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Today:
Different Views of the Winter Olympics
NEWS | 23 February 2026
Ryan Pierse / GettyA vintage large-format camera, in combination with a mobile phone, was used to create this image of Team Denmark competing during the women’s round robin session between Team Denmark and Team USA at Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium on February 17, 2026. Images in this series were captured using vintage Graflex cameras, paying tribute to the type of camera that would have been used 70 years ago when Cortina previously hosted the games in 1956. In a modern twist, these cameras have been adapted to record images on smartphones, enabling live transmission of the content captured.

Top Stories:
MAGA’s Animal Nationalism
NEWS | 23 February 2026
Brooke Rollins, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Pam Bondi would be joining up to lead a new “strike force” aimed at puppy mills, dog-fighting rings, and unscrupulous animal research. Illiberal factions in Austria, Denmark, France, and Italy have all made a similar point of taking up the cause of animal welfare. But according to his research, which he co-produced with Belén Fernández-García, a professor at the University of Granada, other groups at the illiberal fringe are either disinterested in animal welfare or take positions in support of culturally specific forms of animal exploitation. In fact, a particularly ferocious form of animal nationalism emerged in the spring of 1933, very shortly after Hitler first established his dictatorship. Animal nationalism has, in practice, a marked tendency to self-negate.

World:
Frederick Wiseman Always Made His Point
NEWS | 23 February 2026
Before he became a filmmaker, Frederick Wiseman was a professor who was in over his head. After the facility superintendent accepted his proposal to film at the hospital, Wiseman began filming, with permission from authorities. Wiseman thought that all documentaries were composed of choices—in focus, composition, and structure—that inevitably presented a point of view. Wiseman’s films often feature people speaking at length to various congregations, whether a church service or an informal assembly. Near the film’s end, Wiseman spends time with a “taxi tutor,” someone who teaches prospective cabbies how to pass their license test.

Current Events:
The Protein-Bar Delusion
NEWS | 23 February 2026
Protein bars have come a long way from the chalky monstrosities that lined shelves not long ago. Another one of my favorites, the Barebells caramel-cashew bar, tastes like a mash-up of a Twix and a Snickers. There are rocky-road protein bars, birthday-cake protein bars coated in sprinkles, and snickerdoodle-flavored protein bars. At this point, the line between protein bar and candy bar has never been blurrier. “Protein bars are candy bars in disguise,” Marion Nestle, an emeritus professor of nutrition at NYU, told me.

Sponsored:
SmartSync Data Sync App
SPONSORED | 23 February 2026
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

News Flash:
The Orality Theory of Everything
NEWS | 23 February 2026
The housing theory of everything pins inequality, climate change, obesity, and declining fertility on the West’s inability to build enough homes. My new favorite theory of everything is the orality theory of everything. The most enthusiastic modern proponent of the orality theory of everything that I know of is Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal, the co-host of the Odd Lots podcast. But he goes one step further in a way that’s really surprising, and this is the part I’d really love you to comment on. That’s oral; that’s conversation.

Latest:
The Alysa Liu Effect
NEWS | 23 February 2026
Begin with the hair—which, after all, Alysa Liu invites us to do. Liu takes all the tears in the kiss-and-cry zone—where so many skaters have suffered fierce whispers from unforgiving coaches and devastating appraisals in the form of “judges’ marks”—and dries them. Cloaked in a dress that looked like it was made of gold coins, and that seemed to give her a jauntiness on the ice, Liu completed a strenuous seven triple jumps. Who is going to argue with a gold medal? The gold medal is “a physical object,” she said.

Breaking:
Winter Olympics Photo of the Day: Cross Jump
NEWS | 23 February 2026
Cameron Spencer / GettyYouri Duplessis-Kergomard of Team France leads Oliver Davies of Team Great Britain, Terence Tchiknavorian of Team France, and Melvin Tchiknavorian of Team France in the men’s ski cross 1/8 finals on Day 15 of the 2026 Winter Olympic games, at Livigno Air Park, on February 21, 2026. Previously:

Trending:
What to Expect from Trump’s State of the Union Address
NEWS | 23 February 2026
On Tuesday, President Trump will deliver the first State of the Union address of his second term. On Washington Week With The Atlantic, panelists joined to examine what to expect from the president’s speech as his poll numbers fall, and more. The economy is one subject that is expected to feature heavily in Trump’s upcoming address. Joining guest moderator Vivian Salama, a staff writer at The Atlantic, to discuss this and more: Baker; Eugene Daniels, a senior Washington correspondent and co-host of The Weekend on MSNOW; Lisa Desjardins, a congressional correspondent for PBS News Hour; Susan Glasser, a staff writer at The New Yorker. Watch the full episode here.

This Just In:
What Would War With Iran Look Like?
NEWS | 23 February 2026
I asked current and former defense officials to help me project what a war intended to achieve these four desired outcomes might look like. Eliminating those weapons, as well as other elements of Iran’s defense, could be another possible goal of any upcoming campaign. Of all the targets in Iran that Trump has mentioned, he has talked of Iran’s nuclear program the most. (After the June strikes, Iran fired some missiles at a U.S. base, but they did not do much damage.) “I think we should come off the idea that we are going to ever obliterate the nuclear program.

Today:
How the Supreme Court Spared America
NEWS | 23 February 2026
First and foremost, tariffs impose taxes that are paid by Americans, and thus they are not purely a matter of foreign policy. But Gorsuch, in his concurring opinion, made a strong argument that the president’s claim to almost unlimited tariff authority would violate nondelegation. Since first imposing the Liberation Day tariffs, Trump has repeatedly suspended and reimposed various elements of them. If allowed to stand, the IEEPA tariffs would have created much greater opportunities for such corruption. Yesterday’s decision signals that a majority of the Court is seriously skeptical of claims of sweeping executive tariff authority.

Top Stories:
The Dire Meaning of Gallup’s Announcement
NEWS | 23 February 2026
Gallup’s most recent presidential-approval poll, in December, had Trump at 36 percent—well below the RealClearPolitics poll average of 42 percent. Assuming the worst is often prudent, but Gallup’s own explanation—citing changes in the company’s business strategy—makes a sad commercial sense. The poll’s methods were misleading but earned countless headlines nonetheless. When Gallup’s methods show Trump six points lower than the polling consensus, does that reveal something about Trump? The Gallup poll once seemed to be nothing less than the voice of the people.

World:
Books for the Busy Person
NEWS | 23 February 2026
But reading in short chunks doesn’t have to mean a shallow experience: Some works even benefit from those constraints. Today’s newsletter rounds up our writers’ suggestions for what to read when you don’t have much time—or much focus—to spare. Books for the Busy PersonSeven Books to Read When You Have No Time to ReadBy Bekah WaalkesThese titles are worth picking up, even if you have only a moment to spare. How Gen Z came to see books as a waste of time : Young people might be responding to a cultural message: Reading just isn’t that important, Rose Horowitch wrote in the Books Briefing newsletter in 2024. Young people might be responding to a cultural message: Reading just isn’t that important, Rose Horowitch wrote in the Books Briefing newsletter in 2024.

Current Events:
The Most American Form of Theater
NEWS | 23 February 2026
From the earliest days of this nation’s founding, debate has made for a distinctly American type of theater, an art that shapes both civic life and public entertainment. But in recent years, as American political debates have turned ever more into exhibits of vicious, mudslinging opposition rather than genuine ideological engagement, theater makers have gradually started to ask more pointed questions about the mixed legacy of this patriotic form. Hence Kramer/Fauci, the latest installment in the director Daniel Fish’s ongoing effort to find a new layer of meaning in great American texts. But it is a great American text all the same: an example of the kind of productive, open-minded disagreement responsible for much of what has made this country remarkable. He’s also helping establish a template for the kind of poisonous interchange that has since become so dominant in American discourse.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 23 February 2026
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