Opinion & Analysis
Photos: A Bear Emergency Response Drill in Japan
Kim Kyung-Hoon / ReutersA man in a bear costume takes part in an emergency response drill simulating a bear intrusion in Yaita, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, June 17, 2026.Kim Kyung-Hoon / ReutersHunters look at a map and diagram while taking part in a bear emergency response drill in Yaita on June 17, 2026.Kim Kyung-Hoon / ReutersA man wearing a bear costume takes part in a bear emergency response drill in Yaita. Kim Kyung-Hoon / ReutersA participant deploys bear spray during the drill. Kim...
The AI Industry Keeps Breaking the Internet
The AI giants talk a big game about the future they’re building. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has previously written that AI could usher in a world so perfect that “many will be literally moved to tears”—a world pruned of disease, poverty, and illiberalism. “We’re now in the singularity,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said over the weekend on a podcast, and it will be “awesome for the world.”
The Myth of Perfect Knowledge
The modern world owes a lot to the Enlightenment, the 18th-century intellectual movement that emphasized the power of reason. But the Enlightenment also created a myth: that we can get to know the objective world completely, with total clarity, as if we were looking at it from the outside. This myth is challenged by the Enlightenment’s greatest legacy—modern science.
Misunderstanding Norman Rockwell
In 1976, as the country commemorated its bicentennial, an aging Norman Rockwell, then at the tail end of his career as America’s preeminent illustrator, painted his last magazine cover, Liberty Bell (Celebration). It was a tender—and notably low-key—tribute to national unity that doubled as a capstone for his body of work. For a decades-long stretch in the mid-20th century, the illustrator’s memorable images of smiling families and gentle, small-town interactions had filled the pages of...
What I Learned From 400 Focus Groups
During the early Trump era, focus groups taught me everything about the disconnect between Washington and what voters really care about. An early revelation came in July 2018; I had flown to Columbus, Ohio, to hear from a group of people who’d voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but only reluctantly. Three days before, Trump had participated in a diplomatic summit in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Abstract
Fruit flies exposed to many dead fruit flies lose their fat stores, die more quickly than those kept naive. I who have lived long now and will die of my living, not of my grief, and more than once from a public garden stole roses— red ones and pink ones, scented and not— stammer before these troubled and truthful fruit flies. This poem appears in the October 2026 print edition.
This Tiny E-Reader Is the Single Best Piece of Technology in Years
No matter how you read it, The Power Broker is a serious undertaking. The paperback weighs as much as a brick; to avoid lugging around all 1,344 pages, people have cut it apart at the spine and chunked it into sections. Others have organized in-person Power Broker marathon readings that run continuously for three full days.
What’s the Matter With Moderation?
One simple rule shapes Kansas politics: Republicans win statewide. In U.S. Senate races, the GOP has prevailed without interruption for more than 90 years. But the rule has a corollary, which accounts for the occasional Democratic governor.
Six Movies to Get You in the Fall Mood
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. September has arrived, bringing the first hints of fall: cooler days, changing leaves, and the urge to revisit comfort watches. Below, The Atlantic’s writers and editors recommend six films that put them in an autumn spirit.
Japan’s Strategic Turn
When I first visited Japan more than 30 years ago, the Cold War had ended, China had not yet risen, and the country—although it was no longer the Japan as Number One of Ezra Vogel’s best-selling 1979 book—was formidable. Japan’s GDP was not very far behind that of the United States, was larger than that of most of the rest of Asia combined, and was seven times that of China. On a recent visit, I found a very different country.
AI Is Already Making Us Less Human
Many people think that AI is going to gain consciousness and take over the world, but I’ve never been among them. That’s mostly because I believe the human mind contains depths and complexities that AI and its engineers do not fathom and will never match. As the neuroscientist Anil Seth wrote earlier this year, “The more you delve into the intricacies of the biological brain, the more you realize how rich and dynamic it is, compared to the dead sand of silicon.
Crypto Money Still Matters for the Midterms
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. The crypto industry has always moved in cycles: booms and busts; bull markets and harsh, unforgiving “winters.” We’re in something of a lull right now: Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, is worth about two-thirds of what it was last fall.
The Meaning of the Lindsay Clancy Mistrial
During the five weeks of her murder trial, Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of murdering her three young children in 2023, spoke barely a word. She has been on display for the entirety of her livestreamed trial, sitting in her wheelchair beside her lawyer at the defense table. At one point, when the prosecution walked the jury through the children’s autopsy reports, she hunched over, racked with sobs, crying out “I can’t do this!”
Hasan Piker Is the New Democratic Litmus Test
Like late-summer humidity, Hasan Piker hangs heavy over the discourse. At a rally on Monday, Vice President Vance brought up the hard-left streamer in an attempt to paint the Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed as anti-American. Last week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Piker’s recent statements about Jewish Americans “dangerous and anti-Semitic.”
An Alien Scholar’s Notes on Trump’s Washington
We’ll start this conference looking back on 2026 Washington Architecture by being honest: We have no idea what happened here. The snapshot of this planet that my comrades and I managed to obtain on our brief visit left us, if anything, more confused about Earth than we had been before. What follows are theories only.
Gloria Steinem’s Feminism for All
Throughout most of Gloria Steinem’s life, two versions of her existed. Publicly, Steinem was a figurehead: the glamorous co-founder of Ms. magazine, a totem for second-wave feminism and a bull’s-eye for its detractors, gorgeously inscrutable behind her curtains of streaked hair and tinted glasses. Privately, she was a workhorse: someone who hid behind her accessories, felt she’d come to the women’s movement late (in her mid-30s), and spent much of the rest of her life hustling to make up for it.
What the Floods Say About Xi Jinping
When the Yangtze River flooded in 1998 and inundated villages in central China, Jiang Zemin, the Communist Party’s general secretary, was on the scene, bullhorn in hand, to encourage local relief efforts. Ten years later, his successor, Hu Jintao, stood among the rubble after an earthquake rocked Sichuan province, in the country’s southwest. Last week, after floodwaters caused by a collapsing glacier tore through the Himalayas between Nepal and China, leaving more than 1,100 people dead and...
Creating the Perfect Female Monster
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket CastsThe breakout crime drama Furious opens with a scene that’s hard to watch: Catherine, a serial killer played by Lola Petticrew, is keeping a man prisoner in a row house and taunting him as he dies: “I don’t like the sounds you’re making.” The show’s creator, Liz Meriwether, is announcing right away that you will be spending time with a monster, and the discomfort amps up from there.
Should We Be Afraid of Our Food?
The cyclosporiasis outbreak that has garnered so much attention in recent months is unquestionably bad news. People have been sickened in at least 48 states, and the number of lab-confirmed cases—about 17,000—represents only a fraction of the number of people who have been infected by the parasite. But as foodborne illnesses go, a cyclospora infection—most likely caused in this instance by the consumption of iceberg lettuce contaminated with human feces—is relatively mild: unpleasant but...
How ‘Somatics’ Became the Solution to Modern Life
When clients go to Sybil Ottenstein for therapy, they tend to arrive with answers. Many of them have seen shrinks before. They can tell her which events from their past were formative, and point to the ripple effects in their current life.
An Inflection Point for Prediction Markets
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. The day before Donald Trump’s second State of the Union address, the former Representative George Santos shared a video of himself saying, in no uncertain terms, that he was “going to be there.” The next day, he didn’t show up.
The Air Marshals Keeping Watch On Eric Swalwell
On August 8, former Representative Eric Swalwell boarded a United Airlines flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Washington, D.C. He didn’t know it, but federal agents were watching him throughout the nine-hour trip. The FBI had asked the Federal Air Marshal Service to covertly monitor Swalwell on board and to watch him use his electronic devices, to see whether its officers could visually ascertain his passcodes, according to records I obtained that have not previously been reported on.
Inside a Conservative Operation to Hijack Your Social-Media Feed
If you’re short on cash, there is someone in Riga, Latvia, who can help. “You can literally make 100k a month with this campaign,” a young man with blond curls and a thick accent says into a camera. All you have to do is post on social media video clips of “anything that supports Republican.”
Dan Driscoll’s Parting Shot
During a White House meeting last week, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll brought his concerns about the future of the Army under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directly to President Trump—a sign of how far tensions between the two Pentagon leaders had escalated, and of the dysfunction inside the building, four people familiar with the conversation told us. Trump was surprised when Driscoll told him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed over for promotion...
Trump’s Economy Goes to the Polls
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket CastsMidterm elections are almost always referendums on the policies of the party in power; President Trump is hoping that Republicans steer into the skid. Last week, my colleagues reported that the president—dogged by the war in Iran, the trade war with Canada, and an economy that has Americans dipping into their savings for groceries and daily expenses—hopes that Republicans seeking to win reelection or gain seats will...
The Apocalyptic Style in Woke Thinking
Greta Thunberg was detained last month in Germany, during a sit-in at a munitions factory that sells weapons to Israel. She was wearing a Yalla Intifada T-shirt. Perhaps you thought Thunberg was a climate activist.
The Fight Between Texas and Minnesota Should Never Have Got This Far
In the 17 days between the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, another violent incident took place in Minneapolis that received far less attention. An ICE agent allegedly fired a shot into a home, wounding a fleeing man in the leg; the bullet lodged near a child’s playpen inside the house. That shooting is now the subject of a legal dispute between Minnesota and Texas that calls into question one of the most basic premises of the Constitution: that states will engage with one another in...
The World Is Telling the Wrong Story About China
Compared with Donald Trump’s chaotic, divided, and violent America, China is a bastion of steady progress and serene order. This, at least, is the story that Beijing’s propagandists have been eager to spread. The Global Times, a Communist Party–run news outlet, proclaimed earlier this year that “the world’s peace and development increasingly rely on China’s stability.”
The Pennsylvania Measles Mess
Measles outbreaks around the country are already a disaster, but more bad news arrived on Tuesday. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced that two measles-associated deaths had occurred in Lancaster County. “These mark the first deaths related to measles within the Commonwealth in 35 years,” an accompanying statement declared.
The Wrath of MAGA
The target this time is Jon Ossoff, the Democratic senator from Georgia. At a reelection rally in Atlanta on August 16, Ossoff was attacking President Trump over the Iran war when he pivoted to a more personal attack on the commander in chief. “The president sleeps through his meetings,” Ossoff said.