Innehållsförteckning för December 17, 2021 från The Week Magazine

In the spring of 1940, my grandfather was patching up wounded British troops on the beaches of Dunkirk when a German shell exploded nearby. Shrapnel ripped apart Philip’s left leg below the knee and he was carried, unconscious and bleeding profusely, by his fellow soldiers to an evacuation ship. Philip was placed with the dead and the about-to-die, the hopeless cases that the doctors onboard thought were beyond saving. His young life should have ended then, but a passing medical officer heard Philip moaning and decided that perhaps he wasn’t so hopeless after all. When I was a child, I never once heard my grandfather complain about his war wounds. Yes, his prosthetic limb meant he couldn’t chase after his grandkids quite as fast as he’d like, but he knew…

Good week for: Getting the band back together, after members of Omicron, a “progressive metal” band that broke up in 2016, reported a surge in online interest. “We were thinking, ‘Should we capitalize on this?’” said guitarist Li Heng Chan. “‘Is it in bad taste?’” Cancel culture, after Counter Conference, an “anti–cancel culture” event due to be held in London with such controversial right-wing speakers as Britain’s Nigel Farage and former Trump adviser Jason Miller, was itself canceled. The reason: low ticket sales. Lockdowns, after Capitol rioter Jenna Ryan, a Texas realtor who flew to the Jan. 6 insurrection on a private jet, announced that she will use her 60-day jail sentence to lose 30 pounds, “detox” her system, and really dial in her yoga regimen. “If I do that,”…

Carissa Schumacher might be America’s most sought-after medium, said Irina Aleksander in The New York Times. The self-declared “spiritual adviser” claims to be able to receive messages from the dead—which she charges $1,111 an hour to deliver—and has a roster of Hollywood clients, including Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Rob Lowe, and Uma Thurman. A neuroscience graduate who worked in biotech before becoming a medium in 2010, Schumacher often channels her clients’ dead relatives. And since 2019, she has also delivered messages from someone even more famous than her celebrity fans: Jesus Christ. “I can’t even say ‘channel for Jesus’ without laughing,” she says. “It sounds so freaking blasphemous. And frankly, really insane.” Schumacher has dealt with suspicion since grade school in Connecticut; on a field trip to a cemetery, she…

Richard Hanania Reason.com Why did “the American war machine” crumble in Afghanistan? asked Richard Hanania. For two decades, the military and a succession of presidents hid from the public “how hopeless the mission was.” That’s the essential takeaway from The Afghanistan Papers, a compilation by The Washington Post’s Craig Whit lock of the government’s own inspector general’s reports on the debacle. The reports show that President George W. Bush lost interest in Afghanistan the moment he decided to invade Iraq; the war was conducted by a poisoned bureaucracy full of self-interested officials who made blunder after blunder. Ending Afghanistan’s lucrative opium trade, for example, angered rural Afghans and helped fuel the Taliban insurgency. For years, the U.S. cynically funneled billions to “brutal warlords” who would often “rape and terrorize the…

SWITZERLAND Claudia Schmid Tages-Anzeiger The English language is taking over Zurich, said Claudia Schmid. It was a few years ago that I started to encounter, when dining out in Switzerland’s largest city, the occasional waiter who’d respond to my Swiss German with “Sorry, English only. Can you repeat, please?” At first, it was a fun chance to trot out my English. But now every downtown establishment expects guests to communicate only in English—indeed, they hand out menus in English. Look, I know Swiss German is “a horror language,” with its hard consonants and numerous obscure dialects, “including some I can only understand with subtitles.” But the ability to converse in standard German should not be too much to expect in this German-speaking region. Frankly, I’d be fine with conversing in…

Giving away a child is “not something to lightly suggest is easy,” said Susan Matthews in Slate.com. Yet Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett seemed remarkably cavalier about the issue during last week’s arguments in a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. In minimizing the burden that will be imposed on pregnant women if they are required to carry to term, Barrett asked, “Why don’t the safe haven laws take care of that problem?” This was a reference to laws that enable mothers to relinquish all parental responsibilities to newborns they give up. It’s simply not true that adoption “allows women to quickly move on with their lives,” said Gretchen Sisson in The Washington Post. A long-term study of unplanned pregnancy I co-authored found that when women wanted but…

The hottest game in retail Video game consoles introduced a year ago are still in such high demand that frustrated shoppers are following “retail sleuths” to gain any advantage, said Kellen Browning and Julie Creswell in The New York Times. “It’s normal for consoles to be elusive when they are first released,” but nothing has come close to Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Sony’s PlayStation 5, which both debuted in November 2020. Amazon, BestBuy, Walmart, and GameStop have started making consoles available only to members of their subscription programs, but even that is “no guarantee that shoppers will get one.” Many desperate searchers have looked to tipsters such as Matt Swider, who quit his job as editor of a tech-advice site to start a newsletter, and sends out alerts of…

Claire Keegan’s first novel runs a mere 70 pages, said Bethanne Patrick in the Los Angeles Times. But the Irish author has won wide acclaim for her short stories and one novella, and in this slim work, she “manages to place her characters and her readers at the center of an essential human dilemma: Will we turn a blind eye to evil in our midst, or will we take some action against it?” Her protagonist, a father of five, must make that decision after he visits the Roman Catholic convent in his Irish village and stumbles on the abuse occurring in the convent’s laundry. Many novelists before Keegan have written about the church-run Magdalene laundries, where so-called fallen women were forced to perform unpaid labor, said Anna Mundow in The…

Alice Sebold wrote a hit memoir more than 20 years ago that reads very differently today, said Scaachi Koul in BuzzFeed.com. In Lucky, which sold more than 1 million copies, the author of the novel The Lovely Bones recounted surviving a violent rape at age 18 and seeing her attacker brought to justice. But the man who was convicted for the 1981 crime was innocent. After spending 16 years in prison and the next quarter-century of his life branded as a sex offender, Anthony Broadwater, now 61, was recently exonerated in a Syracuse, N.Y., court and last week graciously accepted the public apology that Sebold offered days later. “I am sorry most of all for the fact that the life you could have led was unjustly robbed from you,”…

“Gift baskets get a bad rap, and many deserve it,” said the editors of Wirecutter.com. But we’ve spent three years sorting through scores of disappointing offerings to identify several standouts—gift baskets that would be “delicious, delightful, and comforting any time of year.” Olympia Provisions Euro Charcuterie Box ($145). In this spread from a Portland, Ore.–based salumeria, four house-made sausages and a “sumptuous” pâté are thoughtfully paired with a seasonal local cheese, olives, hazelnuts, and more. The price is high, “but the quality of the meat and the level of craftsmanship warrant the cost.” Gustiamo Party in Cucina Basket ($140). Italian-food lovers will appreciate this box of high-end delights, which includes Maccheroni di Toscana Martelli pasta, piennolo tomatoes, and cacao e nocciole spread. All this comes in a “cool-looking” wooden…

The Cubebot Micro Like a Transformer made by elves, the Cubebot Micro is a wooden toy that arrives as a cube but unfolds to become a 4-inch-tall robot. $10, areaware.com Source: Wirecutter.com Avocado Earbud Holder Any teenager with Apple Airpods needs a case for them, and a silicone avocado case is “about as cute as they come.” $6, Forever 21 Source: PopSugar.com The Hooga Book Light This tiny clip-on LED light features a flexible neck, three brightness settings, and a warm amber light. The battery lasts up to 30 hours on a charge. $14, hoogahealth.com Source: NYMag.com Sur La Table Melting Hot Chocolate Snowman Hot chocolate has never been so indulgent. Lower this fellow into hot milk and he melts away, releasing handmade mini marshmallows. $12, surlatable.com Source: Parade.com…

OPEC and other oil-producing states agreed last week to stick with a plan to modestly increase oil output, said Stanley Reed in The New York Times. Despite concerns about the impact of the Omicron variant on global travel, OPEC Plus—a group that includes OPEC as well as Russia and other members—said it will “raise production by 400,000 barrels a day in January,” marking “a victory for the Biden administration,” which has been pressuring OPEC Plus to release more oil But the group cautioned they are “ready to reconsider” if oil demand drops. Bitcoin: Jury turns down multibillion-dollar claim A man who claims to be the inventor of Bitcoin prevailed in a U.S. court case seeking billions for the family of his deceased ex-partner, said MacKenzie Sigalos in CNBC.com. Lawyers representing…

Capital One is the biggest bank yet to eliminate overdraft fees, said Aaron Gregg in The Washington Post. The nation’s sixth-largest retail bank announced last week it would stop penalizing customers “when their account balances dip below zero.” The practice has come under scrutiny from regulators and advocates who have called it unnecessary and “exploitative.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said last week it was considering “a range of regulatory interventions” to get big banks to stop “relying on junk fees” for revenue, citing research that said overdraft fees cost customers $15.4 billion in 2019. Some smaller banks, such as Ally, already use their lack of overdraft fees to attract customers. The no-show economy Job seekers are increasingly skipping scheduled interviews, or even not showing up for the first day…

David Streitfeld The New York Times A suit in federal court offers a glimpse into both Amazon’s dominance and its vulnerability, said David Streitfeld. John Boland had always loved Amazon’s bookselling platform, which has “handled everything for his imprint, including printing, billing, and shipping,” since 2009. Then he noticed copies of his science thriller, Hominid, for sale by third-party vendors like Sandy Dunes Surplus and Rocky Mountain Books for more than $900, versus the $15 list price. In August, Boland decided to call out the “Wild West atmosphere” on Amazon’s site, suing Amazon for not policing his sales. The company, Boland says, makes little effort to distinguish legitimate vendors from scammers. Some Amazon aisles feel like “a neighborhood left by the authorities to fend for itself.” Bringing in third-party sellers…

Bob Dole was half dead when he came back from World War II. Lacerated by shrapnel on the battlefields of Italy, his once strapping body was withered and encased in plaster. Dole spent the next three years fighting for his life and then learning to move again—though he never regained the use of his right arm. But driven by an unbreakable will, this son of the Kansas prairie went on to become a titan of American politics, serving eight years in the House of Representatives and 27 in the Senate. Initially a snarling archconservative, Dole—who was GOP Senate leader for a then-record 11 years—came to value compromise over ideological stubbornness. He proved to be a master dealmaker, helping to pass the Americans With Disabilities Act, President Ronald Reagan’s tax…

The near regions of space are filled with small asteroids that could destroy much of a city, said Robin George Andrews in Scientific American. The DART project seeks to keep them from getting to earth. Back when Andy Rivkin was in college, he had a few friends in medical school. “I was like, Oh man, I don’t want do anything that has too much responsibility,” he says. Instead, he looked to the stars. “Astronomy seemed pretty safe.” And, for a while, it was. Rather than having to make decisions about someone’s root canal or abdominal surgery, he watched worlds flit about in the darkness. But Rivkin, a planetary astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, has found himself with more responsibility than he expected. Along with…

What happened Former Republican Sen. David Perdue announced this week that he would run against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in next May’s Republican gubernatorial primary, which could trigger an intraparty civil war and test Donald Trump’s hold on the GOP. Perdue, a one-term U.S. senator whom Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff unseated in a January runoff election, was immediately endorsed by the former president. Trump has blamed Kemp and other Republican state leaders for failing to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory, and had been trying to coax Perdue into the race. Perdue’s announcement echoed Trump’s baseless claims that voter fraud had invalidated the 2020 results, faulting Kemp for not “protecting our elections” and claiming that he “cannot win in November.” Trump is also backing a challenger to Georgia’s Republican Secretary of…

Fordham University fired an English lecturer after he mixed up the names of two Black students when one arrived at class late. The female students said they “were not actually that upset” and only wanted ChristopherTrogan to apologize, but found his response that he had devoted his “entire life” to racial justice as evidence of a “white savior” complex. Trogan said he was not told why he was fired. The mayor of Estancia, N.M., issued an order requiring citizens attending public meetings to come “legally armed” and “prepared to defend yourself.” When the ACLU threatened to sue Mayor Nathan Dial, claiming the order would prevent citizens from attending meetings, Dial retreated, saying people could come armed with the weapons of “wisdom” and “knowledge” or a Bible. In other news Congress…

George Clooney’s trademark salt-and-pepper hair is now mostly salt, said Jonathan Dean in The Times (U.K.). The actor turned 60 in May, celebrating with friends at the Los Angeles home where he spent lockdown. “Turning 60 is a bummer,” he says. “But it’s that or dead.” After the party, Clooney chatted with his wife, human rights lawyer Amal, about getting older. “I still play basketball with the younger gang. I feel good. But in 20 years I’m 80—and 80 is a real number. I said the next 20 years are halcyon and we need to celebrate that.” Clooney has also been taking stock of what it means to be famous in the 21st century. Three years ago, he was riding his motorcycle in Sardinia, going at 75 mph, when…

Editorial The Wall Street Journal “Rogues are on the march around the world,” said The Wall Street Journal, and they don’t believe President Biden “can or will do anything to stop them.” Iran, Russia, and China all seek to establish regional hegemonies, and are working together to thumb their noses at the U.S. and the West. When nuclear talks resumed last week in Vienna, Iran showed “no willingness to slow its uranium enrichment,” and even walked back commitments from earlier agreements. With Iran actually accelerating enrichment in “particularly provocative ways” while blocking U.N. inspections, the Biden administration seems “at a loss on how to respond,” other than asking Tehran to adopt a better attitude. Iran’s hostile regime evidently has concluded that Biden is so eager for a new deal that…

“Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, to produce the required effect. The winner will be declared the loser. The loser will be certified president-elect. The prospect of this democratic collapse is not remote. People with the motive to make it happen are manufacturing the means. Given the opportunity, they will act. They are acting already.” Barton Gellman in The Atlantic…

IRELAND Stephen Collins The Irish Times Ireland is “one of the richest and fairest societies on the globe,” said Stephen Collins, yet many of us consider it “little better than a failed state.” Born in civil war, this country managed to avoid succumbing to fascism or communism in the 20th century, and the Celtic Tiger boom of the 1990s has given us an “astonishing level of economic and social progress.” Now Ireland ranks second only to Norway on the United Nation’s human development index for living standards, which measures wealth, health, and education outcomes as well as safety, women’s rights, and other factors. But when former Prime Minister Leo Varadkar sent out a tweet congratulating the country on its well-being, “he was deluged with a torrent of abuse,” with some…

CHILE Hugo Guzmán El Siglo Just what is far-right presidential candidate José Antonio Kast cooking up with the Americans? asked Hugo Guzmán. Kast, who faces leftist Gabriel Boric in a runoff election this month, has complained that he is being portrayed as some kind of fascist for his anti-immigrant views and his open admiration of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. He visited Washington last week for a string of “secret lunches and private meetings” intended to “strengthen his contacts with far-right networks in the U.S.” The most notable of his meetings was with Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who “leads operations and forums against Cuba, including conspiratorial and illegal actions.” Rubio is a fierce supporter of the economic blockade on Cuba, and even sought to punish Chile for accepting…

Since May, when coronavirus vaccinations became widely available, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2021 have died of Covid-19 at rates 2.8 times higher than those who live in areas that went for President Biden. The higher the share of the vote that went to Trump in a county, the higher the number of Covid deaths. NPR.com The number of fatal shootings and injuries resulting from road rage confrontations in the U.S. is expected to hit 500 this year—double the number of 2016’s casualties, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. Since 2016, the number of Americans who have concealed-carry permits has soared 48 percent, to 22 million. The Economist Missouri’s state health department conducted an analysis of mask wearing that concluded it substantially cut…

“Laughter is a protest scream against death.”Mel Brooks, quoted in TortoiseMedia.com “The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.”Poet Marianne Moore, quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly “A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done.”Comedian Fred Allen, quoted in ArtsJournal.com “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”Novelist Anne Lamott, quoted in The New York Times “At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.”George Orwell, quoted in the Salem, Ore., Statesman Journal “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”Alfred Hitchcock, quoted in W Magazine “The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four,…

Scientists have identified what might be the earliest known case of a disease jumping from an animal to a human, an event called a spillover. In 1908, the nearly complete skeleton of a Neanderthal man was discovered near the French village of La Chapelleaux-Saints. The “Old Man of La Chapelle” died some 50,000 years ago, in his late 50s or 60s, and a 2019 study found advanced osteoarthritis in his spinal column and hip joint. But a new analysis has discovered that not all of the damage could be explained by the disease, reports CNN.com. Some of the changes to the bones, the researchers concluded, were the result of inflammation. Their diagnosis was brucellosis, a disease people can contract through contaminated animal products—in the Old Man’s case, probably from butchering…

Columbia University professor Jeremy Dauber is the author of American Comics, a new book that traces the history of the art form from Civil War caricatures to today’s Marvel blockbusters. Below, he recommends six books that showcase comics’ impressive range. Bone: The Complete Cartoon Epic by Jeff Smith (2004). What if Lord of the Rings was told by characters who looked like they had jumped out of the Sunday funnies, with heart and humor to match? Smith’s magnum opus packs in adventure, comedy, suspense, and thrills—and tells an unforgettable tale suitable for kids and grown-ups alike. 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective by Garry Trudeau (2010). Here’s an epic of an entirely different sort. For more than half a century, Garry Trudeau has managed to apply the stiletto to American political failures and…

It’s a Wonderful Life Any ranking of Christmas movies that doesn’t begin with the heartwarming, dry eye–curing story of George Bailey is not to be trusted. There’s also no purer example of Jimmy Stewart as golden-era Hollywood’s everyman. Amazon Prime or $3 on demand Miracle on 34th Street Everyone wants to believe the department store Santa they’re whispering their deepest wishes to is the real deal. In 1947, it was established that the genuine article worked at Macy’s. HBO Max, Hulu, or $4 on demand A Charlie Brown Christmas Is it even Christmas if you never hear Vince Guaraldi (fronting for Schroeder) tickling the ivories? Charlie Brown’s early lament about Christmas consumerism and Linus’ closing biblical soliloquy always help quiet the season’s noise. Apple TV+ How the Grinch Stole Christmas…

A survey of more than 80,000 physicians by the medical journal Health Affairs found that over the course of a 40-year career, female doctors earn $2 million less on average than their male counterparts, a pay gap of 25 percent. The New York Times IPOs at Nasdaq have raised $191 billion this year, compared with $109 billion for new listings at the New York Stock Exchange, according to Dealogic. Nasdaq is likely to beat the Big Board for the third year in a row. The Wall Street Journal On average, U.S. commuters are on pace to lose 36 hours to congestion in 2021, 10 hours more than in 2020 but 63 hours less than in 2019, transportation analytics firm Inrix said in its 2021 Global Traffic Scorecard. Commuting is still…

Shoes that are old and don’t fit are one of the most stigmatizing signs of child poverty in the U.S., where one out of every three kids grows up in a low-income family. Shoes That Fit (shoesthatfit.org) provides kids across the country with brand new athletic shoes, measured exactly to their feet, at no cost. The boost to self-esteem these shoes create can be seen in the dramatic increase in physical activity and improvement in attendance reported by schools that work with the nonprofit. Shoes That Fit also works with partners such as Nordstrom, which is donating 25,000 new Nike sneakers to children this year. Since it began in 1992, the organization has distributed over 2.4 million pairs of new shoes and other necessities to kids in need. Each…

Andrew Hill Financial Times It has been 20 years since Enron filed for bankruptcy, said Andrew Hill, and it feels as though the scandal is fading from memory. The story of the energy group’s collapse is one of both executive corruption and the boys’ club behavior of the board’s directors, who waived Enron’s code of conduct to wave through its chief financial officer’s self-dealing. “The balance between the animal spirits of entrepreneurial executives and the measured caution of the board is delicate.” Nothing would get done if the corporate world were run only by risk-averse directors. But today, we appear at risk of repeating old errors. Subsequent “scandals at Wirecard, the German payments group, Greensill, and Theranos, whose disgraced founder Elizabeth Holmes is now on trial, bear some Enron pockmarks.”…

Lee Elder had to overcome more than bunkers and water hazards when he teed off at the 1975 Masters in Augusta, Ga. The first Black golfer to compete in what had been an exclusively white tournament, Elder was flooded with death threats in the run-up to the championship. One harasser warned “he ought to check behind every tree” on the course; to thwart potential attacks, Elder moved between two rented houses in Augusta. But on the green, the mood was jubilant. The mostly Black staff of the Augusta National Golf Club—which wouldn’t accept its first Black member for another 15 years—had left their posts to line the fairway and cheer for him. “I couldn’t hold back the tears,” he recalled in 2019. “Of all the acknowledgements of what I…

Santa Anita, Calif. Medina Spirit, who failed a drug test after winning this year’s Kentucky Derby, died this week after a morning workout, renewing concerns about a race-track where an unusual number of horses have perished. The 3-year-old colt collapsed at the finish line and died instantaneously, the result of a heart attack, his trainer, Bob Baffert, said. Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered an independent probe of Santa Anita after 29 horses died at the track in both 2018 and 2019. The track was later cleared of criminal wrongdoing. Baffert, the face of the sport, with $321 million in career earnings, had denied drugging Medina Spirit before the Derby, saying the failed test resulted from a topical ointment. The colt tested positive for an anti-inflammatory drug that’s banned on race…

Tiger Woods is able to swing a golf club again, albeit gingerly, said Dan Rapaport in Golf Digest. Last February, the golfer was driving through Los Angeles at more than 80 mph—nearly double the speed limit—when he lost control of his SUV and crashed, shattering the tibia and fibula in multiple places in his right leg. Woods, 45, spent three weeks in the hospital and was warned that he might need an amputation. One of his first memories after the accident is asking for a golf club to hold in his hospital bed. He spent another three months bedridden at home in Florida, then transitioned to a wheelchair and eventually to crutches. “Sometimes I just crutch and lay on the grass for an hour because I want to be…

Alec Baldwin claimed in an inter-view that he “didn’t pull the trigger” of the Colt .45 that fired on set of the Western film Rust in October, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin, who faces multiple lawsuits and has spoken with investigators in Santa Fe, told ABC News that while rehearsing with Hutchins for a complex shootout scene, he cocked the gun and released the hammer, causing the prop to fire unexpectedly. “She’s guiding me through how she wants me to hold the gun for this angle,” Baldwin said. “I’m holding the gun where she told me to hold it. I let go of the hammer of the gun, and the gun goes off.… Where did that live round come from?” He said he felt…

Dean Obeidallah CNN.com Rep. Thomas Massie’s family Christmas card displays the “cruelty, heartlessness and extremism that has come to define today’s GOP,” said Dean Obeidallah. The Republican congressman from Kentucky sent out holiday greetings via Twitter that show his family of seven in front of a decorated tree, each person “gleefully holding some type of gun.” As a caption to this startling image, Massie writes: “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo.” A bristling display of weaponry “to mark the birth of Jesus Christ—known as the Prince of Peace”—is grotesque in itself, and is “spectacularly ill-timed” given that it came just days after the year’s deadliest school shooting. When people pointed out that Massie posted his tribute to killing machines and plea for ammo just as four Oxford, Mich., families…

A woman created a stir on a Delta Air Lines flight by breastfeeding her pet cat midflight and refusing requests to stop. She had a hairless cat “swaddled up in a blanket so it looked like a baby,” according to a flight attendant, who said the woman was “trying to get the cat to latch” while the pet––evidently unhappy about flying––was “screaming for its life.” Security met the woman at the gate, said the attendant, who asked, “What does she do at home if she’s doing that in public?” When a North Carolina man was hospitalized with food poisoning on his wedding day, his bride went on with the ceremony, marrying a mannequin with the groom’s face in front of their assembled guests. To stand in for groom Gannon Karmire,…

BRAZIL Athos Vieira Brasil.ElPais.com Militarized police are killing Black Brazilians with utter impunity, said Athos Vieira. After a police officer was shot dead in the Jacarezinho favela of Rio de Janeiro in May, cops swarmed the poor neighborhood and went door-to-door, claiming to be executing arrest warrants against drug traffickers. They committed a massacre, killing at least 27 people. A similar raid happened in the city of Salgueiro in November, “again after the death of a police officer,” and this time 10 people were killed. Some of the victims were known to the police—not surprising, because law enforcement routinely harasses and arrests Black Brazilians. But their “real crime was being young, Black, and living on the edge.” Little has changed since this country was founded as a Portuguese slave colony,…

Scientists are working to develop a vaccine to prevent breast cancer, reports Time. Using the immune system to target cancer is a risky business: Cancer cells are essentially normal cells that mutate out of control, so there is a high danger of collateral damage. But recent advances in immunotherapy have led to drugs that can train the immune system to better distinguish between cancerous cells and healthy ones. In what could be a groundbreaking study, researchers are trying to create a vaccine for “triple negative” cancer—a particularly aggressive form of the disease that typically isn’t treatable with common breast cancer drugs. The initial study will involve some 20 women with triple negative breast cancer who have exhausted most other treatment avenues. If the drug proves safe, and shows some sign…

“Ann Patchett is a person you want to spend time with—on the page or in person,” said Heller McAlpin in The Christian Science Monitor. In her new essay collection, the award-winning novelist offers an “appealing mix of the personal and the professional,” with stories centered on the importance of books, family, and friendship. These disparate subjects are united by the “burst of warm positivity” with which Patchett approaches everything she writes about. The result is a collection that always “seeks the essential,” offering numerous lessons and, at times, inspiring tears. Though many of the essays first appeared in various periodicals, Patchett is “at her best when given the opportunity to write beyond the maximum word count dictated by most newspapers and magazines,” said Michele Filgate in The Washington Post. The…

Magritte: A Life by Alex Danchev (Pantheon, $45) Judging by his mischievous adolescence, René Magritte “was made for the high-concept pranking of surrealism,” said Dominic Green in The Wall Street Journal. This “gruesomely entertaining” biography grounds its account of the Belgian artist’s creative life in the teenage antics he threw himself into after the 1912 suicide of his mother. In later years, Magritte “wrote the book on being a conceptual artist” even as he was careening between commercial work and the witty paintings for which he’s remembered. A Life of Picasso IV by John Richardson (Knopf, $40) The fourth volume of John Richardson’s Pablo Picasso biography is “no dry academic treatise,” said John Banville in The New Republic. Richardson, who died at 95 in 2019, came to know Picasso shortly…

“As we head into the season of holiday gatherings, consider embracing digestivo as a way to extend an evening around the table,” said Brad Thomas Parsons in the online magazine Punch. As many Italians know, “the benefits can be manifold,” with the often light, bitter, and bubbly drink aiding digestion and providing a perfect final act after dessert and espresso. Varnelli Amaro Dell’Erborista ($60). This bottle “has taken on cult-classic status among amaro aficionados” for its sweet-bitter balancing act. It’s great over ice with a grapefruit twist. Amaro Braulio ($53). Winter is the time for this minty, forest-y amaro from the Italian Alps. It “instantly evokes the fireside après-ski life.” Amaro Nardini ($35). Gentian, peppermint, and bitter orange combine in a classic sipper, served neat or on the rocks.…