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        <section id="article-section-1"><p><small><em>Updated at 12:27 p.m.</em></small></p><p>Authorities in Harris County, Texas, urged residents to seek refuge on their roofs as many parts of the county were inundated by flooding caused by tropical storm Harvey, and the National Weather Service <a href="https://twitter.com/NWS/status/901832717070983169" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'0',r'538140'">called</a> the event “unprecedented … &amp; beyond anything experienced.”</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT HAS REQUESTED: IF HIGHEST FLOOR OF YOUR HOME BECOMES DANGEROUS...GET ON THE ROOF. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/houwx?src=hash" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'1',r'538140'">#houwx</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/glswx?src=hash" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'2',r'538140'">#glswx</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/txwx?src=hash" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'3',r'538140'">#txwx</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Harvey?src=hash" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'4',r'538140'">#Harvey</a> <a href="https://t.co/rG3dsdQUxu" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'5',r'538140'">pic.twitter.com/rG3dsdQUxu</a></p>
— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) <a href="https://twitter.com/NWSHouston/status/901765351960190976" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'6',r'538140'">August 27, 2017</a><br></blockquote><p>The City of Houston <a href="https://twitter.com/houstontx/status/901741970065907712" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'7',r'538140'">urged</a> residents to call only if there was imminent danger, saying that the city’s 911 lines are at capacity. That tweet was followed by a string of pleas from help from Houston residents, many of whom said they could not reach emergency responders by calling 911, and were in imminent danger from rising floodwaters. The National Weather Service urged residents to follow orders from officials. “This event is unprecedented &amp; all impacts are unknown &amp; beyond anything experienced,” the service said in a tweet.</p></section><div class="ad-boxinjector-wrapper"><gpt-ad id="boxinjector1" targeting-pos="boxinjector1" class="ad ad-boxinjector" lazy-load="2" data-object-pk="1" data-object-name="boxinjector"><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[0, 0]" sizes="[[300, 250], [320, 350], [300, 350], [1, 3], [320, 520], [320, 430], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[760, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [1, 3], [768, 350], [768, 520], [640, 360], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[1010, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [970, 250], [1, 3], [768, 350], [768, 520], [640, 360], [970, 350], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset><gpt-sizeset viewport-size="[1050, 0]" sizes="[[728, 90], [728, 350], [970, 250], [1024, 350], [1, 3], [970, 350], [760, 350], [1, 4], [1, 5]]"></gpt-sizeset></gpt-ad></div><section id="article-section-2"><p>In Washington, meanwhile, President Trump sent a string of  tweets taking a strikingly different tone than that being employed by the emergency-management officials on the ground in Texas, saying that relief efforts were “going well.” (He also found time on Sunday morning to recommend a book by Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, weigh in on the Senate election in Missouri, tout his proposal for a wall along the Mexican border, and emphasize the importance of renegotiating NAFTA.)</p><p>Trump said he was watching the situation in Texas, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/901777333513854976" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'8',r'538140'">cited</a> “great coordination between agencies at all levels of government,” and said he would visit the state “as soon as that trip can be made without causing disruption.”</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Wow - Now experts are calling <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Harvey?src=hash" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'9',r'538140'">#Harvey</a> a once in 500 year flood! We have an all out effort going, and going well!</p>
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/901797906046439426" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'10',r'538140'">August 27, 2017</a></blockquote><p>The flooding in Houston appeared to have no recent precedent. Parts of Harris County have received more than 20 inches of rain in the past 24 hours. Jeff Lindner, a flood-control district officer, <a href="http://www.khou.com/news/local/people-climbing-into-attics-to-escape-flooding-official-says/468028354" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'11',r'538140'">said</a> rainfall of more than 4 inches per hour meant many parts of the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area would see far worse flooding than during recent storms that have hit the state. Harvey was, he said, set to surpass levels of flooding seen in southeast Texas when tropical storm Allison struck Texas in June 2001.   </p><p>Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist, said on Twitter that flooding in many parts of the city was on pace to break the national record for 24-hour rainfall.</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Several spots in Houston metro are on pace to break the all-time U.S. 24-hour rainfall record. (42" in 1979 in Alvin, TX)<br>
Shown: &gt;17.5"/10hr <a href="https://t.co/3z3eGcGzWj" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'12',r'538140'">pic.twitter.com/3z3eGcGzWj</a></p>
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/901761487143702529" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'13',r'538140'">August 27, 2017</a></blockquote><p>Harvey hit Texas late Friday as a category-4 hurricane with heavy rains and 130-mile-per-hour winds. The National Weather Service <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/?epac#Harvey" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'14',r'538140'">said</a> Harvey was continuing to produce “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” and issued flash-flood emergencies for parts of southeastern Texas. The storm has been blamed for five deaths. Thousands are without power.</p><p>Texas has been preparing for a storm like this one since Hurricane Ike struck the state's Gulf Coast in 2008. As my colleague David Graham <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-predictions/537933/" data-omni-click="r'article',r'link',r'15',r'538140'">reported</a>, “the threat of a major storm striking the area ... has long been a nightmare scenario for disaster experts ... yet action to prepare for such a storm has been slow.” A massive storm, David wrote, could not have have a catastrophic economic impact, but:</p><blockquote>
<p>The human effects in the area could be even more devastating. It’s the aftermath of an event that first responders worry about most—not only because, unlike the storms, they’re subject to human control, but also because they tend to be more lethal. Can responders get people out of flooded areas? Can they get food and water and drugs in? Can they get power back on? How badly is infrastructure destroyed?</p>
</blockquote><p>The greater Houston area, a hub for the refinement and transshipment of petroleum products, with vast residential areas along the bay and riverbanks. The heavy rains have closed highways and other routes; responders are reportedly having difficulty reaching residents of lower lying areas trapped in their homes by the flooding.</p></section>
    
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    For 200 years, this Mardi Gras krewe has kicked off the festival at the crack of dawn with a very important message.
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                <a href="/author/krishnadev-calamur/" class="author-link">Krishnadev Calamur</a> is a senior editor at <em>The Atlantic, </em>where he oversees news coverage. He is a former editor and reporter at NPR and the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mumbai-Dutton-Guilt-Mystery-ebook/dp/B007FEPP4K"><em>Murder in Mumbai</em></a>.

                
            
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        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/conor-friedersdorf/" itemprop="url" title="Conor Friedersdorf" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">Conor Friedersdorf</span></a></span></li>
        

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        <p class="dek">Americans would be less alienated from one another and solve problems more easily if they recognized one little-noticed distinction in policy debates.</p>
        
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            <p>We sometimes think of political issues in binary terms. Is someone pro-life or pro-choice? But most individuals hold views that are more complicated than a binary can capture.</p>

<p>An alternative is to describe a given position on a spectrum. On abortion, an outright ban sits at one extreme; at the other is the elimination of all restrictions on the procedure. In between are a staggering array of coherently distinguishable positions.</p>

<p>Politicians seeking to win votes express their stances either in terms of a binary or as a spot on a spectrum, depending on where they see the greatest advantage. Though their beliefs don’t change, how they frame them makes a political difference.</p>

<p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p>

<p>There’s a different set of frames, though, that are as relevant as binaries and spectrums, though they are less familiar and less discussed: equilibriums and limits.</p>


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        <p class="dek">Even when the FBI recommends against granting a clearance, there’s nothing to prevent a president from simply overriding the system.</p>
        
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            <p>The <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/new-kids-on-the-block/552911/">Rob Porter fiasco</a> has exposed the White House’s duplicity, disorganization, and disregard for domestic violence, but it has also exposed some of the issues with the system for granting security clearance to federal employees.</p>

<p>Until his <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/john-kelly-rob-porter/552704/">abrupt resignation last week amid allegations of physical and verbal abuse by two ex-wives</a>, Porter had served as staff secretary, handling classified material under an interim security clearance. The question is when the White House learned about the allegations against Porter, when it learned that he would not be recommended for a permanent security clearance, and whether he would have been allowed to continue working barring the press reports about the allegations.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">Syria's War Is Fueling Three More Conflicts</h3>
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    <ul class="metadata">
        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/krishnadev-calamur/" itemprop="url" title="Krishnadev Calamur" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">Krishnadev Calamur</span></a></span></li>
        

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        <p class="dek">The grim post-ISIS future</p>
        
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            <p>When an Israeli jet crashed after being shot down over Syria over the weekend, it marked a serious escalation in the Syrian Civil War. But it also reflected an ongoing reality, one that is growing more dangerous: Syria’s war encompasses at least three other international conflicts, each of which are heating up.</p>

<p>In the last few weeks alone, Turkey has clashed with Syrian Kurds and threatened a U.S.-controlled town in Syria; an Israeli fighter jet that was part of a response to an incursion into Israeli territory by an Iranian drone launched from Syria <a href="https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/israeli-air-force/air-force-strikes-iranian-targets-in-syria/">took Syrian anti-aircraft fire</a>, forcing its two pilots to eject and parachute into Israeli territory; and U.S. forces repelled an attack by Russian fighters, killing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/russia-syria-dead.html?action=click&amp;contentCollection=Middle%20East&amp;module=Trending&amp;version=Full&amp;region=Marginalia&amp;pgtype=article">an unknown number of them</a> that <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/u-s-strikes-said-to-kill-scores-of-russian-fighters-in-syria">reports</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/russia-syria-dead.html">suggest</a> could be in the hundreds.   </p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous</h3>
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        <p class="dek"><span><span>Its faith-based 12-step program dominates treatment in the United States. But researchers have debunked central tenets of AA doctrine and found dozens of other treatments more effective.</span></span></p>
        
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            <p><span class="smallcaps">J.G. is a lawyer</span> in his early 30s. He’s a fast talker and has the lean, sinewy build of a distance runner. His choice of profession seems preordained, as he speaks in fully formed paragraphs, his thoughts organized by topic sentences. He’s also a worrier—a big one—who for years used alcohol to soothe his anxiety.</p>

<p>J.G. started drinking at 15, when he and a friend experimented in his parents’ liquor cabinet. He favored gin and whiskey but drank whatever he thought his parents would miss the least. He discovered beer, too, and loved the earthy, bitter taste on his tongue when he took his first cold sip.</p>

<p>His drinking increased through college and into law school. He could, and occasionally did, pull back, going cold turkey for weeks at a time. But nothing quieted his anxious mind like booze, and when he didn’t drink, he didn’t sleep. After four or six weeks dry, he’d be back at the liquor store.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">Google’s Guinea-Pig City</h3>
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        <p class="dek">Will Toronto turn its residents into Alphabet’s experiment? The answer has implications for cities everywhere.</p>
        
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            <p class="dropcap" dir="ltr">Q<span class="smallcaps">uayside is a</span> nondescript, 12-acre chunk of land on the southern edge of Toronto’s downtown. It’s just three miles from my apartment, but getting there takes almost an hour by subway, bus, and foot. When I finally arrive at 333 Lake Shore Boulevard East on a windy day in early January, I find a vacant parking lot full of snow. The abandoned Victory Soya Mills silos loom at its edge—a remnant of the city’s industrial heyday. The plot is half of the future site of Sidewalk Toronto, a “<a href="https://sidewalktoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Sidewalk-Labs-Vision-Sections-of-RFP-Submission.pdf">neighborhood built from the internet up</a>” by Google’s sister company, Sidewalk Labs. Lake Ontario is frozen and it’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/cold-weather-united-states-mars/549386/">colder</a> than the surface of Mars the day I go to look at the site.</p>

<p>It’s a far cry from the vision that fills the Sidewalk Toronto <a href="https://sidewalktoronto.ca/">webpage</a>, where a crisp video shot on a sunny day makes the Victory silos look cheerful and full of potential. Torontonians in puffer vests and toques describe a vibrant city bursting at the seams. Toronto’s population <a href="http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/Page.cfm?Lang=E&amp;Geo1=CSD&amp;Code1=3520005&amp;Geo2=PR&amp;Code2=35&amp;Data=Count&amp;SearchText=Prince&amp;SearchType=Begins&amp;SearchPR=01&amp;B1=All">grew</a> by 4.5 percent between 2011 and 2016. The city tolerates a <a href="https://www.lowestrates.ca/blog/finance/how-much-it-costs-live-young-person-toronto-2018">high cost of living</a> and a <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/28/rental-vacancy-rates-lowest-in-16-years.html">low rental-vacancy rate</a>.</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">Winners of the 2018 Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest</h3>
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        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/alan-taylor/" itemprop="url" title="Alan Taylor" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">Alan Taylor</span></a></span></li>
        

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        <p class="dek">The organizers of the Underwater Photographer of the Year have just announced the winning photographers and images for 2018.</p>
        
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            <p>Organizers of the <a href="http://www.underwaterphotographeroftheyear.com/">Underwater Photographer of the Year Contest</a> have just announced the winning photographers and images for 2018, with German photographer Tobias Friedrich being named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2018. More than 5,000 images were submitted this year by photographers from around the world. Prizes and commendations were handed out in a number of categories including Wide Angle, Macro, Wrecks, Behavior, Portrait, Black &amp; White, Compact, Up &amp; Coming, and, in British waters, Wide Angle, Compact, and Macro shots. UPY was once again kind enough to share some of this year's honorees with us below, with captions written by the photographers.</p>

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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">Abraham Lincoln's Secret Visits to Slaves</h3>
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        <li class="byline"><span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a href="/author/william-r-black/" itemprop="url" title="William R. Black" data-omni-click="inherit"><span itemprop="name">William R. Black</span></a></span></li>
        

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        <p class="dek">In the mid-1930s, the Federal Writers’ Project interviewed thousands of former slaves, some of whom claimed the president came to their plantations disguised as a beggar or a peddler, telling them they’d soon be free.</p>
        
        <div class="excerpt">
            <p>Shortly before the election of 1860, a man <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.130/?sp=231">came upon</a> a plantation near Marlin, Texas, some 20 miles southeast of Waco. Though nobody knew who he was, the plantation owner took him in as a guest. The stranger paid close attention to how the enslaved people working on the plantation were treated—how they subsisted on a weekly ration of “four pounds of meat and a peck of meal,” how they were whipped and sometimes sold, resulting in the tearing apart of families. Eventually, the stranger said goodbye and went on his way, but a little while later he wrote a letter to the plantation owner, informing him he would soon have to free his slaves—“that everybody was going to have to, that the North was going to see to it.” The stranger told the owner to go into the room where he’d slept, and see where he’d carved his name into the headrest. And when the slaveholder went and looked, he saw the name: “A. Lincoln.”</p>


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        <h3 class="hed" itemprop="headline">The American Dream on Thin Ice</h3>
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        <p class="dek">A decision by the International Olympic Committee has all but guaranteed a loss for Team USA in hockey. But don’t count them out just yet.</p>
        
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            <p>It’s an undeniable fact that the United States’ standing as an international power has taken a serious hit over the past year. And this emerging, still unfamiliar reality is about to be put on full display. As America falls a few notches in the eyes of its peers, Russia and other nations stand to gain in tremendous ways.</p>

<p>This dire-sounding analysis centers on—what else?—the Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament, which <a href="https://www.olympic.org/pyeongchang-2018/results/en/ice-hockey/daily-schedule.htm">commences Wednesday</a> as the United States faces Slovenia and Russia tussles with Slovakia in the first two matches of the opening round. As two-time Olympic champions, the Americans have a history of capping off historic runs at just the right time. But their status as a quadrennial medal contender all but evaporated in the wake of a controversial decision last spring.</p>


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        <p class="dek">Officers involved in fatal incidents keep getting acquitted, but a team of Baltimore cops who stole from suspects and taxpayers alike during a years-long criminal spree are facing serious jail time.</p>
        
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            <p>Something amazing happened over the course of a recent trial in Baltimore: Witnesses laid out the way that the city’s Gun Trace Task Force <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/baltimore-gun-trace-task-force-abuses/551663/">acted as a de facto criminal gang</a>, but with the advantages of a police badge and the power of the state. Officers assigned to the unit robbed hundreds of thousands of dollars from drug dealers, pocketing the money. They targeted cars for searches based on makes and models, and stopped adult black men just for carrying backpacks. They drove at groups of men and detained anyone who ran. They bilked taxpayers by charging for fraudulent overtime.</p>

<p>On Monday, something even more amazing happened. Two officers were <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-gttf-verdict-20180208-story.html">convicted</a> of racketeering and robbery charges in federal court. They joined six others who had already pleaded guilty. Stories of police misconduct have become bracingly common in recent years, but convictions have remained rare. The failure to convict any Baltimore officer in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray is the obvious contrast, but similar cases all over the country, from Tamir Rice to Eric Garner to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/footage-of-a-police-killing-that-jurors-didnt-punish/547868/">Daniel Shaver</a>, have also ended without convictions.</p>


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        <p class="dek">In 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft will attempt to break the record for the farthest image ever taken of Earth.</p>
        
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            <p dir="ltr">In 1977, humans launched twin robotic probes into space several weeks apart. The two Voyager spacecraft barreled away from Earth for a tour of our planet’s siblings in the solar system. At each encounter, the Voyagers set records for the best-looking pictures of these planets humanity had ever taken, far better than anything seen through a telescope. There was <a href="https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-voyager-took/jupiter/">Jupiter</a>, furiously churning with gargantuan storms. There was <a href="https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-voyager-took/saturn/">Saturn</a>, encircled by vinyl-like rings. There was <a href="https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-voyager-took/uranus/">Uranus</a>, robin’s-egg blue and featureless. There was <a href="https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/images-voyager-took/neptune/">Neptune</a>, cloud-speckled and cerulean.</p>

<p dir="ltr">When the planetary safari was over, Voyager 1 turned back toward Earth in 1990 for one last picture before its cameras were shut off. The resulting photograph, the “<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/multimedia/pia00452.html">Pale Blue Dot</a>” image at the top of this story, became the most distant image ever taken of Earth.</p>


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