Hillbilly Excuses
J. D. Vance champions the narrative he once attacked.
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Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: Antonio Masiello / Getty; GaryAlvis / Getty.
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The Atlantic. Sources: perets; Liyao Xie / Getty. Can a Bot Be Too Good at Its Job?
AI agents can automate complex tasks on behalf of human operators—with potentially disastrous consequences.
Joseph Rushmore for The Atlantic The New Trump Is Always the Old Trump
Thursday’s speech was a fitting climax to a confused convention that spun wildly between partisan culture war and appeals to national comity.
Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Sources: NSA Digital Archive / Getty Elephants Are Doing Something Deeply Human
They’re part of a growing list of animals that use namelike calls.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Win McNamee / Getty. The Fakest Populism You Ever Saw
The Trumpian GOP is in a battle over which wealthy faction will win, not a class war.
Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Sources: Apic / Getty; Luke Sharrett / Getty J. D. Vance’s Empty Nationalism
To believe that “people will not fight for abstractions” is to forget what makes America special.
Valeria Ferraro / Anadolu / Getty Photos of the Week: Gruffalo Maze, Panama Swing, Luminous Mane
An orangutan rehabilitation center in Borneo, an iceberg-filled fjord in Greenland, scenes from the Republican National Convention, a fire festival in Japan, and much more
Introducing Scripts
A three-part series from Radio Atlantic about the pills we take for our brains, and the stories we tell ourselves about them. Launching August 2024.
If Trump Wins
The staff of The Atlantic on the threat a second term poses to American democracy
Matt Huynh The Most Influential Climate-Disaster Thriller of All Time
Twister captivated America and sparked a subgenre. Its director thought it could never be remade. Can Twisters conjure the energy of the original?
Illustration by Ricardo Rey Why Americans Hate the Media
Why has the media establishment become so unpopular? Perhaps the public has good reason to think that the media’s self-aggrandizement gets in the way of solving the country’s real problems. (From 1996)
Stephan Savoia / AP Death of a Pig
“I just wanted to keep on raising a pig, full meal after full meal, spring into summer into fall.” (From 1948)
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Joseph Rushmore. radio atlantic•Episode 81Trump’s Wholesale Renovation of the Republican Party
Tim Alberta gives an inside look at the Republican National Convention following the assassination attempt of Donald Trump
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Halfpoint Images / Getty. good on paper•Episode 7A Remarkable School-Choice Experiment
Are principals the key to improving schools?
