The Week Magazine September 19, 2025

I miss the good old days of fake news. And by “old,” I mean at least 100 years. And by “fake,” I mean utterly, ridiculously, endearingly bogus. It’s the stuff author David Baron chronicles in his new book, The Martians, which details how Gilded Age America came to believe a thriving alien civilization existed on the red planet (see Books, p.22). “There is life on the planet Mars,” declared the front page of The New York Times on Dec. 9, 1906. In the story, reporter Lilian Whiting writes that astronomer Percival Lowell—a man of “brilliant genius”—had spotted more than 350 “marvelously designed” canals on the surface of our planetary neighbor using the observatory he’d built in Flagstaff, Ariz. The canals, Lowell deduced, had been carved by “conscious, intelligent, organic life”…

What happened The Trump administration launched its long-promised immigration crackdown in Chicago this week, as President Trump threatened the city with “war” and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ramped up operations in other Democratic-run cities. Just before announcing Operation Midway Blitz, Trump posted on social media an AI-generated image of him in an Apocalypse Now–like battle scene in Chicago. “I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” read a caption, in which he declared that the nation’s third-largest city would soon find out why he’s rebranding the Department of Defense as “the Department of WAR” (see Talking Points, p.16). Trump later said he didn’t intend to “go to war” in Chicago but warned he could deploy the National Guard to “straighten it out.” Illinois’ Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, vowed…

■ Larry Pickett Jr., a 20-year-old West Point cadet and Army football safety, was taking an evening drive with his family around Fort Montgomery, N.Y., when they came across a white sedan that had crashed into a utility pole. Though a dangling power line was threatening to set the car alight, Pickett and his father rushed in and extracted the dazed driver, just moments before the car burst into flame. “People around me are telling me to be proud of this,” said Pickett, “but to me, this was just doing what I would always do.” ■ A 13-year-old New Hampshire boy nabbed a catch many older fishermen could only dream of: a 177-pound halibut. The massive fish, caught during an overnight Atlantic fishing trip, weighed 50 pounds more than Jackson…

What happened Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced mounting resistance to his anti-vaccine campaign this week, after a contentious congressional hearing in which he faced sharp bipartisan questioning about the chaos he has created in the nation’s public health agencies. Kennedy was combative during the three-hour hearing, as he was grilled about his contradictory statements on vaccines and accused of lying in his confirmation hearings when he vowed he not to restrict vaccine access. “You promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” Kennedy doubled down on false claims that mRNA vaccines are “deadly” and dismissed concerns about people being unable to get Covid vaccines as “crazy talk.” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Kennedy is deluded by “junk…

Blue-state governors are “launching vaccine counteroffensives,” said Lisa Kashinsky and Brakkton Booker in Politico. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order protecting Covid vaccine access for all, and in Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey has required insurers to cover any injections recommended by the state health department, “regardless of federal guidelines.” California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii have formed an alliance aimed at preserving vaccine access; other blue-state efforts involve strategizing for “disease tracking and emergency preparedness” as the federal government guts funding. Shut out of power in D.C., many Democrats see vaccine access “as a winning issue.” Meanwhile, some Republicans fear it may become a losing one, said Ronald Brownstein in CNN.com. Public support for vaccination runs deep: In a recent KFF survey, 81% of parents, including 75% of…

Donald Trump’s distaste for military adventures might be the only saving grace of his two chaotic presidencies, said Michael Fox in The Nation—or it used to be. Last week, our “supposed ‘anti-war’ president” ordered an air strike on a small speedboat off the coast of Venezuela, destroying the vessel and killing all 11 passengers. Gleefully sharing footage of the strike, Trump insisted the target was a “drug-carrying boat” bound for U.S. shores, and that the occupants belonged to Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan drug cartel he has designated a terrorist group. But given Trump’s track record of lying, “there is no reason to take these assertions at face value.” With eight U.S. warships and 2,200 Marines now stationed off the coast of Venezuela, the administration is vowing more attacks on…