Ever since C. Auguste Dupin pinned the death of a Parisian mother and daughter on an escaped orangutan, the murder mystery has remained one of mainstream culture’s most enduring, flexible, and popular narrative formats. The lonesome detective—with a stern constitution, hair-trigger nonsense detector, and endearing alcohol dependency—is a reliably compelling protagonist, capable of crossing legal lines and meting out justice.
Welcome to the Books Briefing, our weekly guide to The Atlantic’s books coverage. Join us Friday mornings for reading recommendations.
A century and a half after they were writing, authors such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky still rule the canon of Russian literature.
Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif is being threatened with expulsion from Israel’s legislature after he signed a petition supporting South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of acts of genocide. Cassif says the impeachment is based on an antidemocratic law that suppresses free speech. “They want me and my friends to shut up,” he says of the government’s persecution of dissenting legislators.
The second day of South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice at The Hague saw Israel take the stand, defending against accusations that its government is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. South Africa is demanding an emergency suspension of Israel’s aerial and ground assault on Gaza in front of the United Nations’ highest court.
The United States and Britain launched dozens of military strikes on Yemen on Thursday, raising fears of an escalation of conflict in the region. The strikes, launched in response to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea that have disrupted global trade, left at least five people dead.
The defense secretary underwent a prostatectomy to remove cancer and suffered painful complications.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are using microgravity to unlock the disease’s secrets.
The high court’s order temporarily freezes a lower court decision that blocked enforcement of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban in emergency circumstances.
Pollsters and political operatives said the fact Americans are unlikely to see their drug prices go down by November means the FDA’s decision is unlikely to have any tangible effect on the presidential election.
Friday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate dropped from 3.9% to 3.7%, not far above a five-decade low of 3.4% in April.
Expiring Covid benefits and new limits on safety net programs threaten to hit Americans’ pocketbooks — especially among core parts of the Democratic electorate.
Top White House aides reviewed private polling showing Biden’s economic message falling flat and suggesting paths toward a turnaround.
Human rights groups say Israel is using starvation as a weapon in the Gaza Strip as Israel severely restricts the delivery of humanitarian aid, medicine and food supplies to millions inside the besieged and bombed territory. In a new report,” Israeli human rights group B’Tselem lays out how Israel’s decision to cut off electricity, water and international humanitarian aid to Gaza after a 17-year blockade against the territory has led to a very quick collapse of infrastructure.
The New York Times reporter spotted the moment the former president started to “make a turn.
The son of the former president gets a blunt reminder of what he said on the day of the Capitol attack.
“We are using every tool that can be used,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said on a podcast.
“Is there any evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has enslaved anyone?” law professor Frank Bowman flatly said in response to Rep. Morgan Luttrell’s claims.
An appellate court ruled that Florida’s Republican governor violated Andrew Warren’s First Amendment rights by suspending him for political gain.
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Snow is an essential part of how people in cold climates experience the winter, and a key source of water in many parts of the world. But new research shows that the snowpack—snow that stays on the ground in cold weather—is disappearing at an alarming rate as temperatures rise.
For years now, health experts have been warning that COVID-era politics and the spread of anti-vaxxer lies have brought us to the brink of public-health catastrophe—that a Great Collapse of Vaccination Rates is nigh. This hasn’t come to pass. In spite of deep concerns about a generation of young parents who might soon give up on immunizations altogether—not simply for COVID, but perhaps for all disease—many of the stats we have are looking good.
Donald Trump was determined to make one more scene in his fraud trial in New York today, and he succeeded.
After a Fox News town hall last night in Iowa, Trump flew to Manhattan, where he rose to speak during closing arguments in the trial—or perhaps more accurately, to rant.
“There wasn’t one witness against us,” Trump said, as The New York Times reported. He called the case a “political witch hunt” and said he was “an innocent man.” He said his financial statements were (naturally) “perfect.
Earlier this week, the Telegraph reported a curious admission from OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. In a filing submitted to the U.K. Parliament, the company said that “leading AI models” could not exist without unfettered access to copyrighted books and articles, confirming that the generative-AI industry, worth tens of billions of dollars, depends on creative work owned by other people.
Israel’s military assault on Gaza is not just a humanitarian disaster but also generating massive amounts of planet-heating emissions and exacerbating the climate crisis. The carbon emissions from Israel’s bombs, tanks, fighter jets and other military activity in the first two months of the war were higher than the annual carbon footprints of 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, according to researchers in the United States and United Kingdom.
We speak with guests in Johannesburg and Jerusalem about South Africa’s landmark case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, where judges are being asked to intervene to stop a genocide. “What essentially South Africa is calling for is a ceasefire in Gaza,” says South African human rights lawyer Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh. We also speak with Palestinian genocide scholar Maha Abdallah, who says there is “extreme urgency” for the world to stop the bloodshed.
South Africa began to make its case Thursday at the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. In their opening statements, South Africa’s lawyers argued that the sheer scale of Israel’s violence, which has so far killed more than 23,000 people since October 7, is part of a political and military strategy aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life, using statements from top Israeli leaders to show genocidal intent.
The defense secretary underwent a prostatectomy to remove cancer and suffered painful complications.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are using microgravity to unlock the disease’s secrets.
The high court’s order temporarily freezes a lower court decision that blocked enforcement of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban in emergency circumstances.
Pollsters and political operatives said the fact Americans are unlikely to see their drug prices go down by November means the FDA’s decision is unlikely to have any tangible effect on the presidential election.
Friday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate dropped from 3.9% to 3.7%, not far above a five-decade low of 3.4% in April.