The Pinball President
No commander in chief has been better at seizing public attention than Donald Trump. But there is a difference between getting attention and doing something with it.
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Concept by Julia Schimautz; illustration by Timo Lenzen
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Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Getty. Researchers Say They’ve Found the Truth About Thomas Jefferson
A secret 15-year effort has produced genetic evidence that one of the nation’s Founders fathered children with a woman he enslaved.
Charles McQuillan / Getty The Greenland Fiasco Stumbles to an End
President Trump announced an agreement that appeared to satisfy all parties but came at a great cost.
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Hannah Turner Harts / BFA Emily Wilson Can’t Let The Odyssey Go
The translator spoke about her desire to retranslate the epic—and her harsh review of the recent film.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Charles-McClintock Wilson / NurPhoto / Getty; Thomas Simonetti / AFP / Getty. 
Jens Schlüter / AFP / Getty Trump Is Betting on the Wrong Europe
The far-right parties the White House favors have a foreign-policy agenda that won’t serve American interests.
Andrew Harnik / Getty What the Kennedy Center’s Tax Return Reveals
A previously unseen filing captures the state of the institution seven months after Donald Trump’s takeover.
Illustration by Alisa Gao / The Atlantic. Source: Michael Hickey / Getty. College Sports Are Great
The accomplishments of athletes are every bit as impressive and legitimate as those of dancers, debaters, and oboists.
College Is Coming Apart
Successive, overlapping crises reveal that American higher education makes no sense.
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Millennium Images / Gallery Stock Why Making Friends in Midlife Is So Hard
I thought I was done dating. But after moving across the country, I had to start again—this time, in search of platonic love. (From 2022)
Jim Goldberg / Magnum Marriage Isn’t Hard Work; It’s Serious Play
Yes, love requires some labor. But that shouldn’t define the relationship. (From 2023)
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Nanna Heitmann / Magnum Teaching a Stone to Talk
Wherever there is stillness there is the still small voice, nature’s old song and dance … A meditation on silence and other matters. (From 1981)
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Senserini Lucrezia / Getty radio atlantic•Episode 214When Meditation Has a Dark Side
Could there really be such a thing as too much mindfulness?
The Atlantic the permanent questions•Episode 2What Is Humanity’s Place in the Cosmos?
A lifelong fascination with terra incognita led the astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan to map out the universe’s most enigmatic phenomena.
David Levenson / Getty the david frum show•Episode 75The Atrocities That Shaped the Modern Middle East
The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore on his latest book, The Cauldron, and how violence forged the modern Middle East
Illustration by The Atlantic galaxy brainLina Khan on Doomer Panic and Ending AI Exceptionalism
Why the AI-alarmism conversation feels off
Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Simon Stock / Gallery Stock. how to touch grass•Episode 5What It Takes to Reclaim Your Attention Span
Jenny Odell, the author of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time, has advice for fighting back against the forces of digital distraction.
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