Adam Serwer+

The Protein Shortage Is Coming

Making all that whey is complicated. In retrospect, maybe the protein Pop-Tarts were a bit much. Americans, broadly speaking, are in a state of protein mania. We are eating it at breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and just about anytime in between. We like it in chips, candy, soda, water. We like …

Stephen Miller’s New Recusals

The top White House adviser has stepped back from AI, space, and the Paramount merger. When Paramount CEO David Ellison wanted to throw a Washington dinner party last month “honoring the Trump White House,” he got a helping hand from Katie Miller, the MAGA podcaster and onetime White House …

Trump’s Latest Gaffes Could Hurt the GOP

The president won’t face voters again, but Republican midterm candidates will have to deal with the consequences of his latest comments. Donald Trump deserves plenty of criticism for his serial dishonesty, but on the rare occasions when he speaks frankly, that causes problems too. This week, a …

Are You Enjoying Your Girl Rights Yet?

They’re like regular rights, just skimpier. Did you enjoy constantly checking the news this week to see whether you would suddenly lose access to mifepristone, despite decades of evidence showing it to be safe and effective? Do you just love America having a patchwork of confusing laws that vary …

A Checkers Player Meets a Three-Dimensional-Chess Master

Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping demonstrated the perils of shortsightedness when playing a long game. In the centuries when dynasties ruled China, kings and chieftains across Asia sent “tribute missions” to the imperial court to pay homage to the emperor in exchange for access to the empire’s riches …

What’s the AI Endgame?

Chris Hayes on anxiety, automation, and how to emotionally survive the AI boom Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube How should you feel about the AI boom? In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel speaks with Chris Hayes about how to emotionally calibrate our response to this …

The Most Surprising Part of Stephen Colbert’s Late-Night Run

The Late Show host has been a calming counterbalance to his peers. When a celebrity stops by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, they aren’t there to lip-synch to a pop song. Colbert’s approach has been marked, instead, by a sincerity that’s rare in the 11:35 p.m. block: He had Joe Biden on during …

The Best Graduation Speech Is One Nobody Remembers

The commencement speech is a ritual act, not an expressive one. Congratulations. After four years of hard work, you—or your son or daughter, or grandson or granddaughter, or neighbor or niece, or other sort of ramen eater—are graduating from college. It wasn’t easy. It was probably also very …

Photos of the Week: Tractor Race, Rocket Festival, Drone Evacuation

A mass accordion performance in Slovenia, a tea harvest in China, the start of the Eurovision Song Contest week in Austria, a brush fire in Florida, and much more

A Cautious New Approach to Trump’s Impeachments at the Smithsonian

The National Portrait Gallery reopened its presidents exhibit—but kept some details low-key. For the past year, the Smithsonian Institution has found itself in the awkward position of telling the nation’s story while being supported in part by a government that wants to narrow how that story is …

A Perfume With a Whiff of MAGA

Brittany Aldean’s Vada perfume codes conservative because she herself does. Walking through Bloomingdale’s on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Brittany Aldean passed the counters for Lancôme, which made her signature scent from high school (Miracle), and Chanel, whose Chance Eau Fraîche she wore in …

What Los Angeles Has Become

Spencer Pratt is the factory-reset option in the mayoral race.

Dinah’s Hat

A short story On the day Dinah lost her hat, I was sitting on the top step of my just-right Scamp trailer doing a crossword. I was puzzling over nine-across, “Thai tidbits.” Seven letters. I had A-blank-blank-E-blank-G-S. I was debating whether or not to get my phone and look it up when Morris came …

A New Kind of Family-Separation Crisis

At the airport in La Lima, Honduras, planeloads of people arrive every day—many without their children. Early one morning behind the airport in La Lima, Honduras, before the first planeload of deportees landed, Sister Idalina Bordignon was meeting with her staff about an unsettling situation. Every …

78 Super Bowls

The World Cup will bring millions of visitors to the U.S. amid an “extremely high” threat level. On Saturday, Markwayne Mullin, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, used a speech at Kansas City International Airport to deliver an unusual message. Customs and Border Protection officers …

The Coming War on Local Black Political Power

The VRA’s demise could result in a hollowing-out of Black political representation and influence, not only in Washington and in state capitals. The Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana v. Callais decision, effectively demolishing a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, is a “five-alarm fire,” former …

Too Much Is Happening Too Fast

The AI boom is meant to overwhelm you. You hear wild stuff all the time now. Like this story that Nat Friedman, a former CEO of GitHub, told recently at a conference. Friedman uses OpenClaw, an autonomous AI agent that runs on his computer, acting like a personal assistant. One day, his OpenClaw …

Trump Doesn’t Want to Fight Inflation

He was elected to tackle one problem. Instead, he’s made it worse. Donald Trump, probably by mistake, said something honest the other day. Appearing on the White House lawn Tuesday afternoon, Trump was asked by a reporter to what extent Americans’ financial situation was motivating him to make a deal …

Pay Attention

Essential advice for the class of 2026 Editor’s Note: On Thursday, May 14, 2026, Jonathan Haidt—a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a social psychologist at New York University—delivered this commencement address at NYU. His selection prompted objections from a small group of student leaders. We …

The Election Deniers Are Winning

The universe of people pressing debunked theories is so broad that it’s a feature of the system. Updated on May 15 at 5:41 p.m. ET Clay Parikh, a cybersecurity expert from Alabama, spent years as a bit player in the world of election denial. He wasn’t a star with his own media platform, like the …

When Bots Write Comedy, the Joke’s on Us

The Comeback and Hacks bring the AI debate to the writers’ room. Hollywood, no stranger to existential crises, is finding itself torn on the rise of generative AI. Supporters of the technology argue that it’s the cost-saving future of show business, but opponents say that it could be the end of true …

The Origins of Alcohol as a Muse

The complicated relationship that plagued some literary savants In 1973, a celebrated writer reportedly knocked on a new colleague’s door and held out a glass. “Pardon me,” he said by way of introduction. “I’m John Cheever. Could I borrow some scotch?” Raymond Carver did not share Cheever’s …

Hawaii vs. Citizens United

State lawmakers want to change the terms of personhood for corporations. Fifteen years after Mitt Romney stood on an Iowa hay bale and proclaimed that “corporations are people, my friend,” his declaration is no longer mockable. The amount of money corporations spend anonymously to sway federal …

The Hippocratic Summit

The major goal of Trump and Xi’s meeting is to do no harm. The delegation that arrived with President Trump in Beijing last night looked less like the diplomatic corps of a superpower and more like a Fortune 500 board meeting. On Air Force One were Elon Musk, Tim Cook (“Tim Apple,” as the president …

The Atlantic’s June Cover: Helen Lewis on “The Men Who Don't Want Women to Vote”

How “masculinism” has become the single most important force uniting the American right For The Atlantic’s June issue cover story, “The Men Who Don't Want Women to Vote,” staff writer Helen Lewis reports on the rise of “masculinism,” a movement to fight back against the advances of feminism and …

America Has Always Had a Gerrymandering Problem. This Is New.

Election maps post-Callais Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts It flipped in a few hours. Before the morning of April 29, 2026, few people doubted that the Democrats would retake the House, given President Trump’s tanking approval rating. Then that morning, …

A Very Pretentious Form of Propaganda

The United States tried to swerve away from politics at this year’s Biennale and ended up saying nothing at all. As I left the United States Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, I felt like I’d just finished a puzzle that mocked me for solving it. Every two years, countries from around the world select …

How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Power

And how to get it back. Donald Trump is the most anti-environment president since “environmentalism” emerged in America. He has rescinded the “endangerment finding,” meaning that the government no longer accepts the basic truth that climate change is bad for people. He is rolling back regulations …

25 Sensational Books to Read This Summer

May 14, 2026, 7 AM ET When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic. by Maria Semple Adora Hazzard, Go Gentle’s heroine, lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan among a carefully selected group of female friends who plan to “grow old in …

The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet

A virulent form of misogyny has become the single most important force holding together the American right. Douglas Wilson has a modest proposal to improve American life: He wants to repeal the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the vote. In his ideal system, “we would do it in our politics the …

Sean Duffy Wants You to Take a Road Trip While Gas Prices Skyrocket

The transportation secretary’s new reality show comes at an inopportune time. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy owes his celebrity—and his marriage—to a stint on the 1990s reality show The Real World. Now Duffy and his wife, the Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, are promoting …

Photos: The Global Cost of the Iran War

The continuing crisis in Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have exacted a heavy cost worldwide. In addition to the steep price of military expenditures, destroyed infrastructure, and human lives lost, global shortages of fuel, fertilizer, and more have driven up costs …

An Urgent Question for Anyone Who Uses Social Media

What should we do when confronted with posts from family influencers? In 2014, Kristine and Matt, the parents of five young children, posted a 15-minute video on YouTube. “24 Hours With 5 Kids on a Rainy Day” was the first vlog to appear on their channel, Family Fun Pack. It splices together …

Here’s Another Way America Will Choke at the World Cup

The nation’s railway system is destined to lose. The planet’s biggest sporting event, the World Cup final, will take place this summer in MetLife Stadium, which is presently known as New York New Jersey Stadium because FIFA has strict rules on corporate branding. The stadium—whatever you want to …

What Happens if the U.S. Defaults?

Lloyd Blankfein on the growing U.S. debt, polarization, the state of the economy, and what a United States default would look like. Plus: Trump-branded cellphones and the decline of public confidence in free enterprise. Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube In this episode of The David …

Why Did Bill Cassidy Do It?

The senator from Louisiana offered an olive branch to MAHA and got nothing in return. Bill Cassidy did not want to talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Last month, as we shuffled through the U.S. Senate subway, a subterranean corridor connecting lawmakers’ offices to the Capitol, the senator from …

The Trump Counterterrorism Strategy Makes America More Vulnerable

The policy is unfocused, run by amateurs, and concerned more with the president’s many grievances than with the security of the United States. Last week, the Trump administration released the official 2026 United States Counterterrorism Strategy. The document is a mess, replete with typos, …

The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly

Imagine what happens if jobs actually start disappearing. Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders don’t agree on much. But both think that AI is a disaster for the working class. The Vermont senator recently wrote that “AI oligarchs do not want to just replace specific jobs. They want to replace workers.” …

The Mystery of the Golden Coffin

How did $65 million of allegedly stolen antiquities wind up in two of the world’s greatest museums? In November 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to the United Arab Emirates to inaugurate a new museum—and a new relationship between East and West. The Louvre Abu Dhabi was to become the …

The Democrats Can’t Let Go of Racial Preferences

How to persuade skeptical voters to take a fresh look at the party Racial preferences in college admissions have long been deeply unpopular, and three years ago, the Supreme Court declared them unlawful, in a sweeping ruling that portended doom for other race-conscious policies to promote diversity …

The Final Hours

An Afghan family’s flight to safety This is a story about what happens when you are stateless and powerless—the daily humiliations, the endless waiting, the impossible choices, the dependence on strangers, the danger in every official encounter, the high price of survival, the struggle for …

What Happened on the Hantavirus Cruise, According to a Doctor on Board

A passenger helped manage the hantavirus outbreak after the ship’s doctor on the MV Hondius fell ill. When Stephen Kornfeld set sail aboard the MV Hondius in early April, his grand plan for the cruise was to add as many new species as possible to his birding list. A medical oncologist based in Bend, …

What India’s Diet Coke Shortage Means for the U.S.

Disappearing soda cans are a symptom of a broader aluminum crisis. For true fans of Diet Coke, soda is sacrament, and reverence comes with strict parameters. The fountain version served at McDonald’s is thought to represent the peak of the form, but given the choice between plastic, glass, and metal …

The End of the World as He Knew It

Ted Turner was an entrepreneur in a classically American mold. But even the boldest visionaries have their limits. Before Ted Turner created a world of endless news, he imagined how the news would end. In 1980, in the run-up to the launch of CNN—in the days when 24-hour news cycle was a pipe dream, …

Does Claude Have Feelings?

Richard Dawkins caught hell on social media for suggesting it does. Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world’s most prominent advocate for irreligiosity, has become besotted with the godlike power of a chatbot. According to his recent essay for the online magazine UnHerd, Anthropic’s Claude has really …

The Secret to Understanding AI

“Imagine the tech without the tech companies.” In the before times—before machines could hallucinate, before compute was a noun—it was not uncommon to go several weeks without someone telling me the world was about to end. Similarly, a whole season might pass without anyone assuring me that it was …

No One Knows What to Do About Britain’s Exploding Anti-Semitism

The first step is admitting that the United Kingdom has a problem. The surveillance video begins with a seemingly innocent scene: A Jewish man stands next to a bus shelter, adjusting his yarmulke. Suddenly, he is pummeled by a passerby and stabbed repeatedly until he is propelled off-screen. The …

Denyce Graves’s Second Act

Denyce Graves is retiring from performing after a career as one of opera’s leading women. But there’s more work for her to do. When the curtain of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House rose for the closing matinee of Porgy and Bess in January, the boos that typically accompany the entrance of the …

Music’s Next ‘Disco Sucks’ Moment Is Near

Do you really like that new song—or is someone manipulating you? You’re scrolling TikTok, Instagram, or one of the many other apps where short-form video devours your time (maybe the app you use to order sushi). You come across a stranger doing something amusing while a song plays in the background. …

The Tragedy of the Tradwife

Caro Claire Burke on her best-selling novel, Yesteryear, and the retrograde fantasy that inspired it. Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts Every generation of feminism has the tormentor it needs. For mine, it was Martha Stewart, a tycoon masquerading as a …

The Savannah Bananas Bring Back a Negro Leagues Team

The organization is best known for its dance numbers and trick plays. Now it’s reviving one of the most entertaining—and controversial—franchises in baseball history. “My dad was a big Lakers fan,” Kobe Shaquille Robinson told me, indulging an admittedly obvious question. Robinson was born in 2001, …

Trump Shows He’s Still Got Juice

Yesterday’s election in Indiana sent a message to all Republicans of conscience. Why don’t more Republicans defy President Trump? The president’s poll numbers are bad. The war in Iran is raising gasoline prices. The president’s family is pocketing billions. The president seems to care only about …

Kash Patel’s Personalized Bourbon Stash

The FBI director has been leaving an unusual calling card. One of J. Edgar Hoover’s greatest reforms at the FBI was his embrace of fingerprinting. During the 1930s, visitors to the FBI offices in Washington, D.C., received souvenir fingerprint cards featuring his name. The men who succeeded him as …

Misoprostol Could Be Next

If the Supreme Court upholds new restrictions on mifepristone, the other abortion pill may be targeted too. Over the weekend, reproductive-health-care providers across the country confronted a puzzle they had never before needed to solve at scale: how to offer medication abortion without …

How to Survive Losing a Child

Danielle Crittenden on losing a daughter, grief, and her new memoir, Dispatches From Grief. Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts In this episode of The David Frum Show, David is joined by his wife, the writer Danielle Crittenden, to discuss her new memoir, …

The Attention-Span Panic

It’s not just about spans that seem too short. Last year, I took a drastic step to protect my attention: I cut off my home internet service. I already refuse to get a smartphone and have long paid for an app to block internet access on my laptop when I need to be productive. Yet I was still wasting …

A Dangerous New Attack on Press Freedom

According to MS NOW, the FBI has launched an investigation into an Atlantic reporter. This story was updated on May 6, 2026 at 11:39 a.m. The Trump administration’s war against freedom of the press has reached a startling new low. According to a report this morning from MS NOW, the FBI has opened a …

The FBI Is Reportedly Investigating a Leak to an Atlantic Writer

Sarah Fitzpatrick reported on concerns about Kash Patel’s drinking and behavior. This story was updated on May 6, 2026, at 4:50 p.m. Nearly three weeks after The Atlantic reported that some government officials were alarmed by FBI Director Kash Patel’s behavior, including conspicuous inebriation and …

The Perverse Tyranny of a Perfect Transcript

The case for capping A grades Each year, the undergraduate college at Harvard awards the Sophia Freund Prize to the graduating senior with the highest GPA. For decades, the prize went to one student, sometimes two if there was a tie. In 2025, there was a 55-way tie. The top students all had a perfect …

A Brutal First for the Cruise Industry

A hantavirus outbreak is serious and unnerving. Norovirus loves a cruise ship. So did the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. The crowded rooms, stuffy air, and communal dining of a giant boat filled with humans create the ideal conditions for pathogens to spread. Now hantavirus—a highly deadly …

Iran’s Unexpected Resilience

Two months of fighting have emphasized some of the country’s advantages. By the United States military’s estimation, about 1,550 marine vessels—oil tankers, bulk carriers, container ships, and more—are idling in the Persian Gulf right now. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively blockaded, their …

Yet Another Wasted Met Gala

The evening squandered an opportunity to really make the case for fashion as art. Every year, the Met Gala—the opulent celebration of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute—unveils a theme with a dress code that its famous attendees then attempt to interpret. And every year, many of the …

Judicial Supremacy Has Arrived

Last week’s Supreme Court decision didn’t just undermine the Voting Rights Act. It foreclosed the possibility of any new Voting Rights Act in the future, too. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not die all at once, or by one means. It died through attrition: a Congress that was too sclerotic and …

Progressive Activists Are Sometimes on the Wrong Side of History

Thinking otherwise can enable the left’s worst instincts, as a speech at the University of Michigan’s commencement showed. The debate over Israel’s war with Hamas has been unusually vicious in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where pro-Palestine activists have vandalized, spat on, and menaced targets they …

Photos: The Rescue of Timmy the Whale

Efforts to rescue a humpback whale off the coast of Germany led to a successful release after it had been stranded for most of the past month. The whale, named Timmy by local media, was eventually pulled into a barge and towed to the North Sea.

What Adding Race to BMI Can Do

Race-sensitive cutoffs can address BMI’s shortcomings, but not entirely. In recent years, the perils of body mass index, or BMI, have become a hobbyhorse for professionals in several fields of medicine and research. For decades, doctors have used BMI to help diagnose and treat obesity, diabetes, and …

The Secret of Elizabeth Strout’s Appeal

How she writes best sellers that are also critical darlings How does she do it? Not just the neat trick of beguiling highbrow critics while at the same time pleasing millions of readers who don’t care about literary bona fides. The real feat is harpooning the reader artlessly (or so it seems), with …

Democrats Could Use a Cold Shower Before the Midterms

They have good reason to be optimistic. But they are sounding a bit too giddy.

For Ibram X. Kendi, It’s Nazis All the Way Down

His new book describes the “Great Replacement” theory as a convoluted plot, but fails to explain why it appeals to people in the first place. A conspiracy theory is soothing to the believer not just because it promises a complete explanation for all that appears wrong with the world, but also …

The House of Representatives Is Turning Into the Electoral College

Thanks to the Supreme Court, the gerrymandering wars, already awful, are poised to get even worse. The very short list of constraints on partisan gerrymandering has gotten even shorter. Until last week, the Supreme Court had interpreted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to require states to draw …

My Role as a ‘Complicit’ Journalist

Algorithms turn nuanced articles into rage bait that helps fuel political violence. Cole Tomas Allen, the man accused of trying to assassinate President Trump late last month, appeared to consume political news like so many of his fellow citizens, absorbing daily doses of outrage on social media, …