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There were moments in Adam Higginbotham’s new book Challenger that made me gasp and flip to the endnotes. I wasn’t looking to find the story’s denouement—I already knew what happened on the morning of January 28, 1986: The space shuttle Challenger broke apart just over a minute into its voyage, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
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In the fall of 2005, Johann Hari, then a young columnist for The Independent who was struggling with his weight, described a trip he said he’d taken to a wellness spa in the foothills of the Carinthian Alps. After spending just four days there on a cleansing diet that consisted almost entirely of drinking tea—Hari could not bear to stay a moment longer—he’d lost seven pounds.
Tech evangelists like to say that AI will eat the world—a reference to a famous line about software from the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. In the past few weeks, we’ve finally gotten a sense of what they mean.
This spring, tech companies have made clear that AI will be a defining feature of online life, whether people want it to be or not. First, Meta surprised users with an AI chatbot that lives in the search bar on Instagram and Facebook.
Democracy Now! speaks with the creators of a new arts campaign grounded in Black women’s stories. VOICES: a sacred sisterscape is an audio play directed by award-winning poet aja monet weaving together Black feminist poems and perspectives. “Art is an invitation to expand our participation in the world and the ways that we see the world,” says monet, who hopes the project inspires action beyond aesthetics.
As we enter the month of June, scorching temperatures are already making deadly heat waves around the world. Data confirmed last month was the hottest May on record, putting the Earth on a 12-month streak of record-breaking temperatures. On Wednesday, the World Meteorological Organization announced there is an 80% chance the average global temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels for at least one of the next five years.
Israeli forces have illegally dropped white phosphorus munitions on densely populated residential areas in southern Lebanon, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch. White phosphorus, which poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering, was dropped by Israel over at least 17 municipalities in Lebanon since October 2023.
Democrats hope Republicans who voted against the legislation pay a political price in November.
Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration said using ecstasy to boost therapy for people with post-traumatic stress disorder was not effective.
Lawmakers and the VA hope ecstasy can help treat veterans with PTSD, but there’s reason for doubt.
The government’s former top infectious disease official said he didn’t suppress the debate over the coronavirus’ origin.
The president is getting more micro in his economic sales pitch as the landscape loses its luster.
Friday’s government report showed that last month’s hiring gain was down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 in March.
Biden and Trump are both campaigning on warped economic statistics, cherry-picking weird data from the Covid crisis.
President Biden has issued one of the most restrictive immigration policies ever declared under a recent Democratic administration. It will temporarily shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, deny asylum to most migrants who do not cross into the U.S. via ports of entry, and limit total asylum requests at the southern border to no more than 2,500 per day.
As recently as two and a half weeks ago, New York Governor Kathy Hochul was bragging about her conviction to stand up to “set in their ways” drivers in order to implement a congestion-pricing plan that would improve New Yorkers’ lives and save them a lot of time stuck in traffic. Yesterday, Hochul suddenly announced that the program would be “paused indefinitely.
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This week, two influential spreaders of Donald Trump’s Big Lie faced trouble. These aren’t the first glitches in the conspiracy-theory universe.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The cars always win.
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
Somehow, Neil Postman saw it coming. His 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, predicted that people would become so consumed by entertainment that they would be rendered unable to have serious discussions about serious issues. Postman was worried about television; he didn’t live to see social media kick those fears into hyperdrive.
We speak with Congressmember Jamaal Bowman of New York, one of the top targets for pro-Israel groups seeking to oust lawmakers who have led calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. Bowman is a former Bronx middle school principal who won his seat in 2020 before becoming a member of the so-called Squad of progressives in Congress.
At the start of Elizabeth Hobson’s career as an ecologist, she knew to stick to one rule: Never anthropomorphize the animals you study.
For plenty of people, assigning human characteristics to another living creature feels natural enough that we do it as a matter of course. But to many scientists who study animal behavior, anthropomorphism is a cardinal sin, and suggesting that a researcher has tiptoed in that direction is tantamount to saying they’ve resorted to uninformed speculation.
A new documentary, Where Olive Trees Weep, explores Palestinian loss, trauma and the fight for justice over decades of life under Israeli occupation. We speak with two people featured in the film: Ashira Darwish, a Palestinian journalist and therapist, and Dr. Gabor Maté, an acclaimed Hungarian Canadian physician whose work focuses on addiction and trauma.
An Israeli airstrike on a U.N. school in central Gaza has killed at least 40 people, including 14 children, according to local authorities. Nearly 80 Palestinians were also wounded in Thursday’s predawn strike that hit the al-Sardi School run by UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. The Israeli military says it was targeting militants operating in the school, but provided no evidence to back up its claims.
The Biden administration is in court defending a federal law it argues protects emergency abortions. In practice, the statute has offered only limited help.
Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration said using ecstasy to boost therapy for people with post-traumatic stress disorder was not effective.
Lawmakers and the VA hope ecstasy can help treat veterans with PTSD, but there’s reason for doubt.
The government’s former top infectious disease official said he didn’t suppress the debate over the coronavirus’ origin.
Republicans and Democrats have condemned a longtime Fauci adviser and a scientist who received millions from his agency.
The president is getting more micro in his economic sales pitch as the landscape loses its luster.
Friday’s government report showed that last month’s hiring gain was down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 in March.
Biden and Trump are both campaigning on warped economic statistics, cherry-picking weird data from the Covid crisis.
More than 15,000 Palestinian children have been killed over the past eight months of Israel’s assault on Gaza, and Palestinian officials are warning over 3,500 children are at risk of death due to starvation. “The trauma is unimaginable,” says Janti Soeripto, the president and CEO of Save the Children US, who is calling for a ceasefire, the protection of humanitarian workers and the allowance of aid into the besieged territory. “Over these past couple of weeks, it has even gotten worse.