The sound designer Randy Thom was faced with a challenge: What does a robot sound like? And what if that robot learns to love?

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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 Harris, who covers national security, about how intelligence agencies are responding to changing positions under the Trump administration. Allies that routinely share intelligence with the U.S. are reassessing how much to trust the U.S.

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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.

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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. But there was also music. And when there was nothing else, that was, perhaps, enough.

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Parts of the federal government are being dismantled. But although the decisions from President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are unusual—perhaps even unprecedented—are they constitutional? The Atlantic staff writers Jonathan Chait and Shane Harris break down the administration’s latest moves and who might really end up paying for them later.

Read more from Chait and Harris about this story on The Atlantic here and here.

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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 politics to media to technology—has come to revolve around the pursuit of it and how we’ve lost control of where we actually want our attention to go.

Read more about Hayes’ book The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource at The Atlantic here.

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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 see coming. Trump granted sweeping pardons for more than 1,500 January 6 defendants. 

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, Hanna encounters Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes, who is walking free after a commutation from Trump, and she talks with the families of two men who were convicted of crimes for their actions on January 6, and are now newly freed. 

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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 move forward is to neither forgive nor forget the past—but obliterate it. 

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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 out over H-1B visas between Silicon Valley and the nativist wing. We talk with Atlantic staff writer Ali Breland, who writes about the internet, technology, and politics, about the public infighting, and staff writer Rogé Karma takes us beyond the politics by discussing what the research shows about the relationship between immigrant labor and the American worker.

Extra listening: Rogé Karma on Good on Paper.

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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 is not who she expected.

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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 read in high school that have stuck with them. Books you read in high school are your oldest friends, made during a moment in life when so many versions of yourself seem possible, and overidentifying with an author or character is a safe way to try one out. Later in life, they are a place you return—to be embarrassed by your younger, more pretentious self or to be nostalgic for your naive, adventurous self or just to marvel at what you used to think was cool.

Books mentioned:

• Spencer Kornhaber: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
• Jessica Salamanca: A Separate Peace by John Knowles
• Helen Lewis: Mort by Terry Pratchett
• David Getz: Chips Off the Old Benchley by Robert Benchley
• Shan Wang: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• Sophia Kanaouti: Ypsikaminos by Andreas Embirikos
• Ann Hulbert: The Pupil by Henry James
• Shane Harris: Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
• Katherine Abraham: Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran
• Eleanor Barkhorn: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• Robert Seidler: On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

​​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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