Author: Michelle Korhonen
If you had to capture Silicon Valley’s dominant ideology in a single anecdote, you might look first to Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, had given him access to reams of personal information about his fellow students:Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at HarvardZuckerberg: Just ask.Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNSFriend: What? How’d you manage that one?Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.Zuckerberg: I don’t know why.Zuckerberg: They “trust me”Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks.That conversation—later revealed through leaked chat…
Patients report that ketamine infusions can be lifesaving, with immediate improvement for severe depression. But dosage and safety measures vary widely at the hundreds of clinics that have opened. Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images Patients report that ketamine infusions can be lifesaving, with immediate improvement for severe depression. But dosage and safety measures vary widely at the hundreds of clinics that have opened. Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images In late 2022, Sarah Gutilla’s treatment-resistant depression had grown so severe that she was actively contemplating suicide. Raised in foster care, the 34-year-old’s childhood was marked by physical violence,…
People with sickle cell disease are thrilled there are now approved gene therapies for the inherited blood disorder, but the cost has them wondering if they’ll ever get treatment.
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.It was the early afternoon of Valentine’s Day 2018, and the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was full of kids exchanging stuffed animals and heart-shaped chocolates. Scot Peterson, a Broward County sheriff’s deputy, was in his office at the school, waiting to talk with a parent about a student’s fake ID. At 2:21 p.m., a report came over the school radio about a strange sound—firecrackers, possibly—coming from Building 12. Peterson stepped outside, moving briskly, talking into the radio on his shoulder. Then…
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.The elected officials who quietly defend Donald Trump’s immorality even though they know better are just as bad as the comically devoted Trump courtiers.First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:Mushy Equivocations“I didn’t come here,” Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina complained last week, “to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid…
Women’s rights advocates demonstrate against abortion bans in May 2019, in Philadelphia. Matt Rourke/AP hide caption toggle caption Matt Rourke/AP Women’s rights advocates demonstrate against abortion bans in May 2019, in Philadelphia. Matt Rourke/AP HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court said Monday that a lower court must hear a challenge to the constitutionality of a decades-old state law that limits the use of Medicaid dollars to cover the cost of abortions, a major victory for Planned Parenthood and the abortion clinic operators who sued. The decision also elicited hope that the state Supreme Court may one day find a right…
Two years into recovery from a bad romance with booze and other drugs, an Iranian American poet makes a half-hearted attempt to redeem his misspent youth. He decides to write a book about people whose deaths retroactively imbued their lives with meaning: Joan of Arc, the early Muslim leader Hussain, the Irish Republican Army militant Bobby Sands, and, though he’s still alive, himself. Such is the premise of Kaveh Akbar’s first novel, Martyr!, an existential comedy about the difficulty of finding beauty in banality and sense in suffering.The novel opens in abjection. The protagonist, Cyrus Shams, lies prostrate on his…
NPR’s Sarah McCammon speaks with UNICEF’s Tess Ingram about the dire maternal health crisis in Gaza.
Listen to this articleProduced by ElevenLabs and NOA, News Over Audio, using AI narration.Zack De Piero taught writing for four years in the English department at Penn State’s Abington campus. Then he resigned and, in 2023, filed a lawsuit alleging that administrators and other faculty members discriminated against him because he is white. In his telling, the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by creating a hostile work environment. In response, hundreds of academics signed an open letter calling the lawsuit a reactionary attack on “ongoing efforts in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.”The…
Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. A drone launched by an Iran-affiliated militia hit an American base in Jordan, near the borders with Syria and Iraq, killing three service personnel and wounding 25 more. Now, once again, the United States finds itself wondering what to do next.The overpowering temptation for this administration is to engage in a game of tit for tat, aiming more frequently at things (missile launchers, for example) than people, and then to let things lie. Its fear, as ever, is of escalation, and it makes a point of saying so—as when, before the attack,…