals. The scandals are not necessarily so important in themselves. Many of them involve purely personal misconduct. But if exposed, they would shock public opinion and threaten the leader’s hold on power. So he lies and lies and lies again. He mobilizes his cabinet and staff to lie for him. And when the truth does finally catch up with him, he tries to brazen things out. The people voted for him. He has a mandate.

You develop certain psychological reflexes to get you through the initial shock of the first push alert: Some number dead, others wounded in a mass shooting someplace in America. At this point we all know that the earliest reports are typically flawed, so you can suspend belief a degree or two, just for the time being. It’s summer; school’s out, which means they—the murdered, whoever they were—likely weren’t children, which means you can exhale a little, uneasily.

Minions! You know them, even if you don’t want to. The banana-yellow, denim-clad, booger-shaped thingamabobs are so popular that they’ve overtaken the film franchise in which they originated. They’ve had their images stitched onto every piece of merchandise possible—sanctioned or not—and probably make up the bulk of those memes your one relative won’t stop posting on Facebook.

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.I wonder if the remaining sensible Republicans have accepted the irretrievable loss of the GOP they once knew.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Let’s use Chicago rules to beat Russia.
Hybrid work is doomed.
Uber Pool is a zombie.

This article contains light spoilers through the fourth season of Stranger Things.Somehow, even thousands of viewing minutes in, my synapses numbed by a cinematic universe so squelchy that it induces visceral anxiety, I still don’t really know how to feel about Stranger Things. It’s hard to even say exactly what it is. TV watchers today are accustomed to streaming works that coalesce, murkily, somewhere between film and television.

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.

When Michelle Stokes noticed a necrotic wound on her cat, Jellyfish, last July, she and her husband had to call about 50 vets before finding one that could squeeze them in.The local emergency animal hospital was so backed up that it said the wound—serious but not yet life-threatening—wasn’t really an emergency. Jellyfish didn’t have a regular vet, because Stokes and her husband had just moved to the Cleveland area.

College-sports traditionalists were appalled last week when the Big Ten athletic conference announced that it will add UCLA and the University of Southern California to its membership in 2024—creating a seismic shift in the college-sports landscape that will generate millions of dollars in revenue for the two California powerhouse programs.This reorganization is the strongest indicator yet that college sports is cannibalizing itself.