1. I’ve spent the past several years trying to solve a riddle: Why has America ceased to be a land of opportunity for so many of its people? The answer, I’ve come to believe, is that we’re STUCK: penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700580/s…

The Alaska U.S. Senate race has become complicated by two candidates having the same name, @mviser reported in August. He called up half a dozen other Dan Sullivans in the state: theatlantic.com/politics/2026/…

"Refute" does not mean "dispute" or "deny." It means that you've provided evidence that proves the claim to be incorrect. I recognize the English language to be a living, evolving thing—but dammit, I will die on this hill.

70% of the internet was vulnerable yesterday to very bad security flaws inside a coding language. Turns out, *one volunteer* is mostly responsible for maintaining that code & helping push updates. Yesterday Ondřej Surý saved the internet. So I called him up. He rules. theatlantic.com/technology/202…

NEW: Russia pioneered the use of gas pipelines to sneak under Ukraine's defenses and ambush them.

Now Ukrainian troops are going down there to fight them back, inside the pipes.

Our exclusive report today @TheAtlantic about this new subterranean front

theatlantic.com/national-secur…

This is a wild story—remarkable photos, too. @shustry's latest: theatlantic.com/national-secur…

One man's nightmare is another's fantasy.

Trump has "convinced himself, three people close to him have told us, that Ukraine’s attacks on the refineries are, in part, meant to undermine Republicans’ chances next month—and by extension, Trump."

Full story, with a ton of fresh reporting, from
@shustry
and
@JonLemire theatlantic.com/national-secur…

In private conversations, Donald Trump Jr. has repeatedly voiced his opposition to his father’s war with Iran, sources tell @vmsalama and @AshleyRParker: theatlantic.com/politics/2026/…

1. The extraordinarily rapid spread of gambling through society is hurtling us back toward the early modern world, where people wagered—through the medium of "insurance" contracts—on all manner of ghastly things.

We're speedrunning the 18th-century experience of "insurance," when markets allowed bettors to gamble on, for example, how quickly refugees would starve. We recoiled in horror then, and invented the "insurable interest." x.com/YAppelbaum/sta…

Leo Wise, a hard-nosed ex federal prosecutor whose career spanned Enron to Hunter Biden makes a powerful case that the Supreme Court has made public integrity prosecutions impossible — ushering a golden age of corruption.

theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/…

“Politics is dominated more by avatars and projections than by authentic actors. You empathize with Fielder’s agony: a maddening drive to get to the truth, a shared skepticism that he will ever get there, the sneaking suspicion that people might not care even if he did.” @TheAtlantic theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/…

"In recent years, many Americans have decided that their country’s problem was that it had too many police officers, when in fact its problem was that it had too few," writes @Gladwell theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/…

"In the midst of this multicar pileup, Zacharia briefly stepped forward as the administration’s stammering face." theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/…

Reminded again of @jon_rauch's prescient prediction at the beginning that corruption would be the undoing of this administration. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle, Zacharia for Scaramucci.

NEW: ICE is trying to deport a mother of 4 while her husband is at Fort Benning in Army basic training. When she went to pick up the family's military IDs, Navy personnel turned her over to ICE. She's been in the US since age six. Story with @nancyayoussef theatlantic.com/politics/2026/…

“There’s no bigger betrayal to our soldiers than to use their trust in a program, set out by our government to protect their families, and ultimately use it to destroy their families while they’re serving our country and putting their lives on the line,” Martinez told us. “You’re stabbing your own soldiers in the back.” W/the awesome @NickMiroff theatlantic.com/politics/2026/…

Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution of a death-row inmate elicited “pretty universal revulsion” within the Trump administration, an official told @missy_ryan and @vmsalama. They report on how President Trump made the decision to call it off: theatlantic.com/national-secur…