Writer Gary Shteyngart set sail on the inaugural voyage of the biggest cruise ship ever built—the Icon of the Seas—in search of the "real" America. (And maybe to throw a great suite party along the way.) What he found instead, like many a great novelist before him, was a far more isolating experience. Shteyngart recounts his "seven agonizing nights" aboard a giant floating mall full of memorable characters, bad entertainment, even worse food—and the ever-present desire to keep up.

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The Stormy Daniels case may have a less serious fact pattern. But it might turn out to be the one chance to hold Donald Trump accountable for election interference. Atlantic staff writer David Graham explains the importance of the case and how Trump might actually be enjoying this new form of courtroom campaigning.

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Is having a Birkin bag ... a right? Earlier this year, two California residents filed a class-action lawsuit against the French luxury design company Hermès. Their grievance was that although they could afford a coveted Birkin bag made by the company, they could not buy one.

We talk to Atlantic staff writer Amanda Mull about the lawsuit and the current state of the luxury market. What do we actually want from luxury these days? Is there even such a thing anymore as a rare luxury good? And what handbag is Amanda carrying?

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Where were you for the 2017 total eclipse? Where will you be this year? And where will you be for the next one in 2045? Hanna talks to Atlantic staff writer Marina Koren about the eclipse as a peculiar event: a beautiful if not slightly unsettling moment that is also a strange marker of time.

And we hear from retired astrophysicist Fred Espenak who's seen more than 20 total eclipses in his life and wonders which eclipse might end up being his last.

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Atlantic political reporter John Hendrickson has had a stutter since he was a kid. Recently he heard Donald Trump make fun of Joe Biden’s stutter, and he noticed that the audience laughed.

Hendrickson’s working theory has been that disability is apolitical, and he wondered what Trump supporters actually feel about him making fun of people with disabilities. We go to a Trump rally in Dayton, Ohio and poll the crowd. 

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Hanna talks to her child Jacob about the thing they've argued the most about: being on their phone.

Then, Hanna sits down with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In his new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, Haidt argues there is a direct tie between the wide distribution of smartphones and a rise in depression, anxiety, and loneliness among young people.

After which, Hanna asks Jacob: Did I ruin your life?

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Sarah Osmundson knows how to talk about abortion. She’s learned over the course of her career as a maternal-fetal medicine doctor that some patients are comfortable with the option, and others would never consider it. 

Osmundson is a physician in Tennessee, a state with one of the strictest abortion bans in the country following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. The procedure is illegal at any stage of pregnancy, with limited exceptions to protect the life and health of the mother. 

But which cases meet those exceptions? The risks and outcomes of pregnancy aren’t easy to predict, especially for the types of patients Osmundson treats. After Dobbs, her hospital—and others around the country—formed what’s informally known as an “abortion committee” to decide if a patient meets the state’s exceptions. In this episode, Osmundson brings us the rare view inside these deliberations.

Further Reading:

“Their States Banned Abortion. Doctors Now Say They Can’t Give Women Potentially Lifesaving Care” by Kavitha Surana

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We talk to Oscar-nominated sound designer Johnnie Burn about how he created the soundscape of horrors for The Zone of Interest. Burn explains how he collected real sounds from the streets of Europe and mixed them into a soundscape of cruelty happening just out of view. We also do a close analysis of key scenes from the film. "You can shut your eyes, but you can't shut your ears," Burn says.

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The original “Burn Book” from Mean Girls was used to spread rumors and gossip about other girls (and some boys) at North Shore High School. Kara Swisher’s new memoir, Burn Book, tells true stories about men (and some women) who ruled Silicon Valley. 

Swisher recounts some of the most cringey moments of the early dot-com boom, including the strange antics at parties she never really wanted to go to. But mostly she traces how the idiosyncrasies, blind spots, and enthusiasms of these tech titans have created the world we live in now.

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Dr. Richard Friedman has been teaching and seeing patients for more than 35 years. Recently, he wrote about the idea that, if therapy has become less of a targeted intervention and more of a weekly upkeep, it might be time to quit. In this episode, Friedman discusses the benefits of quitting therapy, and why it might be hard for some people to contemplate doing just that.

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How would life be different if we centered it on our friends? In her new book, The Other Significant Others, Rhaina Cohen visits the extremes of friendship, where pairs describe each other as “soulmates” and make major life decisions in tandem with a friend. We talk to Cohen about the lost history of friendship and why she cringes when couples at the altar describe each other as their “best friend.”

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