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81 Articles

Editor’s letter

For much of the year, Finland has but a few hours of light and temperatures well below 0 degrees F. Yet the Finns are the happiest people in the world, according to the U.N.’s annual World Happiness Report. Norway is second, followed by Denmark and Iceland (also cold and dark). The U.S. dropped four places to 18th. (See Noted.) Now, happiness is no doubt hard to quantify, and this ranking should be taken as more suggestive than definitive. But why does our powerful and wealthy nation—whose founding promise is the individual pursuit of happiness—consistently fall into a second tier…and keep sinking? Human beings, anthropologists and social psychologists tell us, are social creatures. Much of our happiness flows from our connections to other people, our sense of community and joint purpose. On…

Trump’s new offensive against the Russia probe

What happened Several Republican lawmakers publicly urged President Trump not to fire Robert Mueller this week, after the president openly attacked the special counsel by name for the first time, describing his investigation as a “total witch hunt” that “should never have been started.” In a series of angry tweets that alarmed Washington, the president celebrated the controversial dismissal of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, falsely claimed that Mueller’s team contains 13 “hardened Democrats” and “zero Republicans,” and insisted there was “NO COLLUSION!” Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, later called for an end to the Mueller probe—reportedly on his client’s instructions. The president shook up his legal team by adding Joe diGenova, an outspoken former U.S. attorney who has described the investigation as “a Deep State conspiracy” to “frame Donald Trump…

Trump’s new offensive against the Russia probe

Facebook shaken by data harvesting scandal

What happened Facebook faced withering criticism and the likelihood of multiple government investigations this week amid revelations that a political data firm hired by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign used the social network to harvest the personal information of more than 50 million users without their permission. In 2014, U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica paid University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan to collect data on Facebook users with a personality quiz app. Some 270,000 people took the quiz; by mining the Facebook profiles of their friends, Kogan built a database of 50 million users. Facebook told Kogan that the data could be used only for academic purposes, but Cambridge Analytica—co-founded by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and partly owned by conservative donor Robert Mercer—tapped it to build “psychographic” profiles of voters, who…

Facebook shaken by data harvesting scandal

It wasn’t all bad

A magic school bus has Kabul’s kids reading again. The bright blue library on wheels—nicknamed Walnut—drives from sunrise to sunset around the war-torn Afghan capital, stopping for hours in each neighborhood so children can peruse its hundreds of books. Its creator, Oxford University graduate Freshta Karim, 25, hopes the bus will expose the city’s young residents to the joys of reading and help combat the country’s 62 percent illiteracy rate. So far, the bus has been a hit. “I read a book here and learn something from it,” says 10-year-old Sameer. “Then I go home and tell the story to my sisters, and I get to learn more.” A Canadian man whose life was saved with a heart transplant just ran his first ever 10K—with his donor’s family cheering him on.…

It wasn’t all bad

Putin: How the West should respond

It’s time “to wipe the smirk off Putin’s face,” said the New York Post in an editorial. While Russia’s autocratic president was chest-thumping over his rigged election “victory” this week, former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were clinging to life in a British hospital, victims of a chemical-weapon attack that Vladimir Putin almost certainly ordered. Putin has suffered no serious consequences for his annexation of Crimea, his invasion of Ukraine, or his bombing of Syrian civilians, but the brazen use of the Russian-made nerve gas Novichok on British soil seems to have finally roused Western nations out of their passivity. As a first step, Britain this week expelled 23 Russian diplomats, while the Trump White House imposed fresh sanctions on 24 Russian firms and individuals already accused of interference…

Putin: How the West should respond

Good week/bad week

Good week for: Shouting at each other, after the Nielsen company reported that 26 of the 40 most-watched programs on cable TV last week were political shows on Fox News and MSNBC. Just three scripted entertainment programs made the list. A little less shouting, after retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters resigned as a strategic analyst for Fox News, saying the network had become “a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration” and is “fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers.” Sir Ringo Starr, the former Beatles drummer, who was knighted this week by Britain’s Prince William for his services to music. “It means a lot, actually,” said Starr, 77. Bad week for: Dignity, after White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was sitting on…

Only in America

A Washington, D.C., lawmaker blamed the area’s recent snowfalls on “the Rothschilds.” Democratic Council member Trayon White Sr. told constituents that the Jewish banking family is “controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man.” White later apologized, saying he didn’t realize his comments were anti-Semitic. A Massachusetts lawmaker is calling for the “General Hooker Entrance” sign to be removed from a doorway to the State House because it is offensive to women. Democratic State Rep. Michelle DuBois says that although the entrance is named in honor of Civil War General Joseph Hooker, female staffers avoid it. On Twitter, DuBois explained, “#Metoo—it’s not all about rape and harassment but also women’s dignity.” Boring but important Pennsylvania election map upheld Pennsylvania Republicans were dealt a double blow this…

Self-driving fatality

Self-driving fatality Tempe, Ariz. Uber suspended all tests of its self-driving cars this week after one of its autonomous vehicles struck and killed a woman in Tempe—marking the first known pedestrian fatality from a driverless vehicle. A preliminary investigation seemed to indicate that the Uber car wasn’t at fault, said Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir. The Volvo SUV, which had an emergency backup driver behind the wheel, was traveling down a dimly lit road in autonomous mode when Elaine Herzberg, 49—who police believe may have been homeless—allegedly stepped suddenly into the road and tried to cross outside a designated crosswalk. “The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” said Moir. “It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any…

Self-driving fatality

Brexit breakthrough

London The date of Britain’s final divorce from the European Union has effectively been kicked down the road for two years, after London and Brussels agreed this week on a 21-month transition period before Britain loses access to the single market. That transition period will kick in at the end of March 2019, when Britain is supposed to formally leave the EU. But the U.K. had to make significant concessions to get the grace period: It must abide by European court rulings in the interim and continue paying into the EU budget until 2064. Also, the transition period will go into effect only if a withdrawal agreement is finalized. Outdoor rinks melt Waterloo, Ontario Climate change is liquefying that Canadian cultural touchstone, the backyard ice-skating rink. Many Canadian hockey players grew up skating on…

Brexit breakthrough

RuPaul’s political message

Even as a child, RuPaul knew he was different, said Decca Aitkenhead in The Guardian (U.K.). He grew up in San Diego with three sisters and dirt-poor parents, and from the beginning, the gender norms for boys didn’t work for him. “I thought, ‘OK, I want nothing to do with that. In fact I’m lucky that I don’t fit in, because now I can play with all the toys and all the colors.’” He also told himself, “I’m smart enough to figure out what I can do to fit in.” RuPaul, 57, is now a major star, presiding over his own hit TV show about drag queens. It’s poignant and very funny, but for RuPaul drag is also political. “It has a position on identity, which is really the most…

RuPaul’s political message

Kardashian’s surrogacy experience

Kim Kardashian had a good reason for using a surrogate mother to carry her third child, said Molly Young in Elle. Kardashian, 37, was desperate to have another baby with husband Kanye West, but knew the process could kill her: During the deliveries of her first two children, North, 4, and Saint, 2, she developed a dangerous condition called placenta accreta. “After giving birth, your placenta is supposed to come out. But mine was stuck. That’s what women usually die from in childbirth—you hemorrhage and bleed to death and they can’t stop it. To get it out—it’s so disgusting—the doctor had to stick his whole arm in me. It was the most painful.” So she and West used in vitro fertilization to create several embryos, and began interviewing surrogacy candidates.…

Kardashian’s surrogacy experience

LaBeouf’s inner rage

Shia LaBeouf is trying to get to the root of his anger problems, said Eric Sullivan in Esquire. The hotheaded actor has been involved in public meltdowns that have led to speculation about his mental health—culminating last July in a court-ordered spell in rehab for a drunken altercation with police in Savannah. “I’ve been falling forward for a long time—most of my life,” he says. “The truth is, in my desperation, I lost the plot.” During therapy in rehab, LaBeouf, 31, realized that his rage dates back to his turbulent childhood in California. “They said I had PTSD,” he says. LaBeouf’s father, Jeffrey, was a Vietnam vet who struggled with heroin addiction. By the time he was 3, his father had left—leaving mom Shayna to fend for the two of…

Vanessa Trump, the wife of President Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has filed for divorce—reportedly having tired of Don Jr.’s constant jet setting and hard-line partisan tweets. The former model was introduced to Don Jr. by his father at a party; the two married in 2005 and have five children together. She filed for divorce days after special counsel Robert Mueller subpoenaed the Trump Organization—run by Don Jr. and his brother Eric—for records related to the Russia investigation. Vanessa has hired a lawyer who often does criminal defense, but she and Don Jr. say their divorce is “amicable.” The marriage has been shaky since Don Jr. had an affair with a Celebrity Apprentice cast member in 2011, Us Weekly reported. The two grew apart in the wake of Trump…

The Starr investigation

How did Ken Starr’s investigation into President Clinton resemble—and differ from—the ongoing Mueller investigation? Why was Clinton investigated? It began over the Whitewater scandal, a long-running controversy concerning a failed 1978 land deal in Arkansas. The Clintons’ business partner in that project defrauded a small savings association and an investment firm, and some of the parties involved charged that the president and his wife had benefited from the fraud. In January 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Robert Fiske as a special prosecutor to investigate the Clintons’ involvement. Seven months later, however, a Republican-leaning panel of judges dismissed Fiske—on the basis that his appointment by Clinton’s attorney general represented a conflict of interest—and appointed Ken Starr as an independent counsel, reporting to Congress, not to the Justice Department. Starr, who had served…

The Starr investigation

Consistently wrong on the economy

Jonathan Chait NYMag.com President Trump’s new chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, has been “historically, massively wrong” about the economy for decades, said Jonathan Chait. Kudlow, the former CNBC host taking over from Gary Cohn as head of the National Economic Council, is a doctrinaire supply-sider who has an almost “theological” belief in cutting taxes. When President Bill Clinton raised the top income tax rate in 1993, Kudlow predicted it would halt the recovery and depress growth. An unprecedented boom followed. Kudlow prophesied the Bush tax cuts would generate such growth that budget surpluses would blossom; instead, they produced giant deficits. In 2007, he dismissed housing bubble fears as a “hallucination” created by Bush-hating pessimists. “There’s no recession coming,” he insisted. After stocks crashed and the Great Recession set in, he warned that…

Hillary’s deplorable worldview

Christian Schneider USAToday.com Hillary Clinton just can’t stop insulting voters, said Christian Schneider. As a presidential candidate, Clinton famously called supporters of Donald Trump “deplorables”—and at a speaking engagement in India last week, she bitterly elaborated on the faults of the people who denied her the presidency. Trump, she complained, appealed to white men who oppose “black people getting rights” and “women getting jobs,” while millions of sheep-like white women voted for Trump because of “ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.” Actually, Clinton lost because her elitist condescension repelled so many voters. Democrats should be alarmed. In the 2018 midterm elections, they must win over Rust Belt and blue-collar voters whom Clinton “clearly reviles.” She remains as toxic as ever, and…

Fox News off the deep end

David French NationalReview.com “It’s easy to understand why conservatives, especially older conservatives, feel affection for Fox News,” said David French. When the network launched in 1996, it provided “a necessary, healthy dose of competition” to a left-leaning “legacy media.” But as Fox came to dominate conservative discourse, “it started to attract a constellation of cranks and grifters” peddling sensationalistic conspiracy theories and unhinged partisanship. Last summer, Fox reporters and commentators Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich relentlessly promoted the conspiracy theory that a Democratic operative named Seth Rich, whom police say was killed in a Washington, D.C., street robbery, was actually assassinated by Democrats. Without any evidence whatsoever, Fox claimed it was Rich—and not Russian hackers—who had actually given embarrassing Democratic emails to WikiLeaks. The network’s obvious goal: to debunk the Russian-hacking narrative…

"The problem with strongman rule is that the strongmen are not immortal. While Vladimir Putin himself has a secure hold on power for the foreseeable future, he will eventually grow old and die. And the government he has created is so dependent on him that no one knows who—or what—will take over when he’s gone. The Russian political system [is] remarkably vulnerable. In a personalist regime, all power and legitimacy rests in the Big Man. The leader’s death is more likely to create a crisis. It could be very bloody once it comes.” Zack Beauchamp in Vox.com…

I read it in the tabloids

A Romanian court has ruled that a 63-year-old man is dead, even though he argued in person that he is still very much alive. Constantin Reliu was declared dead in 2016 at his wife’s request, since she hadn’t heard from him since he moved to Turkey to seek a job in 2002. When he returned to Romania this year, Reliu discovered he was listed as dead. He took his case to court, but judges refused to nullify his death certificate, saying he’d taken too long to appeal it. “I am officially dead,” said a bemused Reliu, “although I’m alive.” A Utah family is the proud owner of what could be the world’s largest puppy. Bred to resemble the Mesopotamian Molossus—a 7,000-year-old canine species that accompanied the ancient Greeks into battle—Euphrates the…

I read it in the tabloids

Our judicial sovereignty is under threat

POLAND Tomasz Pietryga Rzeczpospolita Ireland has impugned the integrity of Polish justice—with possibly catastrophic consequences for Poland, said Tomasz Pietryga. Last week, an Irish high court judge refused to extradite a suspected drug trafficker to Poland, saying that recent legislative changes to the Polish judicial system were “so immense” that they have “systematically damaged” the rule of law here. Justice Aileen Donnelly has now referred the case to the European Court of Justice. If that court rules against us, the European Union will be forced to find Warsaw in breach of EU norms and could halt the $17 billion in funding it sends Poland every year. Such a judgment would have “the strength of an atomic bomb,” because all international courts would then feel free to set aside Polish rulings. Both the Polish…

Chancellor won’t rein in far right

AUSTRIA Eric Frey Der Standard The far right has been in government in Austria for a mere three months, but it has already caused a major scandal, said Eric Frey. The Freedom Party—founded by former Nazis after World War II—is the junior member in the coalition led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s center-right People’s Party and has been given control of the Interior Ministry. Last week, the “power-mad” Interior Minister Herbert Kickl abruptly fired Peter Gridling, the respected chief of our main domestic intelligence agency, and sent a police squad to raid his home and confiscate computers and documents. As head of the intelligence agency for the past decade, Gridling was responsible for investigating the activities of Austrian far-right extremist groups. So his abrupt removal by a far-right party looks extraordinarily suspicious. The Freedom…

European Union: Tepid support for U.K. against Russia

Whose side is the European Union on? asked James Tapsfield in the Daily Mail (U.K.). Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, are fighting for their lives in the hospital after being sickened by the Soviet-developed nerve agent Novichok two weeks ago; police officer Nick Bailey, who tended to the two after they were found unconscious on a park bench in the city of Salisbury, is in serious condition. The U.K. government says the chemical attack was almost certainly ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it has kicked out 23 Russian diplomats. Moscow retaliated by booting 23 British diplomats from Russia. Yet EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels have refused to explicitly blame Russia for this horrific crime, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker…

European Union: Tepid support for U.K. against Russia

How they see us: An Iran hawk as chief diplomat

The replacement of Rex Tillerson with Mike Pompeo as U.S. secretary of state will be “good for the U.S. and good for Israel,” said The Jerusalem Post (Israel) in an editorial. Tillerson never had any influence on President Trump, who often mocked the former Exxon boss. But Pompeo has proved during his year heading the CIA that he can sway the president, not least by his use of “killer graphics” in his daily intelligence briefings. Most important, the two hold the same worldview. Unlike Tillerson, Pompeo shares Trump’s opposition to the Iran nuclear deal—the 2015 agreement that waived international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for the regime limiting its nuclear programs. Pompeo has rightfully called the Obama-era pact a “disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” He…

How they see us: An Iran hawk as chief diplomat

A harsh culture for immigrants

ISRAEL Arona Maskil Ynetnews.com Israel may be the ultimate melting pot, said Arona Maskil, but it’s also a tough place to try to assimilate. In this one tiny strip of land, immigrants from all over jostle together: Russians, Ethiopians, Poles, and Americans, to name just a few. More than 20 percent of us are Israeli Arabs, and of the rest, nine out of 10 are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Coming here from elsewhere is normal. So why do newcomers find it so hard to acclimate? Maybe it’s because Israeli culture values “courage, energy, opinionated views, impatience, creativity, and improvisation.” All noble traits, but taken to our extremes they can manifest as shoving and bickering. Don’t forget, Israel “has been on the defensive against its neighbors and much of the world…

Pelting politicians isn’t funny

PAKISTAN Imad Zafar DunyaNews.tv The political climate in Pakistan is turning violent, said Imad Zafar. During a recent campaign rally for July’s general elections, Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif had ink thrown in his face; at another, a tossed shoe struck former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the neck. In both cases, the culprits were members of the opposition Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labaik, led by fanatic mullah Khadim Hussain Rizvi. This is the same group that shut down the center of Islamabad for three weeks last fall with a sit-in protest against a small change to the oath that all incoming Pakistani parliamentarians must swear. The party argued that the words “I believe,” used to replace the stronger “I solemnly swear” in the proclamation that Muhammad was Islam’s final prophet, amounted to blasphemy. The government…

Trump’s Cabinet: The Swamp lives

“When it comes to frivolous spending on the government dime while the populace is told to make sacrifices, Marie Antoinette was a rank amateur,” said Helaine Olen in The Washington Post. President Trump’s billionaire-filled Cabinet has been showing the self-indulgent French queen how it’s done, with at least five members now mired in federal investigations involving taxpayer-funded splurges. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has reportedly squandered almost $1 million on eight trips on military aircraft. “Then there’s Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson,” said Becket Adams in WashingtonExaminer.com, who attempted to spend $31,000—“that’s a 31 followed by three zeroes”—on a dining room set for his office. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt has been flying first class with a squadron of bodyguards so that he can avoid being heckled by…

Trump’s Cabinet: The Swamp lives

The CIA: Putting a ‘torturer’ in charge

“There is no way to sugarcoat this,” said Karen Greenberg in NBCNews.com. President Trump’s nominee to replace Mike Pompeo as CIA director was “actively complicit” in torture. Gina Haspel, a 30-year veteran at Langley and current deputy director, ran a CIA “black site” in Thailand in the aftermath of 9/11. At these secret facilities, agents questioned terror suspects using so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, physical beatings, forced nudity, and “confinement in a coffin-like box” filled with insects. At least one suspect, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was repeatedly waterboarded during Haspel’s tenure, and she participated in “the decision to destroy recordings of the interrogations.” If the Senate confirms Haspel, it’ll be a “tacit endorsement” of her actions, said Michael Cohen in The Boston Globe. With a known “torturer” heading…

The happiest country in the world is Finland, according to the U.N.’s annual World Happiness Report. The U.S. came in 18th out of 156 countries on a rating system based on income, life expectancy, freedom, social support, trust, and generosity.USA Today Upon entering office, President Trump demanded that his staff members sign nondisclosure agreements to prevent them from talking, writing, or leaking about their “confidential” experiences in the White House. A leaked early draft of those NDAs—which legal experts say are unconstitutional and unenforceable—stipulates that the penalty for talking would be $10 million.The Washington Post Black men raised in even the wealthiest families and most well-to-do neighborhoods earn less in adulthood than white men with similar backgrounds, according to a major new study. This gap doesn’t exist for black women raised in…

Opioids: Trump’s death penalty solution

“The Trump administration finally has an ambitious, detailed plan for combating the opioid epidemic,” said Eric Levitz in NYMag.com, and the proposal is “simultaneously encouraging and horrifying.” President Trump’s multipronged approach, unveiled in Manchester, N.H., this week, “includes some evidence-based reforms that public-health experts have been recommending for years.” The good news is that Trump plans to use $6 billion allocated by Congress to increase access to the overdose antidote naloxone, and to the medications buprenorphine and methadone, which can reduce cravings and help addicts get off heroin and opioid pills. Medicaid enrollees will get “easier access to in-patient addiction treatment.” Those sensible ideas were overshadowed, though, by Trump’s proposal to pursue the death penalty against drug dealers, said Dara Lind in Vox.com—an idea likely inspired by Philippine strongman Rodrigo…

Opioids: Trump’s death penalty solution

Lamb: A model for Democrats?

Democrats, it’s time to trade in leftism for “Lambism,” said Ronald Radosh in TheDailyBeast.com. Last week, Democrat Conor Lamb eked out a special-election win in a western Pennsylvania congressional district that President Trump won by 20 points. Lamb, a former Marine with deep ties to the district, vowed to protect Obamacare, condemned the Republican tax cuts, and embraced organized labor. But he ran as a centrist Democrat, shunning the far-left template favored by the anti-Trump “Resistance.” Lamb refused to parrot the progressive line on guns (he supports expanded background checks but opposes an assault weapons ban) and abortion (Lamb is personally opposed but supports the legal right to choose), and he barely mentioned Trump by name. “If Democrats want to take back the House,” they need to run moderates like…

“Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead.” John Updike, quoted in BrainPickings.org “How drunk was Scott Fitzgerald when he said there were no second acts in American lives?” Martin Amis, quoted in The New York Times “Forgiveness is no favor. I do it for myself. It’s the easier way to live.” Ashley Judd, quoted in Town & Country “Propaganda is the art of persuading others of what you don’t believe yourself.” Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, quoted in the New York Post “A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff nature replaces it with.” Tennessee Williams, quoted in the Portland, Maine, Press Herald “Reality takes on certain shapes merely for the sake of appearance, as a joke or form of play.” Polish writer…

Silicon Valley: Google’s diversity dilemma

Google’s white-male problem isn’t going away, said Ellen Huet and Mark Bergen in Bloomberg.com. The search giant is increasingly taking heat “from both sides” of the diversity debate: “those who say it’s not doing enough to include women and underrepresented racial minorities and those who assert that its efforts go too far.” A veteran Google recruiter recently filed a lawsuit against the company alleging that he was fired “because he didn’t toe the line on rejecting white and Asian male job candidates.” Arne Wilberg, who worked at Google for nine years, said he was explicitly instructed to consider applicants only from “underrepresented groups,” such as Hispanics, African-Americans, and women, and that he was fired when he complained. That suit comes after former Google engineer James Damore sued in January, claiming…

Silicon Valley: Google’s diversity dilemma

What’s new in tech

YouTube adds Wikipedia links YouTube announced last week that it will add Wikipedia links to videos about controversial topics and conspiracy theories in order to “better inform viewers,” said Blake Montgomery in BuzzFeed.com. The company concedes that adding links to videos about subjects such as the moon landing or chemtrails is by no means “a full-scale solution” to the complex problem of misinformation on the platform. But it’s the first step in what the company said will be a series of tools to help contextualize videos. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, said “it had not been given advance notice of YouTube’s announcement,” adding that no “formal partnership with YouTube” exists. Wikipedia itself is crowdsourced, meaning anyone can edit it, and it “remains unclear how YouTube will ensure…

Innovation of the week

“Sheldon County is a podcast that will never sound the same twice,” said James Vincent in TheVerge.com. A Ph.D. student at University of California, Santa Cruz, is developing an AI-generated podcast with completely unique characters and plotlines for each listener. To begin, the listener types in a random number, setting in motion a “Rube Goldberg machine of calculation that will create characters, relationships, jealousies, betrayals, and maybe even a murder or two.” These plot strands are converted into a narrative read aloud by a voice synthesizer, delivering a listening experience that is distinct every time. The creator, linguist turned programmer James Ryan, has already produced several episodes, to prove that the concept can work, and is now developing a website for the wider public. It’s a glimpse at the future…

Innovation of the week

Climate change’s extinction threat

If current carbon emission trends continue unabated, climate change could wipe out up to half of all wildlife and 60 percent of plants in the world’s richest tropical habitats by the end of the century, according to a landmark new study. Researchers from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the University of East Anglia, and James Cook University analyzed the effects of a warming world on nearly 80,000 different plants and animals in 35 biologically diverse areas, including the Amazon River basin, the Galápagos Islands, Madagascar, and the Sundarbans in the Ganges River delta. They warn that a global temperature rise of 3.2 degrees Celsius (5.7 Fahrenheit)—which is now the United Nation’s estimated forecast for 2100—will render many habitats unsuitable for indigenous plants and animals, killing off such species as elephants…

Climate change’s extinction threat

Exercise slows aging

Exercise dramatically slows the aging process, helping people look and feel decades younger, new research suggests. British scientists compared a group of 125 avid cyclists between 55 and 79 years old with a group of inactive older people and younger adults in their 20s and 30s. They found those who routinely biked long distances had more muscle mass, less body fat, and healthier cholesterol levels than their sedentary peers. The cyclists also had the memory, balance, and immune system function of the adults roughly half their age. As people grow older, their bodies make fewer and fewer T cells, which help protect against infection. Researchers found, however, that the active older adults were still making as many T cells as the people in their 20s, potentially reducing their risk for…

Exercise slows aging

Recession’s health toll

Many Americans lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings during the Great Recession, and new research indicates such economic stress can make people physically sick. Between 2007 and 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate doubled from 5 percent to 10 percent and home prices plummeted about 30 percent, on average. Researchers analyzed a long-running heart study to determine how the country’s economic woes affected American health. After examining data collected on 4,600 middle-aged and older adults between 2000 and 2012, they found the recession triggered dramatic increases in blood pressure and blood sugar levels, reports The Washington Post. The study also shows that many people stopped taking their medication during the recession—likely because they could no longer afford it or had lost their insurance. Study author Teresa Seeman warns that economic…

Home run weather

Traditional baseball wisdom says that pitchers are “ahead of the hitters” when the season starts in the chilly early spring, while on the hot days of summer, scoring—and home runs—soar. There is a real, scientific reason for that phenomenon, says PopularScience.com: Struck baseballs fly farther on the hot, humid days of summer. Heat causes gases to expand, which reduces air density, or the number of molecules packed into one space. As a result, baseballs face less resistance as they fly through the air on a hot day. “For a ball hit at the typical home run speed and trajectory, a 10 degree [Fahrenheit] change in temperature is worth about a little over 3 feet in distance,” says physics professor Alan Nathan. Altitude and humidity also affect the flight of a…

Home run weather

Drowsiness linked to dementia

Persistent daytime drowsiness may be a warning sign for Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests. During sleep, the brain clears away clumps of a sticky protein linked to dementia, called amyloid. It’s well known that people with Alzheimer’s often have trouble sleeping. To examine the link between amyloid deposits and sleep, Mayo Clinic researchers surveyed 283 older people without dementia about their sleep habits and monitored their brains for amyloid buildup over a period of seven years. They found those who reported trouble sleeping, with frequent daytime sleepiness, were more likely to show rapid amyloid plaque accumulation than those who didn’t. Study author Prashanthi Vemuri tells Time.com that the results highlight the importance of proper sleep. “It can prevent amyloid, which is one of the primary proteins underlying Alzheimer’s disease,”…

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

(Harper, $28) Deep immersion in the hunt for the Golden State Killer “would drive nearly anyone to despair,” said Sara Century in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Before she died two years ago, at 46, from an accidental prescription drug overdose, author Michelle McNamara spent five years obsessing over the case, and it’s easy to see why. McNamara, who ran a true-crime website, picked up the suspect’s trail after DNA tests revealed in 2011 that the same unidentified man had been responsible for at least 50 rapes and 10 murders in California between 1976 and 1986. Given all the evidence he left behind, he should be findable. But McNamara, like countless detectives before her, never did nail her quarry, instead leaving behind “a new kind of true-crime book,” one that’s…

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

The Sparsholt Affair

(Knopf, $29) Alan Hollinghurst’s novels often let us see more than their characters do, said Jon Day in the Financial Times. In his latest, a work “as accomplished and pleasurable as anything he has written,” the title character is a blur, to himself and others. We meet David Sparsholt in 1940, when he’s a freshman at Oxford, and we later zoom in on his gay son, just before David becomes a figure in a major homosexual scandal that lands him in jail. But Hollinghurst’s language, for all its “burnished, witty richness,” is evasive here, said Alexandra Schwartz in The New Yorker. Most of the crucial drama occurs offstage, and we never even learn what the father thinks of his son or vice versa. Yet Hollinghurst, the author of The Line of…

The Sparsholt Affair

The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats

Did you have some avocado toast this morning? Perhaps some seedless grapes? If so, “you owe a debt of thanks to David Fairchild,” said Ron Hogan in the New York Post. In 1894, when the average American meal was a fairly bland affair, the then-25-year-old botanist embarked on a bid to find and bring home for cultivation the most intriguing fruits, vegetables, and grains he could find. Nectarines, peaches, dates, kale, zucchini, pomegranates, mangoes—all found their way to U.S. farmland thanks to Fairchild’s scouting efforts over the next decade, and he even triggered a beer boom by importing superior German hops. “We’re a nation of immigrants,” said Debbie Arrington in The Sacramento Bee. “So is our food.” Fairchild’s first excursion “might well have been his last,” said Barry Estabrook in The…

The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats

Chosen by Anna Quindlen

In Anna Quindlen’s new novel, Alternate Side, a cozy Manhattan neighborhood is upended by a violent crime. Below, the best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion columnist names six of her favorite books by female contemporary writers. The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26). The latest of McDermott’s deeply felt novels is the story of a girl who grows up among the Little Sisters of the Poor in a Brooklyn convent. With her deft use of detail and her profound understanding of human nature, McDermott creates a world entire in a slender volume. White Houses by Amy Bloom (Random House, $27). Bloom, too, is a gifted miniaturist, yet her novels feel epic. Here she makes vivid the love affair between Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt in…

Chosen by Anna Quindlen

In what divides us

Political Tribes by Amy Chua (Penguin, $28) “A lot of the interest of Political Tribes comes from the sense it emanates of an author arguing with herself,” said David Frum in The New York Times. Amy Chua, a Yale law professor best known for her popular memoir about being a “tiger mom,” can’t seem to decide if Americans are uniquely equipped to overcome tribal divisions or uniquely blind to how deep they run. While our belief in a melting-pot culture has been a mend-all, Chua is “hardly alone” in her worry about its enduring strength Ask Me About My Uterus by Abby Norman (Nation, $27) Abby Norman’s experience with doctors has been “strikingly and distressingly Victorian,” said Rachel Vorona Cote in NewRepublic.com. In a book that blends memoir and manifesto, Norman details how she endured…

In what divides us

Ngugi wa Thiong’o

No prison can hold Ngugi wa Thiong’o, said Kyla Marshell in TheGuardian.com. For more than 50 years, Kenya’s leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature has used his writing to defy every force that would circumscribe his freedoms, and his latest memoir, Wrestling With the Devil, revisits one of his most storied acts of imaginative rebellion. Imprisoned in 1978 after writing a play that spotlighted injustices in post-colonial Kenya, the already celebrated author used toilet tissue—the only paper prisoners were allowed—to secretly write a defiant work in his native Kikuyu that became the first novel ever published in that language. “Resistance is the best way of keeping alive,” he says now. “If you really think you’re right, you stick to your beliefs, and they help you to survive.” Ngugi hasn’t…

Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Ellsworth Kelly: Austin

Blanton Museum of Art, Austin A new landmark has opened in Texas’ capital city, said M.H. Miller in The New York Times. Austin, a secular chapel that the great minimalist painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly conceived of decades before his death in 2015, represents “the culmination of Kelly’s oeuvre—not just a summation of his work’s themes but his masterpiece, the grandest exploration of pure color and form in a seven-decade career spent testing the boundaries of both.” The University of Texas’ Blanton Museum of Art undertook the project several years ago and worked with Kelly on every detail. Though the structure will invite comparisons with Houston’s Rothko Chapel and Henri Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence on the French Riviera, “it’s possible that no contemporary artwork of this scale by a…

Ellsworth Kelly: Austin

3 Sexual politics could get far worse in this country before they get better, said Jonas Schwartz in TheaterMania.com. That’s the premise of Sarah Jones’ “provocative, shrewd, and shockingly funny” one-woman show, which uses a leap into the future to look back, often with humor, on how dehumanizing our sexual culture is becoming. Writer-performer Sarah Jones, who won a special Tony Award for her last solo tour de force, opens the evening playing a social scientist who’s delivering a lecture looking back on sex work circa 2020 to 2040—a period when new technology and loosening moral codes normalized prostitution and pornography. The professor also has recordings of interviews with people from that era, affording Jones the chance to slip into several other roles—pole dancer, vice cop, health aide turned prostitute. Despite…

Broadway: Will Mockingbird not fly?

One of the year’s most anticipated Broadway plays might never get off the ground, said Alexandra Alter and Michael Paulson in The New York Times. Harper Lee’s estate filed suit last week to stop production of an adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, claiming that Aaron Sorkin’s rewrite damages the image of Atticus Finch, the attorney hero of the 1960 novel. Sorkin, a celebrated screenwriter, had admitted in an interview that the adaptation offered “a different take” on the iconic 1930s Southern lawyer, making Finch a man whose views on race become admirable only as the drama plays out. The play’s producer, Scott Rudin, appears ready to fight for Sorkin’s version. “I can’t and won’t present a play that feels like it was written in the year the book was…

Broadway: Will Mockingbird not fly?

Directed by Wes Anderson (PG-13) 4 A boy goes in search of his missing pet. Wes Anderson’s latest stop-motion animated adventure “has cult potential stamped all over it,” said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. In a fictional Japanese megacity, a dictatorial, cat-loving mayor spreads fears of dog-borne disease and exiles all mutts to Trash Island. With dogs speaking in English, humans in unsubtitled Japanese, and set pieces so intricate they “cannot be overpraised,” Isle of Dogs proves to be an even wilder experience than Anderson’s 2009 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. “Just the wealth of visual detail in every frame alone will reward repeat viewings.” When a boy in search of his dog crash-lands a prop plane on the island, pups voiced by Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, and…

Directed by Stanley Tucci (R) 3 Perfection eludes a legendary artist. Stanley Tucci, directing his first film in 10 years, remains “the most modest yet nimble of moviemakers,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. Like other fine recent biopics, the actor’s new chamber comedy focuses on a single chapter in the life of its subject—in this case, the Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti. It’s 1964, and the cranky, chain-smoking artist has invited American art critic James Ford to sit for a portrait. Working in exquisite miniature, Tucci settles into Giacometti’s Paris studio and “finds the interior hum of drama in each and every moment.” The painting is supposed to take an afternoon, but as Giacometti repeatedly scraps his work, deeming it worthless, Ford must repeatedly reschedule his flight home, said Robbie Collin in…

Boarding House Reach

3 Jack White’s third solo album turns out to be “bracingly bonkers,” said Brian Hiatt in Rolling Stone. The former frontman of the White Stripes is mincing genres and pushing boundaries as never before. On Boarding House Reach, the 42-year-old modern guitar hero pastes together rock riffs, conga breaks, free jazz piano, gospel-style backing vocals, and drum machines playing hip-hop rhythms, all while generating “a general air of wacked-out dada whimsy that reminds you that Captain Beefheart has always been one of his musical lodestones.” This is also the first Jack White solo album that “plays like a major career statement,” said Jeremy Winograd in SlantMagazine.com. Though it’s “wildly uneven and at times close to unlistenable,” it’s “never boring.” Few songs follow standard form, as White creates “a trippy, disorienting soundscape”…

Boarding House Reach

There’s a Riot Going On

3 Why would a “not particularly funky” indie-rock band from New Jersey crib the title of a Sly Stone album? asked Jon Pareles in The New York Times. Like the “strange, brilliant” 1971 record it invokes, Yo La Tengo’s 15th album responds to the chaos of its political moment by finding sanctuary in blissful inward-looking music. On Riot, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew “dissolve the guitar-bass-drums core typical of Yo La Tengo songs” to create loop- and effect-heavy music that “drones and burbles, tinkles and undulates,” as if acknowledging the fragility of the refuge it offers. At times, “all that muted resignation gets a bit enervating,” said Sean O’Neal in AVClub.com. “Shortwave” may be Yo La Tengo’s first purely ambient track, while the lounge-pop duet “Let’s Do It Wrong”…

There’s a Riot Going On

Both Sides of the Sky

2 Nearly five decades after Jimi Hendrix died, “the pickings are, not surprisingly, getting slim,” said Hal Horowitz in American Songwriter. The third in a trilogy of vault-clearing compilations that began with 2010’s Valleys of Neptune offers a medley of “wandering” jams mixed with “some truly revelatory moments.” The 13 tracks include 10 previously unreleased recordings made between 1968 and 1970—Hendrix’s most exploratory period. But when it catches him setting aside his guitar to play bass, or handing vocal duties to Stephen Stills, the record starts to feel like a product “geared to Hendrix die-hards.” Even so, the arrival of Both Sides of the Sky is “a chance to be awed, all over again, by this human’s freakish powers of musical persuasion,” said Tom Moon in NPR.org. “No matter what he’s…

Both Sides of the Sky

The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling Garry Shandling was far from zen. The neurotic stand-up comedian and sitcom innovator was a lifetime seeker, though, and friends knew when he died in 2016 that he had been keeping a semi-spiritual journal for 40 years. In this two-part documentary portrait, which will air on consecutive nights, director Judd Apatow digs into Shandling’s journals to pull together a portrait of his mentor and the gift of his self-deprecating comedy, with the help of old performance clips and dozens of the comic’s famous friends. Begins Monday, March 26, at 8 p.m., HBO The Terror In 1845, 129 men sailed from Britain into the Arctic and none returned. In this new series based on a gothic novel about the expedition, we are among those doomed souls instantly, looking…

The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

Monday, March 26 Them! Ants the size of minivans terrorize the planet in the B-movie that spawned a nuclear-era spate of “big bug” sci-fi features. (1954) 9:30 p.m., TCM Tuesday, March 27 Silence Two Catholic priests wander 17th-century Japan to find a mentor gone astray, in this recent Martin Scorsese passion project. With Adam Driver, Andrew Garfield, and Liam Neeson. (2016) 8 p.m., Epix Wednesday, March 28 The Diary of Anne Frank A 13-year-old misses nothing as she keeps a journal while she, a sister, and their parents share a hiding place with another Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. With Millie Perkins and Shelley Winters. (1959) 8 p.m., TCM Thursday, March 29 Soapdish Sally Field, Kevin Kline, and Robert Downey Jr. headline a laugh-out-loud satire about the cast members of a daytime soap opera. (1991) 9:40 p.m., Movieplex Friday, March 30 Superbad Michael Cera…

Ever wonder how everybody’s doing in the Conner household? The most popular working-class American family on TV 25 years ago is back, and some fans won’t be surprised that loudmouth matriarch Roseanne Conner is now a fierce Donald Trump supporter. She still loves her brood without boundaries, as her black granddaughter and gender-fluid grandson might attest, and her radical instincts ensure the household will have much to debate. Amazingly, all the main players have returned: not just Roseanne Barr, but also John Goodman, Laurie Metcalfe, and Sara Gilbert. Tuesday, March 27, at 8 p.m., ABC…

Sushi luminaries in three cities

Shiki Los Angeles “Morihiro Onodera may have the most passionate fans in the universe of Los Angeles sushi,” said Jonathan Gold in the Los Angeles Times. At Mori Sushi, the Michelin-starred restaurant he created and later sold, he “had a magical way of making you think that each piece of fish he handed you was as much an act of communication as it was of cutting fish.” Onodera followed other passions for several years. But now he’s back, at Shiki in Beverly Hills, and he’s lost nothing. “This is what sushi devotees are looking for when they save their nickels”—each morsel “a definitive experience.” His old friend Nao Sugiyama gets the $130–$190 omakase menu off to a dazzling start before the first piece of sushi arrives—an awe-inspiring slash of kelp-marinated sea…

Sushi luminaries in three cities

Dutch baby pancakes with cherry filling

It’s called a Dutch baby, but don’t ask me why, said Bonnie Benwick in The Washington Post. The thing to know is that this old-school pancake is “easy but spectacular,” an “eggy crater the size of a dinner plate,” with “an aroma the Pied Piper only wishes he could deploy.” Once you’ve mastered the sweet kind, experiment with savory versions—topped with cheese or loaded with vegetables Dutch baby pancakes with cherry filling 3 tbsp unsalted butter3 large eggs at room temperature¾ cup flour¾ cup whole milkgranulated sugar½ tsp kosher salt½ tsp vanilla extract1 cup frozen cherries, preferably tartoptional toppings: confectioners’ sugar, plain Greek yogurt, granola, maple syrup, toasted slivered almonds Preheat oven to 425. Divide butter between two 8-inch ovenproof skillets; transfer to oven. Watch butter closely so it melts but doesn’t brown.…

Dutch baby pancakes with cherry filling

Wine: The original bubbly

“What is delicious has a way of catching on,” said Eric Asimov in The New York Times. That’s been the story of late with the oldest-known type of sparkling wine, pétillant naturel. Once a few French winemakers started making playful examples for friends, demand spread quickly. Every pét-nat is different, but misses are rare, and all “share a sort of joyousness and lack of pretension.” 2016 J. Brix Cobolorum ($24). Made from Santa Barbara County riesling, this “absolutely delicious” pét-nat delivers aromas and flavors of flowers, citrus, dried fruit, and spices. 2015 Melsheimer ‘Rurale’ ($21). Mostly riesling, this “lively and resonant” wine from Germany’s Mosel region has an “intensely floral” nose. 2014 Laurent Barth ($20). A product of Alsace, this “savory, refreshing, and bone dry” white wine blends auxerrois and pinot noir.…

Wine: The original bubbly

Finding adventure in central Mexico

“Imagine if you took a giant bottle of Champagne, shook it up, popped the cork, and let the bubbles rush all over your body,” said Mark Johanson in the Chicago Tribune. Such is “the riotous joy” of swimming above a geothermal spring in the crystal clear waters of a prehistoric lagoon in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. “Lost in its whirlpool of bubbles, I watch in awe as they tickle their way around my skin, rising to the surface and popping in the midday heat.” I have scuba gear on, and as I swim on, I come upon other wonders, including a petrified forest and subterranean caves. I can see why famed explorer Jacques Cousteau named this spot one of the best places on the planet to learn…

Finding adventure in central Mexico

Nebraska’s great crane migration

Each spring, the skies above central Nebraska are “painted blue with cranes,” said Tyra Sutak in 5280.com. Between late February and early April, some 500,000 sandhill cranes—about 80 percent of the world’s total—descend on a 75-mile stretch of the Platte River, resting there before the long flight to their breeding grounds in Canada and Alaska. North America’s second-largest wildlife migration peaks in mid-March, and the ideal time of day to see the birds is just after sunrise and during “the golden hour” before sunset, when swirling masses of blue-gray cranes dominate the sky. For the best views, make the small city of Grand Island your base. The world’s largest crane roost sits nearby. You can also drive 40 minutes southwest to Rowe Sanctuary, an Audubon Society preserve. During peak migration,…

America’s industrial past

If you’d rather spend vacations exploring abandoned factories than lounging on the beach, “you’ve got company,” said Rebecca Powers in The Washington Post. Across the U.S., old industrial sites—from blast furnaces in Rankin, Pa., to gas works in Seattle—are attracting ever more visitors. On a gray afternoon, I put on a hard hat and joined a group of 30 people for a tour of Detroit’s vacant Packard auto plant. The facility employed 40,000 workers in the luxury automaker’s 1940s heyday. Now, six decades after it closed, the former factory has an “oxidized, eerie beauty.” As our tour guide spoke, people fanned out in silent awe, snapping photos of crumbling concrete and graffiti. Detractors call industrial tourism “ruin porn”—but so be it. In an age in which we can order nearly…

The InterContinental

Downtown Los Angeles This new hotel “sticks out like a sore thumb”—in a good way, said Jimmy Im in Telegraph.co.uk. The InterContinental occupies the upper half of the 73-floor Wilshire Grand Center, the tallest building west of Chicago, and has clean, luxurious interiors and four fine restaurants. But the real reason you should check in is to check out the sweeping views offered by the floor-to-ceiling windows in all 889 rooms. From my west-facing corner suite on the 60th floor, I could see Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and the Hollywood sign from morning to night. intercontinental.com; doubles from $379 Last-minute travel deals A mellow Kenyan safari See big game from your window when you stay at the Mara Bush Houses in the heart of Kenya’s Maasai Mara reserve. Through May 31, houses for four start…

The InterContinental

Homes by the bay

Sarasota, Fla. Renovated last year, this 2009 four-bedroom home sits on the tropical shore of Sarasota Bay. Details include a 1,200-bottle wine room, white-oak floors, an antique marble fireplace, an elevator, and a studio apartment. A 51-foot balcony overlooks the water. The 1.8-acre property features a koi pond, a 115-foot private dock with boatlift, and a pool with spa. $3,900,000. Peter G. Laughlin, Premier/Sotheby’s International Realty, (941) 356-8428 San Francisco Located on the 36th floor of a luxury residential building in Rincon Hill, this two-bedroom condo has sweeping water views spanned by the Bay Bridge. Apartment details include Siberian oak floors, Italian kitchen appliances, and floor-to-ceiling windows. Ownership comes with access to the pool, gym, and clubhouse; valet parking; and a concierge. $2,618,000. Compass, (415) 712-7788 White Stone, Va. Built in 2007,…

Homes by the bay

The 2018 Audi RS5

The Detroit News “The 2018 Audi RS5 is what happens when a German luxury brand decides to build a muscle car.” Fully redesigned for 2018, Audi’s “suave, sophisticated” sports coupe makes American pony cars look “crude and rude” by comparison. It’s also “blisteringly fast”—faster than rivals from BMW and Mercedes-Benz—with a top speed of 174 mph and a 0-to-60 mph time of just 3.7 seconds. Automobile The new engine, a turbocharged V-6, produces the same 444 hp as its V-8 predecessor, but because it gains 125 lb.-ft. of torque, it “packs an intense punch.” It’s a more soft-spoken engine, but the trade-off is fair: The RS5 is now lighter, nimbler, and more fuel efficient, averaging 27 mpg on the highway. Besides, purchasers can choose the optional sport exhaust, which adds a “satisfying off-throttle…

The 2018 Audi RS5

A gardener’s secret weapons

Sneeboer Transplanting Trowel Professional gardeners rave about Sneeboer hand tools, each one made of hand-forged stainless steel and “cockily guaranteed for life.” They’re beautifully balanced, too, “so wrists don’t get achy.” $44, sneeboerusa.com Source: Wall Street Journal Gardener’s Supply Deluxe Tractor Scoot “No more taking a knee in the garden.” This sturdy scooter offers a seat wherever you need one, plus a handy way to keep a bucket and other tools close by. $90, gardeners.com Source: Los Angeles Times Nejiri Gama Hoe For pulling common weeds in and around a garden, there’s no better hand tool than this light, sharp, Japanese-made product. It “can do just about anything,” including cut weeds out of pavement gaps. $19, gardentoolcompany.com Source: TheWirecutter.com Hula-Ho Weeder Cultivator When weeding a big area, a hula hoe is a “far better” choice than a flat hoe. Its blade skims just…

A gardener’s secret weapons

A gratuities guide for household help

Snowplow drivers and lawn-care crews don’t expect regular tips, but tip $20 to $50 at the end of the season or at holiday time. Electricians and plumbers get paid by the hour and don’t expect tips. But you can show gratitude by writing positive online reviews about their work. Housepainters don’t count on tips, either, but if you’re pleased with the work, give each painter $10 or $20—and maybe a lunch or two. Movers should be tipped, especially if heavy items and stairs are involved. “For a big job, tip 10 to 15 percent of the total cost.” Hand the cash to the foreman, specifying how much you intend to tip each person. “For smaller jobs, tip each person $10 to $50.” Cable installers and appliance deliverymen often aren’t allowed by their companies to…

A gratuities guide for household help

For curbing a smartphone addiction

Moment tracks the time you spend on your iPhone or iPad each day and reminds you every time you log another hour. The $4 premium version enables you to set daily time limits, while Moment Family ($45 a year) lets you track and limit your kids’ screen time. Mute is a newer iOS app that works a lot like Moment, though its timekeeping is less dependable—and it’s “all too eager” to shame you for being online too long, even when it’s wrong. It will congratulate you, though, when you manage to go phone-free for long periods. Forest emphasizes positive reinforcement, which seems a better way to go. Each time you launch the app—and thus stay off others—it grows a virtual tree on your screen for as long as you leave the phone…

Retail: Toys R Us will close its 800 U.S. stores

Six months after filing for bankruptcy, Toys R Us threw in the towel last week, announcing it will “wind down operations” and close all of its 800 U.S. stores, including Babies R Us locations, said Abha Bhattarai in The Washington Post. Roughly 33,000 jobs will disappear as the embattled toy chain shutters after nearly 70 years in business. Despite being the country’s “pre-eminent toy retailer” and pulling in more than $11 billion in global revenue last year, the company has been drowning ever since private equity firms saddled it with more than $5 billion in debt during a 2005 leveraged buyout. It has also “been unable to keep up with big-box and online competitors.” Back in September, Toys R Us unveiled an “ambitious reinvestment plan to get back on its feet,”…

Retail: Toys R Us will close its 800 U.S. stores

Trade: Trump to hit China with $60B in tariffs

President Trump is preparing this week to impose $60 billion in annual tariffs against Chinese products, said Damian Paletta in The Washington Post. The tariffs are expected to be applied to more than 100 products that Trump contends were “developed by using trade secrets that China stole from U.S. companies.” If implemented, the penalties “would be one of the broadest sets of economic actions imposed by a modern U.S. president against China.” Beijing has suggested it could retaliate by implementing its own tariffs on U.S. agricultural products. Media: Radio giant files for Chapter 11 “The cash-strapped radio company iHeartMedia, which owns 850 stations and has a portfolio of digital offerings, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” said Patrick Lucas Austin in Gizmodo.com. The filing follows the conglomerate’s failure to make a $106…

The bottom line

Black Panther is now the second-fastest grossing movie of all time, having taken $605.4 million at the U.S. box office in its first 31 days. The Marvel Comics film is also the first to top the weekend charts for five straight weekends since Avatar did so in 2010 (and only the fourth in 20 years after Titanic, The Sixth Sense, and Avatar). Forbes.com The Securities and Exchange Commission this week announced its biggest-ever whistleblower rewards, with roughly $83 million combined going to three whistleblowers who alerted the regulator that Bank of America misused customer cash and securities to generate profits. With the help of the whistleblowers’ information, the SEC reached a $415 million settlement with the bank. The Wall Street Journal Roughly 84 percent of U.S. private-sector jobs—105 million—are in the service industry, including…

The bottom line

Planning ahead: Getting ready to start a family

“How do you know that you are financially ready to handle the responsibility of starting a family?” asked Denise Hill in WiseBread.com. Having children is a “life-altering decision,” and the first step is understanding that it’s a lifetime commitment, emotionally and financially. Although there’s no single “magic income or savings number” that will determine whether you’re prepared, it’s smart to commit to several targets. Begin by tackling any credit card and student loan debt and trying to cut extraneous costs and unnecessary luxuries. “Having a family is a sacrificial endeavor,” so the sooner you understand “you can’t have it all and do it all,” the better. A top priority should be to establish an emergency fund with at least six months of living expenses. That will provide you with a…

Planning ahead: Getting ready to start a family

What the experts say

IRS tightens overseas account rules “The Internal Revenue Service is winding down its program to entice wealthy Americans who hid money offshore to come forward and take an amnesty deal,” said Lynnley Browning in Bloomberg.com. The agency will shutter its “voluntary disclosure” program at the end of September. That’s not to say that if you’re dodging taxes through offshore banks you’re “off the hook.” The IRS now has “more advanced tools to ferret out tax cheats, including data provided by Switzerland, Israel, and other offshore jurisdictions.” Since the voluntary program began in 2009, 56,000 U.S. taxpayers have disclosed offshore accounts to avoid prosecution, coughing up $11.1 billion in back taxes, interest, and “often hefty” penalties. Unemployment benefits for gig workers “Gig workers between jobs shouldn’t assume they’re ineligible for unemployment,” said Annie Nova…

Charity of the week

Since 1986, Physicians for Human Rights (physiciansforhumanrights.org) has been at the forefront of efforts to document human rights abuses around the globe. Combining forensic science, medical evaluations, and epidemiology, PHR scientists rigorously collect information to stop or prevent genocide, sexual violence, and war crimes, and ensure they do not go unpunished. PHR played a leading role in creating the first official international standard for documenting torture, and was a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. The charity also trains human rights defenders in forensic science, which they can use to document rape and murder and give evidence in court cases. PHR’s work was instrumental in the 2016 sentencing of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to 40 years in prison for his role in the genocide of Muslims during…

Charity of the week

Startups: Bad blood and fraud at Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes was supposed to be “the next Steve Jobs,” said Katie Thomas and Reed Abelson in The New York Times. At 19, the Stanford dropout with a fear of needles founded the biotech startup Theranos, promising a revolutionary new blood test that with just “a single finger prick” could cheaply detect conditions from diabetes to cancer. Holmes’ “striking stage presence” and Jobs-ian black turtlenecks “captivated investors,” helping her raise more than $700 million; soon she was gracing magazine covers and being touted as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. It all turned out to be an “elaborate, years-long fraud,” said John Carreyrou in The Wall Street Journal. After a series of exposés in 2015, Holmes, now 34, was accused last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission of faking…

Startups: Bad blood and fraud at Theranos

Behind GE’s sad decline

Jeff Spross TheWeek.com For much of its 128-year history, General Electric was the “quintessential American company,” said Jeff Spross. It created the iconic incandescent bulb, built the first commercial nuclear plant and the first American jet engine, and pioneered early advances in plastics. Today, though, it’s “a husk of its former self,” marred by “bad luck, spectacularly bad decisions, and a very particular kind of elite American hubris.” The arrival of “legendary” CEO Jack Welch in 1981 arguably marked the beginning of the end. Welch pushed GE “beyond its familiar territories” of engineering and chemicals, turning the $25 billion manufacturer into a $100 billion media, real estate, and finance conglomerate. Under Welch and his successor, Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s banking arm, GE Capital, grew into a $500 billion Wall Street player, with tentacles…

Where a crisis could start

Greg Ip The Wall Street Journal Ten years after the collapse of Bear Stearns, “the seeds of instability are germinating again,” said Greg Ip. The good news is that trouble probably won’t come again from a teetering financial firm; rules that require “thicker buffers of capital” and prohibit some risk-taking make a big-bank failure “pretty remote.” That doesn’t mean we won’t have a major financial crisis, however. Making our banks stronger simply makes our banks stronger; we need to “ask where the new dangers are” instead of just “focusing on known past weaknesses.” Earlier financial crises, after all, were a surprise precisely because they started with a false assumption, one that everyone took for granted: in 1997, that Asia’s fixed exchange rates wouldn’t break; in 2007, that housing prices would never decline;…

The visionary physicist who brought cosmology to the masses

In 1963, Stephen Hawking was told that he had two years to live. The 21-year-old cosmology student at the University of Cambridge had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neuromuscular wasting disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The condition would eventually rob him of his voice and control over almost his entire body, except for a muscle in his right cheek, which he would twitch to operate his speech-generation computer. Yet his ALS developed far more slowly than predicted. Over the next 55 years, Hawking would become one the world’s leading cosmologists, a pioneering thinker on black holes—objects so massive that not even light can escape their gravity—and a star among theoretical physicists. But it was his skill and wit in translating complex concepts into ordinary language that…

The visionary physicist who brought cosmology to the masses

The U.S. medic who documented the horrors of Nazi camps

In March 1945, Anthony Acevedo found a diary and fountain pen in a Red Cross care package at the Nazi slave labor camp where he was imprisoned. For the next month—until the day he was liberated by Allied forces—the 20-year-old U.S. Army medic meticulously documented his Holocaust ordeal. Keeping the pen’s ink topped up with snow and urine, Acevedo recorded a grim roster of inmate deaths, from dysentery, heart attack, jaundice, influenza, gunshot, and starvation. It was a rare firsthand account of Nazi atrocities by an American prisoner of war. “Prisoners were being murdered and tortured,” said Acevedo, the first Mexican-American to be designated a Holocaust survivor. “I tried keeping track of who they were and how they died. I’m glad I did it.” Born in San Bernardino, Calif., Acevedo “attended…

The U.S. medic who documented the horrors of Nazi camps

Unplugging from the news-completey

When Donald Trump won the White House, Erik Hagerman decided to retreat to an Ohio pig farm and live the life of a hermit, said journalist Sam Dolnick. He knows nothing about what’s happened since. Glouster, Ohio—at first, the experiment didn’t have a name. Right after the election, Erik Hagerman decided he’d take a break from reading about the hoopla of politics. President Donald Trump’s victory shook him. Badly. And so Hagerman developed his own eccentric experiment, one that was part silent protest, part coping mechanism, part extreme self-care plan. He swore that he would avoid learning about anything that happened to the United States after Nov. 8, 2016. “It was draconian and complete,” he said. “It’s not like I wanted to just steer away from Trump or shift the conversation. It was…

Unplugging from the news-completey

This week’s question: The Edinburgh Zoo has suspended its panda-breeding program because pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang have expressed absolutely no interest in getting intimate. If Hollywood were to make a romantic comedy about two mismatched pandas that get thrown together, what could it call the film? Last week’s contest: A growing number of workers are flaunting their bond with their employers by getting tattoos of corporate logos. If you were to get tattooed with a phrase that expressed your relationship with your employer in seven words or fewer, what would it say? THE WINNER: You’re Not the Boss of Me Bridget Barclay, New Paltz, N.Y. SECOND PLACE: Seems Permanent, Will Fade, May Be Removed —Max Walch, Shoreview, Minn. THIRD PLACE: Love My Boss—Self-Employed Bill Picker, Mount Kisco, N.Y. For runners-up and complete contest…

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