Remember The Stepford Wives? Maybe not. In that 1975 horror film, the human wives of Stepford, Connecticut, are having their identities copied and transferred to robotic replicas of themselves, minus any contrariness that their husbands find irritating. The robot wives then murder the real wives and replace them. Better sex and better housekeeping for the husbands, death for the uniqueness, creativity, and indeed the humanity of the wives.

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.Over the years, my fellow Atlantic writers have published many bold arguments. But the case Ian Bogost made this month is perhaps one of the bravest in recent years: Flaking on plans is not so terrible, he argued.

This article was originally published by Knowable Magazine.For expectant parents, pregnancy can be a time filled with joyful anticipation: hearing the beating of a tiny heart, watching the fetus wiggling through the black-and-white blur of an ultrasound, feeling the jostling of a little being in the belly as it swells.But for many, pregnancy also comes with serious health issues that can endanger both parent and child. In May, for example, the U.S.

Since last spring, roughly 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City. This is a city of immigrants, welcoming to immigrants, built by immigrants. People who were born abroad make up a third of New York’s population and own more than half of its businesses. Yet the city has struggled to accommodate this wave of new arrivals. Migrants are selling candy on the subways, sleeping on the streets in Midtown, waiting for spots in homeless shelters.

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.Netflix is shutting down its movie-by-mail service at the end of next month. Movie lovers will lose more than a fond memory.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
The new old age
Trump’s mug shot has a silent message.
A crush can teach you a lot about yourself.

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 WeekIf you could pose one earnest question to any of the Republican candidates, what would it be? (No insults disguised as questions allowed.)Send your responses to conor@theatlantic.com or simply reply to this email.

No one alive has seen a race like the 2024 presidential election. For months, if not years, many people have expected a reprise of the 2020 election, a matchup between the sitting president and a former president.But that hasn’t prevented a crowded primary. On the GOP side, more than a dozen candidates are ostensibly vying for the nomination.

This is an edition of the revamped Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.Enormous developments in neuroscience over the past two decades have allowed researchers to peer into the human mind as never before. But it’s not always comfortable to learn about the mechanistic workings of our emotions.

My obsession with salsa, gazpacho, and the line between them began with a joke. A friend had, or so her husband reported, faced her nearly empty refrigerator one night and in a moment of panicked hunger started eating salsa for dinner. Only salsa. No chips. Just spoon straight in the jar. “Did she add water and claim it was gazpacho?” I asked.She had not. But could she have? The suggestion is not absurd. Salsa is an oniony, peppery, tomato-based food.