THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE:The 5.24.26 Issue features Azeen Ghorayshi on testosterone and a new male ideal; Avraham Z. Cooper on the interstitium; M.H. Miller on the Venice Biennale; and more.
A partner in the war, Israel has been largely left out of the peace talks, a humbling setback for Benjamin Netanyahu with significant risks for the country.
The death count rose drastically on Saturday as the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, called for an investigation and emphasized the need to “hold those responsible to account.”
THE NEW REPUBLIC MAGAZINE: The latest issue features a cover story analyzing the president’s mental fitness alongside reporting on administration impacts on higher education, energy, and agriculture. The issue also explores social issues, including the anti-abortion movement, the rise of digital misogyny, and cultural critiques of television and literature.
His recent tirades confirmed what more than half of America now believes: The president is mentally unfit. How will we survive two and a half more years of this? And what’s he got in store for us?
The president has long been operating under the assumption that he is immune from prosecution. His latest scheme, however, may be a step too far.
Losing It
Seriously – 2 1/2 more years of this?
The Election Fraudsters Who Will Follow in Tina Peters’s Footsteps
We can debate all day whether Colorado Governor Jared Polis should have commuted her sentence. Meanwhile, state and local officials are openly preparing to meddle in the midterm elections.
Why Trump Is So Afraid of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and The View
Political scientist Meredith Conroy says that late-night shows are still politically relevant in as their audiences shrink.
The acting attorney general went to Capitol Hill to allay Republicans’ concerns over a fund to pay people who claim government mistreatment. It did not go well.
The discussions suggest that the U.S. and the Iranian government may not be close to reaching a deal to end a war that has badly damaged the global economy
After a week like Keir Starmer just had, what could one possibly do to cheer up the beleaguered UK prime minister? (Aside from his beloved Arsenal winning the Premier League title, that is.)
Perhaps remind him he’s not Friedrich Merz or Emmanuel Macron. Starmer may not be flavour of the month with UK voters or his own Labour MPs right now, but both the German and French leaders have barrel-scraping approval ratings that make the British PM look popular in comparison.
Even among the less-disliked European leaders, Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Pedro Sánchez of Spain are only marginally more liked than Donald Trump is in the US – and neither of them have started a war in Iran.
What’s behind this widespread disaffection for Europe’s leaders? Are they a generationally bad crop of politicians or have they been dealt an impossible hand of social and economic circumstances – or is it a mixture of both?
For our cover story this week, Daniel Boffey asks what Europe’s embattled leaders can do to reverse that sinking feeling. Then, from our UK political team, Pippa Crerar and Peter Walker look back on a week when Starmer was left looking increasingly like an interim PM.
Spotlight | Xi rolled out the red carpet for Trump, but that was all There was no swift end to the Iran war, uncertainty over Taiwan and only vague outlines of commercial deals – but the US president at least got to bask in the company of his Chinese counterpart, reports David Smith
Technology | Despite rise of AI, is there still hope for Europe’s translators? A booming tech sector has disrupted translation jobs in publishing – but they could be needed for a while longer yet, writes Philip Oltermann
Feature | The sinister spread of France’s killer seaweed After a series of deaths on the beaches of Brittany, one bereaved family set out to prove the foul-smelling bloom was to blame. Marta Zaraska investigates
Opinion | Normalising Reform UK’s ideas turns neighbour against neighbour “Concern” about immigration has now morphed into policing how ethnic minorities exist in our communities, argues Nesrine Malik
Culture | How Backrooms upended the horror movie It started off just as a creepy picture on the internet. Now it’s the year’s freakiest film. Steve Rose meets its auteur, Kane Parsons, and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve
What else we’ve been reading
The Guardian’s new list of the 100 best novels of all time provoked extensive discussion in my household. How many have you read? I won’t embarrass myself by divulging my own total, except to admit there is considerable catching up to be done. Graham Snowdon, editor
Politidex is a Pokémon-like mobile phone game where players can build their own political party by “catching” local councillors and MPs. Having started life as an April Fools’ Day joke, the game’s mission is now to humanise both politics and politicians, says its creator in this interesting piece. Bowie Qiu, Marketing manager
Would we be better off living in the Middle Ages? Astonishingly, influential voices on the American intellectual Right now seem to think so. Rather than affirming the Enlightenment ideals that inspired this country’s founding—reason, rights, markets, liberal democracy, and church–state separation—they are longing for, of all things, rule from the throne and altar. Last October …
On the 200th anniversary of his death on July 4, 1826, and the 250th anniversary of his Declaration of Independence, we need Thomas Jefferson now more than ever. We especially need his progressive views on the severance of church from state by a “wall of separation.” We in the United States live in troubling times …
The question confronting American educators today is not whether we should teach ethics to children—virtually everyone agrees that moral education is essential. The question is how we should teach ethics in an increasingly diverse society where traditional religious approaches no longer work for everyone. I believe we need to fundamentally rethink our approach to moral …
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
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