The Week Magazine May 23, 2025

The media is dying, yet the media is thriving. There are masterpieces of investigative reporting every day, yet trust in the media is lower than it has ever been. This week’s Last Word, set in Oakdale, Calif., offers a striking look into those contradictions (see p.36). Oakdale is what’s known as a “news desert.” There is a regional newspaper, but hardly anyone gets it. Ditto for the national papers, and it’s just about the same with traditional TV news. Instead, residents there rely largely on a mix of Facebook groups for their news. Sometimes those are reliable, more often not. You can take Oakdale as a metaphor for the country, and especially the regions beyond the coastal centers. Trust in the traditional media there has eroded to a frightening…

What happened President Trump this week embarked on a pomp-filled tour of the Middle East, where he signed investment deals with Saudi Arabia, pledged to lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, made overtures to Iran, and sparked domestic uproar with his plan to accept Qatar’s gift of a $400 million jet. Trump scoffed at ethical concerns about receiving a lavishly appointed Boeing 747-8 from the Qatari royal family, saying the “palace in the sky” would be converted into an Air Force One and would go to his presidential library after he left office. Only a “stupid” person wouldn’t want “a free, very expensive airplane,” said Trump. In a memo, Attorney General Pam Bondi—a former lobbyist for Qatar—declared the gift would not violate anti-bribery laws or the Constitution’s ban on foreign…

Trump’s “free” plane would be no “gift for the American taxpayer,” said Joe Gould and Connor O’Brien in Politico. The two presidential planes currently in use are decades old and “increasingly hard to maintain,” and replacements are years behind schedule. But before it could be used as Air Force One, the Qatari jet “would need to be torn down and rebuilt from the inside out” to meet security and communications needs and swept for “embedded foreign tech.” Experts say that process could cost the government tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. The furor over the plane could raise the heat on a simmering problem for Trump, said Aaron Blake in The Washington Post. Polls show many Americans have concerns about his business dealings, and lately we’ve seen…

What happened The Trump administration walked back its most aggressive tariffs on China this week, easing a trade war that had effectively halted the shipment of goods between the world’s two largest economies. After talks in Geneva, the two sides agreed to a 90-day pause during which the U.S. will lower tariffs on most Chinese goods from 145 percent to 30 percent, while China drops its rate on U.S. imports from 125 percent to 10 percent. The U.S. will also set the “de minimis” tariff, which applies to shipments under $800, at 54 percent for some deliveries from China and 30 percent for others. Until this month, such low-value shipments—many sent by Chinese e-commerce giants Shein and Temu—had entered the U.S. duty-free. “The consensus from both delegations is that…

■ Calvin, a North Atlantic right whale believed to be about 33 years old, was spotted in April for the first time in three years after scientists feared she died from running into discarded debris. She is one of only 370 right whales left on the planet. Calvin was found healed in a pod of over 60 whales off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Although orphaned at eight months, she has given birth four times and survived eight similar injuries, “illustrating the resiliency of right whales,” said scientist Katherine McKenna. ■ NASA astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth on his birthday last month with a special present: space magic captured on camera. The 70-year-old finished his fourth space trip with a collection of images he took onboard the International Space…

Growing up, “the only white smoke young Robert Prevost ever saw” likely billowed from steelworks chimneys on Chicago’s South Side, said Thomas Dyja in The Observer (U.K.). Last week, white smoke from the Vatican signaled that he’d been elected the first North American pope in the history of the Catholic Church. Adopting the name Leo XIV, the new pontiff addressed the crowds in St. Peter’s Square first in Italian, then in Spanish, and concluded with a traditional blessing in Latin. But make no mistake, the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is a “true son of Chicago.” Known to friends as Bob, he’s a White Sox fan from the “intimate and humane” city that gave the world Barack Obama, deep-dish pizza, and Playboy magazine. The cardinals’ choice…