Headed into the government shutdown. Plus withdrawing troops, the five years that changed modern romance, the DNA legacy of the Spanish Inquisition, and more
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis's resignation letter to President Donald Trump, submitted this morningJon Elswick / AP
Programming note: The Daily will take a break on December 24 and December 25, and return each day with selections of the best Atlantic stories from this past year for the remainder of 2018. It’ll be back in full swing on January 2, 2019.
In 1995, then–Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich set the government on the path to a shutdown by sending President Bill Clinton a bill he knew Clinton wouldn’t sign. But the move had consequences for American politics that few could’ve foreseen; the same will be true of President Donald Trump’s standoff with Senate Democrats, however it resolves, writes Todd Purdum.
Cashless: As more and more stores go cashless and even cashier-less for the sake of efficient checkout experiences for customers, a clear group will be left out: the poor, and, in particular, unbanked people who may have low credit or work jobs that only pay in cash. Their options in the growing new digital economy are shrinking.
Since Tinder launched for all smartphones in 2013, dating apps have changed everything about how young people look for partners, introducing new problems and fixing some old ones. Ashley Fetters charts the complex evolution of today’s dating world. (Photo: Joe Readle / Getty)
Evening Read
DNA tests have begun to reveal the genetic legacy of Jews who converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition. A recent study reveals the unexpectedly large extent of Sephardic Jewish ancestry that can be traced to Latin Americans today, writes Sarah Zhang.
In the case of conversos, DNA is helping elucidate a story with few historical records. Spain did not allow converts or their recent descendants to go to its colonies, so they traveled secretly under falsified documents. “For obvious reasons, conversos were not eager to identify as conversos,” says David Graizbord, a professor of Judaic studies at the University of Arizona. The designation applied not just to converts but also to their descendants who were always Catholic. It came with more than a whiff of a stigma. “It was to say you come from Jews and you may not be a genuine Christian,” says Graizbord. Conversos who aspired to high offices in the Church or military often tried to fake their ancestry.
The genetic record now suggests that conversos—or people who shared ancestry with them—came to the Americas in disproportionate numbers. For conversos persecuted at home, the fast-growing colonies of the New World may have seemed like an opportunity and an escape. But the Spanish Inquisition reached into the colonies, too. Those found guilty of observing Jewish practices in Mexico, for example, were burned at the stake.
3. This musician, who has broadcast their struggle with bipolar disorder publicly for more than a year, announced last weekend that they are no longer taking medication in order to bolster creativity.
