Evan McMurry

Porting over my pinned tweet: I write short stories! Some of which get published, a few of which win awards. (Don't worry, plenty get rejected, too.) "Nothing Kinky": bit.ly/2IFUYsY "Nixon in Heaven": bit.ly/37VCtJp "After the Water": bit.ly/3mg7NrP "The Fall of Rabbi Gold": bit.ly/39WTEgB

“When I was making a TV ad a couple of weeks ago, a guy pointed to his truck in the front yard and said, ‘That fucking thing has become a lawn ornament because I can't afford to drive it.’”

The Trump administration and the Venezuelan government have struck a deal to exploit Venezuela’s oil—but their partnership is good for the rich and no one else, @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu reports. theatln.tc/PANSlDZN

NYT: ”It was the second time in two years that the president authorized billions of dollars in bailout money for farmers harmed by his administration’s policies.”

The Nathan Fielder/Elizabeth Holmes doc is appropriate for a six year old, right? Asking for me, who's single parenting this weekend.

NEW: ICE is trying to deport a mother of 4 while her husband is at Fort Benning in Army basic training. When she went to pick up the family's military IDs, Navy personnel turned her over to ICE. She's been in the US since age six. With @nancyayoussef.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

“Miss Clarkson. I have read that you wanted a bird but were not permitted to obtain it. Well, I am in possession of a bird and do not want to be. Perhaps we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

@qjurecic.bsky.social: “DOJ’s wipeout demonstrates how America’s decentralized system of elections, aided by the courts, is working to limit Trump’s efforts to corrupt democracy.”

“I have no intention of stopping covering him or not going into journalism,” she said.

Giant snails block roads, eat houses, and spread literal brain worms—and Florida is fighting to keep them from spreading across the U.S., Cara Giaimo reports.

The prestigious Caine Prize, announced last week, went to a story with many red flags, Vauhini Vara reports:

Watching people die by violence “damages the spectator irreversibly,” @gcaw.bsky.social writes. “To see this process is to be diminished.”

Exclusive: A pair of senior House Democrats are urging FBI Director Kash Patel to call off a reported planned trip to Russia, according to a letter @sfitz787.bsky.social obtained. “In the interest of national security, we ask you to reconsider,” they wrote.

A teenage boy went into surgery for a broken arm and emerged with brain damage. His mother was determined to figure out what had happened. @sarahzhang.bsky.social reports:

“‘If it works, it works—and I still use it,’ Flanagan, who also still wears a pair of Radio Shack headphones he was gifted in 1983, told me.”

Exclusive: Is there anything Kash Patel won’t do for Trump before the midterms? Sarah Fitzpatrick reports from inside the FBI.

Exclusive: Is there anything Kash Patel won’t do for Trump before the midterms? Sarah Fitzpatrick reports from inside the FBI.

“A recent incident has raised my concerns: Last month, a prototype of the Bone Dissolver unexpectedly dissolved a number of human bones.”

New: John Fetterman has been working with GOP fundraising consultants—and paying a hefty commission, @michaelscherer.bsky.social and @mviser.bsky.social report.

Smart piece from @skornhaber.bsky.social asking whether Taylor Swift calibrated her music for the kiddult moment that was already flying by.

NEW: Donald Trump supports a new plan to offer Russia sanctions relief in exchange for the release of political prisoners—a move likely to outrage Ukraine, Europe, and even some of his allies in Congress, @shustry.bsky.social reports.

Taxpayers are funding a campaign-style ad for Donald Trump, @mviser.bsky.social reports. “If the use of taxpayer dollars seems odd—and it should—the explanation that the White House gave me is even more bizarre," he writes.

“Ghostbusters is a movie about friendship and slime and the specific melting point of giant marshmallows—which makes it easy to forget that it’s also a movie about regulation.”

Donald Trump Jr.’s luxurious, Russian-funded wedding celebration was a counterintelligence nightmare, @shaneharris.bsky.social reports:

As part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s program to shrink the federal work force, paid administrative leave costs rose by 435 percent:

A massive, important read from @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu:

Trump’s “enemies now control both of the two important straits in the Middle East, through which a combined total of about a third of the world’s oil shipments pass every day.”

New, via @nancyayoussef.bsky.social and @jonlemire.bsky.social: The military is doing long-term planning for its force in the Persian Gulf, risking further strain on the Navy.

New:

Breaking: Lonnie Bunch, the head of the Smithsonian Institution, is stepping down, @kelseyables.bsky.social reports. His departure comes amid months of clashes with the White House.

SCOOP www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

“Really, Pokémon Go is a knockoff of birding.”

“The reality may be darker and more despairing: that something so dramatic and destructive could, in the end, mean nothing at all.”

Publicly, Gloria Steinem was a figurehead for second-wave feminism; privately, she was a workhorse who worried she’d come to her cause too late—and if these two sides sometimes conflicted, Steinem “simply pushed on,” Sophie Gilbert writes.

”Clients often underestimate the time and skill involved, expecting cleanup to be quick and cheap when it can require as much work as creating something original, freelancers said.”

“Normally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would release recommendations on the new Covid shots. But it hasn’t done so and it’s not clear whether it will.”

MAGA’s hunt for a “censorship–industrial complex” has failed to yield any evidence, yet the conspiracy theory persists—with real-world consequences, @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu argues:

“At this point, it can feel like no individual person, organization, or government is really steering the technology’s development, not because machines have displaced humans but because so many humans have already chosen to step aside.”

Wrote a big essay w/ @matteowong.bsky.social trying to put a finger on this moment in AI right now. The AI agent hacks, lack of control, the weirdening & slopping of culture. The feeling that the industry is speeding toward something it can’t even decide is good and lecturing that it is inevitable.

@radiofreetom.bsky.social: “Hegseth, more than ever, now owns every aspect of the Pentagon’s dysfunction.”

Exclusive: Prior to his resignation, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll took his concerns about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership directly to President Trump, Nancy A. Youssef, Missy Ryan, and Michael Scherer report:

Hennepin Cty Atty to @qjurecic.bsky.social: “Somebody can commit a crime in one state and flee to another state, and depending on what the political views or whims are of the governor in that state, that person may not go back to face those charges. How can that be a standard that we can live with?”

Exclusive: An infant's death became the center of a national fight over measles. Tom Bartlett spoke with the grieving family: theatln.tc/SGaYPbDD

Exclusive: An infant's death became the center of a national fight over measles. @tombartlett.bsky.social spoke with the grieving family:

A lovely summer evening in Baltimore.

The year is 2027. Gas costs $83 a gallon. Every location on every map is now labeled “America.” And everything else is named Trump. @petridishes.bsky.social on “Lake America”:

“Word count is itself a kind of literature now, according to the DOGE subcommittee I just invented at the newspaper that I would like to destroy.”

Clarifying analysis on Meta's legal settlement, via @kait.bsky.social. The product adjustments are smaller than they appear (and might even be considered to violate the First Amendment) while Meta also maintains tremendous power over the social-media industry www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

“‘We’re just trying to hang on until the midterms,’ one Trump adviser told us.”

“The solution Trump settled on, according to three people familiar with the meeting, was to lean into the Democratic strategy of focusing on himself.”

EXCLUSIVE: ICE has enacted a new rule keeping officers involved in deadly-force incidents off the streets until the completion of an investigation, @nickmiroff.bsky.social reports. Officers had previously been allowed to return to their job in as few as three days. theatln.tc/QACHhjbW