From The Atlantic. Donald Trump seems to be on a losing streak—and Republicans are desperate for him to turn it around before the midterm elections, Jonathan Lemire reports. 📸: Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images; Alex Wong/Getty Images; Balint Szentgallay/NurPhoto via Getty Images; Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images; David…

From The Atlantic. Whatever happens next in Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s stunning downfall contains obvious warnings for MAGA and Donald Trump: Propaganda has its limits. Concerns about affordability are real. True democracy can reassert itself in a single election. Reality can bend only so far. The Hungarian journalist Veronika Munk of the news outlet Denník N…

From The Atlantic. By exercising control over commercial waterways, Iran and other non-major powers are showing how warfare is changing, former U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger tells David Frum: “The nature of warfare never changes. But the character of warfare—how wars are fought—changes all the time.”

From The Atlantic. In this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his reaction to the recent election in Hungary and the defeat of Viktor Orbán. David counters Orbán defenders who claim that this loss proves Orbán was never a threat. Antidemocratic leaders often face institutional constraints, and it…

From The Atlantic. Viktor Orbán’s transformation of Hungary has been, in many ways, the proof of concept for today’s MAGA movement—and this model of governance was “rejected soundly” by voters in Hungary’s election, Isaac Stanley-Becker reports. 📸: Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto via Getty Images; Sean Gallup / Getty Images; Balint Szentgallay / NurPhoto via Getty…

From The Atlantic. Which restaurant serves the best free bread in America? Caity Weaver embarked on a quest to find out. https://theatln.tc/KBBmZcno Weaver surveyed more than 500 people; traveled more than 13,000 miles; drank more Diet Coke than she thought possible; scoured the country—from a three-Michelin-starred fine-dining destination in Las Vegas to a lodge in…

From The Atlantic. Social-media users are getting “so exhausted at having to parse what’s real and what’s fake that a lot of them are just saying, like, ‘If it makes me feel a certain way, that’s all I care about,’” Tiffany Hsu tells Charlie Warzel. They discuss how the flood of AI content online could…

From The Atlantic. Donald Trump’s recent Truth Social posts say a lot about where his presidency is, but they also indicate how he views religion, David A. Graham argues: “For Trump, religion is still something that is a tool for him, not a constraint.” Read more at The Atlantic.

From The Atlantic. See supporters of Hungary’s Tisza party and its lead candidate, Péter Magyar, celebrating in the streets of Budapest after soundly defeating Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party in a general election. 📸: Attila Husejnow / SOPA Images / Reuters; Jakub Porzycki / Reuters; Sean Gallup / Getty; Reuters; Jaap Arriens / Sipa…

From The Atlantic. Tech gear is about to get more expensive due to a worldwide shortage of a basic electronics part—“and you can thank the AI boom,” Hana Kiros reports. She breaks down what RAMageddon could mean for tech prices: 📸: Bloomberg / Peter S. Kološ, Creatas Video+ / Anastassiya Bezhekeneva, Moment / antoniokhr, iStock…

From The Atlantic. On this week’s “Galaxy Brain” episode, Charlie Warzel is joined by New York Times technology reporter Tiffany Hsu to discuss the rise of AI influencers—synthetic avatars, often indistinguishable from real people, that are flooding social-media feeds to sell supplements and promote brands. Hsu unpacks her reporting on the combination of forces converging…

From The Atlantic. The journalist Fareed Zakaria tells David Frum how there’s “a kind of mean-spiritedness and an anger” that he didn’t see in the America he first came to, but “not so much that it makes me lose faith in the country itself.”

From The Atlantic. Last weekend, on Easter Sunday, President Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!” On Tuesday, he posted again: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Hours later—after ongoing talks, and…

From The Atlantic. The Artemis II Mission has produced some stunning images of our planet from afar and of the moon up close. Ross Andersen shares his favorites:

From The Atlantic. In this episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the nearly two decades of economic turmoil that has caused younger generations to lose faith in American institutions and led to the rise of populism in the United States. David argues that as the country…

From The Atlantic. The U.S. is behaving like a rogue superpower in the Iran war—and Donald Trump seems to be making a point of demonstrating that he is rejecting rules-based order, the journalist Fareed Zakaria tells David Frum.

From The Atlantic. “An LLM which, however amazing you might find it to be, is trained on yesterday, is at some point going to run into problems inventing tomorrow.” Johnathan and Melissa Nightingale discuss how AI agents are winding their way through the workforce—but can’t replace creative humans:

From The Atlantic. Manosphere podcasters believed that Trump was the president “who was going to end the endless wars,” Elaine Godfrey reports. “They feel so bewildered and baffled by this turn of events.” Read more on the portion of Trump’s base that may be giving up on him:

From The Atlantic. “There is something magical about somebody being able to taste something and then come up and say, ’How did you cook this?’” The Michelin-star chef Ruthie Rogers speaks with The Atlantic’s Ellen Cushing about the role of restaurants in a takeout-driven culture.

From The Atlantic. When McKay Coppins set out to report on the explosive growth of the sports-betting industry, his editors thought he should experience the phenomenon firsthand—so he spent an NFL season as an online gambler. His reporting took him to Las Vegas, where he wanted to see how betting online compared with gambling the…

From The Atlantic. In 2024, McKay Coppins was asked to verify a “massive story”: A Mexican man claimed he was forced to compete for his life in a sports tournament run by the cartels. Coppins’s investigation raised questions not only about the account, but about who—and what—we are conditioned to believe.

From The Atlantic. How is AI changing the way we work? This week on “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel is joined by Johnathan and Melissa Nightingale, two experts in management and leadership training. They discuss how chatbots and AI agents are winding their way through the workforce, offering a firsthand view of how companies are (and…

From The Atlantic. Donald Trump gave a prime-time address to the nation about the war with Iran, but if Americans were hoping for a clear explanation of why he went to war or when the fighting might end, “they heard nothing,” Tom Nichols says.

From The Atlantic. The manosphere helped Donald Trump win the 2024 election. Now that he’s started a war with Iran and failed to keep some core campaign promises, the coalition cemented by podcast bros and Austin-area commentators is starting to crack. The Atlantic staff writer Elaine Godfrey has been tracking the political shifts among a…

From The Atlantic. In this episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the strange lack of information about the current war in Iran. He wonders why, despite the publicized tactical success of the United States’ campaign in Iran, the war seems to be progressing in an unfavorable…

From The Atlantic. What is Twitter’s legacy? In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel traces how Twitter, now called X, evolved from a status-update tool to one of the most culturally and politically influential—and contentious—platforms of the modern internet. Charlie is joined by early Twitter executive Jason Goldman. They explore how Twitter’s core features—many…

From The Atlantic. ICE at airports. TSA lines out the door. And a new boss at DHS amid its funding shutdown. After the deaths on the streets of Minneapolis, after the theatrics of Greg Bovino, after the drama of Kristi Noem, ICE may be entering a new era. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the new…

From The Atlantic. On this week’s episode of “The David Frum Show,” The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with his thoughts on President Trump’s recent comments that appear to show a desire to back away from his war in Iran. David argues that Trump is comfortable as a “wartime” president as long as the enemy is…