The fight-or-flight response typically kicks in when a dangerous situation arises. But for Pansy Deacon, the protagonist of the writer-director Mike Leigh’s sublime Hard Truths, self-defense is more of a default mode. Played by the excellent Marianne

It is not unusual for clerics to address their leaders directly. King James regularly caught hell from the pulpit. So when Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde went for the king, at the end of an interminable sermon on Tuesday morning in the National

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. I’ve been on trial half my life. Yesterday, my 18-year legal drama finally came to an end when the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court, definitively convi

In his inaugural address on Monday, Donald Trump declared himself God’s chosen instrument to rescue America. He recalled the assassination attempt he survived last year: “I was saved by God to make America great again.” Just a few minutes earlier, a

So much political news over the past four years has been astonishing: Joe Biden’s disintegration on a debate stage, Donald Trump’s return to power, the possible U.S. annexation of Canada. But New York Mayor Eric Adams’s MAGA turn, by contrast, seems

No one would blame you for thinking that we’re in the midst of an unprecedented global loneliness emergency. The United Kingdom and Japan have named “loneliness ministers” to tackle the problem. In 2023, the World Health Organization declared lonelin

When wildfires broke out across Los Angeles earlier this month, many publications began to frame the incalculable tragedy through the lens of celebrity news. As flames engulfed the Palisades, a wealthy neighborhood perched along the Pacific Coast Hig

To see how far the lines of normal have moved since President Donald Trump freed the January 6ers, briefly return to the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign. At the time, a hot issue was whether Trump harbored fascist tendencies, as some o

Ask a Democrat about Merrick Garland, and they will likely mutter something impolite. But, for a brief moment, Joe Biden’s attorney general could trumpet a monumental achievement. In the course of prosecuting the perpetrators of January 6, he dismant

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 to The Daily’s culture edition, in which one

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. Violence and strife feel unavoidable these days. When we’re not encountering them personally, we see them on our phone or in the news. Even

This is Atlantic Intelligence, a newsletter in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here. Earlier this week, Donald Trump unveiled perhaps the most ambitious infrastructure project in

“I’d summarize it as: fuck.” That’s what one senior university administrator told me when I asked about the chaos that erupted at the National Institutes of Health this week. Academics are in panic mode in the face of sudden new restrictions from the

When Vladimir Putin daydreams, he imagines himself saluting a phalanx as it goose-steps across central Kyiv. In Donald Trump’s version of the fantasy, he is triumphantly floating through the Panama Canal on a battleship. Both men see themselves recov

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. Donald Trump is now the second president to return to the White House after losing a b

On Monday, in one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump defrocked 50 high priests of U.S. national security. Now deprived of their clearances, if they want to know what’s happening in the world, they are reduced, like the rest of us, to readin

Over the past several years, a medication called mifepristone has been at the center of intense moral and legal fights in the United States. The pill is the only drug approved by the FDA specifically for ending pregnancies; combined with misoprostol,

On Sunday night, in the basement ballroom of the Salamander Hotel in Washington, D.C., Charlie Kirk was happier than I’d ever seen him. “I truly believe that this is God’s grace on our country, giving us another chance to fight and to flourish,” Kirk

Just outside New York City’s Central Park Zoo, not far from where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once stealthily deposited a dead bear cub, stands a bronze statue to another animal: Balto, the husky that, 100 years ago this month, played a leading role in a d

When David Lynch died last week, it was almost hard to know whom exactly to mourn. He was a Renaissance man: musician, painter, meditation instructor, YouTube personality. Most, of course, mourn him as a filmmaker, the medium in which he left his mos

Shortly after taking the oath of office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order revoking the security clearances of about four dozen former national-security officials. Their offense was that in 2020, they had signed an open letter suggesti

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. The aged president of the United States and the youn

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts This week, House Republicans created a select subcommittee to investigate the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and uncover the “full truth that is owed to the American

Things were not looking great for OpenAI at the end of last year. The company had been struggling with major delays on its long-awaited GPT-5 and hemorrhaging key talent—notably, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, a

On Monday, Stewart Rhodes, the eye-patched founder of the far-right militia known as the Oath Keepers, was in prison, which is where he has been since he was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born in Rome around the year 475 C.E. A learned man, he served his nation faithfully as a senator and consul

In the years since it began a committed effort to diversify and expand its membership, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has weathered strikes, the pandemic shutdown of theaters, and constant hand-wringing about declining TV ratings and

Photographs by John Francis Peters Amid the madness and tension of the most recent presidential-election campaign, a wild form of clickbait video started flying around the political internet. The titles described debates with preposterous numerical t

When Donald Trump sat down Tuesday beneath the exquisite stained-glass windows of the National Cathedral, he likely expected a sermon that would reflect his earthly glory back to him: something about unity in America, perhaps, or a meditation on fadi

This anxious century has not given people much to feel optimistic about—yet most of us resist pessimism. Things must improve. They will get better. They have to. But when it comes to the big goals—global stability, a fair economy, a solution for the