After, with their underwear still tangled
in the top sheet, or just waking
in winter, the stunned trees
thrusting up their arms,
he was always the first to leave the bed.
Rising, he’d put on coffee.

On September 22, when federal prosecutors accused Senator Robert Menendez of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, Representative Andy Kim, a fellow New Jersey Democrat, asked one of his neighbors what he thought of the charges. “That’s Jersey,” the man replied.The neighbor’s shrug spoke volumes about not only a state with a sordid history of political corruption but also a country that seemed to have grown inured to scandal.

Over the past year, the writers on The Atlantic’s Science, Technology, and Health desk have learned about the dynamics of the cosmos and tiny microbes, the nature of the human brain and artificial intelligence. We’ve also covered some of the most pressing issues facing the planet: the climate crisis, infectious-disease outbreaks, a new wave of transformative weight-loss drugs. Along the way, our reporting has revealed some fascinating, sobering, and unusual facts.

My friend Lee Caggiano, who died several weeks ago, was not famous. But through her work, she changed one particular corner of the world: Lee made people who stutter, like me, want to talk.Like 99 percent of the population, Lee was fluent, meaning she never knew what it was like to stutter herself. But her son did. His experience with stuttering made her pivot her life and go back to school.

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.As we close out the year, it’s official: The Twitter we once knew is long gone. Elon Musk’s reinvention of the platform, from its name down to its core features, has rendered it nearly unrecognizable to users.

When the weather turns frigid, there is only one thing to do: make a pot of chicken-noodle soup. On the first cold afternoon in early December, I simmered a whole rotisserie chicken with fennel, dill, and orzo, then ladled it into bowls for a cozy family meal. Just as I thought we’d reached peak hygge, my five-month-old son suddenly grabbed my steaming bowl and tipped the soup all over himself. Piercing screams and a frenzied taxi ride to the pediatric emergency room ensued.

After the store-bought Christmas
dinner was ordered     purchased
picked up by me     and presented on
ceramic dinner plates because
it is Christmas     after all
After dietary preferences were
accommodated     wine of both colors
was opened     poured     and drunk
and the bottles were hauled by me
in a large wicker basket in the dark
to the recycling bin     After
the leftover food was scraped
by me into the trash   &nb

After Donald Trump was banned from Twitter in 2021, Donald Trump Jr. made a public appeal to Elon Musk for help. “Wanted to come up with something to deal with some of this nonsense and the censorship that’s going on right now, obviously only targeted one way,” he said in a video that was posted to Instagram. “Why doesn’t Elon Musk create a social-media platform?” (The video was titled “Here’s How Elon Musk Could Save Free Speech.

In a year when global temperatures reached a record high, artificial-intelligence advancements sparked questions around work and human interaction, and wars raged in Europe and in the Middle East, Atlantic writers and other experts offered pragmatic wisdom on navigating everyday experiences with friendship, family, and work.Their words point to the virtues of finding wonder in mundane moments, navigating grief with a spirit of acceptance, and prioritizing human connection.