Sam Altman did not seem to be having a good time. During the many days that he spent inside an Oakland courtroom, the normally cheery CEO of OpenAI—a guy who tends to be chipper even when declaring AI’s existential risks to humanity—appeared anxious, even distraught.
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.
Local election officials are the lifeblood of American democracy. They, and not the president or Congress, are most important for functional elections, and that’s what made Tina Peters’s crimes especially egregious.
Peters was the county clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, during the 2020 election.
“We are playing catch-up against a very dangerous pathogen,” one expert said.
In 1971, Richard Nixon announced his plan to visit Beijing—marking a geopolitical turning point, as the trip would be the first for a U.S. president in 25 years. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield offered an observation that has since become a Washington commonplace. “Only a Republican, perhaps only a Nixon,” he told U.S. News & World Report, “could have made this break and gotten away with it.
By 10 a.m. yesterday, the line of people wishing to dedicate America to God was more than three hours long. They came ready with prayer flags to wave the Holy Spirit into action, and shofars to scatter demonic forces. They wore T-shirts declaring the sort of Christians they were. A muscular man wore one that read Prayer Warrior. A woman in cargo shorts announced that she was an Intercessor for America. An elderly woman wore one that read I Am the Weapon.
The agency is restricting entry into the U.S. for non-U.S. passport holders who have visited areas where they may have been exposed to the virus.
Earlier this month, to celebrate a Spotify-streaming milestone, the singer Olivia Rodrigo held an intimate concert in Barcelona while wearing a certain outfit: a floral baby-doll dress, pink bloomers, and knee-high leather boots. The getup almost immediately set off an online maelstrom. Some commenters accused her of dressing like a “sexy baby” and promoting “pedo core” (short for “pedophilia core”); others defended her right to dress however she pleases.
Donald Trump on Monday dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over a leak of his personal and business tax records, a bizarre case of a sitting president suing his own government and essentially acting as both plaintiff and defendant. This comes amid reports that Trump’s Department of Justice was considering settling the case in exchange for the creation of a $1.
Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Sunday for “Rededicate 250,” a taxpayer-funded Christian evangelical service backed by President Trump. The eight-hour lineup featured songs, prayers and remarks by top government officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The event included religious leaders like evangelist Franklin Graham and Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on Saturday due to the rapid spread of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Ebola causes severe hemorrhagic fever and is often fatal. There’s no approved vaccine for the strain of Ebola responsible for the current outbreak, known as the Bundibugyo variant. The WHO said in a statement that the outbreak is potentially much larger “than what is currently being detected and reported.
The new Fed Chair is inheriting an inflation conundrum: appease Trump or hold out on rates?
The incoming IPO wave is rewriting stock market rules in real time—and setting us up for a lot of risk.
The Iran war and fuel prices are driving up airfare—but travelers are about to find out which costs may never come back down.
Managers received notices Friday that job classifications were changing.
Kyle Diamantas, who was elevated to FDA acting commissioner earlier this week, is telling anti-abortion groups he asked to be taken off a case defending Planned Parenthood due to moral objections.
Outward’s hosts sit down with the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven.
The neighborhood changes, the church moves, people forget and remember “the AIDS years,” but AIDS isn’t over.
The AIDS cocktail opens new possibilities. And MCC San Francisco tries to use the experience of AIDS to make bigger social change.
The church’s minister gets sick and everyone knows it.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
“We have to take care of ourselves because we can’t rely on one foreign partner,” Mark Carney said in a video address. “We can’t control the disruption coming from our neighbors.
We speak to two prominent Israeli thinkers, historian Omer Bartov and journalist Gideon Levy, about the founding beliefs of Zionism. Bartov, a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, is the author of the new book Israel: What Went Wrong? Bartov says the early Zionist movement had liberatory intentions, aiming to emancipate the persecuted Jewish minority in Europe and modeling itself after other contemporary ethnonationalist movements.
Palestinians around the world are marking Nakba Day, 78 years after their forced mass displacement led to the establishment of the Jewish-majority state of Israel. Decades later, Palestinians still face widespread oppression and violence from the Israeli state as it continues its expansionary project. “Israel tried, since 1948 until today, to destroy us as a people, as a group, and they failed at it.
We speak with the acclaimed artist and author Molly Crabapple about her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund. Although largely forgotten today, the Jewish Labor Bund was once a powerful secular, socialist revolutionary party that fought for freedom and dignity for Jews in Europe.
U.S. President Donald Trump is in Beijing for a highly anticipated summit with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping. It is the first U.S. state visit to China since 2017, during Trump’s first administration. Trade, the Iran war, artificial intelligence and the fate of Taiwan are some of the issues being discussed, although it’s not clear if any new agreements are likely.
The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak in central Africa “a public health emergency of international concern.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Make America Healthy Again devotee, is angling to replace the defeated Louisiana senator atop the Health Committee.
On right and left and among industry rivals, everyone is pointing the finger at the caregivers.
