Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he writes about economics, technology, and the media. He is the author of Hit Makers and the host of the podcast Crazy/Genius

Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty We Live in a Potemkin Autocracy Now The White House memo declaring New York City, Portland, and Seattle “anarchist jurisdictions” isn’t federalism; it’s half-baked feudalism.

Chris Lee / VII / Redux Where Joe Biden Is Underperforming Hillary Clinton The Democratic nominee has a Latino-voter problem.

Tom Pennington / Getty The Reason Trump Isn’t Trying to Save the Economy He is stuck in a Pollyannaish fantasy of his own making.

Getty / The Atlantic What Young, Healthy People Have to Fear From COVID-19 The White House’s new science adviser says: nothing. The science disagrees.

Illustration by Mark Harris; images from Interborough Rapid ... Get Ready for the Great Urban Comeback Visionary responses to catastrophes have changed city life for the better.

Wilfredo Lee / Kamil Zihnioglu / Matt Dunham ... Mask Up and Shut Up COVID-19 transmission would go down if we spoke less, or less loudly, in public spaces. Why aren’t more people saying so?

Shutterstock / The Atlantic The Workforce Is About to Change Dramatically Three predictions for what the future might look like

Getty / The Atlantic Hygiene Theater Is a Huge Waste of Time People are power scrubbing their way to a false sense of security.

Getty / The Atlantic How Long Does COVID-19 Immunity Last? A new study from King’s College London inspired a raft of headlines suggesting that immunity might vanish in months. The truth is a lot more complicated—and, thankfully, less dire.

Max Herman / NurPhoto / Getty A Lot of Americans Are About to Lose Their Homes The current housing crisis could get messy quickly, but fixing it shouldn’t be complicated, if Congress intervenes.

The Atlantic COVID-19 Cases Are Rising, So Why Are Deaths Flatlining? The gap between soaring cases and falling deaths is being weaponized by the right to claim a hollow victory in the face of shameless failure. What’s really going on?

Shutterstock; Paul Spella / The Atlantic The Overlooked Role of Guns in the Police-Reform Debate Something is weirdly absent from the general discussion about police violence in America: the weapon most commonly used to inflict it.

The Atlantic Why America’s Institutions Are Failing The country’s law-enforcement and public-health systems are flunking 2020’s test.

Leonard Freed / Magnum Unbundle the Police American policing is a gnarl of overlapping services that should be demilitarized and disentangled.

The Atlantic What Does the Shocking Unemployment Report Really Mean? No one is sure whether this is a dead-cat bounce or the beginning of a glorious summer of economic recovery.

The Atlantic Three Reasons Stocks Are Rising In the time that U.S. deaths have increased from 100 to more than 100,000, the S&P 500 has gone up 20 percent.

Piotr Malecki / Panos Pictures / R​edux Social Distancing Is Not Enough We will need a comprehensive strategy to reduce the sort of interactions that can lead to more infections.

Bettman / Getty We Can Prevent a Great Depression. It’ll Take $10 Trillion. Don’t think of that number as “big” or “bold.” Just think of it as the appropriate dosage for a once-in-a-century economic affliction.

Nick Oxford / Reuters It’s the Pandemic, Stupid The shutdowns aren’t what’s driving the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression.