Innholdsfortegnelse for August 8, 2025 i The Week Magazine

It’s a fierce competition, with no winners and only losers: Which of the unqualified kooks and fawning toadies working for Donald Trump is the most incompetent? Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are currently the most visible contenders, thanks to their tragicomic bungling of the Jeffrey Epstein debacle. They promised the MAGA base the release of the full “Epstein files,” even though their boss was the sex trafficker’s buddy for more than a decade and noted during that time that Jeff liked women “on the younger side.” Ha, ha! When Bondi and Patel discovered with cold fear that Trump’s name appeared multiple times in the voluminous records, they announced, “Nothing to see here, case closed!” Now they’ve saddled the president with a festering scandal that won’t easily…

■ A Tennessee school district will no longer accept illness as a reason for students to miss school. Lawrence County School System’s new attendance policy exempts students with chronic conditions, but for everyone else, “you can bring all the doctor’s notes you want, but [absence] is still unexcused,” said director Michael Adkins. “If you have the sniffles, that is fine. You are going to have them when you go to work one day.” ■ Privacy advocates are sounding the alarm about the surveillance system at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The university’s “Real-Time Information Center” collects information from 3,000 security cameras, license-plate readers, and a fleet of drones, and could soon add social media monitoring and “AI-driven” analysis of video feeds. “This is not what we expect from a university,”…

San Francisco Pilot charged: Federal agents and sheriff’s deputies last week stormed the cockpit of a Delta Air Lines plane at San Francisco International Airport and arrested the co-pilot on child sex abuse charges. The chaotic scene unfolded soon after Rustom Bhagwagar, 34, landed the flight from Minneapolis. At least 10 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies boarded the plane and pushed past passengers who were retrieving their luggage from overhead bins. Bhagwagar was handcuffed and marched down the aisle and off the plane. He was charged with five counts of oral copulation with a child under 10 years of age and is being held on $5 million bail. Bhagwagar was placed under investigation in April, after a woman reported that while dating her mother, he sexually abused her from…

Natalya Taranushenko is in exile for teaching the truth, said Marc Bennetts in The Times (U.K.). In April 2022, Russian schools in the Moscow area were instructed to give their students a lesson about the war in Ukraine, and spout propaganda about how Russian forces were trying to protect Ukrainians and de-Nazify the country. Instead, Taranushenko—who had taught at the same school outside the capital for decades—told her class of 13- and 14-year-olds what was really happening in Ukraine. “The children trusted me. I don’t know how I was supposed to look them in the eyes and tell them something different.” She showed her students a video about a Ukrainian girl whose mother was killed by a Russian tank, and told them “that our country was behaving like Nazi Germany.”…

Frank Kendall The New York Times “Fear has come to our country,” said Frank Kendall, and it has seeped into every corner of American society. President Trump doesn’t tolerate dissent, and he’s “using fear to try to suppress it” in the military, the civil service, universities, law firms, the media, and corporations. He and the Cabinet are firing career military officers and civil servants, replacing “professionals with political loyalists” and sending “a chilling message to everyone in uniform.” Trump’s efforts to coerce major law firms into representing clients he favors are “a direct assault on the foundation of our legal system,” and he’s attacked “academic freedom and freedom of speech” at college campuses. He’s “terrorized immigrants from all walks of life,” including those here legally. He’s sued and threatened to…

Edo Naito The Japan Times Japanese politicians are in a race to see who can be nastiest to foreigners, said Edo Naito. Sanseito, the new far-right, populist party, set the tone with its “Japanese First” slogan in last month’s elections, but it wasn’t the only one. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba also promised to get tough on outsiders who, he said, were “making Japanese citizens feel anxiety.” These sentiments are both unfair and dangerous. The 4 million tourists who descend on us every month shower our businesses with revenue. Do they also cause “overcrowding, public-transportation congestion, littering, localized price inflation, and occasional vandalism”? Well, yes. But that’s true in every country people want to visit. With a population declining since 2008—and down 900,000 more last year—we desperately need a “controlled inflow…

Reusable menstrual products have been marketed as healthier for the planet, but they might not be healthy for the wearer. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame detected perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl, two toxic substances known as PFAS or “forever chemicals,” in some period underwear and reusable pads. PFAS are endocrine disruptors linked to all manner of ills, including cancer, obesity, and infertility. Using a new method for detecting “neutral” PFAS, which lack an ionic charge, the researchers found very high amounts in about a quarter of the washable pads and a third of the period panties studied. “There were much higher concentrations—not parts per trillion, not even parts per billion, but levels at parts per million,” physics professor and study co-author Graham Peaslee tells CNN.com. These neutral PFAS “can more…

(Spiegel & Grau, $30) Bruce Holsinger’s gripping fourth novel “begins with a terrifyingly plausible disaster,” said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. A family of five is traveling to a lacrosse tournament with the teen star player at the wheel when their self-driving minivan strikes an oncoming sedan and kills both elderly passengers. All five family members have reasons to think themselves culpable, and this “irresistibly anxious” book doesn’t let any of them off the hook as they retreat to recuperate at a Chesapeake Bay rental house and wait for the verdict of legal authorities. Holsinger, unfortunately, is “hell-bent on delivering a Book That Will Make You Think when an old-fashioned domestic drama would have sufficed,” said Elisabeth Egan in The New York Times. As the family crosses paths with…

Toni at Random by Dana A. Williams (Amistad, $30) In her career as a book editor, Toni Morrison was “not just tenacious,” said Clint Smith in The Atlantic. The legendary author became Random House’s first Black senior editor in 1971, a year after publishing her first novel. And as she cultivated new voices and helped Huey Newton, Angela Davis, and other major figures share their thinking, she held that Black authors needn’t address white readers directly to reach a wide audience. This “illuminating” portrait reveals the catalyst she was. Claire McCardell by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson (Simon & Schuster, $30) The first dress she designed “sold out in a heartbeat,” said Kate Bolick in The New York Times. But while Claire McCardell was a mid-century household name, she is too little…

In the growing Tyler Childers songbook, the Appalachian region he calls home is “just as contradictory, complex, and full of surprises as he is,” said Jonathan Bernstein in Rolling Stone. While the 34-year-old Kentucky native has already graduated from indie artist to arena-filling headliner, his Rick Rubin–produced seventh album is a “career redefining” collection that “triples down on the trailblazing he’s known for.” His new songs reference hunting, Hindu scripture, and koala STDs as his band, the Food Stamps, explore new sonic territory ranging from garage rock to “Phil Spector pop.” Childers’ cultural stances have made him “one of country music’s most singular artists,” said Millan Verma in Pitchfork. Yes, he grew up in a trailer next to a Baptist church and “plays fiddle as if he’s soundtracking bootleggers in…

KPop Demon Hunters Released in June, this animated K-pop feature has become a global phenomenon, cracking 106 million views and landing eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100. It follows the exploits of the girl trio Huntr/x, whose music powers a grid that keeps demons in the underworld. Netflix Black Sabbath: The End of the End Nine years before Ozzy Osbourne’s recent final performance with Black Sabbath, the band reunited for what was billed as a farewell tour. This 2017 documentary finds the heavy metal icons in fine, ear-blasting form, nailing their hits between reminiscences. Dailymotion Sly Lives! It’s nearly impossible to sum up the musical legacy of the brilliant and eccentric funk visionary Sly Stone. But this 2025 Questlove-directed documentary, which exhumes hard-grooving archival footage and explores Sly’s burdens…

“The idea of a resell market for travel isn’t new,” said Mark Elwood in The Wall Street Journal. But online sites such as SpareFare, Roomer, Plans Change, and Transfer Travel have made it easier for buyers of airline tickets or package trips to sell them at a discount when changes in plans would otherwise force them to absorb a total loss. At SpareFare, discounts for buyers “usually land between 20% and 30%,” though markdowns are often steeper in the final 48 hours. The sites charge sellers a commission, and they combat scams by withholding payment until the trip has occurred. There can be snafus, especially with airlines that bar name changes on reservations. But SpareFare has an “unblemished” record with users. And if you want a service that handles all…

This week’s question: The married CEO of tech firm Astronomer was forced to resign after he was caught canoodling his firm’s also-married head of HR on a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert. If Coldplay were to write a song about this very public love-cheat saga, what should it be titled? Last week’s contest: The Sonoran Desert toad, whose secretions have psychedelic properties when dried and smoked, is being hunted to near extinction by trappers who sell the amphibians’ slime to thrill seekers and self-described shamans. In seven or fewer words, come up with a public service announcement urging Americans not to experiment with this high-inducing toad goo. THE WINNER: Don’t get hopped up. Donald Flinn, Wrentham, Mass. SECOND PLACE: Please don’t take Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Shannon Pace, Chapel…

Racing the clock, after lawyers for President Trump, who is suing The Wall Street Journal for its reporting on Trump’s friendship with Jeffery Epstein, asked a judge to order the deposition of Journal owner Rupert Murdoch within the next two weeks, arguing that Murdoch is 94 and “is believed to have suffered recent significant health scares.” Robot scofflaws, after Atlanta police confirmed they’ve been running a two-tier system of justice for human motorists and self-driving cars, letting the latter off without fines or citations because the court system is “unable to process traffic citations for AVs with no human operator.” Organized crime, with reports that a gang of macaque monkeys at a Balinese temple has perfected the art of stealing phones and other valuables from tourists, which they trade back…

During her five years on Saturday Night Live, Leslie Jones won plenty of laughs by relentlessly flirting with—and manhandling—co-star Colin Jost, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian (U.K.). But that onscreen crush was no joke. “People don’t understand in that first year, maybe the first two seasons, I was really in love with Colin,” says the comedian, 57. “I didn’t know how it was going to happen, whether we would just work late together and make out in his office and drink whiskey. I had all the visions. He was so cute, and funny, and he was just so white. Such a white nerd frat boy, that I was like: ‘I want him.’” Jones says she’d shout, “I love you, Colin, you beautiful white stud!” whenever she passed him in…

Peter M. Shane The Atlantic Donald Trump is remaking “the American presidency into something closer to a dictatorship,” said Peter M. Shane, and it’s Chief Justice John Roberts who has given this agenda “constitutional legitimacy.” A series of Supreme Court rulings, many of them written by Roberts himself, has “cast the chief executive in all-but-monarchical terms.” Roberts is a true believer in the Federalist Society’s “unitary-executive theory”—the idea that the president alone is “a branch of government” with unchecked power over the executive branch. That “ahistorical” theory defies the Constitution’s description of “executive departments” charged with executing laws created by Congress. Roberts’ 6-3 conservative majority has allowed Trump to fire all agency staff “at will” rather than for cause, and to withhold funds allocated by Congress. It has also forbidden…

“America hates the Democratic Party. Polls have shown Team Blue’s favorability (33%)crashing to record lows. Even Democrats have learned to hate Democrats. Hating the Democratic establishment has always been a core part of progressives’ political identity, but mainstream liberals have had good reason lately to sour on it, too. Their party just lost to a felonious authoritarian miscreant again. And not only did it lose, its leaders sabotaged its chances by covering up Joe Biden’s declining health until the issue blew up in their faces four months before the election.” Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch…

Pedro Adão e Silva Publico The conservative government in Lisbon has taken anti-woke pandering too far, said Pedro Adão e Silva. Shaken by the surge of the far-right populist Chega party in May elections, the Democratic Alliance coalition just announced it was removing sex ed from the school curriculum and replacing it with financial literacy. This was meant to fulfill a campaign promise to battle leftist gender ideology. But it broke a pledge Parliament made to Portuguese families in 1984, when it passed a law “guaranteeing the right to education on sex as a fundamental component of education.” Back then, the state recognized it had a “duty to protect the family” and help parents ensure that young people received—“through schools, health organizations, and the media”—the tools to make healthy and…

Rafia Akram Mail & Guardian A “quiet financial revolution is taking shape” in Africa, said Rafia Akram. The African Export-Import Bank has developed a homegrown technical platform to let African countries trade in their own currencies “without relying on the U.S. dollar or the euro.” The new system, known as PAPSS, would allow a South African importer to “pay in rands while a Kenyan exporter receives shillings” with no need to go through a bank in New York or Frankfurt. If it takes off, it could rejuvenate small African businesses that are “often priced out of cross-border trade because of high banking fees, currency conversion costs, and regulatory red tape.” It does this not through a common currency but through a digital workaround—“rather than replace the rand, naira, or cedi,…

As a “MAGA-fueled conspiracy theory” upends Washington, Democrats “have finally found their mojo,” said Rachael Bade in Politico. For months, panicked Democrats have lamented party leaders’ “sluggish reflexes” and failure to drive home a coherent, winning message. But they’ve finally found President Trump’s “kryptonite” in the Epstein affair—and are exploiting it skillfully. The Democrats’ push to force a House vote on releasing the Epstein files split Republicans, and forced a panicked Speaker Mike Johnson to shut down the House for an early summer recess. The clamoring for a vote embarrassed not just Johnson but Trump, as it exposed “the surprising limits of his sway” on a party he has long gripped in a stranglehold. When the House returns in September, the clamoring for a vote on releasing all of the…

Meta has come out with a prototype wristband that lets you “control a computer from across the room simply by moving your hand,” said Cade Metz in The New York Times. While wearing the band, you can move a cursor on a computer screen by tilting your wrist and open an app by tapping your thumb and forefinger together. If you write your name in the air, the letters will also appear on your smartphone. The wristband uses experimental technology to interpret electrical signals pulsing in your muscles—in some cases even before you move your fingers. It’s unclear when the wristband will be available for purchase, but Meta researchers say it’s “mature enough for the marketplace.”…

(Pantheon, $27) Michael Douglas isn’t just a 1980s movie icon, said Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times. “To the author Jessa Crispin, he is a symbol of how everything started to go terribly wrong for men in our time.” Crispin is a marvelously peppery writer, “like the Patti Lupone of literary critics,” and although her latest book is “all over the place,” it’s also a gas as it digs into Douglas characters such as the philandering husband of 1987’s Fatal Attraction and the fed-up paper pusher of 1993’s Falling Down, highlighting how they reflected the discomfort that middle-aged white men were feeling as women and racial minorities began to encroach on turf they’d long ruled. None of Crispin’s analysis is dismissive of the demographic. She’s “clearly sympathetic to men…

Novelist Hannah Pittard is doing her part to ensure her divorce remains the talk of literary circles, said Alexandra Alter in The New York Times. When the Lexington, Ky.–based author learned in 2016 that her author husband was sleeping with her writer best friend, she ended the marriage and wrote a memoir about it. But then her ex wrote an autofictional novel about the same events and she couldn’t keep from returning to them herself. “I was having these wildly competing emotions,” she says. “I was so annoyed, so mad, but most of all, I was curious.” Curious about what she could do with the material, apparently, because Pittard has since responded with her own autofictional novel. Pittard’s If You Love It, Let It Kill You is slightly unhinged. And…

For Madonna diehards, Veronica Electronica is “something of a holy grail,” said Shaad D’Souza in The Guardian. Never mind that it’s uneven and offers just two previously unreleased tracks. Conceived as a follow-up to 1998’s Ray of Light, it gathers some “all-time great” remixes of the songs from that breakthrough melding of Madonna’s pop instincts with William Orbit’s electronica beats. “Drowned World/Substitute for Love” sounds incredible here, transformed by remixers BT and Sasha from “glacial trip-hop” into “a Day-Glo acid rager.” As for the “new” material, it’s easy to see why the “brilliantly weird” demo “Gone, Gone, Gone” didn’t make it onto Ray of Light, while the previously unreleased remix of “Skin” heightens the original’s “innate moodiness” with a “tweaky and unsettled” beat. Some great remixes “smash the original into…

A troubled couple struggles to get unstuck. “A romantic relationship is a union, and Together takes that idea to its gonzo extreme,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. In this “midnight-movie crowd-pleaser,” husband and wife Alison Brie and Dave Franco play a couple, Tim and Millie, whose bodies mysteriously begin fusing together after a bizarre mishap during a walk in the woods. The body-horror grotesquerie that follows is “simultaneously unnerving and ridiculous,” creating “a playfully gory Cronenbergian comedy that picks up where The Substance left off.” But this is “a smarter, far tighter movie” than that “awfully overrated” Oscar darling, said Benjamin Lee in The Guardian. Treating its own premise “just about the right level of seriously,” Together establishes that Tim, an unemployed wannabe rock star, and Millie, a schoolteacher,…

The U.S. economy bounced back with a robust second quarter, said Harriet Torry in The Wall Street Journal. U.S. gross domestic product rose at a seasonally and inflation adjusted 3% rate in the past three months, an encouraging return to growth after a 0.5% contraction in the first quarter. “Consumer spending—the engine of the U.S. economy—strengthened” but business investment weakened, reflecting uncertainty about trade. The Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates unchanged as it continues to assess the impact of tariffs, though two Fed governors, both Trump appointees, backed a cut, the first time more than one Fed governor dissented from a rate decision since 1993. Media: FCC approves Paramount-Skydance deal The Federal Communications Commission approved Skydance Media’s $8 billion merger with Paramount last week, said Benjamin Mullin in…

■ Higher airfares for solo travelers Airlines have been quietly charging solo travelers more to fly, said The Economist. That was the bombshell revelation in a report by the travel blog Thrifty Traveler in May, which found that American, Delta, and United “had started charging higher per-person fares for single-passenger bookings than for identical itineraries for two people.” The biggest hikes were aimed at solo travelers during the weekday, a move seemingly intended to capture business road warriors. An Economist test confirmed the earlier findings: A solo weekday traveler on United was charged “at least 5% more on only 8% of United routes” between July 20 and July 28—and on 57% of American’s routes. “The cost per person of a two-traveler booking with a Friday return” on American “tended to…

The sought-after “Epstein files” include a vast trove of data and physical evidence collected by federal law enforcement over “multiple investigations” into the financier, said James Hill and Peter Charalambous in ABCNews.com. A three-page document released by the Justice Department in February offers “a road map.” It lists seized evidence such as photographs, logs of who potentially visited Epstein’s private island, financial documents, and records of a wiretap of Maxwell’s phone. There are 40 computers and electronic devices, 26 storage drives, and six recording devices holding more than 300 gigabytes of data. The files, if ever released, could resolve “unanswered questions” about the case, said Barry Levine in The New York Times. Among them: Where did Epstein derive his $600 million fortune? How did he fund “such a complex trafficking…

Courts again block Trump’s birthright citizenship order Two federal courts ruled last week against President Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to undocumented migrants and visitors without green cards. A three-judge 9th Circuit panel in California and U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin in Massachusetts upheld nationwide blocks on Trump’s executive order despite a June Supreme Court ruling sharply limiting such “universal injunctions.” Both rulings came in cases that were filed by coalitions of Democrat-led states. Sorokin had initially granted a nationwide injunction in February, which was set aside by the Supreme Court. However, the high court left an opening for situations in which a nationwide injunction is the only way to protect the rights of the plaintiffs. Both Sorokin and two judges of…

Jennifer Love Hewitt is still scarred by the objectification she endured early in her career, said Rachel Handler in NYMag.com. Born in Waco, Texas, she became a box office star at 18 when she appeared in the 1997 horror hit I Know What You Did Last Summer. “I worked hard on that movie. I brought good stuff to it,” says Hewitt, 46. But critics and interviewers didn’t talk much about her performance. “It was just ‘Boob, boob, boob’ everywhere.” Looking back, Hewitt thinks she was too young to fully understand the obsession with her body—she’d had a sheltered upbringing and didn’t have a sip of alcohol until age 25. “Before I even knew what sex was, I was a sex symbol.” Hewitt finally woke up to the damaging nature of…

■ David Geffen’s estranged husband, Donovan Michaels, filed a lawsuit last week accusing the billionaire of ensnaring him in an abusive relationship. Geffen, 82, and Michaels, 32, met in 2016 through a dating site where rich men “shop for the vulnerable,” according to the complaint. Michaels claims the music and movie producer paid him $10,000 to have sex on the first night they met, and that Geffen subsequently “paraded around” the former model—who is Black and grew up in foster care—“as evidence of Geffen’s supposed altruism.” He says Geffen forced him to have cosmetic surgery, “plied” him with drugs, and enjoyed inflicting pain during sex. Michaels is suing Geffen, who filed for divorce in May, for breach of contract, saying the billionaire promised to take care of him financially but…

David Von Drehle The Washington Post Don’t succumb to despair on climate change, said David Von Drehle. A transition away from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and other renewables “is not only possible—it’s happening” around the world. The European Union just reported that in June, three-quarters of its electricity came from non–fossil fuel sources, with solar power providing about 22% of the EU’s electricity—its single biggest power source. For the first time, China managed to put its “CO2 emissions into reverse” in early 2025, as its massive investment in wind, solar, and nuclear energy has reduced dependence on coal and oil. Despite the Trump administration’s “hostility” toward wind and solar, the U.S. has also taken big steps forward, with 42% of energy now coming from renewables—up from 27% two decades…

Dan Andronic Evenimentul Zilei Romanians have collective amnesia, said Dan Andronic. We suffered for decades under Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist dictator whose rule was so brutal that a mob nearly lynched him; he was executed on Christmas Day in 1989. This is the tyrant who used his notorious secret police to keep us silent, afraid our neighbors might inform on us. He exported Romanian crops to get money for his cronies, leaving most of the country short of food and desperately poor. Yet a new poll has found that 66% of Romanians today believe Ceausescu was a good leader and that his reign was beneficial. Pundits, of course, are appalled and outraged. Some say this rewriting of history is a Russian plot, part of the “hybrid war” that aims to…

President Trump has a plan to rig the 2026 midterms, said Mary Ellen Klas in Bloomberg. At his urging, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week called a 30-day special legislative session to redraw the state’s congressional districts, a process that typically happens only after the census, which is next scheduled for 2030. The goal, as Trump has openly stated, is to net five more U.S. House seats for Republicans, with possibly another three seats to come from a similar redrawing in Ohio. That might be enough to protect the GOP’s narrow House majority in next year’s elections, blunting Democrats’ plans to win the chamber and halt “Trump’s march toward authoritarian rule.” Democratic governors are “promising to fight back” with gerrymanders of their own, said Cameron Joseph in The Christian Science…

“Like so many members of the Baby Boom generation, I started out as a baby.” Dave Barry, quoted in The Hippo “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Maya Angelou, quoted in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process.” E.B. White, quoted in the Fayetteville, Ga., Citizen “Man is simply the most formidable of all the beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species.” William James, quoted in the Kenosha, Wis., News “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” Jimmy Dean, quoted in WHChronicle.com “Those who travel the high road of humility are not…

■ How North Koreans get U.S. tech jobs A woman in Arizona who helped North Koreans get remote jobs has revealed the workings of the North Korea–to-U.S. tech pipeline, said Evan Ratliff in Bloomberg Businessweek. Christina Marie Chapman was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for the scheme, which started in 2020 when she posted a LinkedIn profile listing herself as a software engineer after completing a boot camp. That led to an email from someone who claimed to work at a China-based company. Chapman agreed to let engineers—who turned out to be North Korean—work remotely via laptops set up in her home, then in Minnesota, “receiving $300 a month for each one she hosted.” The North Koreans worked for major U.S. companies, including NBCUniversal and Hyatt…

Cutting air pollution has been invaluable to public health. But new research indicates that our cleaner air could be contributing to more frequent heat waves, reports New Scientist. That’s because the particulate matter that comes from burning fossil fuels lowers global temperatures by reflecting the heat of the sun away from the planet, either directly or through contributing to cloud formation. Such aerosol pollution has the opposite effect of greenhouse gases, also produced by burning fossil fuels, which trap heat in the atmosphere. Using a climate model, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin determined that pollutants had slowed down the frequency of extreme heat spells throughout the 20th century. But as clean-air reforms took effect and aerosol pollution declined, heat waves began to increase. In more populated areas,…

In Beatriz Williams’ new novel, Under the Stars, a mother and daughter are drawn into an 1840s mystery by the discovery of a cache of paintings. Below, the best-selling author of Husbands and Lovers and The Summer Wives names works that have shaped her own. The Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian (1969–2004). Among its manifold dazzling virtues, O’Brian’s 20-volume saga of a Royal Navy captain and his ship’s surgeon so effortlessly evokes life aboard a warship during the Napoleonic era, and the humanity of those aboard, that you experience the story as the characters do. I’m rereading the entire series for the fifth time since I picked up Master and Commander as an undergrad, and my reaction remains the same: This is how you write historical fiction. Persuasion by Jane…

“It might be the most predictable bellwether of the dark cultural moment we’re in,” said Murray Whyte in The Boston Globe. Last week, the scheduled fall exhibition of Amy Sherald’s celebrated “American Sublime” show at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery was canceled because the Trump administration took offense at one of Sherald’s paintings. “The only surprise” might be that it was Sherald who called off the show. The artist announced that Trans Forming Liberty, which depicts a transgender woman posing as the Statue of Liberty, sparked the conflict and that she refused to see it removed or shown with a video of viewers reacting to it because doing so “would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility.” Credit Vice President JD Vance, said Diana Stancy in FoxNews.com.…

The gang struggles to shake its villainous reputation. Like many sequels, this followup to a 2022 animated hit “seeks to outshine the original at every turn,” said Frank Scheck in The Hollywood Reporter. But despite its zeal for overkill, including “far too many fart jokes,” the second Bad Guys movie “features the same wit and charm that proved so appealing in the first.” Opening with a car chase that would “make Tom Cruise jealous,” it brings back the gang of anthropomorphized animal thieves voiced by a starry cast, including “clear standout” Sam Rockwell as pack leader Mr. Wolf. The movie’s first half is “cutely comic and not much more,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. But our antiheroes wind up being forced to work with a more devious gang bent on…

South Africa’s sparkling wines don’t have a large global following, but “that’s starting to change,” said Lane Nieset in Food & Wine. A half-century after the bottling of the nation’s first Champagne-style sparkler, the country boasts more than 225 producers of Cap classique. While some adventurous producers use chenin blanc, most rely on the old favorites chardonnay and pinot noir. Colmant Brut Reserve NV ($40). This “fresh and crisp” Western Cape sparkler offers “notes of brioche and mature stone fruit.” 2022 Krone Amphora Blanc de Blancs ($41). “Both fresh and savory,” this small-batch wine aged in amphora is made with chardonnay grapes that have a distinctive wild sage note plus hints of lemon rind and lime blossom. 2018 Graham Beck Cuvée Clive ($70). This Cap classique “rivals some of the…

Riding herd in eastern Idaho Call it “the ultimate horse-girl vacation,” said Carrie Dennis in Travel + Leisure. At Silver Spur Ranch, a family-owned property in Dubois, Idaho, guests are invited to participate in a three-day, 80-mile horse drive, saddling up to help the ranch’s veteran hands move untrained horses across rough terrain to cultivate the youngsters’ surefootedness. My friend Vic and I have been horse girls since second grade, learning to ride a few years later, so when she suggested the trip, I was all in. This isn’t an outing for novices. “The ability to control a horse is required,” and you need to be able to handle five hours or more a day at a fast trot. Of the 13 guests in our group, 12 were women, “all…

■ Natural disasters have caused more than $131 billion in global losses during the first half of 2025, slightly less than in the same period in 2024. The L.A. wildfires have been the costliest natural disaster this year and are estimated to have caused $53 billion in overall losses, with $40 billion insured. CBSNews.com ■ Some 33% of new CEOs appointed in the first half of 2025 are serving on an interim basis. That’s a dramatic increase from the 5% to 9% range of the past few years. Axios ■ Intel announced last week that it would let go of 15% of its workforce, targeting a head count of 75,000 through layoffs and attrition at the end of the year, down from more than 100,000 at the end of 2024.…

A Trump-themed Instant Pot failed the new rules of presidential flattery, said David A. Fahrenthold and Ben Protess in The New York Times. “Like most appliances, the Instant Pot used to keep quiet about its politics.” But in June, the company behind the kitchen staple “announced a new line” emblazoned with “Make America Great Again.” The strategy was the brainchild of a Texas-based lobbyist hired on behalf of Instant Pot’s private-equity owners, Centre Lane Partners, which also promoted other Trump-themed products, from snow globes to bedsheets. Proceeds were to go to Donald Trump’s presidential library. The public fawning echoed tactics by other companies that have wanted help with trade or regulation; Instant Pot faces “a looming antitrust inquiry.” But in this case, it backfired. The Trump Organization threatened legal action…

Sleeping under insecticide-treated nets is one of the easiest and most effective ways to prevent malaria, which is spread by mosquitoes. A seriously malaria-stricken person can experience kidney or liver failure. In 2022, 76% of the more than 600,000 deaths by malaria were children under 5 years old. For the past 20 years, the nonprofit Against Malaria Foundation (againstmalaria.com) has distributed insecticidal nets to low-income households across Asia and Africa. A single net costs $2. Nearly 300 million nets have been provided to families in Ghana, Indonesia, and Zambia. Each net the organization purchases is completely funded by public donations. The foundation, which tracks the use of its nets and monitors national malaria data, estimates its nets have saved almost 200,000 lives. Each charity we feature has earned a four-star…

Matt Bai The Washington Post President Trump understands consumer choice and economics when it comes to Coca-Cola, said Matt Bai. But what about everything else? Trump has successfully “bullied Coca-Cola into producing its flagship soda with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup.” So now more Americans will have the choice of buying the better-tasting “Mexican Coke” that a few foodies have already been seeking out. On just about any other product, though, Trump’s policies are headed in the opposite direction. Trump’s vision of “a country that produces most of its own goods, and mostly for its own citizens,” threatens to make Americans “more like the Soviets: toiling in factories,” buying goods at inflated prices, and “scouring the grocery stores for avocados and olive oil.” Foreigners used to come here…

Rana Foroohar Financial Times Crypto in 2025 is just like derivatives in 2000, said Rana Foroohar. Back then, advocates for the exotic financial instruments “descended on Washington begging to be properly ‘regulated’ so that they could gift the world with financial ‘innovation.’” All that innovation culminated in the 2008 financial crisis. Fast-forward to the present. Crypto lobbyists have recently achieved something strikingly familiar: the passage of the Genius Act, legislation purported to make crypto “safer,” with bipartisan support. The Genius Act makes it sound as though “stablecoins,” which are digital assets backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars, are a “safe” investment. Yet those stablecoins—loved by financiers because they can be easily and discreetly converted into Bitcoin or moved between countries—can make markets very unstable. Tether, the largest issuer of stablecoins, now…

Ozzy Osbourne was the original heavy metal wild man. Both as singer for the British metal pioneers Black Sabbath and as a solo artist, the tattooed, wild-eyed “Prince of Darkness” was famous as much for his staggering substance intake and drug-fueled antics as for his keening wail. His most notorious act, in 1982, was biting the head off a dead bat that had been thrown onstage. (He thought it was a toy and said it had “the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine.”) Another time, while meeting with record executives, he chomped off the head of a live dove—or two doves; accounts vary. He claimed that he dropped LSD daily for two years and at the height of his booze addiction drained four bottles of cognac a day. To millions…

Hulk Hogan brought the over-the-top theatricality of pro wrestling into mainstream American culture. A comic book character come to life, the 6-foot-7, 320-pound mustachioed colossus would enter the arena to the song “Real American,” cup his hand to his ear to encourage the crowd’s roars, flex the bulging biceps he called “24-inch pythons,” and rip off his shirt before facing his opponent. As the face of Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation, he was everywhere in the 1980s and ’90s—appearing in commercials, sitcoms, and even his own animated series. His Main Event bout against Andre the Giant was watched by more than 33 million people. His advice to “Hulkamaniacs” was always simple: “Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins, be true to yourself, and true to your country.” Born weighing “a…