“The zeal to reform, which quite properly inspires the editorial, has never done fiction much good.'

Read Eudora Welty's October 1965 essay for The Atlantic, 'Must the Novelist Crusade?' : theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

AI made the novelist Rachel Khong consider limitlessness. Now she believes that human limits are what lead us to create meaningful art. theatlantic.com/books/archive/…

The rollout of a simplified FAFSA form has been a fiasco for prospective college students, Lora Kelley writes for The Atlantic Daily. The bungled process “may shape where students go to college—and whether they enroll at all.” theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…

Mike Johnson’s first five months as speaker of the House were defined by Republican infighting. Now he seems to have won an unlikely victory, Elaina Plott Calabro Calabro writes. What if he’s actually good at this? theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

The latest adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley” befits the modern obsession with optimizing one’s personality into its most ideal form, writes Hillary Kelly: theatlantic.com/culture/archiv…

“To what extent have shifting norms around flirting with strangers reshaped how people meet and date?” Lora Kelley asks Faith Hill in The Atlantic Daily: theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…

So far, the generative-AI boom seems likely to “reinforce the dominance of English while possibly degrading the experience of the web for those who primarily speak languages with less minable data,” Damon Beres writes in Atlantic Intelligence: theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…

Young adults have found a new outlet for their existential stress: running a marathon, Maggie Mertens reports: theatln.tc/mICdDld4

“On Indivisible's website, the first words you'll find—in large font and all caps—are ‘Defeat MAGA. Save democracy,’” Russell Berman writes. But when the group goes to canvass a key state, “the presidential race is the last topic it plans to bring up.” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

“By any measure, I loved my mom more than our dog. If I could bring one back, I’d pick her 100 times out of 100. So why, in the moment of their passing, did I cry for him but not for her?” Tommy Tomlinson writes: theatln.tc/i3rKhqZx

“Monuments and miniatures both inspire awe, but the awe each inspires is of a different kind,” Gisela Salim-Peyer writes: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

A farm worker, some cattle herds, and scores of chickens have been recently infected with bird flu in the United States. “The virus has already affected our lives,” Katherine J. Wu, Ph.D. told Lora Kelley in The Atlantic Daily: theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…

“I just wanted to keep on raising a pig, full meal after full meal, spring into summer into fall.” Four years before “Charlotte's Web,” E. B. White wrote this essay on the death of a beloved pig, reflecting on illness, caretaking, suffering, and community: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

'Webster, in an early edition of his dictionary, goes out of his way to abuse the creature,' John William De Forest wrote in The Atlantic in 1874. The dictionary called the domestic cat 'a deceitful animal,' 'spiteful,' and tolerated only to catch mice: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

For centuries, Jews have been accused of preparing their Passover food with Christian blood. “Dismissing all of this as ancient history would be comforting,” Yair Rosenberg writes in Time-Travel Thursdays. “But it’s not.” theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…

'What I witnessed seemed less likely to persuade than to give collective voice to righteous anger. A genuine sympathy for the suffering of Gazans mixed with a fervor and a politics that could border on the oppressive,' Michael Powell writes: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

'Here are a few things that Donald Trump’s lawyer says a president ought to be immune from prosecution for doing,' David A. Graham writes: 'Selling nuclear secrets; employing the U.S. military to assassinate a political rival; launching a coup.' theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

The very seediness of the hush-money case, Quinta Jurecic writes, 'is a reminder of both a central controversy of Trump’s 2016 campaign and one of his key sources of appeal as he seeks office again: his contempt for women.' theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

'Because art / can’t match life’s stride, or death’s. / Because my book has shorter legs. / Because it lags like a video streamed on unstable internet' Read a new poem by Carolina Hotchandani: theatlantic.com/books/archive/…

Elon Musk’s car business looks more fragile than ever—but a new Tesla, which provides electricity instead of vehicles, is emerging, writes Matteo Wong. theatlantic.com/technology/arc…