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.Americans don’t understand foreign aid. Instead of relying on misinformed citizens, we should demand better answers from national leaders who want to cut aid to our friends and allies and imperil American security.
In a sixth-season episode of Friends, members of the group make what they consider to be a horrifying discovery: Chandler Bing can’t cry. The revelation comes through a fluke (they’re watching E.T. and, confronted with the adorable alien, Chandler’s eyes stay dry). But the situation, as it so often does on Friends, quickly escalates. Before long, Joey is accusing his best friend of being “dead inside.” Monica is interrogating her husband, trawling for tears.
Earlier today, President Joe Biden signed the most sweeping set of regulatory principles on artificial intelligence in America to date: a lengthy executive order that directs all types of government agencies to make sure America is leading the way in developing the technology while also addressing the many dangers that it poses.
Roughly a decade has passed since experts began to appreciate that social media may be truly hazardous for children, and especially for teenagers. As with teenage smoking, the evidence has accumulated slowly, but leads in clear directions. The heightened rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among young people are measurable and disheartening.
Amid growing alarm that more Israeli airstrikes will hit hospitals in Gaza, we speak with two physicians about Gaza’s medical system and Israel’s orders to evacuate key hospitals. Dr. Fadel Naim, head of orthopedic surgery at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza, says Israel has “bombed all around the hospital.” Dr.
We look at the reluctance in Congress to censure Israel despite growing grassroots pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza. “The narrative on both sides of the aisle is mostly about the right of Israel to defend itself,” says Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. “Congress has bought, completely, the framing which says that any Palestinian that dies in Gaza … that’s all on Hamas.
We speak with Illinois Congressmember Delia Ramirez, one of the 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have signed a resolution calling for an immediate deescalation and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. “The only way we move forward is deescalating,” says Ramirez. “The aid that we send cannot be used to kill innocent lives. It’s unacceptable, it’s not moral, and I can’t stand behind that.
We bring you the voices of Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies who shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour Friday in one of New York’s largest acts of civil disobedience in 20 years to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. The multiracial, intergenerational movement says about 400 people were arrested, including rabbis, famous actors and elected officials from the New York State Assembly and Senate and the City Council.
AI is diagnosing diseases and recommending treatments, but the systems aren’t always regulated like drugs or medical devices.
Some influential conservative groups interpreted those remarks as a call to action, while others said it reflects a basic political reality in Washington.
An intraparty fight over abortion pills could hamper Johnson’s hopes of quickly passing a food and agriculture funding bill.
A quarter of CDC-sponsored wastewater surveillance sites are shut down.
The new strategy UAW President Shawn Fain announced Friday signaled the strike could start having broader implications for the economy.
Democrats are loving the Biden economy. They’re less certain about his economic message.
A free speech battle is playing out on college campuses, as students, professors and others advocating for Palestinian rights across the United States are facing racist attacks and retaliation that threaten their safety and livelihoods. These attacks aim to suppress criticism of Israel and U.S. support of its actions in Gaza. This comes as the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution “condemning Hamas and antisemitic student activities on college campuses.
According to the latest update from the Israeli military, Hamas is still holding at least 229 hostages captured during its October 7 incursion into southern Israel. The group has stated that they will not release all hostages until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. To discuss the release thus far of four hostages and prospects for future releases, we speak to Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate a critical hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas in 2011.
Palestinian poet Ahmed Abu Artema was seriously injured in an Israeli airstrike on October 24 that also killed five members of his family, including his 12-year-old son. Artema helped inspire the Great March of Return, a series of nonviolent protests in Gaza starting in 2018 when thousands of Palestinians marched to the militarized fence separating them from their ancestral homes inside Israel, braving deadly Israeli sniper fire that killed hundreds and injured thousands more.
UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestine refugees, says it is close to running out of supplies in Gaza, where it is sheltering over 600,000 displaced Palestinians. Israel has claimed that they cannot allow fuel to enter the besieged territory because of the supposed risk of it being appropriated by Hamas.
The CNN anchor ripped the far-right Republican for hypocrisy over her weaponization of antisemitism.
The former president took the stage and gave a hearty hello to a city more than 80 miles north at a campaign event Sunday.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision will bar Trump from disparaging prosecutors or possible witnesses in his election interference case.
DeSantis claimed ordering Florida chapters of Students for Justice in Palestinian to shut down is “not a First Amendment issue.
“We are losing credibility,” the Washington Democrat said as the American government maintains its unwavering support for Israel’s attacks.
The announcement that the stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze would be hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend was met in some corners with a bit of confusion. When SNL goes the stand-up route for a host, it usually plucks an alum (John Mulaney, for instance) or a household name (Dave Chappelle, for example) to do the job.
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.Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is our Science editor Sarah Laskow. Sarah recently investigated whether salsa is gazpacho—and whether gazpacho is salsa.
The poet Wisława Szymborska was a 16-year-old in Krakow, Poland, when Germany invaded her country in 1939. Everything changed after that: The Nazis banned secondary schools and universities, so she had to finish high school illegally in secret classes. Eventually, after the war, she went to university—and ultimately won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. She kept writing about the long trail of violence through the centuries, and the stories we tell about that violence in hindsight.
The Jewish cemetery in Ferrara, Italy, is a melancholy place nestled against the walls that encircle the medieval city. Its 800 gravestones are bunched in clusters amid overgrown grass, fallen leaves, and brooding trees. The impressive expanse is evidence of what had been, before the Second World War, a large, vibrant Jewish community, now reduced to a few dozen souls.
In early September, Jawan, or “Soldier,” Indian cinema’s latest mega-budget extravaganza, registered the highest opening-day gross in Bollywood history. The film’s success cemented the remarkable renaissance of Shah Rukh Khan, the country’s biggest movie star, after a turbulent phase in the era of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The fight over abortion in Ohio will test whether vulnerable Democrats can turn public support for abortion rights into campaign victories — even if the elections are a year apart.
Some influential conservative groups interpreted those remarks as a call to action, while others said it reflects a basic political reality in Washington.