Indholdsfortegnelse for October 10, 2025 i The Week Magazine

So now we know why Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of the military’s top brass to a meeting in Quantico this week. It wasn’t to purge the ranks, demand a loyalty pledge, or announce the invasion of Venezuela. No, the former Fox News host turned defense secretary wanted to lecture these decorated war fighters about what makes a real warrior (see Main Stories, p.5). Being clean shaven is essential. “No more beardos,” Hegseth said, announcing a ban on facial hair. American warriors must also have ripped bods like his own—“fat troops are tiring to look at”—and minds free of “woke garbage.” These perfect warriors will most likely be men, because, he explained, women in combat roles will soon be required to meet a higher male fitness standard. “If that means no…

What happened President Trump told an unprecedented gathering of military top brass this week that America was “under invasion from within” and that soldiers should use “dangerous cities” like Chicago and Portland as “training grounds.” The more than 800 generals, admirals, and other officers were summoned from posts around the globe to assemble at Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va., solely to listen to remarks by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In his rambling, 75-minute speech, Trump aired grievances about his predecessors and the Nobel Prize committee and said he would “straighten out” cities that are “run by the radical left Democrats,” with help from the military. “That’s a war, too,” he said. “It’s the enemy from within.” Noting that officers swear an oath to defend against “all enemies, foreign…

■ A judge has dismissed a class-action lawsuit against Hershey over the packaging of its Halloween candy. The lawsuit focused on products including Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins and Reese’s White Ghost, whose wrappers depict candies with “spooky” facial features that do not appear on the candy itself. U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian acknowledged the potential for disappointment, but ruled that the faceless candies are not “so flawed as to render them worthless.” ■ An Ohio lawmaker has introduced a bill that would ban marriage between humans and AI chatbots. GOP state Rep. Thad Claggett says he’s alarmed by the pace of AI progress, and worries that Ohioans in the near future might claim “that this machine is their spouse” and grant it control of their finances and power of attorney.…

Chris Francis owns a library of the world’s most famous feet, said Deborah Netburn in the Los Angeles Times. In 2022, the L.A. shoemaker and artist acquired the complete archive of Pasquale Di Fabrizio, who hand-made footwear for Hollywood and music royalty from the early 1960s until his death in 2008. Di Fabrizio kept shoe lasts—carved wooden forms cobblers use to make their creations—as well as tracings of feet, leather samples, and handwritten notes from thousands of clients including Lauren Bacall, Mae West, Roy Orbison, Richard Pryor, Liza Minnelli, and Peter Falk. All the artifacts are stored in cardboard shoeboxes that Di Fabrizio, an Italian immigrant, wrapped in green, white, and red-striped ribbon. “Every time I open one it’s amazing,” says Francis, who hopes to eventually put the boxes on…

Fareed Zakaria The Washington Post “Why has America’s vaunted system of checks and balances proved so weak?” asked Fareed Zakaria. Since taking office, President Trump has deliberately refused to play by the established rules. He’s unilaterally imposed tariffs, ignoring Congress’s power of the purse; fired members of independent boards and commissions; and dismantled agencies by executive order. Such “usurpations of authority” would have sparked public outrage in any previous era, but today we routinely see regulatory threats and lawsuits against media companies, the use of the Justice Department against political foes, and a Supreme Court that seems happy to sign off on it all. This democratic erosion is happening at speed in part because we have long relied on norms, including that the executive will respect the roles of other…

Ignacio Morales Lechuga El Universal Fuel theft in Mexico has hit the big time, said Ignacio Morales Lechuga. What started years ago as a trend of “farmers drilling holes in pipelines in the wee hours” is now an “operation of industrial proportions.” The scandal broke into the open this month like a “corpse suddenly popping up and floating in plain sight.” Fourteen people, including top business executives and admirals in the navy, were charged with operating a vast, criminal oil-smuggling network that relabeled fuel imports from the U.S. as oil additives to evade the high import tax. Tax authorities and Pemex, the state-owned petroleum company, estimate that 30% of the fuel Mexicans use each day is “of dubious origin or openly illegal and pays no taxes,” robbing the government of…

For the first time in more than three decades, “attacks by far-left extremists are outpacing far-right violence,” said Zachary Basu in Axios. That’s the finding of a new study from the nonpartisan Center for Strategic & International Studies, which looked at 750 domestic attacks and plots from 1994 through this summer. For almost all that period, far-right terrorism was “more frequent and more lethal”; in the past decade alone, right-wing extremists killed 112 people in the U.S., while leftist attacks killed 13. But “America’s domestic terrorism landscape has undergone a remarkable inversion since President Trump returned to office,” with at least five leftist attacks or plots recorded in the first six months of the year compared with one right-wing attack. And we’ve seen a flurry of suspected leftist violence in…

A new analysis of a million-year-old skull in China is forcing scientists to reconsider the timeline of human evolution. The badly damaged skull had originally been classified as Homo erectus. But new, more sophisticated digital reconstruction suggests that the remains are actually Homo longi, related to Denisovans. That would mean that a Denisovan cousin branch of ancient hominins arose far earlier than previously thought. “It suggests that by 1 million years ago, our ancestors had already split into distinct groups, pointing to a much earlier and more complex human evolutionary split than previously believed,” paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer tells The Guardian (U.K.). “It more or less doubles the time of origin of Homo sapiens.” That implies the common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Denisovans lived in Asia—and that therefore modern humans…

“I’m hesitant to call What We Can Know a masterpiece,” said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. But the meticulously constructed new novel is “the best thing Ian McEwan has written in ages.” Like 2001’s Atonement, the book toggles between two time frames, here because a scholar named Thomas, who lives in the dystopia of the next century, is studying our own era and hoping to track down a poem rumored to be masterful. As Thomas’ research affords him glimpses of many everyday 21st-century pleasures, including orchestras, home cooking, and stadium sports, that have been wiped out by calamity, it’s easy to get nostalgic about the present. At the same time, What We Can Know “posits that the past is irretrievably past, particularly in matters of the human heart,”…

Breakneck by Dan Wang (Norton, $32) In any near-future U.S.-China war, China “may have an advantage,” said The Economist. This “illuminating” best seller attributes China’s economic rise to the engineering mindset of its leaders and the skilled workforce the country has built while manufacturing electronics products for the world’s biggest companies. Breakneck “doesn’t ignore China’s big challenges,” including its rights abuses. But it paints the U.S. as a nation of lawyers and China as a nation of build-now engineers. If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares (Little, Brown, $30) Although Eliezer Yudkowsky is a well-known AI doomsdayer, said David Shariatmadari in The Guardian, “it feels like everyone with an interest in the future has a duty to read what he and Nate Soares have to…

With its fourth album, Geese “has achieved something miraculous,” said Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic. Though the young four-piece band from Brooklyn still has room for growth, it has now proved that rock can still move forward in “electrifying ways.” The group’s best LP yet “stages an intense and unpredictable melee between punk and free jazz,” drawing from influences as diverse as Radiohead, Pixies, the Stones, and Frank Zappa to create a record “capable of piercing the most serious cases of burnout.” At times, singer and songwriter Cameron Winter “sounds like Chewbacca doing opera,” but his groggy crooning “captures what it’s like to feel unfulfilled in a land of unlimited convenience and choice: weird and pathetic.” Geese’s “unapologetic oddness” may “put a ceiling on its mainstream success,” said Mark Richardson…

Directed by Ronan Day-Lewis (R) A recluse receives an unwelcome guest. “It’s touching that Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement to launch his son’s movie career,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. Alas, the project that the pair made together turns out to be “a dud of a movie—aridly pretentious and static, with too much self-conscious art photography and not enough drama.” As great as the 68-year-old actor often has been, he’s “not especially memorable” here, and though 27-year-old first-time director Ronan Day-Lewis “shows flashes of talent,” Anemone, for most of its 125 minutes, “just sits there.” It arrives eight years after Daniel’s previous film, Phantom Thread, and the three-time Oscar winner’s magnetic intensity “remains undimmed,” said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. He plays Ray Stoker, a traumatized former British soldier…

Superman James Gunn’s hit take on America’s flagship superhero is full of humor and winning action, and features great performances across the board. Nicholas Hoult is smarmy tech billionaire Lex Luthor, Nathan Fillion a noxious Green Lantern, and David Corenswet proves the best to don the red cape since Christopher Reeve. HBO Max The Fantastic Four: First Steps Marvel’s offbeat superhero quartet got an uneven but entertaining reboot this summer. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Julia Garner are superb as heroes trying to defend Earth from an invasion by the mega-villain Galactus. $25 on demand Thunderbolts* It wasn’t the best of Marvel movies, but winning performances from Florence Pugh and David Harbour, as leaders of a group of rogue antiheroes struggling to work as a team, make this…

The widely held belief that it’s cheapest to book flights on a Monday or Tuesday “may actually turn out to be a major myth,” said Michael Cappetta in Travel + Leisure. Google Flights has crunched the numbers on four years of booking data and determined that though it’s most expensive to make reservations on Sunday, and least expensive on Tuesday, the price difference is only 1.3%. Other factors do matter, though. It turns out that there’s about a 13% savings for flights departing Monday through Wednesday compared with weekend flights. Booking early helps, too. Google advises booking at least 39 days in advance for domestic flights and 49 for international. It suggests booking at least 35 days in advance for a Thanksgiving trip and 51 days for Christmas travel.…

When Ron DiMenna opened his first Ron Jon Surf Shop in New Jersey in 1961, the 24-year-old had no idea it would make him a multimillionaire. But within a few years he’d opened a pier store in Cocoa Beach, Fla., that eventually grew into a 52,000- square-foot behemoth with indoor waterfalls and spawned 10 other outposts. The brand became ubiquitous, with stickers bearing the tiki-font Ron Jon logo plastered on car bumpers and surfboards around the world. “Let’s say two old guys bump into each other,” DiMenna said. “One is wearing a Ron Jon T-shirt; the other has his beer wrapped in a Ron Jon foam can holder. There is instant recognition, instant connection.” Ronald Eugene DiMenna grew up near the Jersey shore and began surfing after military service. The…

What happened More U.S. cities were bracing this week for the arrival of federal forces after President Trump ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to what he called “war ravaged” Portland, Ore., and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry called on the Guard to tackle crime in his state. Portland and Oregon sued to block the Pentagon’s federalization of 200 Oregon National Guard members. Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered outside a Portland ICE facility, joining a long-running protest that had for months involved no more than several dozen demonstrators yet prompted Trump to call in the Guard and authorize “full force, if necessary.” Trump said he told Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek that Portland—which he’s long viewed as an antifa hotbed—looked “like World War II. Your place is burning down.” Kotek…

Universal health care, after President Trump posted and then deleted an AI-generated news report detailing his own apparent plans to issue every American a “medbed card” granting access to hospitals equipped with so-called medbeds, nonexistent devices that in QAnon lore can cure every known disease and reverse the aging process. Clawed crusaders, after New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa proposed releasing feral cats as a solution to the city’s rat problem. “This is Mother Nature’s way of preventing rats,” said the Republican, who added that New Yorkers should view the cats “like Batman and Robin.” Prestige poultry, after a Royal Parks spokesperson disputed claims by Nigel Farage, the Trump-endorsed leader of Britain’s Reform Party, that immigrants from “different cultures” were stealing and eating swans. “We’ve not had any incidents…

Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson is still hurting over his final conversation with his father, said Sam Anderson in The New York Times. It was in 2019, and Rocky Johnson—a professional wrestler like his son—had just published a memoir. It was, as Johnson had expected, largely a work of fiction intended to cash in on his son’s Hollywood fame. “Growing up with my dad, I know the truth to all these stories,” he says. “If the truth is blue, this story is red.” Johnson, 53, could live with tall tales. What “crossed the line” were a series of fabricated quotes from Johnson about how he owed his father—a sporadic presence in his childhood—for all his own success both in the ring and on screen. It was a sign, he says, of…

Paul Krugman Substack Donald Trump’s decision to hand Argentina a $20 billion financial lifeline may seem “out of character” for our supposedly America First president, said Paul Krugman. But the plan fits perfectly with his “petty worldview.” Argentine President Javier Milei has defended Trump’s tariffs and deportations at the United Nations, and the DOGE-like cuts he’s made to Argentina’s government have made him a “poster child for right-wing economics.” But Milei’s “regime of economic shock therapy” is faltering: Argentina’s unemployment rate is at a four-year high, international investors are fleeing, and Milei’s party could lose next month’s midterm elections. So here comes Trump to the rescue, even though Argentina is a “minuscule player in terms of U.S. interests,” buying only 12% of its imports from us. And never mind that…

“People ask me, ‘Why don’t you talk about the Democrats?’ The short answer is I do. But the fact is that the GOP controls the White House and Congress, and Trump controls his party in ways no president in living memory has. Moreover, he’s coloring outside the lines. He’s redefining conservatism in real time. He does everything he can to be the center of attention constantly. In short, he’s making news. He’s driving events. When people yell at me for writing too much about Trump, what many of them—not all—really mean is ‘Why do you have to criticize him so much?’ Part of this response stems from the idea that conservative commentators are supposed to be partisan Republican commentators. But in ways that have never been truer in my lifetime,…

Editorial Meduza Just months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin assured Russians he wouldn’t raise taxes to pay for the Ukraine war, said Meduza, but Russians know better than to “take a leader at his word.” The value-added tax on most goods and services is now jumping from 20% to 22%, and who knows which tax will be the next to rise. This reversal was “entirely foreseeable.” In the first half of this year alone, the war in Ukraine gobbled up a third of the national budget, swelling the deficit to 4.2 trillion rubles, or $50 billion, while the global price of oil, the country’s most critical source of revenue, was in the dumps. The Finance Ministry isn’t even trying to hide that the reason it’s raiding consumers’ wallets is to…

Kalle Sundin Aftonbladet Sweden’s right-wing government thinks it can juice the economy by “squeezing families with children,” said Kalle Sundin. Its new benefits rules, intended to be introduced gradually through 2028, will hit large households hardest. A Swedish family of five would receive $850 less per month in social assistance, while immigrant families would not get full child and housing benefits, instead qualifying only over time. A spokesman for the Christian Democrats, one of the parties in the ruling coalition, said not to worry, because the reforms would only hurt “those who don’t work.” What a vile, wicked thing to say, regurgitating the “discredited idea that laziness is what drives unemployment.” The policy clearly had significant input from the Sweden Democrats, the far-right party that the minority coalition relies on…

The Supreme Court has again rewritten the Constitution “to give President Trump terrifying new powers,” said Mark Joseph Stern in Slate. In a 6-3 decision last week, the conservative majority ruled that Trump could unilaterally cancel $4 billion in foreign aid appropriated by Congress. The unsigned order—made via the emergency “shadow docket” process—offered a “threadbare” justification that “the president’s authority over foreign affairs outweighs Congress’s control over spending.” That decision shifts “a massive amount of power from the legislative branch to the executive,” possibly awarding Trump a line-item veto over “every dollar appropriated by Congress.” And it came just days after the majority handed Trump control over independent agencies, ruling that he could fire the last Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission without cause. The firing was clearly illegal, because…

“Few endeavors could be more paradoxical than writing a book about being unable to write,” said Laura Miller in Slate. But that’s what Patricia Lockwood has attempted in her latest, a work of autofiction that chronicles a dizzying chapter of her life. Beginning in late 2020, the popular and acclaimed poet, memoirist, and novelist suffered a bout with long Covid that plunged her into a brain fog and robbed her of her facility with words. The author of Priestdaddy and No One Is Talking About This seeks to capture that disorientation in Will There Ever Be Another You, “and sometimes she does pull it off.” She’s also “never not funny.” But the results, especially the early chapters, “can be pretty heavy sledding.” “Turning over the last page, I asked with…

Philosopher Justin Smith-Ruiu has opened a new chapter of today’s growing psychedelics fan club, said Emily Eakin in The New York Times. In his new book, On Drugs, the veteran author mixes memoir and philosophical inquiry as he argues that members of his field need to open up to what drug-altered mind states tell us about human consciousness and the nature of reality. Though the 53-year-old Canadian American doesn’t ally himself with such prominent proponents of psychedelics as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk, he has detailed how his outlook on life and his field changed during the pandemic when he fell into existential despair and sought relief by indulging in two types of psychedelic mushrooms. “I would never want to set myself up as an advocate,” he says.…

Jeff Tweedy, at 58, “remains a national treasure,” said Chris DeVille in Stereogum. For non-devotees, the idea of a 30-song triple album from the Wilco frontman could be “intimidating, maybe even exhausting.” But Tweedy isn’t on autopilot here. Though his music isn’t as bold or gutting as it once was, “he’s still taking creative risks, leaping around between styles,” and the guy “can still string together a few chords and sentences and make it feel like magic.” Twilight Override mixes “rousing rockers and somber ballads, deep vulnerability and wry humor,” all graced by Tweedy’s “weary rasp” and a backing band featuring two of his sons. And just when a stretch of songs blurs together, “one of the stunners breaks through.” Think of this album as Tweedy’s “epic-scale response” to America’s…

Directed by Benny Safdie (R) A pioneering UFC fighter battles addiction. “The Smashing Machine is satisfying as much for what it doesn’t do as for what it does,” said Stephanie Zacharek in Time. Dwayne Johnson stars in the new biopic, playing former UFC champ Mark Kerr. And though Kerr’s cage career traced a familiar arc from early success to addiction and a comeback, director Benny Safdie “doesn’t try to apply any Rocky-style narrative formulas.” Johnson’s Kerr is simply a guy who takes life as it comes, and he and the film’s other characters “feel lived-in, not written, with flaws and attributes that chime with things we see in our family, our friends, ourselves.” Johnson, who was a pro wrestling star before beginning his film career two decades ago, is “by far…

President Trump said this week he is launching a government-run website, called TrumpRx, with a promise of cheaper prescription drugs, said Natalie Andrews in The Wall Street Journal. The site will connect users directly with drugmakers, cutting out middlemen blamed for high drug costs. The announcement was accompanied by a deal with Pfizer, which, in exchange for a three-year tariff exemption, will charge Medicaid a “most favored nation” price, or the lowest price paid by other developed countries. The international pricing, however, “might not be much lower” than the discounts Medicaid currently gets. The Fed: Cook retains seat as high court takes up case The Supreme Court “refused to allow President Trump to immediately fire” Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, said Zoe Tillman and Greg Stohr in Bloomberg, and scheduled…

■ Social Security’s endless hold times The Social Security Administration continues to adjust to a new normal after Elon Musk’s efficiency cuts, said Tara Siegel Bernard in The New York Times. The DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) chain saw trimmed 1,230 field office workers around the country from an already overstretched workforce. In July, another 1,000 field workers “were diverted to work on national phone lines,” leaving local offices with even “fewer people to absorb the load.” At some field locations, “offices do not even have open slots” for in-person appointments for many weeks. Some metrics reflect an improved phone experience—depending on when you call. On Sept. 3, “the only time callers had a single-digit wait time was at 8 a.m.” Other callers waited as long as three hours. ■ $100K in…

The Economist Talent is the most coveted currency in capitalism today, said The Economist. “From little-known programmers and hedge-fund managers to celebrated writers and singers,” individuals are becoming “the animating force of commercial life.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has offered billion-dollar pay packages to lure hotshot AI programmers to his “superintelligence” team. But the battle for the best is not confined to Silicon Valley. Hedge funds are also pursuing star portfolio managers with a newfound zeal. “Partners at the top 10 American law firms are 40% more profitable than those at the next 10.” Since 2017, the number of artists earning more than $10 million from Spotify has increased by three times as much as the number of those earning above $100,000. “Some worry that the focus on big personalities”…

White House defunds federal watchdog group The Trump administration moved this week to shut off congressionally approved funding to an oversight group that helps identify waste, fraud, and abuse across the executive branch. The group—the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency—serves as a watchdog of watchdogs, providing training, peer reviews, and cross-agency oversight for the 72 inspectors general across government. It also operates Oversight.gov, where whistleblowers can report suspected wrongdoing and inspector general reports can be read by the public. President Trump fired 17 inspectors general after returning to office; an administration spokesman said the watchdogs have become “corrupt” and “partisan.” Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Chuck Grassley said they were “urgently” requesting an explanation for the funding pause, which will “disrupt numerous important oversight functions.”…

Sabrina Impacciatore believes there are three great pleasures in life, said Ellie Harrison in The Independent (U.K.). “Of course, sex is the highest pleasure,” says the Italian actress, best known in the U.S. for playing a neurotic hotel manager in Season 2 of HBO’s The White Lotus. “Then there is food. And then there is acting. Acting, to me, is forgetting who I am. It’s going somewhere I’ve never been before, meeting humans in that place, and discovering life. It’s a moment of big connection. It is…an orgasm.” Impacciatore, 57, recently discovered that she shares this passion for the acting craft with Al Pacino, whom she met at a restaurant in Los Angeles. The Godfather star was at a table next to hers. Impacciatore initially resisted the urge to introduce…

■ Nicole Kidman this week filed for divorce from Keith Urban after 19 years of marriage—and TMZ reports that the country singer may have already moved on to someone new. Rumors about the unidentified woman are “all over Nashville,” a source close to the actress told TMZ. “Nicole doesn’t dispute that, but she’s still shocked over it.” Kidman, 58, and the “Blue Ain’t Your Color” singer, 57, reportedly separated back in June, with Urban moving out of the Nashville home he shares with Kidman and their two teenage daughters. An insider told People that Kidman “did not want this” and had been “fighting to save the marriage.” In an April 2024 interview, the actress called Urban her “deep, deep love.” ■ Marc Maron last week tore into fellow comedians including…

Josh Barro The New York Times “Democrats blew it on immigration,” said Josh Barro, and they have a long way to go to win back voters’ trust. President Biden “presided over an enormous surge in migration,” with at least 4 million undocumented migrants entering in his first two years and likely millions more in his last two. Biden’s claim that he couldn’t stop the surge without legislation was exposed as false in 2024, when he “finally took executive action” and slowed the flow—but by then it was too late. The result of his single term was a wholesale shift in the undocumented population, from mostly well-established immigrants who’d been here for years to a mass of people with no ties to American communities and with claims to asylum “that are…

Agim Nesho Panorama Albania has named an AI chatbot as cabinet minister for procurement, said Agim Nesho. Prime Minister Edi Rama says the bot, Diella, will remove any opportunity for corruption in the awarding of government contracts. But that’s highly unlikely given that Rama himself is corrupt: He stole the elections in May, giving himself a fourth term and his Socialists a supermajority. Sure, AI could have the potential to revolutionize government if used well, as the EU is proposing to do by establishing safeguards for the oversight and regulation of AI tools. Albania isn’t in the EU yet, though, and lately we’ve been going backward—moving away from Western democracy and toward Russian-style crony capitalism. At this point, we are an autocracy with only a “short history of democracy,” zero…

Under President Trump, the U.S. is veering “toward Christian nationalism,” said Zachary B. Wolf in CNN.com. Since January, a growing number of the administration’s actions “have blurred the lines” between church and state. Trump has created a White House Faith Office, as well as Justice Department task forces charged with targeting “anti-Christian policies” and “threats to religious liberty.” His budget office has said workers can now “bring religion into the workplace,” while his IRS has said churches can endorse political candidates without sacrificing their tax-exempt status. This embrace of Christian nationalism was on stark display at Charlie Kirk’s memorial, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth evoked “the blood of Jesus” and spoke of “a spiritual war” underway, and Trump aide Stephen Miller said the administration is “on the side of God”…

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.” Edward R. Murrow, quoted in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune “In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.” Terry Pratchett, quoted in VegOut “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.” Hannah Arendt, quoted in The Atlantic “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” Gen. George Patton, quoted in The Knowledge “The presence of the prohibition serves only to increase the desire to sin.” St. Augustine, quoted in The Free Press “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.” Simone Weil, quoted in Air Mail “Liberty lies in…

■ Students sue over school surveillance High school students across the country are pushing back against the use of an AI-powered school safety tool called Gaggle, said Daniel Wu in The Washington Post. Gaggle monitors student activity on school accounts and devices, scanning for “substance abuse or threats of violence or self-harm, which it deletes or reports to school staff.” But kids say Gaggle has a chilling effect, leading them to agonize over whether “discussing mental health or using the wrong words could lead to them being reported to teachers and having schoolwork deleted.” Students in Lawrence, Kan., sued their school district in August over the use of Gaggle, citing examples like the tool erasing part of an art portfolio after flagging a photo of girls wearing tank tops as…

The cow says moo, the sheep says baa, but what does the fish say? Scientists are finding out, reports The Washington Post, thanks to underwater cameras and microphones. The devices, deployed off Hawaii and Curaçao, captured the prattle, raps, and trills of dozens of fish species, and researchers matched the sounds to the video footage to work out who said what. While terrestrial animals vocalize by pushing air through their lungs, fish evolved other techniques: Triggerfish slap their pectoral fins on specialized scales; glasseye snappers rattle their swim bladders; blackbar soldierfish use sonic muscles to vibrate their ribs. Each sound serves a familiar purpose, such as finding a mate, defending territory, or warning rivals away. The recordings are being assembled into a fish-sound library, which scientists hope will eventually allow…

Marisa Silver’s latest novel, At Last, weaves together the life stories of two women whose paths entwine because their children marry. Below, the author of Mary Coin, Little Nothing, The Mysteries, and Babe in Paradise recommends six other “whole life” narratives. Stoner by John Williams (1965). Something I love about the “whole life” novel is how it can dignify the ordinary by suggesting that the simple act of living from one end to the other is an epic feat. John Williams writes straight to the heart of the yearnings, faults, and disillusionments of an unheroic man in this brilliant and shattering novel. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines (1971). A narrative of a lifetime inevitably tells the story of the era during which that life is…

Mariah Carey’s first full-length since 2018 is “exactly the type of album she should be making 35 years into her career,” said Tim Chan in Rolling Stone. “After decades of pushing her vocals to the brink and pouring her heart out,” she’s pulled together an 11-song set that feels relaxed and carefree. And while her legendary voice remains “present and powerful,” these jazz- and soul-flavored songs often need no vocal fireworks. They “may not ignite a stadium,” but they’d “play well in a piano lounge.” Yes, you’ll hear “plenty of the kind of creamy, luscious vocals Carey’s known for,” said Rich Juzwiak in Pitchfork. On the other hand, she’s “often hoarse” here, taking a no-secrets approach to the weathering of her pipes. The grit now in her voice teases out…

Hudson Theatre, New York City “Even a bromance for the ages has its limits,” said Naveen Kumar in The Washington Post. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves famously played two bantering slacker pals in the 1989 film comedy Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and they’ve now been reunited on Broadway to play the two friends that Samuel Beckett condemned to an eternity of waiting for an elusive someone, but the actors’ easy chemistry isn’t quite enough. While Reeves, the bigger star, seems more skilled and relaxed, both actors “don’t really seem to be listening” to each other. They rush through Beckett’s dialogue instead of giving it the breathing room it needs, and the result is a “mildly amusing” staging of Godot that’s “caught in a sort of aesthetically pleasing but hollow…

“It’s no secret that some California cabernets come with lofty price tags,” said Olivia White in Vinepair. But you can spend less than $50 and still get some great ones. The three below all score 94 on our rating scale. 2021 Starmont ($24). This wine, which carries a Napa Valley label but is made from grapes sourced across California’s cool climate regions, “punches well above its weight.” It has unusually bright fruit notes for a cab, but “structured tannins keep things balanced.” 2019 Madroña Vineyards Signature Collection ($32). In this El Dorado cab, grapes grown at high elevation yield earthy aromas, structured tannins, and “a balance of acid and deep fruit.” 2021 Beringer Vineyards Knights Valley ($40). This cab from an AVA that borders Napa offers “aromas of white pepper…

Upper-crust Austin Austin is renowned for live music, but it’s “also as much a mecca for Michelin stars, tony hotels, and world-class shopping,” said Lesley McKenzie in Town & Country. When Michelin started rating Texas eateries last year, seven of the state’s 15 stars went to Austin spots, including Hestia, specialists in live-fire cookery and fermentation; Olamaie, with its “inventive twist on Southern classics”; and Otake, offering decadent omakase meals. Three of the stars went to the smoke joints InterStellar BBQ, la Barbecue, and LeRoy & Lewis, underscoring Austin’s barbecue cred. Meanwhile, shoppers flock to Masha Poloskova’s two vintage shops, Garment and Moss, with designer pieces sourced worldwide. And on South Congress’s shopping row, jeweler Nak Armstrong offers “Southwestern swagger” in pieces like a bolo necklace with diamond tips. If…

■ Foreigners plowed $290.7 billion into the U.S. stock market in the three months that ended June 30, according to Federal Reserve data. Foreign buyers now hold some $18 trillion in U.S. stocks, about 30% of the nearly $60 trillion market, the most in data going back to 1945. Bloomberg ■ StubHub stock fell 25% in the first week since its debut, marking the worst starting week for a company that raised more than $500 million in a U.S. IPO since 2007. Bloomberg ■ YouTube agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement to President Trump and others who were suspended by the video streaming platform in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. The bulk of the settlement payment—$22 million—will go to Trump. The New York Times ■ Startup…

A Toronto hedge fund manager has become the new face of the meme-stock frenzy by posting videos set outside the rapper Drake’s mansion, said Stephanie Hughes in Bloomberg. Eric Jackson’s firm, EMJ Capital, “only oversees a few million dollars,” but he has staked much of it on Opendoor, “a once-promising Zillow rival” that had “become just another penny stock.” In July, however, its shares started bouncing back “as day traders rallied behind the company in online chat rooms.” When Opendoor stalled at $3, Jackson’s teenage son “came up with an idea to rekindle it,” suggesting his dad make videos “in front of Drake’s house until the Grammy Award winner agrees to invest in Opendoor.” Since August, he has shown up almost every day to shoot videos, and as Jackson’s online…

At least 150 endangered species call the Galápagos Islands home, including penguins and iguanas. The Galápagos Conservancy (galapagos.org) has been rewilding and preserving animals and plants on the archipelago since 1985, helping to support the Galápagos Marine Reserve, the second largest marine reserve in the world, and the Galápagos National Park. Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Conservancy grants pay for programs in areas like population monitoring, poaching prevention, and invasive species control. Among its many conservation projects, the nonprofit has built artificial nests for the penguins local to the island, studied nurseries and breeding patterns of scalloped hammerhead sharks, and collected information on critically endangered pink land iguanas. The Conservancy’s efforts have restored several giant tortoise species, pink and yellow iguanas, and the largest local bird, the waved albatross.…

Cassie Pritchard The New York Times I never expected my job as a Starbucks barista would become a flash point in the culture wars, said Cassie Pritchard. But on Sept. 16, I opened X “to a viral video of a customer ordering a drink and asking the woman to write the name Charlie Kirk on it.” The worker cited the company policy against writing anything “political” on cups. But the exchange “generated thousands of views, and the story got picked up by Fox News” and conservative influencers. Instead of coming to its employee’s defense and explaining the policy, Starbucks let itself be used as a tool for right-wing trolls who think they are “disciplining wokeness.” Unfortunately, it’s the baristas who “end up pinned between hostile customers intent on humiliating us…