This is an edition of The Atlantic A daily newsletter that takes you through the day’s biggest stories, helps you discover new ideas and recommends the best of culture. Register here.
Read our list of popular stories from 2024, including the story of a disastrous cruise vacation, a deep dive into why Americans stopped hanging out, news of a life-changing medical breakthrough, and more.
Your 2024 reading list
Crying myself to sleep on the greatest cruise ship of all time
Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas
By Gary Shteyngart
Why Americans suddenly stopped hanging out
Too much aloneness leads to a crisis of social fitness.
By Derek Thompson
Do you remember the DNA you gave to 23andMe?
The company is in trouble and anyone who has spit in one of its test tubes should be concerned.
By Kristen V. Brown
The hand luggage bubble is in danger of bursting
Airplanes are not designed to carry that much luggage.
By Ian Bogost
The golden age of American Jews is coming to an end
Anti-Semitism on the right and left threatens to end an unprecedented period of security and prosperity for Jewish Americans — and destroy the liberal order they helped build.
By Franklin Foer
Seventy miles in hell
The Darién Gorge was once considered impassable. Now hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking dangerous terrain, violence, hunger and disease to travel through the jungle to the United States.
By Caitlin Dickerson
Trump: “I need the kind of generals Hitler had”
The Republican candidate’s preoccupation with dictators and his contempt for the American military are increasing.
By Jeffrey Goldberg
Throw away your black plastic spatula
This is probably how chemicals get into your cooking oil.
By Zoë Snaker
The Real Reason People Don’t Have Children
It is a need that government subsidies and better family policies cannot necessarily meet.
By Christine Emba
End phone-based childhood now
The environment in which children grow up today is hostile to human development.
By Jonathan Haidt
The cystic fibrosis breakthrough that changed everything
The disease used to guarantee an early death – but a new treatment has given many patients the chance to live decades longer than expected. What are they doing now?
By Sarah Zhang
The elite students who can’t read books
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
By Rose Horowitch
* Main image source “The Golden Age of American Jews Comes to an End”: Top row from left to right: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty; Universal History Archive/Getty. Middle row from left to right: Robert Mitra / WWD / Penske Media / Getty; Ulf Andersen/Getty; Jean-Régis Roustan / Roger Viollet / Getty; CBS Photo Archive/Getty; Daily Herald / Mirrorpix / Getty; Bettman/Getty; David Lefranc/Getty; Bettman/Getty; Frederick M. Brown / Getty; CBS Photo Archive/Getty; Theo Wargo/Getty; Max B. Miller / Archive Photos / Getty. Bottom row from left to right: ABC Photo Archives/Getty; Bachrach/Getty; Getty; Bernard Gotfryd/Getty.
If you purchase a book through a link in this article, we will receive a commission. Thank you for the support The Atlantic.
