This is Atlantic Intelligence, an eight-week series in which The Atlantic’s leading thinkers on AI will help you understand the complexity and opportunities of this groundbreaking technology. Sign up here.The bedrock of the AI revolution is the internet, or more specifically, the ever-expanding bounty of data that the web makes available to train algorithms.
From the standpoint of many on the left, former President Donald Trump did exactly two good things in office. He supported Operation Warp Speed, which facilitated the development and production of the first COVID-19 vaccines. And in 2018, he signed the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal-justice bill that shortened federal prison terms, gave judges more latitude in sentencing, and provided educational programming to ease prisoners’ eventual return to the outside world.
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.My fondness for the acknowledgments section of books runs very deep. Sometimes I flip to them first, though I try to hold off on this guilty pleasure. I love the way they can reveal a writer’s true, gushy self beneath the veneer of authorial control and style, reminding us of the human being who struggled to bring these pages into existence.
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.
Sônia Guajajara is Brazil’s first Indigenous cabinet minister and the country’s first-ever minister of Indigenous peoples. We recently sat down with Guajajara at the COP28 summit in Dubai to discuss the role of Indigenous communities in the rapidly developing climate crisis. She discussed her work within the administration of Brazilian President Lula to stop Amazon rainforest deforestation and to wrest back Indigenous governance from extractive industry.
The United Nations Security Council is expected to vote today on a watered-down resolution on aid to Gaza. Though the resolution originally called for an immediate ceasefire, the United States repeatedly pushed for the vote to be delayed and the resolution’s language weakened before agreeing to support it. In the meantime, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 20,000, while an additional 500,000 now face hunger and starvation.
In “mourning and honor” of Palestinians killed in Gaza, the city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, has announced the cancellation of traditional Christmas festivities. In Bethlehem, we’re joined by the president of Dar al-Kalima University, Reverend Mitri Raheb. Reverend Raheb relates the story of Jesus, a refugee whose mother had no place to safely give birth, to the plight of displaced Gazans facing a dearth of medical care.
According to HHS, nine states are responsible for 60 percent of children’s coverage losses between March and September.
“We don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.
The additional doses come amid shortages that have left parents and providers scrambling for shots.
Former Trump confidante Kellyanne Conway and other strategists are citing poll data showing strong demand among GOP voters for birth control after the fall of Roe.
The Texas Supreme Court subsequently ruled against her.
Friday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate dropped from 3.9% to 3.7%, not far above a five-decade low of 3.4% in April.
Expiring Covid benefits and new limits on safety net programs threaten to hit Americans’ pocketbooks — especially among core parts of the Democratic electorate.
Top White House aides reviewed private polling showing Biden’s economic message falling flat and suggesting paths toward a turnaround.
Can Democrats overcome their college-campus branding and reclaim the working class?
A Detroit News report revealed Trump personally spoke with Wayne County canvassers and asked them not to certify the 2020 election results.
Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law said she’d take the gig if offered, but added, “The only drawback would be that I would have to move to Washington, D.C.
An administrative law judge didn’t buy the argument that wearing BLM clothing on the job was part of advocating for a better workplace.
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.Any person with a phone knows that spam calls are a real problem in the United States. But fighting them is like playing whack-a-mole.First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:
The English-muffin problem
George T.
Israel raided the Gaza facility last month, but a military spokesperson said they “cannot provide additional information” on the hospital assault.
“When you do something that benefits your family financially and you’re a public official,” the Ohio congressman said, “that’s not supposed to happen.
However troubling its political implications might be, the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday that Donald Trump is disqualified from the state’s primary ballot for having “engaged in insurrection” demonstrates that the judicial system is still functioning in the United States. The reason is straightforward: The court applied the plain language of the Constitution, doing its job with clarity and fidelity to the rule of law.
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present, surface delightful treasures, and examine the American idea. Sign up here.Consider—just for one terrible, stressful, bleak moment—if our forebearers in Naples had never invented pizza. No perfectly charred Margherita pies, no late-night Domino’s delivery, nothing.
Recently reading through the cookbook Jerusalem, I was struck by an observation made by its co-authors, an Israeli chef and a Palestinian chef, in their introduction. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi write that food “seems to be the only unifying force” in Jerusalem, a city claimed as the capital of both Israel and Palestine.
As the 2024 presidential election campaign heats up, Republican front-runner Donald Trump is escalating his racist rhetoric, repeatedly saying in recent days that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” drawing comparisons to Hitler. Journalist Jeff Sharlet says, “Even more important than the substance is the spectacle, the drama, that makes him the exciting and, in fascist terms, the man of action.
In a historic decision, the Colorado State Supreme Court has ruled 4-3 to bar Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot because his actions during the January 6 insurrection violated the 14th Amendment. Trump has vowed to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority.
President Joe Biden has called the over 20,000 Palestinian deaths from 75 days of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip “tragic,” while Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel’s military will be expected to shift to a “lower-intensity phase” of its assault on the territory. Phyllis Bennis, author and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, says Biden must move from protecting and funding Israel’s war crimes to holding Israel accountable.
A new investigation reveals Israel launched its military campaign of relentless airstrikes, which has killed nearly 1% of the population of Gaza, with little intelligence about where hostages taken by Hamas were being held. Jerusalem-based journalist Yuval Abraham reports the military decided hostages were “just not a priority,” their safety “relegated in favor of carrying out this bombing campaign.
According to HHS, nine states are responsible for 60 percent of children’s coverage losses between March and September.