A congressional district “should look like the mouth of a creature opening up to devour you” and it “should be red all over.” @petridishes imagines the Supreme Court majority’s explanation for their recent decisions on the Voting Rights Act:

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The entire University of California system abandoned the use of standardized tests in admissions during the pandemic. Now a huge share of STEM and economics faculty is demanding the tests are considered again, @imkahloon reports:

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Since the start of his tenure as secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth has sought to delegitimize the accomplishments—and the very presence—of Black people in the military, @ClintSmithIII writes.

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For centuries, the College of Arms in London has verified and granted coats of arms to Brits—but the institution also caters to an unlikely group of would-be knights-errant: Americans, Helen Lewis reports:

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The real tradwives of America largely have one thing in common: They can’t afford child care, @fhill_official reports.

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The Republican Party’s refusal to accept the prospect of Spencer Pratt’s defeat in the L.A. mayor’s race is bizarre and revealing, @jonathanchait argues:

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The screwworm, a flesh-eating parasite that poses a serious risk to cattle, has hit the southern U.S.—and for ranchers, it couldn’t have come at a worse moment, @will_gottsegen writes:

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This year’s Turning Point women’s summit was different than in years past, @elainejgodfrey reports: more Christian women’s empowerment, less electoral politics.

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Car headlights are way too bright—and Americans are missing out on a simple technology that would ease the problem of blinding bulbs, @Agmoseman argues.

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Answer today’s trivia from a story by @bhumikatharoor about Donald Trump’s fascination with mixed martial arts. Check your response and tackle two other questions:

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What does “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written to prepare the Union and its soldiers for the terrible fight ahead, say about America itself? @JeffreyGoldberg on @TheAtlantic’s greatest poem and the 250th anniversary of the republic:

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The new Obama Presidential Center, in Chicago, is inspiring—but departs from other presidential libraries in a crucial, and risky, way, @ables_kelsey reports.

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The historian Gordon Wood, who died on Sunday, devoted his career to a deceptively simple claim: The American Revolution was revolutionary, Craig Bruce Smith writes.

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Mass literacy restructured our consciousness, and now the rise of social media is again transforming what it feels like to be a thinking person, @DKThomp argued in February:

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“In the past decade, a profound shift has taken place in the way we talk and think about UFOs,” Adam Kirsch writes—and films like Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” tap into the belief that there will be vindication through admission:

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The white identitarians have more cultural and political power today than they did at any point in the past half century—and now that DEI and anti-racism are in retreat, they're moving on to a more ambitious goal, @thomaschattwill argues.

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Jane Austen. Spike Lee. MrBeast. “Modern Family.” The Atlantic’s AI Watchdog search tool lets you see which creative works tech companies may have used to train their generative-AI models:

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Hunter Biden’s return to public life has won him unexpected praise—but there’s a lesson he should learn from his father’s presidency, @GrahamDavidA argues:

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"For many people, the talents that bloom later in life are more consequential than the ones that bloom early," David Brooks wrote in 2024:

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Steven Spielberg’s captivating new film, “Disclosure Day,” updates one of his tried-and-true premises—the appearance of aliens on Earth—for an exploration of present-day American life, writes David Sims:

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.@bhumikatharoor explores what Donald Trump can learn from mixed martial arts: “In a fight, you can’t wriggle away from the consequences of your actions … And nobody is going to pardon you out of getting hit.”

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Explore 250 years of the American experiment with The Atlantic’s newsletter course The Unfinished Revolution, featuring original conversations with writers and editors about our award-winning magazine issue commemorating the country’s founding. Sign up:

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Savvy travelers rely on an array of algorithms to predict the cost of airfare. But high jet-fuel costs are overwhelming these methods—and waiting to buy tickets is suddenly becoming a riskier gamble, Henry Grabar writes:

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“Few people speak publicly about wanting to ‘eliminate’ Down syndrome,” @sarahzhang wrote in 2020. “Yet individual choices are adding up to something very close to that.”

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The Founders could never have imagined America’s modern information environment—and the “question for our democracy is whether a system designed for the communications technologies of the 18th century can survive those of the 21st,” @JeffreyRosen argues.

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A congressional district “should look like the mouth of a creature opening up to devour you” and it “should be red all over.” @petridishes imagines the Supreme Court majority’s explanation for their recent decisions on the Voting Rights Act:

The Atlantic

Marjane Satrapi, the French Iranian author of the groundbreaking graphic memoir “Persepolis,” died last week. Hillary Chute examines how Satrapi made defiance into a lifelong project:

The Atlantic

RT @YAppelbaum: Read @bhumikatharoor on what fighters know that Trump does not:

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RT @bhumikatharoor: Hello hi, I wrote about mixed martial arts, the upcoming UFC fight at the White House, and Trump

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No Russian thinker has worked harder than Aleksandr Dugin to rationalize the invasion of Ukraine—but Dugin, along with many other Russian elites, has run out of cogent stories to tell, @shustry reports: : Ramil Sitdikov / AFP / Getty

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The NBA is facing critiques of the sport’s very soul—a fight that would be daunting for any commissioner, much less one who dreads confrontation, @TimAlberta wrote in May. He examines the future of the league, and its leader:

The Atlantic

Donald Trump is hosting a UFC fight on the White House lawn for his birthday. Although the president loves fights, he doesn’t understand them, @bhumikatharoor argues. She explores what Trump can learn from mixed martial arts:

The Atlantic

Unable to agree on how to interpret American history, schools, universities, and political institutions have stopped trying to interpret it at all, @YAppelbaum writes. But “without a coherent national story, we will fail to be a coherent nation.”

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“Battle Hymn of the Republic” can be used to make a statement in a way that “The Star-Spangled Banner” never can—and the rousing urgency of the hymn’s lyrics can’t be ignored, Jake Lundberg writes.

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The latest flu shot is ready for review—but nearly a dozen experts, including former ACIP members and former HHS officials told @KatherineJWu they have never encountered such uncertainty about the basic government process of recommending the vaccines.

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Would you pay $12,000 for a coat of arms? Many Americans have, @helenlewis writes. Why does a nation founded on the rejection of aristocratic traditions still yearn for them?

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“We’d save ourselves an enormous amount of trouble in the future if we’d agree to a simple litmus test: Immediately disregard anyone in the business of selling a vision who proudly proclaims they hate reading,” Thomas Chatterton Williams wrote in 2023:

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.@DKThomp spoke with the economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde about why the birth rate is dropping, why it matters, and just how steep the decline is likely to get:

The Atlantic

The hit movie “Obsession” dramatizes a particular kind of Gen Z anxiety spiral, Emma Stefansky writes:

The Atlantic

Tennis is now easier to pick up than ever. “But its real advantage over other sports is what happens when you keep on playing,” Alexandra Moe wrote in 2025.

The Atlantic

Being alive at all is the most extraordinary stroke of good luck any of us will ever experience, the physicist Alan Lightman writes: “The question is: What are we to make of the fantastically improbable fact of our existence, our moment of life?” : Will