All posts tagged: biggest stories of the day

The Republican coping goes into overdrive

The Republican coping goes into overdrive

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. Americans claim to dread a Trump-Biden rematch, but some Republicans seem more stunned than anyone else that Trump is back on the ballot. Now they are desperately trying to rationalize supporting their nominee. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: “A Psychological Necessity” Saturday Night Live during the 1980s was at the height of its satirical powers, skewering both Republicans and Democrats with surgical efficiency. (In one of the greatest of all such skits, Phil Hartman played Ronald Reagan as a multilingual genius running the Iran-Contra plot faster than his hapless staff could follow.) The current political situation, however, reminds me of a 1988 debate parody with Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz. After Carvey’s George H. W. Bush plows through a string of non sequiturs and repeats “stay the course” and “a thousand points of light” a …

America’s false virus equivalence – The Atlantic

America’s false virus equivalence – The Atlantic

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. This month marks four years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. My colleague Katherine J. Wu recently published an article about what is driving the U.S. government to frame COVID-19 as being flu-like—and the problems with that approach. I called Katherine to discuss the false equivalence of the diseases, and how America missed out on a chance to normalize protections against respiratory illness. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic: Not the Flu Lora Kelley: To what extent is COVID-19 being treated like the flu right now? Katherine J. Wu: In a lot of ways, this comparison has been present on public, private, and political levels since the first days of the pandemic. In 2020, some well-intentioned people were saying that, at least in some ways, you could expect COVID to behave like a lot of …

A 17th-century nun’s feminist manifesto

A 17th-century nun’s feminist manifesto

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. Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Gisela Salim-Peyer, an assistant editor who has written about the fantasy of heritage tourism, the Venezuelan government’s project to redeem a dead rapper, and Italy’s millennia-old ambition to build a bridge to Sicily. Gisela fell in love with Mexico City and Mexico’s national anthropology museum on her first visit last spring, was transfixed by the opening paragraph of Juan Rulfo’s novel, Pedro Páramo, and views the 17th-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz as the last word on everything. First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: The Culture Survey: Gisela Salim-Peyer The last museum show that I loved: Last year, I went to Mexico City for the first time and loved …

A Leap Day tradition with a dark side

A Leap Day tradition with a dark side

The calendar blip has led to some unusual rituals in past decades. Bernd Weibrod / picture alliance / Getty February 29, 2024, 6:30 PM ET 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. A calendar is a site of order. What happens when that order gets disrupted? First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: A Quadrennial Blip February 29 is a blip in the normal flow of time. The date may not appear on dropdown menus or at the DMV; it may scramble pay stubs or confound bartenders checking IDs. It has, over the years, inspired creativity and transgression. And folklore has it that the leap year—and particularly Leap Day—was once the only time when women had social permission to propose marriage to men. The tradition, which some contend has roots in fifth-century Ireland, enabled women (and men) to “try on this other gender, with …

A few theories on why Dean Phillips is still in the race

A few theories on why Dean Phillips is still in 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. At what point does a “long-shot candidacy” tip into a pure vanity spectacle? Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota refuses to suspend his Democratic-primary campaign against President Joe Biden. Does Phillips know something we don’t—or does he have a different 2024 plan in mind? First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic. Vanity Campaign or VP Campaign? Seemingly nobody wants a 2020 rematch, yet both Biden and former President Donald Trump continue to cruise toward their respective party nominations. Last night in Michigan, Trump defeated his Republican-primary challenger, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, by 42 points. In the Democratic contest, Biden won with more than 80 percent of the vote, while second place went to “uncommitted”—partially due to protests over Biden’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza. Marianne Williamson, who had previously suspended her campaign …

Two theories for Americans’ dire economic outlook

Two theories for Americans’ dire economic outlook

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. Even as many measures show that the economy is thriving, Americans have been feeling down lately—especially about grocery prices. I spoke with my colleague Rogé Karma, a staff writer focused on the economy, about how to understand the gap between consumers’ attitudes and standard economic measures, and how political polarization shapes Americans’ outlook on these issues. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Two Theories Lora Kelley: Why are food prices so central to perceptions of the economy, and why do some inflation measures fail to capture that? Rogé Karma: Food prices are what we see every day—at the grocery store, when we’re ordering takeout or eating at restaurants. In a recent poll that we commissioned at The Atlantic, we asked respondents what factors they consider when deciding how the national economy is doing. The price of …

Trump delivers another autocratic tirade

Trump delivers another autocratic tirade

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. Donald Trump unleashed a flood of delusions and fascistic threats at CPAC this weekend in a speech to an audience that included actual neo-Nazis, a story overshadowed by the South Carolina GOP primary and his completely predictable defeat of the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Dreaming of Judgment Day You have likely heard about this weekend’s Republican primary contest in South Carolina. Donald Trump stomped on the state’s former governor (and his own former UN ambassador) Nikki Haley and cruised to a 20-point win. Trump’s victory was no surprise, and the race was called practically nanoseconds after the polls closed. Hours of granular coverage were devoted to the whole business anyway, and analysts and pundits are now trying to figure out whether Haley winning just a shade under 40 percent …

An insightful and truly fun cooking show

An insightful and truly fun cooking show

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. Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Matteo Wong, an associate editor who has written about the sci-fi legend Neal Stephenson, the perfection of the rice cooker, and America’s AI underclass. Matteo is a regular viewer of Binging With Babish, which offers fun and insightful recipes for famous fictional meals (such as the “Moistmaker” sandwich from Friends). He is also a contemplative museumgoer with a penchant for Monet’s water lilies, a dedicated reader of anything that has a Ted Chiang byline, and a superfan of Birdy, whose albums “denote different phases” of his life. First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic: The Culture Survey: Matteo Wong A musical artist who means a lot to me: I’ve been listening to the …

Go Ahead, Get a Pet Rat

Go Ahead, Get a Pet Rat

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. Strap in, folks. Today, we’re talking about rats: why you should love them, and why you should consider obtaining one for yourself. But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic. How Democrats could disqualify Trump if the Supreme Court doesn’t Florida’s experiment with measles The return of the John Birch Society Man’s Other Best Friend In 2022, in this newsletter, I wrote about the winter activity I hate most: skiing. Today, in an effort to inject more kindness and positivity into the world, I am writing about a creature I love more than almost any other: the rat. When I say rat, I mean every kind of rat, including the big scraggly fellows that tiptoe around your yard at night, eating trash and getting into mischief. A rat sighting, for many people, prompts disgust. That naked tail! …

What Nikki Haley is trying to prove

What Nikki Haley is trying to prove

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. Nikki Haley faces terrible odds in her home state of South Carolina and beyond, but she has vowed to keep going. Beyond her own political ambitions, her campaign may be about trying to send a message to the Republican Party. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic: Existential, Financial, Practical Say what you want about Nikki Haley, but she is sticking with it. She continues to trail significantly behind Donald Trump in the polls, even in her home state of South Carolina, despite raising money from donors at a steady pace. Yet Haley has vowed to stay in the Republican primary at least through early March. Why is she still here? Many have speculated in recent months that Haley is angling for a different higher office, perhaps that of the vice president. She has said that she …