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75 Articles

Editor’s letter

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

Xi tightens his Mao-like control of China

What happened Chinese President Xi Jinping secured an unprecedented third term as head of the ruling Communist Party this week, cementing his status as the most dominant figure in Chinese politics since Mao Zedong. Xi’s ascension to a third five-year term upended a two-term limit that was written into the party constitution in 1982 to prevent a return to the one-man rule of the Mao era; Xi had that limit removed in 2018. He further tightened his grip on the world’s most populous nation by overhauling the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, forcing out market-friendly moderates and promoting allies and protégés—though, conspicuously, none young and experienced enough to be marked as a potential successor. In a speech to the National Congress, Xi, 69, touted China’s growing “international influence,” saying its “power to…

Xi tightens his Mao-like control of China

It wasn’t all bad

Kendell Cummings was hunting with three friends from his wrestling team when he heard a peculiar crash in the forest ahead. The Northwest College sophomore quickly discovered a grizzly bear pummeling his teammate, Brady Lowry. Cummings leaped in and grabbed the grizzly, allowing Lowry to escape, then played dead to stop the bear’s attack—a tactic endorsed by the National Park Service. “If we all didn’t have these friendships and each other,” Cummings said, “we would not have come off that mountain alive.” Italian doctors successfully removed a brain tumor from a patient who was not only fully conscious but also played his saxophone throughout the nine-hour procedure. The 35-year-old, identified as C.Z., played the sax during the surgery so that the 10-member team could map various sections of his brain, preserving…

It wasn’t all bad

In crisis, the U.K. selects yet another prime minister

What happened Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took office this week in a Britain reeling from financial crisis and political turmoil. The 42-year-old former chancellor of the exchequer, whose parents are of Indian descent, is the country’s first nonwhite leader—and its third leader in two months. After Boris Johnson resigned under a pile of scandals, Sunak lost the leadership race to Liz Truss, in a vote put to the Conservative Party’s 172,000 dues-paying party members. But then Truss, too, quit in just 45 days, after her program of unfunded tax cuts tanked the British pound, jacked up the country’s budget deficit, and required the Bank of England to intervene to prevent complete financial meltdown. Those horrors were exactly what Sunak had predicted when he debated Truss. So while Johnson initially tried to…

In crisis, the U.K. selects yet another prime minister

Russia issues new threats in Ukraine

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

The midterms: What will Republicans do if they win?

In the closing days of this midterm election campaign, the mood among Democrats is “apocalyptic,” said Bess Levin in Vanity Fair. A voter backlash against the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision seems to be fading, and the latest polls have led FiveThirtyEight.com to estimate that Republicans have an 81 percent chance of regaining control of the House of Representatives, and a 45 percent chance of winning the Senate. A GOP-held House would mean total obstruction of Joe Biden’s agenda, of course, and “round-the-clock hearings about Hunter Biden,” the president’s wayward son. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—who is in line to become Speaker—is already planning a host of other Benghazi-like committee investigations. They will include probes into how the Biden administration ended the Afghanistan War, its border policy, and the FBI search…

The midterms: What will Republicans do if they win?

Good week/bad week

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

Only in America

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

Failed defenses

St. Louis A former student armed with an AR-15–style rifle and more than 600 rounds of ammunition opened fire in a magnet high school despite its robust defenses against shooters, killing a student and a teacher before police killed him. Police declined to say how Orlando Harris, 19, managed to enter Central Visual and Performing Arts High School despite its locked doors and seven armed guards. Students said Harris yelled “You are all going to die!” during his rampage. He killed Alexzandria Bell, 15, and physical education teacher Jean Kuczka, 61. Police said the shooter’s gun jammed at one point, preventing more deaths; he was shot by responding officers 14 minutes after an emergency call was placed. Harris reportedly left a note saying he felt isolated and had no friends, family,…

Failed defenses

Pardons for lockdown flouters

Edmonton, Alberta Newly installed Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she will pardon residents who were fined and arrested for breaking federal Covid rules during the pandemic. “I’m deeply sorry for anyone who was inappropriately subjected to discrimination as a result of their vaccine status,” said Smith, a Conservative. Canada had some of the world’s most stringent Covid policies, including mandatory vaccines for certain federal jobs and jail time for those caught out during lockdown. Calgary pastor Artur Pawlowski of the Cave of Adullam congregation, for example, was arrested multiple times for keeping his church open and for preaching to truckers blocking a U.S. border crossing; he owes hefty fines. Far-right government Rome Giorgia Meloni was sworn in this week as Italy’s first woman prime minister, and she quickly tried to reassure European governments that…

Pardons for lockdown flouters

Why Gates traces roots

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

Why Gates traces roots

Phillips’ bittersweet memories

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

How Jenner turned family into fortune

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

How Jenner turned family into fortune

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

Rebuilding after climate disasters

The instinct to restore homes and businesses in vulnerable areas is being questioned as climate change intensifies. Why is rebuilding an issue? As wildfires, powerful hurricanes, and flooding grow more frequent and severe, it makes less sense to spend billions to restore what was lost. Hurricane Ian inflicted at least $60 billion in damage on Florida’s Gulf Coast last month, leveling several coastal communities and barrier islands. The storm left both homeowners and policymakers wondering at what point the risks of oceanfront property outweigh the benefits. It’s a question now facing residents throughout the Eastern Seaboard as sea levels rise and storm surges become more commonplace. In California, taxpayers have spent billions rebuilding woodsy communities left in ashes by wildfires, but another 6,800 wildfires ravaged the state this year. Given a choice…

Rebuilding after climate disasters

Florida’s shameful voter trap

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

Celebrating the 8 billionth human being

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

The last democratic election?

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

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

I read it in the tabloids

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

I read it in the tabloids

How far will this neofascist government go?

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

Giving China leverage over our economy

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

United Kingdom: A prime minister breaking barriers

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

United Kingdom: A prime minister breaking barriers

China: Rivals trampled, Xi is now effectively dictator

It’s Xi Jinping’s China now, said Kang Junming in the Liberty Times (Taiwan). At the Communist Party Congress last week, an event held every five years to introduce new leaders, nobody new was presented. Instead, Xi got an expected, if unprecedented, third term as party chief, the only person since Mao to rule so long. And while most Chinese leaders have had successors-in-waiting in the other six members of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee, Xi does not: All the committee’s members are now his loyal cronies, and none is a likely heir. In a particularly shocking scene, Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, was escorted unwillingly from the Great Hall of the People, hustled out by underlings in full view of cameras. It was a “complete humiliation” that demonstrated both Xi’s total…

China: Rivals trampled, Xi is now effectively dictator

How tiny parties control our fate

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

Why Khan is being kept out of power

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

Anti-Semitism: A growing contagion

“The sheer amount of gross, blatant anti-Semitism on the right,” said David French in The Atlantic, “has reached a level I never thought I’d see in the United States of America.” Former President Trump recently chastised American Jews for not appreciating how much he did for Israel, and warned them “to get their act together … Before it is too late!” Trump’s friend Kanye “Ye” West tweeted that he planned to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” and was then welcomed as “a conservative folk hero” on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, where he unleashed another anti-Semitic rant that Carlson discreetly edited out. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) continues to associate with right-wing provocateur Nick Fuentes, who recently said Jews should leave America, adding, “I piss on your Talmud.”…

Anti-Semitism: A growing contagion

Durham probe: What it revealed

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

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

Democracy: A low priority for voters?

Voters now “overwhelmingly believe” that America could lose its democracy, said Nick Corasaniti in The New York Times, but they’ve also become “remarkably apathetic about that danger.” A New York Times/Siena College poll released last week found that 71 percent of Americans think our democratic system is “currently under threat.” Only 7 percent, though, considered it the most important issue facing the country. A “deeply partisan lens” colored their views, with most Republicans and Democrats believing that it’s the other party that poses “a major threat to democracy.” More than a quarter of all voters—including 41 percent of Republicans—professed “little to no faith” in the validity of the results of the upcoming midterm elections. Still, most voters ranked the erosion of democracy as a lesser concern than “economic woes” such…

Democracy: A low priority for voters?

Arkansas: Trans teen treatment on trial

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

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

Social media: Why fake news is now everywhere

Even though journalists and academics have sounded the alarm about fake news for years, “disinformation has metastasized,” said Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel in The New York Times. Now it’s “arguably more pervasive and widespread” than ever. With just weeks to go before the midterm elections, voters have to wade through “not only an ever-growing torrent of lies and falsehoods about candidates and their policies,” but even information about when and where they’re supposed to vote. While social media platforms have promised to do better at monitoring, “purveyors of disinformation have become increasingly sophisticated at sidestepping the rules.” To take one instance: In July, former President Donald Trump posted yet another iteration of his Big Lie, claiming that he won the 2020 election, and it reached just 8,000 people…

Social media: Why fake news is now everywhere

Innovation of the week

Lenovo’s “rollable” devices can take new shape at the click of a button, said Paul Ridden in New Atlas. At a tech event last week, the company introduced a working proof of concept of a smartphone with an OLED display that, in its default state, measures just 4 inches diagonally. However, “at the push of a button, the display extends to 6.5 diagonal inches, with content onscreen dynamically expanding as the phone stretches out.” Another push and the phone will revert to a “very pocket-friendly size.” A similar concept has been applied to a laptop, which features “a motorized mechanism” that “slowly unrolls the screen” from a standard 11 inches into “a supertall viewing area.”…

Innovation of the week

What’s new in tech

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

The biggest space explosion ever seen

Astronomers have recorded the largest explosion ever detected in the universe, a gamma-ray blast so enormous it briefly ionized our atmosphere. Dubbed the BOAT, or “brightest of all time,” the eruption released more energy than our sun will in its entire 10 billion–year life span, reports Space.com. It is thought to have been caused when a massive supernova collapsed under its own weight, triggering the birth of a new black hole. This process “drives powerful jets of particles traveling near the speed of light,” says NASA. “The jets pierce through the star, emitting X-rays and gamma rays as they stream into space.” Named GRB 221009A, the explosion was recently detected by space telescopes—including the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory—when its radiation swept across Earth. Even…

The biggest space explosion ever seen

Cancer from hair straighteners

Using chemical hair-straightening products may put women—especially Black women, who use such products most frequently—at greater risk of uterine cancer, a new study shows. Researchers at the National Institute of Health monitored more than 33,000 women in the U.S. for an average of nearly 11 years. They found that those who used chemical hair-straightening products at least four times a year were more than twice as likely to develop the disease than those who didn’t use them at all. “That’s a very alarming figure,” lead author Alexandra White tells NBCNews.com. “For non-users, the absolute risk is about 1.64 percent, and then when you look at frequent users, the risk goes up to 4.05 percent. It’s a notable increase.” The researchers are unsure why the products are associated with cancer. But…

Cancer from hair straighteners

Mosquitoes like certain smells

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

Female dogs are judging you

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

A human–computer chip hybrid

Scientists have taught a clump of brain cells to play the simple 1970s video game Pong, reports NPR.org. The experiment was designed to explore how living brain cells acquire the kind of generalized intelligence that still eludes computers. The researchers grew a layer of around 800,000 cells on a special silicon chip linked up to a computer, a chimera they called DishBrain. Then they played Pong on a video screen and sent signals to the brain cells indicating the position of the bouncing ball. At first, the cells didn’t understand how to send signals to control the paddle. But after the scientists motivated them—by issuing a burst of electrical activity when they did the right thing—the cells slowly got the hang of it. Steve M. Potter, a Georgia Tech neuroengineer…

A human–computer chip hybrid

American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis

(Mariner, $30) It can be too easy to forget the dark periods that our republic has survived in the not-so-distant past, said David Shribman in The Boston Globe. In an often overlooked four-year span commencing with the U.S. entry into World War I, the nation “trampled its own ideals with a ferocity that had few precedents.” With Woodrow Wilson as president—“perhaps the purest (and most hypocritical) idealist since Thomas Jefferson”—the federal government fanned paranoia about internal threats to democracy and turned its full power against some of its least powerful citizens. Historian Adam Hochschild, the award-winning author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury the Chains, has now returned to that “brutal” mini-era and brought “verve and insight” to recounting its tumult. “The psychosis of the era was so extreme it almost seems…

American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis

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

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

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

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir

Chosen by Zosia Mamet

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

Chosen by Zosia Mamet

In getting inside our heads

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

In getting inside our heads

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

Taylor Swift’s Midnights: A marketable inward turn

Taylor Swift Midnights Taylor Swift is following a script that’s uniquely her own, said Chris Willman in Variety. In an era that’s thin on towering pop singer-songwriters, the arrival of each new Swift album is “a bona fide event”—a commercial smash that delivers track after track of high-quality music. Midnights, her latest studio effort, doesn’t quite measure up to 2020’s acoustic-leaning Folklore and Evermore, which now look like her masterpieces. But with the aid of heavy pre-release publicity, it scored the best opening sales week of any album since 2017. More impressively, measured purely as an artistic offering, it “marks her 10th grand slam in a row, a record you’d be hard-pressed to find matched among singer-songwriters that came before her.” Its sonic palette shades closest to the synth pop of Swift’s…

Taylor Swift’s Midnights: A marketable inward turn

Van Gogh in America

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

Van Gogh in America

The Banshees of Inisherin

Directed by Martin McDonagh (R) Two old friends hit an impasse. Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won two Oscars and three Golden Globes, but his new comedy-drama is “the best thing he’s ever done for the screen,” said Alison Willmore in NYMag.com. “A caustic masterstroke of anti-romanticism,” The Banshees of Inisherin transports viewers to a postcard-worthy 1923 Irish island village and then shows that life there is “so circumscribed and stifling” that it’s “destroying all the characters from within.” Colin Farrell plays Pádraic, a sweet dullard of a dairy farmer who is baffled and hurt when his best friend, Colm, suddenly refuses to speak to him. But Colm, played by Brendan Gleeson, is tired of wasting his life with mundane talk over pints at the pub, and the film devotes…

Directed by Chinonye Chukwu (PG-13) One family’s tragedy ignites a movement. Emmett Till’s mother was a remarkable woman, said Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle. Till, the new movie that revisits her 14-year-old son’s brutal 1955 murder by white supremacists and her courageous response, “could have been a hard story to watch.” But director Chinonye Chukwu handles the facts with quiet dignity, while the film’s star, Danielle Deadwyler, establishes herself as an instant Oscar contender. Scene after scene demands “acting of the highest pitch,” and Deadwyler delivers that, “over and over.” Till “isn’t perfect, and some of it runs into conventional biopic trappings,” said Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. But as it introduces Jalyn Hall’s confident, playful Emmett, then recounts the Chicago teen’s fateful journey to Mississippi, his run-in with…

Death of a Salesman

Hudson Theater, New York City “A good revival of a classic play doesn’t just transform the original but unearths new treasures that have been buried in it all along,” said Rob Weinert-Kendt in NYMag.com. The “stunning” new Broadway production of Death of a Salesman does just that, revealing in a fresh way that the true tragedy in Arthur Miller’s 1949 drama is that the title character has wasted his life and warped his family by devoting himself to an illusionary vision of the American dream. For the first time on Broadway, Willy Loman and his wife and two adult sons are played by Black actors, which adds new resonance to certain lines and key moments. And instead of staging the show as kitchen-sink realism, director Miranda Cromwell plays up the expressionistic…

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

The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

Inside Man Stanley Tucci makes a delightfully wry death-row inmate in this new series from Steven Moffat, co-creator of Sherlock. Tucci plays a former criminologist who’s pitching in with various investigations while preaching that everyone is capable of murder. A parallel story featuring David Tennant as a kind village vicar just might prove the point. Some twists are simply implausible, but the clever dialogue and fine performances just might persuade you to play along. Available Monday, Oct. 31, Netflix God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty Jerry Falwell Jr. would probably still be a force in evangelical politics and president of the world’s largest Christian university if it weren’t for the sordid story detailed in this new documentary. The film focuses on the recollections of Giancarlo Granda, who says he…

The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching

Sometimes, a pair of actors seem to bring a movie to life all on their own. The story told in Causeway is spare. Jennifer Lawrence, resurrecting the quiet intensity of her Winter’s Bone years, portrays a soldier who’s been sent home to New Orleans from Afghanistan after suffering brain trauma. Rehab is all she has going on until she runs into a brother of an old schoolmate and their easy instant connection starts to open her up. Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry matches Lawrence as another warmhearted, damaged soul, and their slow dance is all Causeway needs. Available Friday, Nov. 4, Apple TV+ • All listings are Eastern Time.…

Autumnal sides: Two dishes ripe for holiday season

At our restaurant in New York City’s Greenwich Village, we seek to transport diners to a street we once lived on in Florence, said Jody Williams and Rita Sodi in Via Carota (Knopf). There, each season calls for celebrating new gifts from the garden, as in the simple sides below. Zucca in agrodolce 1 small butternut squashExtra-virgin olive oilSalt1 medium red onion, thinly sliced2 dried bay leaves1 cinnamon stick½ cup aged sherry vinegar¼ cup currants1 tbsp sugar3 tbsp pine nuts, lightly toasted Preheat oven to 400. Cut squash in half lengthwise. Rub squash halves all over with olive oil, salt well, and set on a baking pan. Roast until squash halves are blistered in places and soft, 35 to 40 minutes. When cool enough to handle, scrape out seeds with a spoon. Place a…

Autumnal sides: Two dishes ripe for holiday season

Dining out: Telluride’s culinary treasures

Locals routinely refer to Telluride, Colo., as “a little slice of heaven,” said Marissa Wolkenberg in Bon Appétit. That may sound corny, but it’s accurate. Step outside anywhere in the small Victorian-era mining town and you catch views of the “stunningly majestic” San Juan Mountains. What’s more, though this wealthy enclave is also just eight blocks wide and 12 blocks long, “for its square footage–to–stellar restaurant ratio, it just may be unmatched.” Allred’s Conveniently located at a gondola station at 10,551 feet, Allred’s is the reservation to score when you want “exquisite” sunset views of the mountains and the town below. Hits on the seasonal prix-fixe menu include juniper-bourbon–marinated elk loin with butternut squash farro risotto. St. Sophia Station Cosmopolitan In town near the foot of the gondola, chef-owner Chad Scothorn has…

Dining out: Telluride’s culinary treasures

Wine: Loire reds

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

Wine: Loire reds

Day-hiking through Greater Paris

There’s more to Paris than the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and Notre-Dame, said Mary Winston Nicklin in National Geographic. Greater Paris, with its population of 11 million, “offers a world of discovery” beyond the Boulevard Périphérique—the ring-shaped perimeter road that narrows visitors’ view of the city to a “Seine-centric” fraction of the whole. Even as a resident, I’ve found that the thoroughfare imposes a mental barrier. Fortunately, a new network of walking trails, known as the Sentier du Grand Paris, makes exploring Greater Paris easy. On my hikes beyond the beltway out into the suburbs, “I saw a mosaic of landscapes peopled by diverse communities and studded with innovative architecture.” The 320 miles of networked trails trace a trilobe shape, with three interlaced arcs that “pay homage to both the Celtic…

Day-hiking through Greater Paris

New York City Aman is making the Ritz-Carlton look affordable, said Nikki Ekstein in Bloomberg. The international luxury brand commands at least $2,000 a night at each of its exclusive resorts, and Aman’s first property on the East Coast raises the bar. “A vertical resort” housed inside midtown’s historic Crown Building, it’s “unlike anything New York has seen.” The amenities are “exhaustive.” The three-floor spa has two bathhouses, which are “like private spas within the spa.” Each of the 83 suites has a soaking tub and fireplace, and “everything feels expensive, down to the hangers in the leather-backed closets.” aman.com; suites from $3,200…

Hawaii’s ongoing eruption

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

Homes with beautiful fall foliage

Peterborough, N.H. This three-bedroom home comes with 183 acres of woods and fields with views of Mount Monadnock. There are two main dwellings, a renovated 1780 Cape with one bedroom, great room with fireplace, eat-in kitchen with woodstove, and new office wing, and a relocated heated barn with kitchen, bath, two bedrooms, and patio with hot tub. The property adjoins other conserved parcels, including the Wapack National Wildlife Refuge. $1,150,000. Kristin Claire, LandVest/Christie’s International Real Estate, (603) 494-9448 Basalt, Colo. The Sopris Mountain Ranch development lies in Roaring Fork Valley; this 35-acre parcel is anchored by a four-bedroom contemporary mountain home. The house features 20-foot ceilings, oversize windows with mountain views, a great room with two-sided stone-clad fireplace; an open chef’s kitchen with breakfast bar; and a walk-out basement with two…

Homes with beautiful fall foliage

Earnings: Google slowdown causes tech jitters

Even Big Tech is proving vulnerable to an economic downturn, said Patrick McGee in the Financial Times. Google parent Alphabet this week reported “an unexpectedly severe slowdown in its core search ads business” and a decline in revenue on YouTube. The tech giant made $69.1 billion overall in the third quarter, but its sales have now slowed for five consecutive quarters. Microsoft added to the gloom “as it warned of a marked slowdown in its cloud-computing business” and a decline in PC sales. The dismal results “were the latest sign of a slowdown in digital advertising and the world’s largest economy more broadly as consumers and businesses pull back on spending.” Alphabet executives don’t seem worried enough, said Therese Poletti in MarketWatch. Other Silicon Valley companies have responded to the downturn…

Earnings: Google slowdown causes tech jitters

Twitter: Musk plans major cuts after takeover

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

The bottom line

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

The bottom line

Swipe wars: New rules could hit credit card rewards

“Is Congress going to kill credit card rewards?” asked Kenley Young in NerdWallet. It may be news to some consumers that every time they use their card, “the retailer is charged somewhere around 1 percent to 3 percent of the transaction amount.” That interchange, or “swipe,” fee is set by the payment networks—usually Visa or Mastercard, which together control more than 83 percent of the credit card market. A law winding its way through Congress with bipartisan support is intended to help businesses by requiring that card-issuing institutions offer a wider choice of networks. Lawmakers say merchants will choose payment networks with lower fees, translating to lower prices for consumers. The flip side is that card rewards, issued by banks, are funded in part by those fees. Shrinking them could…

Swipe wars: New rules could hit credit card rewards

What the experts say

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

Charity of the week

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

Charity of the week

Employment: Cracking down on the freelance economy

The Biden administration wants to rewrite the rules of the gig economy, said Noah Rothman in MSNBC.com. “Labor activists have long demanded” that the federal government force companies to classify more of their staff as employees rather than independent contractors. Now the Labor Department is giving them their wish, proposing new guidelines this month that would replace more lenient Trump-era policies. Not surprisingly, shares of Uber and Lyft, two symbols of the gig economy, sank on the news. But proposed rules have implications that go far beyond ride-sharing services. The administration is following in the footsteps of California, which passed a wide-ranging freelance law that transformed the jobs of “independent writers, graphic designers, photographers, journalists, and content producers”—most of whom “didn’t seem to appreciate the reform” passed in their behalf. All…

Employment: Cracking down on the freelance economy

Biden’s China strategy is working

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

… but his U.S. economic policy is not

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

The humorist who spun tales of the heartland

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

The humorist who spun tales of the heartland

The doctor who diagnosed fetuses in the womb

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

The doctor who diagnosed fetuses in the womb

The civil rights activist whose father was enslaved

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

The enchantment machine

No app has harnessed the hypnotic power of social media and video more effectively than TikTok, said Drew Harwell in The Washington Post. Its algorithms now define how young people see the world. On the night Shelby Renae first went viral on TikTok, she felt so giddy she could barely sleep. She’d spent the evening painting her nails, refreshing her phone between each finger—20,000 views; 40,000—and by the next morning, after her video crossed 3 million views, she decided it had changed her life. She didn’t really understand why it had done so well. The 16-second clip of her playing the video game Fortnite was funny, she thought—but not, like, millions-of-views funny. She wasn’t a celebrity: She grew up in Idaho; her last job was at a pizza shop. But this was…

The enchantment machine

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

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