Innehållsförteckning för November 4, 2022 från The Week Magazine

The nature of the news business is that much of what you read is bound to be bad. The market for “everything is going well” stories is small. In its earliest days, USA Today tried to put a good spin on the news (“Miracle: 327 survive, 55 die” was one famous early headline about a plane crash). No one has repeated the experiment. If you want to look around the world, there is a lot to be depressed about. Russia and China top the news; both are slipping back into the darkest days of totalitarianism—and in the case of Russia, starting a conflict in Europe beyond anything the USSR dared. But rather than writing about China and Russia, I thought I’d note a couple of the extraordinary and offbeat stories…

Good week for: Galloping, after designer Marcus Floyd introduced sneakers for horses called “Horse Kicks” that retail for $1,200 per shoe. “It was a dope process trying to figure out what a horse sneaker would look like,” Floyd said. Larry the Cat, a 15-year-old tabby rescue and permanent resident of 10 Downing Street in London, who with the resignation of Liz Truss has now outlasted four British prime ministers. Labor saving, with news that researchers at U.C. Berkeley are making progress on robots that can fold laundry. A $60,000 industrial robot was able to fold one item of human clothing in two minutes, which the team considers an impressive speed, given the “high dimensional configuration space of garments.” Bad week for: Too much of a bad thing, with reports of…

In her middle age, Kris Jenner gave birth to an empire, said Lisette Voytko in Forbes. Jenner was 51 when she successfully pitched a reality TV show revolving around her daughters Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kylie, and Kendall. Fifteen years later, the Kardashian-Jenner sisters have a combined 1 billion social media followers and run 15 businesses. Jenner, 66, controls 10 percent of everything, including Kim’s $3.2 billion shapewear brand and Kylie’s $1.2 billion cosmetics line, giving the mother an estimated net worth of $200 million. From the start, Jenner says, she told her kids, “I’m going to put my heart and soul into this, and I’ll take 10 percent, because that’ll make it worth my while.” Jenner is known for being extremely controlling, a trait she says she developed after…

Van Jones and Janos Marton CNN.com No wonder the arresting police officers “sounded almost apologetic,” said Van Jones and Janos Marton. Bodycam video recently obtained by a public records request shows Florida police raiding the homes of 20 ex-felons to arrest them for voting in 2020. They had voted after state residents approved a referendum restoring most former felons’ voting rights. Unknown to these citizens—at least 13 of whom are Black—they did not meet all the requirements for having their voting rights restored. This detail also eluded state officials, who approved and in some cases solicited their applications to rejoin the voting rolls. The videos show frightened people looking “bewildered” as armed cops show up at their door and handcuff them. “Why would you let me vote if I wasn’t…

“Far from decreasing the risk of nuclear conflict, pulling the U.S. back from Ukraine engagement would only increase this risk, because it would send Putin and other world dictators the exact wrong message. Essentially, we would be saying that with enough nuclear blackmail, we will back off and allow wars of aggression to stand. This would increase nuclear proliferation, and increase the propensity of bad actors with nukes to use them to threaten the Free World. The impulse on both the far left and the far right to doubt America’s capacity to be a force for good in the world and to seek accommodation with the world’s worst actors is a real threat to global freedom.” Garry Kasparov in Semafor…

GERMANY Nikolas Busse Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Why is German Chancellor Olaf Scholz siding with China over his own government? asked Nikolas Busse. The Chinese state-owned shipping company Cosco wants to invest in a container terminal in Hamburg, Germany’s biggest port. Pretty much everyone in the federal government thinks that would be a terrible idea, including six federal ministries that have warned against it and Scholz’s own vice chancellor, Robert Habeck. Habeck, a Green, said it would be dangerous to “become dependent on a country that may want to blackmail us someday,” pointing out that Russia has done just that by turning off the flow of gas to Europe because of Europe’s support for Ukraine. “Why hasn’t Scholz learned this lesson?” Could it be because before he was chancellor, he was…

ISRAEL Haviv Rettig Gur The Times of Israel After next week’s vote, Israel will have suffered through five elections in just 43 months, said Haviv Rettig Gur. And the irony is, our political system got this unstable because of an electoral tweak intended to ward off that very headache. In 2014, the main political parties agreed that the proliferation of tiny fringe parties had made governing coalitions too unwieldy and the Knesset too shouty. To fix that, they raised the threshold for a party to enter the Knesset from 2 percent of the vote to 3.25 percent, in the hope that weeding out minor factions would transform our “cacophonous, ungovernable politics” into something moderate and stable. “It didn’t quite work out that way.” Instead, to capture the votes that once…

John Durham might now have “the worst trial record of any special counsel or independent prosecutor in American history: no wins, two losses,” said Dennis Aftergut in NBCNews.com. The prosecutor was appointed three years ago by Donald Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, to prove “a false political narrative,” which is that the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation was “a witch hunt.” In May, Durham’s attempt to prosecute former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann on charges of lying to the FBI ended in a quick acquittal. Last week, Igor Danchenko, the source of most of the raw rumors about Trump in the so-called Steele dossier, was also quickly acquitted of lying. Durham’s much-ballyhooed investigation ends with no conspiracy charges, no indictments of any high-level officials, and nothing to counter the Department…

Gender-affirming care for minors is on trial in Arkansas, said Cady Stanton in USA Today, and the outcome is likely to have nationwide implications. Last year Arkansas became the first state to ban treating minors with gender dysphoria with surgery, puberty blockers, or hormone treatments. Conservative legislators say the law is needed to prevent minors from making changes to their bodies they may later regret. Advocates for trans teens have sued to block the law, and in the trial now underway will argue that the ban will prevent gender-dysphoric teens from getting medical treatments that are critical for their mental health. They’re backed by medical groups, including the American Medical Association, that say denying puberty blockers to trans youth could cause serious psychological harm. Alabama and Arizona have also…

(Knopf, $32) “When we meet our heroes on the page, we want them to have something thoughtful to say—to make good on the admiration their outsize performances have won,” said Michael O’Donnell in The Wall Street Journal. Fortunately, Hollywood legend Paul Newman (1925–2008) was as compelling an observer of his own life as he was captivating on the screen. This posthumous memoir, assembled primarily from 14,000 pages of transcribed conversations that Newman and a screenwriter friend recorded between 1986 and 1991, is “twice the book one could have dared to hope for, a narrative that is astute, introspective, and surprisingly graceful.” The real Newman, apparently, was “hardly the unflappable star that audiences thought they knew,” said Dave Itzkoff in The New York Times. Despite his “astronomical ascent” and long…

Alan Moore is done with comic books, said Sam Leith in The Guardian. The British author is “probably the most respected comics writer on the planet,” after pioneering work on a long list of titles in the U.K. and the U.S. from the 1970s into the 1990s, including Watchmen and V for Vendetta, which were aimed at adults, and several issues of Batman and Superman. He has battled the industry for decades, and not just about his own work. “I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies,” he says. “Because that kind of infantilization—that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities—that can very often be a precursor to fascism.” Moore accepts…

Romances around the world… Modern Love Tokyo The latest season of the series based on The New York Times’ popular Modern Love column heads to Japan for seven fact-based stories that put a different spin on 21st-century romance. There’s even an anime episode. Amazon Prime Modern Love Mumbai Modern Love made a stop earlier this year in India’s sprawling financial capital, uncovering several unexpected love stories. In one, a man in his 20s confesses his attraction to a woman in her 60s. In another, a gay Muslim man is torn between his love for his partner and his fear of his grandmother’s disapproval. Amazon Prime Easy This anthology series from “mumblecore” director Joe Swanberg dramatizes romantic quandaries by focusing on a different Chicago couple in each episode. Its 25…

Despite a cutoff from Russia, the benchmark European price of natural gas this week fell below $100 per megawatt hour, a level that is more than 70 percent below its record high in August. European gas storage facilities have reached more than 90 percent of capacity, while a warmer-than-usual October has kept consumption 20 percent below normal. Financial Times Though Germany has twice California’s population, California’s gross domestic product is poised to hit $3.5 trillion this year and overtake Germany’s as the fourth-largest in the world after the U.S., China, and Japan. Bloomberg You​Tube star MrBeast—real name Jimmy Donaldson—is looking to raise $150 million to expand his brand. With 107 million YouTube channel subscribers, MrBeast’s main channel is the fifth most-subscribed YouTube channel globally, and he has already spun off…

Besides triggering a refugee crisis that displaced more than 7 million people, the Ukrainian war has also worsened the global famine emergency. More than 345 million people face acute food insecurity, a 155 percent increase from pre-pandemic levels, and CARE (care​.org) supports those in need around the world. Established in 1945 to help war-torn Europe, the nonprofit has devoted $250 million to respond to hunger crises. Through the Southern African Nutrition Initiative, CARE works to reduce women’s and children’s malnourishment in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, reaching more than 575,000 people. CARE has also implemented health projects like Indashyikirwa, which reduced partner violence in Rwanda by 55 percent, and educational programs such as SOAR, which provides accelerated education to 4 million girls. Each charity we feature has earned a four-star…

Allison Schrager Bloomberg President Biden’s policies didn’t cause many of the economic problems we face today, but they have made them worse, said Allison Schrager. The White House “insists the economy is strong, and to some extent that’s true: Unemployment is low and household balance sheets are still in good shape.” But otherwise, the administration is failing on the economy. No, “Biden didn’t cause the inflation” that has soared to a four-decade high in 2022. But he ignored early warnings about the 2021 American Rescue Plan, an “excessive” and wasteful bill that economists now say was responsible for adding “2 to 4 percentage points” to inflation. Biden didn’t cause the oil price run-up, but his “rhetoric against oil companies reduced their incentive to invest in new production,” which has made…

Daniel Smith was a one-man link to centuries of Black history, likely the last living child of an American slave. Three decades before he marched on Washington and Selma, Ala., with Martin Luther King Jr. in the early 1960s, he was a small boy listening at the door to harrowing stories told by Abram, his elderly father. Abram Smith had been born into slavery in Virginia in 1863 and raised among the whipping posts. He told his kids about an enslaved man who’d been accused of lying and was forced to lick a frozen wagon wheel so that half his tongue ripped off. “My father cried as he told us these things,” Smith recalled last year. Born the fifth of six children in Winsted, Conn., said CBSNews.com, Smith lost…

This week’s question: Two young activists in a London museum recently threw a can of tomato soup at a Van Gogh painting to protest climate change. In seven or fewer words, come up with a warning sign that the museum can use to discourage copycat food-flinging attacks. Last week’s contest: A New Age “healer” helped model Gisele Bündchen spiritually cleanse her SUV shortly after she announced she was seeking a divorce from NFL star Tom Brady. Please come up with a job title for someone who specializes in exorcizing cars. THE WINNER: “Used Car Healer” Laurel Rose, Pittsburgh SECOND PLACE: “Priust” Nathan Paddock, Bradford, N.H. THIRD PLACE: “Lexuscist” Bill Levine, Belmont, Mass. For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go to theweek.com/contest. How to enter: Submissions should be emailed…

What happened As Ukrainian forces advanced toward Kherson and Russian troops dug in for what could be a major battle for control of the strategically valuable port city, Russia this week warned the United Nations that Ukraine plans to detonate a dirty bomb, which could provoke “uncontrolled escalation.” The U.S., France, and Britain swiftly challenged the idea that Ukraine would detonate a dirty bomb—a conventional explosive wrapped in radioactive waste—in its own territory. Instead, Western leaders said Russia could be contemplating a “false flag” attack. With its proxy officials fleeing Kherson, Russia also claimed Ukraine was plotting to blow up a crucial dam in the region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that in fact Russia had mined the dam, planning to blame a catastrophic explosion on Ukraine. While the…

Following the Uvalde massacre, Texas K-6 students are being sent home with DNA kits to make their corpses easier to identify. Parents said they were not reassured. “They’ve decided our kids aren’t worth restricting guns,” said mother Emily Westbrooks. The DNA kits, she said, were an “in-your-face reminder” that her children could be “obliterated by automatic weapons to the point they won’t be recognizable.” Two professors are suing the California State University System over its new ban on “caste” discrimination. Professors Sunil Kumar and Praveen Sinha claim that because the ancient social hierarchy known as caste is a Hindu practice in India, naming it as a form of discrimination targets “all Indian-origin and Hindu staff and students solely because we are Indian.” In other news School tests show pandemic learning…

Henry Louis Gates Jr. believes everyone should learn about their ancestral roots, said Robin Rose Parker in The Washington Post. The Harvard historian and host of PBS’s Finding Your Roots, 72, remembers having his own DNA analyzed, which revealed that he’s “one of the relatively few African Americans who on his mother’s side is not descended from a Black woman, but from a white woman.” That ancestor, who was Irish or English, was probably an indentured servant who had a baby a couple of hundred years ago with a Black slave—likely in Maryland, where Gates’ family has its roots. Tracing your family’s history, he believes, can be both fascinating and revealing. “The way that you celebrate Christmas, the foods that you eat, the way that you worship, even the…

Sacheen Littlefeather, the late activist who famously took the stage on behalf of Native Americans after Marlon Brando won a 1973 Oscar for The Godfather, was not actually of Native descent, the San Francisco Chronicle reported this week. Littlefeather, who died recently at age 75, was a “Pretendian,” the Chronicle reported, based on investigating her family history and interviewing her sisters, Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi. “It is a fraud,” Cruz said. “It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people.” Born Marie Louise Cruz in Salinas, Calif., Littlefeather was actually of Mexican heritage. An extensive exploration of her family tree and White Mountain Apache records by the Chronicle found no evidence of Native American ties. “She lived in a fantasy,” Orlandi said. Known for wearing traditional Native clothing,…

Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe “Any day now,” someone will give birth to the 8 billionth human being on planet Earth, said Jeff Jacoby. This milestone should be celebrated not just by this baby’s parents but by our entire species. But to “many modern, educated elites, the enlargement of the human race is cause for despair and angst, not joy.” Why, they say, bring more humans into an already crowded world facing climate change, conflict, and disaster? That sentiment is hardly new: In the 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich warned that an overcrowded Earth faced widespread starvation and social collapse within a decade. But today, “mankind is flourishing as never before.” Yes, poverty, suffering, and war still plague us, just as they have for millennia. But for much…

A Pennsylvania man says his “emotional support alligator” has lifted him out of a deep depression. Joie Henney, a woodworker near Hershey, adopted Wally after he was found near Disney World and couldn’t be returned to the wild. He shares a bed with Wally, and says the “super sweet natured” reptile gave him a boost after he lost some family members. He “makes me feel loved,” he said. “I’ll get lonely, and he seems to sense that stuff and he’ll come up and give me a hug.” Hardy travelers and hikers in need of cash can make withdrawals from the highest-altitude ATM in the world, located in the Khunjerab Pass, a border crossing between China and Pakistan that sits nearly 15,400 feet above sea level. Installed by the National Bank…

Will the third time be the charm? asked The Times in an editorial. Conservative members of Parliament have picked Rishi Sunak to be the third prime minister inside a year, after the lying, scandal-prone Boris Johnson and the market-spooking libertarian Liz Truss. At 42, Sunak is the youngest premier since William Pitt the Younger in 1783. He’s also the first nonwhite prime minister, with immigrant parents who came from India by way of East Africa. Most of all, though, he is seen as a steadying choice. The Tories won a big majority in 2019 but “have since squandered the trust of voters.” Sunak, with his solid economic credentials, will hope to restore that trust. But he’s awfully out of touch, said Tom Pyman in the Daily Mail. The posh…

PAKISTAN Muhammad Ali Ehsan The Express Tribune It was inevitable that the deep state would find some pretext to bar Imran Khan from regaining the top office, said Muhammad Ali Ehsan. The former cricket star was prime minister from 2018 until last March, when he became the first Pakistani leader in history to be toppled by a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Yet Khan is still “a national hero” beloved by the people and would almost certainly win again if allowed to compete. Just look at the local elections held since he was ousted. Of the 31 contests we’ve had in those seven months, 26 were won by Khan’s PTI party. “If this is not the voice of the people, then what else is?” It was politicians, not voters, who booted…

Undocumented migrant workers are in high demand in Florida to rebuild after Hurricane Ian, just weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis made headlines by flying Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. “We’d like them back,” said one real estate agent. Undocumented immigrants account for 23 percent of U.S. construction laborers and 38 percent of drywallers, according to a 2021 nonprofit report. The Washington Post The Pentagon will pay the travel costs of service members who choose to go to states where they can legally receive abortions. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said “significant numbers” of service members are based in states that limit or restrict abortion access, impeding “our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”Politico Low water levels in the Mississippi River caused by severe…

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”Robert Frost, quoted in The Guardian (U.K.) “Loneliness is more fatal than a poor diet or lack of exercise, as corrosive as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Friendship literally saves our lives.”Psychologist Marisa G. Franco, quoted in The Wall Street Journal “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”Mae West, quoted in Good Housekeeping “The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; but his whole life is already a treason.”Thomas Carlyle, quoted in Commentary “Horror films don’t create fear, they release it.”Director Wes Craven, quoted in Crime Reads “Success is a poison that should only be taken late in life—and then only in small doses.”Anthony Trollope, quoted in The…

Apple’s new iPad offerings With new additions to its iPad lineup, Apple is now selling six different tablet computers ranging in price from $329 all the way to $2,399, said Sofia Pitt in CNBC.com. The updated 10th-generation iPad “has a larger display” and faster performance than last year’s model. It also changed the position of the camera, from the short side of the tablet to the long side, “which should help you look more centered during video chats.” Two new iPad Pros, an 11-inch and a 12.9-inch, are now outfitted with Apple’s highest-end M2 processor, the same introduced in the MacBook Air. Both also “support Apple’s new hover feature.” The screens “can now detect the tip of the Apple Pencil up to 12 millimeters above the surface,” a feature…

Some people really are “mosquito magnets,” a new study suggests—and it’s likely because of the way they smell. Researchers found that the people most attractive to the irksome bloodsuckers produce large amounts of certain skin acids tied to smell, reports The Washington Post. “If you have high levels of this stuff on your skin,” says co-author Leslie Vosshall, from Rockefeller University in New York, “you’re going to be the one at the picnic getting all the bites.” Vosshall and her colleagues had 64 volunteers wear nylon stockings around their forearms long enough for the clothing to pick up their scent. They then placed the stockings in separate traps and released dozens of mosquitoes. The insects swarmed to certain stockings while largely ignoring others, and the most popular stocking was…

Actress Zosia Mamet is the editor of a new essay collection, My First Popsicle, in which prominent cultural figures each write about a poignant memory tied to food. Below, the Girls and The Flight Attendant star names six favorite books. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992). One of my favorite novels since I read it oh-so-many-years ago. It confronts big issues like class, perception, and wondering who you truly are. But Tartt whips it all together in the most delicious, nail-biting murder mystery that will keep you turning the pages into the wee hours. The Feral Detective by Jonathan Lethem (2018). I recorded the audiobook for this novel, a modern-day detective story set in the dark underbelly of the California desert. If other novels are a sweet smooth…

Roger Welsch’s journey to national recognition began when he ran for an obscure position in Nebraska’s Lancaster County on a “pro-weed” platform. Then a professor of folklore, Welsch objected to the pesticide overuse that killed native plants, and his bid to get elected to the weed control board drew the attention of CBS News’ Charles Kuralt, who featured Welsch in one of his popular “On the Road” segments. The loquacious Welsch became a regular interviewee, and in 1988 began a 13-year stint providing CBS’s Sunday Morning with nearly 200 “Postcards From Nebraska” segments. A resident of Dannebrog, a village so small he said “the town square has three sides,” Welsch told humorous tales of heartland life, joking about everything from whiskey to snakes to tractor repair. He wrote columns,…

Michelle Phillips is the last surviving member of The Mamas & the Papas, said Angie Martoccio in Rolling Stone. The hitmaking group consisted of “Mama” Cass Elliott, Denny Doherty, Phillips, and her husband, John—a cruel, controlling tyrant, Phillips says. “Now, mercifully, John is dead,” says Phillips, 78. She’s working on a biopic about the group. “Once you’ve taken the knife out of your heart, it makes for a wonderful story.” While The Mamas & the Papas were still together, Phillips and Doherty engaged in an affair. “John didn’t actually find us having sex,” she says, “but he did come downstairs and I was sitting on Denny’s bed in my nightgown, feeding him candies. He said, ‘You could do a lot of things to me, Mich, but you don’t f---…

Kimberly Wehle The Bulwark Will Joe Biden be the last Democratic president “for the foreseeable future”? asked Kimberly Wehle. That is a very real possibility. In its current term, the Supreme Court will rule on a case testing the “independent state legislature doctrine.” This crackpot theory holds that only state legislatures can regulate federal elections—not state judges, governors, or any other body. If the Supreme Court embraces this theory, it will give states unchecked power to redistrict and change voting laws for nakedly partisan goals. Even worse, it would mean legislatures could ignore the popular vote in presidential elections and award their favored candidate the state’s electoral votes. So let’s assume Republicans win control of the House in November and continue to control most swing-state legislatures. In 2024, several states…

ITALY Andrea Dernbach Tagesspiegel (Germany) Italy has now become the first EU country to be led by neofascists, said Andrea Dernbach, and it’s shaping up to be as bad as we feared. Newly sworn-in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni leads the ultra-right Brothers of Italy, a party descended from a faction founded by Mussolini aides, and her first act was to staff her cabinet with extremists. Meloni erased Italy’s tepid attempts at meeting its climate commitments by shoehorning the environment ministry into a new ministry for energy security. Her minister of families, ultra-conservative, outspoken Catholic Eugenia Roccella, is on record saying she wants to abolish gay civil unions. And her interior minister was chief of staff to Matteo Salvini, a ruthless foe of immigration who supports turning back refugees to die…

Female dogs remember when people exhibit incompetent behavior, yet males don’t seem to notice. That’s the conclusion of a small new study in Japan, says The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Researchers recruited 30 dogs and put each one in a room with two strangers holding a clear plastic box. In full view of the pup, but without ever looking at or interacting with it, the first person took the lid off the box with ease, while the second person struggled and failed. The two people then repeated the task, but this time the boxes contained a treat. The male dogs had no preference between the “competent” and “incompetent” participants, but the female dogs ran over to the successful box opener 83 percent of the time. “These findings indicate that female…

(Knopf, $30) If you purchased the new Cormac McCarthy novel expecting a return to The Road, “prepare to be baffled,” said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. Sixteen years after that lean, post-apocalyptic novel won a Pulitzer and affirmed McCarthy as one of our greatest writers, he has returned, at 89, with a disjointed, cerebral book that “casts readers into a black hole of ignorance.” After a promising setup in which salvage diver Bobby Western explores a downed plane and attracts suspicion, the novel displays “an irritating tendency toward grandiosity” as it toggles between Bobby’s rambling conversations and the hallucinations of a deceased sister, subjecting readers to dizzying forays into theoretical physics. The Passenger, along with a companion novel due next month, at least display “phenomenal” late ambition, said…

The Gospel of Wellness by Rina Raphael (Holt, $29) Self-care sounded appealing—until it “became yet another obligation,” said Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic. In her “bubbly and engagingly thorough dissection of the modern wellness industry,” author Rina Raphael details how the idea that we should attend to our personal holistic needs has inevitably been corrupted. Despite her claims, “I don’t fully buy that wellness has taken on the role of religion,” but she’s right that it has spread pseudoscience and added stresses where they’re least needed. You’ve Been Played by Adrian Hon (Basic, $30) Remember when it seemed like fun that an app could turn housework or exercise into a game? asked Alexandria Symonds in The New York Times. Gamification has “come to suffuse nearly every aspect of human…

Detroit Institute of Arts, through Jan. 22 Good for Detroit, said Chadd Scott in Forbes. A century ago this year, the city took a chance on a fellow named Vincent van Gogh, and the current payoff is that Detroit is hosting the largest van Gogh exhibition in America in a generation. “Not digital reproductions”; we’re talking the real thing: 59 paintings and 15 drawings, “a lifetime’s scavenger hunt for van Gogh in one fell swoop.” The story goes that Detroit began its ascent as a center of van Gogh study in 1922, when the Detroit Institute of Arts purchased a small self-portrait for $4,200 and distinguished itself as the first American museum to own a work by the deceased Dutch artist. A slow trickle of purchases by other Midwestern…

Loire reds long have been “under-the-radar choices for wine lovers seeking great values,” said Eric Asimov in The New York Times. Below are one Chinon and two that use the generic Vin de France appellation, and they only begin to suggest the full array of Loire reds that sell for far less than comparable bottles from other French regions. 2021 Marc Plouzeau Chinon Rive Gauche ($17). This “absolutely delicious” Chinon, a cabernet franc, is “full of flavors,” including red fruit, flowers, and licorice. 2021 La Grange aux Belles Le Vin de Jardin ($22). Great chilled, this “thirst-quenching” natural red is “juicy and fruity, yet dry.” 2018 Mosse Cabernet Franc Vintage ($32). A blend from the best barrels of cabernet franc at the Mosse family estate, this wine is “beautifully…

A few days before I flew to Hawaii a year ago, Kilauea began to erupt, said Emily Pennington in Outside. “What luck!” The world’s most active volcano had resumed its molten gurgling just in time for my visit to the Big Island. After erupting continuously from 1983 to 2018, it has been active again for 13 months now, making Hawaii Volcanoes National Park more alluring than ever. When I visited, the scene was a study in contrasts. Old lava flows ribboned the lush tropical foliage “like black veins,” while steam vents “hissed clouds of noxious gases into the bright blue sky.” On the Crater Rim Trail, leis hung from fence posts as offerings to the volatile creator of the islands, the goddess Pele. Along the Kilauea Iki Trail, hardy plants…

Investment documents suggest Elon Musk is planning to dramatically reduce Twitter’s “bloated” workforce, said Elizabeth Dwoskin in The Washington Post. In presentations that were obtained by the Post last week, Musk’s business projections for the struggling social media company “were fueled in part by steep job cuts.” Musk told investors “he planned to get rid of nearly 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, whittling the company down to a skeleton staff of just over 2,000.” The drastic reduction is “likely to have a major impact on its ability to control harmful content and prevent data security crises.” Marketing: West loses corporate deals Numerous brands dumped their partnerships with Kanye West this week after his recent anti-Semitic comments, said Jordan Valinksy in CNN.com. Adidas terminated its nine-year-old business relationship with West,…

‘Desk-bombing’ is not a crime How did stopping by a colleague’s desk with a question get labeled as a terrible workplace faux pas? asked Pilita Clark in the Financial Times. I heard recently about a man who had been “vainly emailing a woman he worked with to get something approved.” A colleague said, “Why don’t you just go over and ask her to approve it?” The aghast man replied, “I’m not going to just go and desk-bomb her.” But “since when has something as innocuous as asking someone an unsolicited question at work become so offensive?” In the office, there seems to be a growing “intolerance of interruption.” Fine, people wearing headphones can be left alone. Otherwise, “all are more or less fair bombing game.” It’s way more efficient…

Michael Schuman The Atlantic Even as China’s President Xi Jinping consolidates his power, the U.S. is succeeding in stopping what once seemed like China’s inevitable economic advance, said Michael Schuman. For years, China has promoted the narrative of its own “unstoppable ascent and America’s inexorable decline.” But the U.S. is still the “leader in the global business of artificial-intelligence chips, chip-design software, and much of the equipment indispensable for manufacturing chips.” Last week, amid Xi’s “display of pomp and power” in Beijing, “President Joe Biden showed Xi who’s boss” in technology. New curbs block Chinese semiconductor firms from accessing any U.S. technology to manufacture their products, even if the equipment is purchased overseas, and bar American citizens and companies from even assisting them. This is a potentially mortal blow to…

As a student, Beryl Benacerraf struggled to read because of undiagnosed dyslexia. But as a Harvard Medical School resident, she discovered her remarkable knack for a different kind of reading. Benacerraf proved exceptional at scouring fetal ultrasound images to spot congenital anomalies and gynecological disorders, and thanks to her research, ultrasound became routine in prenatal care. “Anomalies jump out at me like a neon sign,” she said. Most notably, Benacerraf was among the first physicians to recognize that an extra fold of skin on a fetus’ neck was a possible sign of Down syndrome. Benacerraf, who held professorships at Harvard as well as Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, became a trailblazer in obstetrics and gynecology as well as radiology, publishing hundreds of scholarly articles. “Pictures just speak to…