Editor’s Note: Washington Week with The Atlantic is a partnership between NewsHour Productions, WETA, and The Atlantic airing every Friday on PBS stations nationwide. Check your local listings or watch full episodes here. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia’s announcement that he will not seek reelection in 2024 capped a paradoxical week for Democrats.

Watching something made by Nathan Fielder can be an act of endurance. The creator, host, and star of shows such as Nathan for You and The Rehearsal has cultivated a reputation as a merry prankster and a mastermind of hallucinatory television. On-screen, he tends to be deadpan and awkward, making himself the butt of the joke as regularly as he messes with the ordinary people he meets.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.In 2016, my colleague Olga Khazan saw a cultural difference playing out on the faces of those around her. “Here’s something that has always puzzled me, growing up in the U.S. as a child of Russian parents,” she wrote.

There are two observations in Defending My Life, the new documentary about Albert Brooks by his lifelong friend and fellow filmmaker Rob Reiner, that perfectly capture the imprint that Brooks has made, and continues to make, on American culture.The first comes from Conan O’Brien: “Albert broke the sound barrier,” the talk-show host says.

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.In an unserious Republican primary race, low blows have been flying—including about candidates’ footwear. The insults are petty, but they help reveal what’s become of national politics in 2023.

This past spring, I participated in the sacred tradition that comes around once every few years: I got a new iPhone. The speaker on my old one had broken, forcing my hand. But let’s be clear. I didn’t care about the speaker. The real reason you upgrade an iPhone, of course, is to get a better camera.Within a couple of weeks of unboxing my new iPhone 14 Pro, however, I noticed something odd happening. I’d take a selfie, think I looked great, and lock my phone, satisfied.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is now the highest-ranking American official to suggest that the Palestinian Authority—which governs the West Bank, under Israeli military supervision—should take over Gaza. Last month, he told a Senate committee that it would be good for an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza,” where the PA has been powerless and unwelcome for the past 15 years.

The Marvels arrives at a strange moment for Marvel Studios, the company that ushered in more than a decade of spandex-clad blockbusters. Because the (just-ended) SAG-AFTRA strike prohibited its actors from participating in promotional activities, the film is being released with little fanfare and is on track to make less at the box office than most of its comic-book predecessors.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the fight against climate change is finally going well. The clean-energy revolution is well under way and exceeding expectations. Solar is set to become the cheapest form of energy in most places by 2030, and the remarkable efficiency of heat pumps is driving their own uptake now. Sales of electric vehicles could surpass those of gas-burning cars in the next six years.