Earlier this year, I was scrolling through TikTok when the sound of a piano, accompanied by a baby bird chirping, stopped my thumb mid-air. In the video, a little green puppet girl with big eyes and two tufts of hair holds a yellow felt bird in a blanket. “Hey, birdie. It’s okay, birdie,” she coos. “I’m gonna take care of you, birdie.” My mind went...

The Pat McAfee Show, hosted by the ex–NFL punter turned TV presenter, is the only program on ESPN that opens with a warning label. It was one of the few concessions McAfee made to his new Disney-owned employer when he brought his YouTube hit to the network in September in a five-year, $85 million deal. The label urges viewers to please bear in mind...

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.For Memorial Day, our editors have selected a list of seven notable stories about the greenest way to grill, the decline of babysitters in America, and more.Your...

Editor’s Note: On the last Monday of each month, Lori Gottlieb answers a reader’s question about a problem, big or small. Have a question? Email her at dear.therapist@theatlantic.com. Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear Therapist” in your inbox. Dear Therapist,My wife of 31 years and I are currently dealing with an issue that...

Co-hosts Megan Garber and Andrea Valdez explore the web’s effects on our brains and how narrative, repetition, and even a focus on replaying memories can muddy our ability to separate fact from fiction. How do we come to believe the things we do? Why do conspiracy theories flourish? And how can we train our brains to recognize misinformation online?...

Nuclear energy occupies a strange place in the American psyche—representing at once a dream of endless emissions-free power and a nightmare of catastrophic meltdowns and radioactive waste. The more prosaic downside is that new plants are extremely expensive: America’s most recent attempt to build a nuclear facility, in Georgia, was supposed to be completed...