Could Ozempic upend the progress society has made on body image?

 When Jenisha Watts, a senior editor at The Atlantic, went home to Kentucky to interview her family, she was “looking to get rid of the shame.” She had a son now, and she wanted to be able to tell him the truth about her upbringing—both the good and the bad. But she was not quite prepared for what Jenisha the journalist would dig up about Jenisha from Kentucky.This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Jocelyn Frank and edited by Claudine Ebeid. It was engineered by Rob Smierciak and fact checked by Michelle Ciarrocca. The managing editor of Atlantic Audio is Andrea Valdez. If you or someone you know are looking for support please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673The Atlantic's September 2023 cover story "I Never Called Her Momma," was written by Jenisha Watts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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How to handle the next COVID wave.

An American teenage refugee

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Megan Rapinoe speaks with Atlantic staff writer Frank Foer.

Fatigue is often a symptom of long COVID. It’s also deeply misunderstood.

How it feels when your best friend forgets your name.

America’s dominance in women’s soccer has helped grow the game, but the team may fall shorter in this World Cup than they ever have before. Could that actually be good for the sport?

A new study explains why your sense that people have gotten worse is a psychological illusion.

Marriages aren’t what they used to be. So why are weddings ever more wedding-like and deluxe?

The AI doomers are trying to warn us. But there’s plenty to fear that comes before killer robots.

Summer is getting too hot and dangerous, killing the childhood of our imaginations.

Anne Applebaum and Tom Nichols explain the week's events in Russia.

America's national pastime got slower as American society sped up—will reforming the rules help?

The Supreme Court is about to issue a set of rulings on affirmative action in higher education. If it goes as expected, universities will no longer be allowed to consider race in admissions. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, host Hanna Rosin talks to Adam Harris, an Atlantic staff writer who covers the issue and has written about the cases. They talk about how the backlash against affirmative action began almost as soon as the effort started.

The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta spent long stretches of the past year talking to CNN’s then-CEO Chris Licht about his grand experiment to reset the cable giant as a venue more welcoming to Republicans. In a major profile of Licht, Alberta documented the many disasters along the way, culminating in Licht’s ouster from the network this week. In this episode of Radio Atlantic, host Hanna Rosin talks to Alberta about the rise and fall of Licht, and what it means for the media.

Politicians, pundits, and even the surgeon general have been highlighting the risks that social media poses to young people’s mental health. The problem is real—but is it as serious as those caused by cigarettes or drunk driving, and what can be done about it? Host Hanna Rosin talks to the Atlantic tech reporter Kaitlyn Tiffany about what the research actually shows regarding teens and social media. “It creates this frustrating moment where legislators want to do something now. And I bet the surgeon general’s report will make that more intense. But the research isn’t quite caught up. In order to know what to do, you have to know more precisely what the problem is.”

The war in Ukraine is reaching a critical moment. Will it recapture the world’s flagging attention?