Indholdsfortegnelse for April 14, 2023 i The Week Magazine

With speculation about the impact of AI reaching fever pitch in recent weeks, my son and I have been getting some firsthand experience by experimenting with ChatGPT—and the experience has been breathtaking. I know what the skeptics envision: Lost jobs. Dull and dreary AI-written white papers. And, as schools start to bring AI into their classrooms (see Technology, p.20), sad desks of kids staring into a screen, trying to learn history from a chatbot. That makes sense if your daily experience of AI is dealing with your car insurer’s miserable online help feature. AI has gotten plenty of positive press, of course, but much of it has been about the abilities of the new AI tools to retrieve and summarize information. Indeed, it can do that, and the results are…

What happened In a decisive victory that could have national ramifications for abortion and the 2024 presidential election, liberal Janet Protasiewicz this week defeated conservative Daniel Kelly for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court. Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, won 55.5 percent of votes, trouncing Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice, by more than 10 points. The result gives liberals a 4-3 majority on the court. Protasiewicz heavily emphasized her opposition to partisan gerrymandering and her support for abortion rights in what was the most expensive judicial campaign in U.S. history, with Democrats and Republicans pouring $40 million into the race. Abortion has been illegal in almost all cases in Wisconsin since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year and an 1849 ban went…

New York City will no longer refer to restrooms in public parks as “comfort stations,” to avoid any association with the “comfort women” forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops in World War II. Park officials said the change to “restrooms” was part of a “conscious effort to champion and support human dignity.” The Davis County, Utah, school district is reviewing the Bible to see if it violates a new state law banning “inappropriate content” from school libraries. An anonymous parent complained that the Bible is “one of the most sex-ridden books around,” containing references to “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide.” A district spokesman said, “We don’t differentiate between one request and another.” In other news Millions to lose Medicaid coverage An estimated…

Charles Haslett spent decades waiting for King Charles III’s turn on the throne, said Jenny Gross in The New York Times. Haslett, 66, is a longtime impersonator of Queen Elizabeth II’s eldest son, who was first in line to the throne for longer than anyone in the history of the British monarchy. For years, impersonators of the queen got far more bookings than he did. “None of these queens had any talent,” he says. “It was very frustrating.” When Elizabeth died last year, he felt a wave of grief—but knew his own life would change along with Charles’. “I felt a weight of responsibility,” Haslett says. “The time has come.” His impersonation business is now booming, with invitations to appear at corporate events, fundraisers, and family gatherings. He invested…

Gwyneth Paltrow wasn’t at fault for a 2016 skiing collision on a beginner’s slope in which another skier was injured, a jury in Park City, Utah, unanimously found last week. The actress and wellness mogul, 50, was awarded one dollar—the symbolic request in her countersuit to retired optometrist Terry Sanderson’s lawsuit. The 76-year-old sought $300,000, accusing Paltrow of causing serious injuries by slamming into him from behind. The eight-day trial centered on skiing ethics—the downhill skier has the right of way—and each party’s credibility, with Paltrow’s attorneys arguing she was being targeted because she’s a wealthy celebrity. She said after the verdict that she refused to settle the case because “I felt that acquiescing to a false claim compromised my integrity.” A juror told CNN, “It took us less…

Matt Lewis The Daily Beast This week’s 60 Minutes interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has shown “how the mainstream news media” is unprepared “to respond to the challenges of the moment,” said Matt Lewis. The interview failed not because it “platformed” or “normalized” MTG, as some liberals contend. Greene is an increasingly powerful member of the Republican House majority, “and ignoring her isn’t going to make her go away.” The problem was that 60 Minutes relied on its hoary conventions—here’s “B-roll video” of MGT lifting weights, or walking down the street in her district—to profile someone who is “not a normal Republican” or even “a normal person.” Veteran journalist Leslie Stahl, who spent decades interviewing conventional politicians, was clearly unprepared to deal with MGT’s belligerent extremism and shameless lying.…

ETHIOPIA Kungu Al-Mahadi Adam Nile Post Egypt is trying to sabotage Ethiopia’s massive dam project, said Kungu Al-Mahadi Adam in the Nile Post. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile is almost finished, a $5 billion feat Ethiopia managed all on its own without foreign funding. It will be the world’s seventh-largest dam, producing electricity for 65 million people. But Egypt has opposed it every step of the way. It claims damming the Blue Nile will reduce flow downstream in the greater Nile that disgorges into the Mediterranean. Just last week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry spoke out against the project at an Arab League meeting, calling Ethiopia’s actions “unilateral” and “uncooperative.” It’s a preposterous charge. Unilateral? Sudan, which is also downstream from the dam, supports the project.…

“Fashion passes; style remains.” Coco Chanel, quoted in Mirchi (India) “Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers.” Astrophysicist Bernard Haisch, quoted in National Energy Technology Laboratory website “Obsessive people make great art.” Susan Sontag, quoted in Tasting Table “Rice is great when you’re hungry and you want two thousand of something.” Comedian Mitch Hedberg, quoted in Mashed “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Vineyard Gazette “We don’t need museums, we need a movement. The only way you honor your prophets is when they fall, you pick up the baton and walk the next mile.” Rev. William Barber, quoted in The Guardian “In nuclear war, all men are cremated equal.” Musician Dexter…

AI in a Silicon Valley school Not every school is feeling threatened by the introduction of artificially intelligent chatbots, said Lisa Bonos in The Washington Post. In fact, the private Khan Lab School in Silicon Valley is embracing it. “A special version of the technology,” developed in collaboration with OpenAI, is programmed to act like “a thoughtful tutor.” One teacher directs students to use the chatbot “to help them design questions for an upcoming Socratic seminar where they’ll debate whether the Mongolian empire was barbaric.” He asks it “to simulate a conversation with Genghis Khan about the Mongols’ military tactics.” The program “isn’t magic, it’s just a source,” the students are informed, and therefore its use in the classroom has to be cited and its answers always double-checked. ByteDance’s…

Cockroaches are sidestepping traps by changing their sex habits, reports The Atlantic. Male German cockroaches lure a female by secreting a sweet substance as a gift, then mount the female while she eats. The substance contains maltose, which the female’s saliva converts into glucose. But because popular roach baits embed their poison in corn syrup, some roaches developed a glucose aversion. That made the traps less effective against them, but it also made it harder for them to mate, since glucose-averse females refused the males’ offerings. Now researchers at North Carolina State University have found, the males have developed a workaround. Instead of maltose, their secretions contain maltotriose, which takes more time to break down—so the females’ glucose aversion doesn’t kick in until the males have had a chance…

Last year’s financial markets provided a vivid reminder of why good investing hygiene is important all the time. Investors are grappling with a host of market scourges at once—Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an inflation surge, and rising interest rates. But a well-maintained portfolio should weather such storms over the long haul, especially if you remain patient while also taking advantage of the opportunities that the market offers. You should not change your game plan when stocks wobble—and that advice applies both to exiting the market in fear and to rushing to buy every dip. Your asset allocation should be appropriate to your age and your risk tolerance in terms of what your financial situation can reasonably bear and what allows you to sleep at night. For example, a fully…

Crime novelist Don Winslow is the best-selling author of the Cartel trilogy and Savages. His new novel, City of Dreams—book two in a planned trilogy—chronicles the aftermath of a bloody war between rival New England criminal empires. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (1953). If there was ever a better private eye novel written than this one…well, there never has been. Raymond Chandler defined the noir hero for us: “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean.” I have that quote taped to my desk. It has guided me for many a protagonist, including Danny Ryan in my current trilogy. The Road Home by Jim Harrison (1998). Perhaps the most underrated American novel, it belongs on a shelf with Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Twain.…

Finally, there’s a better way of listening to classical music, said Ben Cohen in The Wall Street Journal. Apple Music subscribers now have access to a years-in-the-making app that solves “a big, big problem.” Until now, the experience of engaging with classical music through any major streaming service “would make Yo-Yo Ma want to smash his cello.” There can be hundreds of recordings of any piece, obscured by varied identifying data, including opus numbers, movement titles, and the names of orchestras, conductors, and soloists. By codifying that messy metadata and offering curated playlists, Apple Music Classical makes it easy to browse more than 20,000 composers, 117,000 works, and 5 million tracks. “While using the app on a recent morning, I encountered the music of Hildegard von Bingen, a 12th-century…

Japanese whisky has become wildly popular over the past decade, causing prices to jump, said Jonah Flicker in Wine Enthusiast. New brands and new iterations have popped up, though, providing alternatives to classic expressions that have become more elusive. Here are three to seek out if you can’t locate an old favorite. Mars Iwai Tradition Single Malt ($50). A “great starter” for anyone new to Japanese whisky, this mellow single malt is aged in sherry, bourbon, and wine casks and has great depth. Nikka Taketsuru Pure Malt ($84). Nikka blends two single malts to create a whisky “distinct from any other.” It combines sherry notes with a touch of peat. Suntory Hibiki Harmony ($111). This blended spirit combines “all of Japanese whisky’s best practices.” Sip it neat or enjoy…

When you walk into the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, “you may initially feel dizzy,” said Paula Marantz Cohen in The Smart Set. More than 150 vendors from around the world gather at the Park Avenue Armory, and their priceless wares touch on “every conceivable genre and subject.” The fair, which this year runs April 27–30, is one of my favorite events. The stalls showcase many rare and beautiful books, which visitors can generally handle freely. Also for sale are maps, posters, photographs, letters, historical documents, old board games, pulp paperbacks, and other printed ephemera, and the vendors, who “range from young and hip to old and snooty,” are eager to talk about their objets d’art. “I find these little lectures delightful.” And when a seller is short on…

Johnson & Johnson agreed this week to pay $8.9 billion to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits related to claims that talc in its baby powder and other products was linked to cancer, said Dietrich Knauth and Mike Spector in Reuters. The deal involves a controversial bankruptcy maneuver, the “Texas two-step,” in which the company created a subsidiary to “offload the talc liability.” The subsidiary then filed for bankruptcy, letting the claims be adjudicated by a bankruptcy court. J&J tried a similar maneuver in January with a $2 billion settlement offer, which was rejected by an appeals court. Subsidies: TSMC plant caught in fight over sales tax Opposition to a one-half-percent sales tax in Arizona is jeopardizing construction of a $40 billion chip manufacturing plant, said Eliza Collins in The…

A plateau for Apple and Microsoft? The Nasdaq 100 just entered a bull market, which means it may be time to sell, said Ben Levisohn in Barron’s. So far in 2023, the index is up 21.9 percent. “Why dump what’s working?” It’s become too top-heavy. “Apple, for instance, has surged 25 percent this year, and its weight in the S&P 500 has grown from a problematic 6.4 percent to a troublesome 7.6 percent.” Microsoft, too, has an outsize weight in the market. “Many portfolio managers have a 5 percent cap on the weight of stocks they can own, so every time Apple surges, they need to scale back.” That puts downward pressure on the stock. As tech stocks have risen, other indexes have barely budged. That doesn’t mean a…

Adam Minter Bloomberg Turning away from free trade is destroying farmers’ livelihoods, said Adam Minter. Since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted, yearly U.S. agricultural exports have nearly quadrupled, from $46 billion to a record $196 billion in 2022. The farm trade also supports more than 1 million jobs, “over half of which are non–farm-related (such as trucking).” However, farm exports are expected to shrink to $183 billion in 2023, and a new report from the Department of Agriculture reveals that U.S. leadership is “eroding.” The U.S. global market share of corn has fallen from 71 percent in 2006 to 30 percent. In wheat, it was 40 percent in 2000; today, it is a record-low 10 percent. “Farm country knows there’s a problem.” In 2020, 70…

Seymour Stein cut the biggest deal of his life while lying in a hospital bed. It was the early 1980s, and the record executive was awaiting heart surgery when he checked out a demo tape by a little-known New York City club singer. In short order he summoned her to his room and signed her in his boxer shorts, and Madonna went on to sell more than 70 million records on Stein’s Sire Records. Stein signed scores of other acts who shaped the sound of the late ’70s and ’80s, including the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Pretenders, Depeche Mode, Ice-T, and the Replacements. In a career spanning six decades he was known for his encyclopedic knowledge of recordings and song lyrics and a brash style he acknowledged could put…

Yang Bing-yi spent decades perfecting a dish that struck millions of patrons as a culinary miracle: paper-thin steamed dumplings filled with piping-hot pork and truffle soup. In 1958, Yang and his wife, Lai Pen-mei, opened Din Tai Fung, a four-table restaurant in Taiwan, with a menu inspired by the foods of Shanghai. At the time, xiao long bao weren’t widely known, but Din Tai Fung’s signature dish helped the restaurant grow to 250 seats and eventually become a global chain, with more than 170 locations across 13 countries, including the U.S. A Hong Kong location has been awarded a Michelin star five times. Under Yang’s exacting watch, Din Tai Fung’s dim sum became famously consistent, each weighing precisely 21 grams, with 18 elegantly hand-pleated folds. Yang was born in…

This week’s question: Swedish scientists have found that they can effectively treat women with social anxiety by exposing them to other people’s armpit sweat. If this treatment for anxiety were turned into a commercial product, what should it be called? Last week’s contest: A recent study concluded that corny “dad jokes” help teach children how to cope with embarrassment. Come up with a term for the beneficial psychological effect of exposure to a pun-loving, shame-proof dad. THE WINNER: “Nerd Immunity” John Bregoli, Weymouth, Mass. SECOND PLACE: “Cringe Benefits” Ken Liebman, Williston, Vt. THIRD PLACE: “Père-annoy-ya” Bruce Carlson, Alexandria, Va. For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go to theweek.com/contest. How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest@theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number for verification;…

Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. in February was able to collect intelligence signals and imagery from American military sites and send the information back to Beijing in real time, NBC News reported this week. U.S. officials believe the intelligence collected was mostly from electronic signals, which could have been intercepted from weapons systems or base personnel. The balloon passed over several sensitive military sites, including the Montana base where the U.S. stores some nuclear assets, before President Biden ordered it shot down off the coast of South Carolina. The Defense Department said whatever intelligence the balloon collected had “limited additive value” because military sites had time to conceal sensitive information as the balloon approached, and because China already scrutinizes these…

Rosie Perez is still frustrated by how Hollywood depicts Latinos, said Tatiana Siegel in Variety. “A few of us have come through, and I’m very grateful for that,” she says. But “when we do get our stories told, we have some executive who knows nothing about who we are as a people. And then they’re like, ‘Can you spice it up a little bit?’ You want to punch these people in the face. And then if it’s too real, they’re, ‘Could you pull it back, ’cause we don’t want the audience to feel offended.’” Perez, 58, knows the humiliation of playing clichéd roles all too well, having played an illiterate drug dealer’s girlfriend on the 21 Jump Street series after her breakout role in Spike Lee’s Do the Right…

Adam Winkler Los Angeles Times Even with gun violence spiking, said Adam Winkler, right-wing federal judges “are waging an unprecedented attack on U.S. gun-safety laws.” These Trump-appointed judges have been empowered by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last June that struck down New York’s handgun licensing requirements and “established a new test for courts to apply in all 2nd Amendment cases”: Equivalent laws had to be on the books in the 18th and 19th centuries. This “originalist” extremism has enabled federal judges to strike down state laws banning the erasure of serial numbers on guns, gun purchases by convicted felons and domestic abusers, and banning guns in churches, hospitals, bars, airports, and buses. Even when 200-year-old precedents exist, right-wing judges “have twisted themselves in knots” to deny it. Texas’19th-century ban…

FRANCE Editorial Libération “Faced with a choice between two humiliations,” French President Emmanuel Macron thinks he picked the lesser, said Libération. King Charles III was supposed to visit last week, his first trip abroad since becoming British monarch. It was to be “a showcase for the new beginning of Franco-British relations,” which had been strained ever since Britain left the European Union. Should Macron allow the visit “to take place against a backdrop of massive demonstrations, transport strikes, burning bins, and possible attacks on royal security?” Or should he cancel it, exposing France as a country that can’t guarantee the safety of a visiting dignitary? Macron canceled, saying it was “simply common sense” to postpone the visit until he had less on his plate. “No doubt” he was mindful that…

People are told they can avoid most urinary tract infections by practicing proper hygiene and urinating after sex. But it turns out that nearly 10 percent of UTIs in the U.S.—some 640,000 a year—might be caused by eating or handling meat contaminated with E. coli. Researchers at George Washington University sequenced strains of E. coli found in chicken, turkey, and pork in Flagstaff, Ariz., grocery stores and compared them with urine and blood samples taken from local women and men hospitalized with UTIs. They found matching E. coli strains, predominately in poultry. These bacteria can live in the gut for days before migrating to the urinary tract. “It can be a long time between your exposure to the meat and the time that you actually got the urinary tract…

(Holt, $27) “Cecile Pin’s debut novel is a tenderhearted story about the least tender of experiences,” said May-lee Chai in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In the aftermath of the U.S. war in Vietnam, three siblings, ages 16, 13, and 10, flee the country and quickly become orphaned. Living in refugee camps first in Hong Kong, then in England, the children grow up longing for family. Pin’s love for her young protagonists, whose journey may have been inspired by her mother’s, is “apparent on every page.” At first, the narrative appears to be straightforward, said Stuart Miller in the Los Angeles Times. But it soon becomes “intricately layered,” as Pin weaves in news clippings and other voices to widen the perspective. Some chapters are narrated by a ghost. Later, the…

The Battle for Your Brain by Nita Farahany (St. Martin’s, $30) Mind-reading devices are coming, and “the possibilities are both thrilling and disturbing,” said Christine Rosen in The Wall Street Journal. In this look at neurotech and where it’s headed, Nita Farahany, a professor of philosophy and law, describes a near future in which advertisers can infiltrate our dreams, traumatic memories can be erased, and employers can monitor workers’ thoughts. She’s “no Luddite.” Nor is she blind to potential dangers. “We need more guides like her to think through the challenges ahead.” Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross (Random House, $30) This book about how engagement with the arts promotes well-being is at once “fascinating and frustrating,” said Grace Wade in New Scientist. The authors,…

  4 Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus are more than gifted solo artists, said Spencer Dukoff in Consequence. As the band Boygenius, they’re “a trio of best friends ready to carry the torch for a new musical generation.” Five years ago, they knocked out an EP in four days and were acclaimed as an indie supergroup. All three have since become bigger names. But it’s clear they intended this follow-up to be “a capital-A album” and tribute to friendship. When the trio isn’t playfully referencing influences such as Nirvana and Crosby, Stills & Nash, said Chris Willman in Variety, “they’re making music so good that it doesn’t seem untoward to elevate them to the same big leagues as their heroes.” On “Not Strong Enough,” a piece of “jangle…

Recent music documentaries… Travelin’ Band Creedence Clearwater Revival enjoyed a brief run as one of the world’s most popular rock acts. Jeff Bridges narrates this snapshot of the band during its first European tour—a fine showcase for the bayou-inspired wailing and songwriting of frontman John Fogerty. Netflix Take Me to the River Director Martin Shore’s deep dive into New Orleans’ musical history is notable for performances by the late Dr. John and the Neville Brothers, who have since lost two members. $4 on Amazon Prime The Return of Tanya Tucker When Tanya Tucker rose to country music stardom in the 1970s, she broke all the rules. Grammy winner Brandi Carlile recently wrote an entire album for Tucker to coax her idol back into the studio. This inspiring documentary blends…

The number of available U.S. jobs dropped below 10 million in February for the first time in nearly two years. Job openings still far outnumbered the 5.9 million unemployed people seeking work. The Wall Street Journal Only 48 percent of U.S. workers say they use all their vacation days, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center. Those who don’t say it’s because they don’t need it, or they worry about falling behind at work or feel badly about co-workers carrying their load. Bloomberg Wrestling empire WWE and the company that runs Ultimate Fighting Championship are combining to create a $21.4 billion sports entertainment company. The deal puts the value of Endeavor Group Holdings’ UFC and WWE at $9.3 billion. Bloomberg From 1970 to 2021, the median U.S. income…

Good week for: Cities, with new Census Bureau data indicating that the pandemic-era exodus from major U.S. cities to the suburbs may have slowed and even reversed. Dallas County, Texas and Manhattan both gained residents after several years of net losses. NBA players, who may now use marijuana without fear of punishment from the league. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the move reflects society’s changing laws and attitude about cannabis, as well as “the pressures and stress” that players are under. Planting the seed, after vocational colleges in China, concerned about the nation’s declining marriage and birth rates, are giving students an extra week off with explicit instructions to “feel the beauty of spring” and “go fall in love.” Bad week for: Hospitality, with Amsterdam tourist officials launching a new…

Ed Sheeran is used to being mocked, said Brian Hiatt in Rolling Stone. The British singer has the album sales—about 150 million—of a global pop star, but not the appearance, with his messy ginger hair, chubby body, and frumpy T-shirts. “I was the butt of jokes before this,” he says, “and I’m the butt of jokes now. I am a nerd.” Sheeran, 31, is keenly aware he doesn’t look like heartthrobs like Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes. “I’m like, ‘Well, why don’t I have a six-pack? Oh, because you love kebabs and drink beer.’” He describes himself as a binge eater who has suffered from bulimia, and also has struggled with drinking and drug use. Then last year, one of his best friends—British music entrepreneur Jamal Edwards—died as a…

Scott Maxwell Orlando Sentinel Mickey Mouse doesn’t have a middle finger on his hands, said Scott Maxwell, “but if he did, he most surely flipped it at Ron DeSantis” last week. To punish Disney for its condemnation of his anti-LGBTQ “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the Florida governor sought to take away the company’s control of its special taxing district and stacked its board of supervisors with allies from the Christian right. He openly warned the new board would use its power to police Disney for any “woke” content. But last week, Disney revealed it had signed a legal agreement with the old board before it was disbanded, rendering DeSantis’ new board essentially powerless. “Basically, Disney was playing 4-D chess while the governor’s legal team was fumbling with a bag of…

“The primary selling point of the AR-15 is that it can be endlessly modified, configured, reimagined. It can become louder or quieter, easier to carry, wield, fire and reload, or more lethal. A vast assortment of accessories—vests, helmets, straps, and other gear—is unfailingly designated as ‘tactical.’ To the would-be tactician, every place that humans inhabit—housing developments, stores, strip malls, hotels, churches, hospitals and, yes, schools—is another opportunity to imagine oneself taking part in military-style maneuvers. It is hard to see the upside of instilling this paranoid attitude among millions of ordinary Americans.” Matthew Walther in The New York Times…

FINLAND Sanna Ukkola Iltalehti NATO is bowing to “a swaggering and undemocratic autocrat”—and I don’t mean Vladimir Putin, said Sanna Ukkola. Sweden and Finland, formerly neutral, announced their intentions to join NATO last year, after Russia invaded Ukraine. But Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to exploit the alliance’s requirement for unanimity to demand concessions in exchange for his approval. He already held up Finland’s accession for a month before deigning to support it last week. Now Sweden, which angered Turkey by giving asylum to Kurdish dissidents, is in limbo. It’s an outrageous state of affairs that Erdogan can bring “the entire Western world to its knees in the midst of the biggest security crisis since World War II.” Frankly, Turkey shouldn’t even be a member state. If…

MEXICO Carlos Loret de Mola El Universal Last week, 39 human beings died in agony at a Juárez immigration center, trapped as flames and smoke rose around them, said Carlos Loret de Mola in El Universal. Responsibility for that tragedy lies with one man: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He’s the one who praised the dictators in Central and South America, even as their people fled northward for a better life. He’s the one who first opened Mexico’s doors to those migrants and then, when “migration to Mexico overflowed, slammed them shut.” He is the one who caved to the Trump administration’s demand for a “remain in Mexico policy,” with the result that we’re now housing “the tens of thousands of migrants that the United States sends every year.” Crucially,…

House Republicans and the White House are deadlocked as the U.S. approaches “the debt-ceiling precipice,” said Declan Garvey in The Dispatch, and “some lawmakers are growing more nervous they’ll stumble over the edge.” The U.S. hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January, and the Treasury Department’s stopgap funding measures will be exhausted this summer. A U.S. debt default would trigger a “global financial meltdown,” but President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy still sound “like two UFC fighters trash-talking before a prizefight.” McCarthy insisted that any increase in the debt ceiling be tied to major spending cuts. Biden has proposed cutting the deficit with trillions in tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, and is refusing to negotiate until Republicans release a budget with their proposed cuts. “We’ve…

A federal judge in Texas has “struck down a major part of the Affordable Care Act,” in a ruling that could “worsen health-care costs for millions of Americans,” said Matt Ford in The New Republic. Judge Reed O’Connor ruled unconstitutional a provision requiring insurers to fully cover an array of preventive-care measures, such as prenatal care, mammograms, and screenings for other common forms of cancer. It’s the fourth time O’Connor has ruled parts of the ACA unconstitutional; in 2018, he struck down the entire act with a ruling “so preposterous it was widely condemned by legal experts” and overturned 7-2 by the Supreme Court. This time he sided with a Christian business owner who objected to his employees’ plans covering PrEP drugs that prevent HIV transmission. O’Connor ruled that…

(Penguin, $30) “It is not humanly possible to include everything in a book like Humanly Possible,” said Dominic Green in The Wall Street Journal. As its subtitle indicates, historian Sarah Bakewell’s witty but incisive survey of the school of thought known as humanism spans seven centuries. And because humanism can describe any attempt to understand human life or ethics without resorting to the supernatural, “a history of humanism is a history of everything, or at least a history of the modern West.” Bakewell, the author of At the Existentialist Café, tends to champion humanist thinking even as she acknowledges when it has led the West astray. Still, Humanly Possible is “a book of big and bold ideas” that’s “readable and worth reading, whether you agree with it or not.”…

Matthew Pratt Guterl has been a passenger on Noah’s Ark, and he gives the experience mixed reviews, said Casey Schwartz in The New York Times. In his new memoir, Skinfolk, the 52-year-old professor of American and Africana studies at Brown University recounts how his idealistic parents adopted four children in the 1970s to create a family that his father likened to Noah’s assemblage. “With two of every race,” he would say. Matthew’s parents and he and one younger brother were white. Two siblings were Black and two Korean. But as a mixed-race family in a largely white New Jersey town, the Guterls attracted constant scrutiny that Matthew, his parents’ first child, found difficult to endure. “The very first problem I confronted was that of my family, as a social…

2 Chlöe Bailey’s first solo album “feels manufactured to the point of sterility,” said Heven Haile in Pitchfork. The Grammy-nominated singer has made some otherworldly music as one half of Chloe x Halle—the wholesome, gospel-trained wunderkind sister duo mentored by Beyoncé. Chlöe remains “one of the greatest vocalists of her generation,” as she proves on the “awe-inspiring” bridge of “Pray It Away,” this record’s lead single. But now that she’s 24, the fledgling pop star is working so hard to present herself as something other than a Bible-toting good girl that by the end of this “soulless” collection, “we have no clue who the mononymous singer actually is.” Chlöe’s decision to include a duet with the notorious woman-abuser Chris Brown is also problematic, said Mosi Reeves in Rolling Stone. Still,…

“Miami might just be the most exciting culinary destination in the country,” said Meghan Palmer in Bon Appétit. The Bon Appétit 2023 Food City of the Year is a unique melting pot, with a food culture that is mixing the ever-present contributions of the city’s Caribbean and Latin American populations with a recent flood of top-tier culinary talent from around the world. Below are three restaurants that deliver “dining experiences you can’t find anywhere else.” La Mar This sleek restaurant feels like the beating heart of Brickell, a downtown neighborhood that serves as Miami’s skyscraper-studded internationally influenced urban hub. “A globally inspired haven of Peruvian cuisine,” it sets itself apart with “flawlessly executed” ceviches, luxe ambience, and Biscayne Bay views. Chef Diego Oka’s defining dish mingles Peruvian, Japanese, and…

Allison Schrager City Journal Smaller banks need protection, said Allison Schrager. After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the failures of First Republic and Signature, there is more pressure on small and midsize banks than ever. Depositors are fleeing to big banks, which they believe to be safer in the event of a bank run. Silicon Valley Bank was retroactively deemed “too big to fail” by the federal government. The confusion over what is insured has made small banks appear vulnerable. But if regulation and policy “ultimately drives small- and medium-size banks out of business, we will lose something valuable and important.” According to Goldman Sachs, small banks—or those with less than $250 billion in assets—account for half of all commercial and industrial lending, 45 percent of consumer loans,…

Julie Anne Peters did not set out to make waves. The author of 2004’s Luna, the first-known mainstream young adult novel to have a transgender character, began her literary career in the 1990s writing humorous, uncontroversial kids’ books with titles such as The Stinky Sneakers Contest and How Do You Spell Geek? But in the early 2000s, her editor asked her to write a story about a same-sex relationship between two teenage girls. While Peters initially balked at writing a story that might draw unwelcome attention to her own lesbian identity, she eventually agreed to take on the challenge—and was amazed at the reaction to 2003’s Keeping You a Secret. “What filled my inbox,” she later said, “were letters from young readers. Love letters. Coming-out stories. Horrible stories. Wonderful…