When the hip-hop legend André 3000 confused the world by releasing an album of experimental flute music earlier this year, he offered a simple explanation for why he’s stopped rapping: “I’m 48 years old,” he told GQ. He gave examples of personal concerns that he found lyrically unusable: “I got to go get a colonoscopy’ … ‘My eyesight is going bad.
“It was a great suit, believe me! A really good suit! It’s all cut up, and you’re going to get a piece of it,” the former president said in a promo video.
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Last week I asked readers how much time they spent with peers in adolescence. This is the first batch of responses.
For all of my life, I thought eating breakfast with Santa was totally normal. Every year, he would come to my church in western New York and sit in the corner of the reception hall for a few hours. (Sometimes, he was played by my dad or my cousin Frank.) The kids would eat pancakes and drink hot chocolate in his presence and work up their courage. Whenever they felt ready, they could meet the big guy and discuss whatever they needed to. And then they would get a candy cane.
Like the draft agreement that came out yesterday at COP28, in Dubai—which softened language about phasing out fossil fuels to “reducing” them and “efforts towards” substituting “unabated” fossil fuels—Canada is awkwardly trying to live with two contradictory ideas about climate change. The world has to stop using fossil fuels, and yet, for a petrostate, letting go isn’t easy.
A Texas woman has had to flee to another state to have an emergency abortion after the state Supreme Court ruled against her. Kate Cox fled Monday after she had petitioned a judge to get an exemption from the state’s near-total abortion ban when her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition and doctors warned her carrying to term could endanger her fertility. “Unfortunately, it’s one of hundreds, if not thousands, of comparable stories,” says Dr.
At the COP28 U.N. climate summit, a draft agreement released Monday omits a call to phase out fossil fuels, proposing “reductions” instead. The United States, Canada and other rich countries have loudly championed a phaseout but are simultaneously approving new oil and gas projects eating up the planet’s remaining carbon budget, says Meena Raman, head of programs at Third World Network and president of Friends of the Earth Malaysia.
As relatives of hostages held in Gaza urge Israeli lawmakers to use diplomacy, not war, to free their loved ones, we speak to an Israeli peace activist whose 84-year-old mother was released by Hamas in late November as part of an Israel-Hamas hostage swap during the weeklong pause in fighting. “We are demanding to release all the hostages,” says Neta Heiman Mina, a member of Women Wage Peace.
Good mining jobs with good benefits can counterintuitively hurt access to care.
A Texas case underscores the legal and ethical gray areas physicians have faced since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The FDA approved the landmark treatment on Friday. It’s expected to cost more than $1 million.
Discussions about a compromise that would extend the program have collapsed.
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.
Can Democrats overcome their college-campus branding and reclaim the working class?
The Texas Supreme Court subsequently ruled against her.
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.America is facing an existential authoritarian threat from Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2024, in part because voters have for too long thought of the presidency as an omnipotent throne.
On Sunday, pathological backstory-fabricator George Santos granted an interview to a local CBS affiliate in New York. Appearing on “The Point with Marcia Kramer,” the ousted Congress member declared that he had learned from his mistakes and that he was going to atone by exposing all of the corruption he saw in Washington—and named fellow Republicans as some of the biggest offenders.
Fellow Republican Rep.
U.S. military assistance to Ukraine is in growing jeopardy as Republicans demand major changes to the nation’s immigration laws and border policies.
The Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted by Selzer & Co. is just one poll, but it’s also the most trusted survey of the Hawkeye State, and the groups just dropped their final pre-Iowa caucus poll of the cycle.
Roughly a month out from the first-in-the-nation caucus on Jan. 15, the latest Selzer poll suggests Donald Trump, whose dominance was never in question, continues to consolidate the vote ahead of next month’s contest.
On June 20, 2023, Eugene “Gino” Gates collapsed on the lawn of a house in an affluent Dallas, Texas, neighborhood and died. The 66-year-old military veteran was a mail carrier who died of heatstroke while on his route. A homeowner attempted CPR but failed to revive him. Gates’ body temperature at death was 104.6 degrees, and the temperature in Dallas that day was a humid 98 degrees.
Donald Trump chickened out
Buk buk buk buk ba-gawk! Donald Trump spent much of last week furiously promising to show up to court on Monday to tell his side of the story, but when it came down to it, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, Trump released an all-caps screed that Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner cleverly deciphered for us all.
Elon Musk gets owned by the X community
It was a drama-filled weekend over on the site formerly known as Twitter.
This holiday season, why not give that special someone something truly timeless: a recording of a disgraced congressman performing for your ironic viewing pleasure. Thanks to the magic of Cameo, a video platform that allows users to pay celebrities for custom messages, and the indefatigable American spirit of grift, you can commission a 30-second video of the recently expelled Representative George Santos telling you to “let the haters hate.” It costs $500.
Former New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney on Monday launched his long-anticipated campaign to replace his fellow Democrat, termed-out Gov. Phil Murphy, in 2025.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who entered the primary back in April, responded to the news by telling the Associated Press that Sweeney is a “conservative” who was “very, very close” to Chris Christie when the Republican was governor.
Maresuke Nogi was always his own toughest critic. Emperor Meiji trusted him and appointed him to high military posts in Japan: general in the imperial army, governor-general of Taiwan. But we all make mistakes, and Nogi’s lapses gnawed at him. Twice he requested the emperor’s leave to commit ritual suicide. Each time, the emperor refused.
In the climate-change era, everyone who has oil wants to be the last one to sell it. Oil-producing countries still plan to increase production in the near term, and very few economic incentives exist to press them in any other direction. As long as someone else still has oil, they’ll sell it to your customer in your stead. Oil-industry insiders have said this point-blank throughout this year’s United Nations climate talks in Dubai, which are scheduled to end tomorrow.
This summer, a pill intended to treat a chronic, incurable lung disease entered mid-phase human trials. Previous studies have demonstrated that the drug is safe to swallow, although whether it will improve symptoms of the painful fibrosis that it targets remains unknown; this is what the current trial will determine, perhaps by next year.
We get an update from one of the few hospitals still operating in southern Gaza from Ahmed Moghrabi, a doctor at Nasser Hospital, who describes horrific conditions. “I’ve developed [a] psychological disorder,” says Moghrabi, who himself is barely surviving on little food and clean water. “Please stop this genocide against us. Stop this war. Please, please, I beg you.” We also speak with Dr.
To discuss the shocking United States veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution requesting a Gaza ceasefire, we’re joined by Shibley Telhami, who says President Biden’s refusal to engage with popular calls for ceasefire is a shocking “personal decision” that will have negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy and “American standing” around the world.