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Today:
Democrats Could Use a Cold Shower Before the Midterms
NEWS | 05 May 2026
A recent Fox News poll also showed that, by four percentage points, Americans prefer Democrats to Republicans on the economy, the first time since 2010 that Democrats have prevailed on that question. After Democrats won a net total of 41 seats in 2018—their biggest gain since 1974—they significantly exhausted their body of “winnable” seats and thus the potential for future pickups. “But I have a hard time seeing that go north of 30.”As for the Senate, Democrats face an extremely high degree of difficulty. Republicans won nine House seats, enough to take only a small majority in Congress. And Democrats turned out in large numbers in 2018, during Trump’s first term, whereas Republicans have voted less reliably in midterms.

Top Stories:
Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Lhotse Facelift
NEWS | 05 May 2026
Pay attention to the author’s name in today’s first question; it’s a big hint. Atlantic Trivia Landmarks Billionaires Surgery From a story (opens in new tab) by Jon Krakauer The Lhotse Face and the Khumbu Icefall are features of what natural formation? Show Hint They are both on the landmark’s Nepalese side. Answer Submit Previous Question Next QuestionAnd by the way, did you know that the first recorded plastic surgery was performed around 600 B.C.E.? The Indian physician Sushruta pioneered rhinoplasty—the world’s first nose job—by taking a piece of skin from the forehead and using it to reconstruct a nose.

World:
My Role as a ‘Complicit’ Journalist
NEWS | 05 May 2026
Allen, not Trump, is the villain in this particular story, if he is guilty as charged. But I cannot stop thinking about the role that journalists like me play in the drama that ended with Allen face down in a Washington Hilton hallway. But their ideologies also appear to have been nurtured by the technologies we use to distribute and process political information, which isolate us from one another and push us to more extreme conclusions. The article contained no hint of a justification for political violence. The more a story taps an emotional vein—usually outrage or grievance—the more traffic it will tend to attract from social media.

Current Events:
How the Supreme Court Came to Accept a Practice It Called Unjust
NEWS | 05 May 2026
Seven years ago, midway through a multiyear demolition of the Voting Rights Act, John Roberts’s Supreme Court heard a case on a slightly different topic: partisan gerrymandering. But the majority nonetheless concluded that federal courts had no role to play in policing partisan gerrymandering, because it was a political question. The conservative majority’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais last week doesn’t just tolerate but encourages states to embrace partisan gerrymandering as a justification for squeezing out majority-Black districts. “To ‘control for partisanship’ when assessing racial gerrymandering is to erase the very mechanism through which racism travels,” the political scientist Jake Grumbach writes. Their hubris will bring about an efflorescence of the same partisan gerrymandering that Roberts claimed to detest.

News Flash:
Europe Without America
NEWS | 05 May 2026
Inside the Pentagon, meanwhile, the team helping manage the military’s relationship with NATO allies was about to take a hit. Jones, the long-serving official in this position, had been working on NATO and Europe policy at the Pentagon since 2003. One former official called him an “institution.”But Jones was blamed for being fundamentally too pro-NATO, current and former officials told me. Read: Why Europe is talking about nukesThe Trump administration didn’t bother making specific requests of its European allies for the war against Iran. The Pentagon spokesperson told me that the administration “has been consistently and repeatedly clear about the demand signal to allies to contribute to addressing a threat that affects Europe as much as America and our Middle East allies.

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Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 05 May 2026
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Latest:
Why Stocks Keep Going Up
NEWS | 05 May 2026
After a sell-off at the start of the war, stocks are up 13 percent in 30 days. But there is a logic at work: Stocks keep going up because corporate profits have continued to soar. Consider the so-called Magnificent Seven, the major tech companies with some of the most valuable stocks in the world, many of which reported record quarterly earnings last week. But regardless of why it’s happening, future profits are an essential ingredient for stock valuations, so stocks are naturally rising, too. Investors are also noting future threats to profitability, selling off stocks in software-as-service businesses that may soon be gouged by AI.

Breaking:
The End of Cigarettes Is Coming
NEWS | 05 May 2026
Under a recently passed law, selling cigarettes to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, will be illegal—in perpetuity. This generational tobacco ban represents a very different approach from the tobacco-control policy that most Americans are used to. A crackdown on cigarettes has certainly been a long time coming. Still, the results of the U.K. tobacco ban and similar efforts might offer lessons beyond those related to smoking. Prohibition has been a dirty word in American public policy since the Twenty-First Amendment passed.

Trending:
More Photos From Artemis II
NEWS | 05 May 2026
NASAA view of the Earth, seen passing behind the moon on April 6, 2026, taken by a camera attached to NASA’s Artemis II spacecraft as it swung around the far side of the moon. See all 12,217 Artemis II images on NASA’s Gateway to Astronaut Photography website here

This Just In:
Why One Coach’s Personal Life Is a Sports-Wide Scandal
NEWS | 05 May 2026
Just a few months ago, the New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel was experiencing a special kind of celebrity. Both Russini and Vrabel, who are married to other people, initially denied having any personal involvement beyond their professional capacity. But as Russini’s then-employer The Athletic (which is owned by the New York Times Company) began an internal investigation into their relationship, Russini resigned from her position. But just before the draft began, the Post published photos of Vrabel and Russini kissing and holding hands at a New York bar in 2020, furthering speculation about their personal relationship. He now faces a new level of scrutiny on top of the demands and pressure that automatically come with trying to be a winning NFL coach.

Today:
Today’s Atlantic Trivia: Aquatic Geography
NEWS | 05 May 2026
A “what waterway” question whose answer isn’t the Strait of Hormuz? Atlantic Trivia Geography Design Authors From a story (opens in new tab) by Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire What waterway in Southeast Asia is the primary connector between the Pacific and Indian Oceans? Answer Submit Previous Question Next QuestionAnd by the way, did you know that Fallingwater was designed in just a few hours? Its creator had put off working on it for months and began only once his patron announced an imminent visit. Until tomorrow!

Top Stories:
The One Tax the Rich Can’t Escape
NEWS | 05 May 2026
The pied-à-terre tax is unlikely to chase many people away, because it applies to a fixed asset, such as a house, condo, or co-op. Brian Galle: The myth of the mobile millionaireA pied-à-terre tax could, then, actually help refill city coffers instead of just eating away at the tax base. A pied-à-terre tax is a useful tool if it is used smartly, but it is not a substitute for running the city well. A pied-à-terre tax is one version of that idea, and there are others. Stop trying to tax what the rich can carry with them, and start taxing what they want to keep.

World:
How Everest Has Changed Since Into Thin Air
NEWS | 05 May 2026
The deadly hazards I wrote about attracted novice climbers to Everest like gamblers to a slot machine. Most notably, Everest climbers are now much less likely to die. Nepali workers deserve much of the credit for making Everest a less dangerous mountain than it used to be. But the commodification of the mountain has stripped away much of what once made climbing Everest such a uniquely profound experience. As the journalist Carl Hoffman mused in a review of a recent book about the Everest guiding industry, these companies perform an admirable service by providing expertise and assistance that now enables almost anyone to climb Everest.

Current Events:
The Venture-Capital Populist
NEWS | 05 May 2026
“This is the battle,” Sacks told me. “Part of believing in capitalism is you don’t have to feel guilty,” Sacks told me. Trump and his populist followers made Big Tech a favorite target; so did progressives such as Senator Elizabeth Warren. The 28-page plan, “Winning the Race,” called for rapid development of AI technology and construction of data centers so the U.S. can achieve global dominance. “Sacks is the best thing to ever happen to the populist revolt against the oligarchs.

News Flash:
The Only Thing Worse Than Spirit Airlines
NEWS | 05 May 2026
Spirit Airlines died as it lived: lots of angry customers and no one picking up the phone. When the hope of a last-minute Trump-administration bailout fell through, Spirit Airlines apparently had no choice but to ground its banana-yellow planes for good. “He’s never flown before with us anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”Read: The Spirit Airlines paradoxAnd Baldanza was right. I owe some credit for my marriage to a $58.19 Spirit flight. Without the competition from Spirit, airlines have one fewer reason to keep prices down.