Indholdsfortegnelse for May 9, 2025 i The Week Magazine

Our guide was speeding us to the modern new airport in Siem Reap, Cambodia, along a modern new expressway. “China built this,” the guide told us. “The airport, too.” His smile was rueful. “China gets most of the money for a long time.” Siem Reap–Angkor International Airport opened two years ago after China spent $1.1 billion to construct it under its global Belt and Road Initiative. On a recent vacation trip to Southeast Asia, my wife, Karla, and I heard a similar ambivalence about massive new China-financed developments in Phnom Penh, Ho Chi Minh City, and other cities. We don’t trust China, the Vietnamese and Cambodians told us. We know they want control. But we need development, and U.S. investment is limited. During our trip, President Trump threatened Cambodia…

■ A Georgia elementary school is under fire after a teacher posted “For Whites Only” and “For Colored Only” signs above school drinking fountains. In a message to parents, the principal of Honey Creek Elementary said the unnamed teacher posted the Jim Crow–era signs as part of a civil rights history lesson, and “we do not believe there was any ill intent.” Parent Nikisha Wade was unmollified, telling ABC News that “the kids are traumatized.” ■ A group of eight Republican lawmakers in Minnesota has introduced legislation that would classify some vaccines as “weapons of mass destruction.” The mRNA Bioweapons Prohibition Act targets messenger RNA treatments, which include most Covid shots, while also imposing a forward-looking ban on “any human gene therapy product for any infectious disease.” Those convicted…

Art isn’t therapy for David Cronenberg, said Kyle Buchanan in The New York Times. The filmmaker lost his wife of 38 years, Carolyn, to cancer in 2017. “At the time,” says Cronenberg, 82, “I thought I wouldn’t make any more movies. It made me realize how much her support meant to me in everything I was doing. I wouldn’t have thought it would be: ‘She’s gone. I can’t work anymore.’ But that’s how I felt, really.” It took years, but he did get behind the camera again; his most recent film, The Shrouds, hit theaters last month. While its plot and themes were inspired by Carolyn’s death, directing the movie didn’t alleviate Cronenberg’s personal pain. Filmmaking is always “cathartic,” says the director of The Fly and Scanners, because the…

Will Selber The Bulwark The Trump administration “has begun laying the groundwork for a possible mass deportation of the nearly 90,000 Afghans living in the U.S.,” said Will Selber. If these refugees are sent back to the Taliban, it will be a death sentence. The Department of Homeland Security recently sent emails to Afghan refugees telling them to “self-deport.” These are people who fled the country when its government fell and were welcomed here under Biden administration programs. As an Afghanistan veteran, I knew many of these people as friends and allies of the U.S. war effort, and we owe them a safe place to live after we abandoned their country to brutal medieval extremists. The Taliban have “brought back all of their greatest hits: public executions, floggings, and…

Saúl Arellano La Cronica de Hoy Mexicans live in terror of cartel violence, mourning the murdered and the disappeared. So why do we still listen to ballads that glorify the executioners? asked Saúl Arellano. “While search groups scour deserts and wildernesses in search of human remains,” millions of people at parties, concerts, and on social media euphorically sing so-called narcocorridos. These songs celebrate the exploits of drug lords and hitmen, men who kill “without guilt or remorse,” who treat “women as ornaments, objects of consumption, or trophies.” Narcocorridos don’t just describe these men, they “mythologize them.” The hired assassin is portrayed not as “a ruthless killer but a brave man,” while the gang boss is lionized as a rebel who stands up to the state and shows “loyalty to…

President Trump launched his second term in January “with a promise to deliver a new ‘golden age’ to Americans,” said James Politi and Myles McCormick in the Financial Times. But as he marked his 100th day in office this week, a flurry of new polls showed that most voters view his shock-and-awe presidency as anything but glittering. Trump now has the lowest 100-day approval rating of any president—41 percent—in at least seven decades, according to a CNN poll. He did even worse in a new Washington Post–ABC News poll, which put him at 39 percent. The only reason Trump hasn’t sunk to starker depths “is because of the North Korean level of support he enjoys among Republicans,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. With everyone else, he’s in free…

Attention “left-wing culture warriors,” said Ed Whelan in National Review: Religious families will not accept indoctrination. At the Supreme Court last week, a group of Christian and Muslim parents in a Maryland school district asserted the right to opt their elementary-school-age children out of lessons that use books celebrating same-sex relationships and a transgender child. The lessons, they argued, contradicted the religious teachings they wanted to pass on to their children. They “haven’t challenged the curriculum itself” or promoted book banning; they’ve just asked the district to revert to its pre-2022 policy of allowing opt-outs. In response, the parents say, board members accused them of “hatred” and “aligning with racist xenophobes.” If that’s true, it’s “inexcusable,” said Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg. One group’s values should not take automatic…

Back when Aimee Semple McPherson was a name known around the world, “genuine celebrity was rare,” said Christine Rosen in The Wall Street Journal. Though she’s not widely remembered today, the self-invented Pentecostal preacher was “an early and astute student of fame,” which makes her a compelling subject for a writer as “lively” as Claire Hoffman. McPherson, who opened one of America’s first megachurches and pioneered the use of broadcast media to spread Christianity, has been the subject of biographies before. But Hoffman “gives us an incisive and devastating exploration of early-20th-century fame,” rendering McPherson knowable in a new way. She seemed to be running every day of her life, and “we can now run along with her.” Sister, Sinner is “wonderfully thorough” until the story takes a crucial…

“Suleika Jaouad didn’t intend to become a proselytizer for journaling,” said Elisabeth Egan in The New York Times. “When I hear someone use the words ‘creative practice,’ some part of me is inclined to roll my eyes,” says the author of the best-selling memoir Between Two Kingdoms. But multiple bouts with acute myeloid leukemia have taught her to think differently about the daily habit she started years ago. In 2021, when the cancer roared back after years in remission, the medications Jaouad was given blurred her vision and caused hallucinations and nightmares. Finding writing difficult, she grabbed a watercolor brush and started keeping a visual journal. “The only way I knew how to navigate that immense upheaval was to try to collaborate with it,” she says. And the change…

Coco Jones’ long-awaited debut album is finally here, and it “places her firmly in R&B’s upper echelons,” said Maura Johnston in Rolling Stone. The 27-year-old former Disney teen star has been putting out singles and EPs for a dozen years, and she won a Grammy last year. But only with this “sumptuous” package has she established the range she favors. “The album’s sonic touchpoints are varied—Timbaland-inspired electro squelches, Quiet Storm synth blankets, swaying Caribbean beats—but Jones’ steady presence brings them all together in a cohesive whole.” On “AEOMG,” she cribs from Luther Vandross. On “Taste,” she makes the chorus of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” her own. “Jones isn’t scared to push boundaries, whether it’s her own or R&B as a genre,” said Puah Ziwei in NME. Of course, she’s…

My Robot Sophia This 2022 documentary follows Hong Kong–based inventor David Hanson as he works to conquer the technical challenges of turning his female robot into a fully empathetic humanoid. But what will she be then, really? And is Hanson a genius, a con man, or a new Dr. Frankenstein? $13 on demand The Thinking Game If only every tech visionary was as thoughtful as Demis Hassabis. This 2024 documentary embeds with the founder of the AI lab DeepMind for several years as he and his colleagues attempt to crack the mysteries of artificial intelligence. Prime Eternal You Alternately unnerving and heartbreaking, this documentary looks at the rise of griefbots—AI programs that mimic the language patterns and, in some cases, physical appearances of the dead. Is texting with a…

Business-class air travel has one major drawback: the high cost, said Bailey Berg in Afar. But “savvy travelers” have discovered ways to fly business at a discount. For example, more than 50 airlines offer bidding programs, many run through the site Plusgrade.com, allowing travelers with economy tickets to bid for an upgrade. Another trick: requesting an upgrade when your plane is sold out and the airline asks for volunteers to accept a later flight. A variety of travel websites and newsletters, including Secret Flying and Ashley Gets Around, publish mistake fares, “the holy grail of flight deals.” These fares, the result of airline miscalculations, can save thousands but disappear quickly. Lastly, the points and miles you earn in airline loyalty programs can be especially powerful in securing upgrades, especially…

■ Thirty-four years ago, magician Sophie Lloyd fooled London’s male-only Magic Circle club into admitting her as “Raymond Lloyd.” She and her mentor, Jenny Winstanley, concocted the ruse after Lloyd performed in their mime acts as a man. Winstanley trained Lloyd in sleight of hand and helped her create a boyish persona. The club soon let women join, yet expelled Lloyd for deception after she revealed the trick. In April, the Magic Circle gave a show to honor Lloyd and the now-deceased Winstanley, and finally presented Lloyd with membership in her real name. ■ A 4-year-old, 28-pound Flemish giant rabbit has become a San Francisco celebrity. Alex the Great was rescued from a kill farm in 2020 and became a certified therapy animal. Outside of work, he drives a…

Relapsing, after Gwyneth Paltrow confessed on her Goop Podcast that she has grown “a little sick of” her restrictive paleo diet and has started eating cheese and carbohydrates again. “There, I said it,” added the 52-year-old actress and wellness tycoon. Aspiring war fighters, after the U.S. Army announced that its fitness test will no longer grade soldiers on how far they can fling a 10-pound medicine ball backward over their heads. The so-called ball yeet became notorious over the years for favoring taller personnel and for testing a skill with limited combat application. Reunions, after a British man bought a used Honda Civic to replace one stolen in February and found that its trunk had a familiar smell of stale beer, and that his home address was already in…

Melinda French Gates was celebrating her 20th wedding anniversary in 2014 when she suffered her first panic attack, said Decca Aitkenhead in The Sunday Times (U.K.). While at lunch with her then-husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, she suddenly felt like she was suffocating. The experience led French Gates, now 60, to seek out a therapist. “Then, as I got into the process,” she says, “I realized I’ve been through some difficult things.” That included her relationship with Gates, whom she first met in 1987 after joining Microsoft as a marketing manager. Gates, already a billionaire, asked her out in the company parking lot. The courtship wasn’t easy: Gates was fond of partying and strip clubs. They wed in 1994, but things didn’t get smoother. Gates was rarely home after…

Michael Tomasky The New Republic Donald Trump’s crypto moneymaking scheme is “the most corrupt thing any president has ever done, by a mile,” said Michael Tomasky. “And unless you follow the news quite closely, it’s possible you’ve not even heard about it.” The president announced last week that the top 220 buyers of his $Trump meme coin would get invitations to a private dinner with him at Trump National Golf Club in Maryland on May 22. He launched the cryptocurrency just before Inauguration Day, to fatten his wallet with tens of millions of dollars from anonymous donors with little to no accountability: His administration has all but eliminated oversight of crypto trading. That convenient bit of deregulation came as the Trump family has earned more than $350 million in…

“American governance is a collaborative venture. To successfully govern the United States, a president must work with Congress, heed the courts, and respect the authority of the states. Trump rejects all of this. He rejects the equal status of Congress and the courts. He rejects the authority of the states. He does not see himself as a representative working with others to lead the nation; he sees himself as a boss, whose will ought to be law. And in turn, he sees the American people as employees, each of us obligated to obey his commands.” Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times…

Nagehan Alci Haberturk Turkey’s new ban on elective cesarean sections at private clinics may look like a step backward for women, said Nagehan Alci. But it’s actually a way to empower them. Like many women I know, I gave birth by C-section not because it was necessary for my health but because I wasn’t given the option of a natural childbirth. Doctors in private clinics routinely choose C-sections for their patients in labor because they “find this option more convenient.” That’s why Turkey ranks in the top five countries for C-section rates, with such births outnumbering vaginal births year after year. Of course, the opposition has predictably reacted with outrage to the ban. It says the policy is part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to boost the birth…

Olof Jonmyren Södermanlands Nyheter It’s time once again for Swedes to slow down and watch the moose go by, said Olof Jonmyren. Our public broadcaster is livestreaming the annual “Great Moose Migration” 24 hours a day on its website, svtplay.se. Millions of Swedes are tuning in to witness the massive animals trekking through forests and swimming across lakes on the annual journey from their protected winter grounds to summer breeding grounds near the coast. The images are constantly changing, cutting among the 34 cameras set up along the route, but there’s no music or voice-over, just nature’s sound loop. It’s a welcome relief from “the stress of everyday life.” Most of the time, “pace is everything” in our modern world. We’re expected to “do more. Get things done. Be…

■ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s personal phone number—the same one used in a recent Signal group chat in which Hegseth discussed top-secret war plans—could be easily found on the internet and public apps as recently as March. Places it was listed included Facebook, WhatsApp, and a fantasy sports site. “There’s zero percent chance that someone hasn’t tried” to install spyware on his phone, said former top counterintelligence official Mike Casey. The New York Times ■ Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. last year hit their highest level since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking the data in 1979, with at least 9,354 cases of assault, harassment, and vandalism recorded. That’s up 5 percent since 2023, and 344 percent since 2019. Antisemitic incidents on college campuses were up 84 percent over 2023.…

“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” C.S. Lewis, quoted in ScreenRant “How did nerds go from being beaten up by jocks to beating everyone else up?” Director Charlie Brooker, quoted in Interview “I wonder what future generations will make of our architectural legacy—of crash-resistant walls and blast-proof glass.” Architecture critic Witold Rybczynski, quoted in The Hill “Tell all the truth buttell it slant.” Emily Dickinson, quoted in The New Yorker “Nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical.” Richard Feynman, quoted in The Hans India (India) “When you say you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying…

■ The privileges of investing in $TRUMP President Trump’s meme coin surged in value after top investors were promised a dinner at his golf club, said Catherine McGrath in Fortune. The price of $TRUMP jumped 58 percent within an hour “after the token’s website announced” the “intimate private dinner” for the top 220 holders that will “include a speech from Trump about the future of crypto.” The top 25 holders will be given a White House tour. A “leaderboard” of holders was made public, with the top investor, Justin Sun, owning about 1.4 million tokens worth close to $16 million. The token’s value has fallen 90 percent since its launch shortly before the inauguration, and 40 million additional $TRUMP coins were set to be released late last week, which…

Children who get as little as 15 minutes of extra sleep a night have measurably better cognitive performance than their peers, a new study suggests. Researchers examined sleeping data gathered from Fitbit tracking devices on about 4,500 tweens ages 11 to 14. The participants were split into three groups: the worst sleepers, who clocked an average of 7 hours and 10 minutes; the best, who managed 7 hours and 25 minutes; and those in between, who averaged 7 hours and 21 minutes. Even though the differences in total shut-eye were small, the best sleepers markedly outperformed the others in assessments on vocabulary, reading comprehension, problem-solving, and focus. The effects appeared to be physiological, too: The good sleepers had larger brain volumes and slower nighttime heart rates. Senior author Wei…

Laurence Leamer’s new book, Warhol’s Muses, paints a group portrait of 10 women who inspired artist Andy Warhol. Below, Leamer, who is also the author of the best-sellers Capote’s Women and The Kennedy Women, names six favorite books that took courage to write. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman (1980). Set during World War II in Stalingrad, Grossman’s novel is a paean to Russian courage as well as a devastating portrait of Communist totalitarianism. Grossman had the courage to write his opus while living in the Soviet Union. It is a daring work on so many levels, the 20th-century Russian counterpart to Tolstoy’s 19th-century masterpiece War and Peace. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920). Wharton came from an aristocratic New York family. She wrote a series of…

Legion of Honor, San Francisco, through Aug. 17 Wayne Thiebaud always admitted being a thief, but the extent of his magpie proclivities “might come as a surprise even to ardent fans,” said Judith H. Dobrzynski in The Wall Street Journal. The latest retrospective focused on the beloved California painter (1920–2021) gathers plenty of the “sunny, brightly colored, impasto depictions of everyday life” that made him famous. But in a move that separates Thiebaud from the pop art movement he’s often associated with, the show highlights how often his images borrowed from past greats. “Behind many of his paintings,” in other words, “there’s another painting.” His Display Cakes, a signature 1963 work, echoes Edgar Degas’ still life of hats at a milliner’s shop. Thiebaud’s cupcake still lifes evoke Claude Monet’s…

“There’s something so refreshingly ’90s about Viagra Boys’ slacker attitude,” said Karly Quadros in Paste. With their fourth album, the Swedish post-punk band trades the conspiracy-bro satire of 2022’s Cave World for “a more general sense of absurdism,” with wellness culture the chief target of frontman Sebastian Murphy’s lyrics. Across this 11-song set, “the body takes on a Wile E. Coyote–level capacity for corporal punishment.” It’s stepped on, filled with gasoline and warm beer, and even contracts monkeypox, all while the band churns out “big bodacious synth riffs” and “buzz saw bass” grooves. The subjects of these songs are “the kinds of guys that are aggrieved but ultimately powerless” because they can’t get out of their own way, said Drew Gillis in The A.V. Club. Yet the characters…

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley sharply criticized CBS’s parent company this week after the program’s executive director, Bill Owens, stepped down, said Michael M. Grynbaum and Benjamin Mullin in The New York Times. “In an extraordinary on-air rebuke,” Pelley suggested that Paramount owner Shari Redstone had pressured the news program to stifle its coverage to win approval from the Trump administration for its pending sale to Skydance. Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over its election coverage; though experts have called the suit baseless, Paramount has started mediation. Pelley said Owens “felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.” Indebted: Banks sell off risk on Twitter loans Elon Musk’s lenders are finally off the hook for his 2022 Twitter purchase, said Alexander Saeedy in The Wall Street…

■ Pharma ‘savings’ with a $251,131 bill Drug middlemen are leaving patients with huge bills after a crackdown on fraudulent “charity” cases, said John Tozzi in Bloomberg. Pharma companies typically set aside discounted medications for people who can’t pay. Third-party middlemen, also known as “alternative funders,” have convinced many employers to remove insurance coverage for certain medications to make them eligible for these charity programs. “When it works, patients get their medicine, employers save money, the middleman gets a fee—and the drugmaker loses a sale.” But pharma companies are now catching on and tightening eligibility, leaving patients with unexpected bills. Janelle Zeihen, a cervical cancer survivor living with Crohn’s disease, learned she owed $251,131 after her employer-sponsored health plan stopped covering her medication because an alternative funder, Payer Matrix,…

Jonathan Levin Bloomberg For a taste of the foolishness of tariffs, look to the humble tomato, said Jonathan Levin. Starting July 14, tomatoes from Mexico will get a 21 percent tariff. Thus ends one of the perfect illustrations of how trade contributes to economic prosperity. “First and foremost, the tomato trade gives Americans access to wintertime produce.” Fresh U.S. tomatoes are abundant in the summer, but most states can’t produce them on a year-round basis. Before the North American Free Trade Agreement, consumers paid as much as 48.6 percent more for tomatoes in December than in August. In Mexico, tomatoes and other crops can thrive all year in a warm and arid climate—and without all the pesticides. Florida, by contrast, is comparatively humid, making it “a haven for pests…

Joe Nickell was a voice of skepticism in a field dominated by the credulous. Known as a “real-life Scully,” after the X Files scientist, he investigated paranormal events both recent and historical. As a columnist for the Skeptical Inquirer, he brought his logical scrutiny to everything from poltergeists to the Loch Ness monster to sightings of Jesus. While he published books with university presses, he recognized that his main audience was in lowbrow fare, and he often appeared on tabloid TV. But he took his work seriously, adhering faithfully to the scientific method, and he ultimately revealed the true, mundane causes of hundreds of supposedly supernatural events. “I believe that mysteries should actually be investigated with a view toward solving them,” he said. Born in Lexington, Ky., Nickell was…

Trump’s levies are being challenged by a raft of lawsuits, said Erik Larson in Bloomberg. Attorneys general from 12 states and legal advocacy groups representing numerous businesses have sued, arguing that Trump’s claiming of emergency powers to impose the tariffs is unconstitutional. This week, the administration asked the U.S. trade court to reject one such suit, saying the plaintiffs are improperly “inviting judicial second-guessing of the president’s judgment.” Meanwhile, China shows no sign it’s ready to back down, said Ryan Hass in Time. With no competitive elections, its leaders believe China’s political system is “more unified, hardened, and disciplined than the Trump administration to withstand a trade war.” And the Chinese have “tools at hand to hit America’s economy where it hurts, including the withholding of critical minerals and…

Congress passes bill to ban online revenge porn The House this week passed a bipartisan bill that makes it a federal crime to post nonconsensual revenge porn online, including AI-generated “deepfake nudes” of real people. Under the legislation, which passed 409-2, social media platforms are required to remove the imagery within two days of it being reported. A version of the bill passed the Senate in February, and President Trump and first lady Melania Trump both back the legislation. The Take It Down Act’s cross-party backing signals lawmakers’ growing anger at platforms for tolerating content harmful to children. The availability of “nudification” apps has particularly hurt teenage girls, whose male classmates use them to make and share sexual images. This is “one of the first times that we’ve actually…

Sebastian Stan has rebellion in his blood, said Anthony Breznican in Vanity Fair. Born in Romania during Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship, the actor grew up without his father, Constantin, a cargo-ship worker who fled to the U.S. after helping smuggle dissidents out of the communist country. “He was a bit of a hero in my town,” says Stan, 42, who played Donald Trump in The Apprentice. The Ceausescu regime collapsed in 1989, and the aftermath “was chaos. Nobody knew how to live. They’d been so suppressed.” His mother moved to Austria to find a better life, leaving an 8-year-old Stan with his grandparents for a year. “She came and got me when she finally had a job and established herself enough.” In Austria, she met her second husband, a New…

■ Elizabeth Hurley’s friends are puzzled by her unlikely new romance with country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, the New York Post reports. The British actress and model, 59, debuted the relationship on Instagram, with a series of photos showing her getting cozy with the “Achy Breaky Heart” singer, 63, at his Nashville estate. The romance has stunned some members of Hurley’s circle, including best friend Elton John, who is close to Cyrus’ estranged pop star daughter, Miley Cyrus. “Liz’s friends think it must be a joke or madness, but they aren’t saying it to her,” said a source. Not everyone is surprised. Another source said Hurley has been “waiting a long time for romance,” adding, “I think she likes the whole cowboy thing.” ■ NFL Hall of Famer Shannon…

David French The New York Times The anti-woke right never really cared about free speech, said David French. The coalition of podcasters, influencers, and tech moguls rocketed to mainstream prominence in 2020 with a simple message: “Cancel culture was real,” and Americans need not “mindlessly obey” government dictates like Covid restrictions. But as the anti-woke right allied itself with Republican politicians, the movement was divided “between a love for liberty and a hatred for the Left.” Hatred won. In its “quest for control,” the movement backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as he launched a censorious culture war in his state, sharply limiting any discussion of sexuality and racism in schools, and punishing Disney when it dared criticize his policies. In 2024, most of “the freethinkers of the anti-woke right”…

Reina Wiskerke Nederlands Dagblad How many children is too many? asked Reina Wiskerke. Women can give birth to only so many babies, but with sperm donation a man could theoretically father dozens. And apparently, some Dutchmen have done so. The government has finally established a registry of fertility clinics—30 years after requiring similar records for cattle breeders—and found that many facilities regularly exceed the legal limit of 25 children per sperm donor. At least 85 men, possibly as many as 200, “appear to be ‘mass donors’ without even knowing it themselves.” Many of them have up to 40 offspring, and at least one fathered as many as 70. Child advocates call this a “medical scandal,” saying it “creates uncertainty” in a small country like ours. When these kids start…

Sudden shifts from hot to cold and cold to hot are increasing in frequency and intensity across the planet, reports The New York Times. Researchers who looked at global weather data from the 1960s on found that instances where temperatures sharply jumped or dropped within five days had increased in more than 60 percent of the regions they surveyed. Crops rely on temperature signals for their development, and a sudden frost can kill spring shoots. Sharp temperature swings can also put a strain on power systems, as everyone’s heat or AC goes on at once. Global warming is likely causing these changes, though it’s unclear how. Lead author Wei Zhang, from Utah State University, says the shifts may actually pose greater challenges than heat waves or cold snaps alone.…

“If Edgar Allan Poe had written an obsessive sex comedy from a woman’s point of view, it could be this novel,” said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. Though the book is as “bizarre, witty, and poignant” as any of the short stories that author Kate Folk has become known for, it’s also “a tale of irresolvable loneliness.” Linda, the single, 30-year-old narrator, is sexually obsessed with commercial airplanes and dreams of dying in a spiraling, orgasmic crash. But as bizarre as Linda’s perspective may seem at first, by the time we have seen the world through her eyes for 350 pages, “her meditation on desire and friendship feels surprisingly touching.” Folk’s droll touch is “perfectly calibrated to the utter strangeness of being alive today,” said Michelle Hart in…

Surreal by Michèle Gerber Klein (Harper, $32) With this biography of Gala Dalí, “the Svengali behind surrealism’s antics gets her due,” said Brenda Cronin in The Wall Street Journal. Salvador Dalí’s future wife had already played lover and guide to poet Paul Éluard and painter Max Ernst when she took the young Catalonian under her wing and sculpted his famous mustache and attendant career. In telling the couple’s story, author Michèle Gerber Klein “piles up evidence for Gala’s legacy” and “ably sifts the performative from the genuine.” Rot by Padraic X. Scanlan (Basic, $32) In this “vigorous” new history of the Irish potato famine, “a proper sense of outrage runs between the lines,” said Fintan O’Toole in The New Yorker. Author Padraic Scanlan “does not fall into the trap…

“Please salute your new seven nation army,” said Devon Ivie in NYMag.com. The latest list of inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame includes ’80s pop icon Cyndi Lauper, the hip-hop duo OutKast, “Twist” singer Chubby Checker, and classic rockers Bad Company and Joe Cocker, as well as Soundgarden and the White Stripes from the ’90s and beyond. That honor roll “further showcases the hall’s recent changes in how it defines the term rock ’n’ roll,” embracing anything that suggests the sound of youth culture. Last year’s class included Mary J. Blige, A Tribe Called Quest, Kool & the Gang, and Cher. The nominees who don’t make the cut always generate grumbling, said Chuck Arnold in the New York Post, and this year, Mariah Carey “feels like…

Gin’s recent reimagining “rewards curious drinkers,” said Sam Stone in Bon Appétit. Craft distillers began toning the spirit’s juniper bite in the early aughts, “ushering in a new era of experimentation.” Today, “producers take big swings with unexpected botanicals like eucalyptus and green turmeric.” Excellent spirits like the three below “push the boundaries of what gin can be.” Procera Blue Dot ($90). A Kenyan juniper variety, Juniperus procera, flavors this gin, making it earthier and mellower than its European counterparts. Four Pillars Olive Leaf ($40). This “deeply savory” Australian gin evokes rosemary, bay leaf, and olive oil. It easily could be the foundation of “the best dirty martini of your life.” Komasa ($39). This bright Japanese gin is flavored by juniper, coriander, and Sakurajima komikan mandarin oranges, and its…

Miami’s water attractions “When my friends and I feel like extracting ourselves from Miami’s glitzy veneer,” said Nila Do Simon in the Financial Times, we often head for the water, of which there’s plenty. One refuge, Oleta River State Park, lies just 30 minutes from downtown but “feels light-years away from the city’s shinier surface.” Walk past the locals cooking on outdoor grills, and the rest is an “untouched” coastal landscape populated by egrets, herons, and turtles. During summer, “the flies can get gnarly.” Otherwise, it’s a perfect spot for kayaking and paddleboarding. Beach lovers, meanwhile, should skip South Beach and head to Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park at the south end of Key Biscayne. Its welcoming turquoise waters are “extremely calm,” and you can climb a lighthouse…

The exam to become a licensed customs broker is built to break your brain, said Esther Fung in The Wall Street Journal. A licensed broker is required by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to file all the paperwork for every item that gets brought into the United States. CBP also administers the licensing exam, and it is no picnic. Test takers bring in a rolling crate or suitcase filled with reference materials for the four-and-a-half-hour, open-book exam, but still the average pass rate is just 21 percent. The infamous 2019 exam had a pass rate of 4.2 percent. Many questions—covering subjects like the classification of a beverage machine “designed to dispense both soda and non-carbonated soft drinks”—seem designed to trip up test takers. But new brokers are filling a…

Cancer immunotherapy, including cancer vaccines and targeted antibodies, is a precise type of treatment that harnesses patients’ immune systems to outpace cancer growth. The nonprofit Cancer Research Institute (cancerresearch.org) has invested more than $540 million into global cancer immunotherapy treatment research since 1953. Through the nonprofit’s clinical trials, 29 forms of cancer are now treatable, and it matches thousands of patients every year with medical teams. The organization invests in scientists through programs and grants, such as its CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship program, which trains emerging immunologists at universities and research centers. This fills an increasingly important need as scientists face sudden cuts in federal government funding. CRI’s IO Research Intelligence Center also shares data from clinical and laboratory studies with scientists around the world. Each charity we feature…

Henry Grabar Slate Kudos to Dallas for becoming the first city to break through the “regulatory wall” that stands in the way of virtually all small apartment buildings, said Henry Grabar. Last week, Dallas’ city council passed “a special set of rules for small apartment buildings—those that are smaller than 7,500 square feet and have eight units or fewer.” Until now, any new housing in Dallas with more than two units needed to comply with the International Building Code, “which governs the construction of everything from a three-flat to a commercial skyscraper.” Those requirements demand sprinklers and mandate that every apartment be accessible by two staircases. These kinds of laws are absolutely typical, and they prevent the sort of structures that once shaped city life: “Boston’s triple-deckers, Chicago’s three-flats,…

This week’s question: Wild chimpanzees have for the first time been filmed getting drunk together on fermented breadfruit, suggesting humans aren’t the only primates who use alcohol to aid social bonding. If David Attenborough were to make a wildlife documentary about these booze-loving simians, what would it be titled? Last week’s contest: Pop star Katy Perry said she is “for sure” going to write a song about the recent trip she took with journalist Gayle King and others on the first all-female multi-person spaceflight. Suggest a title for the pop star’s upcoming musical tribute to the brief voyage. THE WINNER: “You’re Gonna See Me Soar” Ken Kellam III, Dallas SECOND PLACE: “When I’m Gone (for 11 Minutes)” Doug Carasso, Seal Beach, Calif. THIRD PLACE: “I Kissed the Sky, and…