The president-elect appeared to be having serious conversations about picking Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida as Pete Hegseth, the current selection, dismissed the allegations against him.
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempt to break a political deadlock by imposing military rule collapsed within hours, leaving him with few defenders. A vote to impeach him could come as soon as Friday.
Supreme Court Inclined to Uphold Tennessee Law on Transgender Care
The justices heard arguments on Wednesday over whether Tennessee can ban some medical treatments for transgender youth. More than 20 other states have similar laws.
In private meetings and memos, the justices made new rules for themselves — then split on whether they could, or should, be enforced.
Supreme Court Returns to a Culture War Battleground: Transgender Rights
On Wednesday, the justices will hear the marquee case of the term, a challenge to a Tennessee law banning several forms of medical care for transgender youths.
July’s second novel, which follows a married mother and artist who derails a solo cross-country road trip by checking into a motel close to home and starting an affair with a younger rental-car worker, was the year’s literary conversation piece, dubbed “the talk of every group text — at least every group text composed of women over 40” and “the first great perimenopause novel” in just two of many articles that wrestled with its themes. Sexually frank and laced with the novelist’s loopy humor, the book ends up posing that most universal question: What would you risk to change your life? Read our review.
In Alderton’s brisk, witty novel, a 35-year-old struggling comedian in London tries to make sense of a recent breakup at the same moment when the majority of his friends seem to be pairing off for life. Cue snappy dialogue, awkward first dates and a memorable quest for a new home; toss clichéd gender roles, the traditional marriage plot and a ho-hum happily ever after. Not only does Alderton cement herself as a latter-day Nora Ephron, she also puts her own mark on the classic romantic comedy form. There are no second fiddles in “Good Material”; every character sings. And there is a deeper message, revealed in a surprise twist, having to do with independence, adventure and charting your own course. Read our review.
It takes a lot of ambition, skill and vision to reinvent one of the most iconic books in American letters, but Everett demonstrates he possesses those virtues in spades in “James.” The novel is a radical reworking of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” telling the story not from Huck’s perspective, but from the point of view of the enslaved man who accompanies Huck down the Mississippi River: Jim (or, as he clarifies, James). From James’s eyes, we see he is no mere sidekick but rather a thinker and a writer who is code-switching as illiterate and fighting desperately for freedom. Everett’s novel is a literary hat trick — a book that highlights the horrors in American history and complicates an American classic, all while also emerging as a work of exquisite originality in its own right. Read our review.
Cyrus Shams, an Iranian American aspiring poet and recovering drug addict, wallows in a post-college malaise in a fictional Midwestern town. He’s working dead-end jobs and halfheartedly attending A.A., while grieving his parents’ deaths and, increasingly, fantasizing about his own. Cyrus is lost and sad, but this captivating first novel, by an author who is himself a poet, is anything but. As Akbar nudges Cyrus closer to uncovering a secret in his family’s past, he turns his protagonist’s quest for meaning — involving a road trip to New York and a revelatory encounter in the Brooklyn Museum — into an indelible affirmation of life, rife with inventive beauty, vivid characters and surprising twists of plot. Read our review.
History has long been Enrigue’s playground, and his latest novel takes readers to 16th-century Tenochtitlan, or what is now Mexico City. Hernán Cortés and his men have arrived at Moctezuma’s palace for a diplomatic — if tense and comically imbalanced — meeting of cultures and empires. In this telling, it’s Moctezuma’s people who have the upper hand, though the emperor himself is inconveniently prone to hallucinogenic reveries and domestic threats. The carnage here is devilishly brazen, the humor ample and bone-dry. Read our review.
Debreczeni, 39 when he was deported from his native Hungary to what he calls “the Land of Auschwitz,” would later memorialize the experience in a book that defies easy classification. First published in 1950, “Cold Crematorium” is a masterpiece of clinical, mordant observation. In a cattle car he watches a fellow deportee whose hand retains the gestures of a chain-smoker; newly arrived at Auschwitz, he encounters the lousy barroom piano player he avoided back home. This is more than gallows humor; it’s a stubborn fight to stay human and place the unimaginable in the context of the known. Look elsewhere for platitudes — Debreczeni witnessed, and reported, the best and worst of mankind and showed it to us to use as we will. Read our review.
Blitzer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, presents a timely analysis of the situation at America’s southern border, placing the blame for today’s screaming headlines, detainee camps and unaccompanied minors firmly on post-Cold War U.S. policy. His kaleidoscopic narrative moves between the Central American insurgencies that flooded this country with refugees, and the shifting and frequently incoherent policies that worsened the fallout. We meet morally pragmatic domestic politicians, a tireless activist who’s moved from El Salvador to Chicago, Los Angeles teenagers ensnared in gang pipelines. None of it is simple; all of it has a terrible cost. Blitzer handles his vast topic with assurance and grace, never losing sight of the human element behind the global crisis. Read our review.
When the veteran literary and cultural critic came out as transgender in 2021 at the age of 66, she described in an email to her loved ones the devastating realization that her “parallel life” — the one presented to her by a “gender-swapping” app that showed her how she would have looked as a girl and then a woman at various junctures in her life — had passed her by. “Fifty years were under water, and I’d never get them back.” As she reflects on her upbringing as the “only child of isolated immigrants,” her early adulthood in 1970s New York and her career of seeking truths through writing while hiding an important truth about herself, Sante fearlessly documents a transformation both internal and external, one that is also a kind of homecoming. Read our review.
This elegant biography of the 40th president stands out for its deep authority and nimble style. Boot, a historian and foreign policy analyst, grew up idolizing Ronald Reagan, but after a decade of interviews and research, he finds himself asking whether his onetime hero paved the way for Donald Trump, the man whose ascent to power led Boot to abandon the right. The book is a landmark work that shows how Reagan emerged from his New Deal roots to become a practiced Red baiter and racist dog whistler before settling into the role of the optimistic all-American elder statesman. “It is no exaggeration,” Boot writes, “to say that you cannot fully comprehend what happened to America in the 20th century without first understanding what happened to Ronald Reagan.” Read our review.
In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook’s third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait that blends generations of scholarship with the firsthand accounts of European seafarers as well as the oral traditions of Indigenous Pacific islanders. The story begins in Britain as the last embers of the Enlightenment are going out, a time when curiosity and empathy gave way to imperial ambition and moral zeal. Between tales of adventure on the open ocean, complex depictions of Polynesian culture and colorful scenes of a subarctic frost littered with animal life, Sides expertly probes the causes of Cook’s growing anger and violence as the journey wears on and the explorer reckons with the fallout of what he and others had wrought in expanding the map of Europe’s power. Read our review.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s decision to install Kash Patel as F.B.I. director indicates that he remains undaunted by Washington resistance as he appoints ideological warriors, conspiracy theorists and even relatives.
In a letter, the Democratic leader said members of his party would work with Republicans to consider the president-elect’s nominees — but asserted they should undergo traditional Senate vetting.
Tensions Rise Among Russia’s Elite as Economic Growth Slows
The slowdown is worrying for the Kremlin but not serious enough to significantly hobble its war effort.
Forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad have captured the Aleppo airport and are attacking the western city of Hama, according to local officials and a Britain-based war monitor.
Amphibious operations across the Dnipro River at Kherson illustrated the suffering and endurance of Ukrainian forces. A team of Times journalists observed the perilous movements.
Several lawmakers expressed support on Sunday for the president-elect’s plan to install a loyalist who has vowed to use the position to exact revenge on adversaries.
A Second Trump Term Poses a Crucial Test of the Senate’s Independence
President-elect Donald J. Trump is threatening to challenge the institution’s historic role, and the Constitution, with his prospective nominees and threats to push the boundaries of executive authority.
President-elect Donald J. Trump turned to a firebrand loyalist to become director of the bureau, which he sees as part of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy against him.
Donald Trump’s pick to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reached a pinnacle of power after a life of fame and addictions and a career intertwined with conspiracy theories.
Mexican Cartels Lure Chemistry Students to Make Fentanyl
Criminals turn college campuses into recruitment hubs, recruiting chemistry students in Mexico with big paydays.
Musk’s Slashing of the Federal Budget Faces Big Hurdles
The so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with Elon Musk as co-leader, has advantages that past budget-cutters did not, but laws and court challenges can still make change slow and difficult.
His siblings have long retreated from the inner circle, but the president-elect’s eldest son has made a name for himself as the person who can best assess loyalty to the Trump political brand.
The law sets a minimum age for users of platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X. How the restriction will be enforced online remains an open question.
An A.I. Granny Is Phone Scammers’ Worst Nightmare
Daisy Harris, an A.I.-generated English granny, has been stymying scammers with meandering, time-wasting conversations. But can she actually make a dent in the flood of fraud?
The scholar of Palestinian history talks about what has and has not surprised him about the world‘s response to Israel‘s assault on Gaza.
Under the Spanish Volcano
A recent exhibition at the Prado showcased artists engaging with the ferment and conflict of turn-of-the-century Spain.
‘The Look of Shame’
The French director Catherine Breillat has spent her career insisting on women’s agency and reclaiming taboo desires—sometimes with troubling implications.
Hamas is unlikely to compromise in Gaza, despite the decision by its ally, Hezbollah, to stop fighting. A deal in Gaza would also be harder for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
The finding was a landmark in a court case that has stretched out over more than a decade. Plans for a receivership of New York City’s jails will be heard on Jan. 14.
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