Innholdsfortegnelse for June 6, 2025 i The Week Magazine

You and I are not paying enough in taxes. What??? Almost no one will speak this heresy aloud, particularly if they hold public office. But there’s no other rational conclusion to be drawn from the nation’s rapidly deteriorating fiscal condition. The “big, beautiful” budget bill that the House recently passed would add at least $3.8 trillion to the nation’s total debt, which has ballooned to an unimaginable $36.4 trillion. The debt has become so massive, Clive Crook says in Bloomberg, that all but a handful of deficit hawks have “just stopped thinking about it.” (See Talking Points, p.17.) But as we blithely sail into this uncharted red sea, we might spare a thought about where it may lead. For decades, Democrats and Republicans have jointly conspired to give Americans…

■ Two GOP House members want the National Institutes of Health to conduct a taxpayer-funded study of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” The “TDS Research Act” from Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio and Barry Moore of Alabama would direct the NIH to study “the psychological and social roots” of the “extreme negative reactions to President Donald J. Trump.” ■ The Texas House of Representatives has approved a bill that would let voters carry concealed firearms into polling places. The move comes as poll workers in Texas and nationwide have reported a rise in the frequency of death threats and physical assaults. In a letter, civil rights and gun safety groups pleaded with legislators to reject the bill. “Polling places,” they said, “are and must remain neutral, non-intimidating environments where voters can…

Minneapolis No oversight: The Justice Department last week moved to end federal oversight or investigations of nearly two dozen police departments accused of violating civil rights, abandoning a Biden-era initiative that stemmed from a series of high-profile police killings of Black people in 2020. The DOJ was investigating the police department in Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd kicked off national protests. There were also civil rights investigations into departments in cities such as Memphis, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Trenton, N.J., Mount Vernon, N.Y., and Louisville, where police killed 26-year-old Breonna Taylor while executing a search warrant in 2020. Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, was also considering ending federal oversight arrangements in cities like Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, and Ferguson, Mo. “Federal micromanagement of…

Ingo Baldermann survived a suicide mission, said David Crossland in The Times (U.K.). In April 1945, the then 15-year-old Hitler Youth member answered the Nazi regime’s call for volunteers to defend Germany. He and other boys were formed into a unit, handed World War I–era rifles and an anti-tank weapon—but no helmets—and told to go and stop the advancing American tanks. Hitler’s propaganda, says Baldermann, had convinced us “our resistance would break the onslaught.” They encountered a flood of retreating German soldiers. “They said, ‘Go home, there’s no point.’ But that was totally against our sense of honor.” Soon, the unit’s officers deserted, and before long only Baldermann and two other boys were left. They sought shelter in a farmer’s barn one night and awoke “to the sound of…

Matt Lewis Substack Political moderates don’t get much respect, said Matt Lewis, but in an age of extremism, “the least sexy label might be the most essential temperament.” For most of my life, I was considered “very conservative”—a Reagan Republican who believes in “limited government, personal responsibility,” and “the right to be left the hell alone.” My views haven’t changed, but then Donald Trump took over the Republican Party, “detonating every principle in a 50-mile radius.” Suddenly, “the balance of power” shifted from a liberal cultural elite on the coasts to the Trump right. Instead of a “bastion of moral order” that respected tradition and norms, conservatism came to sound “like a rage-fueled Reddit thread.” Rules, decency, and common sense were jettisoned as the MAGA mob purged heretics, idolized…

León Krauze El Universal It seems like a “no-brainer,” said León Krauze. If President Donald Trump wants to “reduce migration, dismantle organized crime, and curb drug trafficking” across the Mexican border, he should avoid weakening our economy and making our poor even more desperate. “Yet that’s exactly what he’s doing” by slapping a 5% tax on remittances, the money that foreigners in the U.S. send to their families back home. Such a levy is obviously unfair. The senders have already paid taxes on their “hard-earned money.” Even migrants who are undocumented in the U.S. pay nearly $100 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes, “despite, in many cases, lacking access to the services those taxes fund.” Taxing this money a second time, when it leaves the country,…

Living close to a golf course could double your risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, reports The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Researchers examined data on more than 4,500 people in Minnesota and Wisconsin. They found that those who lived within a mile of a golf course had a 126% higher chance of developing the neurodegenerative disease than those in homes more than 6 miles away. The farther away, the better: Each mile of distance from the greens was associated with a 13% reduction in risk of diagnosis. The study established only correlation, not causation, but lead author Brittany Krzyzanowski of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix says one plausible explanation is that the pesticides used to keep greens and fairways lush may be leaching into the ground and contaminating the drinking…

In Alison Bechdel’s new graphic novel, “not much happens, but you don’t need it to,” said Jacob Brogan in The Washington Post. The beloved author of Fun Home, the 2006 graphic memoir that inspired a Tony-winning musical, has reassembled several characters from her long-running weekly comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, to create a “charmingly shaggy” tale about a group of aging progressives struggling to live up to their ideals in today’s Vermont. One major change is that Bechdel has replaced her grumbly stand-in, Mo, with “Alison Bechdel,” a more direct fictionalization of herself. Otherwise, she just lets these characters go about their business, and their comic self-involvement makes the journey enjoyable. Yet as easy as it would be to nastily mock these characters or make excuses for…

Who Knew by Barry Diller (Simon & Schuster, $30) Reading about Barry Diller’s career as a media mogul is “like learning how a magic trick works,” said Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker. Diller, who ran Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox before piling up successes in other media, is “a good narrator of his own life” and makes clear that many of the hits that made him rich were products of luck. He also writes “movingly” about being gay in a hostile era and “affectingly” about his marriage to fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. The Golden Hour by Matthew Specktor (Ecco, $32) Matthew Specktor’s “rich, atmospheric” ode to the Hollywood he grew up in “departs from the standard confessional format,” said Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times.…

Though Tune-Yards’ sixth album probably won’t top any sales charts, “it will definitely make you get up and dance,” said Attila Peter in The Line of Best Fit. Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner, partners in both music and life, “have always been adventurous and uncompromising, showing an eclecticism that draws from African, folk, electronic, rap, and even classical music.” But the result is always a form of pop, easy on the ears even when Garbus is singing, as she does here, about all that’s happening in the world that infuriates her. “Full of pulsating beats and hypnotic grooves,” this latest album is “bursting with an energy and joy that is impossible to resist.” If there’s a complaint to be made here, it’s that the music “backgrounds the songs’…

The Eternaut This new series set in Buenos Aires and based on a 1950s Argentine sci-fi comic strip begins with a toxic summer snowfall that kills on contact. An everyman and his friends soon learn that the snow was only the first salvo in an invasion by beetle-like aliens. Netflix Fallout Based on a video game, Fallout is like The Last of Us but with a biting sense of humor. Ella Purnell plays a young woman who in last year’s Season 1 leaves the relative safety of an underground bunker society to search for her father in a post-nuclear landscape. If you thought Walton Goggins was odd in The White Lotus, get a load of him here. Prime Silo This suspenseful series, now halfway into a planned four-season run,…

Most Americans don’t bother locking their luggage when flying, and they may be justified, said Kevin Doyle in The Wall Street Journal. The chances that your bag will be broken into are slim—“about the same as flipping heads seven times in a row,” and reducing that number hardly seems worth the trouble you can get yourself into if you lose the lock’s key or forget its combination code. Of the 2 in 5 Americans who do use locks, half cite the need to simply keep the bags closed, apparently imagining the nightmare of seeing their clothes strewn across a moving baggage carousel. Today, fortunately, the TSA is much less likely to destroy a bag’s fasteners to inspect a locked bag because the agents are provided with a master key…

Hannah Seo Business Insider Summer travel is increasingly a luxury for the rich, said Hannah Seo. “A survey by Bankrate in March found that only 53% of Americans said” they have a summer trip planned, down from 63% in 2023, with most respondents citing cost as the main factor in booking a staycation. But not everyone is feeling equally squeezed. Rich Americans are still busy checking trips off their bucket list, invigorating the “luxury segment of the travel industry.” AirDNA, an analytics firm that tracks the short-term rental market, finds that demand for rentals that cost $1,000 or more a night has doubled in five years. A “divergence between budget and luxury travel” is leaving middle-class travelers with shrinking options. They’ve begun to notice “that hotels and flights now…

This week’s question: A South Carolina nudist resort has signed up a record 160 participants in its annual clothing-optional 5K race, the Buck Creek Streak. Using PG-rated language, what would you call a sports film that follows the unattired competitors taking part in it? Last week’s contest: 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. THE WINNER: No shirt, no shoes, no user consent. Rebecca Burgan, Grass Valley, Calif. SECOND PLACE: Play by the rules, unless you’re losing. Walter Smith, Washington, D.C. THIRD PLACE: Winners will…

What happened The Trump administration this week moved to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, and signaled that it could use similar leverage in a broader campaign against universities. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week revoked Harvard’s access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, alleging the university had failed to curb antisemitism on campus. Harvard quickly sued, and a federal judge temporarily paused Noem’s order, which would force the nearly 6,800 current foreign students to transfer or leave the U.S. The Trump administration this week also directed government agencies to cancel $100 million in remaining federal contracts with Harvard; the White House previously froze more than $3 billion in federal grants after Harvard refused to comply with a list of demands. On Truth Social,…

The Arizona Cardinals, whose home, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, was ranked first out of all 30 NFL stadiums as a place to ride out a zombie apocalypse. A betting site’s tongue-in-cheek report gave State Farm high marks for its closable roof, limited entry points, and natural-grass field that is “capable of growing crops.” Precocity, after 11-year-old Alisa Perales graduated from a community college in California with associate degrees in math and multiple sciences. Homeschooled by her father from the age of 1, Alisa “obviously had some innate spark,” said dad Rafael Perales, “but she has put in the work.” She’s moving on to the University of California, Irvine. Wisdom born of experience, after President Trump advised the graduating class at West Point to avoid “trophy wives.” The thrice-married…

Ottawa Standing with Canada: King Charles III highlighted Canadian independence in a speech to the Canadian Parliament this week, saying, “The True North is indeed strong and free.” While the king didn’t mention President Trump by name, his remarks were seen as a show of defiance against Trump’s call to make Canada a U.S. state. Prime Minister Mark Carney had invited Charles to deliver the traditional throne speech, which is written by the government to outline parliamentary priorities and is typically read by the governor general. Charles, who is titular head of state for Canada, Australia, and the other Commonwealth countries, was the first British monarch to deliver the speech since 1977. Soon after he spoke, Trump posted on social media that Canada would get free protection from the…

Mariska Hargitay always felt she was different from her siblings, said Joy Press in Vanity Fair, but it wasn’t until her 20s that she understood why. The daughter of Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield, the Law & Order: SVU star had long thought her biological father was the Hungarian bodybuilding champ turned actor Mickey Hargitay. Then, at 25, she saw a photo of Nelson Sardelli, the Italian entertainer Mansfield dated during a brief separation from Mickey in 1963. Hargitay, born the following year, instantly knew Sardelli was her biological father. “It was like the floor fell out from underneath me,” she says. When she was 30, Hargitay went to see Sardelli perform in Atlantic City, N.J., and introduced herself. He burst into tears and said he’d waited years for this…

Renée Graham The Boston Globe “The people who hated mandates are now instituting one of their own,” said Renée Graham. Food and Drug Administration officials Drs. Vinay Prasad and Martin Makary last week “cast doubt on the need for additional Covid shots” for most Americans, indicating the updated vaccine this fall will be available only to people over 65 and those with medical conditions. Prasad is a medical contrarian who publicly assailed vaccine policies even as “the Covid pandemic ravaged communities,” and Makary, a former Fox News talking head, baselessly called the government the “greatest perpetrator of misinformation” about the disease. Both work for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaxxer who announced Covid shots are no longer recommended for children or pregnant women, without providing any…

“Predictably, the president’s personal diplomacy with ‘Vladimir’ got nowhere. Putin is not a congressional Republican. He doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about what might be said about him on Truth Social tomorrow if he doesn’t submit to the next impulsive careen from blandishment to browbeating. He doesn’t hang on Trump’s every word or worry about blowing off peace negotiations the White House has talked up. Trump may have conned himself into believing that he and Putin were a mutual admiration society. [But] Putin has a plan from which he has never wavered: He wants all of Ukraine.” Andrew C. McCarthy in National Review…

Editorial The Indian Express An Indian Muslim academic has been arrested for his social media posts in the wake of the recent India-Pakistan clashes, said The Indian Express. What did Ali Khan Mahmudabad, professor of political science at Ashoka University, say that was so terrible? Did he side with the Pakistani terrorists who killed Hindu tourists in Kashmir? Did he condemn India for striking back against Pakistani military targets? He did neither. In one post, Mahmudabad spoke out for peace, criticizing the “blind bloodlust for war” some Indians displayed and noting that such a sentiment was inconsistent with both Islamic and Hindu teachings. In another, he praised the inclusion of Muslim women soldiers in press briefings but added that the sight projects a pluralism that doesn’t actually exist under…

Editorial Valasz Online Viktor Orban has entered his “open tyranny” era, said Valasz Online in an editorial. His right-wing populist Fidesz party has drafted a law that would let the government monitor, restrict, and even ban media outlets and nongovernmental groups that get any financial contribution from abroad, no matter how minor. If a Hungarian who has dual citizenship—someone living in the U.S., say, or in the ethnic Hungarian region of Romania—pays $8 to subscribe to a newspaper, that could be “considered foreign support” justifying the paper’s closure. Or if such a person sends a few bucks to a candidate, the candidate can be labeled “an enemy of the state.” The model for this outrageous bill is Russia’s foreign agents law, which throttled the last vestiges of free speech…

“Nobody wants to deal with pennies anymore,” said Chas Danner in New York magazine. And so the death knell has been sounded for the humble one-cent coin. At President Trump’s behest, the Treasury Department announced last week it would soon stop producing pennies; by 2026, no new ones will enter circulation. Critics have argued for years that the penny was becoming irrelevant and unaffordable and should be put out of its misery. There are already some 114 billion in circulation, yet many get lost under couch cushions or pile up in change jars, requiring endless minting of new ones at an unsupportable cost of 3.7 cents each. Last year, the U.S. produced 3.2 billion, for a net loss of more than $85 million. Add in countless “seconds of lost…

“Now would be a very good time for Washington to bring back its debt obsession,” said Rogé Karma in The Atlantic. That’s because the perfect storm for turning the federal deficit into a “genuine crisis” has arrived. In recent years, the Federal Reserve has “raised interest rates dramatically in an effort to tame inflation.” Since that means the federal government has to pay higher interest on its bonds, “government payments on debt interest soared to $881 billion in 2024.” That’s more than the U.S. spent last year on national defense. At the same time, President Trump’s tariff policies have led “almost every credible” forecast this year to anticipate slowed economic growth. Then there’s Trump’s “big, beautiful,” and bloated budget bill, which would add “more than $3 trillion to the…

“Robert Macfarlane is the most engaging of British writers,” said Pico Iyer in Air Mail. The 48-year-old nature writer and Cambridge University professor produces prose “as dense as a forest but flooded with sunlight.” And “savingly,” he also has a sense of humor. In his new book, the tireless explorer shares his journeys to three threatened river systems—in the cloud forests of Ecuador, in southernmost India, and in northeastern Canada—each time cataloging what the rivers give to humans and what humans give back. Despite all the damage he sees, he “tenaciously assembles a history, and a geography, of hope,” showing that the ancient idea of rivers as living entities is again taking hold, changing law and politics in countries scattered across the globe. Macfarlane decides to refer to each…

Yiyun Li has written a memoir that’s “a radical rebuke of the conventions surrounding grieving,” said Alexandra Alter in The New York Times. In 2024, the acclaimed novelist lost a teenage son to suicide for a second time, and for the second time sat down to write a book in tribute. The first was Where Reason Ends, a 2019 novel that tracks a conversation between a mother and her dead son. The second, Things in Nature Merely Grow, conjures both boys more directly while refusing to suggest that moving past their loss is even possible. “I don’t ever want to be free from the pain of missing my children,” Li says. “This pain is in my life for ever and ever, and I don’t want to do anything to…

Four years ago, PinkPantheress’s music “felt like a future of pop,” said Jem Aswad in Variety. The young British singer-songwriter-producer crafted fleet “microsongs” that packed verses, a chorus, and a bridge into 90 seconds, making them immensely TikTok friendly. Thankfully, her new eight-song mixtape avoids the more conventional sound of 2023’s Heaven Knows and recaptures her strengths: “tight hooks, fast tempos, skittering beats, percolating bass,” plus “her inimitable, breathy vocals.” The songs “blaze by in less than 20 minutes,” but “pack a velvet-gloved punch.” The music doesn’t sound like the future, said Harry Tafoya in Pitchfork. Instead, “Fancy That is a portal into an alternate universe where U.K. garage successfully crossed the Atlantic and fashion froze in 2006.” It opens with “Illegal,” a song that, like many of…

Boeing reached a tentative deal with the Department of Justice last week to avoid prosecution for the fatal crashes of its 737 Max, said Katherine Hamilton in The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. plane maker would pay $1.1 billion in fines and safety improvements, “and give $445 million to the families of crash victims.” In exchange, the Justice Department would dismiss its criminal case stemming “from Boeing’s admission that former employees deceived air safety regulators before the crashes,” which killed 346 people. The agency told families that “Boeing no longer agreed to plead guilty in the planned trial.” Taking control: Nippon deal for U.S. Steel moves ahead Nippon Steel is expected to finally close its acquisition of U.S. Steel, said Spencer Kimball in CNBC.com. The controversial $14.9 billion deal…

■ Investors use ETFs to ‘buy the dip’ Money keeps flooding into exchange-traded funds, said Jack Pitcher in The Wall Street Journal. “Unfazed by the wildest markets since Covid,” investors have plowed a record $437 billion into U.S. exchange-traded funds so far in 2025, putting them on pace to “mark the second straight record year.” The money is flowing into every major fund category, including the active ETF funds that are managed by professional stock pickers, “a relatively new corner of the ETF market. In April, when stock market volatility soared to a five-year high, Vanguard’s S&P 500 fund (VOO) “reported its highest monthly inflows ever” as investors took the chance to buy the dip. The second-most popular ETF this year, after Vanguard’s stock fund, “has been a BlackRock…

When George Wendt’s agent sent him to audition for a new sitcom set in a Boston bar, she warned him the part was small. He was to speak just one word: “Beer.” But the producers of Cheers saw something in the portly actor with the regular-joe air, and they hatched another plan. Wendt was cast as fan favorite Norm Peterson, the beer-quaffing barfly who was glued to a barstool in every one of the smash show’s 275 episodes, from 1982 to 1993. An underemployed accountant, the stoic Norm dodged his wife, bantered with fellow regular Cliff Clavin, and with unerring comic timing dropped deadpan one-liners on barkeeps Sam and Woody. (“How’s a beer sound?” “I dunno, I usually finish them before they get a word in.”) Wendt, who received…

Phil Robertson said no the first time his son Willie pitched him on the idea of a reality show starring the family. The shaggy-bearded entrepreneur had built a multimillion-dollar business selling duck calls, and he said that was fame enough for him. He was won over only when Willie pointed out that Duck Dynasty could provide him a platform to talk about his Christian faith and conservative politics. An instant hit, the show ran for 11 seasons on A&E between 2012 and 2017. It sometimes seemed like a family sitcom, with episodes showing the clan bushwhacking in their ATV or eating squirrel for dinner. But Robertson said he did it for a higher purpose, “for the sake of the gospel.” Phil Alexander Robertson was born in rural Vivian, La.,…

High court expands Trump’s power to fire agency heads The Supreme Court ruled last week in favor of an emergency request from President Trump to fire commissioners on the National Labor Relations Board. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority ruled that limiting the president’s right to fire independent agency heads infringes on his constitutional powers. In a dissent, the three liberal justices said this order lets the president overrule a 90-year-old precedent “by fiat.” Trump moved earlier this year to fire President Biden’s appointees to the NLRB as well as the Merit Systems Protection Board, which protects federal employees, earlier this year. The ruling lets the president go ahead with dismissals as litigation continues, and it is likely to apply to other agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission. However,…

For years, Albert Lin’s adventures were a useful distraction, said Peter Frick-Wright in Outside. A scientist and explorer who hosts National Geographic’s Lost Cities, Lin had part of his right leg amputated after a UTV accident in 2016. Almost as soon as he was fitted with a prosthesis, he threw himself back into investigating archaeological wonders. “I’ve spent time in the hearts of the pyramids,” says Lin, 44. “I’ve sat among the terra-cotta army. I’ve sat in all these ritualized monuments to our questions about what lies in the realm beyond.” Pondering those big questions left little time to think about his own injury. “I never had to take on the pain of it.” That changed last year when, just before a charity mountain climb in Ecuador with other…

■ Billy Joel announced last week he’s canceling his upcoming concerts, including a major tour planned to last through next summer, after he was diagnosed with a brain disorder. Normal pressure hydrocephalus, a rare condition caused by excess cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, is treatable, but can cause symptoms such as urinary incontinence and an unsteady gait, as well as cognitive impairment. A statement posted to the “Piano Man” singer’s social media revealed that Joel, 76, has been dealing with “hearing, vision, and balance” problems that were “exacerbated by recent concert performances.” A prolific performer, Joel completed a decade-long residency at Madison Square Garden last year. Christie Brinkley, Joel’s ex-wife, wished him a “full and speedy recovery,” adding that “we all want you back in that white hot spotlight.”…

Joe Cirincione The New Republic President Trump’s claim that he will install a fully operational “Golden Dome” over the U.S. by the end of his term is “nonsense,” said Joe Cirincione. Trump says it would take just $175 billion to build an antimissile defense system with “close to 100% protection.” But the Congressional Budget Office estimates it would actually cost $831 billion over two decades, and most scientists doubt it will ever be possible because of our country’s vast size. President Reagan had a similar fantasy of a “Star Wars” shield that would protect the U.S. from ballistic missiles, but 40-plus years and $453 billion later, it consists of 44 outdated interceptors in Alaska and California. Even if the Golden Dome actually gets built, adversaries could easily “overwhelm the…

Hugo Rifkind The Times The Conservative opposition is now so flaccid, it makes you long for the return of Boris Johnson, said Hugo Rifkind. Nobody really noticed Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s dutiful condemnation of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s latest giveaways to the European Union. The only “strident, grabby criticism” came from Johnson, the former prime minister who negotiated the Brexit trade deal with the EU. He thundered that by agreeing to remove some Brexit trade barriers, Starmer had become the “orange-ball-chewing, manacled gimp of Brussels”—a vivid reference to the leather-bound sex slave in Pulp Fiction. Such “flickers of the Johnsonian Richter scale” always make an impact. Had Badenoch “said the gimp thing, she’d have sounded deranged.” Still, the real problem isn’t the messenger, but the message. Bereft of their…

The Democrats’ aging crisis isn’t just about Joe Biden, said Jeet Heer in The Nation. Thanks to its insistence on keeping ailing political dinosaurs in office, “the Democratic Party is literally dying.” The death of 75-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) last week robbed the party of its ranking member on the powerful House Oversight Committee—a position he was chosen for over 35-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) despite his recent esophageal cancer diagnosis. Connolly was the third House Democrat to die in 2025, which let House Republicans pass their Medicaid-gutting mega-bill despite two internal defections. Many other Democrats “didn’t know when to quit,” like California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died in office in 2023 at the age of 90. Today, 11 of the 14 House representatives over 80 belong to…

“As much as guns and warships, maps have been the weapons of imperialism.” Cartographer Brian Harley, quoted in Geographical (U.K.) “If you can’t have justice, you’ll settle for catharsis.” Singer Conan Neutron, quoted in Jacobin “A simple man may rob from a freight train, but give him a college degree and he will steal the whole railroad.” Will Rogers, quoted in UVA Today “Love is not patronizing and charity isn’t about pity; it is about love.” Mother Teresa, quoted in The Suburban Times “You don’t want to own a boat. You want to be friends with someone who owns a boat.” Comedian Bill Burr, quoted in Country Living “The true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle. It is the pendulum. And when the pendulum swings…

■ Google reveals its latest AI push With Google’s AI Mode, the “era of the ‘10 blue links’ is coming to a close,” said Mark Wilson in TechRadar. The new AI Mode tab gives comprehensive answers to queries “instead of the usual top search results” and screenful of sponsored ads. “It shouldn’t be your go-to for everything, but if you’re researching, planning, comparing, or learning, AI Mode can be a real comfort.” Google last week also introduced Veo 3, the first AI video generator that includes audio, as well as a new AI video editor, Flow, making it easier than ever to direct your own AI-generated movies. Another cool new tool is the upgraded “Try On” feature in Google Shopping, which lets you upload a photo of yourself to…

Experiencing a moment of awe—by gazing at a starry night sky, say, or marveling at a perfect snowflake—may ward off depression, reports The Times (U.K.). In a new study, researchers gathered 68 people suffering from long Covid, a condition that tends to cause intense emotional strain. Some of the group, the control cohort, were told to continue living as before, while the rest were asked to pause a few times each day and seek out something that inspired wonder. The task didn’t have to involve much effort—it could be as simple as stopping to admire the veins of a leaf, or even just thinking for a bit about the astonishing scale of the universe. Those who took the time to experience awe showed a 17% fall in depression symptoms…

Bryan Burrough’s new book is The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild. Below, the Texas-raised author of Barbarians at the Gate, Public Enemies, and two other nonfiction national best-sellers names six of his favorite books about Old West gunfighters. I’ll Die Before I’ll Run by C.L. Sonnichsen (1951). Sonnichsen was a Harvard-trained historian teaching in El Paso who almost single-handedly recovered the stories of the great feuds that wracked Texas for a decade after the Civil War. If you believe, as I do, that the hyper-violent ethos of the postwar frontier first rose in Texas, this book is the story of how it happened. The Gunfighters by Paul Trachtman (1977). Lavishly illustrated and leather-bound, this entry in the Time-Life Old West series is a classic that found its…

“Bruce Springsteen is apparently harder to intimidate than law firms, university presidents, and media executives,” said Matt Bai in The Washington Post. After catching blowback from Donald Trump for blasting the president on stage in Manchester, U.K., on May 14, the 75-year-old rocker hasn’t gone quiet. Instead, he’s using each tour stop to repeat his criticisms, and has put out a concert EP that opens with the short speech in which he declared that the America he loves is currently in the hands of “a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.” Trump had fired back on social media, calling Springsteen “a dried-out prune” and “an obnoxious jerk.” More ominously, he suggested that trouble will await the singer on his return home and on May 18 promised online that there will…

At the Trump Winery in a rural corner of Charlottesville, Va., visitors arrive by car and bus each day “in all manner of red, white, and blue finery,” said Eric Asimov in The New York Times. They can honor the current occupant of the White House by buying a Presidential Reserve sparkling wine for $245.47. The official proprietor, though, is 47’s middle son, Eric. The wines themselves are inconsistent, “not much different from those offered by dozens of other mainstream American wineries.” Steer clear of the $80 New World Reserve, an oak- and fruit-forward Bordeaux blend that’s “more veneer than substance.” Ditto the “cloying” 2023 viognier ($30) and the 2017 blanc de noirs sparkler ($60). But the 2022 chardonnay reserve ($40) is an “entirely credible” boring white, and the…

Orlando’s new theme park For the theme-park industry, the May 22 opening of Epic Universe was “a monumental event,” said Drew Taylor in The Wrap. The new destination, which expands Universal Orlando Resort to four parks, is the first major U.S. theme park to open in 24 years, and “the vibes are tremendous.” There are five worlds to explore, most based on familiar Universal characters, and old-school fun blends beautifully with tech innovation. Top attractions include the family-friendly Hiccup’s Wing Gliders roller coaster, an animatronics-heavy tour of the lab of Dr. Frankenstein’s great-great-granddaughter, and Stardust Racers, a hugely rewarding modern outdoor coaster. And the park is not all about rides. The number of interactive dragons in the How to Train Your Dragon section of the park is “truly absurd,”…

Commencement photo businesses are cashing in as new grads check out, said Henry Grabar in Slate. “It used to be that capturing a graduate’s walk across the stage was a high-stakes job for a nimble family photographer.” Today, it is primarily the work of a handful of companies, including GradImages, Flash Photography, and Pro Pics, that have come to dominate a seasonal industry. Years ago, photography entrepreneurs created “a business model that persists to this day: They shot the ceremony for free and sold the results to the students afterward.” Though images have gone digital, the prices have not fallen. A GradImages photo costs $39.95—and that’s just for a digital download. GradImages, which claims to capture photos of nearly 2 million grads each year pushes buyers toward package deals…

Hawaii boasts more than 60% of American coral reefs, but climate change, pollution, and overfishing have caused significant coral reef deterioration around Maui over the past decades. Since 2007, the Maui Nui Marine Resource Council (mauireefs.org) has maintained projects to clean seawater, protect native fish populations, and restore reefs to full health on the Valley Isle. Its latest coral reef restoration project was launched this year in South Maui, aiming to take pieces of broken coral and replant them on bare reefs, extending the coral’s lifespan and providing habitats for marine life. Last year, the organization launched a project to monitor reef health near the burn zone of the 2023 Lahaina Fire. Other programs overseen by the MNMRC test water quality and reduce debris and pollutants in Maui’s Pohakea…

Tara Isabella Burton Air Mail Silicon Valley is undergoing a strange spiritual awakening, said Tara Isabella Burton. Tech mogul Bryan Johnson, who famously experimented with harvesting his own son’s blood to extend his longevity, recently announced “he intends to form a new transhumanist religion, called simply Don’t Die” that promises “an existence more spectacular than we can imagine.” A “rationalist” movement built up over the past decade has now given way to a “post-rationalist” offshoot that blends a passion for artificial intelligence “with an interest in tarot, Jungian archetypes, and chaos magic.” Meanwhile, the advent of AI has been nothing short of a religious experience for many technology types. One former Google engineer, Anthony Levandowski, has gone so far as to register “his new AI-worshipping religion as a church.”…

Susan Brownmiller redefined the way we understand sexual violence. Before her landmark 1975 book, Against Our Will, rape was considered a sex act resulting from a man’s lust and a woman’s lapse. But Brownmiller said the act wasn’t about sex at all, but power—men’s power over women. On a societal level, she said, rape was “a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” This radical idea, which sparked indignant denials at first, eventually became widely accepted and now underpins modern legal theory on rape. Brownmiller backed her claim with careful historical evidence, showing how mass rape had been used in war to subdue enemy populations and how, even in peacetime, the threat of it served to constrain women’s freedom. “Certainly,…