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Yesterday, a tantrum from the world’s richest person swayed events in Congress. First, Elon Musk launched a blizzard of X posts denouncing a bipartisan spending bill designed to keep the government open.
Yesterday, America had one of its worst days of bird flu to date. For starters, the CDC confirmed the country’s first severe case of human bird-flu infection. The patient, a Louisiana resident who is over the age of 65 and has underlying medical conditions, is in the hospital with severe respiratory illness and is in critical condition. This is the first time transmission has been traced back to exposure to sick and dead birds in backyard flocks.
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
Updated at 4:22 p.m. ET on December 19, 2024.
Low winter sun casts slanted light, a specific hue that’s at once happy and sad—highly fitting for this time of year. Nearly every city-dweller I know clings to the fleeting moments of gratifying glow during the final dark days of the calendar.
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Last month, Rose Horowitch wrote the article “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books,” which sparked a lot of debate. Professors told Horowitch that their students felt overwhelmed at the thought of finishing a single novel, much less 20, so they’ve begun to drastically shrink their assignments.
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My father-in-law, with whom I was very close, spent most of his life on the same working-class street in Barcelona’s El Clot neighborhood. Born in 1929, he saw Spain’s bloody civil war taking place literally in front of his house. His family experienced a lot of suffering. Some died; others spent years in jail or were forced into exile.
Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of committing acts of extermination and genocide by deliberately restricting safe water for drinking and sanitation to the Gaza Strip. The report details how Israel has cut off water and blocked fuel, food and humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, and deliberately destroyed or damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials.
“We were not prepared for what we were going to see,” says Human Rights Watch researcher Hiba Zayadin, who recently visited one mass execution site turned mass grave in Syria, following the sudden fall of the authoritarian Assad family from power. More than 150,000 Syrians remain unaccounted for after being held in Assad’s prisons, and many are believed to be buried in mass graves.
The streaming giant is scaling back on its generous parental leave policy…and employee swag.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “I wish I were rich enough to own a stegosaurus,” then there’s an online platform for you.
Most modern interpretations are a sad imitation of what was once a kitschy holiday tradition.
The NFL’s only problem is that it needs free-flowing dollars to keep pace with itself.
Public health officials see promise in some of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plans to prevent chronic disease but despair at his vaccine conspiracy theories.
Trump’s pick to lead HHS heads to the Hill this week.
A witness recognized the alleged killer at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s.
The president-elect’s advisers haven’t yet begun meeting with federal agencies, despite signing an agreement late last month allowing them to do so.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
Five weeks after the election, the president took his sharpest swing at Trump’s policy plans.
A pair of POLITICO|Morning Consult polls, one conducted in the final days of the election and the other conducted after Trump won, show how public opinion has changed.
The final paid messages: Economy, culture wars and character.
Harris has ratcheted up her warnings about the dangers of a second Trump term in recent weeks.
As the official death toll in Gaza tops 45,000 and Israel’s wars throughout the Middle East continue, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in court for a long-awaited corruption trial, making him the country’s first sitting leader to face criminal charges. He is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases.
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.
A few months ago, a men’s suit jacket appeared on my doorstep. What I had actually ordered was a pink dress. I emailed the retailer, and thus began a weeks-long back-and-forth involving photos of the jacket, photos of tags, and check-ins with customer-service representatives.
Now that the election is over, Donald Trump has returned to one of his most cherished pastimes: filing nuisance lawsuits. Abusing the legal system was a key precept of Trump’s decades-long career as a celebrity business tycoon, and he kept it up, out of habit or perhaps enjoyment, during his first term as president.
The newest round of litigation is different. Trump has broadened his targets to include not just reporters and commentators but pollsters.
Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of the Proud Boys, was extremely upset with me. He started listing things that I should feel (ashamed and terrible about myself) and that he wished would happen to me (trouble sleeping at night). “You should,” he told me gravely and slowly, as though he were about to give me some very important advice, “slit your wrists.”
The transgression I’d committed against him was being a journalist in his presence.
When the tanker ships come toward the tiny town of Cameron, Louisiana, Travis Dardar, a shrimp fisherman, can hear their wake coming before he sees it, he told me earlier this year. They’re there to pick up natural gas that’s been supercooled to a liquid state at a sprawling export facility, built atop hundreds of wetland acres in the past few years, and to transport that gas to ports in Europe and Asia.
