Indholdsfortegnelse for September 26, 2025 i The Week Magazine

In the first day or two after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, it seemed that a consensus view was emerging among conservatives: The killing of Kirk, who waded into college campuses to debate opponents, was the ultimate expression of “cancel culture,” and people who equated speech they detested with violence would turn to violence to stop that speech. Since then, the evidence has supported the idea that this murder was conceived as the ultimate way to end a debate. “Some hate,” Kirk’s alleged killer Tyler Robinson wrote to his romantic partner soon after Kirk’s death, “can’t be negotiated out.” Unfortunately, MAGA world has moved on from defending free speech. On X, online vigilantes have hounded hundreds of ordinary people who expressed the wrong views about Kirk. A few were in fact celebrating…

■ California’s Department of Motor Vehicles is revoking the “IAMISIS” license plate of a motorist named Isis. Isis Wharton said the DMV informed her last week that the plate, which she’s used since 2022, could “be construed as ‘I am Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,’” so she must either surrender it or submit a formal appeal. “My mom was so upset,” says Wharton, who was named for the Egyptian goddess. “She loves my name.” ■ A Pennsylvania man is protesting Walmart’s decision to ban his “emotional support alligator.” Wesley Silva, 60, says that for almost four years, staff at his local Walmart voiced no objection to Jinseioshi, the 5-foot, 32-pound, dress-wearing alligator whose companionship Silva calls “very soothing,” and that he was blindsided by her being banned. “We welcome…

Harpers Ferry, W.Va. Slave narratives: The Trump administration ordered multiple national parks to remove signs and exhibits connected to slavery to comply with an executive order to eliminate “corrosive ideology,” The Washington Post reported this week. At the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, where abolitionist John Brown led a failed 1859 raid to arm slaves, park staff counted over 30 signs potentially violating President Trump’s order, including placards referencing white Americans’ hostility to former slaves. Officials instructed employees to remove or cover up the offending signs. National Park Service officials are said to have also ordered another park to remove a photograph known as “The Scourged Back,” which depicts a slave’s scarred back. The Interior Department, which oversees the national parks, denied that it ordered the photograph taken down and…

At 92, Kim Novak is one of the last surviving stars to have been manufactured by Hollywood’s old studio system, said Nadia Khomami in The Guardian. She was spotted by Columbia Pictures at 21, and its Svengali-like boss, Harry Cohn, quickly got to work. He insisted on a name change since hers—Marilyn—was taken, and ordered her to bleach her hair and lose weight. “They hired you because they thought you have something special, then the first thing they’d do is try to give you a new face,” she says. “They’d want the mouth of Joan Crawford, the hair of Jean Harlow. By the time you left the makeup chair, it wasn’t even you anymore.” Yet Novak became one of the biggest stars of the 1950s, starring in hits such as…

Donald G. McNeil Jr. The Washington Post Vaccines save lives, said Donald G. McNeil Jr., but they also “save money”—in fact, tens of billions in health-care dollars every year. Take the flu shot. It doesn’t always spare people from the ever-mutating virus’s “aches and pains,” but it keeps “people out of the hospital and the morgue.” That’s why health insurance companies make it free. It’s better to pay “a pharmacy $100 or so” to inoculate a 70-year-old than it is to spend “tens of thousands of dollars for that senior to spend a week in intensive care with pneumonia.” The “dirt cheap” measles vaccine recently saved Texas from potentially “enormous” economic damage. The state’s outbreak of a reported 762 measles cases, which included 99 hospitalizations, was primarily limited to the…

Namrata Sharma The Rising Nepal The slaughter of young anti-corruption protesters last week will be “etched in Nepal’s history as one of its darkest moments,” said Namrata Sharma. It stemmed from a Gen Z social media trend mocking the “extravagant lifestyles of the children of political leaders” who flaunt their privilege “while most Nepali children still struggle to meet the necessities of life.” The government, furious that its “Nepo Kids” were being exposed, tried to stifle the conversation by banning WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. That sent tens of thousands of young people pouring into the streets of Kathmandu, marching not only against the social media ban but also against the corruption that has caused our extreme inequality. When these protesters—many of them children “still wearing their school uniforms”—approached parliament, security…

Allergies are much more common now than they were just a few decades ago—except among the Amish. While about half of the general U.S. population reacts to common allergens, just 7% of Amish children do. And only 1% to 2% of Amish kids have asthma, compared with 8% to 10% of children nationwide. One Amish community in northern Indiana has the lowest recorded allergy prevalence in the entire developed world. Scientists believe that’s because Amish children grow up on small farms, around horses and cows and soil teeming with microbes. In one study, mice exposed to dust from Amish homes showed signs of protection from allergens, and more recent studies have identified microbial proteins in that dust that seem to train the immune system to tolerate allergens. Scientists hope to…

“Like so many things that are insanely popular—Crocs, Nutella, MrBeast—Dan Brown’s thrillers look easy to imitate but aren’t,” said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. Brown’s first Robert Langdon novel in eight years delivers nearly 700 “hilariously hectic” pages in which the symbologist hero of 2003’s The Da Vinci Code battles powerful forces trying to quash a book that claims that all of us are connected by a universal consciousness. Brown’s dialogue is “still cringingly corny,” and he has tweaked his formula “only slightly.” Yet “through some occult alchemy, his New Coke is better than the old brew. Reader, I drank it.” Yes, “there’s still fun to be had in reading Brown,” at least for a few pages at a time, said Jessa Crispin in The Telegraph (U.K.). His novels…

The Man Who Invented Conservatism by Daniel J. Flynn (Encounter, $42) “Daniel Flynn has written a wise book about an important and overlooked journalist and intellectual,” said Christopher J. Scalia in The Wall Street Journal. In the 1950s and ’60s, author and National Review culture editor Frank S. Meyer used books, speeches, columns, and lengthy phone calls to promote and police a fusion of traditionalism and libertarianism that became consensus. “Meyer may not have invented conservatism, but Flynn’s book illustrates that he reinvented it.” Black Moses by Caleb Gayle (Riverhead, $33) Edward McCabe was known as Black Moses because he tried to create a promised land for fellow Black Americans in pre-statehood Oklahoma, said Aram Goudsouzian in The Washington Post. While McCabe left behind so few records that this “fascinating”…

There have been many one-person shows of late, but before you swear off them, “you should see Julio Torres’ irresistible new one,” said Sara Holdren in NYMag.com. The former SNL writer and star of Fantasmas and Problemista “has the kind of sui generis brain you want to take a trippy vacation in.” On a set sporting pop-up furniture and a bossy robot named Bibo, who often interrupts him, Torres simply offers his idiosyncratic takes on an array of colors. “Lilac is being a mom. Purple is being a stepmom,” he tells us at one point. Fortunately, it all works because Torres “has a gift for extended, eccentric metaphor—the kind of juxtapositions that make you snort-laugh because they’re simultaneously so bizarre and so apt.” Color Theories begins with our star bursting…

The first thing to know about picpoul is that the wine has “never met a fish it didn’t want to join for dinner,” said Edward Deitch in Vinepair. The grape is native to the Languedoc region of coastal southern France, and it produces a “crisply acidic” white that pairs beautifully with the region’s oysters. Below are three fine examples of Picpoul de Pinet, the appellation for most of the picpoul produced in Languedoc. 2024 Domaine Guillaume Cabrol ($14). This great example of picpoul’s fruitier side “should please many palates, with pear, citrus and stone fruit notes.” 2023 Domaine la Grangette ‘Poule de Pic’ ($20). “There’s good complexity in this picpoul,” which skews to the herbal side but also has honeydew and apricot flavors. 2024 Château Saint Martin de la Garrigue…

Outdoor art in Big Sky country “Land art is having a moment again, especially in the American West, where the terrain inspires the big, the wild, and the weird,” said Kathleen Rellihan in Outside. A few hours north of Yellowstone National Park, Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail, Mont., is a working ranch that’s also home to 16 monumental sculptures scattered against the backdrop of the Beartooth Mountains. Founded in 2016 by philanthropist-artists Cathy and Peter Halstead, the 12,500-acre property features work by Richard Serra, Alexander Calder, and Louise Nevelson. Hikers and mountain bikers are invited to enjoy the art while traversing some 30 miles of trails and gravel roads. The first piece visitors encounter sets the tone: The Soil You See… by Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star. A…

■ Google parent Alphabet became the fourth company to eclipse a $3 trillion market capitalization this week, joining Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple. Its shares are up 30% this year and got a lift from a recent antitrust ruling with lighter penalties than shareholders feared. CNBC.com ■ Consumers in the top 10% of the income distribution accounted for 49.2% of total spending in the second quarter, reaching the highest level in Federal Reserve data going back to 1989. In contrast, the bottom 80% of the income distribution, or consumers making less than roughly $175,000 a year, have seen their spending merely keep pace with inflation since the pandemic. Bloomberg ■ About 26% of workers without jobs have been unemployed for at least half a year, a post-pandemic high. More than 1.9…

Publishers Clearing House promised winners money “for life,” said Chris Isidore in CNN.com. Unfortunately, the promise is not surviving PCH’s own demise. The company known for knocking on doors with balloons and oversize checks is out of business after nearly six decades of “fulfilling dreams.” Its annual revenue had “dropped drastically in recent decades, falling from $854 million in 2017 to $182 million in 2023,” and in April it reported that its liabilities had swelled to between $50 million and $100 million. But ARB Interactive, the mobile gaming company that bought PCH’s small remaining assets, said it “would not honor payouts” for those who won “forever” prizes before July 15 of this year, turning a dream scenario into a nightmare for some winners “who thought they’d never have to work…

More than 120 million girls worldwide are kept from attending school by poverty, war, natural disasters, and gendered discrimination. Since 2013, the Malala Fund (malala.org) has invested in more than 400 local organizations to fund 12 years of free and safe education for more than 21 million girls across the world, including in Afghanistan, Brazil, and Ethiopia. The nonprofit has helped build an all-girls school in rural Kenya, and it continues to train teachers and provide students with school supplies and scholarships. It also advocates for higher public-school budgets for more teachers, higher teacher salaries, and safer student transportation. In Pakistan, the organization provides bicycles to girls living in rural areas far from school. In Tanzania, it supported young mothers returning to continue their studies and helped update national guidelines…

Katherine Bindley The Wall Street Journal “Sprint mode” is back in California’s tech hubs, said Katherine Bindley. Young entrepreneurs in San Francisco are bringing back an energy that tech veterans are beginning to liken to “the early days of the internet, when people slept under their desks at companies such as PayPal.” The tech world work ethic relaxed a bit in the late 2010s, when remote work made it “possible to run a startup from, say, a beach in Rio.” But the rise of AI has brought back the feeling among founders that this “is a once-in-a-lifetime moment.” These young AI startup founders “are locked in a 24/7 competition to be, or appear to be, the most obsessed.” Some break only to hit the gym or one of San Francisco’s…

Rick Davies was the musical force behind the prog-rock band Supertramp. The creative tension between Davies, a working-class realist with a gritty voice, and Roger Hodgson, a prep schooler with a strong tenor, propelled the band to hit after hit. It was Davies who wrote and sang lead on Supertramp’s first big hit, 1974’s “Bloody Well Right,” a takedown of the English upper class. Hodgson was lead vocalist on several of the singles from the 1979 smash album Breakfast in America, including “The Logical Song.” The friction between the two was open and acknowledged. “It gets to be a very personal thing,” Davies said in 1978. “I don’t think that half of the frustration that I feel sometimes has ever come out.” Born in Swindon, England, son of a hairdresser…

What happened Utah prosecutors said this week they would seek the death penalty for the accused assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, saying the 22-year-old suspect told his transgender partner that he’d murdered the right-wing star because “I had enough of his hatred.” The 31-year-old Kirk—a podcaster, leader of the youth mobilization group Turning Point USA, and fierce critic of trans rights—was killed by a single rifle shot fired from a nearby rooftop as he spoke to a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University. After a 33-hour manhunt, authorities arrested Tyler Robinson, 22, whose parents recognized their son in surveillance images and persuaded him to surrender. A former straight-A student raised by Republican parents in St. George, Utah, Robinson had grown “more pro-gay and trans-rights-oriented” over the past year,…

■ Danie Wright and her dog Dax’s afternoon walk in Land O’ Lakes, Fla., was upended this month when an alligator suddenly emerged from a creek and chomped down on the shih tzu’s collar. Wright, a 53-year-old former rugby player, was dragged into the creek but wrangled her puppy free and tossed him back to land. But the gator bit down on Wright’s left arm. She proceeded to punch, kick, and knee the reptile until it let go, escaping with minor bite wounds. “I was so lucky it was a small alligator,” Wright said. ■ For 26 years, Richard Smith lived a double life in Concord, Mass.: as a suburban cat owner and Pittsburgh Steelers fan—and as a Henry David Thoreau impersonator at Walden Pond State Reservation. Often dressed in…

Tattletales, after an Australian reporter asked President Trump if it’s “appropriate” that his family has accumulated so much wealth during his second administration, and Trump responded that “your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell them about you. You set a very bad tone.” Added Trump: “Quiet!” Koalas, after Australian regulators approved a new vaccine to protect the marsupials from chlamydia, the sexually transmitted disease. Peter Timms, a microbiologist who helped develop the shot, said chlamydia currently “accounts for as much as half” of all wild koala deaths. Youth outreach, after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at a vigil for the late Charlie Kirk, claimed that he first met the conservative activist “in July of 2001,” and that their “friendship blossomed” over the…

London Trump visit: Britain’s royal family welcomed President Trump with the fanfare he loves this week during his unprecedented second state visit to the kingdom. King Charles III and Queen Camilla hosted Trump and first lady Melania Trump at Windsor Castle, where Trump inspected the guards ahead of a state dinner. The president described the historic visit and royal reception as “an honor” and said his main purpose for the trip was to see “my friend” Charles. After leaving Windsor, he was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his country home, Chequers, to complete a pageantry-filled two-day visit that the U.K. hoped would smooth over differences with the U.S. on trade and international cooperation. Trump is the first elected official ever to be hosted for a state…

Robin Wright is done with marriage, said Laura Pullman in The Times (U.K.), but she’s just getting started with love. The thrice-divorced House of Cards actress moved to the U.K. about a year ago and soon met architect Henry Smith in a country pub. She’d asked the man sitting behind her if she could feed his dog—a deaf and blind yellow Lab named Rusty—some of her steak, and he pointed to Rusty’s actual owner. “Henry was standing at the bar, 6 foot 2, and he put his pint down, came over to me, and grabbed my shoulders,” says Wright, 59. “He goes, ‘Who the f--- are you?’ And I said, ‘Who the f--- are you?’ And that was it.” Soon after, the pair both contracted Covid and grew close during…

Zeynep Tufekci The New York Times Millions of people watched Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska’s violent deaths as if they were “viral snuff films,” said Zeynep Tufekci. The shooting death of the conservative activist in Utah and the stabbing death of the 23-year-old Ukrainian on a train in North Carolina were captured in “extremely graphic videos” that went viral online, including “the second that metal struck flesh and wrought its awful damage.” Users ghoulishly zoomed in on the horrific, bloody images of murder, “slowed them to a crawl,” marked them up “with arrows and diagrams,” replayed them endlessly, and used them to create conspiracy theories or stoke “calls for collective retribution and vigilante justice.” Violence and crime have always attracted media attention, but today “the supply of violent images has…

“What did ‘conservatism’ used to mean? At the foundational, philosophical level, conservatism was about slowing the pace of change in order to avoid unintended consequences. Modern conservatism is no longer interested in conservation. Conservatives seem to agree with Trump’s dictum that ‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.’ Today’s conservatives are radical in their disposition. What they want isn’t so much change as domination. They want to set the laws. To force others to live by their preferences. They are in favor of political violence, so long as it is carried out by actors sympathetic to their cause.” Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark…

Hassen Mama Muse Addis Standard Ethiopia has finally claimed its rightful share of the Nile, said Hassen Mama Muse. Last week, we sent water pouring into the reservoirs of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa’s largest hydroelectric project, using the flow of this “storied lifeline” to generate power in a country where most people lack access to electricity. This project won’t take water away from anyone; instead, it will actually benefit downstream countries by reducing silt in their reservoirs and providing a “buffer against future droughts and floods.” It should be considered a “prime example” of the mutually advantageous use called for under international water-use laws. But downstream nations Egypt and Sudan claim the dam violates their “historical rights” to most of the Nile’s water, basing their case on agreements…

Lee Stinton Belfast Telegraph During my seven years living in the U.S., I “never even had so much as a parking ticket,” said Lee Stinton. Yet I was grabbed by Donald Trump’s immigration police and held for a month in vile conditions. An ICE agent stopped me on a Florida street in June while I was on my way to work at a hair salon. “You look Mexican,” he sneered. “I am not,” I replied. “I am from Northern Ireland.” But that didn’t matter—I was now caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Federal agents crammed me and about 100 others into a cell built for 10 at Krome Detention Center in Miami, where “there was one toilet,” and barely fed us. They had a doctor surgically remove my…

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “testing the West,” said Fred Kaplan in Slate, and once again, President Trump is flunking. When Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska last month and showered him with subservient flattery, Putin saw it as a signal of weakness—and a green light to expand his drone and missile attacks on Ukraine and to extend his belligerence beyond Ukraine’s borders. Last week, 19 unarmed Russian drones flew deep into Polish territory; Polish and European officials widely believe the brazen provocation was an intentional probe to test NATO’s air defenses and its willingness to respond should a member state be attacked. Afterward, the Kremlin ratcheted up its provocative rhetoric, with a spokesperson proclaiming that “NATO is at war with Russia.” Trump, meanwhile, responded…

“Christopher Marlowe was, is, and will doubtless remain a troublemaker,” said Anthony Lane in The New Yorker. In Stephen Greenblatt’s new book, the 16th-century poet and playwright best known as a contemporary rival of William Shakespeare’s is presented as the wild-child catalyst of the English Renaissance, and Greenblatt is “right to sound the trumpet.” Marlowe lit the fuse in at least one sense: Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth all owe him a debt for freeing English verse by pioneering the use of unrhymed iambic pentameter. Beyond that, Marlowe today seems “frighteningly” modern in his relish for shocking audiences in his portrayals of violence, vice, and religious bigotry. Though many mysteries surround Marlowe’s life and violent death at 29, Greenblatt isn’t fazed. Indeed, “speculative riffs are not a weakness but a mainspring…

You can’t blame Kiran Desai for feeling lonely now that her third novel is finally arriving, said Alexandra Alter in The New York Times. The 2006 Booker Prize winner spent nearly two decades working on it. “It was so much my entire world that life seems very thin on the other side,” she says. “It was my companion all these years.” Desai embarked on The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny shortly after completing The Inheritance of Loss, her novel that won the Booker, a prize that her mother, Anita Desai, has been shortlisted for three times. The younger writer knew that she wanted to next write a sweeping modern love story about two young Indians based in America. She simply didn’t anticipate how much time the project would consume. “I’m…

(R) A pair of singles tour each other’s pasts. “To call A Big Bold Beautiful Journey a discount version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind would be giving it way too much credit,” said Alison Willmore in NYMag.com. “A democratically evenhanded waste of talent,” the new movie brings together two great stars, a fine supporting cast, and an award-winning director, then burdens them all with a contrived romantic fantasy. Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell play Sarah and David, two beautiful strangers who meet at a wedding and decline to pursue love until they’re both guided by charmed rental cars into a road trip that grants them access to portals into each other’s pasts. From there, the film becomes “a tepid magical-realist therapy session” in which the pair must each…

Alice in Borderland Japan’s answer to Squid Game has returned with a long-awaited third season that finds protagonists Arisu and Usagi back in the alternate dystopia they once escaped, again competing in deadly games to survive. And this time, they’ve been separated. Netflix Tempest Mix a little Tom Clancy with the 2018 British series Bodyguard, give it a K-drama gloss, and you get Tempest. In the action-packed series, a former South Korean diplomat and the agent charged with protecting her join forces as she tries to untangle a broad conspiracy in the days after her husband is assassinated. Hulu Asura Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s gorgeous drama turns on the relationship between four sisters who are dealing with the revelation that their father has been unfaithful to their mother. Netflix Secrets…

“Swordfish is the steak of the sea,” says Top Chef: All-Stars champion Melissa King in her new book Cook Like a King (Ten Speed Press). I find the flesh to be “so satisfyingly meaty” that “I often treat it like filet mignon,” searing it to create a crisp crust and spooning on a rich au poivre sauce. You’ll need cognac, pickled green peppercorns, and heavy cream for this version of the classic French sauce. That sauce “comes together quickly” as the fish rests, so make sure you have all the ingredients ready to go before the fish hits the pan. Swordfish au poivre For the swordfish: 2 6-oz swordfish steaks, about 1 inch thick, skinned1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper2 tbsp canola oil For the…

“If you get ticketed abroad, don’t assume the story ends when your vacation does,” said Paul Abercrombie in The Boston Globe. Especially in Europe, where traffic enforcement is now highly automated, “gone are the days when a speeding ticket in Florence or a parking fine in Paris could be safely ignored once you crossed a border.” The EU last year added to the list of infractions that trigger international cooperation, and rental agencies now work closely with authorities to track international scofflaws. The true cost doesn’t stop with the fine, especially for those pursuing professions in law, law enforcement, or any position requiring a security clearance. Nonpayment is likely to turn up in a background check, creating potential questions about your honesty or judgment.…

Robinson’s court appearance this week “marks the beginning of a long road to trial,” said Taylor Romine in CNN.com. He faces seven state charges, including aggravated murder, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering—and if convicted could face death by firing squad or lethal injection. Evidence against Robinson so far includes alleged confessions to his parents, roommate, and friends on the chat app Discord, and DNA evidence on a bolt-action rifle found near the crime scene. He entered no plea this week and is being held without bail. Robinson currently faces no federal charges, which “might seem surprising,” said Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney in Politico. But homicides are charged as federal crimes in “only a few circumstances,” such as a killing on federal property or the targeting of a government…

EPA proposes eliminating greenhouse emissions reports The Environmental Protection Agency last week proposed ending a program requiring businesses to report greenhouse gas emissions, in the Trump administration’s latest attack on climate regulations. Since 2010, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program has required more than 8,000 facilities, including power plants, steel mills, and oil refineries, to detail their emissions, allowing the government to track the climate impact of major facilities. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin called the program “nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality,” and said cutting it would save businesses up to $2.4 billion. Scientists and environmentalists insist the data is critical for helping the country lower emissions and address climate change. The Trump administration is taking steps to roll back dozens of environmental regulations and…

Lizzo has gone from cultural icon to cultural outcast, said Allison P. Davis in New York. A plus-size Black woman, the “Good as Hell” singer rocketed to global stardom in 2019, winning critical acclaim for songs preaching body positivity. Then in 2023, it all came undone: Lizzo was sued by three former backup dancers for sexual harassment and a hostile work environment—accusations she vehemently denies. Having just finished a world tour in Japan, she traveled around the country trying to shut out the online furor. In a forest in Kyoto, she says, she sat by a tree and thought, “This tree was here before the lawsuit. And this tree’s going to be here after me, after the backlash goes away.” But when she arrived back in the U.S., the seriousness…

■ Hollywood paid tribute this week to Robert Redford, after the Oscar-winning actor, director, and film visionary died at age 89. “One of the lions has passed,” said Meryl Streep, his Out of Africa (1985) co-star. Jane Fonda, who appeared with Redford in Barefoot in the Park (1967) and other movies, called him “a beautiful person in every way.” Redford died at his home outside Provo, Utah, “the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” said a representative. With boyish good looks and charm, Redford made a name as a leading man in hits such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Way We Were (1973), and All the President’s Men (1976). He was also a force behind the scenes: His directorial debut, Ordinary People, won the…

Rebecca Solnit The Guardian If the Jeffrey Epstein birthday book shocks you, you’ve forgotten how our culture once “normalized” the sexual exploitation of pubescent girls, said Rebecca Solnit. The collection of birthday letters to the deceased sex offender Epstein from 2003 is “a relic” from a time before feminism and MeToo changed public acceptance of the widespread exploitation of girls and women. The book included a supposedly funny drawing showing Epstein grooming young girls with candy, and then later being sexually serviced by them as he lies naked on a beach chair. “Before feminism,” the objectification of teen and even tween girls “was everywhere.” The 1970s produced films like Woody Allen’s Manhattan, in which a creepy 40-something dated a teenager, and Taxi Driver, with 12-year-old Jodie Foster playing a prostitute.…

■ An Indiana bankruptcy attorney named Mark Zuckerberg is suing his famous namesake’s company Meta because it keeps suspending his Facebook accounts on the grounds that he is “impersonating a celebrity.” The Indiana Zuckerberg says he’s lost potential clients and $11,000 in Facebook advertising over the numerous times Meta has disabled his professional page. Each time the page is taken down, Meta sends him a message saying, “We removed your page because you’re trying to impersonate our founder. Nice try, fake Zuck!” ■ Authorities in Seoul have unveiled a new tool to cut crime: a 3D hologram of a police officer. Beamed onto a sheet of plastic, the hologram appears every two minutes between 7 and 10 p.m. to warn would-be criminals at Jeo-dong Park that police are not far…

Paul Quinio Libération President Emmanuel Macron usually dithers when picking a prime minister, said Paul Quinio. But this is the fifth time he’s had to replace the head of government in just two years, so he probably wanted to look decisive for a change. He named Sébastien Lecornu just 24 hours after François Bayrou was booted out in a no-confidence vote by a coalition of far-left and far-right lawmakers who were furious at proposed spending cuts. Lecornu has been defense minister, and his “seriousness is not in question.” The center-right Macron surely thought he was projecting strength with this choice. But the real message French voters received was that Macron wants the appearance of change “without actually changing anything.” Lacking a parliamentary majority, the president lives in fear of the…

In the week since President Trump launched his immigration crackdown in Chicago, the city’s Latino neighborhoods have been living in terror, said Adrian Carrasquillo in The Bulwark. Afraid of being snatched by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, many of Chicago’s 200,000 undocumented immigrants are staying home. School attendance is down, community events are being canceled, and stores and restaurants in Little Village—the so-called Mexico of the Midwest—have seen business drop 50%. ICE has avoided major sweeps, but its “roving detention raids” are an effective weapon in the guerra de miedo (“war of fear”), said community activist Imelda Salazar. The fatal shooting of an undocumented Mexican man by ICE last week has only “heightened fears,” said Renee Hickman and Heather Schlitz in Reuters. Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, 38, had just dropped his children…

“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded.” James Madison, quoted in The New Republic “A general interest and preoccupation with politics is the surest sign of a general decay in a society.” English philosopher Michael Oakeshott, quoted in The Wall Street Journal “People pay money to see others believe in themselves.” Rock bassist Kim Gordon, quoted in Lit Hub “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” Hannah Arendt, quoted in Foreign Policy “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” Henry Kissinger, quoted in Southasia (Pakistan) “NATO was created to keep…

■ MAGA-world sours on Big Tech The fracturing coalition between the tech right and MAGA populists was on full display at this month’s National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., where participants were openly calling “for a holy war against Big Tech,” said Tina Nguyen in The Verge. The hostility was driven by the belief that AI technology now poses a threat to Western civilization. While Vice President JD Vance has been working to heal the rupture between the tech right and MAGA conservatives, his efforts have borne little fruit. During a panel with Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer of Palantir, one participant said the AI industry was “by and large, globalist, secular, liberal, feminized transhumanists.” Other commenters accused Big Tech of weakening the U.S. economy and national defense, and assaulting…

Using marijuana might lower your chance of getting pregnant through in vitro fertilization, a new study suggests. Researchers examining 1,059 samples of follicular fluid from the eggs of IVF patients found that 62 of the samples tested positive for THC, the active compound in cannabis. The egg cells from those samples were more likely to have chromosomal abnormalities and to mature faster than the samples with no traces of THC. When the researchers then tested 24 of the eggs themselves rather than just the follicular fluid, the results were much the same: Unfertilized eggs exposed to higher-than-average THC concentrations matured faster and had almost 10% more chromosome errors. Still, because the sample size was small, other possible factors for chromosomal disorders—such as advanced maternal age—couldn’t be ruled out. That’s why…

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of the blockbuster 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Her ninth book, the new memoir All the Way to the River, explores her stormy, codependent relationship with her friend and lover Rayya Elias, who died of cancer in 2018. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (1972). In this slim, magical novel, a wild young girl and her equally wild grandmother spend the summer on a remote Finnish island, using adventure and creativity to heal from loss. Never has childhood girl power been more eloquently expressed. I call this my favorite book nobody has ever read. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway (1943). This vivid memoir tells of how spinal tuberculosis, diagnosed in childhood, threatened (but failed) to limit the scope of Hathaway’s big, imaginative life.…

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, through Feb. 1 “Man Ray didn’t consider photography to be a form of art,” said Marion Maneker in Puck. That notion may surprise some visitors to the Met’s survey of one of the artist’s most fertile periods, because it’s “easy to get lost” in the 64 experimental photographs that constitute the heart of the show. In 1921, Man Ray moved to Paris from New York City, and he later said he was developing images for a fashion client when he left a couple of random objects atop photographic paper and accidentally exposed the paper to light. Excited by the ghostly images the process produced, he repeated it, dubbed the results “rayographs,” and printed a dozen in a 1922 portfolio, Les champs délicieux, that…

(R) A fake but storied metal band reunites. “It’s almost always pleasant to hang out with old friends, particularly when no one overstays their welcome,” said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. That’s about the best that can be said about the new Spinal Tap movie, a sequel to the 1984 comedy classic that popularized the mockumentary genre. Co-stars Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer are all back, playing the three self-important core members of a heavy metal band that was heading downhill in 1984 but now agree to reunite for a final concert. Though their antics here “will surprise exactly no one,” the entire team’s commitment to the bit “makes for a genial 83 minutes of soft jokes and jowls.” But there’s a fine line between stupid…

A federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook before this week’s meeting, said Lydia Wheeler and Nick Timiraos in The Wall Street Journal. “President Trump announced last month that he would remove Cook,” saying she “submitted fraudulent mortgage application information.” But copies of Cook’s loan estimate obtained by the Journal “described one of those properties as a vacation home,” which could counter Trump’s fraud allegation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had reportedly also listed two residences as “primary,” with his lenders’ approval. Social media: U.S. investors close in on TikTok A TikTok sale that would take the app out of Chinese hands is almost complete, said Brody Ford and Kurt Wagner in Bloomberg. A “framework agreement” says that TikTok’s U.S. operations “would be…

■ Estate planning for collectors “Your collection of baseball cards or Birkin handbags is also an estate planner’s nightmare,” said Daniel de Visé in USA Today. “Placing a precise value on a collection is tricky,” and your heirs might not share your enthusiasm for your hobby, which makes it crucial that you “decide what becomes of it when you pass on.” The first task is to make a record of what you have and what it’s worth, ideally with a spreadsheet “with descriptions of every item in the collection.” For high-value artwork, jewelry, or items that you think might be broaching five figures, a formal appraisal will help with insurance coverage—and ensuring that your heirs don’t send a “weird, splotchy,” yet valuable, painting to the dumpster. ■ Auto loans send…

Hayden Dublois New York Post The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ repeated errors suggest “sheer incompetence,” said Hayden Dublois. Each month, the BLS publishes numbers on the jobs created in the economy—numbers awaited by the media as the “jobs report.” And over and over the agency gets it wrong. The BLS now admits that “between April 2024 and March 2025, it overestimated the number of jobs created in the American economy by a mind-blowing 911,000.” The agency “has known for years” that its monthly workplace surveys have been ravaged, like other polls, “by sharply declining response rates.” Yet it continues to rely on survey results that are proved wrong as the hard data comes in. These mistakes have consequences. “In the last year, the Federal Reserve didn’t cut interest rates in…