Innholdsfortegnelse for January 23, 2026 i The Week Magazine

How many words have been bashed out by political scientists and historians attempting to impose a coherent framework on our anarchic Trumpian reality? To really understand what President Trump and his MAGA allies are trying to do, we are told, you need to look back at the agenda of paleoconservative pioneer Pat Buchanan, or the theories of German authoritarian jurist Carl Schmitt, or the foreign policy doctrine of President James Monroe. Study these past figures, the idea goes, and you’ll unlock some secret knowledge that will render every inexplicable policy move and pronouncement suddenly explicable. It’s a comforting and deeply human impulse to search for order and meaning amid chaos. That’s why we see shapes—faces, animals, monsters—in the clouds. But there’s a big difference between perceiving order and meaning and…

What happened Iranian security forces massacred thousands of protesters this week in an attempt to quell a surging nationwide uprising, as President Trump vowed to defend the demonstrators with “strong action” against the country’s theocratic rulers. The regime said some 3,000 people have been killed in the demonstrations, which began in late December as an economic protest quickly broadened into a general uprising advocating the fall of the ayatollahs. Witnesses and analysts say the true death toll is likely many times higher. Videos taken by protesters show security forces firing again and again as demonstrators chant “Death to the dictator!” In an effort to prevent such images from getting out, authorities cut off internet and cellphone service for days, and guards went house to house to confiscate Starlink satellite internet…

■ The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is denying the new Las Vegas MLB franchise a trademark for its name. The team currently known as the Oakland Athletics is relocating to Las Vegas before the 2028 baseball season, but the USPTO has ruled that the phrase “Las Vegas Athletics” is too broad to merit protection, because it could fairly be claimed by any Vegas resident who participates in “sports, exercises, and games that require physical skill and stamina.” ■ The man who was photographed laughing and waving as he stole the House speaker’s lectern during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot is running for office in Florida. Adam Johnson, pardoned by President Trump after serving 75 days in prison, filed for a seat on the Manatee County Commission on the…

Portland, Ore. Immigration shooting: The Justice Department this week charged a man shot by a Border Patrol agent in Portland with aggravated assault of a federal officer. Six agents stopped Venezuelan migrant Luis Nino-Moncada, 33, in his pickup truck last week, one day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed Renee Good in her car in Minneapolis. The DOJ said Nino-Moncada rammed officers’ vehicles as he fled, prompting an agent to fire two rounds into his side window. The administration said Nino-Moncada and his female passenger were undocumented and connected to the Tren de Aragua gang. Court documents said Nino-Moncada received a deportation order in 2024. Since September, federal agents have shot at vehicles at least 10 times in connection with President Trump’s immigration crackdown. State and local officials…

Olya Polyakova won’t be silenced, said Rosamund Urwin in The Sunday Times (U.K.). One of Ukraine’s most famous pop stars, she fled abroad when Russia invaded in 2022, but returned home a couple months later. “I understood that in the darkest times, people need heroes,” says Polyakova, 46. Today, she performs live across the country, to audiences that include soldiers, mothers and daughters, and elderly couples. The concerts are often interrupted by air-raid sirens, sending her and her fans to shelters. But “when people come back, the concerts become much cooler. They always say it is a big roller coaster of emotions because the first hour of my concerts is very tearful, and then the second hour is everyone dancing crazily. They cry, they laugh. It’s catharsis.” That’s why Polyakova…

Eugene R. Fidell The Boston Globe Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declared war on “free speech in a democratic society as well as the rule of law,” said Eugene R. Fidell. Hegseth has censured Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and triggered a process in which the retired Navy captain and NASA astronaut could be briefly returned to active duty and demoted so that his pension would be reduced. This petty act of revenge comes after Kelly—who flew 39 combat missions and retired in 2011—publicly stated that military personnel “can refuse illegal orders.” That statement is not “sedition,” as Hegseth claims; it’s actually part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Moreover, as Kelly asserts in a lawsuit against Hegseth that he filed this week, it’s protected speech under the First Amendment.…

Stephen Marche Toronto Star “The idiocy comes so fast and furious that it’s hard to keep track,” said Stephen Marche. The U.S. democratic decline has swiftly reached a “post-policy phase,” in which you can’t judge U.S. actions according to a doctrine or even national interest. There is no policy, no “Donroe doctrine,” but only the whims of what Donald Trump wants to put on television. Just a few weeks ago the U.S. military “wiped a random Nigerian village off the face of the earth so that Fox News would have good footage for Christmas.” Then came the snatching of the Venezuelan dictator. Now they’re pondering a threat to Greenland. “You can almost feel them weighing up the visual effects: How cool would it look to kill a bunch of Danes?”…

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just “put millions of American children needlessly at risk,” said Bloomberg in an editorial. Fulfilling “a long-standing goal of his anti-vaccine supporters,” he cut the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11 last week, dropping government support for kids getting shots for Covid, flu, hepatitis A and B, RSV, and meningitis. Kennedy ignored vaccine experts and relied on the fallacy that healthy kids “can handle routine infections,” so they don’t need protection. In the real world, it’s often only when kids are hospitalized with the flu, RSV, and other infectious diseases that underlying vulnerabilities are discovered. Many Democratic states plan to ignore his recommendations, but this blow to public vaccination “couldn’t come at a worse time,” with a virulent flu strain taking…

“Winter is an odd, unexpected, and quite lovely book from Val McDermid, the prolific Scottish mystery writer,” said Laurie Hertzel in The Washington Post. The days are short and chilly in her corner of the world, but “for McDermid, these cold, dark months are not a time of dormancy—they are the most stimulating of the year.” McDermid, now 70, grew up in a village near St. Andrews, and the arrival of winter brings back happy memories, some of her favorite festival celebrations, and the run of weeks when she is most creative, habitually hunkering down to write a new crime novel. Here, in “short, evocative chapters,” she “glides gracefully from topic to topic,” and while winter is the overarching theme, her delightful book is “mostly about the things that inspire…

The second time Jacob Soboroff covered Los Angeles’ wildfires turned out to be far more heartening than the first, said Tonya Mosley in NPR​.org. Last Jan. 7, Soboroff was reporting live on a national NBC broadcast as he stood in the neighborhood he was born into and watched it be swallowed by flames. “It was an extremely lonely, isolating experience to be standing there as everything I knew burned down around me in real time,” says the 42-year-old MS NOW correspondent. Though he knew others’ losses were far greater, Soboroff was devastated, and it didn’t help that he was soon covering the ICE raids that spread panic across the city. Fortunately, months later, he decided to write a book about the fires, and to reconnect with other people who lived…

The Night Manager A decade after its first superb season, this acclaimed espionage series based on a John le Carré novel recently returned. Tom Hiddleston again plays MI6 agent Jonathan Pine, who this time goes undercover to thwart a Colombian arms dealer played by Narcos’ Diego Calva. Prime Hallow Road Who knew so much dramatic tension could unfold between two people in a vehicle? It helps when the camera is pointed at the excellent Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys, who co-star in this recent film as parents racing to find their daughter on a remote road after learning she’s just hit someone with her car. $6 on demand Run Away James Nesbitt stars in this eight-part series as a father searching for his oldest daughter, a junkie living with her…

For AI fitness coaching ■ Fitbit Personal Health Coach factors your goals, equipment, and available time windows into a custom workout plan that includes “easy-to-follow” video demonstrations. If your availability changes, it suggests alternative activities. And though it makes occasional mistakes, that’s true of any of today’s AI assistants. $10 a month for Fitbit Premium members ■ Peloton IQ is exclusive to Peloton’s latest cardio machines but has a major advantage: It provides feedback on your workout because the machines’ cameras can watch you. The AI coach offers specific advice, such as “Go deeper so your thighs are closer to parallel.” It also bloops happily for good form and bleeps alarmingly for bad. $50 a month ■ Apple Workout Buddy is less a coach than a workout companion. When you…

Will Gottsegen The Atlantic Prediction markets are becoming quite lucrative for insiders, said Will Gottsegen. It’s no secret that apps like Polymarket and Kalshi, which let users wager on the probability of future events, can be gamed. Examples are legion. “Just before María Corina Machado was declared the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, the probability that she would win the award began to spike on Polymarket.” Before Google released its “Year in Search” report last month, an account netted $1 million betting on some of those top searches “with uncanny accuracy.” And in a particularly unsettling recent example, an individual made more than $400,000 betting on a regime change in Venezuela hours before U.S. Delta Force commandos swept in and extracted Nicolás Maduro. Rather than stop insider trading,…

■ American Prairie, a land conservation nonprofit, rang in the new year by reporting that it had removed the 100th mile of derelict barbed wire on its Montana holdings, rewilding a pathway for animals to roam free. To date, the organization has removed and recycled roughly 500,000 pounds of thorny fencing and scrap metal in central Montana. Alongside maintaining safer fencing for cattle and bison, the nonprofit plans to completely rewild swaths of the 600,000 acres it manages for elk, deer, pronghorn, and birds. ■ At 104 years old, Dominick Critelli can still carry a tune. Last month, he wowed the crowd at UBS Arena on Long Island, New York, with his soprano saxophone rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a National Hockey League game between the Rangers and Islanders.…

California, after federal data showed the state to be 100% drought-free for the first time in 25 years, following heavy rains. Although lakes and reservoirs remain far below their historical levels, state climatologist Michael Anderson said the winter season is off to a “great start.” Painkillers, after Jed York, owner of the San Francisco 49ers, had a staffer deliver a bottle of Patrón tequila to George Kittle, the team’s star tight end, minutes after Kittle tore his Achilles tendon during a playoff win over the Philadelphia Eagles. “That bottle is now empty,” reported The Athletic following the game. Power words, after British researchers confirmed that uttering expletives can help people “push harder” when tackling physical challenges. “Swearing is an easily available way to help yourself feel focused, confident, and less…

Alex Rodriguez doesn’t have a plaque in Cooperstown, and he’s fine with that, said Jason Jones in The Athletic. “If I went to the Hall of Fame, in a weird way, I would be hollow inside,” says the former MLB superstar, who calls himself a “recovering narcissist.” Rodriguez, 50, is one of baseball’s greatest players: The 696 home runs he slugged over 22 seasons with the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers, and New York Yankees ranks fifth all-time. But his on-field feats were often overshadowed by his celebrity romances, accusations that he was a selfish teammate, and rumors of performance-enhancing drug use. After an MLB investigation determined Rodriguez had used PEDs, he admitted to cheating and served a season-long suspension in 2014. That scandal has kept him out of the Hall…

James Kirchick The New York Times President Trump’s “surreal” quest to seize Greenland from Denmark “sends a disturbing message to the world,” said James Kirchick. He has insisted that the Danes lack the strength and will to protect Greenland from predations by China and Russia, while Vice President JD Vance has called fellow NATO member Denmark not “a good ally.” Both claims, based on reflexive hostility toward Europe, are utterly false. Denmark has actually been a very loyal ally and “punches far above its weight militarily.” It was one of the only NATO members to join the U.S.’s initial Iraq invasion and suffered many casualties bravely fighting alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan. Contrary to right-wing stereotypes about Europe, Denmark has adopted strict immigration measures and leans right on most social…

“ICE agents now regularly operate masked, heavily militarized, and without any visible identification. ICE officials argue that masks are necessary to prevent doxxing or harassment. But in democratic societies, the use of lawful force depends on legitimacy. Legitimacy depends on accountability. And accountability begins with identification. Anyone empowered to detain, arrest, or use force must be identifiable to the citizens in whose name they act. When officers purposely conceal their faces and perform their duties without name tapes or badge numbers, they turn authority into anonymity. And anonymous power is precisely what democratic systems are designed to prevent.” Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling in The Bulwark…

DJ Kamal Mustafa Daily Pakistan Western countries have been unreliable allies: They “hug us one day and sanction us the next,” said DJ Kamal Mustafa. But while the West lectures us about democratic backsliding, China “offers us lifelines.” China has stood by Pakistan for nearly 75 years, and the partnership is now “hardening into steel.” Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar visited Beijing to send a “loud, deliberate signal” to every other country “that the axis between Islamabad and Beijing remains the only real anchor of stability in this region.” Dar is working on deals with China to finally start exploiting the “minerals sitting under the dust of Balochistan,” finding ways “to turn them into cash flow using Chinese tech.” China knows that Pakistan is the gateway to its…

Richard Spencer The Times Social media “encourages a wildness of speech and mind” that we’re still getting used to, said Richard Spencer. So let’s cut Alaa Abd el-Fattah some slack. A leader of the Arab Spring uprising that toppled Egypt’s dictatorship in 2011, the Egyptian activist spent 12 years in prison after the army ousted the new, elected government. Because he had a British mother, the U.K. granted him citizenship and pressed for his release for years. But after he finally arrived here last month, someone dredged up his old social media posts from 2010. Turns out Fattah had called Brits “dogs and monkeys,” advocated killing all Zionists, and encouraged the random shooting of white men. Now conservatives are calling for his citizenship to be revoked so he can be…

■ The White House excluded Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard from planning to remove Nicolás Maduro because of the former Democrat’s long-standing opposition to U.S. military action in Venezuela, according to administration sources. Some White House aides have joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stands for “Do Not Invite.” Bloomberg ■ When the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery last week swapped out a photo of President Trump in its “American Presidents” exhibition, the museum also removed wall text that referred to his two impeachments and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The new photo’s caption simply identifies Trump as the 45th and 47th president. The Daily Beast ■ Federal appeals court judges appointed by President Trump in his first term voted to let his administration’s policies take effect…

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Epictetus, quoted in Slate “Patriotism is like the love that a parent has for a child; nationalism is akin to believing that one’s child can do no wrong.” Robin Givhan, quoted in The New York Times “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust, quoted in Fauquier Now “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” Martin Luther King Jr., quoted in the Fort Bend Herald “I gave my youth and beauty to men. I give my wisdom and experience to animals.” Brigitte Bardot, quoted in BBC.com “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the…

■ AI firms settle teen suicide lawsuits Google and Character.AI last week agreed to settle with several families of teenagers who killed or harmed themselves after interacting with AI chatbots, said Nitasha Tiku in The Washington Post. The two companies said in joint court filings that they had reached agreements in five different cases, including wrongful-death suits brought by the parents of two teens who took their own lives after allegedly being egged on by AI companions on Character’s app. “Google, which licensed Character’s technology and hired its co-founders in a $2.7 billion deal in 2024, is named as a defendant in each suit.” The decision to settle “could prevent clear rulings” on whether AI companies can be held liable for their models, said Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa…

Stimulant drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall may help people with ADHD in a less direct way than we thought, a new study suggests. Rather than sharpening the brain’s attention-control circuits, the medications appear to boost alertness and make dull tasks feel more rewarding. Researchers analyzed brain scans from nearly 12,000 adolescents. About 4% had ADHD, and roughly half of those were taking prescription stimulants. But the medicated group showed little change in neural networks linked to attention. Instead, the biggest effects appeared in systems involved in wakefulness and reward. That pattern makes sense, researchers say, because stimulants increase levels of norepinephrine, which promotes arousal, and dopamine, which underpins motivation. Together, that “one-two punch” may help children stay engaged, neurologist Benjamin Kay, from Washington University School of Medicine in St.…

Nick Clegg served as deputy prime minister of the U.K. from 2010 to 2015 and was Meta’s president of global affairs until last year. His latest book, How to Save the Internet, suggests the reforms needed to revive the original promises of digital technology. Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee (1983). This novel is possibly my favorite book of all time, mostly because of the taut, sparse prose. It generates a stunning effect. There is simply not a word out of place—and every word resonates with meaning. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966). A prequel to Jane Eyre that takes us to Jamaica through the life and marriage of the soon-to-be Mrs. Rochester, madwoman of the attic. It’s an agonizingly poignant novel, made all the more…

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, through Feb. 8 “John Wilson had a deep desire to be known,” said Brian P. Kelly in The Wall Street Journal. “His aspiration was not of the clout-chasing, fame-hungry sort, but a drive to be understood, to have his culture recognized, to break free of stereotype.” The Boston-born artist (1922–2015) found success early, and he never stopped pursuing the mission that seemed to animate even his student work. That consistency of purpose can be seen in more than 100 paintings, drawings, and sculptures displayed in “Witnessing Humanity,” the largest-ever exhibition of the artist’s work. Wilson was at most 20 when he painted My Brother, a stunningly detailed portrait in which his younger sibling appears as “at once peaceful and tired, his innocence shining…

Directed by Nicholas Hytner The new period screen drama starring Ralph Fiennes is at its best “when it chafes quietly against our expectations of gentle British comfort viewing,” said Guy Lodge in Variety. In a small Yorkshire mill town, young men are shipping off to World War I’s battlefields and returning broken “if at all” when an outsider played by Fiennes is hired as the local church’s new choirmaster. But while director Nicholas Hytner bathes the proceedings in “a buttery gloss of tea-and-crumpets nostalgia,” screenwriter Alan Bennett, who was also Hytner’s partner for 1994’s The Madness of King George, ensures that the film “doesn’t culminate in the against-the-odds artistic triumph you might expect.” The story honors art more honestly and proves “never less than diverting.” To me, The Choral widely misses…

Hiring slowed in December, ending a subdued year, said Harriet Torry and Matt Grossman in The Wall Street Journal. “The U.S. economy added a seasonally adjusted 50,000 jobs” last month, the Labor Department reported last week, missing economists’ expectations. Most of the job creation was concentrated in health care and social assistance, while manufacturing lost employees for an eighth straight month. The results of the report got leaked by an unlikely source: President Trump. He broke protocol (and possibly federal law) by revealing information from the report on his Truth Social account the night before it was made public. Grok: Controversial AI enlisted for military Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. military will begin integrating Elon Musk’s AI tool, Grok, into Pentagon networks, said Anna Betts in The Guardian.…

■ A cap on credit card rates President Trump’s latest plan to tame the cost-of-living crisis is a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, said Luciana Lopez in CNN​.com. Reprising a 2024 presidential campaign pledge, Trump said on Truth Social last week that he wanted a one-year-long cap to start on Jan. 20, without specifying how it would happen or whether it will require “voluntary participation from credit card companies.” The proposed cap would sharply slash the rates that Americans pay on their cards, which average from 19.65% to 21.5%, according to the Federal Reserve. But opponents say it would “backfire” and push banks to enact “stricter lending standards and would make credit unavailable” to many Americans. The plan is something of an about-face for Trump, who last year…

Aldrich Ames was the most damaging traitor the CIA has ever discovered. While heading up counter-intelligence operations for the agency’s Soviet division in the late 1980s, Ames sold out at least 10 allied agents who would go on to be executed by the KGB and handed over reams of information on U.S. foreign and defense policy. Yet he was no communist. His work as a double agent was motivated by greed—over nine years, the Soviets paid him around $2.5 million—and a creeping sense of disillusionment with the cloak-and-dagger world. “These spy wars,” he said in court after pleading guilty to espionage in 1994, are “a self-serving sham, carried out by careerist bureaucrats who have managed to deceive several generations of American policymakers and the public about both the necessity and…

While it’s a virtual certainty Jonathan Ross won’t face federal charges for shooting Renee Good, Minnesota prosecutors could try to bring a case against the ICE agent, said Shaila Dewan and Jonah E. Bromwich in The New York Times. But they would face “many obstacles.” The Constitution bars state prosecution of federal officers who were performing an act they were legally “authorized to do” and did “no more than what was necessary and proper.” The state would have to show Ross exceeded those bounds, and “success is rare.” On Capitol Hill, progressive Democrats “are pushing for an all-out fight” to rein in ICE, said Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris in CNN.com. They want the party “to hold firm” against passing a government-funding bill without conditions such as requiring agents to…

EPA to stop factoring human health in pollution rules The Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it will no longer calculate the dollar value of lives saved and health-care treatments avoided by air pollution regulations. The agency will continue to estimate costs to industry to comply with its rules on fine particulate matter and smog-causing ozone emissions. While past administrations have used different estimates of the monetary value of a human life in EPA cost-benefit analysis, no administration has counted it as zero. Critics said the seismic change could make it easier to repeal limits on pollution from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, and other facilities. The agency said it remained “committed to protecting human health” but “will not be monetizing the impacts at this time.” Meanwhile, President Trump…

To many pop fans, Toni Basil is best known for her 1982 hit single “Mickey,” said Steve Rose in The Guardian (U.K.). But by the time that song came out, the then 38-year-old Basil had already been working in showbiz for decades, as a dancer and choreographer. At 20, she taught Elvis Presley his steps for 1964’s Viva Las Vegas. Despite her youth, there were no nerves. “I mean, I appreciated it was Elvis Presley,” says Basil, 82. “But not in that crazy fan way.” The same year, she was a chorus girl in the Rat Pack movie Robin and the 7 Hoods. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and company were mostly gentlemen. “Maybe Bing Crosby made a pass at me, but I don’t think I was so interested.” She played…

■ Gisele Bündchen’s family is worried the supermodel made a major financial mistake by marrying her “penniless” jujitsu instructor partner, a source told the New York Post. Bündchen, 45, and Joaquim Valente, 38, welcomed a son in February and wed in November. Because of the couple’s wealth gap—he runs a jujitsu academy in Miami, she’s worth an estimated $400 million—her father and five sisters had advised Bündchen to “just live with” Valente, said the source. “But between Valente’s pressure and her being a traditionalist,” added the insider, she felt “they might as well marry.” Bündchen, who split from NFL star Tom Brady in 2022, and Valente signed a prenup, said the source, but it has “some loopholes that mean if they divorce there will be a financial settlement for him.”…

Luke Winkie Slate Real Americans eat food that clogs their arteries, said Luke Winkie. That’s the bottom line of the new “food pyramid” released last week by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which is based on his crackpot MAHA ideas about diet. To be fair, the new version “has some good advice.” He’s right that the classic food pyramid dating to the 1990s overemphasized fattening carbohydrates like bread, pasta, and cereal. His warnings against heavily processed foods echo advice from many dietitians. But the new pyramid also advises us to bulk up on protein by consuming a lot more beef, eggs, and full-fat dairy products, with little mention of beans and legumes. Decades of research have shown a clear link between saturated fat consumption and heart disease, diabetes, and…

Andreas Umland The Kyiv Independent The “reassurance force” European leaders have pledged for Ukraine sounds like something Kyiv will need once it reaches a ceasefire with Moscow, said Andreas Umland. But it’s a “mirage.” The Coalition of the Willing, mostly European nations led by the U.K. and France, met with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris last week and made “binding commitments” to send peacekeeping troops, saying they were committed to stationing a European-led multilateral force in Ukraine to support its sovereignty. Yet that plan, though well-intentioned, “suffers from two strategic paradoxes.” First, the Kremlin has firmly rejected the idea of European troops deploying to Ukraine, and if it thinks that’s likely, it won’t cut a deal at all. Second, if the international force actually did deploy and one of its…

A rare but increasingly common side effect of heavy cannabis use has been sending patients to emergency rooms with relentless vomiting and abdominal pain. Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS)—known online as “scromiting,” a mash-up of screaming and vomiting—affects habitual marijuana users and can involve hours of uncontrollable retching, dehydration, and intense pain. “They are writhing, holding their stomach, complaining of really bad abdominal pain and nausea,” Sam Wang, a pediatric specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, tells CNN.com. “They vomit and then just continue to vomit whatever they have in their stomach, which can go on for hours.” First described in 2004, cases are surging as cannabis use increases, especially among young people. Why the scromiting attacks can occur remains unclear, though experts suspect that the much higher amount of THC in…

Daniyal Mueenuddin’s “sensitive and powerful” first novel isn’t just a welcome January arrival, said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. It’s also “a book you’ll be hearing about again, later in the year, when the shortlists for the big literary prizes are announced.” Sixteen years after his debut story collection was a Pulitzer finalist, Mueenuddin has produced a Pakistan-set epic composed of four linked tales, and “right off the bat he hands us a live wire.” We won’t spend all 340 pages with Yazid, whom we watch grow from a charming orphan to the chauffeur of the wealthy American-educated rural landowner who carries part 3. Even so, Mueenuddin’s writing here is “always fluent and often very funny,” and his storytelling “instantly involving,” said Patrick Gale in The Guardian. As…

Across the Universe by Natan Last (Pantheon, $29) Crosswords, to Natan Last, are more than diversions, said Mark Athitakis in the Los Angeles Times. The journalist and sometime puzzle builder “has long endorsed the idea that puzzles at their best blend politics, community, and a nerdy good time,” and his new book will win over many believers. Its lack of a through line “can be frustrating,” but Last is “a bright and witty guide” to crosswords’ history, appeal, and even failings, and he’ll help any reader see how the puzzles spread useful ideas. Coyote by Robert M. Dowling (Scribner, $31) “Coyote is not the first biography of Sam Shepard, but it is finally the one that an artist of his stature deserves,” said Michael O’Donnell in The Atlantic. Shepard had…

Samuel J. Friedman Theater, New York City “Sad to say, there could hardly be a better time to bring back Tracy Letts’ stealthy, slow-burning 1996 play,” said Charles Isherwood in The Wall Street Journal. The “blistering” drama, about two strangers who descend into conspiracy theory madness, plays a bit differently as it makes its Broadway premiere in this age of widespread paranoid delusion. Letts’ wife, the talented Carrie Coon, portrays Agnes, a coke-snorting waitress who is holed up in a seedy motel room when she succumbs to the tinfoil ravings of Peter, a troubled Gulf War veteran. To her credit, “Coon never turns the character into a wild-eyed hysteric,” yet Bug hits home as “a gruesome cautionary tale.” While other productions of Bug, including the 2006 film adaptation, have tended…

“Amy Poehler didn’t seem to take her victory in the Golden Globes’ new podcast category too seriously,” said Owen Mason-Hill in The Daily Beast. While accepting the trophy for Good Hang, the host of the celebrity chat show cracked that she had great respect for her fellow nominees except for NPR’s Up First, which she called “just a bunch of celebs phoning it in,” adding, “Try harder.” Poehler also reminded viewers that her show, which launched last March and rose to end 2025 in the Spotify Top 10, is supposed to be about escapism from what she declared “a very rough and unkind world.” Not that Good Hang is above tackling difficult issues, said Emily Yahr in The Washington Post. On one episode, Poehler brought on her Parks and Recreation…

Gin isn’t about to challenge tequila or mezcal as Mexico’s national spirit, said Samantha Leal in Food & Wine. “But a growing number of producers are quietly redefining Mexican gin by drawing on regional botanicals, alternative base spirits, and a strong sense of place.” Don’t expect variations on London dry. “Mexican gin is carving out a bold identity of its own.” Las Californias Nativo Gin ($30). An “accessible entry point” into Mexican gin, this widely available option harvests its botanicals from the Pacific coast on both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border. Condesa Clásica Gin ($37). “A defining force in Mexican gin,” Condesa is also widely available. While its Prickly Pear expression is ideal for savory cocktails, the Clásica, with its hints of palo santo and sage, shines in martinis. Gracias…

■ Inflation stayed at 2.7% in December, unchanged from November and in line with economists’ expectations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 2.6% from the same period a year ago. Financial Times ■ Alphabet, Google’s parent company, topped $4 trillion in market capitalization for the first time this week and overtook Apple to become the country’s second-largest firm, behind Nvidia. Alphabet’s stock has surged more than 73% in the past year. Bloomberg ■ Zoe Saldaña is now the highest-grossing actor of all time, helped by the success of her third Avatar film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, which recently surpassed $1.2 billion in box-office sales. In total, Saldaña’s films, which also include two Marvel Avengers movies, have grossed…

Some people grew very attached to their Roombas, said John Keilman in The Wall Street Journal. “Long before there were chatbots and humanoids,” there was the autonomous floor cleaner from iRobot, which became a “gateway” for millions of households to learn to coexist with gadgets with “minds of their own.” And many devotees loved the little guy. “It’s like a pet,” said Lindsey Allen, who named her Roomba “Soup.” Other people dressed them up and treated them as “social media co-stars.” A video by Houston resident Helen Jürlau Arnold of her cat, Max-Arthur, riding atop a Roomba went viral in 2013, amassing 13 million views. At the same time, “videos abound of Roombas terrorizing pets, making epic messes, and going AWOL,” which may partly be why iRobot went broke and…

Christopher Caldwell The Free Press The backlash to AI is brewing, said Christopher Caldwell. “The build-out of artificial-intelligence infrastructure is being credited for nearly all U.S. growth over the past year.” But Americans are beginning to openly question what, exactly, they are getting out of it. Just as they were “getting comfortable with the internet, along came AI to inundate it with ‘slop,’ making social media even more deceptive and repulsive.” Soon it will come for our jobs. Last spring, Pew Research Center found that 51% of Americans were “more concerned than excited” about AI, versus only 11% who said they’re more excited. And “though its contours are still barely visible, a political movement against AI is taking shape.” Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has urged his followers to reject…

Bob Weir was the quiet linchpin of the Grateful Dead. Though he was uninterested in competing with the mythical presence of Jerry Garcia, saying fans’ deification had ultimately killed the frontman, Weir was a fan favorite: the good-looking one in the very short jean shorts. As a rhythm guitarist with precise timing and inventive chord voicing—in live shows he would play notes from a song’s chords in varying octaves or an unconventional order—he bridged Garcia’s long, noodling guitar solos with bassist Phil Lesh’s effervescent countermelodies. Several of Weir’s compositions, like “Sugar Magnolia,” “Truckin’” and “Playing in the Band,” became standards, helping establish the Dead’s blend of rock, blues, folk, and country. And his constant playfulness onstage helped drive the band’s signature improvisations. We “state a theme and take it for…