Don’t Panic About Russian Space Weapons

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.

A brief hubbub erupted in Washington this week over an unspecified “national security threat” that some sources now believe is related to a Russian plan to use nuclear weapons in space. The prospect is cause for concern but not panic.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

• The other time America panicked over a president’s age
• Mark A. Graber: “Of course presidents are officers of the United States.”
• How to defeat a mafia state
• Why the most educated people in America fall for anti-Semitic lies

For All Mankind

Yesterday, Representative Mike Turner, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, issued a cryptic request to President Joe Biden, asking him to declassify information regarding a “serious national security threat.”

Turner’s statement angered some of the more extreme members of his own GOP caucus. Representative Andy Ogles that Turner was just trying to whip up some fear about Russia, in part to help passage of a bill authorizing more aid to Ukraine, and CNN’s Manu Raju: “The intelligence that he was referring to is, like, intelligence that we see a couple of times a month.” Himes, according to , that a danger was brewing in the “medium to long term”; he puckishly added that there is “no need to buy gold.”