THE NEW ATLANTIS MAGAZINE: The latest issue features….
In the 2020s, the weird soul of placeless America is being born on Discord servers. Robert Mariani
The planners dreamed of gleaming cities. Instead they brought three generations of hollowed-out downtowns and flight to the suburbs. Joseph Lawler
Trump’s vaunted missile defense system is a plan for America’s retreat and defeat. Robert Zubrin
THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest cover features Cartoons & Puzzles: A magazine maze, cartoonists on their forebears, Stephen Sondheim’s puzzle love, a hundredth-birthday diary, and more.
In 2025, the President’s family has been making bank in myriad ways, many of them involving crypto and foreign money. By John Cassidy
A conversation about the country’s unique Jewish community and rising levels of antisemitism.
Emil Bove violated a basic tenet of judicial ethics, presumably on purpose. By Ruth Marcus
Some civil servants and senior officials in the Trump Administration are experiencing bouts of conscience
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The 12.14.25 Issue features Great Performers issue, some of the year’s best actors show us how they conjure feelings on cue; Wesley Morris invents his own categories of awards; and more.
Teyana Taylor, Liam Neeson, Rose Byrne and more of our best actors on how they summon the emotions that move us.
Best Acting in a Helmet, Best Nervous Breakdown, Craziest Charm—the film performances so good Wesley Morris had to invent his own categories. By Wesley Morris
THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘Blocked!’ – Why Australia banned kids from social media (and what they think of it)
Millions of teenagers in Australia woke up on Wednesday to find themselves locked out of social media accounts after the government introduced a ban for under-16s – the first of its kind – on the platforms.
Far from being a kneejerk response to a moral panic, it’s a move backed up by detailed investigation into the effects of unfettered online access on children – and one that several other countries are poised to follow. Australian eSafety research found seven in 10 children aged 10 to 15 had encountered content associated with harm online. Three-quarters of those had most recently encountered that – including misogyny, violence, disordered eating and suicide – on a social media platform.
“We are seeking to create some friction [in the] system to protect children where previously there has been close to none … We are treating big tech like the extractive industry it has become,” Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told an audience earlier this year.
Spotlight | Syria, one year after Assad
While country’s return to global stage has filled many Syrians with pride, domestically old grievances threaten efforts to rebuild the state. William Christou reports from Damascus
Feature | The inside story of the race to create the ultimate AI
In Silicon Valley, rival companies are spending trillions of dollars to reach a goal that could change humanity – or potentially destroy it. Robert Booth reports
Feature | On the trail of London’s snail farming don
Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has vowed to spend his remaining years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels have cheated him. His greatest ruse? A tax-dodging snail empire. Jim Waterson caught up with him
Opinion | What words are left to describe Trump’s global rampage?
Deadly US boat strikes in the Caribbean are the latest example of a president corrupting both the law and morality, argues Jonathan Freedland
Culture | The best books of 2025
From fiction to food, people to poetry, science to sport: Guardian critics round up the year’s essential reads
THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE: The latest cover features ‘Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet’s “Christmas Avenue”’ – The celebratory chaos of the season.
Pete Hegseth’s conduct is a case study in how the government’s growing sense of heedlessness and unaccountability is shaping disastrous policy. By Jonathan Blitzer
The scientist was famous for linking healing with storytelling. Sometimes that meant reshaping patients’ reality. By Rachel Aviv
In the wake of President Trump’s reëlection, the number of aggrieved Americans seeking a new life abroad appears to be rising. The Netherlands offers one way out. By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
PHILOSOPHY NOW MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘The Happiness Issue’
Michael Gracey looks at how philosophers have pursued happiness.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), the author of The World as Will and Representation, was a profound metaphysician who also advocated basing ethics upon compassion. He was a great philosopher, but notoriously pessimistic, as the following quotations might suggest.
Matthew Hammerton points out that a meaningful life and a life that goes well for you might not be the same thing.
Abdullah Rayhan breaks down ‘happiness’ with Boethius, Kierkegaard & Montaigne.
Jahnvi Borgohain looks at a variety of approaches to happiness.
Tara Daneshmand on regret and the courage to choose.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: The 12.7.25 Issue features David Darlington on the dangers of e-bikes; Carlo Rotella on A.I. in the classroom; Lizzy Goodman on the music of Shaboozey; and more.
Unregulated e-bikes are a growing danger on American streets. In one Bay Area town, a terrible accident finally led to reform.
If only they were robotic! Instead, chatbots have developed a distinctive — and grating — voice .By Sam Kriss
The man’s unchecked bleeding was a mystery for years before a scan revealed the cause. By Lisa Sanders, M.D.
An adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella arrives at the same time as a new biography, unlocking one of his best-loved and least-understood books.
Watching with horror from London last week as flames ripped through seven adjacent apartment blocks in Hong Kong, it was impossible not to think back to the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, which exposed major systemic failures around UK social housing and eventually led to law changes around safety and accountability for high-rise buildings.
The comparisons with Hong Kong were not just visually obvious but also because the semi-autonomous city’s worst fire in decades appears to have followed months of complaints from residents about shoddy materials used in building works.
Hong Kong is of course a very different place to London, with politicians facing less public accountability in a political climate that makes it much harder for citizens to express dissent. But, as anger rises, hard questions are nevertheless being asked of authorities amid accusations of negligence and corruption.
The big story | Can Europe unite to tame Russia – without the US?
Washington’s Putin-appeasing plan for peace in Ukraine has failed, but many heard the death knell sound for European reliance on US protection, writes Patrick Wintour
Spotlight | If Rachel Reeves goes, will Keir Starmer fall with her?
British prime ministers rarely sack their chancellors – and when they do it almost inevitably leads to their own downfall. After last week’s budget, Starmer knows the same is true of him and Reeves, says Jessica Elgot
Feature | The dangerous rise of extremist Buddhism
Buddhism is still largely viewed as a peaceful philosophy – but across much of south-east Asia, the religion has been weaponised to serve nationalist goals. Sonia Faleiro investigates
Opinion | From the West Bank to Syria and Lebanon, Israel’s onslaught continues
Broken ceasefires, bombing, ground incursions and mounting deaths: Israeli imperialism is now expanding across the region, says Nesrine Malik
Culture | Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater: two men on the moon
As their 11th movie together, Blue Moon, is released, the actor and director tell Xan Brooks about musicals, the legacy of Philip Seymour Hoffman and what being bald and short does to your flirting skills
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