The Week Magazine November 14, 2025

“Nazis. I hate these guys.” The first time I heard that line, I was 10 years old and sitting in a grubby cinema somewhere in southwest England. I was watching rapt as Indiana Jones—appearing in his last good movie, 1989’s The Last Crusade—realizes he’ll have to face off against his old goose-stepping foes. I like to think that I nodded enthusiastically at Indy’s words, because I also hated Nazis. While World War II was at that time some four decades in the past, it continued to rage in the British popular imagination. My childhood was filled with stories of relatives who’d survived the beaches of Dunkirk and tussled with the Luftwaffe in the skies over Europe. My bookshelves were stacked with comics like Battle and Commando, in which steel-helmeted German…

What happened Democrats this week swept an off-year Election Day with a series of commanding wins from Virginia to California, delivering a rebuke of President Trump and raising the party’s hopes for the 2026 midterms. In New Jersey, a closely fought gubernatorial contest turned into a 13-point rout by Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot who cast Republican Jack Ciattarelli as a MAGA acolyte who would “do whatever Trump tells him to do.” Sherrill won at least five counties Trump carried in 2024. In Virginia, former congresswoman and ex–CIA officer Abigail Spanberger will succeed GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin after crushing Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by 15 points. Running as a pragmatic centrist, Spanberger produced a blue shift in every county from the 2021 gubernatorial election. “Tonight we…

■ A pair of used socks helped lure back Norm Feigenbaum’s yellow lab Sunny after she escaped from his backyard. The 93-year-old enlisted animal rescue volunteers, who tracked the dog to a 1,325-acre nature preserve in Los Angeles. They planted a pair of Feigenbaum’s socks to locate Sunny. But it took an offering of meatballs, kielbasa, and rotisserie chicken to bring her out. Sunny “had a huge smile on her face” when she saw Feigenbaum, said volunteer Jennifer Justice. “It was obvious that he was her person.” ■ After Nick Mondek learned in 2022 he was dying of acute myeloid leukemia, a bone marrow cancer, his brother donated stem cells that briefly sent the disease into remission. But his cancer returned last April, and he couldn’t find a genetic match…

What happened Historic numbers of New Yorkers voted this week to elect democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor, in a clear challenge to the political establishment. Mamdani, 34, who will be the city’s first Muslim mayor, defeated former three-term Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa. A state assemblyman who was largely unknown when he won the Democratic primary, Mamdani took half of the more than 2 million votes in the biggest turnout in 56 years, and won 70% of voters under 45. Mamdani focused his campaign on the city’s affordability crisis, promising a rent freeze, free buses, and city-run grocery stores—all to be financed by a tax on millionaires. At least 25 billionaires donated to pro-Cuomo PACs. Upon winning, the mayor-elect thanked “the…

What happened The Supreme Court this week appeared skeptical that President Trump has the legal authority to unilaterally impose tariffs on goods from across the globe, signaling that the justices may be prepared to strike down his signature economic policy. At oral arguments in a case that Trump described as “life or death,” several conservative justices joined their liberal bench mates in grilling Solicitor General D. John Sauer about whether Trump is usurping Congress’ taxation power. Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, expressed concern that handing tariff power to the president could lead to a “one-way ratchet” in which Congress struggles to reclaim its authority. Meanwhile, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another Trump appointee, questioned whether it was necessary to tax imports from allies for national security reasons. “I mean, Spain?”…

The poison of antisemitism is “growing on the new right,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, and it’s “spreading wider and faster than we thought.” Last week, Tucker Carlson hosted “Hitler fanboy” Nick Fuentes on his podcast for a “chummy” two-hour interview watched by more than 5 million people. The white nationalist influencer, 27, toned down his material for the chat—he’s previously talked about wanting a child bride and fantasized about killing a Black man with Hitler—but still praised Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin and assailed the threat of “organized Jewry.” Carlson largely nodded along and even admitted he loathed Christian Zionists such as the staunchly pro-Israel GOP Sen. Ted Cruz “more than anybody.” That Carlson would grant Fuentes access to his massive audience is proof that his hate…