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.Our excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Mitt Romney has many people talking about the Utah senator’s principles and character, but we should be deeply alarmed by Romney’s warning about the Republican Party.

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.Question of the WeekDo you trust America’s institutions more than, less than, or as much as you did a decade ago? Why? Feel free to respond generally or to focus on one particular institution, or more, in your emails.Send your responses to conor@theatlantic.

Childhood is the crucible in which our identities and ambitions are forged. It’s when we sing into our hairbrushes and confide in our diaries. It’s when we puzzle out who we are, who we want to be, and how we want to live our lives.But to be a modern child is to be constantly watched by machines. The more time kids spend online, the more information about them is collected by companies seeking to influence their behavior, in the moment and for decades to come.

Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, was indicted today on three counts of gun-related crimes. Federal prosecutors in Delaware allege that Hunter Biden lied on paperwork when he bought a revolver, saying he did not use illegal substances, and then possessed the pistol while on narcotics.This is one of two major stories about the younger Biden in the headlines this week.

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.Yesterday, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that everyone above the age of six months should get a dose of the new, updated COVID-19 vaccine that the FDA just green-lighted.

Photographs by Yael MalkaFor most of his life, Mitt Romney has nursed a morbid fascination with his own death, suspecting that it might assert itself one day suddenly and violently.He controls what he can, of course. He wears his seat belt, and diligently applies sunscreen, and stays away from secondhand smoke.

Paul Offit is not an anti-vaxxer. His résumé alone would tell you that: A pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, he is the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine for infants that has been credited with saving “hundreds of lives every day”; he is the author of roughly a dozen books on immunization that repeatedly debunk anti-vaccine claims. And from the earliest days of COVID-19 vaccines, he’s stressed the importance of getting the shots.

You wake up with a stuffy nose, so you head to the pharmacy, where a plethora of options awaits in the cold-and-flu aisle. Ah, how lucky you are to live in 21st-century America. There’s Sudafed PE, which promises “maximum-strength sinus pressure and nasal congestion relief.” Sounds great.