The AI War Was Never Just About AI
Tech giants such as Google and Meta need something more than compelling chatbots to win.
A Ridiculous, Perfect Way to Make Friends
Group fitness classes aren’t just about exercise.
The Atlantic Gift Guide
The Atlantic has chosen 65 gifts for bringing more merriment, adventure, and wonder to the ones you love.
My Home Is a Horror of Unfinished Tasks
Why can’t I get anything done?
How America Got Mean
In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.
The Trump Marathon
If Americans want to hold Trump accountable in a second term, they must keep their heads when he uses chaos as a strategy.
What Comes Next for Air Travel
The Trump administration could prove more sympathetic to businesses than to consumers.
Seventy Miles in Hell
The Darién Gap was once considered impassable. Now hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking treacherous terrain, violence, hunger, and disease to travel through the jungle to the United States.
I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is
What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.
A Horror Movie About an Atheist Who Won’t Shut Up
The hollowness at the center of Heretic
The Age of Social Media Is Ending
It never should have begun.
The Musical Blockbuster That Didn’t Play By the Rules
Wicked makes the case that audiences aren’t so tired of the genre after all.
The Perfect Man Who Wasn’t
For years he used fake identities to charm women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then his victims banded together to take him down.
The Sociopaths Among Us—And How to Avoid Them
You’re bound to come across the “Dark Triad” type of malignant narcissists in life—and they can be superficially appealing. Better to look for their exact opposite.
The Road Dogs of the American West
Survivalists, drifters, and divorcées across a resurgent wilderness
Trains in Trouble
Once, some 20,000 trains traversed the United States, many of them elegant hotels on wheels. Now, most of the great passenger railroads have withered and died and they have been replaced by Amtrak, which has mammoth troubles of its own. Is there any hope for a rail travel revival?
DNA Tests Are Uncovering the True Prevalence of Incest
People are discovering the truth about their biological parents with DNA—and learning that incest is far more common than many think.
Dear Therapist: No One Wants to Host My In-Laws for the Holidays
My husband’s parents are divorcing, and they are worried about being alone.
Tossing a Bird That Does Not Fly Out of a Plane
A Thanksgiving story about the limits of human empathy
Even Worse Than The Da Vinci Code
Conclave treats Catholic theology as mere policy, like the membership rules at Augusta National.