2015: The Year in High-Stakes Handshakes
Diplomacy: It’s all in the wrist.
Diplomacy: It’s all in the wrist.
A guide to the returning hits and new shows on network, cable, and streaming services
Protecting your data usually means navigating a miserable user experience.
Several novels this year starred female protagonists as flawed and interesting as literature’s most memorable male characters.
New York’s police commissioner is feuding with his predecessor over whether the city is manipulating statistics.
Owners of firearms will have more rights in Texas and fewer rights in California in the new year, thanks to the nation’s deepening cultural divide.
Two top aides resigned from the Republican candidate’s team on Thursday, dealing the latest blow to a troubled effort.
And how this helped give rise to the criminal empire of Chapo Guzmán
Experts on banking and labor markets offer their reasons for optimism and pessimism going into 2016.
A documentary on state television gives a glimpse of Vladimir Putin’s philosophy.
The political science of a volatile issue—and why Ireland could be next
Flames tore through a 63-story skyscraper as revelers gathered for New Year's Eve celebrations.
Cities across the globe have dispatched thousands of police officers to patrol festivities amid fears of terrorist attacks.
Officials detained two suspected Islamic State militants who had planned attacks on New Year celebrations.
A new form of conflict emerged in 2015—from the Islamic State to the South China Sea.
The federal prosecutor’s office said two people were arrested in connection with a plot to stage attacks around the New Year’s celebration.
From Avatar to The Wizard of Oz, Aristotle to Shakespeare, there’s one clear form that dramatic storytelling has followed since its inception.
The American singer died Thursday at the age of 65.
On January 1st, laws raising the minimum wage in 12 states go into effect.
The president said Friday he will meet with the U.S. attorney general to consider executive action on firearms.
How Reagan’s fantasy about—and Mikhail Gorbachev’s fear of—space weapons ruined a plan to eliminate the entire U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals.
As Hitler's infamous book enters the public domain, its history shows that censorship can't stop dangerous ideas.
Exploring how meditation is done at a new studio in Manhattan.
On the messy and imprecise process of using one sense to do the work of another
Donna Ferrato on her ethnographic approach to documenting dangerous relationships
How a 17-year-old is pushing boundaries in her community
A story of an unexpected detour and seeking a new path
A few final thoughts on J.J. Abrams’s film, nostalgia, and the expectations game
The Atlantic’s editors and writers share their favorite titles—new, classic, or somewhere in between.
B.B. King, Grace Lee Boggs, Allen Toussaint, and 9 others who changed the world
A year’s worth of highlights from an increasingly vibrant genre
The Atlantic’s film critic picks the top titles—and doles out some less conventional awards.
In 2015, companies and individuals made some strides toward tackling the wage gap, the rarity of paid leave, and professional sexism.
The month’s best stories from around the web
Starting in 2016, companies in California will be required to justify any pay disparities between men and women doing "substantially similar" work.
Experts on race, gender, and labor offer their reasons for optimism and pessimism going into 2016.
As the Boomers age, there are going to be a lot more people living in poverty.
Experts on business, labor, and corporate governance offer their reasons for optimism and pessimism going into 2016.
Experts on the economy and the labor market offer their reasons for optimism and pessimism going into 2016.
Advances in treatment haven’t made a difference for many of the most vulnerable patients in the U.S.
People who volunteer lead longer, healthier lives. Some public-health experts believe the time has come for doctors to recommend it alongside diet and exercise.
Small innovations are adding up to signal that providers and insurers are interested in saving money for patients.
Resolutions often fail, but that doesn't make the New Year a bad time to say what you want from your life.
Why the holidays are a prime time for traveler’s constipation
The test could help reduce the number of intoxicated drivers on the road—or it could turn up too many false positives to be useful.
The agency announced on Monday an historic shift in longstanding regulations.
As the protest movement evolves, activists face pushback and growing pains.
When officers take the lives of those they are sworn to protect and serve, they undermine their own legitimacy.
Pennsylvania prosecutors have charged the comedian with aggravated indecent assault in connection with a 2004 incident.
Years after a federal investigation documented abuses in Houston-area lockups, a newspaper report finds that little has changed.
Forecasters said Wednesday that areas along the Mississippi River should expect more rising water.
Tech companies and workers are vilified while longtime homeowners who fight high-density growth continue to profit from rising rents and property values.
Despite the political pressure to prosecute cops in cases like Tamir Rice’s, the current system grants enormous leeway to officers who employ lethal force.
Mastering the subject has become less about learning and more about performance.
Experts on K-12 education offer their reasons for optimism and pessimism going forward.
Experts in the field offer their reasons for optimism and pessimism going forward.
“People were afraid this was going to be a ‘hippy-dippy-granola, nobody’s-going-to-get-into-trouble’ concept.”
Some of the most important issues of the year, from school discipline in elementary schools to students burdened with debt long after graduation.
They’re designed to provide extra attention to students who suffer from trauma. But are they worth all the extra taxpayer dollars?
The new law could mean it will still be business as usual.
Republicans may have a lock on Congress and the nation’s statehouses—and could well win the presidency—but the liberal era ushered in by Barack Obama is only just beginning.
How beards and mustaches influence the way men are perceived
Each year, a new generation of Monarchs flies south for the winter—but habitat loss is making the journey harder. An Object Lesson.
Complex systems like ecological food webs, the brain, and the climate all give off a characteristic signal when disaster is around the corner.
Science is not a separate realm that sits outside culture.
Alexander von Humboldt revolutionized the Western conception of nature by describing it as an interconnected living web—and in doing so, inspired thinkers from Darwin to Thoreau.
City officials are hoping that a new influx of fish into the Chicago River will help cut down on water pollution.
America is again caught between nationalists longing for the glories of an imagined past, and activists invoking ideals the nation has never yet attained.
A roundup of some of our favorite stories that we published in the past year.
The overflow room at Trump’s New Hampshire rally was packed to the gills—but low energy at best.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham announced on December 21 that he will drop out of the nomination battle.
Both parties are hoping a new app for tallying votes will smooth an election plagued by errors in 2012.
From Ferguson to Charleston, longstanding problems erupted back into public view.
The GOP planned a dynastic restoration in 2016. Instead, it triggered an internal class war. Can the party reconcile the demands of its donors with the interests of its rank and file?
Amid the usual franchise fare and long-awaited sequels are a handful of original works to get excited about.
Fewer than 20 percent of Rotten Tomatoes-excerpted reviews are by women.
Its been praised as a way to make Hollywood more diverse. But when does acceptance become erasure?
Quentin Tarantino’s newest film is a dazzling, excessively vile post-Civil War western.
The Cavaliers’ star is shattering the ages-old divide between athlete and decision-maker.
The latest novel from Mary Rakow, This Is Why I Came, could be called the “agnostic Gospels.”
An important contribution to one of the great disputes of our time
Stories not to miss from around the web this month
A recent dustup over smart light bulbs illuminates a larger problem.
A new study finds machines can be trained to predict, with astonishing accuracy, the photos and illustrations people will remember.
Some of the military-technology agency’s images are disconcerting. Others are actually kind of cute.
“Swear, and swear often! But not if you want a promotion. Or if you’re prone to injury.”
What allowed sexual abuse to go unchecked at the prestigious private school in the 1970s?
“Industries upon industries, even entire religions, have been predicated on the premise that eating (certain things) is bad and will kill you.”
Several years ago, Bassam Khabieh was an IT administrator working in Damascus, Syria, near his hometown of Douma. Then, the Syrian war began. Soon, Khabieh picked up a camera and returned to Douma to document the effects of years of shelling and urban warfare.