Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Photos of the Week: Tiny Pony, Quiet Wedding, Bosphorus Strait
Orthodox Easter in Ukraine, healthcare workers on the job, a fundraiser in New Jersey, empty streets in Moscow, the U.S. Air Force Academy commencement in Colorado, surfers in Australia, idle aircraft in Denver, preparations to reopen Austria, and much more. …read more Source:: The...
Smart Weapons Need to Be Smarter
In January, an Iranian gunner, using Russian equipment, fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) at a Ukrainian passenger airliner, killing 176 people. When the airliner was shot down near Tehran, tensions were high. Iran had struck an American base in response to the U.S. killing of the Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani. Nervous Iranian...
2020 Time Capsule #13: The Struggle is Over
This week Donald Trump announced the departure of a press secretary who differed from all predecessors in a basic way: She didn’t do the job.In more than eight months in office, this press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, appeared frequently on Fox programs but never once held a White House briefing for reporters. Three of her predecessors in...
The Coronavirus Has Not Halted Trump’s Power Grab
An hour or so into Monday’s daily presidential briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, Trump declared that his political opponents should “not be allowed” to win the 2020 presidential election.Democrats “want to make Trump look as bad as they can, because they want to try and win an election that they shouldn’t be allowed to win based...
This Is Trump’s Fault
“I don’t take responsibility at all,” said President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden on March 13. Those words will probably end up as the epitaph of his presidency, the single sentence that sums it all up.Trump now fancies himself a “wartime president.” How is his war going? By the end of March, the coronavirus had killed more Americans...
9/11 No Longer Defines Our World
In a large windowless room in the bowels of the CIA, there is a sign that reads Every day is September 12th. When I first saw those words, during a tour of the agency’s operations, I felt conflicted. As a New Yorker who witnessed the 9/11 attacks, I once felt that way myself, but by the time I saw the sign, during the second term of the...
2020 Time Capsule #10: Projection
At his rally/press conference this evening, Donald Trump effectively said that doctors and hospitals are selling masks “out the back door,” accounting for current shortages.You can see it for yourself here, on this C-Span video, starting at time 12:00. Trump notes the shortage of masks and says: Something’s going on. And you ought to look...
2020 Time Capsule #9: ‘That Woman in Michigan’
Just before the 2016 election, and then again after its results became clear, I did a series of Atlantic items on a challenge I thought the press was not prepared for.The challenge was dealing with a major political figure—Donald Trump—who fit no previous pattern of how presidents or other major figures conceived of “truth” versus “lies.”All...
The Problem With China’s Victory Lap
On January 24, a few days after the United States confirmed its first coronavirus case, President Donald Trump expressed his gratitude for China’s “efforts and transparency” in combatting a virus that the country’s leadership tried for weeks to cover up. On behalf of the American people, Trump wrote, “I want to thank President Xi!”By...
When Disease Comes, Rulers Grab More Power
On March 13—Friday the 13th, as it happened—my husband was driving down a Polish highway when he turned on the news and learned that the country’s borders would shut down in 24 hours. He pulled over and called me. I bought a ticket from London to Warsaw minutes later. I don’t live there all of the time, but my husband is Polish, the...
