Indholdsfortegnelse for February 18, 2022 i The Week Magazine

Once, years ago in the first flush of internet hope, a writer I knew was asked—these were heady times—if Silicon Valley would be the center of the universe for all the foreseeable future. “Athens fell,” the writer, Alan Deutschman, said without missing a beat. “And Rome fell. And Palo Alto will fall, too.” The line came back to me this week as the stock price of Meta, Facebook’s parent, did an unprecedented nosedive. Is this the end of Facebook? I don’t think so. I suspect that Facebook’s namesake “blue app” will fade, while Instagram will recover from the stumble. There is a good chance that Meta will recover in some way—though I would guess that the way forward will not be through Mark Zuckerberg’s beloved metaverse, which has all the…

Good week for: Leverage, after the fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo reportedly plans to demand that the embattled network pay him “Megyn Kelly money,’’ or about $60 million, for allegedly ruining his career. Bookies, after the American Gaming Association estimated that a record 31.5 million Americans will wager $7.6 billion on the Super Bowl, through licensed sportsbooks, office pools, bets with friends, and illegal bookmakers. Jonathan, a giant tortoise on the island of St. Helena whom Guinness World Records this week recognized as the planet’s “oldest chelonian,” a category covering all turtles and tortoises. Jonathan, whose estimated age is 190, is bisexual, and still regularly carries on with both a female and a male tortoise. Bad week for: Bruce Willis, with the unveiling of the nominees for this year’s annual Razzie…

London Queen Elizabeth II has given her blessing for Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to be known as queen once Prince Charles becomes king, ending decades of speculation about Charles’ wife’s status in the royal family. In an announcement marking 70 years since Elizabeth ascended to the throne, the queen said it is her “sincere wish” that Camilla hold the title of queen consort, which would solidify her role as regal partner. It was a long road to recognition for Camilla. The tabloids—and the public—once labeled her a home-wrecker for her affair with Charles during his first marriage, to Diana, and hers, to Andrew Parker Bowles. Camilla will reportedly be given the crown of the late Queen Mother, which contains the 105.6-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond. Ivermectin scandal Mexico City Mexico City’s…

Amy Schneider dazzled Jeopardy! viewers with her recent 40-game win streak—the second-longest run in the game show’s history, said Julia Jacobs in The New York Times. For weeks, the engineering manager from Oakland seemed unbeatable, winning nearly $1.4 million until she finally lost after failing to remember the only country in the English language that ends with “h” (Bangladesh). Schneider, 42, says she never doubted her smarts; in eighth grade she was voted “most likely to appear on Jeopardy!” Her fear was how viewers would react to a trans woman. “I’ve been openly trans for a little under five years now,” she says. “A few months ago, deep down, I simply did not believe that I could ever really be accepted for who I was.” She worried that people…

Eugene Robinson The Washington Post “Amir Locke, 22, was fast asleep on a couch in a Minneapolis apartment” last week, said Eugene Robinson, “when police barged inside and executed him.” The cops, conducting a no-knock raid, charged in screaming, and the young Black man was startled awake. Terrified by an apparent home invasion, Locke reached for his legally registered handgun—and one of the cops shot him three times, killing him. The police say they were looking for Locke’s cousin as a suspect in a homicide, but Locke himself wasn’t being sought. His death is disturbingly similar to that of Breonna Taylor in 2020, when cops executing a noknock warrant wildly fired shots that killed her. It also evokes the death of Philando Castile in 2016, killed in his own car…

“If everything is ‘trauma,’ is anything? The public broadcasting of our personal traumas—sexual assault, self-harm, eating disorders, and so on—has become so ubiquitous that it now has a name: ‘trauma dumping.’ The backdrop to all this, of course, is the real, collective ‘age of trauma’ we are all living through. Many things are genuinely not good. In the age of social media, everyone is striving, on some level, to rise above the noise, to be taken seriously, to ‘feel heard.’ But when did we start using the language of harm to describe, well, everything?” Jessica Bennett in The New York Times…

UNITED KINGDOM Sandra Laville The Guardian The Metropolitan police have become a horror show of “toxic masculinity, aggressive misogyny, and deeply embedded rape culture,” said Sandra Laville. In WhatsApp and Facebook messages revealed in a new report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, one male officer wrote to a female officer, “I would happily rape you… if I was single I would happily chloroform you.” Another said, “You ever slapped your missus? It makes them love you more.” The Met has responded by claiming the messages are “not about institutional misogyny,” but rather the work of a few bad apples. Yet we’ve seen plenty of contempt for women by officers on the job. When thousands of women attended a peaceful vigil last year for Sarah Everard, who was raped…

SENEGAL Fadel Dia Sud Quotidien French President Emmanuel Macron is losing influence over France’s former colonies in West Africa, said Fadel Dia. Mali recently expelled the French envoy after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian criticized its ruling junta as “illegitimate” and “irresponsible” for inviting in Russian mercenaries after taking power in a coup. When Burkina Faso had its own military coup last month, people flooded the streets waving signs saying “No to France.” It’s a disaster for Macron, who has tried to reset French relations with former colonies by denouncing colonial-era French sins. But despite his purported goodwill, Macron’s administration has been as high-handed and condescending as its predecessors. Le Drian’s scolding of Mali’s government stinks of the paternalistic views of someone who “wants Mali to remain a French…

President Biden went to New York City to talk about violent crime last week, and the trip came “none too soon,” said Max Boot in The Washington Post. The nation is reeling from a surge in shootings and homicides, with a dozen major cities posting record killings last year. That follows a 30 percent increase in homicides in 2020—the biggest spike in modern history. With the midterms looming, the crime surge spells big trouble for the Democrats, who have a history of being tagged “soft on crime” by Republicans—a label that’s effective with voters. This is why Biden went to New York City to stand alongside newly elected Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer who ran on a pledge to stem violent crime. Biden clearly knows that…

IRS backs off facial recognition plan After a burst of outrage from experts and lawmakers, the IRS canceled a plan that would have required taxpayers to verify their identity with facial recognition software, said Rachel Metz in CNN.com. The proposed verification process was to be run by a cybersecurity company called ID.me, which has contracts with “30 states’ unemployment agencies as well as a growing number of U.S. federal agencies,” among them Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration. The plan was killed after both Democratic and Republican lawmakers sharply criticized it; a letter from Republican senators upbraided the IRS for allowing “an outside contractor to stand as the gatekeeper between citizens and necessary government services.” The metaverse’s harassment problem Meta had to implement a “personal boundary” around virtual-world avatars…

Heather Havrilesky, who writes the popular Ask Polly and Ask Molly newsletters on Substack, is the author of four books. Her latest, Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage, explores the disappointments and satisfactions of long-term monogamy. Heavy by Kiese Laymon (2018). “I wanted to write a lie.” This is the second line of Laymon’s memoir, a brutally honest treasure mined from the heartbreaks and victories of childhood. The prose is like nothing I’ve read before—lyrical, passionate, propulsive. But it’s his mother’s ferocious love, wisdom, and bewilderment that steal the show. Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough (2021). Reading Hough feels like hearing a friend recount adventures over the phone. But halfway through this hilarious, gut-wrenching book, the casually graceful storytelling yields to a philosophy of how to…

3 “Heady stuff, this album,” said Rick Quinn in Pop Matters. After making their name on throwback tracks that recall the Stax Records era of soul and gospel music, frontman Paul Janeway and his Birmingham, Ala.–based octet have pulled together a “wildly inventive” new record that feels like “a musical phantasm for our times.” Janeway sets the tone by trading his falsetto for a snarl on “3000 AD Mass,” the “ominous” opener. The “dizzying aural experience” that follows blends funk, metal, psychedelia, and soul and was written to evoke the will to dance in the face of apocalypse. The second track combines “steady, drugged-out funk-rock” with whispered lyrics inspired by a 15thcentury painting, Saint Michael Triumphs Over the Devil, said Marcy Donelson in AllMusic. The band soon goes “full-on disco”…

Sauvignon blanc is blowing up, said Elin McCoy in Bloomberg. The fastest-growing wine in the U.S., it can be produced in a variety of styles but usually weds “tongue-tingling notes of lemon and herbs” and a “whip-cracking” acidity that evokes sunny days and lively music. It’s also very food-friendly—an all-purpose white that pairs happily with almost everything but red meat. Below, three from around the world. 2020 François Chidaine Touraine Sauvignon ($16). The tart apple and light herbal flavors of this organic Loire Valley wine make it perfect with goat cheese. 2019 Seresin Marlborough ($20). “Riper and rounder” than most New Zealand offerings, this smooth “savvy” features notes of melon and fig. 2019 Tabali Talinay ($24). Like a Sancerre but at a lower price, this crisp, bone-dry Chilean wine…

Tigers, lions, and other wild beasts found their forever home with Martine Colette. Her Los Angeles–area sanctuary, Wildlife Waystation, was among the first to take in exotic species, housing more than 77,000 animals over four decades. Colette rescued them from TV and movie sets, the pet trade, roadside zoos, and research labs—and even led a caravan to a game farm in Idaho to commandeer 27 big cats. “I am firm and direct, sometimes difficult,” she said in 2000. “But what kind of woman do you think it takes to build a place like this?” The daughter of a Belgian diplomat, Colette was raised in Kenya, said The Hollywood Reporter, where she “witnessed the horrors of trapping camps, hunting, and exploitation of animals.” She was a Hollywood costume designer in 1965…

What happened A major rift emerged this week within the GOP, after the Republican National Committee said the Jan. 6 Capitol attackers were “engaged in legitimate political discourse,” prompting a strong denunciation from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other influential GOP senators. In a declaration censuring Republican Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming for sitting on the House panel investigating the attack, the RNC called the probe “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens.” McConnell pushed back against sympathetic descriptions of the rioters, saying they took part in a “violent insurrection” seeking to overturn “a legitimately certified election.” GOP Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine also rebuked the RNC, with Collins calling its defense of the…

Georgetown Law students requested a designated place to “break down” and cry after a lecturer questioned why President Biden has vowed to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. In a meeting with the school’s dean, Black students said the suspension of lecturer Ilya Shapiro was insufficient, and that “reparations” should include a crying center. A Georgia single mother is facing a possible jail term for letting her 14-year-old daughter babysit her four other children while she worked. State law lets children as young as 13 work as babysitters, but police say they arrested and handcuffed Melissa Henderson because her 4-year-old son went outside to play while his sister was babysitting. Police said that Thaddeus could have been run over or “bitten by a venomous snake.” In other news…

Sybrina Fulton still hangs a Christmas stocking every year for her son Trayvon Martin, said Derecka Purnell in New York magazine. Martin, 17, was killed in Sanford, Fla., 10 years ago by vigilante George Zimmerman, who assumed that a hoodie-wearing Black teen was a criminal. In her grief, Fulton became an activist, campaigning against racism and Stand Your Ground laws, which Zimmerman successfully used as a defense. “Before I lost Trayvon, I can tell you I was living just a regular life,” explains Fulton, whose father was a police officer. “I had not been to a march at all.” She regrets her lack of involvement. “Don’t wait till it comes to your front door, like I did.” Fulton feels honored when people compare her to Mamie Till-Mobley, the Mississippi…

Embattled podcast host Joe Rogan apologized last week after a video compilation resurfaced showing him using the N-word repeatedly over a 12-year span. Rogan, 54, said the clips were “taken out of context,” but added, “Whenever you’re in a situation where you have to say, ‘I’m not racist,’ you’ve f---ed up.” Rogan also apologized for a resurfaced clip from 11 years ago in which he compared seeing a movie in a Black neighborhood to finding himself in Planet of the Apes. One of the country’s most popular podcasters, Rogan reportedly received more than $100 million to license his podcast to Spotify. But NeilYoung, Joni Mitchell, and other musicians boycotted Spotify recently in protest of Rogan and his guests spouting Covid misinformation. The company condemned Rogan’s use of the N-word but…

Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe So much for the dramatic comeback of labor unions, said Jeff Jacoby. “Much was made” last year of a Gallup poll showing that Americans’ support for unions had climbed to 68 percent, “the highest level since 1965.” Dozens of strikes seemed to suggest the tight labor market was giving unions greater leverage. But while pro-union liberals “enthusiastically pointed out the trees, they entirely missed the forest”: Union membership fell by 250,000 workers last year. Just 14 million Americans belonged to unions by year’s end, continuing a 40-year decline. Most people approve of unions only “in the abstract.” Personally, they’re more likely to take jobs in “right-to-work” states that prohibit employers from forcing workers to pay union dues. But while private-sector unions are withering, 33.9 percent…

A drawing bought for $30 at an estate sale has been identified as the work of German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer—and valued at more than $10 million. Boston art collector Clifford Schorer was in a bookstore in 2019 when the owner asked if he’d look at a drawing a friend had bought, titled The Virgin and Child. Schorer was stunned to find that it appeared to be the work of Dürer, who died in 1528. “It’s either the greatest forgery I’ve ever seen or a masterpiece,” he told the buyer. Art scholars around the world have authenticated the piece, and Schorer puts its value at “eight figures.” An Iranian man won a Guinness World Record for balancing 85 spoons on his body, shattering the previous record of 64. Abolfazl Saber…

MYANMAR Hpone Myat Irrawaddy.com (Thailand) The U.N. special envoy to Myanmar has destroyed her own credibility, said Hpone Myat. Noeleen Heyzer, who started her job less than two months ago, seems to think pro-democracy activists should “negotiate a power-sharing arrangement” with the military, which overthrew the elected government last year and has since killed more than 1,500 protesters and tortured thousands more. In a TV interview, Heyzer said she’s aware that young people have taken up arms to fight the ruling junta, but implied they should stop, saying: “I want them [to have] something to live for, not to die for.” Yet few in Myanmar want to share power with the junta. We already tried that in 2011, when democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to participate in…

The Special Forces raid that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi in Syria last week was a “coup” for the U.S., said Robin Wright in The New Yorker. Al-Qurayshi, who blew up himself, his wife, and his children rather than surrender, was the handpicked successor of former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died in similar circumstances in 2019. Al-Qurayshi kept a low public profile, using couriers to send messages, but he was a hardened terrorist determined to reconstitute the group. Under his leadership, ISIS cells were stepping up attacks, including the suicide bombing that killed 13 Americans and more than 100 Afghans at Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Al-Qurayshi may be dead, but ISIS is “very much alive,” said Charles Dunne in…

“You need a roof over your head and security. Once you’ve got that, though, I don’t think you get happier if you get more.”David Byrne, quoted in The New York Times “It is only the blind eye of the adult that finds the familiar uninteresting.”Margaret Wise Brown, quoted in The New Yorker “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”Entrepreneur Michael Altshuler, quoted in Reader’s Digest “When you’re unaware of that nattering inner voice, it owns you.”Author Dan Harris, quoted in The Atlantic “A bad rendition of you is better than a good rendition of somebody else.”Willie Dixon, quoted in The Economist “Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah,…

Gas stoves leak significant amounts of methane, even when they’re turned off, a new study has found. Researchers from Stanford University measured emissions of the greenhouse gas from ovens and broilers in 53 homes in California. They found that as much as 1.3 percent of the gas the appliances use leaks into the atmosphere. Some methane escapes during the brief seconds before the pilot light kicks in—stoves with automatic sparkers were slightly faster—and some during cooking. But about 80 percent of the leakage takes place when the stoves are off, presumably because of loose couplings and fittings on the pipes. “Simply owning a natural-gas stove and having natural gas pipes and fittings in your home leads to more emissions over 24 hours than the amount emitted while the burners…

(Bloomsbury, $26) This “hypnotic” debut unfolds in “addictive passages rather than conventional chapters,” said Lauren LeBlanc in The New York Times. Marta, the narrator, lives under a family curse: Her great-great-grandfather pushed a man from a church steeple in Prague, and death from falling has since been a family habit. Marta and her twin, Nick, fled the Midwest for Prague in their early 20s, but as the story opens, they are back home, and Nick has been hospitalized after plummeting from a high balcony. As we gather clues about this state of affairs, Renée Branum proves “a storyteller who reveals and confides with great skill.” Defenestrate’s spare, ghostly mood “recalls Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides,” said Hamilton Cain in The Washington Post. Nick is gay, a truth his parents couldn’t…

Heartbreak by Florence Williams (Norton, $30) The pain that science writer Florence Williams felt when her 25-year marriage collapsed wasn’t just emotional, said Dana Dunham in Scientific American. In this “engrossing” memoir, she shares what she learned about the physiological effects of heartbreak while also recounting her attempts to heal what ailed her. As she dabbles in EMDR, prescribed psychedelics, solo adventures, and a return to dating, her journey proves to be “by turns wrenching, fascinating, funny, and, for so many of us, deeply relatable.” Free Love by Tessa Hadley (Harper Collins, $27) A “deliciously absurd” dinner gathering kicks off Tessa Hadley’s latest, said Michael Donkor in The Guardian. In 1967 suburban London, a pretty housewife falls so hard for the bohemian young man invited as the family guest…

3 Mitski’s first album in more than three years “plays like a sprint toward the dance floor,” said Bobby Olivier in Spin. The edgy singer-songwriter nearly quit music altogether following 2018’s Be the Cowboy, which several top critics named the best album of the year. Instead, at 31, she has pivoted to creating “deftly polished” synth-pop, the kind designed to fill big theaters rather than tiny clubs. While “not as conceptually taut” as Cowboy, this “’80s-tastic” collection of potential club-floor sing-alongs is “by many leagues the most objectively fun Mitski album to date.” Too often, unfortunately, “it feels like there’s a thick pane of glass between Mitski and the listener,” said Gabrielle Sanchez in AVClub. “Her rawness and stark ferocity feel muted here,” which is frustrating, because she’s an artist…

CallYourFriends.io is a website that offers a $2-a-month service to help users stay in touch with friends and family. Type in the names, specify how frequently you wish to talk, and you’ll receive text reminders when it’s time to pick up the phone. “A companion chatbot will even help you both schedule a time that works.” Mapless makes navigating a walkable city more fun than following turn-by-turn directions. When you enter a destination, the free iOS app simply displays an arrow that keeps you pointed in the right direction. Apple Watch support costs $1 a month or $5 annually. Realworld knows that adulting is hard. Aimed at 20-somethings who are unsure how to take life on, the free iOS app offers step-by-step tutorials on personal finance, health care, career, and…

A surprisingly strong jobs report last week revealed that the economy added 467,000 jobs in January, said Anneken Tappe in CNN.com. “Once again, economists got it totally wrong.” Most projected a much weaker hiring month because of the Omicron variant. But even restaurants and bars—businesses hard hit by Covid-19—added 100,000 jobs, a sign that the latest Covid wave did not deter employers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised earlier estimates from November and December, adding “more than 700,000 jobs to what was initially reported.” Airlines: Budget airlines announce merger deal Frontier and Spirit Airlines announced plans to merge and create the fifth-largest airline in the country, said Phil LeBeau and Leslie Josephs in CNBC.com. The discount carriers came to terms this week on a $6.6 billion deal. While the…

Home flipping gets harder “More people are flipping homes, but they are making less of a profit,” said Anna Bahney in CNN.com. There were more than 94,700 single-family homes and condominiums that were “flipped” in the third quarter of last year, meaning that they were bought at a discount, renovated, and then resold. That’s the most flipping activity since 2006, according to realestate data provider Attom. But the frenetic market wasn’t exactly a flippers’ paradise. Because of the nature of flipping, which can take months to complete, “many investors bought when home prices had shot up” but then struggled to offload at the peak of the market. The average gain on a flipped home was $68,847, or 32.3 percent, but much of that can be eaten up by the…

Jordan Weissmann Slate Accounts of a weak U.S. labor market have been greatly exaggerated, said Jordan Weissmann. The Labor Department stunned a lot of people last week when it reported that employers added 467,000 jobs in January despite the surge in the Omicron variant. But that wasn’t all. We finally got to see a comprehensive set of revisions to previous months’ jobs reports from 2021, and they were “big enough to fundamentally change the story of the job market.” One thing to keep in mind about the jobs report is that the initial numbers released each month “are very much a rough draft.” The Labor Department later issues revisions of the numbers from the two previous months after it has had more time to “smooth out the impact of…

This week’s question: Using a food-reward system, a Swedish town has trained crows to pick up cigarette butts in the streets. If the birds were to strike out on their own and found a company, what should they call their cleanup service? Last week’s contest: Cold weather has compelled the National Weather Service to warn Floridians to watch out for cold-stunned iguanas, which have been tumbling from local trees. If you were to design a road sign warning of the danger of falling, frozen reptiles, what would it say? THE WINNER: “Lizards in the SkyWhile Driving” Bill Newyear, Pahrump, Nev. SECOND PLACE: “Speed Bumps Ahead; They May Not Be Dead” Amy Mower, Greenwood Village, Colo. THIRD PLACE: “A Reptile Dysfunction Ahead” Rebecca Burgan, Grass Valley, Calif. For runners-up and complete…

A Canadian octogenarian is being praised for trekking a quarter mile to rescue seven people in the midst of a recent Saskatchewan blizzard. Andre Bouvier Sr. received a call about a woman who had pinned her location on social media in search of help. Despite cautions from his wife, Bouvier ventured out into the storm on foot to search for the stranger. On the way, he came across two other stranded vehicles. Bouvier shepherded the seven passengers back to his house, where they enjoyed a meal and spent the night. “You don’t think about it—you just do it,” Bouvier said. Armed with pencils and crayons, second-grader Dillon Helbig wrote a book about an exploding Christmas ornament that hurls a boy to the North Pole. Then on a trip with his…

Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, has seen many of his rock music contemporaries die young, said David Marchese in The New York Times Magazine. His close friend Chris Cornell, the frontman of Soundgarden, struggled with depression for years before dying by suicide in 2017 at age 52. The list of grungeera musicians Vedder, 57, has survived includes Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Layne Staley and Mike Starr of Alice in Chains, and Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots. Vedder says the deaths of so many friends and fellow musicians left him “fetal” for a while, and admits he was both confused and resentful. “It’s frustrating when you are deeply saddened by a loss,” he says, “but it’s out of balance with the anger that you feel. We were…

Juan Williams The Hill Conservatives are “playing with racial fire” by discrediting the Supreme Court’s first Black female justice before she is even nominated, said Juan Williams. Soon after President Biden confirmed his intent to nominate a Black woman to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer, several Republican senators predicted she’ll be “undeserving.” Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker said a Black woman nominee would be the beneficiary of “affirmative racial discrimination,” while Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri derided Biden’s goal of adding gender and racial diversity to the court as “woke” and “race-obsessed.” Race-obsessed? The 115 justices who have served on the Supreme Court have included only two Black people—and no Black women. Have qualified Black judges and lawyers been overlooked by presidents such as Donald Trump, whose three court nominees were…

DENMARK Cornelius von Tiedemann Der Nordschleswiger “Denmark is not a playground” for German antivaxxers, said Cornelius von Tiedemann. Our country became the first in the European Union to lift almost all its Covid-19 restrictions—including indoor mask mandates and vaccination requirements for bars and restaurants—after the government declared coronavirus is no longer a “socially critical illness.” The announcement apparently pleased “self-described contrarians” in Germany who shun Covid-19 protocols and social norms at home and “fundamentally reject state restrictions.” They are now flocking to the Danish region of Nordschleswig, just north of Germany. We’re always happy to resettle transplants, but these so-called maverick thinkers should know what to expect before making the trip. Denmark was able to lift domestic restrictions only because people accepted them in the first place, by getting vaccinated…

For CNN, it’s a “cataclysm,” said Erik Wemple in The Washington Post. CNN’s polarizing president, Jeff Zucker, abruptly resigned last week, saying he had failed to disclose a consensual relationship with a subordinate, CNN chief marketing officer Allison Gollust. But the backstory is far more complicated and damaging than that. Both Zucker, 56, and Gollust, 49, were deeply enmeshed in the saga of CNN’s fallen anchor Chris Cuomo, who was fired in December for lying about secretly advising his brother, then–New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on how to fight off sexual misconduct allegations. Sources say Zucker and Gollust, who once briefly served as Andrew Cuomo’s spokeswoman, pushed hard for the series of interviews Chris did with his brother in the early days of the pandemic. The chummy, softball interviews…

(Penguin, $28) Generation X “would be vulnerable to cancellation if it hadn’t already canceled itself,” said Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times. Consider the latest book from Chuck Klosterman, in which the influential 49-year-old cultural critic looks back on the decade when his cohort’s tastes largely defined U.S. popular culture. His big idea is that the 1990s marked the twilight of monoculture in America—the last time television interpreted reality for everyone in the country, and by doing so revealed to young adults the degree to which events large and small were shaped by people playing to the camera. He focuses on paragons of the zeitgeist: Nirvana, Seinfeld, Quentin Tarantino. But while his intent is to celebrate his generation’s instinctive skepticism and disengagement, “overall one is left with a…

Colleen Hoover is the new queen of the good cry, said Stephanie Merry in The Washington Post. A self-made publishing star, the 42-year-old Texas native and former social worker has been propelled to new heights of popularity by young women on TikTok who post video clips in which they share how one or another of Hoover’s nearly two dozen novels has left them emotionally devastated. Open sobbing wins viewers, who in turn become readers. Hoover, who was already a best-selling author, had her sales increase almost sevenfold last year. Last week she held four of the top five slots on The New York Times paperback fiction best-seller list. And all she has had to do to reach this peak is push the drama of each story she starts until…

3 “World, get ready for Amber Mark,” said Rachel Brodsky in Stereogum. The New York City singer, songwriter, and producer is “one of those artists who, upon first hearing their music, you ask yourself, ‘Why isn’t this person really, really famous?’” She sounds “utterly unbound by genre” on her first full-length album, a 17-track collection of “super-stylized pop and R&B” that detours into bossa nova, reggaeton, and dancehall. “From start to finish, it’s a wonder of sound and texture.” The record’s lyrics map Mark’s growth “from crippling self-doubt to pure confidence,” said Eric Torres in Pitchfork. The 28-year-old is interested in astrophysics, too, and her celestial metaphors “amplify human concerns to galactic size” on the lush and “fully realized” album’s second half. Mark’s “husky, dynamic” voice surprises throughout—especially on “What…

Marry Me Jennifer Lopez is back in the rom-com game this week at 52, co-starring opposite Owen Wilson in a far-fetched tale about a pop superstar who ropes a stranger into marriage when her planned wedding falls apart with millions watching. The movie is also playing in theaters. Peacock I’m Your Man In this surprising and widely acclaimed 2021 German rom-com, a researcher reluctantly agrees to open her home to a handsome android who’s programmed to be a perfect partner for her. Unorthodox’s Maria Schrader directs. Hulu We Broke Up Rom-coms live and die by the likability of their leads. William Jackson Harper (The Good Place) and Aya Cash (You’re the Worst) carry the load in this one, and that’s enough. Hulu The Map of Tiny Perfect Things A…

The Wok Shop Carbon-Steel Wok This flat-bottomed, 14-inch pan is recommended by best-selling cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt, whose next book is The Wok. Carbon steel heats up faster than heavier cast iron, and the narrow, flat bottom works on any stovetop. $40, wokshop.com Source: NYMag.com Dexter Russell S5198 Chinese Chef’s Knife A Chinese cleaver is “the ultimate do-it-all tool,” dicing meat as well as it does vegetables. Because this carbonsteel blade is tapered end to end, “the same tool that can carve up a chicken can gently score the skin of a mushroom.” $58, dexterrussellcutlery.com Source: Wirecutter Mister Kitchenware Bamboo Steamer Stackable bamboo steamers sit inside a wok and allow for steaming more than one dish at time, such as meat on one level and vegetables or dumplings…

Pfizer projects it will generate record-high revenue in 2022, saying this week it expects to sell $32 billion of its Covid-19 shots and $22 billion of its antiviral coronavirus treatment pill Paxlovid this year. The pharma company’s fourth-quarter revenue more than doubled, thanks to $12.5 billion in sales of its Covid vaccine. CNBC.com Amazon last week notched the biggest-ever one-day gain in market value for a U.S. company, after its shares surged 14 percent. That added $191 billion to Amazon’s market value, eclipsing the record Apple set with $181 billion added the week before. The Wall Street Journal The richest 0.1 percent of Americans saw their share of the nation’s wealth rise by 1.3 percentage points, to 19.1 percent, from the end of 2019 to the end of 2021. That’s…

While the number of secure, well-paying jobs that require digital skills is exploding, the educational system is not keeping up with demand, especially when it comes to teaching those skills to students from underprivileged backgrounds. NPower (npower.org) is a nonprofit that aims to close the digital skills gap by offering veterans and young adults from underserved communities free classes to learn about in-demand skills, such as cybersecurity and cloud computing, designed and taught by practicing industry experts. NPower also provides career development and placement services to help their alumni find jobs or continue their education; 81 percent of NPower graduates are able to use their training to find new jobs. Graduates report that within three years of completing their programs they see their salaries increase an average of 361…

The Economist The streaming wars are turning into an endless battle of attrition, said The Economist. Every year, Disney, Netflix, Apple, Amazon, WarnerMedia, and their rivals pledge to spend more and more on content, “but the growth in subscribers is showing signs of slowing.” Netflix’s share price fell by more than a quarter recently after it forecast its weakest quarter for growth since 2010, “when most Netflix subscribers still got DVDs by mail.” Yet just to stay in competition, “media firms will spend more than $230 billion on video content this year, nearly double the figure a decade ago.” Three years ago, Disney’s Bob Chapek said the company would end up spending $2 billion on streaming content in 2024. He recently raised that forecast to $9 billion. There is little…

In the early 1970s, Phil Harvey wanted to test his theory that people would be more likely to use contraception if they paid for it. As part of his graduate studies in public health at the University of North Carolina, Harvey, along with a classmate, British doctor Tim Black, launched the first U.S. mail-order condom business, running ads in college newspapers with provocative slogans such as “What will you get her this Christmas—pregnant?” The response was overwhelming, and the business grew into the multimillion-dollar sex-toy retailer Adam & Eve. A litigious libertarian, Harvey fought efforts from the Reagan administration to shutter his firm, while donating much of his wealth to provide family-planning services for hundreds of millions of people in the developing world. “I’ve certainly taken a great deal…