Cristin Milioti Reveals Whether She Thinks Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” References Her ‘30 Rock’ Character

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Christine Brennan’s questioning of Carrington highlights an ugly trend in discussing Caitlin Clark’s rookie year.

Major League Baseball legend Pete Rose has died at the age of 83, the medical examiner in Clark County, Nevada, confirmed to ABC News on Monday.

A National Institutes of Health (NIH) public liaison for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests — who taught a senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci how to “make emails disappear” — is refusing to testify before a House committee investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an Aug. 5 letter signed by her lawyers,...

Pete Rose, the MLB legend and all-time hits leader whose historic career was followed by a lifetime ban over a gambling controversy, has died.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.This weekend, at his rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump descended into a spiral of rage and incoherence that was startling even by his standards. I know I’ve said this before, but this weekend felt different: Trump himself, as my colleague David Graham wrote today, admitted that he’s decided to start going darker than usual.At this point, voters have everything they need to know about this election. (Tomorrow, the vice-presidential candidates will debate each other, which might not have much of an impact beyond providing another opportunity for J. D. Vance to drive down his already-low likability numbers.) Here are some realities that will likely shape the next four weeks.Trump is going to get worse.I’m not quite sure what happened to Trump in Erie, but he seems to be in some sort of emotional tailspin. The race is currently tied; Trump, however, is acting as if he’s losing badly and he’s struggling to process the loss. Other candidates, when faced with such a close election, might hitch up their pants, take a deep breath, and think about changing their approach, but that’s never been Trump’s style. Instead, Trump gave us a preview of the next month: He is going to ratchet up the racism, incoherence, lies, and calls for violence. If the polls get worse, Trump’s mental state will likely follow them.Policy is not suddenly going to matter.Earlier this month, the New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote about very specific policy questions that Kamala Harris must answer to earn his vote. Harris has issued plenty of policy statements, and Stephens surely knows it. Such demands are a dodge: Policy is important, but Stephens and others, apparently unable to overcome their reticence to vote for a Democratic candidate, are using a focus on it as a way to rationalize their role as bystanders in an existentially important election.MAGA Republicans, for their part, claim that policy is so important to them that they’re willing to overlook the odiousness of a candidate such as North Carolina’s gubernatorial contender Mark Robinson. But neither Trump nor other MAGA candidates, including Robinson, have any interest in policy. Instead, they create cycles of rage: They gin up fake controversies, thunder that no one is doing anything about these ostensibly explosive issues, and then promise to fix them all by punishing other Americans.Major news outlets are not likely to start covering Trump differently.Spotting headlines in national news sources in which Trump’s ravings are “sanewashed” to sound as if they are coherent policy has become something of a sport on social media. After Trump went on yet another unhinged tirade in Wisconsin this past weekend, Bloomberg posted on X: “Donald Trump sharpened his criticism on border security in a swing-state visit, playing up a political vulnerability for Kamala Harris.” Well, yes, that’s one way to put it. Another would be to say: The GOP candidate seemed unstable and made several bizarre remarks during a campaign speech. Fortunately, Trump’s performances create a lot of videos where people can see his emotional state for themselves.News about actual conditions in the country probably isn’t going to have much of an impact now.This morning, the CNN anchor John Berman talked with the Republican House member Tom Emmer, who said that Joe Biden and Harris “broke the economy.” Berman countered that a top economist has called the current U.S. economy the best in 35 years.Like so many other Trump defenders, Emmer didn’t care. He doesn’t have to. Many voters—and this is a bipartisan problem—have accepted the idea that the economy is terrible (and that crime is up, and that the cities are in flames, and so on). Gas could drop to a buck a gallon, and Harris could personally deliver a week’s worth of groceries to most Americans, and they’d probably still say (as they do now) that they are doing well, but they believe that it’s just awful everywhere else.Undecided voters have everything they need to know right in front of them.Some voters likely think that sitting out the election won’t change much. As my colleague Ronald Brownstein pointed out in a recent article, many “undecided” voters are not really undecided between the candidates: They’re deciding whether to vote at all. But they should take as a warning Trump’s fantasizing during the Erie event about dealing with crime by doing something that sounds like it’s from the movie The Purge. The police aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told: If you do anything, you’re going to lose your pension; you’re going to lose your family, your house, your car … One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out, and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know? It’ll end immediately. This weird dystopian moment is not the only sign that Trump and his movement could upend the lives of wavering nonvoters. Trump, for months, has been making clear that only two groups exist in America: those who support him, and those who don’t—and anyone in that second group, by his definition, is “scum,” and his enemy.Some of Trump’s supporters agree and are taking their cues from him. For example, soon after Trump and Vance singled out Springfield, Ohio, for being too welcoming of immigrants, one of the longtime local business owners—a fifth-generation Springfielder—started getting death threats for employing something like 30 Haitians in a company of 330 people. (His 80-year-old mother is also reportedly getting hateful calls. So much for the arguments that Trump voters are merely concerned about maintaining a sense of community out there in Real America.)Nasty phone calls aimed at old ladies in Ohio and Trump’s freak-out in Erie should bring to an end any further deflections from uncommitted voters about not having enough information to decide what to do.I won’t end this depressing list by adding that “turnout will decide the election,” because that’s been obvious for years. But I think it’s important to ask why this election, despite everything we now know, could tip to Trump.Perhaps the most surprising but disconcerting reality is that the election, as a national matter, isn’t really that close. If the United States took a poll and used that to select a president, Trump would lose by millions of votes—just as he would have lost in 2016. Federalism is a wonderful system of government but a lousy way of electing national leaders: The Electoral College system (which I long defended as a way to balance the interests of 50 very different states) is now lopsidedly tilted in favor of real estate over people.Understandably, this means that pro-democracy efforts are focused on a relative handful of people in a handful of states, but nothing—absolutely nothing—is going to shake loose the faithful MAGA voters who have stayed with Trump for the past eight years. Trump’s mad gibbering at rallies hasn’t done it; the Trump-Harris debate didn’t do it; Trump’s endorsement of people like Robinson didn’t do it. Trump once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. Close enough: He’s now rhapsodized about a night of cops brutalizing people on Fifth Avenue and everywhere else.For years, I’ve advocated asking fellow citizens who support Trump whether he, and what he says, really represents who they are. After this weekend, there are no more questions to ask.Related: Trump is taking a dark turn. Peter Wehner: The Republican freak show Here are three new stories from The Atlantic: North Carolina was set up for disaster. Will RFK Jr.’s supporters vote for Trump? Hussein Ibish: Hezbollah got caught in its own trap. Today’s News Israeli officials said that commando units have been conducting ground raids in southern Lebanon. Israel’s military is also planning to carry out a limited ground operation in Lebanon, which will focus on the border, according to U.S. officials. At least 130 people were killed across six states and hundreds may be missing after Hurricane Helene made landfall last week. A Georgia judge struck down the state’s effective six-week abortion ban, ruling that it is unconstitutional. Dispatches The Wonder Reader: The decision to have kids comes down to a lot more than “baby fever”—and it may be about more than government support too, Isabel Fattal writes. Explore all of our newsletters here.Evening Read Director Bartlett Sher, star Robert Downey Jr., and writer Ayad Akhtar OK McCausland for The Atlantic The Playwright in the Age of AIBy Jeffrey Goldberg I’ve been in conversation for quite some time with Ayad Akhtar, whose play Disgraced won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013, about artificial generative intelligence and its impact on cognition and creation. He’s one of the few writers I know whose position on AI can’t be reduced to the (understandable) plea For God’s sake, stop threatening my existence! In McNeal, he not only suggests that LLMs might be nondestructive utilities for human writers, but also deployed LLMs as he wrote (he’s used many of them, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini included). To my chagrin and astonishment, they seem to have helped him make an even better play. As you will see in our conversation, he doesn’t believe that this should be controversial. Read the full article.More From The Atlantic Putin can’t keep his private life private. The abandonment of Ukraine America needs a disaster corps, Zoë Schlanger argues. “Dear Therapist”: I ran into the man who raped me. Culture Break Amanda Marsalis / Trunk Archive Remember. Kris Kristofferson’s songs couched intimate moments in cosmic terms, pushing country music in an existentialist direction, Spencer Kornhaber writes.Debate. Twenty years after Lost’s premiere, the mistreatment of Hurley on the show (streaming on Netflix and Hulu) has become only more obvious, Rebecca Bodenheimer writes.Play our daily crossword.Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

The Israeli military says it has begun a "limited, localized" ground operation against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

With a new moon solar eclipse in Libra on Oct. 2, a Jupiter retrograde and death daddy Pluto going direct in Capricorn midmonth, the spooky season does not deign to be easy or breezy.

Maybe the WNBA isn't ready for primetime after all?

“Less is more. And for some of our critics, even less would be even more," Martin said. 

US and Israeli officials say it is a limited incursion aimed at taking out outposts used by the terror group.

In the final weeks of the 2024 campaign, Trump is using increasingly shocking and bleak rhetoric to go after Harris and to paint a picture of a country in disrepair.

The All-Star forward is still dealing with inflammation in his surgically repaired right knee and it might be an ongoing issue this season and rest of his career.

In the lead-up to the premiere of “Nobody Wants This,” questions about the show’s portrayal of Judaism were already being raised. Erin Foster addressed her approach to depicting it onscreen.

Scouted/The Daily Beast/Merit Beauty/Vivien Killilea/Getty Images.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.Ever since the buzzy beauty brand launched in early 2021, Merit Beauty’s no-fuss, minimalist formulas have won the hearts of many makeup-wearers. Known for its no-makeup-makeup aesthetic and clean, cruelty-free formulas, Merit Beauty’s tightly curated collection delivers effortless products formulated to be buildable and customizable, inclusive, and on-the-go-friendly. Its Minimalist stick—a lightweight foundation, concealer, and contour stick in one compact package—is certainly no exception.The non-greasy buildable complexion stick has won over countless beauty editors and makeup artists, but the brand’s base recently got a stellar celeb endorsement from none other than my hero, Martha Stewart. Stewart, who is an ambassador for Merit Beauty, used the Merit’s Minimalist Stick (along with several of the brand’s hero products) in a recent video posted to Instagram. The entrepreneur and lifestyle icon says Merit’s fuss-free and effective products help streamline her makeup routine. “I did that in under five minutes—easier than making a pot of soup.” Read more at The Daily Beast.

As communities across the Southeast reel from Hurricane Helene, America faces an unsettling question: Who, exactly, is in charge at the White House?

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began limited operations in Lebanon on Monday evening, continuing its battle against Hezbollah terrorists. The military killed several key figures of the group over the weekend.

NBC's "Saturday Night Live" had some fun at the expense of ABC News and its anchor David Muir over their "biased" presidential debate during the show's cold open.

Tony Vinciquerra is credited for quietly turning around the Culver City studio and pursuing a profitable strategy at a time when competitors have struggled with billion-dollar streaming losses.

The Rams might have cornerback Darious Williams and defensiver tackle Larrell Murchison back when they play host to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.

It appears Mount Everest hasn't reached peak growth.

A Georgia judge overturned the state's six-week abortion law, that was signed by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019, calling it "unconstitutional."

Frank Lavin, a diplomat during the George W. Bush administration who endorsed Nikki Haley, encourages other Haley supporters to vote for Kamala Harris.

'Sing Sing' actor JJ Velazquez was wrongly convicted of murder in the ’90s, the Manhattan district attorney said Monday. Velazquez found no cause to celebrate.

You'll talk about Mets 8, Braves 7 for years: astride water coolers, inside watering holes, whenever you find yourself in the company of Mets fans.

The city’s first public “smart” basketball hoop has been stripped of its Internet live-streaming feature at least partly because New Yorkers can’t be trusted not to do something obscene for the camera a la the Portal.

Students for Justice in Palestine is urging a judge to allow an Oct. 7 vigil at the University of Maryland, citing First Amendment rights.

Taxpayer-funded elections are not a prophylactic against political corruption, but instead have often enabled it.

Newsom has signed a bill into law that will ban the sale of tampons and other menstrual products that contain certain levels of potentially toxic chemicals.

A former staffer at the University of Kentucky floated the idea that God was using Hurricane Helene to punish Trump supporters in a social media post.

The former couple were once engaged, but have broken up several times including ending things a few weeks ago.

On Wednesday, Oct. 2, at 2:49 p.m. ET, we will be feeling the feels of the event.

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who’s shrugged off debate prep, should not underestimate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ahead of Tuesday night’s face-off, a fellow North Star State ex-lawmaker warns. And he should know — he had to become Walz when he played the gov in GOP gubernatorial debate practice. Tuesday night is the first and likely only...

Edwin Diaz finished off the win that punched the Mets’ postseason ticket, using sheer will when his arm (and brain on one occasion) failed him.

Two explosive devices were discovered at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, Florida, on Sunday and Monday, prompting partial evacuations, the police said.

Manhattan's Henrietta Hudson — one of the oldest lesbian bars in the country — is suing an angry “woke” crusader who has been ranting online that the gay watering hole is racist to patrons of color.

On his grueling five-and-a-half hour overnight trek -- most of which in total darkness -- David Jones scrambled over mountains of gnarly flood debris, dodged heavy machinery and even got stuck in the mud up to his knees.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance had Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) stand in for Tim Walz in his mock debates, while the Dem Minnesota governor chose Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to play the role of Vance for him.

East and Gulf Coast dockworkers are set to go on strike at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, shutting down 36 ports from Maine to Texas that handle about one-half of US ocean imports.

Rev. Franklin Graham of Samaritan's Purse on Monday spent time in Valdosta, Georgia, together with former president Donald Trump, to help those impacted by Hurricane Helene.

No, the former Pussycat Doll didn’t get into a fist fight in Shubert Alley — she’s the star of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical “Sunset Boulevard,” which started previews last weekend. 

The boy was cut three times on the face when the feud erupted on the corner near Springfield Gardens High School on Springfield Boulevard near 143rd Road around 2:45 p.m., according to cops and police sources.

Talk about damning with faint praise. The New York Times editorial board endorsed Kamala Harris for president on Monday — but the real headline should have been “anybody but Donald Trump.”

A defamation suit against Netflix boils down to how the company presented its story about Martha Scott, a fictionalization of what the show’s creator has described as a real-life stalking incident.

There were 200 pediatric flu-related deaths in the 2023-2024 season, compared to the previous high of 199 during the 2019-2022 season.

Reputed LA gangbanger Shanice Dyer was just 17 when she was convicted of a double murder and sentenced as a juvenile, serving less than four years. Now 22, she's accused of a new killing.

Sen. Rick Scott is calling on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to 'immediately reconvene' the Senate to consider additional FEMA funding in the wake of Helene's devastation.