No drug is quite like nicotine. When it hits your bloodstream, you’re sent on a ride of double euphoria: an immediate jolt of adrenaline, like a strong cup of coffee injected directly into your brain, along with the calming effect of a beer. Nicotine is what gets people hooked on cigarettes, despite their health risks and putrid smell. It is, in essence, what cigarette companies are selling, and what they’ve always been selling.
Let us now praise Donald Trump. It’s hard for me not to choke on that phrase. But it was his bluster—his demand that Hamas release its remaining hostages before his inauguration, or else “all hell will break out”—that effectively ushered in a cease-fire, the beginning of the end of the Gaza war.
Although honesty requires crediting Trump, his success was not the product of magical powers or an indictment of Biden-administration diplomacy.
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.
Over the past several months, bird-flu numbers have been steadily ticking up, especially among farmworkers who interact closely with cows. I spoke with my colleague Katherine J.
Just after noon next Monday, Donald Trump will take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, despite having, four years before, “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”
That is the conclusion of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s effort to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats spent more than $20 million last year to end then-Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s congressional career. Now, however, the Republican they worked so hard to defeat is their favorite nominee for President-Elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet.
Trump’s selection of Chavez-DeRemer for labor secretary came as a pleasant surprise to many Democrats and union leaders, who expected him to follow past Republican presidents and name a conservative hostile to organized labor.
The transition team hired trusted conservatives to key HHS positions.
We speak with journalists Steven Thrasher and Afeef Nessouli about their new report for The Intercept, which examines how queer, HIV-positive Palestinians are struggling to survive in Gaza with limited access to medication due to Israel’s siege and ongoing attacks on the territory. The report centers on E.S., a young Palestinian man who is HIV-positive and who has been in “a race against time,” says Nessouli. “The genocide is making it impossible to get medication to people like E.S.
The Senate confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to be defense secretary, was repeatedly disrupted Tuesday by protesters who denounced the nominee’s history of hateful remarks against women, LGBTQ people and others, as well as to demand an end to U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to become defense secretary, appears to be moving toward confirmation after a contentious Senate hearing on Tuesday. He was grilled over his alleged history of sexual misconduct, reports of frequent public drunkenness at work, financial mismanagement at veterans’ organizations he led, and statements he has made disparaging women, LGBTQ people and others in the military.
An executive went viral when he said he’d pay “any amount.
The local online parent group, where I’d hoped to find new friends, was basically a random yard sale.
It’s not just their reputations at stake; it’s their livelihoods.
The city’s gargantuan highways—normally an impediment and an eyesore—suddenly felt like a bulwark.
The court will decide the fate of the insurance mandate later this year.
Vivek Murthy says alcohol causes cancer, but the industry still has many friends on Capitol Hill.
Brian Anderson is ready to shape the future of AI in health care — if Donald Trump will let him.
A combination of viral respiratory infections, malaria and malnutrition has killed nearly 50 people in the African country.
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.
Miran has called for a sweeping overhaul of the Fed to ensure greater political control over the central bank, including giving the president the power to fire board members at will.
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.
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.
Not long after Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth read his opening statement and began fielding questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee, I began thinking: I hope neither America’s allies nor its enemies are watching this. The hope was, of course, completely unreasonable.
Pete Hegseth, President-Elect Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, was initially considered one of his most endangered nominees. But after the MAGA movement organized a campaign to threaten Republicans who expressed reservations about Hegseth’s fitness, criticism dried up quickly. “We gave the Senate an attitude adjustment,” Mike Davis, a Republican operative known for his florid threats to lock up Trump’s political targets, told Politico.
Photographs by Alex Welsh
Michael Gollner studies fire and how it behaves at UC Berkeley’s Fire Research Lab. His research is focused on fires that spread from wildlands to urban areas––work that gives him insights into the fires ravaging Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and other areas near Los Angeles. On Friday, I interviewed him about the fires and how to rebuild the communities they’ve destroyed in a way that makes them more resilient. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.
Influenza cases have been surging. RSV activity is “very high.” Signs of COVID have been mounting in sewer water, and norovirus, too, is spawning outbreaks like we haven’t seen for at least a dozen years. You might even say that America is in the midst of a “quad-demic,” although I really hope you don’t, because “quad-demic” is not a word that anyone should say.
With that in mind, here are The Atlantic’s tips and tricks for steering clear of any illness during this year’s terrible quad-demic.
Early this morning, the Department of Justice released the report of Special Counsel Jack Smith on his investigation of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. The saga of the U.S. criminal-justice system’s effort to hold the coup instigator accountable is thus closed. No prosecution will take place. Compared with the present outcome, it would have been better if President Joe Biden had pardoned Trump for the January 6 coup attempt.
