One question keeps bouncing around my mind as I look at this image from the new James Webb Space Telescope: How is this real? I have followed the story of Webb for years, chronicling the ups and downs and controversies the mission has experienced on its way to becoming a real, functioning telescope. I’ve talked with many dozens of scientists and engineers about how the observatory works and the kind of high-resolution images it is designed to produce.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is laying out the case that the day’s violence was not simply a spontaneous protest that got out of hand.
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.George Floyd’s murder changed how Americans view law enforcement. The Uvalde massacre could have its own impact on policing and guns, and yet we still don’t know why the police response went so wrong.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Biden signed an executive order with new protections, but Democrats still lack support for more sweeping safeguards.
When it comes to art against tyranny, no work is more seared into our consciousness than Guernica, Pablo Picasso’s dark, howling mural against fascist terror. Created in 1937 at the height of the Spanish Civil War, it has in the 85 years since become a universal statement about human suffering in the face of political violence. Throughout World War II, it stood for resistance to Nazi aggression; during Vietnam controversies such as the My Lai massacre, protesters invoked it against the U.
Over the weekend we learned that Donald Trump’s former political strategist Steve Bannon had written to the January 6 committee indicating that he might, after all, be willing to testify. Bannon, who has been indicted for contempt of Congress, had previously claimed to be bound by executive privilege—though no court has accepted that argument—but he now presented a letter from the former president granting a waiver.
The decision comes as White House officials stress the importance of vaccination to prevent severe disease.
Heeding outrage from reproductive rights activists, President Biden signed an executive order Friday to ensure access to abortion medication and emergency contraception in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. We speak to the heads of two major reproductive health centers in the Deep South about how they are providing patient care now that abortion is criminalized.
As the Pentagon authorizes an additional $400 million for Ukraine’s defense on Friday, bringing estimated total U.S. security spending on Ukraine under President Biden to a staggering $8 billion, we speak to Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News, about the pressure on news media to follow a single approved narrative on the Ukraine war.
Thousands of protesters in Sri Lanka have stormed the homes of the president and prime minister and are refusing to leave until they officially resign, as the president faces accusations of corruption that bankrupted the country and led to a massive economic crisis. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is set to formally step down Wednesday and has reportedly tried to flee the country.
States say they are ready for the launch but long-term funding remains an open question.
Two years in, Phlow Corp. has not delivered on high-tech methods to domestically manufacture cheap generic drugs.
Biden officials have repeatedly touted the jobs numbers as evidence of the economy’s underlying strength, but slowing the labor market is essential to helping tame consumer prices.
Fears have mounted that the central bank might trigger a recession sometime in the next year with its aggressive rate action.
Things are so dire that central bank policymakers might hike rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, a move not taken in almost 30 years.
The United States is facing accusations of whitewashing the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh after concluding the bullet that killed her likely came from Israeli military gunfire, but stopping short of reaching a “definitive conclusion” in her killing. Abu Akleh was wearing a press uniform while reporting on an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank when she was fatally shot in the head on May 11.
Pressure is growing on the Biden administration to help free U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner from Russian detention as Griner pleaded guilty Thursday in a Russian court to what her supporters say are trumped-up charges of “large-scale drug possession” and “drug smuggling.” Russian officials arrested the two-time U.S.
Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has died at the age of 67 after being fatally shot while delivering a speech Friday in the western city of Nara. Abe, the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s history, was campaigning for a parliamentary election Friday and had a security detail. Police arrested a 41-year-old suspect at the crime scene.
The former trade adviser also accused Trump’s vice president of “traitorous activity.
Creators of Amazon’s superhero satire wondered if their sociopathic protagonist could “kill someone on Fifth Avenue” and be hailed for it, said Eric Kripke.
Republicans who fawned over Trump were worried about reelection, McCain told journalist Mark Leibovitch, but sometimes they “went too far,” notes new book.
As the midterm elections edge ever nearer, America waits for the answer to what may be an existential question: Is there any Republican candidate too embarrassing for the party’s voters to support? And as the Texas power grid struggles under the load of yet another record-busting heat wave, the state’s Republican governor is getting an earful over his constant immigrant-bashing stunts.
Republicans love to churn false hysteria over trans folks, especially when it comes to trans adults being villainous predators. Conservatives paint a sadly familiar (and false) picture: Trans people “pretend” to be who they are in order to access spaces not intended for them and use that opportunity to prey on vulnerable people, like women and children.
Nearly two dozen members of the U.S. House have added their voices to a recent call urging the Biden administration to protect the survivors of the horrific San Antonio tragedy last month, which resulted in the deaths of 53 people and hospitalized at least 16 others. San Antonio Rep. Joaquin Castro leads 22 colleagues in asking the survivors be spared from deportation and detention, and be allowed to quickly access certain humanitarian visas.
Currently, only those over age 50 or who are immunocompromised are eligible.
We shouldn’t battle pollution because our good air will just “decide” to go to China, the Trump-backed Georgian told supporters, drawing massive blowback.
The father of a 17-year-old boy who was killed in the mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018 interrupted President Joe Biden on Monday to send a clear message about what the president had hoped would be a celebration of the newly passed gun law.
“We have to do more than that,” Manuel Oliver screamed.
“I do not think this is the kind of person that a Democratic majority should put on the bench,” Sen. Tim Kaine said of a Kentucky lawyer reportedly in the wings.
Politico has a piece that consists solely of various Republicans pretending to wonder whether the Republican National Committee (RNC), an organization that Donald Trump allies purged of his detractors so relentlessly that you’d have a better shot getting an anti-Trump quote out of Jared Kushner than from all remaining RNC leaders put together, will truly stay “neutral” if Trump runs for president again and some other Republican dares to also enter the race.
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.Joe Biden promised voters they wouldn’t have to keep thinking about politics all the time. That hasn’t worked out for them, or him.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.