With his gifts of intellect and rhetoric, J. D. Vance might have brought the country’s conflicting strands together. Instead, he took a path of extreme divisiveness to the peak of power. George Packer reports on the vice president’s transformation:

Ukrainians are confident that they can continue fighting—even without the same level of American support, @anneapplebaum reports.⁠ . Read more:

Supai, a remote village at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, is the last place in America where the USPS delivers mail by mule, Sarah Yager writes. The mules provide a crucial connection to the outside world—and a reminder of the country’s founding promise.

“Musk came to Washington all Cybertrucks and chain saws, ready to destroy the bureaucracy,” write @AshleyRParker and @michaelscherer. But as he winds down his service, “he has found himself isolated within the upper reaches of the Trump administration”:

Multi-level-marketing companies are considered fringe businesses, but their values and practices have bled into the American workplace. @loracorkelley on how they spawned the gig economy:

When you peer inside a large language model’s black box, you can see what it tells you when it thinks you’re rich—and what it tells you when it thinks you’re not. @zittrain on the assumptions AI makes about people:

A “Heat Index” recently syndicated in at least two newspapers seemed like a normal summer guide—until readers noticed how much was made up. @dlberes and @cwarzel on the future of AI slop:

“Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East was remarkably successful, and the president’s political opponents would do well to acknowledge the fact and understand what made it so,” @ExumAM writes:

"Trump could deliver lower drug prices to the American people if he really wanted to," Rogé Karma writes. "Instead, he’s offering snake oil."

Two new books show how the health-care industry’s pursuit of profit helped break trust and pave the way for dangerous ideas, writes Adam M. Lowenstein:

A recent story about staying in touch with friends inspired @stephaniebye_ to ask readers to share their own methods. In the Sunday Daily, she rounded up some of their replies about how they maintain their friendships.

With his gifts of intellect and rhetoric, J. D. Vance might have brought the country’s conflicting strands together. Instead, he took a path of extreme divisiveness to the peak of power. George Packer reports on the vice president’s transformation:

.@anneapplebaum speaks with @davidfrum about how authoritarian regimes seek to break institutions, and the pain of losing friendships to politics. Watch and subscribe to “The David Frum Show”:

In 1965, William F. Buckley Jr. and James Baldwin squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped, Sam Tanenhaus writes.

Your next game obsession is now at @TheAtlantic. Start playing today:

Although books have the power to take readers to new places through vivid detail, reading can also be a practice in slow, sustained attention that sharpens one’s perception of the world around them—especially when done outdoors, Bekah Waalkes writes. Each book on this list is

Cuts to USDA’s honeybee programs could spell disaster for farmers and beekeepers, Joanna Thompson reports:

Kim Kardashian showed up to testify in court wearing lots and lots of diamonds. It sent a message—and not a particularly subtle one, @elcush writes:

“A first love, for so many, has been a milestone on the path to adulthood,” writes Faith Hill, “a challenging, thrilling, world-expanding experience that can help people understand who they are and whom they’re looking for.” What’s lost if that rite of passage disappears?

It took just a few hours for MAHA devotees to question Joe Biden’s prostate-cancer diagnosis, @BenMazer writes. "Their weird discomfort with disease—and their outré views on cancer in particular—is being refracted through a sea of false, indecent speculations.".

The DOJ charged Representative LaMonica McIver with assault after she visited an immigrant-detention facility. “Interpreting this as anything other than an attempt to punish criticism and intimidate Democrats is difficult,” @GrahamDavidA writes.