On the eve of the United States’ 250th birthday, in the nation’s capital, people were sweating through their shirts, and tourists were pressing electric fans directly to their foreheads. The record-breaking heat wave that roasted the Midwest earlier this week has turned Washington, D.C., into hell. Temperatures peaked at 102 degrees Fahrenheit, with a heat index of 117. The sky was cloudless, and the humidity was encouraging me to lie down and cry. It was difficult to believe that D.C.

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Elon Musk isn’t just the world’s richest man—he’s one of the most influential people alive. His companies have transformed industries, his wealth has shattered records, and his politics now shape governments and public debate.

Who is responsible for American independence? The most common answer invokes a short list of familiar names: Washington, Jefferson, Adams. Despite their mistakes and biases, these men deserve the credit they’re typically given. But by focusing so much on the Founders, the conventional telling of America’s origin story leaves out perhaps its greatest heroes.

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This week in The Atlantic, Michael O’Donnell took aim at a film critic who is himself notorious for takedowns. Point by point, O’Donnell debunks the arguments in A Sudden Flicker of Light, David Thomson’s new book about how cinema has harmed society.

“Heaven created all persons in the same rut.” This is how one early Japanese translation of the Declaration of Independence rendered the self-evident truth mentioned in its most celebrated sentence. To many Americans, this may sound like an eccentric misunderstanding of “all men are created equal.” After all, the egalitarian arithmetic of the Declaration’s claim seems clear enough: Every person carries the same weight.

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Two-hundred years ago, on July 4, 1826, the United States celebrated its 50th birthday. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died. And another enduring voice was born: the songwriter Stephen Foster.
The timing is fitting, for Foster is a quintessentially American figure.

“We’re in a new world now,” Solicitor General John Sauer told the U.S. Supreme Court during oral argument this April in the birthright-citizenship case Trump v. Barbara, “where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who’s a U.S. citizen.” Chief Justice John Roberts quickly shot him down, replying, “Well, it’s a new world,” but it’s “the same Constitution.

Literary agents and book editors are in the business of selling stories, so drama comes easily to them. Even temporary sales slumps breed alarmist pronouncements; book parties in disfavored genres begin to feel like wakes, sending off one more spirit to the inevitable afterworld of the remainder shelf. The novel has apparently been declared dead 30 times since 1902.

There are many things you can buy for $10,000: A nose job. With luck, a used car. A middling ticket to the World Cup final. Or you could purchase a MacBook Pro. That’s how much the highest-end, fully loaded version of Apple’s laptop now costs—$3,000 more than it did last week.
Maybe you don’t need the most powerful MacBook Pro. But last Thursday, Apple announced price hikes on most of its products. Apple’s cheapest laptop, the MacBook Neo, debuted for $600 just a few months ago.

Are movies bad for us? Do they waste our time, dumb down the culture, even harm society? On-screen, stars depict unspeakable acts of violence and cruelty. More subtly, movies make bad choices look appealing; viewers might watch The Godfather and think not merely I want Michael Corleone’s suit, but I want to smoke like he smokes—and maybe run my business like him too.