President Trump fires acting attorney general for defying order, man charged in attack on a mosque in Quebec, and more from the United States and around the world.
President Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
—President Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday night, hours after she instructed the Justice Department not to argue in defense of Trump’s immigration and refugee executive order. More here
—Alexandre Bissonnette, the suspect behind the deadly shooting at a Quebec mosque, was charged for perpetrating the attack that killed six people and injured 19 others. More here
—We’re tracking the news stories of the day below. All updates are in Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).
Transgender boys will now be able to participate in the Boy Scouts of America, the organization announced Monday, accepting children based on their gender identities. Until now, the Boy Scouts only based its enrollment on the gender listed on birth certificates. But, the organization said in a statement, “that approach is no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently, and these laws vary widely from state to state.” Some Boy Scouts have previously been asked to leave the program after leaders found out the children were transgender. The new policy goes into effect immediately. The Boy Scouts have adopted more LGBTQ-friendly policies in recent years, amid pressure. In 2013, the organization said it would allow openly gay children to participate, and in 2015 allowed in gay troop leaders and employees. LGBTQ rights activists celebrated Monday’s announcement.
Trump Fires Acting Attorney General for Not Defending Immigration Order
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Updated at 9:45 p.m.
President Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday night, hours after she instructed the Justice Department not to argue in defense of Trump’s immigration and refugee executive order.
“The acting attorney general, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States,” the White House said in an unusual statement announcing the dismissal. “Ms. Yates is an Obama administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”
The White House said Dana Boente, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, would serve as acting attorney general in Yates’s stead until the Senate confirms Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general.
Events unfolded rapidly after Yates sent a letter to Justice Department lawyers instructing them not to defend Trump’s controversial executive order in court, a surprising rebuke of the new president’s controversial efforts to block immigrants and refugees from seven largely Muslim countries from entering the United States. Yates had been confirmed by the Senate to the position of deputy attorney general in January 2015.
“At present I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with [my] responsibilities nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful,” she wrote. “Consequently, for as long as I am the acting attorney general, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate.”
Her move came after a chaotic weekend at dozens of U.S. airports in which armies of volunteer lawyers and demonstrators attempted to aid those detained and deported by Trump’s executive order. Federal judges in five states blocked immigration officials from enforcing parts of the order over the past three days.
Yates’s directive also adds new energy to the Senate confirmation battle over Sessions, an immigration hardliner nominated by Trump to helm the Justice Department. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Sessions’s nomination on Tuesday.
“My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts,” she wrote. “In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.”
SWAT team officers walk near the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec on January 30, 2017. (Mathieu Belanger / Reuters)
Alexandre Bissonnette, the suspect behind the deadly shooting at a Quebec mosque, was charged Monday for perpetrating the attack that killed six people and injured 19 others, the Toronto Star reports. The 27-year-old university student faces six counts of first degree murder and five counts of attempted murder. Approximately 39 people were attending Sunday prayers at the Cultural Centre of Quebec’s Grand Mosque when a gunman entered the building and opened fire on the worshippers. Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, condemned the shooting as “a terrorist attack on Muslims in a centre of worship and refuge.”
Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting Suspect Pleads Not Guilty
Estoban Santiago is transported to the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 9, 2017. (Amy Beth Bennett / Reuters)
Estoban Santiago plead not guilty Monday to criminal charges accusing him of perpetrating a shooting that left five people dead and six others injured at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The 26-year-old Iraq war veteran, who traveled to Florida on a one-way ticket from Alaska, faces 22 criminal charges for allegedly loading a handgun in an airport bathroom and opening fire on people in baggage claim. If convicted, he could face life in prison or the death penalty. Santiago’s family said he was receiving psychological treatment prior to the attack, and authorities are determining whether his mental health played a role. Santiago had previously told investigators he was inspired by the Islamic State after chatting with extremists online, though it is unclear if this is true.
Less Than Two Weeks After Leaving, Obama Speaks Out
Credit POOL / Reuters
Less than two weeks since his successor Donald Trump was sworn in as president, former President Barack Obama made a public statement in support of the protests that erupted in response to Trump’s executive order barring travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries.
“President Obama is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country,” reads the statement from Obama spokesperson Kevin Lewis. “Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize, and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake.” Notably, in his last press conference, Obama implied he might re-enter the political arena if he believed that the nation had reached a moment “where I think our core values may be at stake.”
Obama’s decision to weigh in so soon after leaving office suggests a high level of concern over recent events––most presidents try to avoid weighing in on politics in the immediate aftermath of their administrations. But the decision was likely affected by the Trump administration’s decision to falsely characterize the ban as similar to policies pursued while Obama was in office––the Obama administration never barred all refugees, green card holders, or visa applications in the same manner.
“With regard to comparison to President Obama’s foreign police decisions,” Miller’s statement reads, “the President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.”
Washington State Sues Donald Trump Over the Travel Ban
Elaine Thompson / AP
The attorney general for Washington state said Monday the state will sue President Trump over the executive order signed last week that bans migration to the U.S. from seven majority-Muslim countries. Washington is now the first state to file suit against the order. Washington’s attorney general was one of 15 others who signed a statement opposing Trump’s travel ban. On Monday, at a news conference announcing the suit, Governor Jay Inslee said of the order: “Its impact, its cruelty, its clear purpose is an unconstitutional religious test.” The suit will be backed by Washington-based companies like Expedia and Amazon.com, according toThe Seattle Times, and company representatives will provide testimonies about the economic harms Trump’s ban will bring. The order has set off waves of protests across the country, and over the weekend a huge crowd demonstrated outside the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where two men were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection—and later released.
Iraqi lawmakers attend a session in Baghdad, Iraq, on September 8, 2014. (Thaier Al-Sudani / Reuters)
Iraqi lawmakers approved a measure Monday barring Americans from entering the country, the Associated Press reports. The measure, which is non-binding, comes in response to President Trump’s executive order Friday banning citizens from Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. It is unclear when the ban will go into effect, or if it will affect American military personnel or non-government workers already in the country. Iraq’s foreign ministry released a statement Monday condemning the U.S. ban, which it characterized as a “wrong” move by “an ally and a strategic partner.” Indeed, the bans signal a strain in relations between Washington and Baghdad, whose joint efforts have focused on targeting the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Iran, which is also on the U.S. list, responded to the U.S. ban Saturday with a retaliatory measure of its own, announcing it too would bar U.S. citizens from entering the country “until the offensive U.S. limitations against Iranian nationals are lifted.”
France Charges Brussels Bombing Suspect in Paris Attacks
A Belgian police officer secures the zone outside a courthouse while Brussels attacks suspects Mohamed Abrini and Osama Krayem appear before a judge in Brussels, Belgium, on April 14, 2016. (Yves Herman / Reuters)
French authorities have the charged the Brussels bombing suspect with involvement in the November 2015 Paris attacks. Belgian authorities handed over Mohamed Abrini, the “man in the hat,” to France for one day in connection with the Paris attack, French media quoted prosecutors as saying. Both attacks were claimed by ISIS, and Belgian authorities said they were planned and carried out by the same cell. The Brussels airport bombing on March 22, 2016, killed 32 people; the Paris attacks killed 130.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling the shooting deaths of six people at a mosque in Quebec City an act of terrorism. Two men have been arrested in connection with the shooting at the Islamic Cultural Center of Quebec; eight people were wounded in Sunday’s attack during evening prayers. Quebec’s Premier Philippe Couillard called the incident “murderous act directed at a specific community.” An unnamed witness told Radio-Canada that the shooting was carried out by two masked gunmen. Martin Coiteux, Quebec’s public-security minister, said places of worship across the province were given extra security following the attack. Last June, someone left a pig’s head at the doorstep of the Islamic Center during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan; Muslims regard the pig as an unclean animal. The motivation of the gunmen is not yet clear.
Here's What's Happening Today With Trump's Immigration Order
President Trump’s executive order led to massive protests, legal challenges, and an apparent reversal over the weekend. The order suspends the U.S. refugee intake for 120 days, bans all Syrian refugees until further notice, and bars people from seven countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen—for 90 days. Following large protests over the weekend at several U.S. airports and outside the White House, as well as legal challenges on the behalf of individuals detained at U.S. ports of entry, the Trump administration appeared to reverse course on a section of the ban the also applied to U.S. permanent residents. Other parts of the ban remain in effect. Protests are expected on Monday, though perhaps on a smaller scale as it’s the start of the workweek. Criticism of the order has spread across the Atlantic: In the U.K., a petition to stop Trump’s state visit has gained more than 1 million signatures; 100,000 signatures were needed for the petition to be considered for parliamentary debate.
Obnoxiousness isn’t a long-term political strategy.
Let’s say you’re a politician in a close race and your opponent suffers a stroke. What do you do?
If you are Mehmet Oz running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, what you do is mock your opponent’s affliction. In August, the Oz campaign released a list of “concessions” it would offer to the Democrat John Fetterman in a candidates’ debate, including:
“We will allow John to have all of his notes in front of him along with an earpiece so he can have the answers given to him by his staff, in real time.” And: “We will pay for any additional medical personnel he might need to have on standby.”
Oz’s derision of his opponent’s medical condition continued right up until Oz lost the race by more than 250,000 votes. Oz’s defeat flipped the Pennsylvania seat from Republican to Democrat, dooming GOP hopes of a Senate majority in 2023.
For the first time in 50 years, the rich are buying more free time.
This is Work in Progress, a newsletter by Derek Thompson about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here to get it every week.
One of the weirdest economic stories of the past half century is what happened to rich Americans—and especially rich American men—at work.
In general, poor people work more than wealthy people. This story is consistent across countries (for example, people in Cambodia work much more than people in Switzerland) and across time (for example, Germans in the 1950s worked almost twice as much as they do today).
But starting in the 1980s in the United States, this saga reversed itself. The highest-earning Americans worked longer and longer hours, in defiance of expectations or common sense. The members of this group, who could have bought anything they wanted with their wealth, bought more work. Specifically, from 1980 to 2005, the richest 10 percent of married men increased their work hours by more than any other group of married men: about five hours a week, or 250 hours a year.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development has established a strong correlation between deep relationships and well-being. The question is, how does a person nurture those deep relationships?
This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.
Turn your mind for a moment to a friend or family member you cherish but don’t spend as much time with as you would like. This needn’t be your most significant relationship, just someone who makes you feel energized when you’re with them, and whom you’d like to see more regularly.
How often do you see that person? Every day? Once a month? Once a year? Do the math and project how many hours annually you spend with them. Write this number down and hang on to it.
These days, strolling through downtown New York City, where I live, is like picking your way through the aftermath of a party. In many ways, it is exactly that: The limp string lights, trash-strewn puddles, and splintering plywood are all relics of the raucous celebration known as outdoor dining.
These wooden “streeteries” and the makeshift tables lining sidewalks first popped up during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when restaurants needed to get diners back in their seats. It was novel, creative, spontaneous—and fun during a time when there wasn’t much fun to be had. For a while, outdoor dining really seemed as though it could outlast the pandemic. Just last October, New York Magazinewrote that it would stick around, “probably permanently.”
Our constant need for entertainment has blurred the line between fiction and reality—on television, in American politics, and in our everyday lives.
This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.
“Do a Dance”
The trend started, as so many do, on TikTok. Amazon customers, watching packages arrive through Ring doorbell devices, asked the people making the deliveries to dance for the camera. The workers—drivers for “Earth’s most customer-centric company” and therefore highly vulnerable to customer ratings—complied. The Ring owners posted the videos. “I said bust a dance move for the camera and he did it!” read one caption, as an anonymous laborer shimmied, listlessly. Another customer wrote her request in chalk on the path leading up to her door. DO A DANCE, the ground ordered, accompanied by a happy face and the word SMILE. The driver did as instructed. His command performance received more than 1.3 million likes.
The yerba mate in U.S. grocery stores is nothing like the real brew.
It shouldn’t be hard to persuade people to take a sip of yerba mate. It’s completely natural. It makes you feel simultaneously energized and relaxed. You can drink it all day without feeling like your stomach acid is burning through your esophagus. It’s the preferred caffeine source of Lionel Messi, Zoe Saldaña, and the pope. I’m drinking yerba mate with my Argentinian mother-in-law as I write this, and I’ll probably be drinking it with her or my husband when you read it. And yet, my track record for tempting friends into tasting it is abysmal.
The average Argentinian or Uruguayan drinks more than 26 gallons of the green infusion each year, but as far as I can tell, the average North American has never even tried South America’s most consumed beverage—at least not in its traditional form. After more than 100 years, plenty of added sugar, and growing consumer desire for “clean caffeine,” something companies are calling yerba mate is finally on shelves near you. But in this land of individualism and germophobia, the real thing will simply never catch on.
The human brain could explain why AI programs are so good at writing grammatically superb nonsense.
Language is commonly understood to be the “stuff” of thought. People “talk it out” and “speak their mind,” follow “trains of thought” or “streams of consciousness.” Some of the pinnacles of human creation—music, geometry, computer programming—are framed as metaphorical languages. The underlying assumption is that the brain processes the world and our experience of it through a progression of words. And this supposed link between language and thinking is a large part of what makes ChatGPT and similar programs so uncanny: The ability of AI to answer any prompt with human-sounding language can suggest that the machine has some sort of intent, even sentience.
But then the program says something completely absurd—that there are 12 letters in nineteen or that sailfish are mammals—and the veil drops. Although ChatGPT can generate fluent and sometimes elegant prose, easily passing the Turing-test benchmark that has haunted the field of AI for more than 70 years, it can also seem incredibly dumb, even dangerous. It gets math wrong, fails to give the most basic cooking instructions, and displays shocking biases. In a new paper, cognitive scientists and linguists address this dissonance by separating communication via language from the act of thinking: Capacity for one does not imply the other. At a moment when pundits are fixated on the potential for generative AI to disrupt every aspect of how we live and work, their argument should force a reevaluation of the limits and complexities of artificial and human intelligence alike.
If Ron DeSantis wants to gut Florida’s public colleges, that’s up to Floridians.
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Elections have consequences. Florida’s governor has decided to root out wrong-think at one of Florida’s public colleges, and his harebrained meddling will likely harm the school, but he has every right to do it.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has set out to ruin one of Florida’s public colleges. He’s appointed several board members to the ideologically progressive New College of Florida with, apparently, a mandate to somehow rebuild it and thus save it from its dreaded wokeification. Helpfully for the cause of screwing up a college, most of the new overseers aren’t from Florida and don’t live there; one of them, in fact, is Christopher Rufo, a young man from the Manhattan Institute who has no actual experience in higher education but does have a genuine talent for rhetoric that he seems to have gained at the Soviet Higher Institute of Pedagogy somewhere in Moscow or Leningrad circa 1970.
I worked in law enforcement for decades. Officers who see themselves as noble heroes can be the ones who do the most harm.
Some 25 years ago, I remember sitting on the Shooting Review Board for the King County Sheriff’s Office, a large metropolitan police department serving the Seattle region. I recall listening to an investigator explain the chain of events that had led to the fatal shooting of a man fleeing the scene of an armed robbery. My memory is that the man had a long criminal record and had just committed another felony. Not a sympathetic figure to me or the public, but still a human being.
The presentation we heard contained evidence that the responding officers’ tactics had created the conditions that made the shooting necessary, to ensure their own safety. (The term of art is “officer-created jeopardy.”) But the review process had been negotiated with the police union and by design had remained out of the public’s view and tightly focused on the moment the officers had fired their weapons.
Amid all this posturing, a more practical concern is getting lost: How much does gas actually matter when it comes to cooking? Are there some dishes that just can’t be made on electric stoves?
I called up J. Kenji López-Alt—a chef, a New York Times columnist, and the author of The Food Lab and The Wok—to discuss. While we chatted, López-Alt cooked on his gas stove in the background. But don’t take that as an endorsement: He told me that the stove came with his house, but that if he were to build a kitchen from scratch, he’d probably opt for an induction range.
