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.

I have had cats since I was a boy, and all of them were wonderful, but one of them left a mark on my life forever.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

“What happened to Stormy Daniels is not salacious,” Quinta Jurecic writes. Israel’s PR-war pandemonium The problem with America’s protest feedback loop

A Special Presence

Almost 15 years ago, I was in bad shape. I was divorced, broke, drinking too much, and living in a dated walk-up next to a noisy bar. (It was only minutes from my young daughter, it had a nice view of the bay here in Newport, and I could afford it.) The local veterinary hospital was a few doors down; they always kept one or two adoptable animals in the window. One day, a gorgeous black cat, with a little white tuxedo patch and big gold-green eyes, showed up in a small cage. I stared at her for a while. She stared back patiently.

I wasn’t taking very good care of myself at that moment, so I decided I couldn’t take care of a cat. I walked on. For weeks, the cat sat there. For weeks, we stared at each other. One day, as I was deep in my cups, I took a walk with a friend and co-worker who also happened to be my next-door neighbor. “You look at that damn cat every day,” he said. “Just go in and get it.”

So I did.

The cat was called “RC” and she was a stray, but her preexisting spaying and good health showed that she’d once had a home. Now she was the queen of the animal clinic: Because of her gentle temperament, the staff would let her out of the cage after hours, and she would sit on their desks while they did their paperwork.

I picked her up. She looked at me as if to say: Yeah, I recognize you. You’re the doofus who stared at me for weeks. I signed the papers and took her home. She was fluffy and black-haired, so I decided I would name her after Carla Tortelli from the show Cheers; thus, she became Carla T. Nichols. She explored the apartment quietly for a day or two, and then, one afternoon, I found her on my bed, stretched out on her back, paws up, purring. Yep, she was saying. This will do.

I was still deeply depressed, but every night, Carla would come and flake out over my keyboard as I struggled to work. That’s enough of that, she seemed to say. And then we would go into the living room, where I would sit in a chair and Carla would sit on the armrest. (We’ve now both seen almost every episode of Law & Order.) Slowly, she added routine to my life, but mostly, we had lots of hours of doing nothing—the quiet time that can feel sort of desolate if you’re alone, but like healing if you have the right company.

Soon, I started to see daylight. I met a woman named Lynn. I laid off the booze. I got help of various kinds.

Lynn started to come to the apartment more often, but Carla gave her a full examination before bestowing approval: That cat was not going to let some newcomer waltz in and wreck the careful feline therapy she’d been providing. Finally, Carla climbed on the pillows one morning and curled up around Lynn’s head. Okay, she was saying. Lynn can stay.

Courtesy of Tom Nichols

My grade-schooler daughter was the other regular visitor, and Carla immediately decided that she was hers as well as mine. This was a cat who clearly had experience with children, and showed a kind of shepherding instinct whenever kids were around. She’d stay with them and circle them; she’d let them pull her tail and clumsily pat her head and other indignities most cats won’t tolerate. She loved kids, and she especially seemed to love mine.

Lynn and I soon realized that this was no ordinary cat. I’ve had smart cats, and some who were lovable but not very bright. Carla was not a prodigy, but she had a unique presence that even strangers on social media could see when I posted clips or pictures. I can attribute this only to an emotional intelligence, the bond that some animals have with people that lets them suss out who’s who and how we might be feeling. If you were sad, or sick, she was there. If the human vibes were happy, you could hear her purr from a room away.

Eventually, Lynn and I bloomed from friendship into love. Slowly, I put my life back in order, and Carla clearly thought that me getting on my feet was mostly her doing. It wasn’t that simple, but I will say this: A man blessed with a concerned doctor, a dedicated counselor, a wise priest, a few good friends, and a great love in his life can overcome much. But a man with all of those and a marvelous cat can really cover a lot of distance.

I finally bought a house, and Lynn and I married. Just as she had done with the apartment, Carla inspected the new digs and said: I approve. Instantly, it was her house.

For more than a decade, it was the three of us, and Carla became Lynn’s friend even more than mine. Much like a dog, Carla would trot around with Lynn during the day, and come if called. She would even wag her tail. (She would find this canine comparison insulting, of course.) When I would finally get up—I’m a night owl—Lynn would bring over a cappuccino and Carla would invariably accompany her, waiting for me to scoop up some foam on my finger for her to lick. Then my wife and her pal would go back to their day.

Carla had a remarkable sense of time and schedule. When I would teach in Boston, she’d sit in the window at the time she knew I’d return. She would show up at the same time every night to escort Lynn to bed; later, and always at almost the exact same time, she would meow at me until I carried her around on my shoulder while locking up the house. (Unlike some cats, she liked hugs. She would have sat on my shoulder all day if I’d let her.)

And although she had a bowl of food available all day, we shared our human dinner with her in a daily ritual. Carla would rouse from her afternoon nap and find us almost at the moment the clock struck five, with a look that asked: What are we having today? Is it steak? I like steak. Or chicken? Chicken’s good too.

Then came the day she literally saved my life—and Lynn’s.

My house was built in 1956, back before the local authorities in my small town enforced bothersome things such as building codes and safety regulations. Some genius had decided to balance the fireplace with wooden shims (which were hidden behind bricks). Over the decades, they burned away and dropped hot embers on floor beams.

The day after Christmas, six years ago, Carla jumped on our heads in bed. Wake up wake up wake up.

We figured she was just being testy about breakfast. Lynn headed downstairs—but, strangely, Carla stayed in the bedroom. A moment later, Lynn was back: “I smell smoke.” I grumbled and went two floors down to the basement, where I was startled to find a small lick of flame shooting from a ceiling panel. I grabbed our kitchen extinguisher and sprayed it; smoke gushed from the ceiling. I was minutes from being dead. I ran up to the kitchen just as the smoke alarms finally tripped on. We called 911.

Lynn dashed back upstairs looking for Carla, and there she was, calmly sitting on the bed. I told you to wake up. I wasn’t kidding. They stayed safe in the car while I ran around in the winter cold, my panic growing as I watched the fire department battle a fire that destroyed almost a quarter of my home.

The fire marshal later told us that if Carla hadn’t bought us that extra time, the fire—which hadn’t immediately tripped the smoke alarms, because it was caught between the floor and ceiling—would have broken through and engulfed the house (and us). He told us that cats are usually casualties of house fires because they hide out of fear and can’t be found in time. Carla, however, alerted us and then waited for us to come get her.

While the house was being repaired, we all spent a month in a hotel. Carla would tell you that it was the best time of her life: her people, a bed, food, and a litter box—all in the same two rooms? Kitty nirvana.

My daughter grew up, and Carla started sleeping in her room, as some cats will do once the kids they love go away. Grandchildren arrived; Carla adopted them. Our schedules changed as we all got older, and Carla began checking on me in the mornings if I wasn’t awake by a certain time. She also developed some separation anxiety: If one of us left the house or traveled, Carla would stick to the other one like a furry hunk of superglue. I don’t like this. I want to be with you both. I liked that hotel thing; can we do that again?

And then came the warning signs. Carla started to lose a lot of weight. She developed thyroid and kidney issues. The light began to go out of her eyes. The night before I took her back to the same small office where I’d found her, I made a fire—she’d become a big fan of those as her arthritis worsened—and she climbed in my lap. She purred and bumped her head into my face, and then she went and sat quietly nearby as we watched television, just like the old days. It felt like a goodbye. I think she knew.

The next day, our vet confirmed that there was little more we could do for Carla without tormenting her. I held her on my shoulder one last time as they gave her the first shot. Lynn and I stroked her head and whispered to her during the second shot, and our tears soaked her fur. And then she was gone.

We haven’t yet gotten used to a house without Carla in it. Like many who’ve lost a pet, we both still think we see her out of the corner of our eye. I still automatically look into my daughter’s room to see if she’s there. We still expect her at dinner, and Lynn still waits for her to come and say: Time for bed, let’s go. Eventually, we’ll welcome new animals into our home, and I’m sure we will love them. But Carla was a little friend unlike any I’d ever had—and I doubt I will ever owe another cat the debt that I owe her.

Related:

Why a dog’s death hits so hard Pets really can be like human family.

Today’s News

The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution that says that Palestinians qualify for full-member status at the UN. The U.S. voted against the measure. A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, for defying a subpoena from the House January 6 committee. Yesterday, Stormy Daniels finished her testimony in Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial; the judge also rejected a second mistrial request from the former president’s lawyers.

Dispatches

Atlantic Intelligence: ElevenLabs, an AI company that specializes in replicating voices, is ushering in a new era of deepfake audio, Damon Beres writes. The Books Briefing: Gal Beckerman interviews Meghan O’Rourke about her favorite books on sickness and health.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Illustration by Gabriela Pesqueira. Source: Dimarik / Getty.

Against Sunscreen Absolutism

By Rowan Jacobsen

Australia is a country of abundant sunshine, but the skin of most Australians is better adapted to gloomy England than the beaches of Brisbane … A 1980s ad campaign advised Australians to “Slip, Slop, Slap”—if you had to go out in the sun, slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, and slap on a hat. The only safe amount of sun was none at all.

Then, in 2023, a consortium of Australian public-health groups did something surprising: It issued new advice that takes careful account, for the first time, of the sun’s positive contributions … “Completely avoiding sun exposure is not optimal for health,” read the groups’ position statement, which extensively cites a growing body of research. Yes, UV rays cause skin cancer, but for some, too much shade can be just as harmful as too much sun.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

Did something happen to our necks? The end of the “Photoshop fail” Prom dresses are just dresses now. The future of electric cars hinges on a dongle. Many Indians don’t trust their elections anymore.

Culture Break

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Daniel Stier.

Listen. In the latest episode of Radio Atlantic, our staff writer Charlie Warzel describes what happened when he cloned his own voice.

Read. All Fours, by the interdisciplinary artist Miranda July, is a female-midlife-crisis novel filled with estrangement, eroticism, and whimsy.

Play our daily crossword.

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

This is Atlantic Intelligence, a limited-run series in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here.

Recent weeks have seen the introduction of new consumer gadgets whose entire selling point revolves around artificial intelligence. Humane, a company started by ex-Apple employees, released an “AI Pin” that a user wears like a boutonniere; it answers spoken questions, can recognize and comment on objects through its camera, and projects a limited screen for displaying text. At $600 with a $24 monthly fee, the device was positioned as a kind of smartphone replacement, though reviews have not been kind, calling the Pin slow, challenging to use, and error-prone.

Last week, my colleague Caroline Mimbs Nyce reported on the Rabbit R1, a less ambitious and more affordable handheld gadget that similarly presents an AI assistant as its entire selling point. Yet, like the AI Pin, it has severe issues: “It managed to speak a summary of a handwritten page when I asked, though only with about 65 percent accuracy,” Caroline writes. “I was able to use the gadget to order an acai bowl on DoorDash, although it couldn’t handle any customizations. (I wanted peanut butter.) And I never got Uber to work. (Though at one point, the device told me the request had failed when it in fact hadn’t, leaving me on the hook for a $9 ride I didn’t even take.)”

AI has its place in consumer hardware, of course. But for now, that place seems to be the device you’re reading this newsletter on, where services such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude are a dime a dozen.

— Damon Beres, senior editor

Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Rabbit; Getty.

I Witnessed the Future of AI, and It’s a Broken Toy

By Caroline Mimbs Nyce

This story was supposed to have a different beginning. You were supposed to hear about how, earlier this week, I attended a splashy launch party for a new AI gadget—the Rabbit R1—in New York City, and then, standing on a windy curb outside the venue, pressed a button on the device to summon an Uber home. Instead, after maybe an hour of getting it set up and fidgeting with it, the connection failed.

The R1 is a bright-orange chunk of a device, with a camera, a mic, and a small screen. Press and hold its single button, ask it a question or give it a command using your voice, and the cute bouncing rabbit on screen will perk up its ears, then talk back to you. It’s theoretically like communicating with ChatGPT through a walkie-talkie. You could ask it to identify a given flower through its camera or play a song based on half-remembered lyrics; you could ask it for an Uber, but it might get hung up on the last step and leave you stranded in Queens.

Read the full article.

What to Read Next

Things get strange when AI starts training itself: “Programs that teach and learn from one another could warp our experience of the world and unsettle our basic understandings of intelligence,” Matteo Wong writes.

P.S.

I recently revisited my colleague Kaitlyn Tiffany’s 2021 article about the “dead internet theory,” a conspiracy that has proven to be uncomfortably prescient about the generative-AI era. “Much of the ‘supposedly human-produced content’ you see online was actually created using AI, [a conspiracy theorist who uses the online handle] IlluminatiPirate claims, and was propagated by bots,” Kaitlyn wrote. Many of the theory’s specifics are well beyond the bounds of plausibility and good taste. Yet the web is indeed being stuffed with synthetic content these days—to the detriment of all.

— Damon

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.

By killing her dog, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem may have also killed her chances of becoming Donald Trump’s vice president. So who else is on the list? We’ll get into Trump’s options after four new stories from The Atlantic:

The blindness of elites What’s left to restrain Donald Trump? David Frum: What Joe Biden needs to say about anti-Semitism Mark Leibovich: “House Republicans showed up at a campus protest. Of course.”

Trump’s Big Decision

As a reporter, it is my duty to remind you that Trump’s team loves messing with the media almost as much as it loves jockeying for influence with the big man himself. Trump’s advisers might dish, for example, that after careful consideration, so-and-so is off the vice-president list, and you know who is back on. They might explain that, actually, some of the usual considerations of geography and gender aren’t playing a role in this VP decision.

But the truth is, none of these supposed insiders really knows much. No one has any idea what Trump is thinking, except for Trump himself. And the former president is quite famously unpredictable, with a well-established tendency to make decisions based on his most recent conversation. Predicting his Veep pick, then, is a bit futile. It’s also really early: Candidates don’t typically choose a running mate until around the party convention, in late summer. And Trump will likely try to milk as much media coverage as he can out of making people wait.

Still, without prognosticating too much, we can anticipate what Trump is probably looking for in a vice president. He’ll want someone who looks good on television but not someone who might outshine him. Someone who isn’t polarizing to the MAGA base but who demonstrates range. He’ll choose a candidate with experience, or at least with some record of being a winner. He is probably not looking for a politician to “balance” out his ticket like Mike Pence did in 2016, when Trump desperately needed to win over evangelicals.

Above all, of course, Trump will want someone unfailingly loyal to him. This time around, it’s not about logic or persuasion—it’s about personality. The Republican strategists Doug Heye and Mike Murphy, neither of whom are involved with the Trump campaign, walked me through some of Trump’s VP options.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott

Why does this name keep floating around? Well, the senator, who’s been in office for more than a decade, has always been popular. He’s a former insurance salesman who knows how to schmooze, and, Heye told me, he’s also a “prodigious fundraiser.” Scott never fully cozied up to Trump while the latter was president, but he didn’t criticize him much either. “He played it smart,” Murphy told me, by not getting too close or too far. The dynamic changed when Scott launched his own presidential campaign last year. “He was the puppy on his back, supplicant,” even while he was running against Trump, Murphy said, and that loyalty “will appeal to Trump.”

Scott could also—the thinking goes—help Trump appeal to Black voters, who have already started peeling off from Democrats, albeit in a small way. Trump and his campaign have seemed obsessed with this task as they try to avoid a repeat of 2020, and Scott could help them do it.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Trump’s former press secretary was on even the earliest iterations of his 2024 VP shortlist. She is in her first term as a state governor and has enacted plenty of MAGA-style legislation. She’s smart and spent two years working for Trump, which means that she’s familiar with handling the D.C. media and that Trump is probably pretty comfortable with her. Having a woman like Sanders on the ticket could help Trump pick up women voters, another demographic he’s struggled with. “She’s never going to have any agenda or not be the completely loyal type,” Murphy said. “And [she’s] less of a star, so no worry of [Trump] being diminished at all.”

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum

Burgum has been governor for eight years and seems well liked. He’s personally wealthy, like Trump, but not famous. He’s ambitious, but not in a way that intimidates Trump. He ran for president this cycle too, remember? If you don’t, that’s probably a plus for Trump.

When you pick a vice president, you should “pick a slightly less impressive version of yourself,” Murphy told me—like when Bill Clinton picked Al Gore, another moderate, Protestant white man. “When you’re John McCain, [if] you pick a Sarah Palin, it’s just trouble,” he said. Could Burgum be that slightly less impressive version of Trump?

New York Representative Elise Stefanik

This 39-year-old House Republican has been openly auditioning for the VP slot for years now. She’s a gifted fundraiser and easily the most powerful Republican in New York. She has establishment bona fides—Harvard, the George W. Bush White House, aide to Paul Ryan—but has devoted herself entirely to Trump’s defense and the MAGA cause. She’s a competent woman who could help Trump appeal to other educated women. The problem, of course, is that he may not find her particularly authentic. “She’d poison her mother to get two points on Election Day,” Murphy said. “And I think he would smell that.”

Ohio Senator J. D. Vance

The Hillbilly Elegy author and former venture capitalist seems to share Trump’s populist sensibilities. Vance was once a Trump critic but changed his tune when he ran for the Senate. He’s ambitious in a way that Trump might read as disingenuous—probably because it is. “If I were Trump, I’d be troubled by the fact that J. D. Vance was calling [Republican strategists] to ask about running as an anti-Trump Republican when he first looked at running statewide in Ohio,” Murphy said. Then again, he said, “Vance is a clever-enough chameleon to be able to suck up to Trump with skill.”

Former Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson

Carson, a former neurosurgeon, ran for president against Trump back in 2016. He worked in the administration for a while, heading up HUD. We haven’t heard much from him since then, but he does seem to hang out in Trump’s circles, and has been spotted at Mar-a-Lago on more than one occasion.

Carson could, in theory, help Trump appeal to Black voters. But he doesn’t have quite the political credentials that Scott does. “I was meeting a friend for drinks back in February, and he said he knows for a fact that it’s going to be Ben Carson,” Heye told me. “I’m like, ‘Okay, well, one, it’s February. Two, why Ben Carson?’”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio

Rubio is young and telegenic, with two terms in the Senate (plus a failed presidential campaign) under his belt. The son of Cuban immigrants, he could theoretically help Trump appeal to Latino voters. The problem is, Rubio would have to resign from the Senate. He’d also have to change his residence, because the Constitution bars electors from voting for a president and a vice president from the same state. Trump picking Rubio is “completely far-fetched—with the caveat that when you’re dealing with Donald Trump, far-fetched things happen,” Heye said.

Kari Lake

The Arizona TV anchor turned Stop the Steal devotee would clearly love to serve as Trump’s vice president. (See her here, vacuuming a red carpet for the former president.) But Lake has never actually won a race, and Trump, as we all know, prefers a winner.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem

She’s still on the list, because in Trumpworld anything is possible. But shooting a dog in a gravel pit? It’s about the worst thing you can do for your political career.

Related:

Did Kristi Noem just doom her career? Elise Stefanik’s Trump audition

Today’s News

The Justice Department announced that Texas Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, have been indicted on bribery and money-laundering charges. In a statement, Cuellar said that he and his wife are innocent of the charges. The former White House official Hope Hicks, who once was one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, testified at Trump’s hush-money criminal trial. Canadian police arrested three people tied to last year’s killing of a prominent Sikh separatist in British Columbia, and are continuing to investigate allegations that the individuals were hired by the Indian government.

Dispatches

The Books Briefing: Poetry is an act of hope, Maya Chung writes. It can help us come closest to capturing events that exist beyond our capacity to describe them. Atlantic Intelligence: New consumer gadgets are coming out, and their entire selling point revolves around artificial intelligence, Damon Beres writes. The broken-gadget era is upon us.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani. Source: Getty.

Racehorses Have No Idea What’s Going On

By Haley Weiss

This weekend, more than 150,000 pastel-wrapped spectators and bettors will descend upon Louisville’s Churchill Downs complex to watch one of America’s greatest competitive spectacles. The 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, headlined by animals whose names (Resilience, Stronghold, Catching Freedom) sound more like Taylor Swift bonus tracks than living creatures, is expected to bring more revenue to the city and venue than ever, with resale tickets reportedly at record highs. If you count TV spectators, nearly 16 million people are expected to tune in to an event that awards major titles to athletes who may not know they’ve won and cannot be interviewed.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

Medieval pets had one of humanity’s most cursed diseases. When writers silence writers What is Wagner doing in Africa? Marijuana’s health effects are about to get a whole lot clearer.

Culture Break

Michael Buckner / Deadline via Contour RA by Getty

Watch. I Saw the TV Glow (out now in theaters), the unsettling new film directed by Jane Schoenbrun. They’ve got some ideas about how to make a genuinely weird mainstream movie.

Read. “Noon,” a poem by Li-Young Lee:

“The tall curtains billow / with presences coming and going, impossible / to confirm.”

Play our daily crossword.

P.S.

As a 30-year-old city dweller with a dog and no kids, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the role of friendship in my life. Making friends feels harder when you’re an adult—your days are suddenly so full of commitments, and interesting new people aren’t standing right in front of you at recess. Worse, at least in a place like D.C., where I live, friends tend to come and go with the seasons: They get new jobs, leave for grad school, have babies. I’m curious to hear from readers who’ve figured it out: What’s your best advice for making new friends as an adult? And what are your tips for keeping in touch with the old ones, as you all move along in life?

— Elaine

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.