Innehållsförteckning för May 6, 2022 från The Week Magazine

How many deaths is freedom worth? It’s a calculation that’s rarely discussed but must be made—consciously, as a matter of policy, or tacitly, as a matter of indifference. As the country settles into uneasy coexistence with the coronavirus, will vaccination be required by employers and schools, or left to individual choice? Are mask mandates in public spaces gone forever, or will they return if there’s a major surge in fall and winter, or if dangerous new variants emerge? (See Controversy, p.6.) Should we stop fighting this persistent pathogen, and just let it rip? Cost-benefit analyses are tricky, but our choices can be made clearer through comparison: If the flu typically kills from 12,000 to 52,000 Americans a year, would 100,000 annual Covid deaths be an acceptable price for no mask…

A conservative Florida nonprofit group has included the children’s book Everywhere Babies in its “Porn in the Schools” report because it includes two illustrations of possible same-sex couples. The 2001 book, which depicts newborns being doted on by loved ones, has one image of two men walking arm in arm, and another of two women sleeping on a bed next to a baby in a cradle. A jury awarded a Kentucky man $450,000 after he was fired by a medical laboratory for refusing to attend his own birthday party. Kevin Berling had asked his manager not to throw a party because of his anxiety disorder, but when it happened anyway, he had a panic attack and left. Supervisors confronted him about his “somber behavior” and fired him. In other news…

Oliwia Dabrowska is stamped in cinematic history as the girl in the red coat, said Jonathan Edwards in The Washington Post. At age 3, she appeared in one scene of Steven Spielberg’s mostly black-and-white film Schindler’s List, as the girl whose red coat stood in stark contrast to the horrors the Nazis were inflicting on the Krakow ghetto around her. Dabrowska has lived “a regular life” in Poland in the 29 years since, she says, but was inspired to become a humanitarian activist after witnessing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I decided to change my fear into action, into helping people,” she says. Dabrowska and her mother drove 130 miles to the Ukrainian border, where they spent weeks ferrying about 100 refugees to various Polish cities. She’s also delivered…

Bill Murray was accused last week of touching women inappropriately on a film set, causing production to be suspended. Murray, 71, is accused of being “very hands-on touchy, not in any personal areas, but put an arm around a woman, touched her hair, pulled her ponytail,” a source told the New York Post. He was filming Being Mortal, directed by Aziz Ansari and co-starring Seth Rogen. Murray’s behavior stopped short of assault, the source added, but “some women felt uncomfortable” and that he “crossed a line.” Murray has been accused of violence and harassment on sets going back to his days on Saturday Night Live in 1978, when he and Chevy Chase got into a brawl. Last week, Richard Dreyfuss’ son, Ben, said Disney had to hire bodyguards to…

Kevin Williamson National Review Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is a “malicious dunce who should be kept as far away from political power as possible,” said Kevin Williamson. But there is “no firm legal basis” for the ongoing effort in Georgia to disqualify her from running for re-election based on her role in the Jan. 6 uprising. The case against her is built on the 14th Amendment, which allows for the disqualification of candidates who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. But despite her support for overturning the election, Greene has not been charged with insurrection. Greene may be “morally disqualified” from holding office, but “we cannot defend the rule of law by abandoning the rule of law.” So either the Justice Department should charge Greene…

Emmanuel Macron has “achieved the impossible,” said Nicolas Beytout in L’Opinion (France). By winning re-election over far-right challenger Marine Le Pen, the French president became the first to win two consecutive terms since Jacques Chirac in 2002. Now an empowered Macron can govern “freed from the constraint of electoral deadlines.” In his first term, France’s youngest-ever president quickly “expelled the feudal lords” of French politics by gathering moderate voters beneath his center-right big-tent party, which kept Le Pen and the far right firmly in check. His victory will brighten a “gloomy year” for Europe, said Andreas Ross in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany). His steady leadership has united the Continent during Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, and Europe will need that leadership as it strengthens its continental defense and prepares…

THAILAND Editorial Bangkok Post Animal lovers were thrilled when Thai authorities saved Nong Kwan, an adorable four-month-old tiger cub, from wildlife traffickers, said the Bangkok Post. The usually quiet Facebook page of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation has been bombarded by “concerned cub-watchers” sharing photos of the orphan and sending donations of powdered milk. But Nong Kwan was lucky to survive the fate of most smuggled Asian tigers, who are sent to China and Vietnam where their bones, skin, claws, teeth, and blood are used in “medicinal” products. While some tigers are poached from the wild—Nong Kwan’s smugglers claimed to have paid about $12,000 for the female cub in Laos—others are bred in captivity and sold. Thailand’s efforts to increase the tiger population by promoting captive…

It’s long been known that a healthy lifestyle helps people live longer, but what hasn’t been clear is whether those extra years are likely to be blighted by Alzheimer’s and other aging-related diseases. Now new research suggests that they are not, reports The Daily Telegraph (U.K.)—and that a good diet and exercise can in fact push back the onset of such debilitating conditions by up to six years. Researchers in the U.S. and Switzerland analyzed data from almost 2,500 seniors. They classed a healthy lifestyle as eating a Mediterranean-style diet, doing at least 150 minutes of physical activity a week, not smoking, not drinking much alcohol, and doing crosswords or other brain-stimulating activities. They found that the women living such lifestyles lost just 2.6 years to Alzheimer’s, while men…

(Grove, $27) Douglas Stuart’s follow-up to Shuggie Bain is, like that Booker Prize winner, “a nuanced and gorgeous heartbreaker of a novel,” said Maureen Corrigan in NPR.org. Again, the protagonist is a gay working-class boy in Glasgow—in this case, 15-year-old Mungo Hamilton. But the form of the novel differs. “The outer frame here is a suspense story”—as gentle Mungo boards a bus in the opening scene with two rough strangers who are taking him camping and promising to make him a man. “It’s hard to imagine a more powerful work of fiction will be published anytime soon about the perils of being different.” Stuart frequently cuts away from the camping trip to the events that prompted it, said Sam Sacks in The Wall Street Journal. In those chapters, Mungo…

The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra (Pegasus Crime, $27) “This is a treat for historical mystery lovers looking for a new series to savor,” said Sarah Weinman in The New York Times. In 1920s Bangalore, a young bride struggling to adjust to her new life finds purpose when a murder occurs and she decides to help clear the chief suspect. Kaveri, who’s clever and well read, grows closer to her doctor husband as the case builds, and “even though I did see the main twist coming, the danger level felt palpable and authentic.” The Verifiers by Jane Pek (Vintage, $17) This exhilarating debut novel “almost makes you want to be a 20-something in New York—writing, making art, biking helter-skelter through traffic,” said Richard Lipez in The Washington Post.…

Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York City 4 Almost exactly 25 years ago, Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse co-starred in the Off-Broadway opening of How I Learned to Drive, a drama that deservedly won a Pulitzer Prize, said Peter Marks in The Washington Post. Incredibly, they’re back in the same roles for the play’s Broadway premiere—“older, for sure, but delivering performances that now feel even wiser.” Paula Vogel’s timeless work recounts “in exquisitely poignant detail” the sexual grooming by a middle-aged man of his underage niece. It’s told from the perspective of Parker’s character, looking back on her uncle’s process of predation, which began in early childhood and culminated when he was called upon to teach her to drive. “The subject was raw and difficult back then. It remains so.”…

Truthers: Tiffany Dover Is Dead* (NBC News) “This is the story of how a lie spreads,” said Kate Storey in Esquire. In late 2020, Tennessee nurse Tiffany Dover was being filmed by a local news crew when she fainted just after receiving her Covid-19 vaccine shot. NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny, who had covered anti-vaccine misinformation campaigns before, watched with dread. As expected, conspiracy theorists ran wild with the clip, claiming Dover had died and her death was covered up. Zadrozny’s five-episode podcast, which launches NBC’s Truthers series, traces the spread and persistence of the false rumor, considering both nefarious propagandists and innocent worriers. No amount of proof has been sufficient to stop the truthers from declaring Dover dead, said Nicholas Quah in NYMag.com. Of course, when she and her…

Allow me to help if you prefer buying eco-friendly wine but feel lost, said Dave McIntyre in The Washington Post. Making the effort is worth it to help the planet, but also because green farming “often produces wines that are more lively, expressive, and delicious.” ‘Sustainable’ vs ‘organic’: “Organic” is a higher standard than “sustainable,” but know that some eco-conscious producers don’t seek the organic label because of the expense and paperwork, and because the USDA doesn’t even allow for the addition of sulfites, a natural preservative used in wine for centuries. ‘Biodynamic’: A wine certified as biodynamic meets a yet higher bar, using grapes from farms that work as closed ecosystems, with compost and fertilizer produced by plants and animals on site. ‘Regenerative Organic Certified’: This new label…

“Flying on a bush mail plane in central Alaska feels like an experience out of another era,” said Kari Bodnarchuk in The Boston Globe. Warbelow’s Air Ventures, a small company in Fairbanks, Ala., delivers mail, food, and other essentials to seven towns within a 110-mile radius, and I recently was among four tourists welcomed to pay for the right to ride along. The 2½-hour journey, at $199 a seat, is “a fun and inexpensive way to get a bird’s-eye view of interior Alaska,” and you’re likely to ride with local legend Matt Anderson, who’s been a pilot for 40-plus years. The drone of the plane’s twin engines “made talking a struggle,” so we “mostly kept noses pressed to the windows” as we cruised over snowy mountaintops, frozen rivers, and forests…

Tesla blew away analysts’ estimates with record profits in the first quarter, said Chris Isidore in CNN.com. “Overcoming supply chain issues that have dogged the broader auto industry,” the electric-car maker said last week it had earned $3.7 billion in earned adjusted income, “more than triple the $1.1 billion it earned on that basis a year ago.” The company delivered 310,000 cars in the three-month period, besting its record from the quarter before. CEO Elon Musk said he expects Tesla to produce 1.5 million cars this year, up roughly 60 percent from 2021. Alphabet: Lower profits and disappointing growth Google parent Alphabet missed expectations for quarterly revenue and saw a decline in earnings, according to results released last week, said Mark Bergen in Bloomberg. “Google’s ad growth remains healthy” but…

Don’t trust the ‘mini-tender’ offer Be very wary of companies that call you with an offer to buy your stock shares, said Ann Carrns in The New York Times. I recently received a letter in the mail from some company called Obatan seeking to buy stock that I held for $14.40 per share in cash. That was 27 percent less than the current stock price, which was almost $20. Who would sell for less than the market price? “Welcome to the strange world of ‘mini-tender’ offers.” The Securities and Exchange Commission says the bidders are attempting to fool shareholders who simply “assume the offer is a good deal.” They “generally don’t label their offers as mini-tenders, perhaps because of their dubious reputation.” Solicitors are required by the SEC to…

Chris Stanton New York magazine An $86,184 bill left me desperate for answers as to “how something as essential as an air ambulance could be so expensive,” said Chris Stanton. The culprit: private equity. When Bain Capital bought Air Medical Group Holdings for $1 billion in 2010, “it set off a flurry of acquisitions.” Today, two-thirds of the national market for air ambulances is controlled by just two firms: American Securities and KKR. As I found out in my experience getting airlifted after chest pains—which turned out to be myocarditis—most of these vital health-service providers are out of network with insurance companies, and “that’s not by accident.” It’s so they can charge higher rates. There are certainly high costs to running an air ambulance service. But “since patients don’t…

Kathryn Hays signed a six-month contract in 1972 to appear on the CBS daytime soap opera As the World Turns. Her character, Kim Hughes, started as a stereotypical home-wrecker, but over nearly four decades she evolved into the de facto matriarch of the fictional town of Oakdale, delivering catchphrases like “kiddo” and “toots” every day right up to the show’s 2010 finale. Hays also had a memorable appearance on the original Star Trek TV series in the 1960s. Beloved by soap fans, Hays’ character Kim matured over the years but never outgrew the occasional cat-fight. “The thing that was great for me,” Hays said, “was knowing that if Kim got pushed too far, or too hard, she could turn around and deck you—verbally, not physically.” Born Kay Piper in…

Father Paolo Benanti is helping the Catholic Church understand how artificial intelligence will transform the world, said Madhumita Murgia in the Financial Times (U.K.). Benti, a Franciscan monk who lives near Vatican City, completed his Ph.D. in the ethics of human enhancement technologies, including AI, at Georgetown University. Now the 48-year-old teaches at the Pontifical Gregorian University, instructing theologians and priests on the ethical implications of cutting-edge technology. He also counsels Pope Francis, who has serious reservations about AI. “The idea that if we transform human beings into data, they can be processed or discarded, that is something that really touches the sensibility of the pope,” Benanti says. Church leaders are particularly worried that AI may worsen inequality. “If you look at what happened to children and the elderly…

Russell Berman The Atlantic “On paper, Republicans have a prime opportunity to recapture the Senate majority this fall,” said Russell Berman. But needing just one seat to turn a 50-50 Senate into a majority, they could blow it by nominating several extremist and “scandal-plagued” candidates. “How could you screw this up?” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently asked in a speech in Kentucky. “It’s actually possible.” That’s because at least four candidates running in Republican Senate primaries have baggage that “could render them unelectable” in November. In Missouri, Eric Greitens is seeking the nomination despite a sexual-misconduct scandal and accusations by his ex-wife that he abused her and their son. Former President Donald Trump has endorsed J.D. Vance in Ohio and Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, despite their extreme flip-flops…

UNITED KINGDOM Jim Crotty Independent (U.K.) It sounds like a welcome victory in the battle against addiction, said Jim Crotty, former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration: Hoping for an easing of international sanctions, the Taliban have banned opium poppy cultivation. “If history is any guide, we should take them at their word.” When the Taliban last outlawed illicit drugs back in 2000, poppy cultivation plummeted by 90 percent in a single year. But the collapse of Afghanistan’s heroin trade could leave Europe and the U.K., where most Afghan-sourced heroin ends up, vulnerable to what officials in Europe have long feared: an influx of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is more potent than heroin, cheaper to produce, and easier to conceal. Fentanyl has caused devastation across…

Donald Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection horrified even “a serial Trump brownnoser” like Rep. Kevin McCarthy, said Ed Kilgore in New York magazine. The New York Times reported last week that after the MAGA mob smashed its way into the Capitol and sent members of Congress scurrying into hiding, the House minority leader fumed to fellow Republican leaders that “nobody can defend” Trump’s rhetoric and actions, and that he would advise him to resign immediately. “I’ve had it with this guy,” a disgusted McCarthy said. That was, of course, before McCarthy voted against conviction in Trump’s second impeachment trial and started stonewalling the House’s Jan. 6 investigation. When the Times report was published, McCarthy initially claimed his quotes were fabrications, said Charlie Sykes in The Bulwark. But…

Dogs are carnivores, right? Not necessarily. A new British study says plant-based diets keep dogs in better form than raw-meat or commercial dry or canned diets. Researchers asked more than 2,500 dog owners about their pet’s diet, vet visits, and medication. More than half the pups ate regular dog food; a third ate raw meat, and about 1 in 8 were fed exclusively vegan meals. Overall, the conventional diet was linked with the worst health outcomes. The raw-meat eaters enjoyed marginally better health than the vegan hounds—but the researchers say that could be because they skewed younger. Previous studies have linked raw-meat diets with an increased risk of parasites in both dogs and their owners. As for whether the dogs were happy on their vegan diet, the researchers say…

(Simon & Schuster, $29) Thomas Edison didn’t invent the movie camera, said Peter Tonguette in The Wall Street Journal, and some people will never be satisfied that he didn’t order the murder of the man who did. “Working with the rigor of a historian and the flair of a true-crime writer,” author Paul Fischer has now provided a new probe into the evidence that has made Edison a suspect, and though Fischer “milks the mystery for all it’s worth,” his book is “no mere scandal sheet.” Its hero is a little-known Frenchman, Louis Le Prince, who vanished in 1890—two years after shooting the first motion picture and several months before Edison unveiled his Kinetograph and claimed it to be the first camera capable of this modern miracle. Whatever the…

Chloe Cooper Jones can trace the impetus for her new book to a single jarring conversation, said Sam Gillette in People. While working on her doctorate in philosophy and having drinks with two male friends, she was sympathizing with one who was confessing his struggles with depression until he blurted out that if he had to live in Cooper Jones’ body, he would have killed himself already. Cooper Jones was born with sacral agenesis, a rare congenital condition that left her short in stature, makes walking difficult, and regularly causes bursts of acute pain. She has heard many cruel comments, but recalling her colleague’s statement still stings even today, she says, because “it reminds me how isolated the disability experience can be—how even in these moments of possible connection,…

Exploring the final frontier… Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Any Trekkie knows that James Kirk was preceded as captain of the Enterprise by one Christopher Pike. The latest Star Trek series, arriving May 5, puts the spotlight on Pike’s time aboard Starfleet’s finest ship, with Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn reprising their recent turns as Pike, Spock, and Number One. Paramount+ Star Trek: Picard Patrick Stewart’s 2020 return as the beloved Enterprise captain Jean Luc-Picard was somewhat overlooked. It has found its bearings in the recently released Season 2. Paramount+ Battlestar Galactica An early-2000s reboot of a 1978 Star Wars knockoff, this project unexpectedly became one of the best sci-fi series of all time. Robots have driven humans to near-extinction, and the survivors have fled into space…

Ninety-two immigrants hailing from 35 different countries have become billionaires in America. With a combined net worth of $711 billion, these foreign-born U.S. citizens account for 15 percent of all American billionaire wealth. Forbes Since August, there have been 37 hacks in 38 weeks that have drained about $2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrencies. About $3.2 billion was stolen in all of 2021. The Wall Street Journal The San Diego Padres last week became the first MLB team to announce a jersey patch sponsor, signing a multiyear deal with Motorola reportedly worth $10 million annually. The potential is far greater. European soccer club Manchester United, for example, makes $185 million annually through patches on its jerseys alone. Axios U.S. home prices rose 19.8 percent year-over-year in February. Phoenix reported the highest…

Research shows that music education improves children’s overall performance in school and enhances skills including memory, hand-eye coordination, language capability, teamwork, and problem-solving. Education Through Music partners with under-resourced schools to provide high-quality music education. The organization collaborates with school principals to develop music programs, hire qualified teachers, and equip new music classrooms with instruments. It also provides resources for at-home activities, such as virtual classes and instructions for making an instrument with everyday household items. Working in more than 50 elementary, middle, and high schools this year, Education Through Music is reaching nearly 18,000 students in New York City (etmonline.org), Los Angeles (etmla.org), Colorado (etmcolorado.org), and Massachusetts (etmma.org). Each charity we feature has earned a four-star overall rating from Charity Navigator, which rates not-for-profit organizations on the strength…

Good week for: Lucile Randon, a 118-year-old French nun who became the world’s oldest living person after the death of Kane Tanaka, 119, of Japan. Randon is also the oldest known survivor of Covid. Whiz kids, after Elliott Tanner, 13, prepared to graduate from the University of Minnesota and begin a doctoral physics program. Elliott, his mom said, “started reading when he was maybe 2.” Gutting it out, after Minnesota state senate candidate Erin Maye Quade spoke at a Democratic convention while in labor, pausing to exhale and lean over during contractions. Quade did not get the nomination, but delivered a healthy baby girl hours later. Bad week for: A failure to communicate, after the Federal Aviation Administration failed to warn Capitol Police that a small plane would fly overhead so…

Jennifer Grey became the face of plastic surgery gone awry, said Elisabeth Egan in The New York Times. At 27, after a breakout role in the wildly popular film Dirty Dancing, Grey decided to undergo two surgeries to “fine-tune” her prominent proboscis. Both of her parents—her father was the actor Joel Grey—had had their own noses done, and three plastic surgeons recommended it, including one who recalled seeing the film and wondering “why that girl didn’t do her nose.” Grey gave in. “I really thought it was capitulating,” she told People. “I just thought, ‘I’m good enough. I shouldn’t have to do this.’” The surgeries left Grey unrecognizable to fans and even to friends. Grey, 62, recalls an airline employee who noticed her name insisting that she could not…

Bret Stephens The New York Times “Why do we admire Volodymyr Zelensky?” asked Bret Stephens. Ukraine’s courageous president has reminded the world how powerful political leadership can be, and why freedom and democracy are worth defending. A former actor, Zelensky has responded to Russia’s existential threat to Ukraine by becoming a true statesman—a David standing up to Putin’s Goliath. His refusal to flee or wilt in response to Russia’s brutal onslaught models courage and integrity, and shows us that “there are things for which civilized persons and nations must be prepared to fight if they aren’t to perish.” Zelensky’s fierce resolve has inspired both Ukrainians and their Western allies to become their best selves; he’s even had the guts to chastise foreign presidents and prime ministers for supportive words not…

“The most polarized Americans are disproportionately white and college-educated on the left and disproportionately white and retired on the right. The people disproportionately driving polarization in the United States are not oppressed minorities, but rather some of the most powerful, most privileged, wealthiest people who’ve ever lived. They enjoy more freedom and opportunity than virtually any prior generation of humans, all while living under the protective umbrella of the most powerful military in the history of the planet. It’s simply an astonishing level of discontent in the midst of astonishing wealth and power.” David French in The Dispatch…

SPAIN Astrid Barrio El Periódico de Catalunya After being caught red-handed using spyware to monitor Catalan separatists, the Spanish state has some explaining to do, said Astrid Barrio. Spanish authorities reportedly snooped on more than 60 supporters of Catalan independence, including President Pere Aragonès and exiled ex-President Carles Puigdemont, using the controversial Israeli spyware Pegasus. Catalan leaders are rightly enraged; while there are legal ways to spy on suspected criminals, “political dissent is not criminal.” Aragonès has pledged to stop cooperating with Madrid—which has denied the allegations. But the government really has no excuses. If the Spanish authorities did surveil their political opponents, that would be “illegal and illegitimate for a democratic government,” no matter how unpalatable Madrid may find the idea of Catalan independence. “But it would be even…

INDIA Bengia Ajum The Arunachal Times India’s right-wing nationalists want Hindi to “consume our languages,” said Bengia Ajum. Home Minister Amit Shah recently caused a stir by saying people from different states should use Hindi as a common tongue when communicating with one another. Shah said he wanted Hindi to replace English, not local languages. But the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken every opportunity to aggressively promote Hindi, at the cost of erasing India’s more than 400 spoken languages. Here in Arunachal Pradesh, a mountainous state in India’s northeast, we are acutely aware that “our tribal languages are almost on the verge of extinction.” Recently, the local government in Itanagar installed a banner declaring the provincial capital the “Hindi capital” of northeast India. The mayor offered to…

Guns were the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens in 2020, surpassing car crashes for the first time in at least 40 years. More than 4,300 children and teens died of gun-related injuries that year, a 29 percent increase over 2019, according to an analysis of CDC data. NBCNews.com Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump who promoted Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, was until earlier this month simultaneously registered to vote in three different states—Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. In North Carolina, Meadows had registered to vote using the address of a mobile home he didn’t own and had never lived in. The Washington Post U.S. officials have prepared a package of sanctions to bring against…

“Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” Henry Adams, quoted in The Washington Post “Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians. We call them ‘children.’” Hannah Arendt, quoted in The Bulwark “All art begins as a struggle against chaos.” André Malraux, quoted in The Bulwark “A vandal is someone who throws a brick through a window; an artist is somebody who paints a picture on that window; a great artist is someone who paints a picture on a window and then throws a brick through it.” Subway graffiti artist A-One, quoted in The New Yorker “We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” Ray Bradbury, quoted in the Montreal Gazette “All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally…

Limiting workplace surveillance California lawmakers have proposed a bill aimed at regulating workplace surveillance technologies, said Allison Levitsky in Protocol. “The Workplace Technology Accountability Act, or Assembly Bill 1651,” would ban the use of surveillance software that incorporates facial recognition, gait, or AI-powered “emotion recognition technology.” Employers would also have to give advance notice to workers about any tracking, and would be prohibited “from monitoring workers on their personal devices or after hours.” With the growth in remote work, surveillance technologies have multiplied as employers seek to keep an eye on productivity through software that can “track keystrokes or mouse movements, watch which programs are open on a computer, and record how long workers stay on a website.” Silk Road creator’s surprise windfall A portion of a massive trove…

The days of sticking a swab into your nose and mouth to test for Covid may—in some cases at least—be numbered, reports The New York Times. Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first coronavirus test that uses breath samples. This isn’t a home test: The InspectIR Covid-19 Breathalyzer has several practical limitations. The testing equipment is roughly the size of a piece of carry-on luggage and can be used only by trained technicians, supervised by medical professionals. But the equipment has shown high accuracy in testing and delivers results in just three minutes. “That’s really fast and pretty impressive,” says Nathaniel Hafer, a molecular biologist and testing expert at UMass Chan Medical School. Hafer says expanding the number of testing methods available is “really valuable”…

Political scientist Yascha Mounk is a professor at Johns Hopkins, a contributor to The Atlantic, and a podcast host. In his latest book, The Great Experiment, he examines how to prevent the collapse of democracies by bridging internal divides. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1958). You can’t understand politics without reading fiction. There is no deeper novel about how political change does—and, just as importantly, doesn’t—happen than the engrossing story of the Principe di Salina and his ambitious nephew, set in Sicily during the turbulent years of Italy’s unification. The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt (2012). One key reason it’s so challenging to build diverse democracies is that human beings are deeply “groupish.” This book helped me understand the powerful hold that an attachment to the in-group has…

The Duke “One of the pleasures of watching a film like this is seeing what superb actors are able to do with material that doesn’t aspire to greatness,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. The plot, based in fact, is simple: In 1961, an eccentric retiree stole a painting of a British duke from London’s National Gallery to make a point. That gives Jim Broadbent and co-star Helen Mirren many small scenes to play in a humble, working-class flat, and “the performances are exceptional.” (In theaters only) R We’re All Going to the World’s Fair In certain corners of the internet, “it gets hard to tell the difference between role play and genuine horror,” said Joshua Rivera in Polygon. That’s the energy behind Jane Schoenbrun’s mesmerizing debut,…

“It can take just a few bold strokes to transform white rice into a satisfying meal,” said Shaula Clark and Laura Russell in Milk Street magazine. In Japan, “the solution is as easy as an ear of corn, a bit of butter, and a dash of soy sauce,” resulting in a dish called tomorokoshi gohan. Though fresh summer corn is the traditional choice, frozen corn “works just as well,” producing a versatile year-round main or side. Substitute in ¼ cup barley or quinoa to boost the nutritional value. We dress things up with scallions, but you could also add lemon wedges or toasted sesame seeds. • 1½ cups Japanese-style short-grain white rice, rinsed and drained • 1 tbsp soy sauce • kosher salt and ground black or white pepper…

Daniel Hemel The Washington Post A House bill to shore up retirement savings simply funnels more benefits to the donor class, said Daniel Hemel. The era of tax-incentivized retirement saving is nearly 50 years old. But from humble origins, it has morphed into a “great American retirement fraud.” From the outset, IRAs were “a generous gift to the upper class.” Today, fewer than 4 percent of taxpayers contribute the max amount to their employer-sponsored 401(k) accounts; most contribute nothing at all. The new bill, dubbed Secure Act 2.0, claims to improve Americans’ savings prospects by automatically enrolling workers in retirement accounts at most businesses. However, “that’s a questionable financial decision” for many. Should a single parent with two kids earning $15 an hour be putting 10 percent of her…

No one had trouble picking out Guy Lafleur on the ice. The legendary right-winger for the Montreal Canadiens zipped across the rink helmetless, his long blond hair flowing behind him, before unleashing a killer slapshot or deft backhand that, 560 times in his NHL career, hit net. The Canadiens’ all-time points scorer led the team to five Stanley Cup victories—including four consecutive wins from 1976 through 1979. His enthusiasm for hockey never dimmed, and such was his glee at the Canadiens’ 1978 victory that he plotted to temporarily steal the trophy to show it off in his small hometown, Thurso. After asking the cup’s handler for his car keys during a photo shoot, he sent a friend off to make a copy of them. “I told my friend,”…

This week’s question: Keepers at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo say teenage gorilla Amare has become so fascinated with images on visitors’ smartphones that he no longer pays attention to other gorillas. What would you call an app that caters to apes? Last week’s contest: Guinness World Records has deemed a Minnesota family the world’s tallest. Their heights range from 6 foot 3 inches to 7 foot 3 inches. If a reality show were built around this vertically gifted family, what should it be called? THE WINNER: “Tall in the Family” Erica Avery, Greenfield, Mass. SECOND PLACE: “Six Feet Over” Bob Immler, Brattleboro, Vt. THIRD PLACE: “Keeping Up With the Gargantuans” Mike Slater, Pittsburgh For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go to theweek.com/contest. How to enter: Submissions should be…