This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.There is no player in the world right now like Kylian Mbappé.In the 2018 World Cup four years ago, Mbappé burst onto the international stage as a 19-year-old, scoring four times in the tournament, including a breathtaking goal in the final.

Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET on December 10, 2022.This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.Twenty years ago, when I first called the soccer writer Grant Wahl, he was an exotic species. In those days, most writing about American games existed in niche magazines with low production values and even lower circulations.

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.“I don’t like to shop, but I do like to buy,” Frances Taylor wrote in The Atlantic in 1931. In an essay called “Who Wants My Money?,” Taylor laments how inconvenient the process of shopping is.

This story originally appeared in bioGraphic, an independent magazine about nature and regeneration powered by the California Academy of Sciences. On a toasty morning in March, a steady stream of hikers trudges up the steep road leading into Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. Many seek out this popular park just north of San Diego for the expansive views of the sparkling Pacific Ocean and the gnarled, endangered pine trees that lend the reserve its name.

For three years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, fought a remorseless battle against COVID-19. He called it a “people’s war”—a national struggle to defeat an unseen foe and save lives. The contest locked families in their homes for weeks, strangled the economy, and closed the country to the world.

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.It’s time for the takeover of the airwaves by Christmas TV specials and music. I have some nostalgic favorites—and some nominations for songs that should get a Scrooge-like burial after being boiled in a vat of Christmas pudding.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

Last night, Elon Musk celebrated the release of a new entry in the “Twitter Files” series, which aims to … Well, that’s complicated. It’s a supposed transparency project from Musk that, to date, has included giving two independent writers access to internal Twitter communications, as well as to the company’s Slack channels.