Indholdsfortegnelse for November 11, 2022 i The Week Magazine

The go-to tactic for downplaying political terrorism and mass shootings is to blame the attackers’ violence on “mental illness.” A person who would crack an 82-year-old man’s skull with a hammer, or shoot up a supermarket, synagogue, or school, is no doubt mentally unwell. But what triggers troubled people to lash out violently? What determines their choice of targets? Those questions become more urgent when you consider that David DePape, the man accused of trying to kill Nancy Pelosi’s husband, shares a belief system with literally tens of millions of Americans: The 2020 election was stolen, Covid vaccination was tyranny, a Jewish cabal controls the world, legions of pedophiles are grooming children, and white men are now our society’s most persecuted victims. “He really believed in the whole MAGA, ‘Pizzagate,’…

Workers at “bikini barista” coffee stands in Everett, Wash., have a constitutional right to wear G-strings and “pasties” while serving customers, a federal court has ruled. A 2017 Everett law barred revealing clothing in such stores, on the grounds that skimpily clad baristas might elicit sexual harassment or themselves engage in “lewd conduct.” But the court found the city had unfairly targeted women in its crackdown. Activists at the University of Alabama want to remove the word “Dixie” from the school song, “Yea Alabama,” because “the word is deeply associated with the ‘Old South,’ slavery, and racist imagery.” Organizers of a counterpetition argue that “Dixie” is just “a synonym for the South,” where Alabama continues to be located. In other news Travel, pills limit reach of abortion restrictions Abortion in…

Anderson .Paak appears to be incessantly happy, said Adam Bradley in The New York Times. The singer and drummer, who forms half of the Grammy-winning duo Silk Sonic with pop star Bruno Mars, is known for his omnipresent ear-to-ear grin, even if his music can be painfully soulful. “I’ve always been a silly person who likes to have fun and joke around,” says .Paak, 36. “My mom tells me my dad was the same way. But he was from Philly, from one of the hardest places, and I don’t see no pictures of them smiling.” Born Brandon Paak Anderson in Oxnard, Calif., he was 7 when he witnessed his father confront his mother with a gun and begin strangling her in the middle of the street. His father served…

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen filed for divorce last week from her husband, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, saying the couple had “grown apart” after 13 years of marriage. Brady, 45, called the divorce “painful and difficult.” The two reportedly reached a confidential settlement to divide their vast fortune, as well as custody arrangements for their two children, ages 12 and 9, along with Brady’s 15-year-old son from a previous relationship. Both Brady and Bündchen have completed Florida’s mandatory course “Family Stabilization” for divorcing parents. Bündchen, 42, reportedly grew furious over Brady’s decision to back out of his retirement announcement and become the oldest starting quarterback in NFL history. The Bucs are reeling since Brady and Bündchen split, losing three straight games. NBA star Kyrie Irving refused to apologize…

Laurence Tribe and Dennis Aftergut Los Angeles Times Clarence Thomas “is thumbing his nose at the law,” said Laurence Tribe and Dennis Aftergut. The conservative Supreme Court justice last week gave Sen. Lindsey Graham a temporary stay of a federal appeals court’s order that he testify before a Georgia grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The full court later ordered Graham to testify, but Thomas still has a blatant conflict of interest. His wife, Ginni, “has been a leading MAGA operative” promoting the Big Lie. She emailed Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, 29 times to urge that he fight what she called “the greatest heist of our history,” and pleaded with state legislators in Arizona and Wisconsin to defy election results. She hasn’t denied discussing…

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Editorial Khaleej Times It was the moment “when 2 billion people stopped talking,” said the Khaleej Times. Last week “the virtual world almost stood still” when the social media messaging app WhatsApp went down for a couple of hours. It was a moment to contemplate how much our lives are governed by our technological tools. The figures are “startling.” The Meta-owned messaging app has 2 billion users worldwide. They fire off an unfathomable 1 million messages every second, more than 4 billion an hour. In the UAE alone, more than 80 percent of us rely on it. When the app disappeared, taking its omnipresent “pings” with it, it was as if “all forms of communication protocol had broken down.” Those two short hours felt “like eternity” for…

This year’s flu season has started early and is hitting hard, with more hospitalizations so far than any time since the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009. So far there have been at least 880,000 cases, nearly 7,000 hospitalizations, and 360 deaths, according to the CDC. The season usually peaks in December and January.CNN.com Fierce heat waves driven by climate change have cost the global economy an estimated $16 trillion over the past three decades, says a new study published in Science Advances. That estimate, based on analysis of economic data and heat waves, include the costs of lost productivity, lower agricultural yield, and impact on human health.The Hill Law enforcement officials in Texas cities say a law allowing adults to carry handguns without a license has led to more…

“A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.”Michael Pollan, quoted in The New Republic “Forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give yourself. It’s not for the other person.”Maya Angelou, quoted in Woman’s World “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”Charles Mackay, quoted in Yes! “I don’t approve of political jokes; I’ve seen too many of them get elected.”Jon Stewart, quoted in What’s Up Newp “If we want the rewards of being loved, we must first submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”Writer Tim Kreider, quoted in the Irish Examiner “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you…

Venture capitalists flock to AI startups “Generative AI” startups are creating a new gold rush among Silicon Valley venture capitalists, said Angus Loten in The Wall Street Journal. Jasper, a company that programmed its artificial intelligence platform to “auto-generate promotional blog posts and other marketing materials” from simple prompts, recently announced a $125 million fundraising round, setting its private-market valuation above $1 billion. This came on the heels of a $101 million funding round by Stability AI, the maker of Stable Diffusion, a new text-to-image program. “At first glance, generative AI might seem more like a curiosity,” but investors promise that as it develops there will be more realistic business applications than that shown off by the first batch of art generators, which excel at “creating cute pictures of…

Faking a smile can lift your mood, new research shows. In a study involving 3,900 people from 19 countries, each participant tried one of three techniques to activate smile muscles. The first group lifted the corners of their lips toward their ears, the second held a pen in their teeth without letting their lips touch it, and the third group mimicked the expressions of smiling actors. Half the volunteers performed the task while looking at cheerful images on a screen, while the other half saw a blank screen. They then watched the same images or blank screen while holding a neutral expression. Each time, the participants filled out questionnaires assessing their mood. As expected, seeing happy images made participants happier—yet so did mimicking the smiling photographs and pulling the…

(Little, Brown, $35) Who was Samuel Adams? asked Mark Spencer in The Wall Street Journal. “Finding an answer is not easy,” it turns out. The Founding Father who is today best known as the face of a craft beer brand burned his letters and papers and was more often written about by his political enemies than by his discreet fellow colonial rebels. But there was a reason Adams was as celebrated during his lifetime as George Washington, and Stacy Schiff has pushed past the silences in the historical record to create an “enthralling” new biography that positions Adams (1722–1803) as a failed Boston businessman who emerged as the savvy stage manager of a world-shaking independence movement. “To read this book is to immerse oneself in a very particular and…

Ross Gay is the author of the best-selling essay collection The Book of Delights and the award-winning poetry collection Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. His new book of essays, Inciting Joy, explores the power of pursuing shared pleasures. Benito Cereno by Herman Melville (1855). Melville’s novella, ostensibly about an insurrection of enslaved Africans, is equally a story about well-meaning liberal Americans who can’t tell their asses from their elbows but sure think they can. As sophisticated a use of perspective, and irony, as I’ve ever read. The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison (2017). Beloved is one of my very favorite books, as is Morrison’s slim book of literary criticism, Playing in the Dark. But her best book for this moment may be her next-to-last work, The Origin of Others,…

You haven’t really tried halloumi if you haven’t had it pan-fried or grilled, said Andrea Geary in Cook’s Illustrated. The firm white cheese from the island of Cyprus doesn’t melt when heated. Instead, when dropped on a hot skillet, it acquires a “delectably” brown crust that “rivals that of a well-seared steak.” Try it alone and in a salad or sandwich. It “makes an excellent hors d’oeuvre,” especially in this treatment—combined with lemon juice, honey, minced cherry peppers, and “a fragrant shower of mint.” 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil • 8 oz halloumi cheese, sliced crosswise ½-inch thick • 3 tbsp honey • 3 tbsp minced jarred hot cherry peppers • 2 tbsp lemon juice • 1 tbsp chopped fresh mint Heat oil in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high…

Little Partners Learning Tower This sturdy stool “gives young children a secure spot at the counter so they can help in the kitchen or just be a part of what’s going on.” Designed for ages 2 and up, it adjusts to four heights and comes in six colors. $200, littlepartners.com Source: Wirecutter Opinel Le Petit Chef Peeler The French knifemaker Opinel offers several child-friendly kitchen tools, including a small chef’s knife and this vegetable peeler. The red ring on the beechwood handle “helps to position fingers.” $18, opinel-usa.com Source: San Diego Union-Tribune Hedley & Bennett Dream First Apron A proper apron will help budding cooks to feel the part. Hedley & Bennett’s internet-famous cotton coveralls are popular among pro chefs, and its kids’ aprons are just as sturdily stitched.…

In October, auto buyers paid an average of about $45,600 for a new car or truck, down from a peak of $46,173 in July. It’s still 33 percent higher than before the pandemic, according to research firm J.D. Power. The Wall Street Journal NASA, which had 19,000 employees and a federal budget of $23.3 billion in 2021, estimates the total economic output linked to its missions and research at $71.2 billion, supporting about 340,000 jobs in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. CNBC.com Forty-six percent of Black Americans lived in homes they owned in 2021, compared with 75 percent of white Americans. That gap is wider than it was in 1960. The Washington Post In a dramatic return from pandemic lows, Uber has reported a 72 percent increase in revenue…

Your LinkedIn stunt double Aspiring LinkedIn influencers are hiring ghostwriters to craft their self-promotional posts, said Rebecca Jennings in Vox. LinkedIn has positioned itself mainly as a social network “geared toward white-collar professionals seeking job opportunities or a talent pool to hire from.” But this year, company has gone all-in on “creators,” or users who hope to use LinkedIn “to build a personal brand by spouting entrepreneurial advice or nuggets of wisdom.” There are currently 13 million users with “creator mode” turned on, “a setting that expands the kinds of features users can deploy to grow their audience.” Many are turning to ghostwriters for their content. One said she charges $2,500 per month for her services—which include helping clients “game the algorithm” for the most engagement. Gloom rises for…

Javier Blas Bloomberg Last week’s “Davos in the Desert” revealed an emboldened Saudi Arabia, said Javier Blas. Washington believes it was duped by the kingdom, which voted along with other OPEC+ members to slash oil production earlier this month. But the Saudis see a change in the alliance with the U.S. that goes beyond a single oil-price hike. The kingdom’s annual Future Investment Initiative highlighted what I’d call a “‘Saudi First’ energy, economic, and foreign policy agenda” that’s “unshackled” from the constraints of the kingdom’s almost 80-year relationship with the United States. China, India, Japan, and South Korea now account for 65 percent of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports, so it’s much less reliant on Washington. In the past Riyadh was willing to accept lower oil prices for the benefit of…

Jerry Lee Lewis lived and died untamed. Nicknamed The Killer, the Louisiana-born rock ’n’ roll pioneer sang with a swaggering leer and hammered his piano with frenzied energy, pounding out boogie rhythms with his left hand and slashing glissandos with his right. As performances gathered steam, he’d kick away his piano bench, his pomaded curls collapsing into a dangling mop as he battered the keys and fixed the audience with a defiant glare. For a stretch in the mid-1950s, Lewis was the biggest star in rock ’n’ roll, topping the charts with the singles “Great Balls of Fire,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” and “Breathless.” But his stardom was soon eclipsed by a private life as wild and unrepentant as his stage act. A bigamist while still in his…

Daniel Radcliffe knows there’s no escaping Harry Potter, said Jeremy Gordon in GQ. He was cast as “The Boy Who Lived” at age 11, and eight blockbuster films dominated a decade of his life. At 33, he’s at peace with being recognized everywhere he goes. “It took a long time,” he says. “My late teens or early 20s was where I was like, ‘You have to accept life is gonna be different for you.’ And eventually it becomes easier to adapt to.” Radcliffe admits it’s grating when pretentious sophisticates stop him to say things like “Loved you in Extras, thought Harry Potter was shit”—as if Radcliffe will find disdain for his most famous role endearing. “It was 10 years of my life,” he points out. The British actor now…

John Tierney City Journal “Recycling plastic makes no sense,” said John Tierney. That has been clearly true for decades, but now even the environmental organization Greenpeace admits in a new report that plastic recycling “has largely failed and will always fail.” Why? It’s virtually impossible to effectively sort and clean massive mounds of collected plastic, Greenpeace says, and the recycling process itself is “environmentally harmful.” It’s also very labor-intensive and extremely expensive. To cut costs, the U.S. mostly shipped its plastic to be recycled in China, Indonesia, and other countries, but most of that waste ended up “illegally dumped, burned (spewing toxic fumes), or reprocessed at rudimentary facilities that leak some of the plastics into rivers.” Studies have shown that virtually all of the plastic in the oceans comes from…

UNITED KINGDOM Lucy Ford British GQ Here come the history police to ruin our fun, said Lucy Ford. Season 5 of the historical drama The Crown is dropping soon, and monarchists are “losing their minds” at the thought that real events that many of us remember—such as Princess Diana’s bombshell interview in which she told of her husband’s infidelity and her own mental health struggles—will be presented as soap opera. The grande dame of British theater, Judi Dench, said the season’s trailer showed “crude and cruel” scenes that were entirely made up, and she demanded that Netflix add language explaining that the show is “fictionalized.” The right-wing press agreed, asking whether Netflix had “gone too far” in inventing conversations that didn’t really happen. Yet they are missing the point. Netflix…

Surgery to remove the tumor is often considered crucial to fighting breast cancer. But a small new study suggests an operation may not be necessary for all patients, reports ScienceDaily.com. Scientists enrolled 50 breast cancer patients over age 40 who had two types of breast cancer and early-stage disease. All of the patients underwent chemotherapy and then had their tumors biopsied. Thirty-one, about 60 percent of patients, responded so well to the chemo that they were able to forgo surgery and follow up with radiation alone. And all patients were still in remission after a follow-up period of about two years. The research adds to evidence supporting a new trend in cancer treatment toward de-escalation, in which care is individualized to minimize the interventions required. Because surgery can lead…

(Harper, $32.50) “Of course Barbara Kingsolver would retell Dickens,” said Molly Young in The New York Times. Her ninth novel, Demon Copperhead, makes explicit the connection between her “unblushingly political” fiction and Dickens’ own by riffing on David Copperfield. But where Dickens’ young hero navigated bleak Victorian England, Kingsolver’s Damon Fields is a child of 1980s rural Virginia. Damon’s unstable childhood, poor education, and later opioid addiction make the novel “a relentless chain of tragedies interrupted sporadically with minor victories.” But Kingsolver “hasn’t merely reclothed Dickens’ characters in modern dress and resettled them in southern Appalachia,” said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. She has “effectively reignited the moral indignation of the great Victorian novelist” to spotlight child poverty in our time. Fortunately, the “grim melodrama” of Damon’s life…

Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth (Verso, $27) In this “harrowing and propulsive” Norwegian novel, a woman’s bid to reconcile with her mother “escalates alarmingly,” said Naomi Huffman in The New York Times. The pair haven’t spoken in so long that Johanna, a painter newly returned to Oslo, doesn’t even know if her mother is still alive when she reaches out by phone and hears nothing back. Soon she is behaving like a stalker, sifting through her mother’s trash, following her on foot. “Too late, Johanna grasps how little she really knows.” Canción by Eduardo Halfon (Bellevue, $18) “How to build a book around a bit of history you didn’t witness, one shrouded in mystery?” asked David Ulin in the Los Angeles Times. Taking the murky circumstances of his…

Some flavored vodkas or whiskeys taste so sweet and artificial that even memories of them “send chills down one’s spine,” said Tyler Zielinski in Punch. But the ongoing premiumization of cocktail ingredients has touched this category too. Sugar is out. Natural ingredients are in. And options like these are becoming bartender favorites. Plantation Stiggins’ Fancy Pineapple Rum ($30). “Sublime” in a pineapple daiquiri, this blend of two pineapple-infused Plantation rums offers “notes of caramel, clove, and baking spices.” Ketel One Botanical Peach & Orange Blossom Vodka ($30). “Bursting with notes of candied white peaches and floral orange blossom,” this “fresh, clean” spirit elevates a vodka soda. Sipsmith Zesty Orange Gin ($29). This London dry gin “dials up the orange flavor” with an infusion of orange peels and bergamot zest.…

Understand the pricing. Hearing aids became far more affordable on Oct. 17, when a federal regulation change allowed them to be sold without a prescription. Prices for the over-the-counter options now sold online and at drugstores range from $200 to $2,000 a pair. The cheapest offer several preset amplification levels, while pricier models can be individually fine-tuned, usually via an app. Compare customer service. Consider both the product and the brand, because “it’s important to find out exactly what level of support you’ll have access to.” A hearing aid is complex tech, and every person’s hearing is different. Eargo offers among the best customer service, with on-call audiologists who can tweak settings remotely. Plan ahead. Return policies are crucial, because it often “takes a couple of weeks to get used…

With record numbers of migrants arriving at the southern border, driven by political turmoil, climate disaster, and economic collapse in Venezuela, the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas (hrionline.org) provides social and legal services to asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. Established in 1999, the Dallas-based organization recruits pro bono attorneys to represent migrants in legal proceedings. With the help of volunteer physicians, psychologists, and counselors, it also offers psychological evaluations as well as medical and dental care, helping the migrants cope with the trauma of a harrowing trip. HRI also focuses on immigrant victims of trafficking and domestic violence, providing legal services to assure that they are afforded the protections they are entitled to under U.S. law. Each charity we feature has earned a four-star overall rating from Charity…

Good week for: Bees, after British researchers observed them rolling tiny wooden balls around in what appears to be play. Researcher Samadi Galpayage said the “mind-blowing” discovery proves that despite their “tiny brains,” bees “are more than small robotic beings.” Snubs, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was not invited to former President Donald Trump’s rally for Sen. Marco Rubio in Miami. “This is big,” a source within the DeSantis camp told New York, with another calling it “an elbow to Ron’s throat.” Modernity, after organizers of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 indicated they will allow peaceful protests, rainbow flags, and other symbols of LGBTQ rights and even kissing in public, all of which are usually banned in the repressive Arab emirate. Bad week for: Nose pickers, who may be at…

London Spies suspected of working for Russia hacked the phone of recently ousted British Prime Minister Liz Truss last summer when she was foreign minister, the British tabloid Mail on Sunday reported this week. The report cited unnamed sources claiming that hackers obtained “up to a year’s worth of messages” from Truss’ phone, including “highly sensitive discussions with senior international foreign ministers about the war in Ukraine” as well as private conversations. No other newspaper has corroborated the story, but opposition lawmakers this week called for an investigation. The former head of British intelligence agency MI6, Alex Younger, said all government ministers should be “properly educated” on how to spot phishing attempts. Mass teachers’ strike Budapest Teachers across Hungary have been holding brief strikes on and off for more…

Matthew Perry has been to hell and back, said Elisabeth Egan in The New York Times. The actor, forever remembered as Chandler Bing on the NBC sitcom Friends, struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for decades, with 15 stints in rehab. “I’ve probably spent $9 million or something trying to get sober,” says Perry, 53. Now 18 months clean, Perry is speaking candidly about the dark places addiction took him. He was already struggling with alcohol when he was cast on Friends, at age 24. After a Jet Ski accident, he became addicted to painkillers, sometimes swallowing 55 Vicodin a day, while also drinking vodka by the quart. Like many addicts, he thought he was fooling people. Jennifer Aniston once came into his trailer and said the group knew…

Barton Gellman The Atlantic “Eventually, Republicans will leave themselves little choice,” said Barton Gellman. If they win control of the House, they “are going to impeach Joe Biden.” The ramp-up will start with exhaustive investigations into Hunter Biden’s high-paying foreign jobs, and as Fox News whips up the outrage, “the pressure from the MAGA base will build.” A recent poll found that 68 percent of Republicans already believe Biden should be impeached. “Thwarting those expectations would be dangerous” for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who needs MAGA support to become Speaker of the House. What charge will Republicans come up with? It could be related to Hunter, although that will require showing that Joe played an active role in his son’s foreign work, or was paid himself. The GOP might claim…

“The hallucinatory claim that a grand if largely unnamed conspiracy managed to snatch victory away from Trump and hand it to Joe Biden is not a trivial, stand-alone falsehood. Instead, it has become as central to the MAGA belief system as the crucifixion of Jesus is to Christianity. In these fevered scenarios, Venezuela and South Korea have corrupted our electoral ballots, China has implanted Covid vaccines with mind-control devices, and liberal Jewish billionaires like George Soros have underwritten acts of domestic terrorism. The central premise is all-encompassing fraud: election fraud, medical fraud, monetary fraud, media fraud, judicial fraud, religious fraud. Everything is suspect.” Robert Draper in The Atlantic…

ROMANIA Ioana Ene Dogioiu SpotMedia.ro It would be easy to blame our “incompetent” defense minister for this latest embarrassment to Romania, said Ioana Ene Dogioiu. As a NATO country that borders Ukraine, our duty is to support our neighbor in its fight against an entirely unprovoked Russian attack. Yet two weeks ago, our (now former) Defense Minister Vasile Dincu defied NATO policy and, indeed, his government’s foreign policy by saying Ukraine’s “only chance for peace” was to negotiate with its tormentor and cede territory. The statement, which made Romania look like a craven appeaser, had to be quickly walked back. But I don’t condemn Dincu—he was a fool with no military expertise who never should have held his post. Instead, I blame President Klaus Iohannis, the man who appointed him.…

AUSTRALIA Mick McIntyre The Age When Australia’s tourism board chose a cartoon kangaroo as the face of its new international advertising campaign, it certainly didn’t foresee controversy, said Mick McIntyre. But the ads luring tourists with a cuddly image of Australia’s iconic animal have yielded a fierce “backlash from animal advocates.” They point out that because farmers see the native animals as pests that trample their crops, we actually allow the killing of some 2 million kangaroos a year. The government-sanctioned slaughter has long been “an uncomfortable truth few people want to acknowledge,” but criticism is now mounting, thanks to exposés about amateur shooters who leave injured animals to die slowly. The European Union is weighing a ban on imports of kangaroo meat and skins due to “concerns over how…

The results of an “authoritative national exam” measuring school performance are in, and they offer “the most definitive indictment yet of the pandemic’s impact on millions of schoolchildren,” said Sarah Mervosh and Ashley Wu in The New York Times. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation’s Report Card, shows that since the pandemic began, students “in most states and across almost all demographic groups have experienced troubling setbacks in both math and reading.” The math results were “especially devastating.” Math scores for eighth-graders fell in nearly every state, with a mere 26 percent showing proficiency, down from 34 percent in 2019. Reading scores declined in more than half the states, with only 1 in 3 students meeting proficiency standards. For those who mandated “policies that kept children…

Republican candidates are focusing their midterm-​election messaging “overwhelmingly on inflation,” said Paul Krugman in The New York Times. But you probably haven’t heard many specifics from their economic agenda—because the GOP “doesn’t actually have a plan to reduce inflation,” which is occurring globally. Republicans fixate on gas prices, now $3.75 a gallon on average, but increasing domestic oil production likely would have little impact on prices, which are set globally and are now inflated because of “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” Republicans also promise to slash safety-net spending to cut the deficit, but they also want to extend the Trump tax cuts—which will increase the deficit. Republicans are playing a cynical game, said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. They are counting on voters to “throw the bums out”…

Reptiles aren’t really cold and unfeeling, says The New York Times. New research has found that some live in family groups and care for their young. Shingleback lizards, for example, often form long-term bonds, returning to their partners year after year: One couple paired up for at least 27 years. And when one dies, the other sometimes sits alongside the corpse and nudges it—perhaps suggesting some sort of grieving. Reptiles’ courting rituals are also more sophisticated than generally thought. Central American whiptail lizards, for example, have been seen offering a potential partner a tasty dead frog to eat before mating. Pregnant rattlesnakes, meanwhile, prefer to associate with their kin, suggesting they recognize family, while pygmy rattlesnakes are more responsive to threats if their offspring are nearby. Finding ways for…

(Harper, $29) Walter Rosenberg, who was 17 when he was sent to Auschwitz, “survived horrors that most of us can barely imagine,” said Dominic Sandbrook in The Sunday Times (U.K.). Assigned, among other jobs, to help unload prisoners sent by train to the death camp, the young Slovak witnessed at least several hundred thousand fellow Jews ushered into gas chambers. He saw a friend who whispered a warning led away to be shot. He saw failed escapees hanged. But Rosenberg, who later changed his name to Rudolf Vrba, decided that the killing might end if he himself could escape and reveal Auschwitz’s horrors to the world. He succeeded in doing his part against all odds. Yet he has never been widely celebrated. Finally, with Jonathan Freedland’s “incredibly moving” account,…

For Shehan Karunatilaka, the only way to capture the Sri Lanka he once knew was to tell a ghost story, said Lisa Allardice in The Guardian. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, winner last week of the 2022 Booker Prize, is set six years into the country’s brutal 1983–2009 civil war and narrated by the spirit of a war photographer who has seven days to figure out who killed him. The whodunnit aspect allowed Karunatilaka, 47, to introduce readers to the war’s multiple factions. The setting allowed him to revisit a time when his mother would instruct him to avert his eyes as they passed dead bodies in the streets of Colombo. “Those who have memories don’t talk about it,” he says. “We should write about it and try…

New reality shows… The Mole This revival of the early-2000s reality competition delivers an addictive combination of intellectual puzzles and nail-biting physical challenges. Players perform tasks such as recovering cargo from the ocean floor and robbing a moving train, all while wondering who in their group is a saboteur. Netflix The Big Brunch Stock up on eggs, because this is a show that is going to make you hungry. Dan Levy of Schitt’s Creek hosts as 10 chefs demonstrate why they’re passionate about the midday weekend meal and compete for a $300,000 prize that will help jump-start the winner’s dream venture. HBO Max Save Our Squad With David Beckham Imagine you’re a 14-year-old boy from East London with big soccer dreams. Then imagine David Beckham shows up to help…

TeleVet makes it easy to speak to the veterinarian your pet already sees, assuming your vet is in-network. Simply set up a profile and schedule an appointment. Blood work and physical exams will require an in-person visit, but your vet can do a lot over the phone or by video chat. Pawp provides continuous care. It’s a $99-a-year service that offers unlimited, on-demand consultations between in-person appointments. “You can follow up on general health concerns, ask basic questions, or call up a vet in case of an emergency.” AskVet likewise offers 24/7 support to cover emergencies. The $10-a-month service connects you to a vet in less than a minute, and “chat sessions can go as long as you need.” AskVet takes a holistic approach—training and wellness coaching are options—and its…

CVS and Walgreens agreed to pay more than $10 billion to resolve opioid lawsuits, said Sharon Terlep in The Wall Street Journal. The “landmark settlement” proposed this week would bring an end to “more than 3,000 lawsuits by governments, hospitals, and others” against the pharmaceutical companies for “not doing enough to stem the flow” of addictive prescription painkillers. The money will be paid out over the next 15 years. Inflation battle: Fed raises key interest rates again The Federal Reserve continued its assault on inflation this week, said Jeff Cox in CNBC.com, approving a fourth consecutive three-quarter-point interest rate increase. The “well-telegraphed move” brought the Fed’s short-term borrowing rate to a target range between 3.75 percent to 4 percent, “the highest level since January 2008.” In its policy statement, the…

Lawrence Summers The Washington Post The Federal Reserve’s fight isn’t close to finished, said economist Lawrence Summers. Now that the central bank has sharply raised interest rates, people who want it to steer clear of recession say it can “relax.” Some of the same prognosticators who insisted that inflation would be “transitory” say that while inflation is still high, “expectations appear contained,” and we should see it subside as the Fed’s moves work their way through the economy in 2023. “I find that absurd.” A more realistic argument may be that “preventing an overly deep recession is so important that it’s worth abandoning the Fed’s inflation target.” Unfortunately, that ignores the devastating way that continued inflation will erode wages down the road. The most important objective of monetary policy is…

This week’s question: A 15-year-old tabby cat named Larry has outlasted four British prime ministers during his time living at 10 Downing Street. Please come up with an appropriately British-sounding honorific title for this stalwart feline-in-residence. Last week’s contest: Two young activists in a London museum recently threw a can of tomato soup at a Van Gogh painting to protest climate change. Come up with a warning sign that the museum can use to discourage food-flinging attacks. THE WINNER: “Please Don’t Feed the Paintings” William S. Michaels, North Canton, Ohio SECOND PLACE: “Splattery Will Get You Nowhere” Jeff Vaughn, Bremerton, Wash. THIRD PLACE: “Don’t Make Us Cut Off Your Ear” Ken Kellam III, Dallas For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go to theweek.com/contest. How to enter: Submissions should…