Innehållsförteckning för March 24, 2023 från The Week Magazine

Did you know that Silicon Valley Bank imploded because it was “woke”? Or that masks provide absolutely no protection against Covid? Or that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a Chinese lab by a sinister “bat lady” in cahoots with Dr. Anthony Fauci? Millions of Americans believe all these statements to be proven fact, despite being unsupported by actual evidence, because that’s what they’ve been told by Tucker Carlson and the far-right infotainment system—which knowingly lies to its audience for profit and power. (See Controversy, p.6.) Whether it’s peddling stolen elections or mass deaths from vaccines, the recipe is the same: Start with a tiny sliver of information, separate out 99.8 percent of the evidence, inflate with hot air and repetition, and voila! You have The Real Story. Since the audience wants…

West Virginia lawmakers have rejected a ban on child marriage. The bill would have raised the age of consent to 18 in West Virginia; currently, minors can marry at 16 with parental consent, or even younger with a judge’s waiver. Republicans said teenagers marrying was not unusual in West Virginia. State Sen. Mike Stuart said his own mother married at 16, and “six months later, I came along.” An Illinois man has filed a class-action lawsuit against Buffalo Wild Wings because its so-called “Boneless Wings” are breast meat, not wings. Aimen Halim’s suit seeks punitive damages for what he calls a “clear-cut case of false advertising.” The restaurant chain mocked Halim’s complaint, noting in a tweet that “our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo.” In other news Stricter checks for gun…

James Hong, one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood history, spent years playing crude Asian stereotypes, said Ann Lee in The Guardian (U.K.) Now 94, he has more than 450 acting credits to his name in a career that stretches back to 1950s bit parts in Clark Gable and John Wayne movies. But back then, the only roles for Asian characters were demeaning. “We were given the side parts as ‘coolies,’” he says, “or distressed Asians being rescued by the white guy. We were underlings.” Hong even worked with white actors in yellowface. He had a supporting role in a 1957 TV adaptation of the Charlie Chan mysteries that starred J. Carrol Naish, who played the title role with taped-back eyes. Naish belittled and berated Hong for being…

Tiger Woods fears “another scandal” after his former girlfriend sued him for $30 million and demanded to be released from a nondisclosure agreement, a source close to the golf legend told People. Ex-girlfriend Erica Herman sued Woods’ trust last week, claiming she was tricked into going on a trip and then locked out of his Jupiter, Fla., mansion after they broke up last October. Herman, 38, was involved with Woods, 47, for six years after they met while she was working at his Florida restaurant. She has asked a court to nullify a nondisclosure agreement that she signed at the start of their relationship, citing a law that says NDAs can be nullified by sexual or physical assault. Woods has fought to rehabilitate his image since 2009, when his…

Dana Milbank The Washington Post “If ignorance is bliss,” said Dana Milbank, Kevin McCarthy must be in “nirvana.” Ask the House speaker about any nutty act or comment involving Donald Trump or his MAGA House members, and rest assured McCarthy “hasn’t read it, seen it, or heard about it.” How did he view Trump’s phone call demanding that Georgia’s secretary of state “find” enough votes to change the 2020 election result? Quoth McCarthy: “I have to hear it first.” What about the explosive texts and emails revealed in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, showing that the network’s prime-time hosts knew they were airing lies about a stolen election? “I didn’t see all that,” McCarthy responded. Last week, “McCarthy’s see-no-evil approach” reached new depths. After he gave Tucker Carlson…

IRAN Mariam Memarsadeghi Al Arabiya (UAE) The ongoing “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in Iran may have reached a tipping point, said Mariam Memarsadeghi. For seven months, ever since a Kurdish woman arrested for failing to wear a hijab died in the custody of the morality police, the mass protests calling for the fall of the regime have been a grassroots affair. Now a prominent opposition leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has joined the calls for a new constitution. Mousavi, a former prime minister, had always been “a poster boy of reform-denying reform,” the kind of tame opposition leader who wanted to merely soften, not abolish, Iran’s theocratic regime. “Handpicked” by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for president in the 2009 election, he refused to lose quietly to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and led the…

More than 550 Americans are reported as missing in Mexico, according to Mexican government records—up from 324 in 2020, and almost certainly an undercount. All told, at least 112,150 people have gone missing in Mexico, amid an ongoing plague of drug-cartel killings and abductions.The Washington Post Vaccinated people currently run a 5 to 10 percent risk of developing long Covid if they become infected, researchers estimate. For the unvaccinated, the risk of long Covid—defined as symptoms that last at least three months after infection—is 15 to 20 percent, even if they’ve been previously infected.NBCNews.com The head of the Martin County, Fla., chapter of Moms for Liberty, Julie Marshall, has succeeded in getting dozens of books banned from school libraries under a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Among them are…

“Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.” Poet Adrienne Rich, quoted in Deadline “Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.” Ambrose Bierce, quoted in City Journal “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” Henry David Thoreau, quoted in The Dispatch “I stopped believing in Santa Claus at the age of 6, when my mother took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph.” Shirley Temple, quoted in Yahoo “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Albert Einstein, quoted in The Marginalian “A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a…

Securing your Twitter, for free Twitter is turning off two-factor text message authentication for its unpaid users, said Heather Kelly in The Washington Post. “Users are being told to either sign up for the $8-a-month Twitter Blue service or switch to a different type of two-factor authentication” before next week, raising concerns about security on the platform. Why strip users of a recommended security feature? Twitter says it made the decision because phone-based two-factor authentication has become “used—and abused—by bad actors,” but critics see it as a ploy to “make money off its fledgling Twitter Blue service.” However, if you’re thinking of signing up for the paid service, you do have an alternative that’s still free, and actually safer: downloading a reputable authentication app like Twilio’s Authy or Google…

We know humans began growing wheat to make bread about 11,000 years ago. It was thought that growing grapes to make wine came much later, as the oldest archaeological evidence of wine drinking comes from clay pots from the Caucasus that date to 8,000 years ago. A new study, though, suggests that farmers there were cultivating grapevines all along, reports The Washington Post. When scientists at Yunnan Agricultural University in China examined the genetic ancestry of thousands of grape types, they concluded that the first vineyards likely appeared simultaneously with the first wheat farms. What’s more, these early vineyards emerged at about the same time in the Caucasus and also some 600 miles away in Western Asia, which implies communication among the farmers. “It was one of the first…

Critic and essayist Adam Gopnik is a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker. In his latest book, The Real Work, he examines how artists, athletes, and others achieve mastery, and what the pursuit does for any of us who undertake it. Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell (1791). The best and most entertaining biography ever written in English—addictive for its prescient, informal, racy prose and Johnson’s epigrammatic precision and enduring decency. The dinner party at which suspicious Tory Sam meets the lefty-libertine but welcoming John Wilkes is still one of the funniest and most humane things in literature. The Most of Liebling by A.J. Liebling (1963). The best reporter on Paris, boxing, and war, with the widest range of knowledge and the slyest gift for horizontal allusion.…

3 On the first track of their major-label debut, Michael and Tanya Trotter “rock out like Ike and Tina Turner fronting the Rolling Stones,” said Hal Horowitz in American Songwriter. The husband-wife duo known as the War and Treaty has been igniting concert halls since 2015, and the couple’s emotionally charged fusion of gospel, rock, and roots music has found fans in Emmylou Harris and Jason Isbell. Unfortunately, the duo’s third album “downshifts dramatically” after the title track and “never returns to the fireworks.” The nine remaining tracks are “professionally crafted” but not as thrilling as a War and Treaty performance. But the Trotters “inhabit the soul” of every song, making all of them special, said Henry Carrigan in No Depression. The couple’s harmonies reverberate powerfully, whether they’re crooning to…

Few spirits are as polarizing as barrel-aged gin, said Jim Vorel in Paste. “People either seem to love the substyle, or passionately hate it.” The appeal is that gin is softened and sweetened by contact with oak. The horror is in the way the process obscures gin’s delicate botanicals. Below, three worth trying. Chemist Spirits Barrel Rested Gin ($61). A “bellwether” example of the category, this gentle Asheville, N.C., gin offers a hint of vanilla and notes of coriander, pepper, and anise. Barr Hill Tom Cat Gin ($53). Vermont honey is the foundation of this gin, whose sweetness and floral flavors are offset by juniper and lemon-lime. District Made Barrel Rested Ivy City Gin ($42). This Washington, D.C., gin has “the most classic gin profile,” offering bold herbal and…

Get an early start. Because spring arrived early in much of the U.S., allergy season began early, too. Doctors recommend over-the-counter corticosteroid sprays such as Flonase for fighting the symptoms of pollen allergies, and advise starting two or more weeks before allergy season begins to give the medication’s effect time to kick in. Consider the alternatives. Antihistamine sprays work more quickly but are available only by prescription. You can take an antihistamine pill, such as Allegra, Claritin, or Zyrtec, while using a steroid spray. Allow 30 days before giving up on an OTC treatment. For extreme cases, see an allergist, who can do tests and administer shots that inoculate you to specific allergens. Don’t forget saline sprays. Avoid overuse of medicated sprays. Saline sprays and rinses, though, can be regularly…

Pat Schroeder was a warrior for women’s rights. When she first entered the House of Representatives in 1972, she was one of just 14 women there, and she knew her presence made the men uncomfortable. “It’s really funny if two women stand on the House floor,” she said. “There are usually at least two men who go by and say, ‘What is this, a coup?’” Over 24 years in Congress, the Colorado Democrat was instrumental in passing historic legislation on violence against women, pregnancy discrimination, and family leave. As the first woman to serve on the Armed Services Committee, she called for arms control. And she did it all while combating sexism with wit. Asked how she could be both a lawmaker and a mother, she replied, “I have…

Gary Hunt rules the daredevil sport of cliff diving with a carefree ease that concealsthe turmoil of his journey, said journalist Xan Rice in The Guardian. In early May 2009, 12 men arrived in La Rochelle on the west coast of France, carrying a few pairs of Speedos in their luggage. They had not come to swim but, as they liked to put it, to “fly.” Their sport, which involves diving from cliffs, buildings, or bridges, always comes with an atmosphere of nervous excitement, but this time the stakes were higher than ever before. Cliff diving had long been at the obscure end of extreme sports, a pursuit for thrill-seekers with day jobs. Now the energy drink company Red Bull was launching what it called a “cliff-diving world series.” In traditional pool diving,…

Alaska The White House approved this week an $8 billion oil project on Alaska’s North Slope, leading environmentalists to slam President Biden for abandoning his campaign pledge to end new oil drilling on federal lands. ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project will feature three new drilling areas in a federal oil reserve about the size of Indiana, producing up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day—about 1.5 percent of U.S. production. ConocoPhillips sought five new drilling areas, and the Biden administration initially pushed for two. Over the project’s 30-year timeline, the administration projects that resulting greenhouse-gas emissions will be equivalent to adding about 1.7 million passenger cars. Environmental groups said they’re reviewing whether the Biden administration fully complied with a court order blocking the Trump administration from approving the project, which…

Mel Brooks has returned to writing jokes at age 96, and he couldn’t be happier, said Joe Otterson in Variety. Though the name of his 1981 comedy epic History of the World: Part I inherently seemed to leave the door open for a sequel, he hadn’t ever intended to make one. But then he received a call from comedians Nick Kroll and Wanda Sykes pitching him on the idea. “First, it was a long-distance call, so I wanted to establish who was paying for it,” said Brooks. Jokes aside, it also helped him feel less isolated. “I was stuck in this Covid situation where you didn’t see people, where you were locked in a cave. So, this was a very welcome relief.” History of the World: Part II is…

Derek Thompson The Atlantic Many factors have been cited as causes of “the extraordinary rise of teen mental distress,” said Derek Thompson, but one has been largely ignored: “pressure-cooker schools.” Decades ago, the most anxious, depressed kids in America were from low-income households. But now research has found that the most mental illness is found among “rich teens in high-achieving schools,” who face enormous pressure to get good grades, high SAT or ACT scores, and admission to top universities. The pursuit of academic achievement—and future wealth—can be “a healthy virtue,” but when grades and test scores become an all-encompassing measure of self-worth, it can become toxic. A 2022 study found there are “more anxious and depressed teens” in other wealthy countries, including Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan. Pressured to…

CZECH REPUBLIC Eric Tabery Respekt The Czech Republic is finally rid of Milos Zeman, said Eric Tabery. Our third post-communism president is stepping down after 10 years in office. But the “damage he has done” won’t quickly be repaired. In the 30 years since he first rose to political power as chairman of the Social Democratic Party, “his dark side greatly outweighed the light.” Zeman started out as one of those ex-Communists who was assumed to be a pro-Western democrat; after all, he first gained recognition by opposing the 1968 Soviet invasion that crushed the Prague Spring. But he was often rude, boorish, and publicly intoxicated, and he governed through clientelism. No other Czech politician handed out government jobs to “so many dubious people” who had so many corruption scandals,…

If you’re stressed, you’re more likely to experience a decline in cognitive function, with difficulties concentrating, remembering, and learning new things. That’s the conclusion of a new study of thousands of older adults who were assessed for cognitive function and stress over more than a decade. Untangling cause and effect was difficult, reports CNN.com, as stress can drive people to unhealthy habits, such as smoking and skipping exercise, that also affect cognition. But once researchers had adjusted for those factors, they found that people with high stress levels were 37 percent more likely to score as impaired on the six-item screener test. That’s a cognitive test that has participants repeat back three words after answering three questions. The relationship between stress and brain function is a “vicious cycle,” says…

(Viking, $28) With her first novel since The Great Believers, National Book Award finalist Rebecca Makkai has delivered “the most irresistible literary page-turner I have read in years,” said Priscilla Gilman in The Boston Globe. In 2018, Bodie Kane, a whip-smart podcaster, accepts a two-week teaching gig at her old New Hampshire boarding school and becomes obsessed with re-examining the murder of a classmate that occurred during their mid-1990s senior year. Calling this novel twisty and enthralling “would fail to communicate just how labyrinthine and well-constructed the narrative is,” said Gabino Iglesias in NPR.org. We get a crumbling marriage, memories of adolescence, a Twitter conflagration, and much more, yet each subplot “sings with a unique voice that harmonizes beautifully with the crime story.” This is a novel about questions…

Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper (Mulholland, $28) “Everybody Knows is a classic L.A. noir for the MeToo era,” said Maureen Corrigan in NPR.org. The protagonist, Mae Pruett, is a Hollywood publicist who buries secrets—until she and an ex-lover stumble on a conspiracy that forces them to try to outsmart their insider peers. But as “ingenious” as the propulsive plot is, the “cynical lyricism” of this novel’s language is equally transfixing. “Reading it is like watching Sunset Boulevard for the first time.” Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman (Harper, $40) Every drama that we’ve seen play out at the Oscars “has been about power and its hold on the human ego,” said David Hajdu in The Nation. That’s the theme that ties together this smart new history of the annual event.…

3 Miley Cyrus “seems determined to be an adult,” said Izzy Ampil in Buzzfeed News. The “child star turned tabloid staple turned pop icon” has frequently rebranded herself over the past decade—most winningly in 2020 when she pivoted to ’80s-inspired rock. Now 30, the “undeniably talented” vocalist has finally allowed herself the freedom to present different musical styles and different facets of herself on the same album. Unfortunately, the album’s mix of “vaguely retro” radio-friendly pop music “only reinforces the sense that Cyrus doesn’t quite know how she wants to sound.” But think of Endless Summer Vacation as “a pop convenience store,” said Chris Willman in Variety. “There’s so much to like here,” beginning with the hit single “Flowers.” The album’s first half “leans wistful.” The more dynamic second half…

A stand-up roundup… Marc Maron: From Bleak to Dark Chris Rock grabbed more headlines, but Maron has turned in the best stand-up special of this young year. Like a more pessimistic George Carlin, he turns tragedies, even the death of his girlfriend, into resonant comedy. HBO Max Sommore: Queen Chandelier One of the original Queens of Comedy, Sommore has been in the game a long time. In her sixth comedy special, she shines like a fine chandelier, slaying her audience with jokes about soliciting prayers on social media, the pandemic, and staring down fans at the airport. Netflix Atsuko Okatsuka: The Intruder If you’ve caught Okatsuka on late-night, or maybe doing her Beyoncé-inspired #dropchallenge on TikTok, you know how funny she is. Even so, her first stand-up special is…

Este Austin “Vibrant and delicious, Este is one of Austin’s best seafood and Mexican restaurants at once,” said Matthew Odam in the Austin American-Statesman. Occupying a bungalow next to a large working garden, the latest project from Sam Hellman-Mass and chef Fermín Núñez does coastal Mexican with gusto. The colors in the airy, open dining room evoke sand, ocean, and tangerine sunsets, while oysters swimming in a carrot habanero broth are the perfect introduction to the best raw bar in town. The oysters and topneck clams, “zippy with habanero pico de gallo,” are “even more electric” when paired with a mezcal or tequila cocktail. Don’t miss the shell-on shrimp in chile costeño butter, unless you prefer the “umami madness” of bone-in turbot soaked in shishito-anchovy butter. Among the few…

Wanderu is by far the best app for comparing the prices of bus and train tickets. It looks at fares and schedules across Amtrak and multiple bus companies, including Greyhound, Megabus, Peter Pan Lines, Tripper, Vamoose, OurBus, and FlixBus. You can buy tickets through the app, but you generally get better refund and cancellation protection when you buy directly from the operator. Rome2Rio works worldwide, and it’s particularly useful if you need to know how long it will take to travel via multiple modes of transportation, including bus, train, car, plane. Enter your point A and point B, and the app will display your various options. Omio, which is owned by the same company as Rome2Rio, doesn’t work quite as seamlessly. But it does give quick price breakdowns, and unlike…

Credit Suisse shares tumbled this week to an all-time low amid concerns about its financial stability, said Owen Walker in the Financial Times. The Swiss bank’s largest shareholder, the chair of Saudi National Bank, “ruled out providing the bank with any more financial assistance,” a day after Credit Suisse’s auditor said it had identified “material weakness” in its financial reporting. The Saudi National Bank’s caution and questions about Credit Suisse’s balance sheet unnerved investors already shaken after two bank failures in the U.S. Economy: Data shows inflation heading down Inflation took another step in the right direction in February, but retail sales slid, said Gabriel T. Rubin and Nick Timiraos in The Wall Street Journal. The consumer price index rose 6 percent from a year earlier, “down from a 6.4…

Actually, it is nice to be rich Money can’t buy happiness? Think again, said Aimee Picchi in CBSNews.com. Nobel Prize–winning economist Daniel Kahneman famously published a 2010 study finding that “money could only boost happiness up to a point—about $75,000 in annual earnings.” Beyond that, “money had little impact.” Kahneman recently collaborated with Matthew Killingsworth—a critic of his original study—and found that “for most people, happiness does improve with higher earnings—up to $500,000 a year.” There is still “an unhappy group” of high earners whose salary above $100,000 “doesn’t make much of a difference” in alleviating their other miseries. “If you’re rich and miserable, money won’t help,” said Killingsworth. Don’t bet against the market TINA is still the queen of Wall Street, said Aaron Brown in Bloomberg. In financial…

Matt Levine Bloomberg Being the Bank of Startups probably got you invited to fancy parties, but the business was rickety, said Matt Levine. Silicon Valley Bank’s customers were primarily startups, which deposited loads of money into the bank, because “investors kept giving them trucks full of cash.” They also tended not to need loans. What could be so wrong with that? Well, SVB needed someplace to put its money, so “it bought longer-term bonds backed by the U.S. government”—and they turned out to be “unusually exposed to interest-rate risk” and lost value. Meanwhile, as borrowing became more expensive, SVB’s customers got “smoked” and stopped depositing money. And there’s another reason it is maybe not so great to be the Bank of Startups, “which is that nobody on earth is more…

Actor Robert Blake may have been found not guilty of killing his wife, but his past did not help his case. He played real-life killers in two lauded performances: Perry Smith in the 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and an Emmy-nominated turn as an accountant who kills his family in the 1993 made-for-TV movie Judgment Day: The John List Story. A former child actor who appeared in around 40 Our Gang comedy shorts starting at age 5, he was known for being temperamental, and he spent years battling drug addiction and suicidal thoughts. He could be strikingly frank about his troubled nature. “I like my rage,” he said in a 1977 Playboy interview. “I like being pissed off at all the shitty things that are…

Good week for: Free speech, with confirmation by a Canadian court that “flipping the bird” to anyone is not only legal, but “a God-given, charter-enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian.” Russian conscripts, 10,000 of whom have provided personal information to a Ukrainian confidential phone hotline for Russian soldiers who want to surrender discreetly. Callers to the “I Want to Live” line are greeted with the words “Hi, I’m listening” and assured that they will be listed as “captured.” Food fights, after Donald Trump’s SuperPAC filed a complaint with a Florida ethics commission, charging that Gov. Ron DeSantis is violating state ethics and election laws by taking and spending “millions of dollars” for his “shadow presidential campaign.” Bad week for: Jumping the gun, after President Biden told the crowd…

Cara Delevingne is a rare celebrity who benefited from being hounded by photographers, said Chioma Nnadi in Vogue. Last September, the paparazzi snapped photos of the 30-year-old model and actress as she waited shoeless, dazed, and disheveled at a Los Angeles airport after her return from the Burning Man festival in Nevada. She’d been bingeing on substances and not sleeping. “I was not okay,” she said. “I thought I was having fun, but at some point, it was like, ‘Okay, I don’t look well.’” Delevingne had started abusing drugs and alcohol as a teenager, while growing up as the daughter of a wealthy British socialite who struggled with bipolar disorder and heroin addiction. Modeling and then moving to Hollywood to act didn’t help Delevingne’s own mental health. “If you…

Norman L. Eisen and Fred Wertheimer Slate Could Georgia’s state legislature “fire a prosecutor for indicting Donald Trump?” asked Norman L. Eisen and Fred Wertheimer. It’s possible, under dangerous legislation approved by the state’s House and Senate in recent weeks. The legislation, which has yet to be signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, would create a commission that would have the power to investigate, discipline, and even remove district attorneys if anyone alleges that their prosecution decisions are “politically motivated.” This vague standard would invite the Republican-controlled legislature to repeatedly interfere with the work of elected district attorneys in Democratic counties and cities. That includes Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ ongoing investigation into Trump’s attempts to reverse Georgia’s vote in the 2020 election. With this weapon, Republicans could also…

“Division 1 women’s basketball players compete against men—at practice. They are former high school basketball players who attend the same practices as the women’s players and help the women become better players. During the 2015-2016 season, the University of Connecticut had a perfect 38-0 record. Yet players on the team that season admitted they regularly lost games in practice to their male practice squad players. No one could beat the team except for a group of former boys high school basketball players. Eventually, the standout male players in women’s basketball might not just be competing in practice.” Tom Joyce in the Washington Examiner…

EUROPEAN UNION Javier Espinoza and Sam Fleming Financial Times (U.K.) Now that the U.S. is pouring government money into green energy, the EU is rushing to catch up, said Javier Espinoza and Sam Fleming. The Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act gives a staggering $369 billion in subsidies and tax credits to the alternative energy sector. Europeans are worried that all that cash will lure international companies to the U.S. and away from Europe. And that anxiety is well founded: Europe’s largest carmaker, Volkswagen, has already put on hold plans for a battery plant on the Continent after estimating it could receive more than $10 billion in American incentives by relocating across the Atlantic. That’s led Brussels to loosen its own rules on state aid and allow member states to…

UGANDA Olivia Nalubwama The Observer Ugandan leaders have an easy way of distracting attention from their failures, said Olivia Nalubwama. Just stir up hatred of gays. Gay sex is already punishable by life in prison, but that’s not enough for our lawmakers. They are now considering a bill that would criminalize merely identifying as LGBTQ. Battling the supposed enemy of homosexuality “is much easier than fighting endemic corruption, electoral fraud, a flailing economy,” and all the other problems that actually hurt Ugandan people. Plus, you get the pious thrill of “policing the morality of others” without having to examine yourself. The same politician we see “frothing at the mouth about the threat of homosexuality in our schools” is happy to ignore his own sexual abuse of the young women in…

A surprising peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia could prove a “game-changing moment” for a “Middle East shaped by their decades-old rivalry,” said Tamara Qiblawi in CNN.com. Last week the two countries—which “have been at ideological and military loggerheads” since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution—announced that under a deal brokered by China, they are reopening embassies in each other’s countries and reviving a security cooperation pact and trade agreements. The move comes seven years after the Saudis cut ties with Iran over a Sunni-Shiite conflict; since 2015, the two countries have been fighting a devastating proxy war in Yemen. Whether this deal leads to a true détente remains to be seen, but it’s raised tentative hopes it “could herald the end of a blood-drenched era in the Middle East.”…

Republicans have made opposition to “woke” ideology “a cornerstone of their political agenda,” said Sarah Posner in MSNBC.com. But that narrow, culture-war focus could backfire, leaving them “out of touch” with most Americans. A USA Today/Ipsos poll released last week offered two definitions of “woke,” and 56 percent of respondents chose the positive one: “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.” Only 39 percent picked “to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.” The term originated in the Black community to refer to awareness of racial injustice, but the Right has turned it into a catch-all insult for any progressive idea. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has even imposed “authoritarian book bans and speech codes” to make his state the place “where woke goes to die.”…

It’s official: The way to get babies to stop crying and go to sleep is to pick them up and carry them, says Scientific American. A new study shows that being carried for at least five minutes can calm even the fussiest babies. The researchers say that’s because human babies exhibit the “transport response”—going quiet when carried quickly—that is shown by young mammals of other species, from mice to monkeys to lions. Because the young of these species are physically immature and unable to fend for themselves, they’ve evolved to be still while their mothers whisk them away from danger. “The infants innately cooperate with the parents by withholding their cries and movements,” says study co-author Kumi Kuroda, from Japan’s RIKEN Center for Brain Science. The mistake human parents…

(Viking, $30) It’s time to give due credit to America’s first acting female president, said Jessica Ruf in Washingtonian magazine. When President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in October 1919, his second wife, Edith, stepped in to keep the government running while sustaining the ruse that her incapacitated husband remained in control. “Impressive? Yes. Ethical? Of course not.” But author Rebecca Boggs Roberts shows us Edith Wilson whole, said Lauren Mechling in The Guardian. When Edith met the widowed president in 1915, the 42-year-old Virginia native was a woman of means who ran a jewelry shop that she’d inherited from her first husband. Though she initially spurned Wilson’s marriage proposal, she wed the president later in 1915 and proved “an unflagging co-worker and ingenious image crafter.” “In every respect…

Whatever trouble may lie ahead, Margaret Atwood, as always, “refuses to look away,” said Sarah Baxter in The Sunday Times (U.K.). When she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, she was observing the birth of an American political movement focused on controlling women’s bodies. When she wrote the stories in her new collection, Old Babes in the Wood, the 83-year-old Canadian legend had an even more implacable foe in view. “I know what’s coming: death,” she says. “At my age, I see a lot of it.” Seven of the stories even bring back Nell and Tig, a couple based on Atwood and her longtime partner, fellow writer Graeme Gibson, and this time Nell grapples first with Tig’s decline into dementia, and then his death. Atwood similarly lost Gibson in 2019: He…

  3 “The future looks bright for Colombia’s next pop queen,” said Lucas Villa in Spin. Karol G put the music industry on notice last week when her fourth LP debuted at the top of the Billboard 200, making it the first Spanish-language album by a female artist to reach No. 1. Having established herself as the girl boss of the male-dominated reggaeton scene with 2020’s “Bichota”, the 32-year-old singer-songwriter explores new sounds and “lets her emotions fly” on this, “her most adventurous album yet.” She coos to fiery dembow on “Ojos Ferrari,” waltzes to traditional música Mexicana with “Gucci Los Paños,” and dabbles in pop-rock on “Tus Gafitas.” Reggaeton and house music collide on “Cairo” to create something “kinetic, cool, and futuristic,” said Ernesto Lechner in Rolling Stone. “Not…

Roborock Q5+ With Auto Empty Dock Roborock’s midrange model overcomes most of the limitations of robot vacs. It’s easy to clean, maps rooms flawlessly, and goes far on a charge. It doesn’t sense when its bin is full but can follow voice commands. $500, roborock.com Source: Wired iLife V3s Pro Robot A budget alternative, this machine “outperformed much more expensive vacuums.” You control it with a remote, not an app. But it’s thorough, avoids obstacles, and has no brushes that would require regular cleaning to remove fur and hair. $165, iliferobot.com Source: Better Homes & Gardens Eufy RoboVac 11S This budget option is “surprisingly thorough.” It cleans more randomly because it doesn’t map your space and it doesn’t empty its own bin. But it’s quieter than its smart rivals…

Some 124 million children and adolescents around the globe are not in school, while 25 percent of children in low-income countries can’t read. Room to Read (roomtoread.org) is working to change that through its literacy and girls’ education programs. The charity collaborates with schools and local governments to ensure that teachers and librarians are well trained and that school libraries are full of books in children’s local languages. It also helps cover tuition fees so that girls can stay in school and works with governments to change national policies holding girls back. With over 36 million books distributed, 3.3 million girls supported, and 200,000 teachers and librarians trained, more than 32 million children in 20 countries have benefited from Room to Read’s programs. Each charity we feature has earned…

Peter Hoskins BBC.com Chinese billionaires keep vanishing, said Peter Hoskins. “In 2015 alone, at least five executives became unreachable, including Guo Guangchang, chairman of conglomerate Fosun International.” In March 2020, billionaire real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang disappeared after calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “clown” over his handling of the pandemic. He was later sentenced to 18 years in prison on corruption charges. Alibaba founder Jack Ma vanished for more than a year after he criticized China’s financial regulators. The planned mega-listing of Alibaba sister company Ant Group was shelved, and Ma now seems to be living in exile. Last month, billionaire Bao Fan, “a titan in the country’s tech sector,” disappeared, too. His mysterious case is like the others: After he went missing for days, his company announced he…

Theodore Kanamine was an unlikely American patriot, interned in a prison camp by his own country but growing up to serve that country with distinction. He became the U.S. Army’s first Japanese-American active-duty general, serving in the Korean and Vietnam wars. A commander with the military police in Saigon, Kanamine later helped lead the Army’s investigation into the My Lai Massacre, in which U.S. troops murdered unarmed civilians. He was admired for his dedicated service. “I believe in the philosophy of ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’” he said in 2012. “I think my family and friends know this.” Kanamine was born in North Hollywood, Calif., to immigrant parents who owned a market near the Walt Disney Studio, said The Washington Post. Disney himself would invite neighborhood kids, Kanamine included, to the…