Recently, Bonaventure Dossou learned of an alarming tendency in a popular AI model. The program described Fon—a language spoken by Dossou’s mother and millions of others in Benin and neighboring countries—as “a fictional language.”
This result, which I replicated, is not unusual. Dossou is accustomed to the feeling that his culture is unseen by technology that so easily serves other people.
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
Until last fall, I had never heard of Helen Garner—something that’s hard for me to believe. The Australian author, now 81 and treasured down under, has barely been published in the United States. But over the past few months, the imprint Pantheon has been releasing new editions of her backlist, and these books are mind-blowingly good.
The gulf between what Trump said and what anti-abortion groups want underscores divisions that have dogged conservatives for two years.
We go to Part 2 of our conversation with Israeli scholar Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London and chair of the Committee on Academic Freedom for British Society of Middle East Studies.
We speak with The New Yorker war correspondent Luke Mogelson about the war in Ukraine, where the government has just passed a controversial bill that expands military conscription and cracks down on draft dodgers in an effort to replenish the depleted ranks of the army, more than two years since Russia launched its invasion. Military leaders have warned that Russian forces outnumber Ukrainian troops tenfold in the east.
President Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the White House on Thursday, the first meeting of its kind, which comes as the U.S. moves to expand its military presence in the South China Sea to counter China. The Philippines has deepened military ties with both the United States and Japan in recent years as maritime confrontations with China have escalated.
“I think it’ll be straightened out,” the former president said.
Desperate to help record numbers of children suffering anxiety and depression, state and local governments are testing new interventions to get to the root of the crisis — even if they don’t know what that is.
Mental health workers shared their perspectives on the causes of — and solutions to — the crisis.
By any measure, it amounted to a strong month of hiring.
The concern is that higher rates are putting pressure on households and businesses looking to borrow, weighing on hiring, investment and the housing market.
Last month’s job growth was up from a revised gain of 229,000 jobs in January.
The president’s team thinks it’s had a historically successful first term, delivering victories on the economy, climate, drug pricing and more. But many Americans aren’t feeling it.
Policymakers were determined to avoid the mistakes of the Great Recession — and they succeeded. But now they are in a mood of “fear and introspection.
Democracy Now! speaks with two former Israeli soldiers who are members of Breaking the Silence, an anti-occupation group of Israeli army veterans. The group’s education director, Tal Sagi, describes growing up in a settlement and joining the military without understanding what occupation was. “We’ve been told that this is security and we have to control millions of lives and we don’t have other options,” says Sagi, who says Israeli society is not open to ending the occupation.
President Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza a “mistake” and urged Israel to call for a temporary ceasefire to allow in more aid in a televised interview on Tuesday. While Israel has pledged to open new aid crossings, the U.N. said on Tuesday that there has been “no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza,” and the Biden administration has not actually changed its policies or withheld any arms transfers to Israel.
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.
To win over more voters on the issue of abortion, Donald Trump has tried to push responsibility onto the states—whose varied approaches, even just in recent weeks, demonstrate the uncertain future of abortion access.
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Matt Gaetz is winning.
Cordelia Saunders remembers 2021, the year she and her husband, Nathan, found out that they’d likely been drinking tainted water for more than 30 years. A neighbor’s 20 peach trees had finally matured that summer, and perfect-looking peaches hung from their branches. Cordelia watched the fruit drop to the ground and rot: Her neighbor didn’t dare eat it.
What happens when a smart TV becomes too smart for its own good? The answer, it seems, is more intrusive advertisements.
Last week, Janko Roettgers, a technology and entertainment reporter, uncovered a dystopian patent filed last August by Roku, the television- and streaming-device manufacturer whose platform is used by tens of millions of people worldwide.
A book that earns the title of “cult classic” is one that combines two seemingly contradictory qualities: It has a passionate following of people who swear it’s the best thing they’ve ever read, but also, outside this intense fan base, it’s largely unknown. As word of mouth about such a book spreads, and the title’s partisans become evangelists, it begins to spark with a distinct kind of electricity.
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.
“I wish I knew some young men!” the writer Eliza Orne White declared in The Atlantic’s July 1888 issue.
Trump’s Monday announcement that abortion should be left to the states was supposed to neutralize an issue that has dogged Republican candidates. But by Tuesday it was clear that it was futile to try.
In Arizona, Republican lawmakers have blocked efforts by Democrats to repeal an 1864 law — first written before women had the right to vote and recently revived by the state’s Supreme Court — that bans nearly all abortions under threat of criminal penalties including jail time. To respond, we host a trio of reproductive justice advocates in Arizona. Dr.
We speak with two doctors who’ve just returned after two weeks at the European Hospital in Gaza. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa and Dr. Mark Perlmutter are co-authors of a new piece for Common Dreams titled “As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.” They describe a hospital “hanging on by a thread,” with the majority of patients being young children, and bombing targeted at Muslim Palestinians “concentrated at the time of evening prayer.
Trump in a video posted Monday to Truth Social did not address what executive actions he would take to curb abortion access as president.
By any measure, it amounted to a strong month of hiring.
The concern is that higher rates are putting pressure on households and businesses looking to borrow, weighing on hiring, investment and the housing market.
Last month’s job growth was up from a revised gain of 229,000 jobs in January.
The president’s team thinks it’s had a historically successful first term, delivering victories on the economy, climate, drug pricing and more. But many Americans aren’t feeling it.
Policymakers were determined to avoid the mistakes of the Great Recession — and they succeeded. But now they are in a mood of “fear and introspection.