nxthompson

Svetlana Stalin, Joseph's daughter, was born 100 years ago yesterday. She lived an extraordinary life and defected here in 1967. Late in life, I found her living anonymously in Wisconsin. We became friends and exchanged hundreds of letters. newyorker.com/magazine/2014/…

Chuck Norris legitimately might have won Mike Huckabee the Iowa caucus in 2008. This was the biggest ad of the primaries.

For my friends: everything. For my enemies: the law. For my ex: ICE. nytimes.com/2026/03/20/us/…

"The sentences cut a swift, clean trail across the page—a mackerel through the water." Rip Calvin Tomkins, who kept writing until nearly the day he died, at age 100. newyorker.com/culture/postsc…

Someone created a startup with an AI agent CEO, who had a LinkedIn profile publishing founder hustle content. LinkedIn's marketing department invited the AI agent to give a video talk to its staff. The agent did. Then they banned it from the platform. wired.com/story/linkedin…

Last year, I met a Mexican athlete who told me an incredible story—that he’d been kidnapped in 2023 and forced to compete for his life in a secret tournament of cartels. Once I started reporting, the story only got more surreal. For the May issue: theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/…

This is a funny reminder of just how dumb some people can be. And a serious reminder of just how much private information---about us and others---our devices are giving out at all time. nypost.com/2026/03/19/wor…

.@AdamSerwer on how Trump’s “America First” principles landed us in a war with no obvious end and no allies willing to help us. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

Wild. Reddit and LinkedIn account for almost a quarter of all citations from the top LLMs.

“Why do people preemptively, continually, mistake kindness for weakness?” Booker asked me during one of our interviews. To South Carolina voters, he said: “You could love your neighbor and punch somebody in the face.” theatlantic.com/politics/2026/…

“For the past year, Trump and Republicans have (at times dubiously) blamed Biden for any economic woes. But now, given the link between Trump’s war and rising prices, avoiding responsibility will be that much harder” theatlantic.com/national-secur…

"Nearly five years." Investigative journalism takes years and years. The investment is immense, and always worth it, and, in the era of "hot takes" and ephemeral "content," rigorously reported journalistic work is needed more than ever. We must keep supporting investigative journalism. From @mannyNYT, lead reporter of the blockbuster piece on Cesar Chavez ⤵️

An interesting point from @raffi about the dangers of handing over too much of our critical thinking to the tech we use. theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/…

.@anneapplebaum on why our allies have little interest in helping us with Iran. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

This is a cool example of how you can use AI to help your writing—without relying on it for any actual writing. From @jasminewsun theatlantic.com/technology/202…

The Trump admin's rationale on Joe Kent here is maybe not as airtight as they thought. By @jonathanchait theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/…

for the April issue, I wrote about my grandmother, the forgotten women pilots of World War II, the nature of progress, and snakes: theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/…

Last chance to get tickets for AI and the Future of Everything with Nita Farahany (@NitaFarahany) and Nicholas Thompson (@nxthompson) on March 26. Join the conversation on how AI is reshaping industries — and humanity. 🎟 Tickets from $25–$75 ➡️ bit.ly/4gUaGuI

This from @AGomezFCC

Simply wild — and troubling story — from @WillOremus. "A journalist reported a missile strike. Then came the death threats." washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

A while back @raffi ran self-driving at Uber. He understands how these systems work! Still, using full-self-driving mode, he almost died when his Tesla crashed into a wall. And it's led him to rethink the relationship between humans and AI. theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/…