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Today:
RFK Jr.’s Miasma Theory of Health Is Spreading
NEWS | 20 November 2025
In pitting his ideas against germ theory, he plays on a centuries-old tension between lifestyle and microbes as roots of illness. Over time, as pharmaceutical companies made global businesses out of selling antibiotics, vaccines, and antivirals, the products became a symbol, for some people, of how germ theory had taken over medicine. Since taking over as health secretary, he has on occasion made that distrust in germ theory national policy. In his book, he wrote that “when a starving African child succumbs to measles, the miasmist attributes the death to malnutrition; germ theory proponents (a.k.a. Kennedy’s book bemoans that the “warring philosophies” of miasma and germ theory have become a zero-sum game.

Top Stories:
Photos: When the Polar Bears Move In
NEWS | 20 November 2025
Photos: When the Polar Bears Move InThe photographer Vadim Makhorov, while recently cruising on the Chukchi Sea, noticed a group of polar bears that were taking shelter inside an abandoned research station on Russia’s remote Kolyuchin Island.

World:
Trump’s Self-Damning Response to a Legitimate Question
NEWS | 20 November 2025
Khashoggi, Trump said, “was extremely controversial,” and “a lot of people didn’t like” him. Trump scolded Bruce for “embarrassing” MBS, as he is universally known, with the question. For decades, one of the forlorn liberal desires was for Saudi Arabia to modernize, secularize, and become more American. His reply was an abbreviated version of what he told me when I asked him a similar question about Khashoggi in 2021. Saudi Arabia is more American now.

Current Events:
Is the Next Ozempic Too Good?
NEWS | 20 November 2025
AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Zealand Pharma, and, of course, Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic, are all testing amylin-based obesity drugs. Pramlintide also doesn’t have as big an effect on weight loss compared with the more recent array of amylin drugs. At about 10 percent weight loss, their risk of heart attack and stroke typically goes down. If someone’s weight loss causes their BMI to fall below that in a clinical trial, the person generally has to leave the experiment. In some rare cases, people’s weight loss on GLP-1 drugs doesn’t level off.

News Flash:
The 2025 Atlantic Gift Guide
NEWS | 20 November 2025
Hot DogOne might argue that the best gift is the one that is least expected. The answer: a hot dog. I am suggesting that you give your friend or loved one a literal hot dog. You can even buy it at a convenience store (but do so right before the moment of delivery). If you keep it hot, I promise they will eat it right away—a gift for you to behold.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 20 November 2025
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

Latest:
Political Parties Have Disconnected From the Public
NEWS | 20 November 2025
One paradox of American politics is that voters are both extremely polarized about politics and extremely disdainful of political parties. Populist parties are ascending seemingly everywhere. In Germany, a February election was a terrible showing for the traditionally dominant Christian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party. Friedrich Merz, the current German chancellor, has cobbled together a narrow majority without populist parties of either the left or the right. In Scandinavia, cradle-to-grave welfare states where income inequality is low have not staved off the rise of populist parties.

Breaking:
Trump Told a Woman, ‘Quiet, Piggy,’ When She Asked Him About Epstein
NEWS | 20 November 2025
On Friday on Air Force One, Lucey asked Donald Trump about the Epstein files. But this category of remark is part of a long-running pattern for the president: Trump’s time in American politics has been marked by repeated attempts to insult and demean female journalists. His comments to female reporters, however, have another through line: Why can’t you just be silent like a woman should? This is reportedly not the first time that he has used the word piggy to describe a woman. The Trump administration announced a plan to dismantle the Education Department, shifting its programs to other federal agencies.

Trending:
Advent Calendars Are Totally Out of Control
NEWS | 20 November 2025
The Macy’s website currently offers many dozens of advent calendars, ranging in price from just under $20 (chocolate) to $955 (an assortment of goodies from the Swedish luxury brand Byredo). Sometimes, advent calendars cost as much as a small boat; sometimes they merely contain two dozen (very) small boats. Advent calendars have now gone so wide that they’re not just for Christmas anymore—Hanukkah and Valentine’s Day have both received the advent-calendar treatment, in a development that is wholly natural, if you think the point of advent calendars is to invent new categories of acquisition, or a bit goofy, if you think the point of advent calendars is to observe the advent. (“A little moment, just for you,” whispers the copy inside the cover of an advent calendar full of waterproof jewelry.) The advent calendar began as a form of religious expression.

This Just In:
The Trump Administration’s Favorite Tool for Criminalizing Dissent
NEWS | 20 November 2025
Federal officers wearing masks and bulletproof vests subdue a moped driver in the middle of a busy D.C. street. These videos capture the aggressive tactics of immigration officers under the second Trump administration. In each instance, following documented violence by federal officers toward protesters and immigrants, the Justice Department pressed charges—against the victim of that violence. I first started to notice the flood of Section 111 cases around the anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles early this past summer. But the Justice Department has charged prominent cases under Section 111 outside those epicenters, too.

Today:
America Has a Baby-Formula Problem—Again
NEWS | 20 November 2025
Because Abbott produced about 40 percent of the U.S. supply of infant formula, the recall contributed to a monthslong nationwide shortage stemming partially from pandemic-related supply-chain issues. The medical literature documents only a few cases that have been tied to infant formula prior to the current outbreak. (Prior to the recall, ByHeart sold its powdered formula for about $1.75 an ounce; at Target, Abbott’s Similac Advance formula costs about $1.30 an ounce.) The spokesperson for ByHeart told me that all of the issues in the 2023 warning letter have been resolved. Whichever way the situation goes, it’s a reminder of how easily the baby-formula industry can crack, even when it’s supposed to be bulletproof.

Top Stories:
The Social Cost of Being a Morning Person
NEWS | 20 November 2025
This is partly because my morning hours have come to feel sacred: They’re the only portion of the day reserved for just my own needs—and for a parent, that kind of time is hard to find. I have become a person who gives the best of herself to the morning and offers only the dregs to the night. Perhaps the trade-off between morning productivity and evening social capacity is as inevitable for someone like me as gray hair and reading glasses. At first, I focused on survival—white-knuckling my way through the late hours, counting down until I could finally escape to bed. The balance, I suspect, isn’t about becoming less of a morning person, but about leaving space for connection even when it doesn’t align with my body’s clock.

World:
What if ‘America First’ Appears to Work?
NEWS | 20 November 2025
Earlier this year, the president’s unconstrained “America First” approach seemed poised to drive the country off a cliff. Trump’s hardball tactics have gotten American allies to invest more in their militaries. Under Trump, the United States has embraced tariffs and is flirting with acquiring new territory through force. The United States needs to work closely with allies and partners, including the European Union, Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia, if it hopes to compete. If the United States bullies its teammates and views them as easy marks, they may pay out for a while, especially while they are dependent on America.

Current Events:
How to Cheat at Conversation
NEWS | 20 November 2025
But the main thing Cluely seems designed to “cheat” at is live conversation. So if cheating at conversation means using AI without anyone being able to tell, then for me, in these conversations, the tool worked. The odd thing about inventing a machine to help humans make conversation is that, Enfield told me, humans already are conversation machines—finely tuned ones, at that. Distraction is another thing that humans are sensitive to in conversation, Enfield told me. What makes using AI to “cheat” on conversation more troubling than doing math with a calculator, Enfield told me, is that in relationships, investment “is where authenticity comes from.

News Flash:
Trump’s Eye-Popping Postelection Windfall
NEWS | 20 November 2025
Trump’s team disclosed the $241 million in inauguration fundraising to the FEC, as required by law. Trump’s team raised about $33 million for an Army parade in Washington, D.C., and other celebrations, The Atlantic previously reported. Little is known about how much fundraisers have collected for the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, which Trump’s son Eric and Trump’s son-in-law Michael Boulos established in May. About 125 donors to the ballroom project gathered with the president in the White House’s East Room on October 15. “We have a lot of legends in the room tonight, and that’s why we’re here, to celebrate you,” Trump told the crowd.