Radio Atlantic

Is the U.S. Running Venezuela or Not?

05 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

After the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured by U.S. forces over the weekend, President Donald Trump announced that America ...

No Easy Fix | An Update on Evan

01 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In July, we published a series of stories about San Francisco’s attempt to address a crisis unfolding on the city’s streets. We followed Evan, who...

Netflix vs. Paramount

25 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It was a great year for Warner Bros. Discovery: Two of its movies (One Battle After Another and Sinners) are front-runners for the Academy Award for B...

ISIS Never Really Went Away

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

More than a decade after its peak, the Islamic State has changed, but it isn’t defeated. This past weekend, the jihadist group reemerged in connecti...

He's Undocumented. She's Not.

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A young Chicago couple—one is an undocumented immigrant from Poland, and the other is a U.S. citizen—face a choice: stay in the place they’ve ca...

Is This the End of Kids on Social Media?

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australia is about to become the first country in the world to ban kids under 16 from having social-media accounts. Other countries have attempted par...

How Alison Roman Does Thanksgiving

27 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Alison Roman’s newest cookbook, “Something From Nothing,” her pantry is her primary inspiration. In this live conversation, we talk with Roma...

When Border Patrol Comes to Town

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When the Trump administration promised a mass deportation campaign they initially relied on Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  Disappointed with ...

What If AI Is a Bubble?

13 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The money keeps coming. Global spending on artificial intelligence is projected to hit $375 billion this year. In 2026, the figure is supposed to appr...

Will 2026 Be a Fair Fight?

06 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Go ahead, Democrats. Enjoy your victory parties. But after that, brace yourselves, because Republicans may not be playing by the same rules a year fro...

Strike First, Explain Never

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

So far, the U.S. has blown up 14 boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, killing at least 57 people. In the two months since the strikes began, the ad...

18 Minutes From Nuclear Annihilation

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, A House of Dynamite, the clock is ticking. The film’s fictional president of the United States has less than 20 mi...

If the Voting Rights Act Falls

16 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the last remaining section of the Voting Rights Act, a civil rights law designed to ensure tha...

Saudi Arabia Gets the Last Laugh

09 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia concludes this week, but the outrage (from comedians who didn’t go) and self-justification (from comedian...

Weaponizing the Justice Department

02 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump is using the Department of Justice to try to punish his political enemies. How much can the president bend the DOJ, an institut...

An American Education | 2. Testing Teachers for 'Wokeness'

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hanna Rosin sits down with Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters to ask him about a purity test for teachers and a nearly scandalous incident tha...

Live from The Atlantic Festival: ‘2026 Is the Battlefield’

21 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A live conversation about authoritarian forces in America with Anne Applebaum, an Atlantic staff writer, and Garry Kasparov, the former world chess ch...

David Letterman on the Threats to Late-Night Hosts

19 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Yesterday, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was suspended indefinitely. It’s a shocking moment for free speech, given the order in which events unfo...

An American Education | 1. Is Oklahoma Breaking Public Schools?

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

American public education is changing. And, in many ways, Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters is at the center of it, trying to push for Bibles...

Rupert Murdoch Gets His Succession Finale

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

He was, after all, the eldest boy. The family drama that inspired HBO’s Succession ended this week with a settlement that ensures Rupert Murdoch’s...

Welcome to the Vaccine Free-for-All

04 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to dismantle the national vaccine infrastructure, states have started going their o...

A Blueprint for Military Takeovers

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump recently deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and has talked about federalizing the Guard in other cities across th...

Peace in Ukraine Is Not a Real-Estate Deal

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There was so much symbolism in President Donald Trump’s two most recent international summits—in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir ...

No Easy Fix | 3. A Golden Opportunity

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In July, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for an expansion of involuntary commitment—forcing people into treatment facilitie...

No Easy Fix | 2. Tolerance

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, U.S. cities began trying new ways to stop the spread of infection among drug users. Ideas that wer...

No Easy Fix | 1. Vanishing Point

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For the past five years, American cities have tried—and often failed—to meaningfully address worsening homelessness and addiction.  In San Franc...

A New Kind of Family Separation

24 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration is again going after undocumented minors—but their approach is different than it was during his first presidency.  – –...

Epstein Conspiracy, or Epstein Conspiracy Theory?

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump and his Department of Justice kicked the conspiracy-theory beehive last week when they rescinded previous promises to make public the gov...

Should You Be Having More Babies?

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the United States and many other Western countries, the decision to have children or not is sometimes framed as a political affiliation: You’re e...

The Patriotic Punk

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg talks to Ken Casey, frontman for the Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys, about the time he called out...

Who Could Rule Iran Next?

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We talk with the writer Arash Azizi about what kinds of seismic changes could be coming for his home country of Iran, and whether he thinks they could...

Change Your Personality

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A few years ago, Olga Khazan, author of Me, But Better, set out to change her personality, which even she found unpleasant. After consulting with expe...

The Real Problem With Trump's Parade

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this bonus episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with staff writer Tom Nichols about how all the pieces fit together: the military parade, the preside...

Elon and the Genius Trap

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Explaining how Musk tanked his reputation has many ways: First, he alienated environmentalists by teaming up with Trump, and then he alienated Trump f...

Mossad’s Former Chief Calls the War in Gaza ‘Useless’

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In April, 250 former Israeli intelligence officers signed their names to an open letter of protest asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to pro...

Why Pilots Don't Get Therapy

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Atlantic’s Jocelyn Frank reports on the detailed system that may be unintentionally leading pilots to avoid the mental-health care that they nee...

What RFK Jr. Doesn’t Understand About Autism

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We talk with Eric Garcia, author of We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation and a political reporter at the Independent, about the myths ...

Trump and the Crown Prince

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Lavender carpets. Golden swords. Arabian horses. President Trump arrived in the Gulf to a royal welcome. Both sides seem delighted about what they’r...

The Art of the Doll

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, Donald Trump mused that “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know?” We talk with a doll manufacturer and a p...

Why Is Trump So Into Crypto?

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the past few years, Donald Trump has changed his mind about cryptocurrency. He’s gone from believing it was “based on thin air” to wanting th...

Trump Is Enjoying Himself

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why would President Donald Trump invite The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Trump has attacked as a “total sleazebag,” to mee...

Elon Musk's Luck Runs Out

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For a while, it seemed as if DOGE Elon and Tesla Elon could exist in the same space-time continuum. One of them carried out Donald Trump’s ruthless ...

Sarah McBride Is Used to the Hate

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah McBride made models of the White House when she was 6. Her childhood dream, as a Delawarean, was to meet Joe Biden. Then last November, one of ...

Tariffs Are Paused. Uncertainty Isn't.

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The stock market has been tanking since President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs a week ago. Then Wednesday mid-afternoon—after Trump rever...

Why Trump Wants to Control Universities

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If the Trump administration’s actions and rhetoric against universities sound vaguely familiar, that may be because they’ve already happened elsew...

Classified, or Not Classified?

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, and staff writer Shane Harris published more details from a Signal chat between President Donald T...

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Our Editor Their War Plans

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, received a connection request on Signal from a “Michael Waltz,” which is the name of President...

The Bird-Flu Tipping Point

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been five years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. But there may be another potential pandemic on the horizon: bird flu. Against the ...

Water Is Not Political

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How has the cease-fire changed water access in Gaza? And what does it mean when the people in charge of keeping the water flowing are displaced? Host ...

The Mind Readers

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

How far would a parent go to understand their child? How much might a parent believe? A popular new podcast claims that some nonspeaking kids with aut...

What Does a Robot With a Soul Sound Like?

28 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The sound designer Randy Thom was faced with a challenge: What does a robot sound like? And what if that robot learns to love? Get more from your favo...

The Five Eyes Have Noticed

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We talk with staff writer Anne Applebaum about what she calls the “end of the post–World War II order.” We also talk with staff writer Shane Har...

Americans Are Stuck. Who's to Blame?

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Americans used to move all the time to better their lives. Then they stopped. Why? Read Yoni Appelbaum’s cover story on The Atlantic here. Get more ...

The Strange, Lonely Childhood of Neko Case

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In a new memoir, the singer-songwriter Neko Case recounts a childhood of poverty and neglect: a mother who left her and a father who was barely there....

Purge Now, Pay Later

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Parts of the federal government are being dismantled. But although the decisions from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are unusual—perhaps even ...

The War for Your Attention

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our attention is finite and valuable. And it’s nearing its breaking point. In a new book, MSNBC host Chris Hayes explains how everything—from poli...

The Chaos of Blanket Pardons

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In a matter of hours after being sworn into office, President Donald Trump delivered on a promise in a way that even high-level Republicans didn’t s...

January 6 and the Case for Oblivion

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Donald Trump prepares to take office again, the country is still coming to terms with what happened on January 6, 2021. But perhaps the best way to...

Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Coalition Starts to Fracture

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The MAGA alliance that helped elect Donald Trump is starting to show signs of fracturing. It recently came to a head after an important argument broke...

Me, My Future, and I

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hanna talks to the creators of an AI project called Future You. She also has a conversation with a future version of herself. But the person she meets...

The Books We Read in High School (Part 2)

26 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why should a teenager bother to read a book, when there are so many other demands on their time? We hear from Atlantic staffers about the books they r...

The Books We Read in High School (Part 1)

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, professors at elite colleges told Atlantic writer Rose Horowitch that their students don’t read whole books anymore. They blamed cell phon...

“We Live Here Now” and Trump’s Retelling of January 6

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As Donald Trump returns to the White House, his desire to recast January 6 as a day of “love and peace,” as he called it during his campaign, seem...

How Fragile Is Our Vaccine Infrastructure?

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Anti-vaccine sentiment is, more or less, as old as vaccines. When Cotton Mather promoted inoculations against smallpox in the 1720s, someone threw a f...

Why Are You Still Cooking With That?

28 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We warned you last month to “Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula.” In a recent study conducted about consumer products, researchers concluded kit...

Trump's Vision to Remake the Military

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With all the noise around Donald Trump’s nominees, it’s easy to lose sight of his administration’s bigger plan: placing people who are unfailing...

Democrats’ Immigration Problem

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We hash out the “Democrats are too woke” theory with New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, who tweeted the day after the election: “The far left is a gi...

Are We Living in a Different America?

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the last few months of his campaign, Trump was free and open with his dictatorial impulses, as he talked about punishing “enemies from within.”...

Does America Want Chaos?

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One thing tomorrow’s election will test is Americans’ appetite for chaos, particularly the kind that Donald Trump has been exhibiting in the last ...

Is Journalism Ready for a Second Trump Administration?

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has mused, a few times, about throwing reporters in jail if they refuse to leak their sources and taking away broa...

Trump and the January 6 Memory Hole

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The way Donald Trump talks about January 6 has evolved over time. Directly after the insurrection, he condemned the rioters, although he added that th...

Autocracy Is in the Details

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Autocrats often dare their followers to believe absurd claims, as a kind of loyalty test, because “humor and fear can be quite close together someti...

It Could All Come Down to North Carolina

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

North Carolina has voted for a Democratic president only once since the 1970s. But the party’s dream to flip the state never dies—and in fact, cou...

The Fight to Be the Most “Pro-family”

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The American family continuously evolves. People are marrying later, and having fewer children. Gay people get married. People can publicly swear off ...

The Modern Political Assassin

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One prevailing stereotype of a political assassin is someone with strong convictions. Another stereotype conjures up James Bond, a professional with a...

A Campaign-Song Nightmare

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rachel had a hit song. Then it became inextricably linked with a failed presidential campaign. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you su...

Trump, Triggered

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kamala Harris expertly manipulated Trump. It won her the debate. Can it win her the White House? Staff writers Elaine Godfrey and Mark Leibovich to ex...

The Neck Fans Are Coming

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After successive heat waves across the country this summer, people finally found an unexpected source of relief: the neck fan. Consumer-product genius...

Laughing at Trump

29 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Democrats are lately employing a strategy against Donald Trump that he has been using effectively against his opponents for years: mockery. Where did ...

Scripts | 3. A Special Drug

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The patients had tried everything. Except ketamine.   This is the third and final part of Scripts, a new three-part miniseries from Radio Atlantic...

Scripts | 2. The Mandala Effect

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cooper thought he understood how his psych meds were affecting him. There was a lot he didn’t know. This is part two of a new three-part minise...

Scripts | 1. A Hard Pill to Swallow

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One medication could help end the opioid crisis. Why are so few people taking it? This episode is the first in a new three-part miniseries from R...

One Israeli Hostage’s Unusual Experience in Gaza

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Liat Beinin Atzili was kidnapped on October 7 and spent more than 50 days in a Gazan home, We spoke with her in Washington, where she traveled to talk...

The Devil’s Bargain of Sports Betting

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After a 2018 Supreme Court decision kicked off a wave of legalization across America, sports gambling has become an integral part of how fans consume ...

Biden Steps Aside. How Might Harris Step Up?

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joe Biden has announced he’ll no longer seek reelection. With a little over 100 days left until the vote, he’s endorsed Vice President Kamala Harr...

Trump’s Wholesale Renovation of the Republican Party

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Republican Party is gathered in Wisconsin to renominate Donald Trump for president. The convention follows a near-miss assassination attempt on Tr...

The Long Simmer of Political Violence in America

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

America is not new to political violence, but the near-assassination of Donald Trump is an attack without comparison in 21st-century politics. How do ...

A Crisis for Democrats

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After his disastrous debate performance in June, President Biden faced calls from Democratic lawmakers and power brokers to step aside. But with the p...

Who Really Benefits From Remote Work?

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The prevailing narrative of remote work has often been boiled down to: Workers love it, and bosses hate it. But according to Natalia Emanuel, a labor ...

Britain’s Conservatives Are About to Lose Big

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Parliamentary elections on July 4th look bleak for Britain’s ruling Conservative Party. The Tories will almost certainly lose power for the first ti...

The Airport Lounge Arms Race

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For years now, the fanciest places in air travel keep getting fancier. Airport lounges have become bigger, nicer, and far more ubiquitous than only a ...

What Cities Can Teach Us About Life Online

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Humanity’s transition to life online is disorienting, but perhaps not without comparison. According to the researcher danah boyd, people faced simil...

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Homelessness?

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Later this summer, the Supreme Court will rule on City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, one of the most important cases on homelessness to come up in a long...

Is Sasha Velour in Danger?

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sasha Velour won RuPaul's Drag Race with her spectacular rose-petal lip sync. She wrote and illustrated The Big Reveal: An Illustrated Manifesto of Dr...

Russia’s Psychological Warfare Against Ukraine

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After months of struggle with little movement, the war in Ukraine may be nearing a crucial point. With American aid stalled for months, the fight has ...

Finally, Male Contraceptives

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Researchers have been hard at work on a number of male contraceptives that could hit the market in the next couple of decades. Options include a hormo...

The Chaos of AI Voice Cloning

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when voices can be copied so well they can fool friends, family… and voters? Staff writer Charlie Warzel has followed the explosion of...

If Plants Could Talk

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Staff writer Zoë Schlanger is the proud owner of a petunia that glows in the dark. But she doesn’t just appreciate the novelty houseplant as work o...

In Search of America on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Writer Gary Shteyngart set sail on the inaugural voyage of the biggest cruise ship ever built—the Icon of the Seas—in search of the "real" America...

Trump’s Courtroom Campaign

18 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Stormy Daniels case may have a less serious fact pattern. But it might turn out to be the one chance to hold Donald Trump accountable for election...