At today’s hearing on Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority appeared poised to give him what he most desires in the case: further delays that virtually preclude the chance that he will face a jury in his election-subversion case before the November election. But the nearly three hours of debate may be even more significant for how they would shape a second Trump term if he wins reelection. The arguments showed that although the Court’s conservative majority seems likely to reject Trump’s claim of absolute immunity f ..read more

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. Over the past decade, sleep has become better understood as a core part of wellness. But the stressors of modern life mean that Americans are getting less of it. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: The Supreme Court goes through the looking glass on presidential immunity. The inflation plateau The campus-left occupation that broke higher education Sleep No More In the 1980s, when ..read more

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. “Another thing the Gentiles said about us was that we used the blood of murdered Christian children at the Passover festival,” the Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin wrote in The Atlantic in 1911. “Of course that was a wicked lie. It made me sick to think of such a thing.” Antin grew up in the Pale of Settlement, an area spanning from modern-day Russia through Ukraine and Poland where Jews were permitted to reside from 1791 to 1915 ..read more

Here are a few things that Donald Trump’s lawyer says a president ought to be immune from prosecution for doing: selling nuclear secrets employing the U.S. military to assassinate a political rival launching a coup During a Supreme Court hearing this morning, John Sauer, representing the former president, argued that each of these actions could be understood as an “official act” of the president, and that no current or former president may be charged with crimes for doing them. These are shocking arguments, no less so for the fact that Sauer was already asked about the assassination during a ..read more

The scrolls lay inside glass cases. On one, the writing was jagged; on others, swirling or steady. I was at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, admiring centuries-old Chinese calligraphy that, the wall text told me, was meant to contain the life force—qi—of the calligrapher expressed through each brushstroke. Though I couldn’t read the language, I was moved to see the work of writers who lived hundreds of years ago, whose marks still seemed to say something about the creators long after they’d passed. I’m using my fingers to type this now, but every letter is perfectly legible and well space ..read more

Fifty-six years ago this week, at the height of the Vietnam War, Columbia University students occupied half a dozen campus buildings and made two principal demands of the university: stop funding military research, and cancel plans to build a gym in a nearby Black neighborhood. After a week of futile negotiations, Columbia called in New York City police to clear the occupation. The physical details of that crisis were much rougher than anything happening today. The students barricaded doors and ransacked President Grayson Kirk’s office. “Up against the wall, motherfucker, this is a stick-up ..read more

Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. The United States has long had a great deal of religious diversity, and was built on the idea of religious tolerance. But one type of belief was always rare: none. Until recently, that is. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans who profess no religion (as opposed even to having one that they rarely or never practice) has risen from 16 percent in 2007 to 29 percent in 2021. (Back in the early 1970s, only about 5 percent of Americans espoused this position.) This phen ..read more

How do you get the albatross off your neck? You know, your albatross. Your own dank collar of bird carcass, bespoke feathery deadweight of shame/rage/neurosis/solipsism/the past/whatever, the price of being you as it feels on a bad day … How do you let it drop? In Taylor Swift’s “The Albatross”—a bonus track on her new double album, The Tortured Poets Department—the albatross is a person. A woman, to be precise. “She’s the albatross / She is here to destroy you.” Which could be a trope from some slab of 1970s misogynist boogie, Bad Company or Nazareth howling about a faithless woman and her ev ..read more

In January, the writer Gary Shteyngart spent a week of his life on the inaugural voyage of the Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise ship ever. Like many a great novelist before him, he went in search of the “real” America. He left his Russian novels at home, bought some novelty T-shirts, and psychically prepared to be the life of the party. About halfway through, Shteyngart called his editor and begged to be allowed to disembark and fly home. His desperate plea was rejected, resulting in a semi-sarcastic daily log of his misery. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, Shteyngart discusses his “seve ..read more

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. For the past couple of years, scientists have watched with growing concern as a massive outbreak of avian flu, also known as H5N1 bird flu, has swept through bird populations. Recently in the U.S., a farm worker and some cattle herds have been infected. I spoke with my colleague Katherine J. Wu, who covered the virus’s spread in North America, about the risk of human infection and how, for animals ..read more