Innholdsfortegnelse for May 30, 2025 i The Week Magazine

When he was running for president in 1999, George W. Bush coined a phrase in a speech to the Latin Business Association, one he would often repeat as he pushed his No Child Left Behind Act. “We need,” he’d say, “to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations.” It’s a great line, one that gets at a pernicious double standard. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, what with all the revelations of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline over his presidential term (see Controversy, p.6). The voters who chose Biden in 2020 expected a president who would exhibit what they had seen from Biden’s Senate career: pugnacity, wit, a thorough grasp of policy nuance. Expectations for him were high. What they got instead, from the people around him, was…

■ A Houston man is suing Whataburger for up to $1 million, claiming the chain ignored his request for “no onions.” Demery Wilson alleges he suffered an allergic reaction from the onions, whose inclusion in his meal proves that Whataburger failed “to act in accordance with the appropriate standard of care.” Wilson’s Whataburger lawsuit follows the dismissal of one he filed last year against Sonic Drive-In, which he also accused of serving him unwanted onions. ■ A senior at Northeastern University demanded an $8,000 refund on her tuition after discovering that a professor had used ChatGPT to assemble course materials. Ella Stapleton said she found telltale signs of AI in her business teacher’s slide presentations, including chatbot prompts, distorted text, and photos of office workers with extraneous body parts.…

Jim Nantz is happily old-fashioned, said Adam Elder in New York magazine. While many announcers and pundits no longer hide what teams or players they’re rooting for, the longtime voice of the Masters, the NFL, and March Madness on CBS has maintained his impartiality. “When it comes to being a network broadcaster, you owe it to the fan to play it right down the middle,” says Nantz, 66. He learned the trade early, if accidentally. As a kid, he would record broadcasts of football games and golf tournaments; there was no “seven-day-a-week sports coverage. No ESPN, DVRs, much less VCRs. So I would fill up my tiny cassette tapes and play them over and over again. It was the way I fell asleep every night, with an earplug plugged…

Monica Hesse The Washington Post Welcome to Gilead, said Monica Hesse. Every week, America is becoming more and more like the totalitarian, patriarchal society depicted in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Consider the ongoing “horror show” in Georgia, where Adriana Smith, an Atlanta nurse in her ninth week of pregnancy, was declared brain-dead after blood clots formed in her brain. Against the strong wishes of her family, a hospital is keeping Smith alive with a ventilator and a feeding tube because state law forbids abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The exception to save the life of the mother doesn’t apply, since Smith’s life can’t be saved. Smith’s pregnancy is now 21 weeks along, with 11 more to go, and doctors have found fluid on the fetus’s brain. Smith’s…

Juan Carlos Blanco Sommaruga Diario La R No matter their political persuasion, every Uruguayan is mourning José Mujica Cordano, said Juan Carlos Blanco Sommaruga. Not for his deeds as president, but because he was a such a decent person. The son of a flower farmer who became a leftist guerrilla fighter in the 1960s, Mujica was imprisoned and tortured for 14 years under the military dictatorship, even spending two years down a well. After democracy returned, he went into politics, serving as president from 2010 to 2015. “Pepe,” as he was known, was South America’s first politician to “rise to his country’s highest office through democratic means after having dedicated years to armed struggle.” The Left loved him for legalizing abortion, same-sex marriage, and marijuana; the Right decried all…

■ Overdose deaths fell 27% nationwide last year to 80,391, their lowest level since 2019, according to CDC data. Experts cite factors including outreach campaigns and increased use of naloxone, an overdose reversal drug. Overdose remains the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 44. ABCNews.com ■ The Federal Emergency Management Agency is “not ready” for the hurricane season that starts June 1, according to an internal agency review. It cites uncertainty around FEMA’s mission, low morale, and lack of coordination with states and other federal agencies. President Trump has called FEMA ineffective and unnecessary. CNN.com ■ Of the 313 U.S. air traffic control facilities, all but two—one in Akron, Ohio, and another in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.—are operating below recommended minimum staffing levels. There are only 22…

■ 55% of voters who had not heard much about recent stock market fluctuations approve of President Trump’s handling of the economy, compared with 41% who know about the stock market swings. About 20% of voters said they hadn’t paid attention to recent news events. New York Times/Siena College ■ 72% of Americans are satisfied with their personal freedom, down from the 2007–21 average of 83%. In 142 modern, market-based countries, a median of 81% expressed satisfaction with their personal freedom. Gallup…

■ Grok pushes ‘white genocide’ claims Under fire after its Grok chatbot started repeatedly opining about “white genocide” in South Africa, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company last week promised to make its AI model’s instructions more transparent, said Jonathan Vanian in CNBC​.com. Users on the social media platform X posted screenshots of Grok jumping off topic to push the “white genocide” claims last week in response to “questions about completely unrelated matters such as baseball salaries and cartoons.” Musk is from South Africa and has frequently accused the post-apartheid, majority-Black government of racism. His AI company, xAI, said the chatbot’s “white genocide” obsession began after an “unauthorized modification” to Grok’s so-called system prompt—core instructions on how to approach questions. The firm said it will start publishing its system prompts,…

What kids eat and how much they run around in early childhood may be key to preventing obesity in years to come, a new study suggests. Kids who are overweight at age 6 are up to twice as likely as peers to be obese once they reach adulthood. Researchers in the Netherlands tracked the body mass index of more than 3,500 children at ages 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18. They found that every one-unit rise in BMI at age 6 more than doubled the chances of the subject being overweight or obese when they came of age. Encouragingly, the same wasn’t true for kids who were overweight as toddlers but then hit a healthier weight before their sixth birthday—which suggests that early intervention could be crucial. “The first…

Malaysian novelist Tash Aw is the author of The Harmony Silk Factory and Five Star Billionaire, both long-listed for the Booker Prize. His new book, The South, begins a quartet of novels and portrays a summerlong romance between two teenage Malaysian boys. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956). I first read this when I was at university and return to it regularly. It’s the story of young people falling in love and trying to carve out a space for themselves in a foreign city—which sounds simple enough. But there’s so much packed into such a slim volume: discrimination, exclusion, desire, the denial of the self. It’s the ultimate Paris novel. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987). This has to be the angriest, most haunting novel about racism, exclusion, and the…

The three-word chorus of Kanye West’s latest viral hit song is “about as perverse as any refrain ever set to music,” said Kelefa Sanneh in The New Yorker. Unfortunately, “Heil Hitler” and its “menacing” accompanying video have been viewed 10 million times on X since the song’s May 8 release, and snippets and AI-altered versions of it are also circulating on TikTok. While most social media platforms and major music-streaming services immediately banned the song, West is an artist who still commands wide attention after years of unhinged behavior, including embracing Nazism and blaming his new stance on cancel culture. Regrettably, the tune also has “a hook that has been stuck in my head ever since I first heard it.” Not long ago, “a song paying homage to Hitler…

Great rosé is available these days in an “ever-​expanding range of styles,” said the editors of VinePair. We tasted hundreds to find “the best of the best,” with price a consideration, and arrived at a list topped by the three bottles below. 2022 Venus La Universal Dido ‘La Solució Rosa’ ($30). From Spain’s Priorat region, our “savory and nuanced” No. 1 pick is “subtle on the nose” but impressed us with its layered flavors, including “hints of dried herbs and cinnamon.” 2024 Big Table Farm Laughing Pig Rosé ($36). This “joyful” unfiltered wine from Oregon’s Willamette Valley smells of orange blossoms and strawberry tops, and the “superbly balanced” palate delivers vibrant flavors of ripe strawberries and tart cherries.” 2024 Istine Rosato ($29). Tuscany’s top rosé “offers lush flavors of…

■ Hors d’oeuvres: Costco’s party platters, from spring rolls to tempura shrimp and crab cakes, “please even the most discerning guests.” ■ Rotisserie chicken: “To get that meat that falls off the bone? That’s luxurious”—and not easily matched by a home cook. ■ Organic maple syrup: Kirkland-brand maple syrup “makes even Bisquick taste like it came out of the kitchen at Chez Ma Tante.” ■ Vanilla extract: Again, the Kirkland option is “at least as good if not better than more expensive alternatives.” ■ Produce: Even farmers market devotees source Cara Cara oranges and sumo citrus from Costco and load up on berries and on pears as ripe and sweet as Harry & David’s. ■ Aesop soaps: “It used to be a whispered-about secret,” but Costco sells Aesop’s luxe…

The Federal Communications Commission approved a $20 billion acquisition by Verizon after the company agreed to end its DEI programs, said David Shepardson in Reuters. In February, FCC chair Brendan Carr said the agency was “opening a probe of Verizon for its promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and said it could be a factor” in its approval of a deal for fiber-optic internet provider Frontier Communications. Verizon agreed to drop “workplace diversity goals” and “references to DEI in employee training.” Tesla: Musk says he’ll pull back from politics Elon Musk said he’s committed to leading Tesla for the next five years and will pull back on his political spending, said Dana Hull and Mishal Husain in Bloomberg. Musk poured more than $250 million into helping President Trump,…

■ Accelerated life insurance payments It’s tough to get a life insurance payout while you’re still living, said Jean Eaglesham in The Wall Street Journal. Eighty-five percent of insurers offer so-called accelerated death benefits, or living benefits, that allow “terminally ill people to cash in part of their coverage while still alive.” But it can involve “emotionally fraught judgments on how sick the policyholder really is.” State regulations require that insurers “cap the life expectancy at which an accelerated death benefit is payable,” usually between six months and two years. Disputes frequently arise. Jay Taylor, a Californian with leukemia, eventually settled with his insurer, which kept rejecting his accelerated benefit claim “on the grounds his life expectancy was longer than the one-year limit.” Taylor’s doctors had given him two…

Tom Fairless and David Luhnow The Wall Street Journal “The world’s technology revolution is leaving Europe behind,” said Tom Fairless and David Luhnow. Europe boasts “world-class research facilities and a deep pool of engineering and scientific talent.” But having “missed out on the first digital revolution, Europe seems poised to miss out on the next wave, too.” In Europe, “obstacles to tech growth are deeply entrenched.” In 50 years, the U.S. has created 241 companies that now have a market value of more than $10 billion. For Europe, the number is just 14. “The typical company in the top 10 publicly traded U.S. firms was founded in 1985, while in Europe, it was in 1911.” And if the situation has been bad for years, it’s not getting any better.…

This week’s question: Not content to simply battle it out in the boardroom, a growing number of venture capitalists, crypto enthusiasts, and other tech industry figures are taking up martial arts and pummeling each other in cage matches. In seven or fewer words, come up with the first rule of Tech Bro Fight Club. Last week’s contest: The Trump administration has terminated a federal grant that helps fund PBS children’s shows, including Sesame Street. If Sesame Street’s puppet cast were to sing a song about how the beloved show’s finances are no longer A-OK, what would the number be titled? THE WINNER: “Rubber Checkie” Moe Cougher, Olathe, Kan. SECOND PLACE: “Grover, Can You Spare a Dime?” Bruce Carlson, Alexandria, Va. THIRD PLACE: “It’s Not Easy Needin’ Green” Peter Gordon,…

What happened President Trump signaled this week that he was giving up on attempts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, following a two-hour call with Vladimir Putin in which the Russian president refused to agree to a cease-fire or to abandon his maximalist war aims. Trump claimed the talk “went very well” and presented Putin’s claims that he would negotiate with Ukraine as progress. Putin, however, showed little willingness to end the war, and Russian troops have been preparing for another eastern offensive. In the call, Putin reiterated demands for Ukrainian demilitarization and a ban on NATO membership; he also asked for a “memorandum” on a future agreement that appeared to introduce new delays. Trump, for his part, retreated from his recent statements, making no mention of a…

Dystopias, after reality TV producer Rob Worsoff revealed he’d pitched the Department of Homeland Security on a game show in which desperate immigrants would compete for the prize of U.S. citizenship. The show, which has the working title The American, would be a “celebration of America,” said Worsoff. It’s “not The Hunger Games.” The cast of Jersey Shore, after congressional Republicans inserted into their “one big, beautiful bill” a provision repealing a 10% excise tax that was imposed on tanning salons in 2010. “Can’t get more MAGA than that,” said former Trump adviser Steven Rattner. Sunny days, after Sesame Street struck a new streaming deal with Netflix. The fate of the beloved children’s series had been in doubt because of an expiring pact with HBO Max and President Trump’s…

Nadya Tolokonnikova is disillusioned, but not hopeless, said Philip Oltermann in The Guardian. The Russian artist made headlines worldwide in 2012, when the group she co-founded, Pussy Riot, staged what it called a punk prayer in a Moscow cathedral. Western media heralded the protest as a spark that could ignite a revolution against the regime of President Vladimir Putin. But that uprising never came, Putin remains in the Kremlin, and Tolokonnikova had to flee into exile abroad. “I think it’s awesome that you guys romanticized Russian society,” says Tolokonnikova, 35. “The fact that you saw it as strong may have been a factor in it believing it actually was.” She is still a working artist but supplements her income with an account on the adult content platform OnlyFans, where…

Ross Barkan New York magazine “No president has ever hung a for-sale sign over the White House” like Donald J. Trump, said Ross Barkan. His “unabashed corruption” has been shrugged off by his MAGA base, most Republicans, and even much of the public because it is so open and so in keeping with his amoral character. Even his supporters “assume he is at least slightly corrupt,” and to them, “his brazenness almost seems like a form of honesty” because he makes no attempt to hide his gold-plated greed. When he announced he planned on accepting a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, he shamelessly insisted he needed an Air Force One as opulent as the jets of Middle East kings and other tyrants. Thanks to his $TRUMP meme coin…

“The essence of snake oil is that the person selling it promises a full solution with very little work. Cut out sugar and your child will be cured. Buy my supplement and your health will improve. All you need for your inflammation is my $85.99 parasite cleanse. We will know the cause of autism by September. The ‘one simple trick’ is inherent in the sales pitch. In the end, the way to separate at least some of this misinformation from authoritative knowledge may be very simple: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Emily Oster in The Dispatch…

Ron Ben-Yishai Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan might be the “biggest winner” from Syria’s liberation, said Ron Ben-Yishai. Syria had been under international sanctions for years because of the brutality of dictator Bashar al-Assad, who used chemical weapons on his own people. But last week President Donald Trump, while in Saudi Arabia, met with new Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa—“until recently labeled an Islamist terrorist”—to shake his hand and declare Syria open for business. Trump portrayed his decision as a favor to Saudi Arabia, from which he wants investment. “Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump said jokingly. But the real windfall goes to Turkey. The removal of sanctions “clears the way for Turkish companies” to pour into Syria and “earn billions” rebuilding and developing…

Lukas Krivosik Postoj Ever eager to suck up to Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Robert Fico plans to honor a Soviet hero, said Lukas Krivosik. Fico had months ago floated the idea of building a monument to Field Marshal Ivan Konev, and now the Russian president has all but commanded him to do it, publicly thanking him for the “noble gesture” when Fico was recently in Moscow. There’s just one problem: Konev is actually the liberator of Czechs, not of Slovaks. He may have led Red Army troops into Prague in 1945 to chase out the Nazis, but his “contributions to Slovakia’s liberation were almost negligible.” In fact, it was two Soviet Ukrainian brigades that freed our territory. And in any case, Konev was a “scoundrel, even by Soviet standards.”…

The Trump administration is considering “an act far more radical than any that has come before,” said Ruth Marcus in The New Yorker. In his fervor to deport migrants without due process, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller recently said the administration is “actively looking” at suspending habeas corpus, the fundamental constitutional right requiring the government to allow detained people to defend themselves in court. Miller isn’t a lawyer, but seemed “happy to play one” when he claimed Trump can unilaterally suspend habeas corpus to proceed with mass deportations. The Constitution makes clear that habeas corpus can be suspended only in cases of “rebellion or invasion,” and that Congress must authorize this extreme step. It has happened just four times, most recently after Pearl Harbor in 1941. Miller and…

The two sides of the moon are very different: The near side has a thin crust littered with vast impact basins, or lunar maria, while the far side has a thicker crust and smaller basins. Now we may finally know why, reports Space.com. NASA scientists believe that residual heat from ancient volcanoes shaped the moon from the inside out, leaving the more geologically active side thinner and warmer. Poring over data from NASA’s 2012 GRAIL lunar-mapping mission, the researchers noted that the near-side mantle was consistently 100 to 200 degrees Celsius hotter than that on the far side. That’s because, they say, the Earth-facing side still has radioactive elements left over from volcanic activity billions of years ago, generating heat to shape surface features. Earlier data from NASA’s 1998…

With his “magnificent and melancholy” new book, Ocean Vuong joins the ranks of an “elite few” great contemporary novelists, said Leigh Haber in the Los Angeles Times. Hai, the protagonist, is a teenager from Vietnam who is saved from a suicidal leap by an 82-year-old Lithuanian woman, then buoyed again by the community he finds among co-workers at a fast-casual chain restaurant in suburban Connecticut. “As with most people in real life, their stories are not about profound change,” yet Vuong “meets the moment” by reveling in his characters’ pluck and by deploying poetic language that “elevates the most prosaic of details into hymn.” After all the “posturing” that characterized Vuong’s celebrated first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, this similarly autobiographical follow-up is “a welcome surprise,” said Andrea…

The Fate of the Day by Rick Atkinson (Crown, $42) “To label this book military history does it a disservice,” said Amy S. Greenberg in The New York Times. Yes, this best-seller is the second volume in a planned trilogy and it covers the 1777–80 middle years of the American Revolution. But “there is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer-winning Atkinson.” Besides dozens of battles, he gets us inside the heads of George Washington, King George III, and many lesser-known figures, and he makes every page “compulsively readable.” Strangers in the Land by Michael Luo (Doubleday, $35) Michael Luo’s new book “deserves a place beside other essential works of American history,” said Makana Eyre in The Washington Post. A history of the Chinese-American immigration experience, it…

Credit Morgan Wallen’s ongoing domination of Billboard’s album chart this decade to “a particular strain of the modern American mood,” said Maura Johnston in Rolling Stone. “The love-me-or-leave-me attitude that animates his glowering songs is as American as apple pie,” and the country megastar’s new two-hour album plays that particular tune about three dozen times. The 32-year-old Tennessee native knows he’s misbehaved more than once when he’s been drinking, and he never pretends he’s about to change. Some people love that; some hate it. The haters may miss that Wallen’s polished country rock is “well-crafted and hooky while not being immune to the occasional stylistic left turn.” The 37 songs on I’m the Problem are “mostly about consequences, which also makes them interesting,” said Amanda Petrusich in The…

Place of Bones A mother and daughter on a remote ranch take in a wounded bank robber who is being pursued by a gang of outlaws. Trouble looms, but these women aren’t feeble prey. A good third-act plot twist helps this 2023 indie transcend a familiar premise. $6 on demand The Thicket Peter Dinklage meets his match in this chilling 2024 drama about a bounty hunter tracking a villain named Cut Throat Bill. Dinklage comes on like a fiercer version of Game of Thrones’ Tyrion Lannister, while Juliette Lewis, as Bill, steals the show. $5 on demand Rust The on-set gun accident that claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins will forever shadow this recently released movie about a teen and his outlaw grandfather fleeing a U.S. marshal and…

“Rolls-Royce says its chess set is meant for its customers to enjoy in the comfort of their home.” But it’d be a pity not to take advantage of a few of the thoughtful design details of the handcrafted Rolls-Royce Chess Set by playing a game or two in the rear seat of one of the luxury brand’s automobiles. Magnets ensure that every playing piece locks with precision at the center of each wood-veneer-topped square, and the leather-clad base lifts the board as if it’s floating. Even at home, you’ll appreciate the “theatrical” way a game begins. The board slides open in one smooth motion and the pieces, aligned in their trays, rise to meet each player. $40,000; rolls-roycemotorcars.com Source: Luxury Launches…

These are tough times for a DEI business, said Krystal Hur in The Wall Street Journal. Just ask firms like Design Engineering Inc., a car-parts maker in Ohio whose logo spells out the acronym. President Trump’s war on DEI has been about ending diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, but businesses that happen to have “DEI” in their names are now “caught in the anti-woke web.” Ricardo Gomez’s restaurant-supply company, DEI Equipment, “received a scathing, one-star online review accusing diversity mandates of hurting the U.S. military.” Gomez said his firm’s name was chosen to recall “the Latin word ‘dei,’ which can mean divine,” and it “sells cookware and cutlery,” not a diversity ideology. It’s not just “DEI” that poses problems. The Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies dropped…

Since 2002, the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Network (wildnet.org) has raised more than $378 million to provide resources to conservationists protecting more than 210 species of endangered wild animals in 69 countries. Among the more than 1,000 projects are those supporting forest restoration, marine habitat cleaning, and the creation of protected areas. WCN is at the forefront of efforts to protect snow leopards, lions, and rhinos, often working in hard-to-reach and conflict-afflicted areas such as the Niassa reserve in Mozambique, one of the last strongholds of the African lion. The organization also invests in the livelihood, education, and professional training of local conservationists. One two-year program trains emerging conservationists in the Amazon basin, one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, and the organization sets resources aside for emergency relief. Each…

Jonathan Levin Bloomberg Clouds are forming on the horizon for the Sunshine State’s real estate market, said Jonathan Levin. The median home price in the state fell by 1.7% in March, according to a recent report from Redfin, its biggest drop in 13 years. After a surge in housing demand from retirees, bankers, and tech bros rushing for Florida’s relaxed regulations and tax benefits during the pandemic, net migration to the state has been steadily cooling. It’s not the weather that is turning off potential buyers. New laws passed after the collapse of a Surfside, Fla., complex in 2021 have “led to a spurt of special assessments by condo associations” with “surprise bills” topping $100,000. Condo sales in the state are now running 31% below their 2017–19 average. But…

Ed Smylie was at home in Houston when the message came. It was April 13, 1970, and an oxygen tank had exploded aboard Apollo 13, crippling the spacecraft. “Houston,” one of three astronauts on board radioed mission control, “we’ve had a problem.” They retreated to the lunar excursion module—but Smylie, a NASA engineer, knew that with three men in a capsule designed for two, carbon dioxide would soon build up to a lethal level. Adding air-​scrubbing canisters would solve the problem, but the spare ones in the spacecraft were square while those in the module were round. “You can’t put a square peg in a round hole, and that’s what we had,” Smylie said in 2021. Calling for a list of materials on board, he and his team jerry-rigged…

FDA sharply restricts access to Covid vaccines The Food and Drug Administration this week announced it was curbing approval for Covid boosters to cover only adults 65 and older and younger people at high risk for severe illness. More than 100 million people would still qualify, the FDA said. The agency will require drugmakers to do randomized, control trials—in which some participants receive a placebo—before it approves boosters for healthy people under 65. We need “gold standard science to support” boosters for low-risk Americans, said FDA official Dr. Vinay Prassad. Critics said existing data suggests that boosters are safe, and that the new guidelines don’t take into account the fact that even low-risk people can suffer severe complications from Covid. The policy, said infectious disease expert Dr. Anna Durbin,…

Richard Kind lived out a failed sitcom in real life, said Michael Schulman in The New Yorker. In 1987, the prolific character actor was cast in a pilot for Bennett Brothers, in which Kind and George Clooney played siblings and roommates. “He was the guy who got all the women, and I was the nebbishy guy,” says Kind, 68. “We all thought it was going to go. It didn’t go. What are you gonna do?” Soon after, Clooney—who was going through a divorce—moved into Kind’s Los Angeles apartment for a few months. One night while watching TV together, Kind remarked that his cat had been constipated for a few days. Clooney “decided to do this joke: He took a dump in the litter box. I came in and went—I…

■ Taylor Swift and Blake Lively are no longer besties. The “Bad Blood” singer and the Gossip Girl actress have been pals since 2015, but their friendship “halted” after Swift was drawn into Lively’s legal battle with her It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni, a source told People. “Taylor wants no part in this drama.” Lively, 37, sued Baldoni in December, accusing him of sexual harassment and a retaliatory smear campaign; Baldoni, 41, countersued Lively for defamation and extortion. He name-dropped Swift in his filing, claiming Lively referred to the pop superstar as one of her “dragons” who “protects” her in creative matters. Baldoni subpoenaed the singer as a witness earlier this month—​a move that “fractured” Swift’s already “fragile” relationship with Lively, said an insider. Another…

Yascha Mounk The Dispatch “The average American is now vastly more affluent than the average European,” said Yascha Mounk. GDP per capita in the U.S. is $83,000, nearly twice that of France and Italy and far more than even the wealthier European countries such as Germany ($54,000) and the U.K. ($50,000). The U.S. does have more very rich people, but Americans are pulling away from their European counterparts in median disposable income, as well, and that stat isn’t “influenced by outliers at the top.” Many metrics show the U.S. is far more affluent. The average American home is 2,200 square feet, compared with 1,200 and 800 for Germany and the U.K., respectively. “This extra space translates into all kinds of everyday amenities” from washer-dryer units to extra bathrooms to…

■ A Florida man was able to marry three different women in the state because counties don’t cross-reference marriage licenses. Henry Betsey Jr. met the women on dating sites and married them at different county courthouses between late 2020 and 2022. “He sold the perfect person, when in reality he was none of those things,” said wife No. 1 Tonya Betsey, who uncovered his three-timing when she searched every Florida county’s marriage records. “If the counties did talk, it would have saved me a lot of heartache,” said Tonya. Betsey, who came to court with his current girlfriend, pleaded guilty to bigamy and is awaiting sentencing. ■ A bronze statue of first lady Melania Trump erected outside her hometown in Slovenia has been stolen. The sculpture, which was unveiled…

Jane Fryer Daily Mail (U.K.) How did Gérard Depardieu get away with it for so long? asked Jane Fryer. The French actor recently convicted of sexually assaulting two women on a film set—he had to be pulled off of one woman as he was violently groping her chest and buttocks—has been known to be an aggressive lech for literally decades. Yet it was all seen as part of his “louche charisma.” The French “lapped up” the many, many tales of his excessive drinking and debauchery, and devoured the scandalous autobiography packed with stories of his past as a male prostitute who would mug his clients. Through it all, “nobody in France seemed to have cared” about his appalling treatment of women. They kept casting him in movies and “festooning…

President Trump is hoping that “a bit of legal chicanery” will let him shred birthright citizenship, said Stephen I. Vladeck in The New York Times. Three federal judges have barred the administration from enforcing his January executive order, which—in a clear violation of the 14th Amendment—would deny U.S. citizenship to the children of undocumented migrants. But during oral arguments at the Supreme Court last week, administration lawyers didn’t ask the justices to rule Trump’s order legal. Instead, they asked the high court to scrap “the use of nationwide injunctions.” If the justices agree, lower courts would be able to block government agents only from acting against individual plaintiffs. Such a ruling would mean that, as this case progresses, children born to immigrants could be denied citizenship for any number…

“Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” François de La Rochefoucauld, quoted in The Bulwark “It is a joy to be hidden, and a disaster not to be found.” D.W. Winnicott, quoted in Psychology Today “When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” Erma Bombeck, quoted in Good Housekeeping “The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.” Heinrich Heine, quoted in Forbes “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, quoted in Tasting Table “I don’t sculpt people, I sculpt solitude.” Alberto Giacometti, quoted in The Guardian “Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that’s what…

A new AI tool can pinpoint your biological age from a selfie, reports The Washington Post. Doctors typically estimate biological age from a patient’s looks—what they call “the eyeball test”—to help them determine appropriate therapies. A cancer patient who appears to be 72 but is really 65, for example, is less likely to tolerate aggressive treatment. The new tool, called FaceAge, is designed to improve that initial judgment call. Scientists at Mass General Brigham in Boston trained the algorithm on some 60,000 photographs of people ages 60 and older. They initially tested it on a group of 6,200 cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy and found that the older the patient looked, the worse their survival rate. They then asked eight doctors to predict whether terminal cancer patients would be alive…

In the health-care business, “even those companies with warm public reputations may not be worthy of our esteem,” said Luke Messac in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Former New York Times investigative reporter Gardiner Harris has dug into Johnson & Johnson’s history of exploiting the public’s trust, and his findings are “staggering.” Since 1894, when it began hawking a baby powder that fueled profits and was revealed only many decades later to contain cancer-causing asbestos, the company has sold dangerous products to consumers, often knowingly, while presenting itself as a paragon of corporate ethics. The author “doesn’t spare others from scrutiny or criticism,” said Andrew DeMillo in the Associated Press. He also slams the FDA for failing consumers and the media for unjustly flattering the FDA and J&J.…

For Carl Hiaasen, it’s never been more challenging to write satirical fiction, said Robert Crampton in The Times (U.K.). “If you write satire,” says the popular author and former Miami Herald columnist, “your job is to stay ahead of the curve.” He keeps at it anyway, with a new best-seller in Fever Beach, his latest comic crime novel and the second in a row that has targeted MAGA. The first, 2020’s Squeeze Me, lampooned a U.S. president who owns a Palm Beach estate and featured a python that eats one of the pol’s supporters. Some of Hiaasen’s readers said they felt betrayed, which amused him, because he has always mocked corrupt politicians. “All I could think was, ‘Had they not read anything I’d ever written before?’” In the new…

Kali Uchis is “a master of atmosphere,” said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. The Colombian American singer “makes music that hangs in the air like a cloud of smoke,” whether she’s mining hip-hop-inflected soul or Latin club music. On her lush fifth studio album, she “goes even deeper into dreaminess, landing in a place best described as ambient R&B.” The opener, “Heaven Is a Home,” is about love and family, but the “swooning effect” of Uchis’ vocals mixing with 1950s-style strings is “so transporting that the lyrics are easy to miss.” Give Sincerely a close listen, though, and you’ll discover that the album contains “her most revealing lyrics yet,” said Suzy Exposito in the Los Angeles Times. The 30-year-old Grammy winner wrote these songs while reconciling…

■ On TikTok, mark every video clip you don’t like “Not interested.” After a week, you’ll see changes in “For You.” You can also go to your profile page and unlike any videos that you suspect “might be contributing to bad suggestions.” Alternatively, “nuke the whole thing” by seeking out Content Preferences and clicking Refresh Your For You Feed. ■ On YouTube, reset your watch history via your user profile’s cog icon. You can delete videos you watched today or ever. If you “look for wacky stuff,” adjust Saving Your YT History to stop it from factoring in such searches. And unsubscribe from channels you no longer enjoy. ■ On Facebook, clicking on Feeds lets you edit out all content aside from friends or pages you want to follow.…