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 Flu-Vaccine Routine Is Breaking
In a typical year, the process of bringing a new seasonal flu shot to market is one of the United States’ most predictable vaccine routines. This, however, is not a typical year. Vaccine manufacturers have prepared updated versions of the annual flu shot, as they normally do.
The Fear of Missing <em>The Odyssey</em>
Christopher Nolan shouldn’t have many personal box-office records left to break. He’s had a long career involving a slew of hits, critical and commercial, including Oscar wins, a viral theatergoing campaign, and a wildly successful Batman trilogy. But leveling up is exactly what he did with The Odyssey last weekend, when his latest blockbuster opened to $264.1 million worldwide—more than his Best Picture winner Oppenheimer started with in 2023, and more than any other R-rated theatrical...
What Is Actually Going On With Cyclosporiasis?
If you’re confused about whether you can eat the shredded lettuce on your Doritos Locos tacos again, you’re not alone. I cover food safety for a living—and I love Taco Bell—and I’m not sure when I’ll be comfortable living más. At the end of last week, the worst concerns about the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak seemed to be behind us.
The American People Need the Truth About the Iran War
For nearly five months, Donald Trump and his Cabinet have been misleading the American people about the war in Iran. When the president makes statements about the war, they are full of wishful thinking, hyperbole, and outright lies. He has devoted a full address to the topic only once—a rambling prime-time speech nearly four months ago that contained little substance.
Why Are Groceries So Expensive?
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeOn this week’s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts questioning whether the Trump administration has any plan at all to meet the challenge of debt and deficits. Then, David is joined by Vincent Smith, director of agricultural policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and professor emeritus of economics at Montana State University. Frum and Smith discuss the high price of groceries,...
A Morning of Controlled Chaos in Maine
Photographs by Cassandra KlosKathie Purdy doesn’t mind the phone calls. And there have been a lot of them—producing a sustained buzzing from her iPhone throughout the nearly two weeks since Graham Platner announced that he would drop out of the Maine Senate race. At one point, Purdy’s device grew so hot that she had to take it out of its case to let it breathe.
Iraq’s Man in the Middle
Every Iraqi prime minister since the fall of Saddam Hussein has inherited the same impossible job: Convince Washington that Iraq is not slipping entirely into Iran’s orbit while convincing Tehran that it is not becoming an American outpost. Iraq’s new prime minister now faces that challenge under the most trying of circumstances. The United States and Iran are at war—and Iraq sits between them.
AI Companies Are Stripping Colleges of Their Best Researchers
Anthropic has poached such an array of high-profile professors that it has become a punch line in academia. “‘I’m joining Anthropic’ is the new meme right now,” Subbarao Kambhampati, a computer-science professor at Arizona State University (who has not joined Anthropic), told us. This month, the AI company hired the chair of UC Berkeley’s department of electrical engineering and computer science, presumably to help build more capable bots.
Pete Hegseth’s Reckless Message to Helicopter Pilots
Three times in recent months, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has absolved military aviators caught on camera busting flight regulations. The message to pilots is clear: As long as what you do looks cool and puts on a show for the public, you can break flight rules without consequences. Just Friday, a member of the Blue Angels, the Navy’s flight-demonstration team, buzzed Pensacola Beach at extremely low altitude and a high angle of bank, close to throngs of spectators.
The Hundred-Year Court and the Flash-in-the-Pan Presidency
At about this time last year, the Roberts Court seemed like an arm of the Trump administration. On its so-called shadow docket—where it considers emergency applications without a full briefing or a hearing—the Supreme Court gave the White House victory after early victory. Over the past year, however, the mood has changed: The Court handed the president major losses on two of his signature policy initiatives, birthright citizenship and global tariffs.
Bull Rider
The most important policy decision made by Markwayne Mullin in his short tenure atop the Department of Homeland Security stood for barely a day. ICE officers had just killed two people: a Mexican construction worker with three American sons in Texas, and a Colombian delivery driver whose 3-year-old daughter saw him lying dead in the street in Maine. In each case, the officers had been looking for men other than the ones they killed.
How an Old Shipping Law Raises Consumer Prices
Donald Trump is the most protectionist president America has seen in more than a century. So it’s odd that a consequence of his war on Iran has been the waiving of one of the most protectionist pieces of legislation on the books: the Jones Act. Passed in 1920, the Jones Act requires that all shipments by water within the United States, including by ocean, be made on ships that are built in America, owned by American companies, and crewed by American mariners.
The Heaviest Credit Card Money Can Buy
Physical credit cards should be a thing of the past. Over the past few years, touchless services such as Apple Pay have driven a boom in the digital-payment industry: Digital wallets now account for about half of global online purchases and one-third of point-of-sale payments. You would think that credit-card companies might abandon investing in cards that weigh down your wallet—but you’d be wrong.
The DSA Is Only Using the Democratic Party
Even after a string of recent victories in congressional primaries by members of the Democratic Socialists of America, national Democrats appear slow to recognize that ideologues on the left are attempting a hostile takeover of the party. The DSA’s ascent comes on the heels of a yearslong effort by socialists and progressive activists to steer one of America’s two major political parties toward identity politics, isolationism, and hostility to capitalism. Democrats looking for a way to...
’Turning Up the Heat on the Streets’
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket CastsFriday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was asked at a press conference about his previous comments of “turning down the temperature.” This was a reasonable question given that two men, one in Texas and one in Maine, were recently shot and killed by immigration agents who approached them in their cars. A few days earlier, following conversations with Republican Senator Susan Collins of...
Just Ask the Dinosaurs How Bad Air Quality Can Get
The air quality this week is bad. Smoke from Canadian wildfires has turned the sky orange in Philadelphia. It has veiled the Statue of Liberty in Manhattan.
Susan Collins Is Not Concerned About Election Denial
When Jay Clayton, Donald Trump’s nominee for the next director of national intelligence, appeared before the Senate on Wednesday, Jon Ossoff of Georgia had a simple question for him: Who won the 2020 election? Clayton dodged and squirmed. “I’m not gonna engage in the theater,” he insisted, at one point simply going silent when Ossoff repeated the question.
Trump’s Election-Interference Plan Is Failing
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. Last night, President Trump delivered a rare prime-time speech, but his address fell well short of the hype. Purportedly, the president was going to make a major statement about election integrity, but in reality, the speech was dense and hoarsely delivered.
The Researchers Who Want Dads-to-Be to Stop Drinking
Pretty much everyone knows that women aren’t supposed to have alcohol while they’re pregnant. Even just a drink a day, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists warns, can cause lifelong problems with a baby’s coordination, behavior, and learning. Not all mothers-to-be follow this advice, of course, but the official guidance is clear: “There is no safe amount or type of alcohol use during pregnancy.
The Problem With <em>The Odyssey</em>’s IMAX Hype
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. An IMAX-film-camera system looks like the kind of device that could give you an X-ray. Weighing hundreds of pounds, it emits a constant, deafening mechanical roar that must be muted with a large encasement known as a sound blimp.
J. D. Vance Wants Someone to Find Out What the Government Is Doing
Well, thank you very much, J. D. Vance. Because of the vice president’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast this week, I found myself googling photos of Joe Biden licking an ice-cream cone to pass judgment on whether, as Vance claimed, they look “suggestive.” I will save my final ruling for the end of this article, to keep you in suspense.
<em>The Atlantic</em> Announces Marc Novicoff and Nancy Walecki as Staff Writers, Michael Zelenko as Senior Editor, and James Kirchick as Contributing Writer
The Atlantic is announcing four new roles and promotions in the newsroom: Marc Novicoff and Nancy Walecki as staff writers, both moving from editor roles at The Atlantic; Michael Zelenko as a senior editor, joining from Rest of World; and James Kirchick as a contributing writer, who has written for The Atlantic as a freelancer since 2008. More details from our editors about all four journalists follow: Marc Novicoff is becoming a staff writer. Marc joined us in 2024 as an assistant editor, a...
You Don’t Need to Vote for Socialists to Get Universal Health Care
The Trump administration is implementing the most sweeping rollback of social spending in American history. Millions of Americans are being thrown off Medicaid. The president and his Republican allies in Congress refused to extend enhanced subsidies for people buying individual health insurance on Affordable Care Act exchanges, which Democrats have warned since last year will cause millions more to lose coverage while health-insurance premiums spike for those still enrolled.
The Justice Department’s War Against Reporters
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. On Wednesday, Todd Blanche will head to Capitol Hill for hearings on his nomination to be U.S. attorney general. Usually these hearings are a chance for senators to get a sense of how a nominee would approach the job, but Blanche has already had a 100-day tryout as acting attorney general, which removes some of the...
Winners of the International Aerial Photographer of the Year
Chengming Liu / The 2nd International Aerial Photographer of the YearEmerald Waves at Dusk. Captured above the rolling hills of San Jose, California, at golden hour, this image reveals the Diablo Range at its greenest after winter rains, highlighting smooth contours and flowing patterns. Michiko Kimura / The 2nd International Aerial Photographer of the YearArctic Pulse Sámi Reindeer Migration.
Trump’s Curious Affection for Communism
Communism is a system of government in which the ruling party controls major investment decisions while hoarding wealth for itself and suppressing all opposition. Nevertheless, Donald Trump professes to dislike it. The president is trying to whip the nation into an anti-communist frenzy.
Democrats Became Great By Fighting the Left
The Democratic Party is moving left. Its most dynamic leaders over the past few years have been Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani. Its most passionate activists are the young progressives who gave us the campus encampments after October 7.
China’s Answer to AI Sticker Shock
In recent weeks, Silicon Valley has been fawning over an AI model released by a lab in China. The program, called GLM-5.2, has been called a “marvel,” “very good,” and a “step change.” The billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen posted on X that “AI insiders are saying GLM-5.2 is “the first Chinese AI model to match and often beat” the top public U.S. models.
Lab-Leak Payback Has Begun
The origins of the coronavirus pandemic remain contested; the evidence is incomplete. But pundits, activists, and members of the Trump administration have long insisted that the case is closed, and that the virus slipped out from a lab in China. They’ve maintained the view that U.S. scientists were involved and later tried to hide the facts.