Category Archives: Opinion

THE NEW YORK TIMES – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2025

Israel and Hamas Say They’ll Work With Trump’s Gaza Plan, but Gaps Remain

Israel said it would cooperate with President Trump to end the war, but much remains unclear about Hamas’s future and whether it will agree to disarm.

Trump Seizes On Shutdown to Punish Political Foes

President Trump has cut or paused billions in funding to Democratic-run cities and states since the federal government came to a halt.

What Happens When Socialists Are in Charge? Portland Offers a Glimpse.

A West Coast version of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is playing out in Portland, Ore. But the socialist city councilors are facing significant opposition.

Sean Combs Now Faces Not Just Prison and a Fine, but Shunning

Many who have tracked the music mogul’s career think his reputation has been irreparably damaged by testimony of abusive behavior as a boss and boyfriend.

THE NEW YORK TIMES – FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2025

The Jobs Report That Wasn’t Leaves Economists Guessing

The government is expected to withhold employment data because of its shutdown. Policymakers will enter uncharted territory without it.

Deepfakes, Insults and Job Cuts: A Government Shutdown Like No Other

Shutdowns are always unpleasant affairs. But President Trump has used his power in aggressive and strikingly personal ways.

Trump Offered Universities an Invitation for a Deal. Some See a Trap.

Trump officials want schools to sign on to conservative priorities for special treatment. Some in higher education say agreeing would end academic freedom.

Hamas Still Considering Trump Gaza Plan but Rejects ‘Take It or Leave It’ Deal

A senior member of the Palestinian group said that the group would soon announce its position on President Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza.

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS – OCTOBER 23, 2025

Home | The New York Review of Books

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features Jacob Weisberg on deep fake news, Elaine Blair on istoriya feminisma, Eric Foner on the underground railroad at sea, Andrew Katzenstein on Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket, Suzanne Schneider on Friedrich Hayek’s bastard children, Nicole Rudick on Ben Shahn’s compassion, Jay Neugeboren on the working homeless, Vicente L. Rafael on an American massacre in the Philippines, Ariel Dorfman on Pinochet’s favorite Nazi, David Cole on Trump’s summary killings in international waters, a poem by Victoria Chang, and much more.

Algorithm Nation

Fights about digital filtering tools have turned more and more bitter. That’s because of their extraordinary power to shape both political opinion and mass culture.

Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality by Renée DiResta

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac

Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka

Equality Without Feminism?

The Soviet Union’s ambitious program of gender equality could never be separated from its abuses of power.

Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy by Julia Ioffe

The Big Cheese

Shadow Ticket is brisker than Thomas Pynchon’s other work, but it’s full of his usual vaudevillian sensibility, and it addresses his favorite theme: how to live freely under powerful systems of control.

Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE – OCTOBER 4, 2025 PREVIEW

THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE: The latest issue featuresRussia tests the West

Vladimir Putin is testing the West—and its unity

NATO must resist Russia’s efforts to corrode it from within

The White House’s plan for Gaza deserves praise

America, Israel and perhaps Hamas have changed their positions

Donald Trump’s cure for drug prices is worse than the disease

The problem is not greedy pharma firms

The new SCOTUS term will reshape America’s constitution

If the justices do not check an overmighty president, the country will suffer

Unleash the robotaxi revolution

Across the West, safety rules are standing in the way of progress

THE NEW YORK TIMES – THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2025

Trump’s Language Upends Principle of a Nonpartisan Military

President Trump’s suggestion of cities as “training grounds for our military” is in tension with what the armed services have long sought to preserve.

Deadlock Over Shutdown Drags On With No Sign of Agreement

Democrats and Republicans were digging in as President Trump said he saw the shutdown as a tool to make lasting changes to the federal bureaucracy.

‘Enough Is Enough’: Many Palestinians Say Hamas Must Accept Cease-Fire Plan

Interviews in Gaza suggest wide support for a proposal that calls for an immediate end to a war that has brought immense civilian suffering.

Israel Said It Intercepted the Flotilla Headed to Gaza. Here’s What to Know.

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS – OCTOBER 9, 2025 PREVIEW

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features Pico in Purgatory; Can cellos remember?; Britain’s Europe Problem

Pico in Purgatory

Pico’s Oration contravenes the very idea of human possibility that we think the Renaissance is about – yet we think of the Renaissance this way partly because of a centuries-long misreading of it. In which case, does Pico really belong to the Renaissance? Or is our whole idea of the Renaissance hopelessly flimsy, nothing but a collection of fantasies about what it means to be modern and human?

Britain’s Europe Problem

From Macmillan to Wilson to Heath to Thatcher to Major to Blair to Cameron, a succession of prime ministers persuaded themselves that their country was somehow different from the rest: it could pick and choose from the menu of European options in the way that suited it best. They were all mistaken. 

Computers that want things

For all the fluency and synthetic friendliness of public-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, it seems important to remember that existing iterations of AI can’t care. The chatbot doesn’t not care like a human not caring: it doesn’t care like a rock doesn’t care, or a glass of water. AI doesn’t want anything. But this is bound to change.

LITERARY REVIEW – OCTOBER 2025 ISSUE PREVIEW

LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features….Read All About It; Goethe’s Grand Ideas; The Basquiat Boom; Ministers & Monarchs; Operation Baku…

Strong Constitution: ‘Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street’ By Valentine Low

Blood, Rage & Terror: ‘The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s’ By Jason Burke

Stocks & Scares: ‘1929: The Inside Story of the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History’ By  Andrew Ross Sorkin

THE NEW YORK TIMES – WEDNESDAY, OCT, 1, 2025

Shutdown Grinds Many Government Services to a Halt

A bitter deadlock between President Trump and Democrats in Congress over federal spending is expected to disrupt services and leave many workers furloughed, and possibly cause mass job losses.

Gaza City Exodus Is Overwhelming Relief Efforts, Aid Agencies Say

Hospitals are overflowing, water is low and diseases are spreading as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee south to escape Israel’s expanded ground offensive.

Moscow Indicates Retaliation if Europe Uses Russian Assets for Ukraine

Amid a plan to lend $165 billion to Ukraine using Russian state assets, European officials are mindful of the possibility of Russian blowback.

Trump Gave the Military’s Leaders a Rehashed Speech, Until Minute 44

Almost daily, thousands of words pour forth from President Trump’s mouth. Sometimes, he tucks in a revealing insight about the direction he is taking the U.S.

THE NEW YORK TIMES – TUESDAY, SEPT. 30, 2025

Government Shutdown Could Delay Economic Data at a Critical Moment

“Flying blind amidst heavy fog is a dangerous proposition,” one economist said about the risks of a lapse in official statistics.

Trump’s Meeting With Democrats Yields No Progress, With Shutdown a Day Away

U.S. Deports Planeload of Iranians After Deal With Tehran, Officials Say

The deportation flight to Iran is the most stark push yet by the Trump administration to deport migrants even to places with harsh human rights records.

With New U.S. Deal to End Gaza War, a Rare Moment of Triumph for Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel got almost everything he hoped for, despite mounting international isolation.

After Volatile Summer, Trump’s Approval Remains Low but Stable, Poll Finds

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE – OCTOBER 6, 2025 PREVIEW

The illustrated cover for the October 6 2025 issue of The New Yorker in which two dishevelled parents lovingly watch a...

THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest cover features R. Kikuo Johnson’s “Free Play” – The overwhelming delights of parenting.

Grace and Disgrace

Hope lies not in expecting a late-in-life conversion experience in the Oval Office but in carrying out the ordinary work of civic life. By David Remnick

Tim Berners-Lee Invented the World Wide Web. Now He Wants to Save It

In 1989, Sir Tim revolutionized the online world. Today, in the era of misinformation, addictive algorithms, and extractive monopolies, he thinks he can do it again. By Julian Lucas

Carol Burnett Plays On

The ninety-two-year-old comedy legend has influenced generations of performers. In a string of recent TV roles, she has been co-starring with some of her closest comedic heirs. By Rachel Syme

Where the Battle Over Free Speech Is Leading Us

Doxing, deplatforming, defunding, persecuting, firing, and sometimes killing—all are part of an escalating war over words. What happens next? By Louis Menand