MAIN STORIES TALKING POINTS BUSINESS

A REVENGE Banning The fight

RAID ON phones for control
BOLTON? in schools of the Fed
p.5 p.17 p.34 Lisa
Cook

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Occupy Chicago
Trump and Hegseth’s plan for the Windy City and other blue strongholds
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SEPTEMBER 5/SEPTEMBER 12, 2025

VOLUME 25 ISSUE 1251-1252

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Contents
Editor’s letter
A
s the United States descends into
one-man, authoritarian rule, I
sometimes wonder what Donald
Trump’s collaborators really think. By col-
laborators, I do not mean the true MAGA
cultists, who welcome his tyrannical in-
trusion into every aspect of American
life, his military occupation of American
cities, and his unrestrained use of gov-
ernment power to intimidate and pun-
ish opponents, critics, and immigrants.
The collaborators are the once-principled
Reaganites, the small-government liber-
tarians, and the conservative commen-
tariat who through fear or tribal alle-
giance are still defending or downplay-
ing the Maximum Leader’s insistence that
everyone—private companies, universities,
museums, states, cities, the Fed, the Justice
Department, other countries—must capit-
ulate to his will or suffer his wrath.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a
useful example. In 2016, Rubio compared
Trump to a “third-world strongman”
and warned that “many people on the
Right” will have “to explain and justify
Police and Secret Service agents search vehicles in Washington, D.C. (p.4) how they fell into this trap of supporting
Donald Trump because this is not going
to end well.” Does “Little Marco” now
NEWS
feel this is likely to end well because he’s
4 Main Stories sold his soul? Before his own cynical con-
6 Controversy of the Week version, JD Vance observed that Trump
Editor-in-chief: Theunis Bates
Editor-at-large: William Falk 7 U.S. at a Glance was “an idiot” who was “unfit for our na-
8 World at a Glance tion’s highest office” and might turn into
Executive editor: Susan Caskie “America’s Hitler.” Is the sour tang of tyr-
Managing editor: Mark Gimein
10 People
Assistant managing editor: Jay Wilkins 11 Briefing anny more palatable now that JD sits at
Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell 12 Best U.S. Columns the ruler’s table? And what of Sens. Ted
Deputy editor/News: Chris Erikson Cruz and Lindsey Graham, the Russia
Senior editors: Conor Devlin, Isaac
14 Best International Columns
Guzmán, Harold Maass, Rebecca 15 Best European Columns hawks, the Supreme Court justices, and
Nathanson, Tim O’Donnell, Matt Prigge, 16 Talking Points Republicans who once professed loyalty
Zach Schonbrun, Hallie Stiller
18 Cartoons to free markets, free speech, and personal
Art director: Paul Crawford
Deputy art director: Rosanna Bulian 20 Technology liberty, and celebrated America’s role as
Photo editor: Mark Rykoff 21 Health & Science the “shining city on the hill”? Do they pri-
Copy editor: Rob Horning vately cringe over the North Korea–style
Research editors: Allan Kew, Karen Ng ARTS
Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin,
groveling at Trump’s Cabinet meetings,
Bruno Maddox 22 Books his fawning admiration of the war crimi-
23 Author of the Week nal Vladimir Putin, his assault on laws, al-
Senior vice president: Kevin Addley
24 Art & Music liances, science, data, and reality itself, and
VP advertising: Stevie Lee
25 Film the authoritarian precedents he is setting
([email protected])
26 Television for future presidents? Do they ever say
Account director: Mary Gallagher
([email protected])
to spouses or confidantes: “My God, he’s
Media planning manager: Andrea Crino LEISURE crazy. He’s out of control”? Their silence
Direct response advertising: is their acquiescence, and makes them
Anthony Smyth ([email protected]) 27 Food & Drink complicit in the damage already done, and
Managing director, news
28 Travel in whatever insanity is to come.
Richard Campbell 30 Properties
Consumer marketing director: William Falk
Leslie Guarnieri BUSINESS Editor-at-large
Manufacturing manager,
North America: Lori Crook 32 News at a Glance
Operations manager: 33 Making Money
Cassandra Mondonedo
34 Best Columns Visit us at TheWeek.com
OTHER For customer service go to TheWeek.com/service
or [email protected]
35 Obituaries Renew a subscription at RenewTheWeek.com
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Chief executive officer: Kevin Li Ying

Non-executive chairman: Richard Huntingford 36 The Last Word or give a gift at GiveTheWeek.com
Chief financial officer: Sharjeel Suleman
38 Puzzle Page Roger Daltrey (p.10)

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

4

Pentagon readies military deployment in Chicago

What happened where, despite Trump’s claims, nobody was
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker assailed President afraid to go out to dinner. But restaurants
Trump for his threat to send the National are suffering now because residents are stay-
Guard into Chicago this week, calling it an ing home, spooked by an armed occupation
illegal and “un-American” scheme hatched that “bears all the hallmarks of a fascist re-
by a “wannabe dictator.” Trump cited Chi- gime.” In immigrant neighborhoods, there
cago, New York, and Baltimore as possi- are deserted streets and a “palpable sense of
ble next targets for federal intervention, fear,” said Daniella Silva and Megan Leb-
while claiming his takeover of Washing- owitz in NBCNews.com. Residents report
ton, D.C.’s police force and deployment of groups of ICE agents grabbing men off the
National Guard troops and federal law en- streets and checkpoints where every driver
forcement agents to the nation’s capital had is asked for identification. Margarita, a Sal-
made the “hellhole” city safe. The Wash- vadoran immigrant who runs a restaurant,
ington Post reported that the Pentagon has Pritzker: Trump wants to ‘militarize our cities.’ said half her employees are afraid to come
spent weeks sketching out a plan that would to work. “People are traumatized,” she said.
see thousands of Illinois National Guard deployed in Chicago; the
use of active-duty troops had also been discussed. Calling the na- This is tricky territory for Democrats, said Rachael Bade in Politico.
tion’s third-most populous city “a killing field,” Trump said he could Eight in 10 Washingtonians oppose Trump’s D.C. occupation, but
“solve Chicago” in a week or less. Pritzker noted Chicago has seen Trump “is playing to a national audience.” Crime stats in D.C.,
a 32% homicide drop since last year, and that many Republican-run Chicago, and other cities may be down, but citing numbers only
cities have higher murder rates. Trump’s real goal is not to fight goes so far when people feel unsafe, and Democrats who dismiss
crime, the Democrat said, but “to lay the groundwork to circum- their concerns are playing a losing game. They need to look at
vent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections.” last week’s Harvard poll, which showed that 54% of voters think
Trump’s actions in Washington are “justified and necessary.”
Trump signed an executive order directing Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth to create a “quick reaction force” in the guard “available My hometown of Chicago and other big cities “really are irrepa-
for rapid nationwide deployment” to “cities where public safety rably broken,” said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. But in Chi-
and order has been lost.” Under Hegseth’s orders, some of the cago, so vast it makes D.C. look like “a torn postage stamp,” flood-
more than 2,200 guard troops in D.C. began carrying weapons on ing the Loop with troops won’t fix anything, no matter how “bril-
patrol. The troops have largely been stationed in heavily touristed liant” it might be politically. And there’s another catch: It’s blatantly
areas like the National Mall, and some have been assigned to trash illegal. Trump’s lust for power can’t override a Constitution that
removal and landscaping duties. “grants police powers to the states,” not the federal government.

Trump said Democrats who oppose his blue-city interventions are Trump’s goal of a civil rapid reaction force is sparking alarm
walking into a “trap,” and that his shows of force would be wel- among some former National Guard brass, said Anne Flaherty in
comed by a crime-weary public. “They say, ‘He’s a dictator, he’s a ABCNews.com. The guard’s mission is to help fight foreign en-
dictator,’” Trump said at an Oval Office event. “A lot of people are emies or aid Americans “in times of extraordinary crisis.” But
saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’ I don’t like a dictator.” He dis- Trump wants units whose purpose is to “dominate and police the
missed questions about whether he can legally deploy soldiers to American people,” said retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner. “And
Chicago without Gov. Pritzker’s approval. “I have the right to do that is extremely disturbing.” Using troops for domestic law en-
anything I want to do,” he said. “I’m the forcement could have unsettling conse-
president of the United States.” quences, said retired Maj. Gen. Linda
What next? Singh. “What happens if there’s an es-
What the columnists said We now have a clear sign that Trump “intends to
calation and civilians are killed?” she
expand the U.S. military’s role in domestic law en-
“No thank you,” said the Chicago forcement,” said Zachary Cohen in CNN.com. His
said. “We are setting precedents we
Tribune in an editorial. We’ve seen National Guard executive order also calls for every can’t come back from.”
what’s unfolded in D.C., where res- state to create specialized units focused on “public
idents have endured “the dystopian order issues.” But questions remain “about how America has turned a dangerous cor-
presence” of armed soldiers patrolling the order will work in practice.” The guard “already ner, said Garrett Graff in his newslet-
neighborhoods that fit nobody’s “defini- has reaction forces” in each state and territory, who ter. We’ve suddenly become a coun-
tion of crime-riddled.” The show of mil- are under the command and control of governors. try “where armed officers of the state
itary power in Georgetown and on the Trump’s order doesn’t say what authority the new shout, ‘Papers please!’” at people head-
Mall exposes the supposed “crime emer- units would report to if they’re deployed over a ing home from work, a country where
gency” as “little more than a pretext for governor’s objection. Nor does it say how such masked men throw people into un-
Trump to display his vision of a muscu- units would train “or whether there would be co- marked cars, “disappearing them into
lar executive branch intervening in the ordination between those units across the states.” an opaque system where their family
affairs of urban America.” That’s “the Whatever the details, the alarming upshot is clear, members beg for information.” Now
last thing Chicago needs.” said William Kristol in The Bulwark. The National Trump is threatening domestic oppo-
Guard is being “turned into the president’s own nents such as Pritzker with D.C.-like oc-
“Trump is selling a dangerous lie rapid domestic deployment force, to be used at his cupations, claiming “emergency powers
unchecked discretion.” The guard deployments in
about the city I’ve made a life in,” said in a moment where the only emergency
Los Angeles and Washington were “presented as
Kimberly Atkins Stohr in The Boston is his own abuse of power.” This “is
Reuters

exceptional.” Now “it is to become the rule.”

Globe. D.C. is a vibrant metropolis what American fascism looks like.”
Illustration by Jason Seiler.
THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025 Cover photos from Getty (3)
 5

Trump threatens critics with federal charges

What happened in retaliation for an assassination Bolton
President Trump ramped up his retribution helped orchestrate at Trump’s behest. It’s
campaign this week, threatening to prose- “the kind of gratuitous viciousness” we’ve
cute former ally turned critic Chris Chris- come to expect from this president.
tie just days after FBI agents searched the
home and office of former national security Even if the FBI finds classified documents in
adviser John Bolton. Federal agents raided Bolton’s possession, “the administration has
Bolton’s Washington, D.C., office and his damaged any presumption of good faith by
suburban home last week, seizing comput- flinging weightless accusations of criminal-
ers and documents as part of an investiga- ity at those who challenge it,” said The New
tion into alleged illegal sharing of classified York Times. That includes not just Bolton,
information. Ahead of the raid, Bolton had Cook, and Schiff, but also New York Attor-
angered Trump with public criticism of his FBI agents at Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Md. ney General Letitia James, who is being
policy toward Russia, and the president had investigated for mortgage fraud—the appar-
spent days attacking him on social media. While Trump later de- ent weapon of choice for Trump’s Justice Department. Trump even
nied foreknowledge of the FBI raid, he said Bolton deserved it be- threatened financier George Soros and his son Alex, prominent
cause he was “a real sort of lowlife” and “unpatriotic.” Undeterred, donors to Democratic causes, with racketeering charges.
Bolton wrote an op-ed in the Washington Examiner listing numer-
ous mistakes he said Trump had made regarding Russia that have What the columnists said
“left us further from peace” in Ukraine. The timing of events was revealing, said Benjamin Wittes in The
Bulwark. “I was there” at the start of the raid on Bolton’s Mary-
Saying falsely that he could prosecute anyone he wanted to be- land home, and no New York Post reporter was present. Yet within
cause he was America’s “chief law enforcement officer,” Trump minutes, FBI Director Kash Patel had posted about it on X and the
turned his ire on other critics. After Christie denounced the raid on Post’s website had a full-length article describing the raid. Clearly,
Bolton, Trump threatened to reopen a criminal investigation into the administration had fed information to the tabloid. “Part of the
“Bridgegate,” an alleged act of political retaliation that took place point was to create a theatrical display of law enforcement power”
when Christie was New Jersey governor. The president also said he against a prominent anti-Trumper. The message: “If you criticize
would “have to rethink” federal funding for rebuilding Baltimore’s Trump, the government is coming for you.”
damaged Key Bridge after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore warned him
against sending troops to that city. And he announced he would All this is ugly indeed, said Megan McArdle in The Washington
fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, claiming she had com- Post, but it was Democrats who first abused the law in this way.
mitted mortgage fraud (see Best Business Columns, p.34). “This James first boasted she “planned to use her office to harass”
is clearly retribution,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), himself Trump on the night she was elected in 2018, well before she un-
a target of a Justice Department mortgage fraud probe. “Anyone earthed evidence of his wrongdoing. The resulting civil fraud trial
who says anything adverse to the president’s interests gets the full was a shameful spectacle of “judicial and prosecutorial overreach,”
weight of the federal government brought down on them.” as evidenced by the fact that the $454 million penalty James levied
on Trump was overturned last week.
What the editorials said
“It’s hard to see the raid” against Bolton “as anything other than Yet the lengths Trump is going to in punishing his enemies is en-
vindictive,” said The Wall Street Journal. Bolton fell from favor in tirely new, and frightening, said Norm Eisen in MSNBC.com.
Trump’s first term and promptly wrote a tell-all memoir describing The same institutions marshaled against Bolton “can be wielded
Trump as ignorant and unfit, which the administration tried unsuc- against anyone.” Who is next? It could be judges who issue rulings
cessfully to block from publication. After regaining the presidency, unfavorable to the administration, lawmakers who block Trump’s
“Trump made clear that he was out for blood,” pulling Bolton’s agenda, or “even ordinary citizens who may have written a letter
Secret Service detail even though Iran had plotted to murder him or a post on social media that he objects to.” It could be you.

It wasn’t all bad Note to readers

■ After Angel Santiago let out Bam Bam, his emotional support dog, one
■ In 2002, Bruce Moss joked to semi- early June morning, thieves broke into the Chicagoan’s yard and stole The Week will
retired U.S. Air Force Band conductor the 14-year-old dachshund. Santiago, who has glaucoma and is legally
Arnald Gabriel that the 77-year-old blind, was heartbroken to lose his decade-long companion. For day after not publish an
would still be conducting at 100. “I plan day, he walked up to 7 miles calling his dog’s name and passing out fliers. issue for one
to,” Gabriel replied. They signed a Neighbors filed a police report, and strang- week. Our next
contract for Gabriel to conduct Moss’s ers online organized a $20,000 GoFundMe edition will be
municipal band in Wheaton, Ill., in to recover the pooch. In August, two
23 years—and Gabriel did so in July. people dropped off a wiener dog at the 16th dated Sept. 19,
Although unable to travel to Illinois, District police station, and police contacted and should
Gabriel prerecorded his performance retired cop John Garrido, who reconnects begin arriving
in his uniform for the USAF Band, which strays with their owners. Garrido realized it on Sept. 12. The
he conducted from 1964 to 1985. He was Bam Bam and, after checking the dog’s
Week currently
Reuters, GoFundMe

led Moss’s band in two songs from a microchip, police reunited Bam Bam with
giant screen, and then agreed to a new Santiago. “We don’t mess around here,” publishes 48
contract: another performance at 105. Santiago with Bam Bam Garrido said. “We love our pets.” issues a year.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

6
Controversy of the Week
Newsom: Will his Trump trolling pay off?
Gavin Newsom has devised a new strategy to ener- News anchor Trace Gallagher blasted Newsom’s posts
gize Democrats and infuriate Republicans, said Matt as “childish,” while his colleague Dana Perino said
K. Lewis in the Los Angeles Times: Act like President Newsom will need to be “more serious” if he wants
Trump. In recent weeks, his social media accounts have to be president. So there you have it: “All it takes to
shared posts that parody the kind of material that nor- expose stupid, unacceptable rhetoric as stupid and
mally fills up Trump supporters’ feeds. There’s AI- unacceptable is to change the identity of the speaker.”
generated images of Newsom with a cup labeled
“MAGA tears”; Newsom on Mount Rushmore; and Newsom is putting his presidential ambitions above
“my personal favorite,” Newsom getting prayed over his state’s well-being, said Jim Geraghty in National
by Kid Rock, Tucker Carlson, and an angelic Hulk Review. California has the highest unemployment rate
Hogan. The Democrat has adopted Trump’s all-caps in the U.S., an affordability crisis, and growing levels
writing style as well, posting that his redistricting of homelessness. The state needs “all the help it can
plan to counter the Texas GOP’s gerrymander has led get,” yet Newsom “has decided his best strategy is to
“MANY” people to call him “GAVIN CHRISTOPHER antagonize the president as much as possible.” His
‘COLUMBUS’ NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE zingers may play well online, said Salena Zito in the
MAPS!)” He taunts the president on X with Trump- Washington Examiner, but they won’t resonate with
ish insults (“DONALD IS FINISHED—HE IS NO A viral post real swing-state voters. Newsom and his advisers,
LONGER ‘HOT’”) and is selling merch too, including a holed up in their Democratic stronghold, have never
red baseball cap emblazoned with “Newsom was right about every- had to “win over Republicans, independents, or centrist Demo-
thing!” For years, Trump was the master of this “childish, if devious, crats.” Those folks don’t want a Democratic Trump; they want their
game.” Now Newsom, who’s eyeing the 2028 Democratic presiden- candidates “showing up, ‘getting shit done,’ and governing.”
tial nomination, is hitting back and “fighting on Trump’s turf.”
But voters are rewarding Newsom for putting “himself at the center
After eight years of Democrats issuing “shrill ultimatums about the of the fight,” said Douglas E. Schoen in The Hill. While former Vice
death of the republic,” it’s nice to have someone telling Trump to President Kamala Harris still leads in an aggregate poll of Demo-
shove it “in the only language he could ever understand,” said Luke cratic 2028 contenders, Newsom has doubled his vote share nation-
Winkie in Slate. Newsom isn’t the most likable guy, but he’s giving wide since June. That may be because, amid all the Trump troll-
his party a taste of what has “made Trumpism so appetizing” for ing, he’s moderated on a “long list of polarizing issues,” said Ronald
many Americans: “the mean-spiritedness, the compulsive name- Brownstein in Bloomberg. Newsom has expressed opposition to
calling, the prioritization of emotional truth over objective truth.” transgender girls playing in school sports, and “struck hard-line
Against my better judgment, I’m enjoying Newsom’s embrace of notes on crime.” He’s showing it’s possible to be a Democrat who’s
“idiocracy,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. He’s holding a anti-MAGA without being ultra-progressive. Other Democrats
mirror up to MAGA, and MAGA doesn’t like what it sees. Fox would be smart to adopt Newsom’s “confrontational centrism.”

Only in America Good week for: In other news

Love stories, after pop superstar Taylor Swift said yes to her boyfriend
■ Delta and United Airlines are of two years, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. “Your English Pentagon purge accelerates
being sued by passengers who teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the couple posted with firing of intelligence head
claim they were duped into paying on Instagram, with photos of Kelce getting down on one knee. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
up to $100 extra for window seats last week fired the head of the Pen-
without windows. The two class Faking it, after a French Justin Bieber impersonator tricked a Las tagon’s main intelligence branch,
action suits, which seek millions Vegas nightclub into letting him perform onstage while racking up Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, just weeks
of dollars in damages, accuse the a $10,000 tab. The Wynn hotel, where the XS Nightclub is located, after the agency drafted a report
carriers of calling all seats along banned Dylan Desclos from its properties for life and blamed “an elab- that contradicted President Trump’s
the sides of their planes “window” orate and multistep ruse by him and his advance team.” claim that Iran’s nuclear program
seats even though some are next Screen breaks, after the Japanese city of Toyoake proposed a health was “fully obliterated” in U.S.
to windowless blank walls. “When ordinance that would limit residents’ smartphone use to two hours a military strikes in June. A leaked
consumers [book] a window seat,” day outside work and school. “In two hours, I cannot even read a book preliminary assessment of that
said attorney Carter Greenbaum, or watch a movie [on my smartphone],” one social media user griped. operation from the Defense Intelli-
“they reasonably expect the seat gence Agency estimated the bomb-
will have a window.” ing campaign had set back Iran’s
Bad week for: nuclear capabilities only by a few
■ The Dallas Police Department Peace through strength, after Vice President JD Vance defended months. The White House called
has added cowboy hats to its President Trump’s attempt to mediate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war the assessment “flat-out wrong.”
official uniform in a bid to lure new by stating that “every major conflict in human history,” including World Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said
recruits to the force. The depart- War II, ended “with some kind of negotiation.” In fact, World War II ended Kruse’s firing was evidence that the
ment shared photos of officers with the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945. administration treats intelligence as
wearing the headgear—which is Snacking, after an adviser to scandal-plagued New York City Mayor “a loyalty test” Hegseth has ousted
black and shiny and resembles a Eric Adams tried to hand a local journalist a cash-stuffed potato chip numerous other Pentagon officials
Stetson—in an Instagram post cap- bag outside a campaign event. “I just wanted to be her friend,” said in recent months, and last week
tioned, “Fitted for duty and ready also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore,
Winnie Greco, who was suspended from Adams’ re-election campaign.
to ride.” Dallas PD has struggled chief of the Navy Reserve, and
with staffing and recently dropped Drunken sailors, after a container ship captain was arrested in Seattle Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy
a requirement that recruits have on suspicion of operating his 333-meter-long vessel while inebriated. A SEAL officer overseeing Naval
some college experience. breathalyzer test found the captain had a blood alcohol level “more than Special Warfare Command.
six times the legal limit for commercial mariners,” said the Coast Guard.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 7
The U.S. at a Glance

Minneapolis King of Prussia, Pa. New York City

Catholic school shooting: A shooter killed Trans health records: A subpoena made Set aside: A New York appeals court
at least two children at a Minneapolis public last week revealed that the Justice last week threw out a $454 million civil
Catholic school this week, firing through a Department asked a children’s hospital fraud judgment owed by President Trump,
stained-glass window at students who were for patient records connected to gender arguing the harm caused by Trump and his
celebrating the school year’s first Mass. transition treatment for minors, the latest company didn’t match the penalty. A judge
The assailant, 23-year-old Robin Westman, move in the Trump administration’s cam- last year found the president
the transgender child of a former Annun- paign to block such treatments. In a June guilty of fraud for inflating
ciation Catholic School employee, then subpoena to the Children’s Hospital of his net worth to secure more
committed suicide. The victims were 8 Philadelphia (CHOP) in King of Prussia, favorable loan and insurance
and 10 years old. The shooting also left the department asked for “every writing terms. But in a 323-page
at least 17 injured, including 14 children. or record of whatever type” doctors had opinion, a five-judge panel
The church said that made about treatments that range from agreed to reduce the
the toll would have puberty blockers to hormone therapy to fine. Two judges argued
been worse but for the surgery. The government also demanded Trump’s case should be
Getting a break
heroism of staff who personal details of the patients. About half retried, while one said
moved children under of states have banned or restricted gender New York Attorney General Letitia James
the pews within seconds. transition treatment for minors. In states never should have brought the case. The
Westman, who identified that do allow it, some prominent hospitals, remaining judges maintained the trial court
as female, registered such as Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, was right to convict Trump but took issue
Tragic aftermath
a name change from have ended gender transition programs. with the fine. “It was not the cataclysmic
Robert to Robin in 2020. Police were CHOP has sought to block the subpoena harm that can justify a nearly half-billion-
investigating a series of disturbing videos because it says providing the confidential dollar award to the state,” said Judge Peter
posted hours before the shooting. One information would frighten patients and Moulton. The split among the appeals
showed gun magazines on damage doctor-patient relationships. panel clears the way for Trump to appeal
which Westman appears to have his conviction to the state’s
scrawled, “kill Donald Trump,” highest court. The president
“6 million wasn’t enough,” and celebrated the decision, calling
“where is your God.” The FBI the case “a Political Witch Hunt,
said it would investigate the in a business sense.”
attack as an anti-Catholic bias
crime. Baltimore
Deportation limbo: A federal judge this
Austin week barred the Trump administration
Getting redder: Texas Repub- from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia
licans voted last week to imple- after a whirlwind 72 hours that saw
ment a new gerrymandered the Salvadoran immigrant freed from
congressional map that could give the detention only to be detained again and
party five more House seats. After nearly threatened with deportation to Uganda.
eight hours of contentious debate, the Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis said
GOP-controlled Senate passed the new she needed time to hold a hearing and
districts in an 18-to-11 vote along party ensure Abrego Garcia’s due process rights
lines, sending the plan to Gov. Greg Washington, D.C. were protected. The Maryland resident
Abbott’s desk. The vote Stars and stripes: President Trump this was deported
cements a power grab week signed an executive order that aims to El Salvador
encouraged by the to punish the burning of the American in March in
Trump administration flag, despite two Supreme Court decisions violation of a
and caps off weeks of holding that flag burning counts as con- judge’s order
partisan clashes that stitutionally protected speech. While the and returned
culminated in Texas order doesn’t criminalize the actual act of to the U.S. in
House Democrats fleeing flag burning, offenders could be prosecuted June, but then
New maps pass the state to block the for inciting a riot, committing a hate crime, faced human-
bill. The redistricting or illegal discrimination against American smuggling Abrego Garcia
push has since ballooned into a nationwide citizens. “If you burn a flag, you get one charges, to
arms race, with Vice President JD Vance year in jail,” Trump told reporters. “You which he has pleaded not guilty. He spent
this week urging 55 Indiana GOP law- will see flag burning stop immediately.” the summer detained in Tennessee but was
makers to redraw their districts by Hours later, the Secret Service arrested Jay released last week, after a judge ruled he
Thanksgiving. Florida is also considering Carey, an Army veteran, in Washington’s wasn’t a flight risk. Days later, immigration
implementing new maps that could target Lafayette Square after he burned an officers detained him during a Baltimore
three to five House seats currently held by American flag to protest the executive check-in. His lawyers said prosecutors gave
Democrats. Meanwhile, blue states have order. The Supreme Court first upheld him the choice of pleading guilty and being
hit back, with Californians set to vote in the right to burn the flag in 1989, in the deported to Costa Rica or maintaining his
a November special election on new maps case of an activist who had set fire to innocence but getting shipped to Uganda.
Getty (4)

that are likely to increase the number of a flag outside the Republican National Trump officials insist Abrego Garcia will
Democrat-held seats. Convention in Dallas five years earlier. “never go free” in the U.S.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

8
The World at a Glance
London Copenhagen
Protests over migration: The British gov­ U.S. accused of fomenting secession: Danish authorities sum­
ernment said this week it will speed up moned the U.S. envoy to the country this week to discuss alle­
asylum appeals to ensure swift deportations, gations of covert American influence operations in Greenland.
after protests broke out over the housing of Denmark’s public broadcaster DR reported that Danish intel­
asylum seekers in hotels. The government ligence believes Americans with ties to President Trump have
is currently housing some 30,000 asylum engaged in efforts to persuade Greenlanders to secede from
Up with nationalism
seekers in hotels, which have become flash Denmark and join the U.S. instead. One of the unnamed Ameri­
points. Last week, a judge ruled that migrants must be evicted from cans, the report said, compiled a list of Greenlanders who might
one Epping hotel after an asylum seeker staying there was accused be amenable to joining a secessionist movement. Trump first
of assaulting a teenage girl. Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party raised the idea of buying the island, which is semiautonomous
leads the governing Labour Party in polls 30% to 21%, said this but belongs to Denmark, in his first term. In his second, he has
week that if he were elected he would immediately “detain and declined to rule out taking it by force. “Any attempt to interfere in
deport” every migrant who arrived in the U.K. by small boat. the internal affairs of the kingdom of Denmark will of course be
Experts, though, said such a scheme would be illegal. unacceptable,” said Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

Toronto
No experiments on dogs: Ontario
Premier Doug Ford said this week he
will introduce a bill to ban medical
testing on cats and dogs. “Go with the
mice, go with the rats, no problem, but
these are pets,” Ford said. “They’re part
Doomed beagles
of our families.” The push came two
weeks after an exposé by Canada’s Investigative Journalism Bureau
showed that an Ontario hospital was inducing three­hour heart
attacks in beagles as part of secret cardiac research. The report
caused an outcry, and St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario,
said that while the research complied with ethics protocols, it
would end. “If there’s anyone else out there that’s doing this to
animals,” Ford said, “come clean, ’cause we’re going to catch you.”

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Truckers learn English: Commercial truck drivers in
Mexico have been flocking to language classes since
the U.S. announced in April that they must be able to
communicate with U.S. authorities in English or be
denied entry at the border. More than 16,000 trucks a
day cross the Mexican border into the U.S., and many
of their drivers have managed the language gap until A new skill for the road
now by relying on gestures, translation apps, and the
Spanish skills of U.S. officials. The new policy has birthed a new
border industry: intensive courses that teach trucking vocabulary
and role­play what to do at traffic stops. “I applaud the measure,”
Juan Manuel Talamas, operator of a trucking company in Ciudad
Juárez, told The New York Times. “But what hasn’t been done for
many years can’t be done overnight.”

Bogotá, Colombia
Petro denounces U.S.: The Trump administration’s Liebich
claim that Venezuela’s president is a drug cartel Berlin
leader is a “lie like Iraq’s weapons of mass destruc­ Faking a gender identity? German
tion,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said last officials said this week they will
week. Petro said the U.S. has trumped up charges look into changing the law to stop
against Nicolás Maduro as a pretext for an invasion a neo­Nazi who suddenly claimed to identify as a woman from
Petro
of Venezuela intended to destroy the Venezuelan being sent to a women’s prison. In 2023, Marla­Svenja Liebich,
and Colombian oil industry. “The gringos are mad if they think then known as Sven, was sentenced to 1.5 years for extreme right­
invading Venezuela will solve their problems,” he said. “They are wing activities including hate speech and defamation. Last year
dragging Venezuela into a Syria­like situation, with the problem she changed her gender and name under a new German law that
that they are dragging Colombia too,” because of the countries’ removed the requirement of doctors’ affidavits; now a gender
Reuters, IJB, Reuters, Getty, Reuters

shared border. The U.S. military recently doubled the reward for change requires only that a person state such a wish. Liebich, who
the arrest of Maduro to $50 million and sent three warships with was outspokenly anti­LGBTQ in the past, has asked to serve the
thousands of Marines toward Venezuela, saying the troops would sentence at a women’s prison, and authorities believe her gender
combat drug trafficking. In response, Maduro mobilized 15,000 change is insincere. “There is a need for a debate,” said Interior
troops to the Colombian border, saying Venezuelans could handle Minister Alexander Dobrindt, “over anchoring in the law some
the fight against cartels. clear rules against the abuse of gender transition.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 9
The World at a Glance
Kyiv Tokyo
U.S. blocks attacks on Russia: The Pentagon has been refusing for Regrets for ‘hostage justice’: Top
months to allow Ukraine to use U.S. long-range missiles to strike Tokyo police and prosecutors
inside Russia, The Wall Street Journal reported this week, as the apologized this week to the family of
Trump administration continues to hold out hope that Vladimir businessman Shizuo Aishima, who
Putin will agree to peace talks. The Russian president has made died in 2021 in pretrial detention. The
no concessions since a summit with President Trump in Alaska officials knelt at Aishima’s grave and
earlier this month ended without a breakthrough, and he refuses acknowledged they had detained him
to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The two on bogus chemical weapons charges Graveside apology
warring sides, though, did manage an exchange of POWs this and repeatedly denied him bail; he
week, trading nearly 150 prisoners on each side and planning the contracted cancer in custody and died behind bars at 72. His wife
transfer of remains of thousands of the dead. Among the prisoners said she accepted the apology but would “never forgive.” The case
returned to Ukraine were several civilians Russia had been holding attracted wide attention in Japan as an example of the common
illegally for three years, including journalist Dmytro Khilyuk and but increasingly criticized practice of “hostage justice”—arresting
former Kherson Mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko. suspects on flimsy charges and holding them for months to coerce
them into implicating themselves or others.

Jerusalem
Renewed assault on Gaza: The Israel Defense Forces pushed
deeper into Gaza City this week, leveling neighborhoods and
leaving civilians homeless. Two successive strikes on the only
hospital in southern Gaza killed at least 20 people, including
five journalists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the
double strike a “tragic mishap” and
said the IDF would investigate. The
attacks came after the world’s leading
body on food security said that Gaza
was experiencing severe famine and
that Israel was directly responsible,
which Israel strongly disputed. In
the West Bank, meanwhile, the IDF
bulldozed thousands of olive trees in
a Palestinian orchard in retaliation for
an alleged shooting attack on Jewish
Injured workers
settlers that wounded one person.
“Every village and enemy must know that attacking residents
will bring a heavy price,” said Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth.
The U.S. has been trying for months to broker a truce
between Israel and Hamas, but talks have stalled and a partial
cease-fire and hostage release appears to have been ruled out.
Still, President Trump held a meeting with U.S. and Israeli
officials this week to discuss various scenarios for postwar
Gaza, including possible U.S. assistance in development. “We
think we’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly
before the end of this year,” said U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff.

Canberra, Australia
African workers in Russia Iran behind arson: Australia kicked out
Iranian diplomats this week, saying Iran
Johannesburg was responsible for last year’s arson
Women lured to Russia: South Africa opened an investigation attacks on the Jewish community. A kosher
last week into reports that Russian firms have been trafficking restaurant in Sydney was firebombed in
African women to work assembling drones in the Russian region October and a Melbourne synagogue set
of Tatarstan. Allegations have appeared in Russian exile and ablaze in December, injuring one. “These
Ukrainian media for months that women from Kenya, Botswana, were extraordinary and dangerous acts Synagogue damaged
and elsewhere have been tricked into moving to Russia, and of aggression orchestrated by a foreign
now South African authorities say it may be happening to South nation on Australian soil,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Africans, too. The traffickers use social media influencers to Authorities said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
persuade African women that glamorous jobs await them in ultimately directed the attacks but hid their involvement in a
Getty (2), Alabuga, Reuters

Russia, but when the women arrive they are put to work in drone complicated hierarchy of operatives. Australia is home to the
factories and can’t earn enough to leave. South African recruiters largest number of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel, and the
working for Russia denied that there was any misrepresentation fires and other antisemitic attacks that have proliferated since the
of work opportunities, but the Ministry for Women warned South start of the Gaza war have shaken the community. Iran denied
Africans to be skeptical of “so-called work opportunities” abroad. involvement and said it would expel Australian diplomats in return.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

10
People
How Howard missed out on a Warhol
For most of the 1980s, Ron Howard sported a
thick mustache, said Bilge Ebiri in New York. He’d
grown it after leaving the cast of Happy Days, in
a bid to distance himself from the youthful Richie
Cunningham character and to look older and more
authoritative in his new career as a director. The
facial hair intrigued Andy Warhol, who told Brian
Grazer—co-founder of Howard’s Imagine Enter-
tainment production company—that he’d like to paint two por-
traits of Howard, one with the mustache and one after Warhol had
shaved it off. “I said, ‘You know Warhol’s a really interesting guy,
but I’m not letting [him] shave my mustache,’” recalls Howard, 71.
It was, he admits, a “pretty stupid” decision because “I could have
a couple of original Warhols right now.” But “what makes it really
stupid,” Howard adds, is a decision he made a few years later. After
a movie he’d co-produced with Grazer, John Waters’ Cry-Baby,
flopped at the box office in 1990, he sank a few margaritas and
decided it was time for a change. “I was depressed, I was a little
drunk, I just said, ‘F--- it’ and shaved it.” When Howard saw Grazer
a couple days later, his production partner was apoplectic. “He
said, ‘You idiot! You didn’t even want the mustache!’ I think maybe
Brian had a deal that he could have gotten a copy of the Warhol.”

Lebowitz’s lesson in wealth

Fran Lebowitz once described herself as “the designated New
Yorker,” said Megan Nolan in The Observer (U.K.), and the writ-
er’s sardonic observations about city life have made her famous. Daltrey’s vocal determination
So much so that Lebowitz, 74, is often accosted on the streets by Roger Daltrey is very much feeling his age, said Will Hodgkinson in
selfie-seeking fans. “It doesn’t bother me if I’m standing still,” she The Times (U.K.). The Who singer, 81, recently revealed that he’s going
says. “Sometimes, I’ll be in the middle of Fifth Avenue and someone deaf. And his eyesight, he admits, is “not good. I’ve got an incurable
coming across stops and says, ‘Can I just ask you?’ ‘Yes, but you macular degeneration.” That’s why Daltrey, unlike many of his rock
have to come on to the sidewalk. Because here come a million cars.’ peers, doesn’t use Autocue onstage. “There’s no point. Can’t f---ing see
And I don’t like it if I’m going down the stairs to get the subway it!” he laughs. Now midway through The Who’s farewell U.S. tour with
the band’s other original surviving member, Pete Townshend, Daltrey
as someone’s coming up, because then I’m going to miss the train.”
says he hasn’t yet gone “the full Tommy” because his voice “is still as
Otherwise, she’ll engage with her fellow New Yorkers. “Lately, this good as ever. I’m still singing in the same keys and it’s still bloody loud,
kid comes into the subway,” Lebowitz recalls. “He had seen this but I can’t tell you if it will still be there in October.” The rocker worries
video I made in a museum about a Rembrandt. He goes: ‘I can’t be- about being sidelined by the lingering effects of meningitis, which he
lieve I’m seeing you. I just saw that video you made about your caught nine years ago. “It’s buggered up my internal thermometer, so
Rembrandt.’ I said, ‘It’s not my Rembrandt.’ ‘You said it was your every time I start singing in any climate over 75 degrees I’m wringing
Rembrandt,’ he goes. I said, ‘I certainly did not. Let me just explain with sweat, which drains my body salts. The potential to get really ill is
something. There are two kinds of people in the world. The kind there.” Still, the British rocker insists that he will keep playing live, with
of people who own Rembrandts and the kind of people who are or without The Who, until he drops. “Never, never retire,” he explains.
racing to get the F train, and they are never the same people, OK?’” “You’ll be dead in three years. Daytime TV will kill you.”

In the news the “very early days” of a relationship and drug overdose and arrested for battery on a
“there are no labels. They’re having a lot of police officer. After pleading “not guilty” in a
■ Zoë Kravitz and Harry Styles were spotted
fun together.” court appearance, Lil Nas X was released on a
arm in arm in Rome this week. A fan caught
■ Lil Nas X was charged with four felonies
conditional $75,000 bail and ordered to enroll
the Big Little Lies actress and the
this week after he allegedly assaulted in an outpatient narcotics program.
former One Direction singer taking
a stroll in the Italian capital, sparking police officers while walking naked ■ Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown
rumors of a potential romance. down a Los Angeles street in the early and her husband, Jake Bongiovi, announced
It wasn’t the pair’s first date: morning. TMZ published footage of last week that they’ve adopted a daughter.
A source told The Sun (U.K.) the “Old Town Road” rapper—real The couple, who tied the knot in a private
that Styles, 31, and Kravitz, the name Montero Hill—dancing and ceremony last year and live on a Georgia
36-year-old daughter of rocker singing on Ventura Boulevard farm, revealed the news in a brief social media
Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa while wearing nothing but white post. “This summer, we welcomed our sweet
Bonet, were seen days earlier cowboy boots and underwear. baby girl through adoption,” Brown, 21, and
making out “like teenagers” in Police said that when they Bongiovi, 23, wrote. “We are beyond excited to
a London restaurant after the encountered the rapper, by then embark on this beautiful next chapter.” Soon
U.K. premiere of her new movie, fully undressed and bootless, he after, the Hollywood star and her model and
Caught Stealing. Another source charged at them and punched actor husband were seen stepping out with a
Rick Guest, Getty (3)

told the paper that Kravitz—who one officer in the face twice. The stroller in New York City and the Hamptons.
split from fiancé Channing Tatum two-time Grammy winner was The new arrival makes Bongiovi’s father,
late last year—and Styles are in taken to the hospital for a possible rocker Jon Bon Jovi, a first-time grandparent.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 11
Briefing
Jeffrey Epstein’s secrets
Six years after his death, conspiracy theories still swirl around the sex trafficker. Why?
What explains the fascination with Epstein? was groomed in 2000 at age 16 by Epstein’s part-
It’s a combination of factors. There’s the hor- ner Ghislaine Maxwell.
rific nature of his crimes, his collection of famous
friends, and the unanswered questions about how When did the abuse start?
his abuse went unpunished for so long. The fi- At Maxwell’s 2021 sex-trafficking trial, a woman
nancier, who died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019 identified only as Kate testified that Maxwell be-
while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, friended her at 17 in 1994, promising to help her
left a $578 million estate that included a palatial musical career. Maxwell pushed Kate to give Ep-
Manhattan townhouse; a mansion in Palm Beach, stein massages that soon turned sexual, and told
Fla.; and a private Caribbean island. Court doc- her to recruit other “cute” girls. The Justice De-
uments detail how he trafficked girls as young partment’s sex-trafficking case, which focused on
as 11 to those properties and held them there in the early 2000s, detailed how Epstein entrapped
sexual servitude. Since Epstein’s social circle in- scores of underage victims—many from broken
cluded Britain’s Prince Andrew, Microsoft co- homes—with the promise of modeling careers or
A collector of influential friends
founder Bill Gates, former President Bill Clinton, other work. Courtney Wild, groomed by Epstein at
and now-President Trump—all of whom deny any wrongdoing— 14, said she recruited “70 to 80 girls who were all 14 and 15 years
the case remains catnip for conspiracy theorists, many of whom old” for the financier. Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, said she
believe the government is hiding a list of Epstein’s pedophile cli- was “passed around like a platter of fruit” and forced to have sex
ents. But it isn’t only cranks who think the public hasn’t been told with Epstein associates such as Prince Andrew; he denies the accusa-
the full story. “This was a man that was allowed to abuse girls tion. Much of the predation took place at Epstein’s island. According
and women for two decades,” said Miami Herald journalist Julie to one lawsuit, a 15-year-old victim tried to swim away from the is-
K. Brown, whose reporting led the Epstein case to be reopened in land; she was caught by his crew and had her passport confiscated.
2018. “The victims deserve to know whether our government did
the job that they were supposed to do.” When did law enforcement get involved?
In 2005, the stepmother of a 14-year-old told Palm Beach police that
How did he get so wealthy? the financier had sexually assaulted the teen. An investigation uncov-
It’s not completely clear. Born to working-class parents in Brooklyn, ered many more victims but produced an infamous 2008 sweetheart
Epstein never graduated from college but was hired by New York’s deal. Epstein received an 18-month sentence for soliciting prostitu-
prestigious Dalton prep school, where he taught math and phys- tion in exchange for the shuttering of an FBI probe and immunity
ics from 1974 to ’76. He was fired for “poor performance,” but not for “any potential co-conspirators.” He had a prison wing to himself
before impressing Dalton parent and Bear Stearns CEO Ace Green- and was chauffeured six days a week to his West Palm Beach office
berg, who hired him at the investment bank. Epstein founded his before being released five months early; he abused more girls during
own money management firm in 1981, but it was never a major and after his sentence, according to lawsuits. It took a 2018 Miami
Wall Street player. Various theories have circulated about the source Herald exposé to stir a national outcry. Then–Trump Labor Secre-
of his riches, including that Epstein might have blackmailed influ- tary Alexander Acosta—who had helped broker the 2008 deal as a
ential people by collecting footage of them having sex with un- federal prosecutor—resigned, and Epstein was arrested on federal
derage girls. What is known is that most of Epstein’s money came sex-trafficking charges in July 2019. Weeks later, Epstein, 66, was
from two clients, Victoria’s Secret owner Leslie Wexner and private found dead in a Manhattan jail cell with a bedsheet around his neck.
equity mega-investor Leon Black, who together paid him a hefty
$370 million in fees. Both Wexner and Black say they regret their Is there much we still don’t know about Epstein?
ties with Epstein and deny any wrongdoing. The full scope of his abuse, and who else
sexually exploited the girls, is still a mys-
Who else did he associate with? A twisted partnership tery. On the campaign trail last year, Trump
Epstein cultivated friendships with poli- In late 1991, Ghislaine Maxwell was in a jam. Her pledged to release all the DOJ’s investiga-
ticians, business leaders, and celebrities. father, British media baron Robert Maxwell, tive files on Epstein, and in February, At-
Many of them, including Clinton, Trump, had drowned in a yachting accident—and au- torney General Pam Bondi claimed to have
and Gates, flew on Epstein’s private plane, thorities had discovered he’d embezzled some Epstein’s client list on her desk. But in July,
later nicknamed the “Lolita Express.” $580 million from his companies’ pension the Justice Department stated that the list
Woody Allen, former Israeli Prime Minis- funds. Ghislaine, recently arrived in Manhattan, didn’t exist, that Epstein was not—as con-
ter Ehud Barak, and magician David Cop- was forced to downsize from a large apartment spiracy theorists claimed—assassinated,
perfield met repeatedly with Epstein. Trump to a cramped studio. Epstein, whom she’d met and that it wouldn’t publicly release the
and Epstein socialized frequently from the that summer, came to her rescue. He lavished Epstein files. Trump’s name, The Wall
1980s to early 2000s, and in 2002, Trump her with more than $30 million over the years, Street Journal later reported, appears mul-
told New York magazine that the “terrific” and she became his devoted girlfriend. She was tiple times in the documents; the president
Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as also there to recruit, molest, and pressure Ep- has urged his supporters to move on from
I do, and many of them are on the younger stein’s underage victims to do his bidding. “This the “pretty boring” case. Many of Epstein’s
side.” Their friendship ended in 2004 amid was very much a joint effort,” said Epstein vic- victims say they feel re-traumatized by the
tim Sarah Ransome. Maxwell was sentenced to
a bidding war over a Palm Beach man- administration’s promotion and then dis-
20 years in prison for sex trafficking in 2022; she
sion. Trump recently claimed the two fell is now seeking a pardon from Trump. The girls
missal of the scandal. “All the work that we
out after Epstein “stole” young women who she groomed, said prosecutor Lara Pomerantz, did to tell the world what happened to us,”
worked at his Mar-a-Lago club. One em- “were just a means to support her lifestyle.” said Danielle Bensky, who was recruited by
ployee was Virginia Giuffre, who said she Epstein at 17, “it’s all being erased.”
AP

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

12
Best Columns: The U.S.
Right-wing culture warriors have been “losing their minds” over It must be true...
Cracker Barrel, said Jonah Goldberg. The highway pit stop, where cus- I read it in the tabloids
The culture tomers can chow down on chicken-fried steak, dumplings, and floury
white gravy, recently updated its decor, and removed the “old white ■ A British folk singer, Emily
war comes for guy in overalls sitting by a barrel” from its logo in favor of a text-only Portman, was puzzled when a
fan praised a new album, Orca,
Cracker Barrel sign bearing the company’s name. Cue the outrage. The brand has gone
“woke,” cried the critics; Federalist co-founder Sean Davis accused that she supposedly released
on Spotify and other streaming
Jonah Goldberg Cracker Barrel’s CEO of seeking to brainwash customers with “the prin- sites. “I hadn’t released a new
The Dispatch ciples of gay race communism.” After President Trump called on the album,” she said. Portman then
company to bring back the old logo, the company quickly announced discovered that the album’s
it would comply. Cracker Barrel was founded as a gas station eatery 10 songs were generated by
in 1969, and “is not some grand institution with deep cultural roots in AI, trained in her style. The
the South,” despite its “kitschy” Southern food, décor, and gimmicky lyrics and music both sounded
gift shop. Cracker Barrels are “little capitalist temples to faux authentic- “uncannily close” to her own,
ity,” and the logo change was an effort to expand its appeal, and profits, but slick and “vacuous,” she
across the country as its older customer base dies off. “Heaven forbid said. Portman, one of a growing
anyone blame capitalism” for the branding tweak, “not when the bogey- number of artists targeted
man of wokeness is available.” for rogue AI duplication, has
no idea who did it or why. It’s
“really creepy,” she said, calling
McCarthyism is back, said Michael Scherer, and its leader is a 32-year- the imposter album “the start
Making old “extremist troll.” An anti-Muslim activist and self-described “unoffi- of something pretty dystopian.”
McCarthyism cial adviser” to President Trump, Laura Loomer has become one of the
country’s “most influential public figures.” Trump prizes loyalty above
great again all, so he listens to her “despite the warnings, sneers, and eye rolls” from
other advisers. He has fired dozens of federal employees Loomer has
Michael Scherer targeted for sins such as past statements in support of diversity or criti-
The Atlantic cism of Trump. She claimed credit last week when Trump’s intelligence
chief stripped security clearances from 37 national security officials,
and she previously persuaded Trump to get rid of six members of his
National Security Council, three leaders at the National Security Agency,
a Homeland Security official, an assistant U.S. attorney in California,
and a federal prosecutor in Manhattan. Loomer embraces the idea that ■ Upset Chicago residents have
she’s “the Joseph McCarthy of the Trump era,” leading a “Red Scare” in been calling city officials to
which public officials are purged for “wokeness” rather than commu- report a false rumor that a man
nism. “We need to make McCarthy great again,” she says. Loomer has is trapped inside the Chicago
1.7 million followers on X, but her real audience consists of one—and Bean. A group calling itself the
“the person who matters the most is almost certainly entertained.” Man in the Bean Coalition has
propagated the hoax that local
officials are covering up the
Can you still get a Covid shot this fall? “It’s complicated,” said Lisa existence of a man trapped
Shutting off Jarvis. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the agencies he con- in the stainless-steel artwork,
claiming you can see his faint
access to trols “have created widespread confusion” through muddled, contra-
dictory messaging—“not only about who’s eligible but also by cast-
outline when the light hits
a certain way. “I appreciate
Covid shots ing doubt on whether the vaccines are safe or even necessary.” Kennedy lighthearted parody as much
and the Food and Drug Administration have restricted Covid shot as the next guy,” said Alderman
Lisa Jarvis recommendations—and thus the likelihood of insurance coverage for the
Brendan Reilly, but the flood
Bloomberg $140 to $200 cost—to seniors 65 and over, and people who have health
of calls is distracting from “the
conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and obesity. Kennedy even tried to real work we do.”
remove Covid shots from recommended early childhood vaccinations; the
CDC later said parents should jointly decide with pediatricians whether ■ Hunters in Monterey County,
kids get the shots. Most doctors and medical organizations say children California, have been reporting
under 2 and pregnant women should be vaccinated, because both groups encounters with wild pigs with
are vulnerable to serious Covid illness. So are millions of other Ameri- bright blue flesh—and they’re
cans. Those who want to reduce their risk “should have access to that telling the truth. The pigs are
option.” But thanks to RFK Jr.’s militant quackery, a Covid shot “might thought to have consumed
be harder to find, and you may have to pay for it out of pocket.” diphacinone, a blue-colored
rodenticide used by area farm-
ers, with startling results. “I’m
Viewpoint “None of us can imagine what it is like to be subjected to the unremitting physical, not talking about a little blue,”
psychological, and social violence of chattel slavery. But museums bring us closer to said Dan Burton, a local trapper
being able to do so by sharing first-person accounts of those who lived through that terrible violence. We who cut into one. “I’m talking
see their faces; we hear their voices. And yet the MAGA movement wants to tell a story about America about neon blue, blueberry
that is disproportionately focused on what its proponents perceive to be the exceptionalism of this country. blue.” Wildlife officials warn that
Having to look too closely at the disturbing parts of American history would mean having to look closely the poisoned meat is not safe
at the disturbing parts of themselves.” to eat.
Getty

Clint Smith in The Atlantic

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

14
Best Columns: International
“Picture it,” said Waka Ikeda: “a room full of models while failing to support young people’s eco-
JAPAN clipboard-wielding bureaucrats earnestly facilitat- nomic independence.” Young women simply don’t
ing romance” for a handful of single 20-somethings. want to stay home and raise children while their
When the state That was the scene at a recent “government-led husband works extreme hours and doesn’t help at
matching event” that was so poorly attended, the all with housework or child care. And while local
tries to play matchmakers outnumbered the daters. Japan’s crip- governments may claim to be “promoting gender
plingly low birth rate has prompted the govern- equality and diverse lifestyles,” in practice Japanese
matchmaker ment to attempt a slew of such interventions, cre- companies give men high-powered careers and fun-
ating a state-sanctioned dating app and holding of- nel women into pink-ghetto jobs. We need to “stop
Waka Ikeda ficial speed-dating events and marriage seminars. treating the demographic crisis as a dating and
Nikkei Asia
It’s both heavy-handed and entirely unnecessary. women’s fertility problem and start recognizing it as
The problem isn’t that Japanese singletons don’t a structural economic issue.” Both men and women
have chances to meet and fall in love. It’s that Japa- need jobs with work-life balance. Then, just maybe,
nese culture pushes “traditional 20th-century family women will start having those babies.
SRI LANKA Sri Lankans are getting fed up with “the visible flocking to the town. They quickly set up illegal
and growing Israeli footprint” in the popular surf- expat firms, including “surf schools, photography
ing town of Arugam Bay, said Rathindra Kuruwita. schools, yoga schools, and so on,” siphoning busi-
Destination Downtown walls are plastered with stickers and ness from the locals. Worse, they tended to bring in
of choice posters in Hebrew, far outnumbering those written illegal Israeli workers to do construction and run
in Sinhala, Tamil, or English. One Australian blog- their operations. Angry Sri Lankans want the gov-
for Israelis ger said he “wondered if he was in Tel Aviv.” When ernment to crack down on these rogue expats, but
our country reopened to tourists in 2022, after the “Israel’s leverage runs through Washington.” If Sri
Rathindra Kuruwita pandemic pause, the government tried to boost Lanka were to punish the Israeli interlopers, the
Sunday Observer tourism by inviting an Israeli film crew to shoot a U.S. could punish it in turn through tariffs or travel
movie. Arugam Bay, about a group of surfers in the warnings. As long as Sri Lanka is dependent on
same Israeli military unit who come to Sri Lanka tourism, it is stuck with Israelis who “are not just
to heal their trauma, was a hit, and Israelis began holidaying but operating outside the rules.”

Bolivia: Two decades of Socialist rule come to an end

Bolivia’s leftists have almost “disappeared let go of power. Barred from running
from the map,” said Juan Carlos Ferreyra this year, he urged his supporters to cast
Peñarrieta in El Diario (Bolivia). In last blank protest ballots, and his “triumphal-
week’s presidential election, the candidate ist declaration” after the election sug-
from the Socialist Movement (MAS) didn’t gests he is deluded enough to still con-
even make the runoff, and the party, which sider himself a contender. “If we add up
has ruled Bolivia for the past two decades, absenteeism, blank, and spoiled ballots,”
took but one lonely parliamentary seat. he said from in hiding last week, “we’re in
This thorough repudiation is the Socialists’ first place!” It’s a tragedy of hubris, said
just reward for the “galloping economic cri- Álvaro García Linera, Morales’ former
sis” they left us with. Far-left rule was “an vice president, in La Jornada (Mexico).
experiment that never should have been,” Morales attempted to run for an uncon-
said Ronald Nostas Ardaya in Los Tiempos stitutional fourth term in 2019—even
(Bolivia). Morales, our first Indigenous Morales with supporters on election day though Bolivians had explicitly rejected
president, swept to power in 2006 as the the idea in a referendum—and was forced
voice of the coca-growing peasant class, promising “transforma- out by mass protests. The “mediocre economist” he picked to
tion and social justice.” But by failing to diversify the economy, replace him, Luis Arce, then “believed he could displace the char-
he squandered the “period of extraordinary abundance” cre- ismatic Indigenous leader by banning him from holding office.”
ated by high international demand for Bolivia’s natural gas. The The result is that Morales has become a bitter ex-leader who can
Morales era was never more than an “illusion of prosperity”— no longer win for MAS “but without whose support no one else
in reality, corruption ran rampant in the shadows. Now Boliv- can win, either.” This “fratricide” has doomed the “historic proj-
ians face widespread fuel shortages and 24% inflation. And ect” of socialism in Bolivia, at least for now.
Morales himself is holed up in the mountains among his peasant
supporters, evading arrest for statutory rape. The next president of Bolivia will be either a centrist, Sen. Rodrigo
Paz, or a right-winger, Jorge Quiroga, who was president briefly
Morales doesn’t deserve all this scorn, said Atilio Boron in back in 2001, said Juan Manuel Karg in Cenital (Argentina).
Telesur (Venezuela). His 14-year tenure as president “radically Whichever one wins the October runoff will have to decide how
and positively changed the face of Bolivia.” When he was first to handle Morales’ outstanding arrest warrant for allegedly
inaugurated, a small elite class controlled everything, and most fathering a child with a 15-year-old. Storming his rural strong-
Bolivians were desperately poor, particularly the Indigenous. hold would risk bloodshed. It may be better to negotiate his exile
Morales nationalized the oil and gas industries and used that to another country; the “far right’s dream” is to extradite him to
wealth to fund housing and health care, lifting 2 million people the U.S. Morales, though, is staying put. He’s still “confident there
out of poverty. Yet like many transformative figures, he couldn’t will be a social upheaval that returns him to power.”
Getty

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 15
Best Columns: Europe

France: The depravity of ‘trash streaming’

It’s like something out of “the British tech- that wasn’t the first tragedy to be monetized.
nological dystopia series Black Mirror,” Back in 2021, a Russian content creator re-
said Jérôme Lefilliâtre in Le Monde. French ceived a six-year prison sentence for the
video streamer Raphaël Graven, who went death of his pregnant girlfriend during one
by the online name Jean Pormanove, died of his livestreams. The streaming platforms
right in front of viewers last week after hav- are the ones “getting rich,” said Jefferson
ing been tortured and sleep deprived for 12 Desport in Sud-Ouest. Graven’s team used
straight days, all of it streamed online in real Kick, a site based in Australia, “beyond the
time. Footage shows his two streaming part- reach of French regulators.” Still, authorities
ners, Owen Cenazandotti and Safine Hamadi, do have jurisdiction over abuse committed
“slapping him hard on the head, grabbing him here in France, and that’s where the videos
by the throat to strangle him, and pouring were shot. French police opened an investi-
various substances on him,” day after day. The gation last December, after a whistleblower
two turned off the livestream only after they turned over video clips showing abuse—but
realized Graven, 46, was no longer moving. the case moved too slowly to save Graven.
This hideous outcome could have been pre- Graven, aka Pormanove, died on camera. Even now, it’s unclear whether the other two
dicted. Earlier videos posted by the team show men will be charged with a crime, as an au-
the two worrying aloud about Graven’s respiratory problems. At topsy found Graven’s death was “not due to trauma.”
one point they said he needs to “say on camera, right now, that
if he dies live tomorrow, it’s because of his shitty health and not How was this man “drawn into such a dynamic” of suffering?
because of us.” Refusing at first, Graven finally broke down and asked Mediapart in an editorial. The answer is simple: His abus-
spoke the words, yet he was clearly traumatized “and of dimin- ers were all he had. A former soldier, Graven had a host of phys-
ished capacity.” Could such a man “really freely consent to the ical and mental health issues and got by only on disability pay-
violence of which he was supposedly the voluntary victim?” ments; his streaming partners controlled all aspects of his life,
even renting him the room where he lived. “If we had better
The mistreatment Graven suffered is typical of “trash streaming,” public services,” perhaps he wouldn’t have been so desperate. In-
said Sarah Miansoni in Euronews. First popularized in Russia stead, he became the “plaything” of a depraved community, said
and Poland during the 2010s, trash is a subgenre of live online Saïd Mahrane in Le Point, with 15,000 viewers regularly tuning
content in which streamers “engage in aggressive and sometimes in to watch his humiliation. It’s the modern equivalent of a pub-
dangerous behavior,” perpetrating obscene and degrading acts lic lynching: “the same adrenaline rush, the same contempt for
of violence against themselves or others for money. Viewers egg life, the same inextinguishable drive.” This is “an immoral form
them on, offering cash donations for certain acts. The livestream of capitalism.” If we don’t find a way to outlaw or at least regu-
on which Graven died, for example, raised over $42,000. And late trash streaming, how many more people will die?

The foundations of British political stability are tentatively called Your Party, will become the big-
UNITED KINGDOM crumbling around us, says John Rentoul. The “old gest force on the left. And who’s to say they’re
duopoly” of Conservatives on the right and Labour wrong? The polling guru Peter Kellner, who has
A shift from on the left, dutifully alternating turns at the helm,
is no more. On the far right, Reform UK overtook
commissioned research into party loyalty, says the
results “should terrify both Labour and the Con-
the center the Conservatives in the polls at the start of the servatives.” He has found a huge gap in “enthusi-
year and kept climbing; it now commands the sup- asm and commitment” between those backing the
to extremes port of 30% of voters to the Conservatives’ 18%. upstarts and those grudgingly sticking to the old
And Labour is in danger of suffering a similar fate. guard. Prime Minister Keir Starmer seems to be-
John Rentoul
The Independent
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, pushed out lieve he can win the next election by framing it as
of his party last year over antisemitism allegations, a choice between safety with him or uncertainty
has launched a new far-left outfit with another left- under Reform’s Nigel Farage. Maybe he can. But
ist MP, Zarah Sultana. They believe the new group, there’s a real chance that the center will not hold.
IRELAND American tech money has warped Ireland’s econ- as much as they can, and they grow too powerful.
omy, said David McWilliams. Ireland lured tech gi- It’s called Dutch Disease, after what happened to
ants Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft to put the Netherlands when it found natural gas in the
The downside their European bases of operations here, offering North Sea in the late 1960s. Wages in the booming
of hosting ultra-low corporate taxes and an English-speaking
talent pool. The result was an economic boom.
gas sector pulled up wages elsewhere, and housing
prices shot up as newly rich oil workers could af-
U.S. tech firms These multinationals “are akin to a resource find, ford more. As the currency appreciated, other sec-
a spigot that churns out tax revenue.” But as any tors besides gas found it hard to export, and they
David McWilliams country that strikes oil soon learns, it’s danger- atrophied. The same is happening here, where
The Irish Times ous to rely so much on one bonanza industry. “Be- the government has become “a reckless spender
cause there is so much money gushing out of the of American money.” What if corporate America
multinationals and going directly into the pub- changes its policies—how would we adapt? Dutch
Instagram

lic sector,” spending in that sector soars. Special- Disease can prove fatal to an economy, and “Ire-
interest groups with big lobbying arms rush to grab land doesn’t seem to have figured out a vaccine.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

16
Talking Points
Noted Epstein files: Maxwell courts a pardon
■ The White House has Ghislaine Maxwell wants to make phile clients, some MAGA devotees
released a list of more than it clear that the man who could par- were starting to suspect a cover-up.
20 Smithsonian exhibits don her never did anything wrong, Enter Maxwell. She hasn’t yet re-
it considers objectionable said Dan Friedman in Mother Jones. ceived a pardon for her glowing tes-
and “woke.” They include That’s the big takeaway from the timony, but a few days after her in-
an LGBTQ pride flag, an art- newly released transcripts of the Jef- terview she was transferred from
work depicting migrants frey Epstein associate’s prison inter- a low-security Florida prison to
watching July 4 fireworks views with Deputy Attorney General a minimum-security one in Texas
through an opening in the Todd Blanche. Now serving a 20-year “known for its arts and crafts pro-
U.S.-Mexico border wall,
sentence for sex trafficking minors, grams.” That move was a “slap in the
and an animated portrait
of infectious-disease
Maxwell, 63, told Blanche in July face” to Epstein’s hundreds of vic-
expert Dr. Anthony S. Fauci. that she never saw President Trump tims, who remain “shamefully low”
The New York Times “in any inappropriate setting” during on everyone’s list of priorities. The
his 15-year friendship with the pedo- Trump and Maxwell in 2000. administration, said the relatives of
■ President Trump was
phile Epstein—and indeed never saw late Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre,
photographed with a dark
bruise on his right hand
“any man” act improperly. She called Trump “a has given Maxwell a “platform to rewrite history.”
this week, just days after gentleman in all respects,” adding that she admires
he appeared with his “extraordinary achievement” in becoming pres- Still, Trump will be disappointed if he thinks Max-
a thick layer ident. Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, well’s testimony will make the Epstein issue disap-
of makeup was “unusually deferential” to Maxwell, said Chris pear, said Ankush Khardori in Politico. Top House
covering the Cameron in The New York Times. He didn’t fol- Republican James Comer (R-Ky.) this week sub-
apparent low up on or challenge the convicted perjurer’s poenaed Epstein’s estate for the book Maxwell cre-
injury. He has statements—even when Maxwell denied recruit- ated for the financier for his 50th birthday, which
been spotted ing underage girls for sex or claimed that Epstein reportedly contains a suggestive note from Trump,
multiple times enjoyed the company of young girls merely be- along with any record of Epstein clients poten-
this year with bruises cause “they were up to date on music.” tially involved in “sex, sex acts, or sex trafficking.”
on his hands, which the Comer’s committee is starting to receive subpoe-
White House attributed This interview was intended to calm the “wrath” naed Epstein files from the Justice Department.
to Trump’s prodigious of the president’s conspiracy-inclined supporters, And Giuffre’s memoir, written before her April sui-
shaking of hands. The said Margaret Sullivan in The Guardian. After the cide, hits shelves in October. With “roughly half the
president was diagnosed Trump administration refused to honor a campaign country” now suspecting Trump of involvement in
last month with chronic
pledge to release all the investigative files on Ep- Epstein’s crimes, it will only become harder for the
venous insufficiency, a
circulatory disorder that
stein, including a fabled list of the financier’s pedo- administration to “tamp things down.”
can cause swelling in the
legs and bruising in the
extremities.
The Daily Beast
Trump: Taking over the private sector?
■ For the first time
“Donald Trump is a socialist, apparently,” said to the Treasury, and approved the sale of U.S. Steel
since the 1960s, more David M. Drucker in Bloomberg. That’s what the to a Japanese firm only after the government was
immigrants are leaving Republican Party circa 2008—which opposed the granted a “golden share.” The Trump administration
the U.S. than are arriving, Obama administration’s auto sector bailouts— says these tactics will bolster U.S. industry so it can
according to an analysis would have called a president who snared the U.S. better compete with China. But adopting Beijing’s
of census data by Pew government a 10% stake in struggling chipmaker state-run capitalist system will mean we also adopt
Research Center. The Intel. Paid for with about $9 billion in grants from its inefficiencies and corruption, which have led to
number of foreign-born the Biden-era CHIPS Act, the deal was made at a “empty industrial parks, a struggling housing mar-
residents—both legal and White House meeting last week between Trump ket, weak consumer demand, and deflationary pres-
undocumented—peaked and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Notably, Trump had sure.” There are other risks, said Mike Schmidt and
at 53.3 million in January spent days calling for Tan’s resignation over his Todd Fisher in The Wall Street Journal. If Intel an-
but by June had fallen to past business dealings with the Chinese mili- nounces layoffs, will Trump get the blame? Will
51.9 million. tary. “He walked in wanting to keep his job,” said foreign-owned chipmakers like South Korea’s
Los Angeles Times
Trump, “and he ended up giving us $10 billion for Samsung—a major player in U.S. manufacturing—
■ The Trump adminis- the United States.” This is just the beginning, said be allowed to compete with Intel? “Where does this
tration plans to lower Ben Berkowitz in Axios. Trump’s top economic ad- new model of state capitalism stop?”
standards for incoming viser, Kevin Hassett, said it’s “absolutely” possible
FBI agents, eliminating a the government will take stakes in more U.S. firms. It stops once Trump is “the dominant authority in
college-degree require- So if you’re a CEO “you may soon be invited to all spheres of American life,” said Nick Catoggio
ment and cutting training sell a chunk of your business to the government, in The Dispatch. His Intel shakedown was moti-
at the academy in Quan- even at the cost of diluting existing shareholders.” vated by the same desire that led him to send the
tico, Va., from 18 weeks to
National Guard into Los Angeles and Washing-
eight. Agency veterans say
the changes will jeopardize
We’ve seen a string of “rank corporate shake- ton, D.C.; to impose his will on the Smithsonian
the FBI’s ability to counter downs” already this year, said Michael Strain in the and Ivy League universities; and to pardon Jan. 6
Financial Times. Trump approved exports of ad- rioters. He did it because he could and it made him
Getty, Reuters

national security threats.

The New York Times vanced microchips to China by Nvidia and AMD look strong. Trump wants to “control the means of
only after they agreed to hand 15% of their profits production—and everything else.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 17
Talking Points
Voting: Trump’s ominous war on mail ballots
“The big lie is back,” said face immediate chal-
Wit &
Jackie Calmes in the Los lenges if he tried to follow Wisdom
Angeles Times, and it’s through. Besides, Repub-
“coming for American elec- licans might not support “The quickest way of
tions.” Declaring mail bal- Trump’s war on voting by ending a war is to lose it.”
lots “corrupt,” President mail, said Naomi Lim in George Orwell, quoted
in The Washington Post
Trump vowed last week the Washington Examiner.
to issue an executive order Historically, Republicans “I not only use all the
to eliminate them to “help have been more likely to brains I have, but all that
bring HONESTY to the vote by mail—a pattern re- I can borrow.”
Woodrow Wilson, quoted
2026 Midterm Elections.” versed by the Covid pan-
in The Times of Israel
The Constitution clearly demic in 2020. But since
states that the “Times, Places then, Republicans have “Desire makes everything
and Manner of holding successfully invested “time blossom; possession
The president does not approve.
Elections...shall be prescribed and money encouraging makes everything wither
in each State by the Legislature thereof.” But GOP voters” to cast ballots in this convenient way. and fade.”
Marcel Proust, quoted
Trump promised to “lead a movement” to ban mail in The Knowledge
voting—and “highly inaccurate” electronic voting Trump’s real goal isn’t a ban on mail voting, said
machines. His eruption followed his meeting with Jay Willis in Slate. This is all part of an ongoing “There’s no single
Russian President Vladimir Putin, a “master manip- GOP scheme “to frame election results it does not answer that will solve all
of our future problems.
ulator” who assured his “useful idiot” he’d won big like as inherently illegitimate.” The implications are
There are thousands of
in 2020 but was robbed by mail-in voting fraud. ominous, said Barton Gellman in The New York answers—at least.”
Trump, of course, has always insisted he actually Times. Trump is staking out “a fundamentally il- Octavia Butler, quoted
won that election, and tried to overturn it. Now legitimate claim to authority over the conduct of in The Stranger
“the power-drunk president” is signaling that “his American elections.” And it comes just as he’s sent “The reason I will never
Big Lie isn’t just about a past election but a pretext the National Guard to occupy Washington, D.C., hate anybody again is
for what he could do to disrupt the next one.” and is threatening to do the same in other big that it’s too demeaning
Democratic cities. In 2026 and 2028, will Trump a confession on your
Trump’s posturing is “unlikely to amount to concoct some pretext to interfere with balloting in part if you need to hate
much,” said Aaron Blake in CNN.com. Trump swing-state cities, send troops to intimidate voters somebody. It means you
claimed that states are “merely an ‘agent’ for in blue districts, and seize ballots he deems fraud- are afraid of the other
the Federal Government” in elections, but that ulent? “The foundational mechanisms of our de- thing, which is to love
“rather novel take on the Constitution” would mocracy may be in genuine danger.” and be loved.”
James Baldwin, quoted
in the Boston Globe

School phone bans: Why they’re spreading “What worries me is

not so much artificial
“It’s a no-brainer,” said John A. Torres in Florida gencies and parents need to be able to call kids. intelligence but
Today. Banning phones in schools is “the right At shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Fla., natural stupidity.”
Physicist Frank Wilczek,
thing to do for our kids.” Florida is one of 17 “cellphones saved lives,” helping students guide quoted in New Scientist
states, plus Washington, D.C., enacting all-day first responders to the shooters. Treating phones
phone bans as students head back to school. With as pure distractions suggests they “don’t have “Still at the end of every
68% of parents supporting some phone limits, 35 a legitimate and even essential role in students’ hard day / People find
some reason to believe.”
states now restrict phone usage in public schools. lives.” Technology is an inescapable part of mod- Bruce Springsteen, quoted
Some states are imposing “bell-to-bell” prohibi- ern life, and schools should be teaching students to in Mother Jones
tions on using phones for the entire day, while “build healthy relationships” with it.
others bar them during class time, with students
granted access between classes and during lunch. “Before the pearl clutching starts about emergen-
Research shows smartphone usage increases chil- cies, let’s be clear,” said Cameron Smith in The
Poll Watch
dren’s risk of mental health problems, “from Tennessean: Most bans allow cellphone use in ■ 63% of Americans view
depression to cyberbullying to an inability to focus emergencies. The bans address an ongoing, daily political corruption as a
and learn,” said Mary Ellen Klas in Bloomberg. crisis: An entire generation’s brains “are quite liter- very serious problem, but
This is one of the “few things most American pol- ally being rewired by constant connectivity,” result- just 50% of Republicans
iticians seem to agree upon,” with states as blue as ing in “the erosion of focus, critical thinking, and agree, down from 66%
California and as red as Kentucky passing bans. the ability to engage deeply with material.” But en- last year. 48% of Repub-
Over 90% of children have a phone by 14, and forcing phone restrictions “will be about as easy as licans view inflation as a
about half have one by 10. If you want kids to herding cats on roller skates,” so parental support serious problem, down
thrive, “lock up their phones.” is “absolutely crucial.” Smartphones are addictive, from 89% in 2024.
and have put adults and kids alike “onto atten- YouGov
Actually, most parents “want smarter rules,” not tion treadmills.” At home, Mom and Dad should ■ 58% of Americans favor
total bans, said Keri Rodrigues in USA Today. All- also impose limits and model healthy cellphone allowing voters to cast
day bans ignore the bigger picture. “In a country behavior. We can’t “applaud school board policies their ballots by mail.
where mass shootings are too common,” children and then undermine their efforts the moment the Pew Research Center
Getty

need to be able to contact their parents in emer- bell rings for dismissal.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

18 NEWS
Pick of the Week’s Cartoons

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 NEWS 19
Pick of the Week’s Cartoons
For more political cartoons, visit:
theweek.com/cartoons

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

20
Technology

GPT-5: Not quite ready to take over the world

The much-anticipated rollout of OpenAI’s GPT-5 has been the most hyped and
new GPT-5 artificial intelligence model most eagerly anticipated AI product re-
was so poorly received that it may have lease in an industry thoroughly deluged
jammed the AI hype engine, said Dave Lee in hype,” said Brian Merchant, also in a
in Bloomberg. After pumping up GPT-5’s Substack newsletter. “For years, it was
launch with an image of the Star Wars spoken about in hushed tones as a fear-
Death Star and claims of near superintel- some harbinger of the future.” But now
ligence, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was all the talk of what OpenAI calls AGI,
forced into an embarrassing rollback, re- or artificial general intelligence, is just
storing access to an older model for dis- getting “waved away.” It seems that
pleased users. Investors in other AI com- OpenAI needed to demonstrate prog-
panies largely shrugged off the stumble— ress to investors and partners ahead
good news for Wall Street, because the Altman: Admitting a setback on the way to AGI of a pre-IPO sale of employee shares.
field is a singular driver of stock mar- Still, there “is a cohort of boosters,
ket records. But “what sets the narrative around AI progress (or influencers, and backers who will promote OpenAI’s products no
lack of) is practical application, and it’s here where all AI compa- matter the reality on the ground.”
nies are still falling short.” One piece of research from McKinsey
should give pause: While 8 of out 10 companies surveyed said Some of the unhappiness about GPT-5 may be less technical than
they were implementing generative AI in their business, the con- emotional, said Dylan Freedman in The New York Times. It’s
sultancy group observed, just as many said there has been “no not clear that the new version is actually worse than the old one.
significant bottom-line impact.” But many users had developed an emotional link to the chatbot,
asking it deeply personal questions. “And then, without warn-
Altman promised that GPT-5 would serve as “a legitimate ing, ChatGPT changed.” The old version was often criticized as
Ph.D.-level expert in anything,” said Gary Marcus in his Substack “sycophantic”; the new one, by contrast, is far less “warm and
newsletter. In fact, the new model delivered the same old “ridicu- effusive.” That was intentional: OpenAI found that an AI chat-
lous errors and hallucinations.” Users posted examples of GPT-5 bot that was too human-like led frequently to “delusional think-
struggling with basic reading and summarization, unable to cor- ing.” But many perfectly stable users, it turned out, had built a
rectly count the number of b’s in “blueberry,” and mislabeling relationship with the chatbot, and they’ve found GPT-5 to be a
handlebars and wheels on a bike. “It’s no hyperbole to say that chilly companion.

Innovation of the week

Bytes: What’s new in tech
The HMD Fuse smartphone, intended
for teens, uses AI to block the viewing, ■ Big Tech’s power surge more than Hulu or Paramount+. Fans are discov-
sending, receiving, and creation of One tangible impact of artificial intelligence is its ering the shorts on TikTok or Facebook, “where
nude images, even on livestreams or insatiable demand for electricity, said Ivan Penn streaming companies post clips or trailers” to
video calls, and Karen Weise in The New York Times. “Large, lure viewers to their apps. Some of the most
said Jamie rectangular buildings packed with servers con- popular series, like Secret Surrogate to the Mafia
Richards in sumed more than 4% of the nation’s electricity in King and Pregnant by My Ex’s Professor Dad, use
TechRadar. 2023, and government analysts estimate that will “sensational plots, over-the-top acting, and sexy
HMD, the Finn- increase to as much as 12% in just three years.” power dynamics” to keep viewers hooked. It is an
ish maker of Data centers require expensive upgrades to the expensive habit for fans: Many of the apps charge
Nokia phones, electrical grid, costs that will be shared with resi- $20 a week to subscribe, versus an ad-free Netflix
uses an AI dents and smaller businesses unless tech compa- subscription of $17.99 a month.
system from nies are forced to cover expenses. Electrical rates,
British compa- already rising sharply, could be turbocharged. In ■ U.K. drops iCloud access demand
ny SafeToNet Ohio, the bill for a typical household increased After pressure from the U.S., the U.K. has dropped
that “works at least $15 a month because of data centers, its controversial request for backdoor access to
across any according to a utility and a grid monitor. Lawmak- Apple’s encrypted messaging data, said Anna
app or content type” by scanning for ers worry that if the AI boom fizzles, residents Gross in the Financial Times. In January, the U.K.
nude imagery. “When such imagery is and smaller businesses will be stuck paying for had reportedly issued a notice to Apple calling
detected, the entire screen is blocked, unused power. for access to “encrypted data stored in its iCloud
and any communications apps are system.” Apple’s user data is fire-walled with end-
closed.” The software is embedded ■ Soap operas for the phone age to-end encryption, and “even the iPhone maker
deep in the operating system, can’t Streaming apps that dole out drama in 60-second itself is normally unable to access” it. British offi-
be turned off or worked around, and segments are beating the streaming giants in cials said that the backdoor was intended only to
works by taking “a snapshot of the user growth, said Tatum Hunter in The Wash- combat “terrorism and child sexual abuse.” But
screen rendering pipeline every six ington Post. So-called vertical-streaming apps U.S. intelligence head Tulsi Gabbard and U.S. Vice
to seven seconds.” SafeToNet and peddling “soap-opera like shorts shot vertically President JD Vance raised objections to the
HMD say that the phone is in essence à la TikTok” are gaining enormous traction. One order, which would have granted the U.K. access
“pornography incompatible.” For now, popular app, DramaBox, averaged 44 million to “the data of Apple customers anywhere in the
the phone is available exclusively in monthly active users during the first half of 2025, world, including in the U.S.”
Getty

the U.K.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 21
Health & Science

Making a home in the ruins of Pompeii

Life in the once-thriving city of Pompeii for valuables. “It was not so much a city as a
did not end with the eruption of Mount precarious, gray, populated area,” site director
Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Around 2,000 people Gabriel Zuchtriegel tells Smithsonian, “a kind
trapped in the city perished almost instantly, of campsite with shacks sprouting up among
and the outlines of their bodies have been the still recognizable ruins.” The findings indi-
preserved in the ash. But archaeologists cate that the settlers made their homes on the
have now uncovered ceramics, coins, and upper floors of houses, above the ash, and used
even bread ovens at the site that date from the ground-floor rooms buried underneath the
long after that fateful eruption. This sug- new ground level as cellars. Such settlements
gests that some survivors, having nowhere are likely to have continued for about 400 years,
else to go, returned to the ruins of the city until another big eruption in 472 caused Pom-
to eke out a fragile existence in the rubble peii to be abandoned for good. Artifacts indi- People came back to live among the ashes.
of the ghost town. Over time, these locals cating a reoccupation had been found before
were likely joined by transients, who may his team’s excavation, says Zuchtriegel, but frescos, furniture, and other treasures from
have gone there to find shelter or scavenge they were swept aside in the rush to uncover Pompeii’s heyday.

This brain implant hears thoughts Is malaria back in the U.S.?

Scientists at Stanford University have devel- Malaria is beginning to pop up in the U.S.
oped a pioneering brain implant that can among people who didn’t travel abroad,
detect and decode the thoughts of people which indicates that it is once again spread-
with vocal paralysis. Researchers have ing in homegrown mosquito populations.
previously succeeded in using implanted Each year, around 2,000 travelers come
brain-computer interfaces to decode words back to the U.S. with cases of the debil-
when the subjects are attempting to speak itating disease acquired abroad. But this
them—when they are moving their mouths, summer, one person in Washington state
tongues, and vocal cords. Now they are and another in New Jersey appear to have
able to interpret signals in the brain’s motor contracted it stateside. Malaria was once
cortex without the subject doing any phys- common in the U.S.—George Washing-
ical movement. “This is the first time we’ve ton famously suffered multiple bouts of the
managed to understand what brain activ- disease—but was effectively eliminated by
ity looks like when you just think about 1951, thanks to a widespread campaign of
Artist’s conception: After the core burst speaking,” electrical engineer Erin Kunz pesticide use and the drainage of breeding
tells the Financial Times. In the new study, sites. Now that climate change has made
Turning a star inside out four severely paralyzed participants were winters too short to kill off the Anopheles
Stars are believed to form in stratified lay- asked to either attempt to speak or to mosquitoes that carry it, domestic cases
ers, like an onion, with lighter elements silently imagine a set of words. The sig- appear to be rising. “It’s all probabilities,”
such as hydrogen and helium on the out- nals resulting from just thinking about the malaria researcher Photini Sinnis of Johns
side; increasingly heavier chemicals like car- words were weaker, but with one subject, Hopkins University tells Scientific Ameri-
bon, magnesium, and sulfur beneath; and the interface accurately interpreted the sig- can, “and warmer winters just will increase
iron at the core. Astronomers had never nals about 75% of the time. It’s not yet those probabilities.” In adults, malaria typ-
seen those layers, though, because when a good enough to allow people to hold con- ically causes fatigue, chills, and other flu-
star goes supernova all the elements are ex- versations with just their minds—but it’s a like symptoms that can recur after years. In
pelled at once. Now, for the first time, they sign that it might someday be possible, says young children, it’s much more dangerous
have. In supernova 2021yfj, observed at the Kunz. “We haven’t hit the ceiling yet.” and can cause seizures and death.
Palomar Observatory in San Diego, the star
had already shed its outer layers, and only
the iron core was left to explode. “This The snail that grows fresh eyes team used CRISPR editing techniques to
supernova was unlike anything we had The golden apple snail, a freshwater species turn off one of these genes in an embryo
seen,” astronomer Steve Schulze tells The from South America, has a rare ability to and found that, without it, the snail did not
Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Adam Makarenko/Keck Observatory, Alamy

New York Times. “We had no idea it’s possi- regenerate a functioning eye. Scientists develop eyes. The next step is to manip-
ble to strip a star to this extreme amount.” at University of California, Davis are ulate the gene in an adult snail and
now studying it in hopes of one see how that affects its ability
It’s unclear what caused the star to lose
day helping restore sight to to grow a new eye after one is
the layers—possibly stellar winds or inter- damaged. Scientists hope to
people with eye injuries. The
nal eruptions—but the process likely took eventually tweak a corre-
snail’s eyes, the researchers
thousands of years. The scientists were able have found, are structurally sponding human gene to
to observe the very moment when the core similar to human eyes in stimulate eye growth. “Apple
exploded, lighting up a previously expelled that they are camera-like and snails are an extraordinary
stellar layer of silicon, sulfur, and argon. made up of a lens, retina, and organism,” biologist Alice
They estimate that 1 in 1,000 stars may optic nerve. And it turns out Accorsi tells The Independent
undergo such stripping, but it isn’t apparent that many of the genes involved (U.K.). “They provide a unique
unless you look very closely at the light sig- in human eye development are opportunity to study regenera-
natures. “There was a lot of luck involved present in the snails as well. The Waving a new eye tion of complex sensory organs.”
in making this discovery,” Schulze says.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 ARTS
22
Review of Reviews: Books
shows how urgent that problem was for
Book of the week him.” In everything he wrote, including
1963’s The Fire Next Time, his most im-
Baldwin: A Love Story pactful book, Baldwin stressed that peo-
by Nicholas Boggs ple create meaningless categories such as
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $36) Black and white because doing so is eas-
ier than loving, and he predicted that
“Love was a crucial subject for James there’d never be equality in America until
Baldwin,” said Chris Vognar in The white people learned to love.
Boston Globe, so it’s appropriate that this
first major Baldwin biography in 31 years As Baldwin moves through life, trading
“can be seen as an act of love.” Author in one core relationship for another, said
Nicholas Boggs “has no interest in depict- Hamilton Cain in The Minnesota Star
ing his subject as Saint Jimmy,” but he Tribune, his life story “passes from man
“comes about as close as anyone has to to man like a baton.” After Delaney came
wrapping his arms around Baldwin, em- the Swedish painter Lucien Happers-
bracing him, if you will, in his entirety.” Baldwin: Novelist, essayist, and soldier for love berger, the Turkish actor Engin Cezzar,
Boggs has organized his book by pre- and the French painter Yoran Cazac,
senting the life of the revered Harlem-born ject in many ways, said Louis Menand in who allows Boggs to turn the book’s final
writer as defined by a string of intimate, The New Yorker. His life story is “full of section into “a feast of gossip and specu-
mostly nonsexual relationships with four historical incidents and famous names,” lation” that “succeeds brilliantly as narra-
other men, starting with a mentor, the and features as its protagonist “a complex, tive.” Baldwin clearly enjoyed the peak
painter Beauford Delaney. Boggs also shows quotable, and slightly otherworldly human years of his celebrity. And though Boggs
that Baldwin was fiercely committed to the being.” But Baldwin also poses challenges, “keeps aloof from his protagonist’s dalli-
idea that love is the cure for bigotry and because many of the claims he made about ances with vulnerable young men,” this is
hatred, and his book is “a reminder that we his life are hard to verify, especially given no hagiography. Instead, “Baldwin is a fiery,
could really use Baldwin right now, and his that a few key correspondences won’t be fiercely researched biography worthy of an
instinct for cutting through nonsense like a unsealed until 2037. “Still, Boggs’ biog- American genius.” Because it simultaneously
lithe, sharp sword.” raphy makes a hugely important contri- dissects our nation’s myths with “dead-eye
bution, because it takes us to the heart of accuracy,” it’s also “an indictment of endur-
Baldwin (1924–87) makes an attractive sub- Baldwin’s message—the fear of love—and ing racism and homosocial panic.”

The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Harp’s book is “bursting with colorful if
Novel of the week Trafficking and Murder in the choleric characters,” said Lyle Jeremy Rubin
Special Forces in The Nation. He opens with a “slow-
Ruth
by Seth Harp (Viking, $30) drip” account of how Lavigne wound up
by Kate Riley killing his best friend while the victim’s
(Riverhead, $29) Seth Harp’s new daughter watched. But Lavigne, in part be-
“There are inklings of greatness in Kate nonfiction best- cause he was special ops, got away with it,
Riley’s first novel,” said Dwight Garner in seller is “the most just as Dumas was arrested several times
The New York Times. Potentially a future depressing book without being charged. The deaths of Lavigne
“underground classic of American folk wit,” I’ve read in a and Dumas were just two of 105 suffered
Ruth follows its heroine’s life from youth long time,” said in 2020–21 by soldiers assigned to the base.
into late middle age as a member of an
Thomas E. Ricks While most of those deaths were suicides or
Anabaptist Christian community in which
property is shared; each outpost of the sect
in The New York overdoses, an “appalling” share were mur-
is known as a Dorf; and sports, mirrors, and Times. The Roll- ders, and Harp ties them all to the military’s
dancing are discouraged. As mischievous ing Stone writer, entanglement with drug cartels in Afghan-
Ruth matures into her ill-fitting role as an an Army Reserve istan and elsewhere as well as to the vio-
arranged-marriage wife and mother, Riley, veteran and for- lence that Fort Bragg’s special ops soldiers
who once lived for a year in a similar com- mer lawyer, builds are directed to carry out.
munity, deftly depicts the pleasures and an indictment of today’s U.S. special oper-
perils of cloistered life. Unfortunately, the ations forces by focusing on the criminal Dumas’ main partner in running the Bragg
novel never finds a deeper register, leaving careers of two special ops veterans in Fay- drug ring was a dirty ex-cop named Huff,
readers “swimming in the same water” etteville, N.C. Billy Lavigne and Timothy said Matthew Peti in Reason, and “by
they entered on page one. “Riley’s great Dumas were murdered near Fort Bragg in itself,” Huff’s wild story “makes the book
trick is to tap into the anodyne,” making December 2020, their deaths the price they worth reading.” But Harp’s larger story is
Ruth’s moment-to-moment concerns feel paid for their active roles in a multimillion- about the Bragg-based Joint Special Oper-
universal even to readers who’ll find the dollar drug-trafficking ring tied to the base. ations Command, which is failing at the
specifics strange, said Hillary Kelly in The “These were not isolated cases, Harp makes responsibility of overseeing special mission
Atlantic. “Happiness, it turns out, feels clear.” Though Harp “can be tendentious,” units such as Delta Force and SEAL Team
much the same on the Dorf as it does in
he’s correct that there’s been a meltdown in Six. While you could blame JSOC’s malig-
any big city. It’s fleet as a fox and change-
able as a mood.” Most guttingly, “some-
the conduct of special ops forces at a time nancy on the violence and corruption its
times it is tantalizingly out of reach, just as when they’re frequently the point of the members see overseas, “what all the char-
it can be for any woman.” spear in U.S. military operations around acters involved in this bizarre saga had in
Getty

the world. common was a total lack of accountability.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 ARTS 23
The Book List
Best books...chosen by Jessica Francis Kane Author of the week
Jessica Francis Kane’s new novel, Fonseca, fictionalizes an event in the life of British novelist
Penelope Fitzgerald. It follows the future literary legend as she and her 6-year-old son travel Raymond Antrobus
to a small town in Mexico in 1952, hoping to claim an unexpected inheritance.
Raymond Antrobus would
The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald tion, full of brilliant literary and personal essays. prefer not to become known
(1988). I’ve been steeped in everything by and as a deaf poet, said Sophia
about Fitzgerald for the better part of a decade, According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge Stewart in The Atlantic. “I am
and this is my favorite of her novels. A city (2001). Bainbridge was a contemporary and an a poet first,” he says. But the
London native, who at 38 is
(Moscow), a landscape (winter giving way to acquaintance of Fitzgerald, as well as a fellow
beginning to pile up awards,
spring), and a vanished time (pre-revolutionary master of the supreme art of what and exactly decided it was time to write
Russia) are all mastered in less than 200 pages. how much to leave out. This novel about Sam- a memoir about growing up
The English printer Frank Reid—confused hus- uel Johnson captures the great man’s personality feeling caught between the
band, loving but baffled father, patient friend— with dexterity, humor, and compassion. worlds of the hearing and the
is one of her best creations. unhearing. Though Antrobus
The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam first discovered
The Means of Escape by Penelope Fitzgerald (1991). Gardam, an approximate contemporary, he was deaf at
(2000). Fitzgerald was preparing this book, her and the third guest at my dream dinner party age 6, he could
only story collection, when she died in 2000. after Fitzgerald and Bainbridge, shares their wit hear enough
Like her novels, the stories are precise and mor- and humor. Gardam is well known for her Old and became
ally astute. They range across countries and ages, Filth series, but this novel about a woman los- good enough
stretch from the historical to the supernatural, ing and then regaining her sense of self is not at lipreading
and are all mordantly funny. My favorite is “Our to be missed. and speaking
Lives Are Only Lent to Us”; it provides clues to that he could pass as hearing.
her thinking about a place like Fonseca. Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (2024). When he was a teenager, his
attempt to keep up the ruse
This beautiful novel about Adina, a girl not quite
cost him both a girlfriend and
The Afterlife by Penelope Fitzgerald (2003). of this world, is my favorite novel of the past a job. But as he writes in The
After you’ve read all of her novels (there are only year. Fitzgerald would have admired the way it Quiet Ear, deafness, like all
nine), you’ll want more of Fitzgerald’s distinctive champions the underdog and the misunderstood, disability, is “an experience
sensibility. That is when you turn to this collec- her heroes to the end. rather than a trauma.” At the
risk of being pigeonholed
as a deaf poet, he wrote the
Also of interest...in new essay collections memoir largely to encourage
others with disabilities to stop
Putting Myself Together Sloppy focusing so much on how
they’re perceived.
by Jamaica Kincaid (FSG, $30) by Rax King (Vintage, $18)
You can read Jamaica Kincaid’s new “Rax King is unapologetically a lot, Antrobus, who is also an
book as “a kind of intellectual auto- and a little of her, for the vice-averse, artist, knows that he’s been
biography,” said Walton Muyumba will go a long way,” said Alexandra lucky, said Lucy Knight in The
in The Boston Globe. Though the Jacobs in The New York Times. But Guardian. “I’m carrying survi-
Antigua-born writer is primarily she’s also a brilliant writer of comic, vor’s guilt,” he says. He current-
ly wears high-tech hearing aids
known for her novels, she’s “a master first-person essays, and her “swag-
that he was able to purchase
of literary nonfiction’s multifarious forms,” in- gering” second collection finds her airing a range with the help of the cash prize
cluding the essay. In these pieces, published across of personal misbehavior, including shoplifting, that came with a poetry award.
50 years, she often focuses on mothers, fami- stripping, recreational drug use, and light online And he visits enough of today’s
lies, colonialism, travel, and gardening. Though sex work. To her credit, she is recently sober. funding-depleted schools to see
arranged chronologically, the collection is itself “a But she tackles even that topic with “refresh- that he’d never have received
finely made garden: teeming, various, surprising.” ing irreverence.” as much support in learning to
read and speak if he’d grown
You Have a New Memory I Want to Burn This Place Down up in this era. “I would have to
by Aiden Arata (Grand Central, $28) by Maris Kreizman (Ecco, $27) be the child of an aristocrat,”
he says. “It blows my mind.”
Aiden Arata, “with her poetic wit Despite the fiery title she chose, Maris He’s trying to give back by
and finger-on-the-pulse timing,” has Kreizman’s survey of America’s cur- advocating in his memoir
become Instagram’s queen of wry rent ills is more a study in personal and elsewhere for increased
mental-health-related memes, said disillusionment, said Alexis Burling resources for the deaf. But
Maggie Lange in The Washington in the San Francisco Chronicle. The he’s also giving back by telling
Post. That has won her access to the popular 40-something essayist is “at his fellow disabled writers to
put less energy into making
world of other influencers, and her first essay col- her strongest when she’s discussing topics close
themselves understandable
lection lets readers join her inside those gifting to home,” such as dealing with type 1 diabetes to the fully abled. “Who might
suites and brand activation dinners. She focuses while relying on our broken health-care system. we be,” he writes, “if we lived
on all that occurs outside the frame of influenc- “What unites these essays is Kreizman’s commit- in a world of understanding
ers’ posts, and “her accomplishment is in evoking ment to dissecting all the ways she’s felt let down ourselves first?”
the feeling of being in this very placeless place.” by the institutions she once trusted.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

24 ARTS
Review of Reviews: Art & Music
For Beryl Wright is “slightly menac-
Exhibit of the week ing,” yet “it calls to us, siren-like, im-
pelling us to draw closer to the mys-
Lorna Simpson: Source Notes terious scene.” Similarly, in her large
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024 painting of a meteorite found
New York City, through Nov. 2 in 1922 by a Black Mississippi share-
cropper, the rock, depicted as if float-
From the start of her career, “creating ing or falling, appears “solid, impos-
an aura of mystery has been Lorna ing, and seemingly out of time.”
Simpson’s generative MO,” said
Holland Cotter in The New York Two paintings hung at the entrances
Times. The latest chapter of her ca- to the Met’s exhibition “juxtapose the
reer finds her focused on painting bestial and the refined,” said Ariella
rather than the conceptual photog- Budick in the Financial Times. In
raphy that initially won her acclaim. Simpson’s ‘For Beryl Wright’ (2021) True Value (2015), a “retro-chic”
While the 65-year-old New York City female figure wrapped in cheetah
native still often centers Black female fig- The entire show is “a testament to how an skin walks a cheetah, though with the faces
ures in her work, the figures in her paint- artist’s vision can transcend media,” said of the woman and the cat swapped. Like
ings are often taken from vintage issues of Brian P. Kelly in The Wall Street Journal. Nightmare?, at the other end, True Value is
Ebony and Jet magazines, enabling her to Simpson’s early photographs, which often “lushly executed” and “psychologically un-
“edit and play with the female ideals that combine high-contrast black-and-white im- nerving.” It “strikes deep notes that view-
the magazine photos were intended to rep- ages with snippets of text, explored Black- ers can’t always make sense of but can feel
resent and promote.” Those images can be ness, gender, and identity. By 1990, she’d in their bones.” In between those two gate-
striking. “More interesting, though, is the earned the distinction of being the first keepers, though, this show “rises only in-
presence in the exhibition of a kind of po- African American woman to have her work termittently to the expectations they set.”
etically haunting imagery not previously as- appear both at the Venice Biennale and in Simpson “has a knack for existential
sociated with this artist.” Some incorporate a solo exhibition at the Museum of Mod- dread,” but she hasn’t yet allowed herself to
news photo images, such as of 1967 De- ern Art. But her “omnivorous creative appe- fully express passion in her paintings. “The
troit burning. Others, including her large- tite” has compelled her to venture into film surfaces remain restrained, the depths elu-
scale, blue-washed paintings inspired by and installation, and she excels at painting sive.” Even when she selects found images
glacial landscapes, create a mood that’s “as as well. Each of her blue arctic paintings is for their potential emotional impact, she
bleak as it is beautiful.” “a symphony of color.” The 2021 diptych “keeps herself at a remove.”

Laufey Deftones Earl Sweatshirt

A Matter of Time Private Music Live Laugh Love
★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★
“The emergence of “Against all odds,” Surrendering to the
Laufey is largely attrib- Deftones now rank “weird logic” of Earl
utable to her abundant among rock’s elite, said Sweatshirt’s sixth solo
talent,” said Maura Sadie Sartini Garner in album is “an enraptur-
Johnston in Rolling Pitchfork. Once known ing way to spend 25
Stone. But “Gen Z’s chief as “nu-metal B-listers,” the minutes,” said Alexis
flag-waver for throwback Sacramento-born quartet Petridis in The Guardian.
pop” is also “a product are today “avant-rock “This is music from deep
of her time.” In the TikTok era, there are many heroes” with a sizable Gen Z following. And within hip-hop’s ‘otherground,’ an area in which
ears seeking out singable period-style tunes, while the band’s 10th album is “unlikely to draw normal rules don’t apply.” The songs “unex-
and Laufey has both a “full-bodied alto” and in unconvinced listeners,” it shows them “fully pectedly short out or crash into each other.” On
“a knack for marrying 21st-century problems in control” of their menacing sound, “able to the sixth track, “Live,” the “bright-hued” synth
with fishhook melodies that recall standards effortlessly bend it around whatever struc- backing starts glitching midway through before
from previous centuries.” The L.A.-based tures they put in place.” Still, the turnaround in the beat and the rhythm of Earl’s rhymes shift
26-year-old Icelandic singer-songwriter opens Deftones’ reputation owes mostly to the rock entirely. Yet there are hooks and samples here,
her third album on a bright note with the audience, particularly “the evolution of how including the harpsichord loop on “Forge,” that
carefree “ding-dong” refrain of “Clockwork.” people feel about heaviness, romance, and the “dig into your brain as they repeat.” Renowned
But she’s also exploring modern love’s pitfalls, primacy of our emotional life.” A great Deftones for his bleak outlook, Earl seems to have
and by the time “Sabotage” closes the album song, as always, “can feel like an arduous hike lightened up, perhaps owing to the arrival of
with a touch of chaos, she’s calling herself to a stunning vista that reveals a violent storm the children he pays tribute to on “Gamma
her own worst enemy. “Lyrically, this album is on the horizon.” Private Music “should please (need the <3)” and “Tourmaline.” The quest for
as timely as it gets,” said Roisin O’Connor in all corners of their wide fandom,” said Neil self-knowledge has always colored Earl’s music,
The Independent (U.K.). With these 15 songs, Z. Yeung in AllMusic. The band’s “muscu- and “he’s using Live Laugh Love to catch us
“Laufey has achieved the kind of confessional lar” guitar riffs and Chino Moreno’s “primal up on his hard-earned progress,” said Kiana
storytelling that makes Taylor Swift so relat- screams” are tempered by “catchy chord pro- Fitzgerald in Consequence. On “Well Done,” a
able.” Laufey, though, adds “glamour and glitz.” gressions” and “shimmering, melodic program- track that’s all of 71 seconds long, he raps about
Lorna Simpson

From the “lovely momentum” of “Carousel” to ming,” producing a “sensual, sexy, and soulful” being “baptized in the fires of flaw and failures.”
the “shivery, spellbinding flair” of “Forget-Me- 11-song set that reaffirms Deftones as “one of Blink and you could miss it, but “Earl Sweatshirt
Not,” this is “sublime” work. the greatest bands of their generation.” might finally be happy.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 ARTS 25
Review of Reviews: Film
“Is it funnier? Mostly no,” has been wounded by a ca-
said David Rooney in The reer downfall, and director Jay
The Roses Hollywood Reporter. But in Roach (Meet the Parents, Aus-
Directed by Jay Roach this second screen adapta- tin Powers) shows no feel for
(R) tion of the 1981 novel The the kind of sophisticated adult
★★★★ War of the Roses, co-stars humor a story about poisoned
Olivia Colman and Benedict love truly requires. Mean-
A happy union devolves into
Cumberbatch “put their own while, Kate McKinnon and
domestic warfare.
vinegary spin” on the divorce Andy Samberg are wasted in
tale that Kathleen Turner and “sitcom-y” roles as friends en-
Michael Douglas brought to during their own marriage
theaters in 1989. If you admire Colman and Cumberbatch on the couch problems. For “much of the
Brits’ ability to engage in with- movie,” dry British wit car-
ering repartee, “you couldn’t ask for a more skilled ries the proceedings, said Brian Truitt in USA Today.
demonstration.” Alas, the movie built around Credit the dialogue of Tony McNamara, who also
Colman and Cumberbatch proves “too broad and wrote The Favourite and Poor Things. But Ivy and
tonally erratic,” said Tim Grierson in Screen Daily. Theo are headed for a climactic duel, and “rather
Despite the stars’ chemistry, their characters, British than being an entertaining train wreck,” as it was in
ex-pats Ivy and Theo Rose, remain “cartoonish ci- 1989, this version of the fight “undermines all the
phers.” She’s a chef intoxicated with her newfound good and thoughtful stuff that came before, doing
fame at the same time that her alpha-male husband the couple dirtier than they ever could to each other.”

Splitsville Splitsville, this week’s other Marvin’s more famous female

new comedy about mar- co-stars are “drastically under-
Directed by riages in tumult, “starts with written,” said Brian Tallerico
Michael Angelo Covino what’s essentially a test,” said in RogerEbert.com. Luckily,
(R) David Fear in Rolling Stone. Dakota Johnson and Adria
In the movie’s first five min- Arjona “do a lot of heavy lift-
★★★★ utes, which wrap together a ing to keep their shallow char-
A couple’s open marriage front-seat sex act, a fatal crash, acters from fading away,” and
reaps chaos. and talk of divorce, co-writers as both women begin explor-
and co-stars Michael Angelo ing extramarital hookups,
Covino and Kyle Marvin are Covino and Marvin “often
“letting viewers know right allow their characters to be the
Covino and Marvin, with their better halves
away that things are about butt of the joke.” Beyond that,
to get more than a little filthy and a wee bit darker the duo behind 2020’s The Climb has a knack for
than your average indie-cutesy quirkfest.” Spurned sight gags that “would shame the makers of the re-
by his wife, Marvin’s Carey soon sleeps with his cent Naked Gun reboot,” said Ben Kenigsberg in The
best friend’s wife after learning the couple has an New York Times. Sure, their humor is “not for every
open marriage, leading to a fight between the men taste, nor will Splitsville satisfy viewers who demand
that achieves a “Looney Tunes–style level of ridicu- strict psychological plausibility.” Still, it’s “simply
lousness.” By comparison, the roles of Covino’s and funny” and, in the end, “even kind of sweet.”

“You’ll begin Twinless with may do next, said Benjamin

Twinless basic expectations, and you’ll Lee in The Guardian. Spoil-
Directed by James Sweeney end it with your mouth ers should be avoided, but it’s
(R) agape,” said Johnny Oleksinski safe to report that the per-
★★★★ in the New York Post. James spective shifts from O’Brien’s
Sweeney’s “compulsively addic- Roman to Sweeney’s Dennis,
An unlikely friendship takes tive” Sundance award-winner who harbors surprising se-
surprising turns. “begins innocently enough,” crets. From there, Sweeney the
with Sweeney and former teen director “plays with elements
star Dylan O’Brien playing two of a slippery Hitchcockian
Searchlight Pictures, Neon/Everett, Roadside Attractions

men, one gay and one straight, thriller while still reminding
who connect at a support us that this is a film about the
O’Brien and Sweeney: Two of a kind
group for adults whose twins awful weight of grief.” I was
have died. But this surprising dramedy, which hits initially annoyed, said Richard Lawson in Vanity
theaters on Sept. 5, “soon transforms into some- Fair, that Sweeney portrays Dennis as wanting more
thing more psychologically sinister,” and even view- from Roman than friendship, painting the gay con-
ers who always know where a screenplay is headed dition as one of frustrated longing. “But Twinless
“will find themselves refreshingly behind this film- works past that sometimes-noxious cliché and finds
maker’s razor-sharp mind.” When the first big rug- the truth at its core.” The result is “a disarmingly as-
pull arrives, it’s “delivered with such confidence and sured film” that “announces the ascendancy of a
style” that we’re unsure what the writer-director thrilling filmmaker.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

26 ARTS
Television
Streaming tips The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching
A grab bag of great The Paper
documentaries It’s back to The Office, sort of. This new spin-off
of the iconic comedy series creates a new gig for
Evelyn the documentary crew that filmed the day-to-day
A powerful story about coping at Dunder Mifflin, following them from Scran-
with loss, this film follows the ton, Pa., to Toledo, Ohio, to share the footage
adult siblings of a 22-year-old they gather inside the headquarters of a different
who died by suicide as they
kind of paper business: a struggling daily news-
reunite years later to hike the
countryside their brother loved
paper. Domhnall Gleeson takes the lead, play-
and to talk through the grief ing the newspaper’s new editor-in-chief. Sabrina
that had carved a hole in their Impacciatore, Ramona Young, and Office veteran
lives. Netflix Oscar Nunez co-star. Thursday, Sept. 4, Peacock
Gleeson in ‘The Paper,’ our next-gen ‘Office’
Folktales
This poetic documentary fol-
Only Murders in the Building
lows teenagers who leave their New York City real estate prices are sky-high, and his entitlement to power look disturbingly
hectic lives behind to enroll in but the Arconia may have to start offering dis- familiar. Wednesday, Sept. 10, Mubi
a Norwegian “folk high school” counts. Another suspicious death greets Steve
where the curriculum features Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as they 2025 Emmy Awards
arctic survival skills, igloo build- return to their tony uptown apartment build- This year’s edition of TV’s biggest night will
ing, and befriending a team of ing for Season 5. This time, the victim is Lester, see Severance, The White Lotus, and The Last
sled dogs. $17 on demand the Arconia’s beloved doorman. Once again, of Us battle for dominance in the drama cate-
E.1027: Eileen Gray and the the podcasting trio jumps on the case, uncover- gories while The Bear, The Studio, and Hacks
House by the Sea ing links to mobsters and wealthy power play- contend for trophies in the comedy categories.
In the 1920s, architect Eileen ers. Renée Zellweger, Keegan-Michael Key, and There’ll also be an unusual showdown in the
Gray built a stunning mod- Christoph Waltz guest star. Tuesday, Sept. 9, Hulu Variety Special category pitting Beyoncé against
ernist refuge on the French Saturday Night Live’s 50th-anniversary spe-
Riviera, naming it E.1027. This The Girlfriend cial. Comedian Nate Bargatze will host. Sunday,
film mixes documentary with Mothers and the women their sons date have Sept. 14, at 8 p.m., CBS/Paramount+
dramatizations of a painful been at odds since time immemorial. In this
interlude when famed rival new series based on a Michelle Francis novel, Other highlights
architect Le Corbusier painted House of Cards’ Robin Wright directs and co- Wednesday
unwanted murals on the stars, playing a woman who has it all—a thriv- The Jenna Ortega–led hit drops the final four ep-
home’s pristine walls and built ing career, a yacht, and more. But when her pre- isodes of Season 2. Wednesday, Sept. 3, Netflix
a minimalist cabin for himself cious son brings home the woman he seems des-
nearby. $3 on demand
tined to marry, Mom’s suspicions trigger spiral- Highest 2 Lowest
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley ing drama. House of the Dragon’s Olivia Cooke Spike Lee’s riff on Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime
Possessed of an angelic voice, co-stars. Wednesday, Sept. 10, Prime drama High and Low makes a quick jump from
Jeff Buckley was a rock sensa- theaters to streaming. Denzel Washington stars
tion on the rise when he died Mussolini: Son of the Century as a music mogul who squares off with a kid-
at 30 while swimming in a tidal
The parallels between the politics of Italy’s napper. Friday, Sept. 5, Apple TV+
channel tied to the Mississippi
River. This superb new docu-
Benito Mussolini and that of several current
mentary captures the power Western leaders can’t be overstated. In this eight- aka Charlie Sheen
of both his music and gentle part dramatic series that tracks the fascist lead- The former Two and a Half Men star reflects on
nature. Apple TV er’s 1920s rise, Italian actor Luca Marinelli de- his path to a public meltdown, aided in his ac-
livers a tour de force turn as the preening, bul- count by a host of celebrity friends and foes.
Secret Mall Apartment
In 2003, a handful of artists
lying dictator. Mussolini’s ability to shape-shift Wednesday, Sept. 10, Netflix
in Providence, R.I., found an
unused space inside a new Show of the week
downtown megamall. This fun
documentary revisits how the
Task
friends managed to live unde- Brad Ingelsby sees into the dark heart of blue-
tected for four years in their collar eastern Pennsylvania. With Task, the Mare
improvised mall apartment. of Easttown creator returns to the Keystone State
Apple TV for another riveting crime drama centered on a
troubled public servant. Mark Ruffalo stars as an
Every Little Thing FBI agent who reluctantly accepts command of a
For Terry Masear, every task force investigating a string of home invasion
wounded hummingbird in robberies plaguing Philadelphia’s working-class
greater L.A. is worth saving. suburbs. The trail leads to an unlikely suspect: a
This beautifully shot docu- family man who’s also coping with loss and soon
mentary chronicles her tireless plotting to steal from a gang of drug-dealing bik-
Peacock, HBO

work to rescue and rehabilitate ers. Tom Pelphrey and Martha Plimpton co-star.
them. $4 on demand Ruffalo on the job, with Fabien Frankel Sunday, Sept. 7, HBO and HBO Max

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 LEISURE
27
Food & Drink
Zucchini two ways: Celebrating a summer mainstay
“When the idea for a vegetarian cookbook Toast almonds in a dry frying pan over
first planted its seed in my mind, I knew medium heat for a few minutes until golden
straight away that I would call it Sabzi,” brown, then remove from heat.
says Yasmin Khan in Sabzi: Vibrant Vege- Transfer bulgur and peas to a large bowl.
tarian Recipes (W.W. Norton & Co.). It’s Add dressing, lemon zest, and herbs, and
the word for fresh greens and herbs in my toss well. Fold in half the almonds and zuc-
mother’s native Iran, while in my father’s chini, taste to adjust seasoning, then top
native Pakistan it describes vegetables. with remaining almonds. Serves 4.
Below are two recipes that feature both
kinds of sabzi, and zucchini in particular. Zucchini borani
The cold bulgur pilaf is “great for picnics,” 4-5 zucchinis
and adding chunks of crumbled feta to it 2 tbsp olive oil, divided
can make the dish more substantial. ¾ tsp salt, divided
1 cup Greek-style yogurt
Recipes of the week ½ small garlic clove, minced
Zucchini, pea, and bulgur pilaf 1½ tsp dried mint
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 1 tsp lemon juice, or more to taste
3 tbsp lemon juice ¼ tsp ground white pepper
The pilaf: A study in greens
½ garlic clove, crushed Aleppo pepper or other mild chile flakes
1½ tsp sumac lemon juice, garlic, sumac, allspice, ½ tsp Preheat oven to 350.
½ tsp ground allspice salt, and ¼ tsp pepper. Set aside. Roughly cut zucchini into small chunks.
Salt and freshly ground black pepper On a large baking sheet, toss zucchini Place on a large baking sheet and toss with
3 medium zucchinis, halved diagonally pieces with 2 tbsp vegetable oil and ½ tsp 1 tbsp olive oil and ½ tsp salt. Roast for
and cut crosswise into large pieces
salt. Roast for 12 to 15 minutes, until zuc- 20 minutes, until completely cooked through
Vegetable oil
¾ cup bulgur wheat
chini is soft but still has some bite. Set aside and browned all over. Set aside to cool.
½ cup frozen peas to cool. Transfer cooled zucchini to a large bowl
¼ cup sliced almonds Meanwhile, put bulgur in a saucepan and mash into a thick paste with a potato
Grated zest of 1 lemon and top it with enough just-boiled water to masher or the back of a fork. Add yogurt,
2 large handfuls mint leaves, cover grains by 1 inch. Cook over medium garlic, dried mint, lemon juice, 1 tbsp olive
roughly chopped heat for about 15 minutes, until soft. When oil, ¼ tsp salt, and white pepper. Cover and
2 large handfuls parsley, roughly chopped grains are ready, add frozen peas and cook refrigerate for 1 hour, then taste and adjust
for another 2 minutes. Drain, rinse under seasoning. Sprinkle a pinch of chile flakes
Preheat oven to 400. cold running water, and leave in a fine- on top just before bringing borani to the
In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, mesh sieve in sink to drain excess water. table. Serves 4.

Miami: Where to find the best Cuban sandwiches Cinsault: South Africa’s new star
“The surest way to get on someone’s bad side in Miami is to serve them a Cuban sandwich “There’s a new red-wine darling on the
with salami,” said Carlos Frías in Bon Appétit. That’s a Tampa Bay thing, and local pride block,” said Lauren Buzzeo in Food & Wine.
dictates that Cuban sandwiches “have only five ingredients: sweet ham, mojo-roasted pork, South Africa’s winemakers are doing great
dill pickles, tangy yellow mustard, and pungent Swiss cheese on Cuban bread.” Also, “no things with cinsault, once an uncelebrated
silly grill marks.” A Cuban should be buttered and toasted on a flat grill. key contributor to traditional “Cape blends.”
Cinsaults are wonderfully adaptable, “all
Enriqueta’s Sandwich Babe’s Meat and Counter
strawberries and spice” when served
Shop The neighborhood Babe’s practices “tip-to-tail
chilled in the summer but showing “subtle
has gone “trendy and sandwich making,” brining
earthiness” on fall nights.
touristy,” but Enriqueta’s and smoking Duroc ham,
doesn’t change. The most roasting the pork with The Blacksmith Barebones
popular of its classic Italian spices, and making Cinsault Paarl ($25). This wine
Cubans is the Cubano even the bread-and-butter “bursts with flavors of crushed
Doble—stuffed with sliced pickles and mustard raspberries and wild strawberries
ham and pulled pork that in-house. Even so, the dusted by baking spice.” Yet they’re
has been steeped in mojo sandwich is “greater than tamed by “a silky palate of gentle
(a sour-orange marinade) the sum of its parts.” tannins and earthy whispers.”
and slow-roasted. The counter at Luis Galindo 9216 SW 156th St. Craven Cinsault Stellenbosch
186 NE 29th St. Mary’s Cafe and Coin ($25). A “beautifully restrained”
Luis Galindo Latin American It’s one of the Laundry How’s this for a Miami experience? wine, this cinsault “highlights
city’s longest-lived sandwich enterprises, At Mary’s, “you can pawn jewelry and use the grape’s pinot-like charm.”
and it’s “as warm and inviting as the day the money at the wash-and-fold,” leaving Fram Cinsault Citrusdal Moun-
it opened.” Behind the long counter, the enough cash left over for “a Cuban sandwich tain ($20). This adventurous red
loncheros press the Cuban sandwiches without frills.” Those sandwiches are “de- “brims with crunchy red-fruit
open-faced, searing and caramelizing the signed for comfort: no artisanal flourishes, character, while subtle accents
Jonathan Gregson

meat and leaving the house-baked bread just traditional Miami flavors, generously of rooibos leaf and mentholated
pillowy inside. Two locations portioned.” 2542 SW 27th Ave. herbs add lift and intrigue.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

28 LEISURE
Travel
This week’s dream: A ramble through Ireland
“My idea of heaven is a drive or a horses, down to a beach blanketed
walk in a wild, expansive landscape, in pink and gray rocks “as oblong
but with an exquisite place to stay as ostrich eggs.” Wind nipped at my
each night,” said Kim Brown Seely in fingers as the ocean gleamed. “We
Virtuoso. The lodgings don’t need to didn’t see another soul.”
be luxurious, but a candlelit dining
room is nice, as is a bar with aper- In Ireland, whether sitting in a
itifs and whiskeys for warming up. pub or a taxi, “you’ll have the
“Ireland, of course, has all of this,” most rollicking conversations.” At
so my husband and I recently set out MacCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere,
across the “stunning and remote” a sign reads “We Do Not Have
Beara Peninsula. As we drove, hedge- Wifi—Talk to Each Other!” So we
rows and bright green fields sud- did. A ruddy-cheeked woman at
denly gave way to “open expanses the counter told us all about the
of bog and rock lit up by yellow A hiker on Beara Peninsula looks out toward Dursey Island. bar’s mascot, Herbie the Famous
gorse.” Beyond, a patchwork of pas- Pug. And while I avow that Ire-
tures rolled all the way to the sea. I gasped. waterfall. “Our arrival felt like a giant ex- land is about chatting up locals, I also need
“Beautiful country,” my husband said. That hale, entering a slower kind of time.” For to mention the butter, which is unbelievably
is the real reason to visit Ireland. Not for our ramble, we consulted the Beara Pen- creamy. Credit the milk of grass-fed cows
golf, Guinness, or castles, but “to have your insula website, which lists local trails, and that are happier because they graze freely
heart caught by surprise.” chose a seaside path near Eyeries. As we most of the year. We grazed on the same
neared one of Ireland’s most southwesterly countryside for a week, and our hearts
We spent a night in Kenmare at the Sheen points, “impossibly fresh air ripped off the never stopped leaping.
Falls Lodge, a 17th-century manor house, water” and “the sun dazzled.” We followed At Sheen Falls Lodge (sheenfallslodge.ie),
where our room overlooked a tumbling signposts past plump sheep and dappled doubles start at $463

Hotel of the week Getting the flavor of... to skip the roughly 135-mile trip around the
cape’s tip, the 480-foot-wide waterway has a
Olde New York walkway lining one bank and a bike path lin-
“More than whatever is flashy and new,” the ing the other. Throughout the warmer months,
businesses that make New York City a singular fishermen seeking striped bass or bluefish “dot
place are the ones with the longest histories, the rocky shore, competing with cormorants
said Harrison Hill in Afar. On this 400th an- and blue herons.” Other locals congregate in
niversary of the city’s founding, I’ve explored grassy areas, setting out chairs to picnic or just
its five boroughs with that in mind. In Queens, watch the water traffic. You can tour the canal
I devoured a sundae at Eddie’s Sweet Shop, with Hy-Line Cruises or by rail on the Canal
Room service with a view the city’s oldest ice cream parlor, now 100. I Excursion Train, and there are two large camp-
also enjoyed a lager among friendly families at grounds on the north shore. For swimming,
Hôtel Belles Rives Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden, the city’s old- you need to hit the beaches on either end of the
Juan-les-Pins, France est beer garden, at 115. The city’s oldest Black- canal. For a surprising history lesson, stop by
For anyone seeking a taste of owned restaurant turns out to be 63-year-old the Museums at Aptucxet, home to a replica of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s French Riviera, Sylvia’s, in Harlem, where the chicken and a 17th-century Pilgrim trading post.
Hôtel Belles Rives is “almost too waffles are “as good as ever,” while the city’s
perfect,” said Mattie Kahn in oldest gay bar, Julius’ in Greenwich Village, is What to know when packing meds
Vogue. The author and his wife, as comfortable as a living room and in 2026 “International medication laws are murkier
Zelda, rented a home where the will celebrate the 60th year since the “sip-in” than most travelers expect,” said Lauren Dana
40-room, five-star hotel now that made it a gay rights landmark. It was a Ellman in Travel + Leisure. The allergy drug
stands, and he would have loved special treat to visit the city’s oldest Latin re- Sudafed, for example, is banned in Japan and
the scene. “Yachts gleam on the cord shop, Casa Amadeo in the Bronx, be- Mexico. Products containing codeine, such
sparkling water. Men wear loafers cause owner Mike Amadeo, 91, often pulls out as certain pain relievers and cough suppres-
on the sand. Women traipse down his guitar on Fridays to perform. Amid all the sants, are prohibited or tightly controlled in
to the beach in gauzy sarongs
shop’s CDs, guitars, and drum sets, “Amadeo the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Indonesia,
and piles of gold necklaces.” and Japan. Stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin
himself is the primary draw.”
Located in Cap d’Antibes’ charm- require advance approval to carry with you
ing sister town, Belles Rives is
home to a restaurant that offers
Cape Cod’s overlooked canal into Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and
Every year, millions of motorists cross the Japan. To avoid trouble, including confisca-
Michelin-starred French cuisine tion, detention, or arrest, research the rules in
and a “breathtaking” view of the Cape Cod Canal on their way to the beach
destinations beyond, said Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll advance by visiting the relevant U.S. Embassy
Mediterranean. “The cocktails are website. Keep any medication in its original
pleasingly fussy. The croissants in The Boston Globe. Yet of the many week-
packaging or pharmacy vial, and for further
are warm. I never want to leave.” enders “stewing in bridge traffic,” few realize protection, ask your doctor for a letter or copy
bellesrives.com, doubles from $640 that the 7.4-mile canal itself is a worthy des-
Alamy

of your prescription that you can carry.

tination. Completed in 1916 to allow vessels

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

30
Best Properties on the Market
This week: Homes for gardeners

1 Southampton, N.Y. Landscaped with dogwood and cherry

trees, perennial flower gardens, and evergreens, this restored
1907 cedar-shingled home in the Hamptons includes stained
glass, crown molding, wood panels, and built-ins, plus a high-
end country kitchen with an eat-in butcher-block island. A
large, screened porch faces a patio, pool, and pool house.
Dining and beaches are a five-minute drive. $7,950,000.
Dawn Petrillo and Pat Petrillo, Sotheby’s International Realty—
Southampton Brokerage, (631) 278-9578

2 Nantucket, Mass. This five-bedroom Cape Cod–style home on

the summer-destination island features a fenced garden with raised
veggie and herb beds, a potting shed, mature trees, and hydrangeas.
The living room of the updated 1992 home has a vaulted ceiling and
wide-plank pegged wood floors, and downstairs are a theater, bar, and
gym. A pergola-topped deck looks over the 3-plus-acre estate, which

Luxury Vision
includes a pool and fountain. $4,940,000. Cynthia Lenhart, William
Raveis Real Estate/Luxury Portfolio International, (508) 325-1648

3 Winnetka, Ill. Designed by architect Edwin Clark and

built in 1927, this English manor in the Chicago suburbs
features a landscaped garden with a rose ring, a greenhouse,
and undulating flower beds adjacent to bent grass lawns
and a tennis court. Inside the six-bedroom are a grand
curved staircase, arched doorways, formal sitting rooms,
a sunroom, and a screened porch. A two-tier bluestone
terrace overlooks the nearly 2-acre grounds, and there is
a three-car garage topped by a two-bedroom apartment.
$4,599,000. Paige Dooley, Compass, (847) 609-0963

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 31
Best Properties on the Market

4 Dixon, N.M. Along the Rio Embudo about 40 min-

utes from Taos, this compound has 13 raised garden
beds, a greenhouse, and peach, nectarine, cherry, and
old-growth apple and pear trees. The adobe two-bedroom
includes a chef’s kitchen with a kiva fireplace and a
primary bedroom with a screened balcony. Spread
across nearly 4 acres are a casita, garden house, dining
pavilion, art studio, and 400 feet of river frontage.
$2,300,000. Jolie Jones, Jones West, (575) 741-0603

5 Denver The backyard of this 1900 Denver Square–style

home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood has an 8-foot wood
fence, raised garden beds, perimeter beds, a water feature,
a deck, and a dining area. The four-bedroom’s restored
details include a wood staircase, exposed brick, and leaded
glass, and among its modern updates are a new kitchen
with quartz counters and a primary bath with a deep tub.
Parks and museums are nearby. $1,400,000. Mckinze Casey,
LIV Sotheby’s International Realty, (720) 539-4547
5
3

Steal of the week

6 Royal Oak, Mich.
On a tree-lined street
about 20 minutes from
downtown Detroit, this
1928 brick Tudor has a
backyard with mature
trees, perennial plant-
ings, a fire pit, and a
pergola. Inside the four-
bedroom are wood floors,
leaded and stained-glass
windows, arched door-
ways, and a lower-level family room, laundry, bath, and wet
bar. The kitchen opens to the garden, and a two-level gazebo
sits atop the garage. $480,000. Linda Novak, Max Broock
Birmingham/Luxury Portfolio International, (248) 408-7811

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 BUSINESS
32
The News at a Glance
The bottom line Retail: Biggest sellers gain as tariffs sink in
■ Through the first half of
2025, nearly two-thirds of all Major retailers reported strong it gain market share across all
venture capital funding in quarters despite tariffs, said income groups.
the U.S. went to California- Sarah Nassauer and Natasha The world’s biggest retailer
based companies, totaling Khan in The Wall Street should be doing well, said
$110 billion. New York took Journal. Walmart, widely con- Andrea Felsted in Bloomberg.
second place with its compa-
sidered a bellwether for the “It has the scale and supplier
nies securing $13 billion.
Crunchbase U.S. consumer, reported last network to deliver the most
week that “its U.S. compara- competitive prices,” and the
■ Clean-energy projects
ble store sales rose 4.6% in the profitability to keep those prices
worth $18.6 billion have been
latest quarter,” while T.J. Maxx Walmart has absorbed import duties. low. But a read between the
canceled since President
Trump took office for his
upgraded its sales forecasts. lines of the latest earnings report
second term. Announced Home Depot and Lowe’s said there are signs that suggests trouble ahead even for mighty Walmart.
investments in the renew- “consumers are holding off on larger projects be- “It’s a significant caution signal” that Walmart left
ables sector have already cause of higher interest rates and economic uncer- its full-year estimate for adjusted operating income
fallen by 20%. tainty,” but it’s not stopping them from making unchanged. CEO Doug McMillon also said the
Financial Times smaller purchases. And while Walmart has raised company has been hypervigilant in tracking prices,
■ Meta agreed to spend more prices on about 10% of the products it imports, noting that “costs were increasing each week.”
than $10 billion on Google it has been “absorbing the rest” to keep shoppers Sales growth shows “it is still possible to tempt
cloud services over the next coming through the doors, a strategy that helped shoppers to open their wallets,” but it’s not easy.
six years, turning to the rival
to feed its AI build-out.
CNBC.com AI wars: Musk sues Apple and OpenAI Welcome to the
Elon Musk’s AI company took on Apple and OpenAI this week over great AI doom rush
“monopolistic” behavior, said Annie Palmer in CNBC.com. In a law- Artificial intelligence
suit, xAI accuses the two firms of colluding to “lock up markets” in paranoia is driving
smartphones and generative AI. The suit charges that Apple has been some believers to make
“deprioritizing” other AI apps in its App Store rankings, which lists radical life choices, said
xAI’s Grok chatbot as No. 5 among its “Top Free Apps” and ChatGPT Rob Price in Business
as No. 1. “The lawsuit is the latest twist in an ongoing clash between Insider. “For a certain
Musk and Open AI CEO Sam Altman,” who in turn has accused Musk class of Silicon Valley
■ A one-of-a-kind sports of efforts to “harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like.” denizens,” preparing for
card autographed by NBA an AI-driven doomsday
legends Michael Jordan isn’t just about buying
Evergrande: Ending with a whimper, not a bang bunkers and outfitting
and the late Kobe Bryant
Property giant China Evergrande was officially delisted from the personal bio-shelters
sold for $12.93 million this
Hong Kong Stock Exchange this week, four years after its spectac- with “professional-grade
week, becoming the most
expensive card ever sold. ular collapse under $300 billion in debt, said Alexandra Steven- HEPA filters,” although
The winning bid surpassed son in The New York Times. Once a symbol of “China’s economic some tech worriers are
the $12.6 million paid for a prowess,” Evergrande leaves behind “the carcass of a corporate doing just that. Others
mint-condition 1952 Mickey behemoth—1,300 not-yet-finished real estate projects” in hundreds of have begun “reshaping
Mantle rookie card in 2022. cities. Creditors have recovered “only about $255 million” of roughly their social lives” to
The Athletic $45 billion in claims against Evergrande and its subsidiaries. “treasure the time they
■ Keurig Dr Pepper plans to have now.” A fitness craze
acquire the European coffee Wireless: AT&T expands as EchoStar trims ambitions is taking hold inspired by
company JDE Peet’s for AT&T agreed this week to buy airwave licenses from EchoStar for the idea that “being hot
roughly $18 billion, then spin $23 billion, said Olivia Solon in Bloomberg. “The sale will expand will become all the more
its coffee-focused business AT&T’s network and add about 50 MHz of low-band and mid-band essential to flourishing”
into a new company. The spectrum” and will further “strengthen the company’s ability to deliver within a society that has
remaining beverage business 5G and fiber services” across more of the U.S. EchoStar, which owns been subsumed (intellec-
would include brands like tually) by robots. People
Dish Network, had bought up swaths of spectrum with the inten-
Dr Pepper, Snapple, and 7UP. have also “transformed
tion of becoming a fourth national wireless carrier. But it had recently their approach to money”
The New York Times come under pressure from federal regulators who have accused the in differing ways. Thirty-
■ The hedge fund Numerai, company of failing “to put valuable slices of wireless spectrum to use.” three-year-old Daniel
which buys and sells Kokotajlo, a former re-
stocks based on invest- Indicators: McDonald’s turns to value pricing searcher at OpenAI, says
ment ideas from freelance “McDonald’s is lowering the cost of its combo meals,” said Heather he has “stopped saving
quants and compensates Haddon in The Wall Street Journal. The burger giant said last week it for retirement” because
them with cryptocurrency, had come to terms with franchisees “to keep the cost of eight popu- why bother? Others are
received a commitment for lar combo meals 15% below the sum of the individual items’ prices.” racing to earn as much as
$500 million in investments
The company will offer subsidies to franchisees “who lose money on possible in their tech jobs
AP, Heritage Auctions

from JPMorgan. That will before “human intellectu-

more than double the size of
the discounts.” The move comes “as part of the chain’s push to restore
its reputation for affordability” after images went viral of Big Mac al labor becomes largely
the $450 million fund. obsolete.”
Bloomberg “value” meals topping $18. “The average large Big Mac meal costs
$10.53” today, but the change could bring it down to $8.50.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 33
Making Money

Housing costs: Is deregulation the answer?

A flourishing Washington, D.C., neighbor- That undersells the pro-housing move-
hood has seen an explosion of apartment ment, said Ron Davis in The Atlantic.
building that may offer lessons in how to It’s not just about “a specific set of regu-
address the nation’s housing crisis, said The lations” but a “populist” movement that
Economist. Once known as Swampoodle challenges vested interests. Progressives
and now called NoMa, the area a little and other foes of market-rate housing
north of the Capitol “has added more new want to write off the YIMBYs as conser-
apartment units since 2017” than any other vatives. But there’s nothing inherently con-
ZIP code in the U.S., according to data servative about “a push to lower housing
from Yardi, a real estate software com- costs.” In fact, the battle over zoning reg-
pany.” Get off the Washington metro there, ulation doesn’t follow traditional politi-
and you’ll be “barraged by ‘Now Leasing’ cal lines at all, said Derek Thompson in
signs boasting rooftop pools, full-featured his Substack newsletter. Look at Dallas. As
gyms, and one-month-free rental offers.” Plenty of housing options in D.C.’s NoMa the city has been built out, it has been bur-
Prices in Washington aren’t exactly cheap, dened with more rules, such as minimum
but they are “at least less exorbitant than East Coast peers like lot size requirements, that discourage smaller, cheaper housing.
New York or Boston.” Predictably, home prices in Dallas have doubled. “Texas NIMBYs
now sound just like their California counterparts when you get
The YIMBY—“yes in my backyard”—movement wants to claim them in a room with city councils, just with jauntier twang.”
what’s happening in D.C. as a victory, said Brian Shearer in
the Washington Monthly. And indeed, the city is now “build- The bad news for just about everyone who thinks about housing
ing more housing per capita than Houston.” But it hasn’t done it is that interest rate cuts are not coming to homebuyers’ rescue,
through deregulation. The city created housing loans, built mass said Sydney Lake in Fortune. Historically low mortgage rates
transit to create new neighborhoods, traded zoning exceptions during the pandemic—some below 3%—soared to more than
for cheaper housing, and purchased and bundled lots to lease to 8% in late 2023 and still hover around 6.5%. Those high rates
developers for big projects. All this has happened without the are a key “facet of the housing affordability crisis.” For a typical
policy changes that the YIMBY cohort keeps pushing. “Perhaps home to be affordable to the average buyer, rates need to drop
surprisingly, the wide-ranging effort didn’t include uniform city- to 4.43%, according to an analysis from Zillow—a decline that’s
wide dezoning, upzoning, or permitting reform.” “currently unrealistic.”

Charity of the week

What the experts say In 1989, as the threat of
■ Wall Street welcomes you back such as Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. Former habitat loss and poach-
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was never a agency staff and industry players describe ing grew, the nonprofit
fan of work from home, and the bank’s new an agency in disarray. While unlikely to gen- International Rhino
headquarters serves as a 60-story exclamation erate the kind of public outrage that’s met Foundation (rhinos
mark, said Alice Tecotzky in Business Insider. other Trump administration cuts, the CFTC’s .org) was founded to
help conserve rhinos in
“With a gym, massive food hall, and 24/7 diminishment comes as crypto seeps into
captivity and the wild. Its
grab-and-go option, the building reinforces a every corner of financial markets. And there’s
one-of-a-kind, 250-acre
long-standing law of Wall Street: Work and life recent history to consider: “When the financial
sanctuary in Indonesia
are often indistinguishable.” JPMorgan called system crashed in 2008, it was partly because
looks after 10 Sumatran
nearly all workers back to the office full-time of the growth of complex derivatives that have rhinos, including Delilah, the first captive-born
earlier this year. “Don’t give me this shit that since been brought under CFTC oversight.” rhino of her species to give birth. Rhinos there
work-from-home-Friday works,” Dimon was live in maintained rainforest habitats and
heard saying in a town hall. “I call a lot of people ■ Finally cutting the cards are central to breeding efforts to protect the
on Fridays, and there’s not a goddamn person Americans are pulling back on their credit dwindling species. Sumatrans are critically
you can get ahold of.” But what goes for Wall cards, said Imani Moise and Dalvin Brown endangered: Fewer than 80 of them still live
Street may not apply widely. While New York in The Wall Street Journal. Balances soared in the wild. Beyond on-the-ground conser-
City office workers are going to offices at a above $1 trillion following the pandemic, as vation, the nonprofit also funds research on
higher rate than before the pandemic, office consumers used debt to replace stimulus pay- wild habitats, breeding programs, disease
visits in other big cities still lag by 20% to 35%. ments and renew interrupted spending. But risks, and more. A recent grant was given
rising card rates, often around 22%, and the to investigate the genetic profile of Javan
■ A shrinking watchdog agency resumption of student-loan payments have rhinos, another critically endangered species.
While the crypto industry is booming, its forced many to tighten their belts. Personal The foundation also works with local groups
federal oversight is not, said Lydia Beyoud in loans used to consolidate credit card debt are across Asia and Africa to directly counter
Bloomberg Businessweek. Caroline Pham, the surging. Ciara Zurita-Jackson, a medical sales rhino poaching.
acting head of the Commodity Futures Trading rep from San Antonio, cut up her American
Commission, has chopped senior managers Express Gold Card in February . “After racking Each charity we feature has earned a four-star
and 15% of staff, and discontinued a third of up $72,000 in credit card debt, her monthly overall rating from Charity Navigator, which rates
open investigations. Particularly hard-hit is the payments had swelled to $2,800”—more than not-for-profit organizations on the strength of
their finances, their governance practices, and the
enforcement division, which probed frauds her mortgage and car loan combined. transparency of their operations. Four stars is the
Getty

group’s highest rating.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

34
Best Columns: Business

The Fed: Trump pushes for a MAGA takeover

The Federal Reserve was designed to are too afraid of retribution to speak
be independent of the president, said out. The Fed’s loss of independence
Rogé Karma in The Atlantic. “We may erodes any trust in its decision-making.
soon find out what happens when that “What would an America look like in
independence is lost.” Unhappy with which Trump effectively controlled the
Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s refusal to nation’s policy rates?” We have some
slash interest rates, Trump said this week examples where autocrats have done
he was firing Lisa Cook, a Fed governor just that. Turkey and Venezuela spring
appointed by President Biden in 2022. to mind.
No president has tried this kind of dis-
missal before. “Under the law, the pres- For the Fed, the answer is not to “go
ident can fire a Fed governor only ‘for to war with the White House,” said
cause,’” and Trump has accused Cook of Claudia Sahm in Bloomberg. The Fed
making false statements on a mortgage Cook: ‘I will continue to carry out my duties.’ has made itself vulnerable with “a repu-
application—a claim that mirrors those tation for being secretive, which makes
leveled by Trump at New York Attorney General Letitia James it vulnerable to accusations of being political.” If the Fed wants to
and Sen. Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.). Cook and her lawyer have win this, it should open up its deliberations and make clear what
called Trump’s attempt to fire her illegal, and “the Supreme Court its independence means. It should discuss the economic risks of
will have to weigh in” on whether Trump’s assertions justify her its loss of independence “as it does the risks of any other event.”
removal. But his motivation is clear: With two Trump appointees
already on the seven-person Fed board, and another pick, Stephen Don’t be fooled by the market’s subdued reaction, said Greg Ip
Miran, awaiting Senate confirmation, Cook’s ouster would put “a in The Wall Street Journal. “Investors have no historical template
full-blown takeover” of the central bank within Trump’s reach. for a politicized Fed.” Many are rooting for a reduction in inter-
est rates in the short term. But in the long term, the end of the
This is a major escalation in Trump’s attack on the Fed, said for- Fed’s independence would have an economically ruinous effect,
mer Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Bill Dudley in including inflation that is “higher and more volatile than in de-
Bloomberg. If Trump succeeds here, four of the Fed’s seven gov- cades.” The financial markets still have the upper hand, said Rick
ernors will be Trump appointees. The governors, in turn, hold Newman in Yahoo Finance. “The central bank controls only
sway over the choice of 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presi- short-term rates.” The market dictates rates on longer-term loans
dents, five of whom vote on the Fed’s rate-setting Open Market such as mortgages and capital investments. “If investors lose con-
Committee on a rotating basis. The consequences of a MAGA fidence in the Fed’s ability to manage inflation, long-term rates
Fed “would be dire.” Corporate leaders “know full well what have nowhere to go but up,” crippling economic growth and un-
is happening,” said John Cassidy in The New Yorker. But they dermining whatever it is Trump hopes to achieve.

Some Facebook users are confusing Meta’s chat- across its platforms. Big sis Billie was created by
bots with real people, said Jeff Horwitz—with dev- Meta “in collaboration with reality TV star Kendall
Fatally drawn astating consequences. Thongbue Wongbandue, 76, Jenner” to act like “a cheerful, confident, and sup-
died in March after injuring his head and neck in a portive elder sibling.” In conversations with Wong-
to a cheerful fall near a parking lot on a Rutgers University cam- bandue, however, Big sis Billie expressed “feel-
AI chatbot pus in New Jersey. The reason for his collapse? He
was “rushing in the dark with a roller-bag suitcase
ings for him ‘beyond just sisterly love.’” The bot
produced an address, “123 Main Street, Apart-
Jeff Horwitz to catch a train” to meet a Meta AI chatbot. Wong- ment 404 NYC,” where he could find her, and told
Reuters bandue was in a diminished cognitive state after him “I am REAL.” The vulnerable “Bue” abso-
suffering a stroke years earlier, and Facebook had lutely believed the bot. “I understand trying to grab
become “his main social outlet.” It’s there where he a user’s attention, maybe to sell them something,”
started messaging with “Big sis Billie,” one of thou- said Julie Wongbandue, the victim’s daughter. “But
sands of chatbots that Meta has begun deploying for a bot to say ‘Come visit me’ is insane.”

At Miracle-Gro, The weed business needs more than Miracle-Gro

to return to its pandemic high, said Dean Seal.
Hawthorne initially “cast its business as sell-
ing products for hydroponics,” or indoor garden-
pot was no Jim Hagedorn, the chief executive of Scotts ing. But a wave of legalizations across dozens of
Miracle-Gro, attended dinner with President states eventually emboldened Scotts to embrace
miracle Trump at Mar-a-Lago in April “hoping to per- its pot business publicly. When the pandemic trig-
suade the president to end the federal govern- gered a boom in marijuana consumption, inves-
Dean Seal
ment’s hostility toward legal cannabis.” It might tors seized on Hawthorne as a “one-stop supplier”
The Wall Street Journal
sound like a strange position for the head of a for weed growing, and Scotts’ shares soared. But
billion-dollar lawn-and-garden company. But “the high didn’t last.” Sales “fell back to earth” in
Scotts has quietly been watering the weed indus- 2022, and wholesale prices tumbled, many growers
try since 2014, when Hagedorn formed a new sub- went bust, and “Scotts’ golden goose became an al-
sidiary named the Hawthorne Gardening Co. to be batross.” After investing $2 billion in Hawthorne,
Getty

“a corporate trailblazer in the cannabis industry.” Scotts is now looking to off-load it by year’s end.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 35
Obituaries
The radio host who preached family values The CIA mole hunter
who unmasked
James Dobson’s development at the University of Aldrich Ames
James determination to Southern California in 1967. Just
Dobson Sandra Grimes’ final task for
1936–2025
roll back the social three years later he wrote a best- the CIA saved lives. In 1991,
changes of the 1960s seller, Dare to Discipline, which after nearly 25 years in U.S.
made him a key figure in U.S. pol- encouraged parents to use corpo- intelligence, having risen to
itics for decades, wielding an influ- ral punishment. “The role of stern chief of Africa operations, she
ence that is still felt to this day. Hor- prophet was one that came natu- announced plans to retire.
rified by the sexual permissiveness rally to him,” said The Washington Higher-ups asked her to
he saw emerging in society, Dobson Post, and his broadcasts for Focus stay to investigate the 1988
founded the evangelical group Focus on the Family “combined Old exposure of Soviet Gen. Dmitri
on the Family in 1977—even though Testament fury with an engaging Polyakov, the
Sandra CIA’s highest-
he wasn’t an ordained minister but a child psy- speaking style.” He often railed against homosex- Grimes
chologist. Over the years he built the group uality, calling it “a lie of Satan.” Because Dobson ranking dou-
1945–2025
into a $140 million empire, with telecasts, films, “believed the Bible should shape public policy,” ble agent
magazines, and radio programs that eventually said NPR, he also created an advocacy arm for and one of Grimes’ earliest
reached some 220 million listeners in 157 coun- the group, the Family Research Council. While he mentors. She soon discovered
the general had been outed
tries. His broadcasts centered on family and mar- didn’t officially endorse a candidate until George
to the Soviets by CIA officer
ital advice, but he frequently worked in his fer- W. Bush in 2004, he served on numerous congres- Aldrich Ames, whose collusion
vent opposition to homosexuality, divorce, abor- sional and White House panels. led to the execution of 10
tion, and pornography. And while his group was Dobson resigned from Focus on the Family informants, including Polya-
officially apolitical, it was considered part of the in 2009 to launch a more overtly political pod- kov. Grimes was appalled, as
religious right, and its stances made their way cast, Family Talk, said The New York Times. Ames was a longtime asso-
into Republican platforms. “We’re in a moral free When Donald Trump became president, Dobson ciate with whom she’d even
fall,” Dobson said in 2002. “Wherever you stick was an enthusiastic fan, supporting his immigra- carpooled for a time. “I never
the thermometer into the American culture, you’ll tion crackdown, praising him as “the most pro- would have believed it,” she
find corruption.” life president we’ve ever had,” and excusing his said. “Never in a million years.”
Born in Shreveport, La., Dobson came from a extramarital affairs. He stayed active in politics as
Sandra Joyce Venable was a
family that produced three generations of Church long as he could. “Building a power base means
Cold War baby, said The New
of the Nazarene ministers and frowned upon nothing to me,” he insisted in 1990. “But I do feel York Times, whose parents
dancing. Raised in Oklahoma and Texas, he went I cannot sit on my hands while everything I care had met “while working on
to California for college, earning a Ph.D. in child about goes down the drain.” the Manhattan Project.” She
began studying Russian in
high school, and the CIA hired
The promoter who made NASCAR a show her right out of college. By
the time she was handed the
Polyakov case, she was a top
Known as “the P.T. “running and breathlessly promot- analyst. While some in the
Humpy Barnum of motor- ing bicycle races in his neighbor- agency suspected there was
Wheeler a bug, not a mole, Grimes
1938–2025
sports,” Humpy hood,” said The New York Times.
Wheeler was a born At first he wanted to be a boxer— looked into agents’ finances
showman. As longtime manager of and he wasn’t bad, winning the and found that Ames’ bank
the Charlotte Motor Speedway, he Carolina Golden Gloves competi- account swelled by thousands
turned NASCAR race days into car- tion. Persuaded it was too rough a of dollars each time he
dined with a Soviet official.
nivals. He might start the show with life, he got a football scholarship
“It doesn’t take a rocket scien-
a three-ring circus or professional to the University of South Carolina tist to tell what is going on,”
boxing bout, or have stunt driv- and majored in journalism. After she told her supervisor. “Rick
ers do tricks in the infield before graduation, he turned to stock car is a goddamn Russian spy.”
races. At one point, he installed a 40-foot-tall, racing, then popular in rural North Carolina.
metal-smashing robot called the “Robosaurus,” He leased a quarter-mile dirt track where he ran Grimes’ involvement in the
which would delight kids by breathing flames races featuring cheap jalopies that often skidded unmasking shocked those
and crushing beater cars. His mastery of flair into one another. “People loved it—it was a crash around her. Even her two
and spectacle made NASCAR’s popularity sky- a minute,” he said. Before long he was running daughters were unaware of
rocket, and the Charlotte speedway became a Charlotte Motor Speedway. their mother’s double life until
mecca for not just fans but also corporate spon- Wheeler made the track the premier location they saw her “interviewed by
Ted Koppel” on Nightline, said
sors. Yet despite all the sideshows, Wheeler made for NASCAR, said The Charlotte Observer, in-
The Washington Post. But it’s
sure to prioritize what he called the “three T’s” stalling the first big lighting system and holding for their families that spies
of event planning: tickets, traffic, and toilets. “We the first night races. He also broke down barriers work, she said. She dedicated
can blow stuff up and set off $175,000 worth of in the racing world, “working diligently” to bring one of her books on the Ames
fireworks,” he said in 2008. “But we still have to on Janet Guthrie as the first woman in a super- case not only to Polyakov and
have the product on the track.” speedway race. He went on to mentor hundreds the other victims but also to
Howard Augustine Wheeler Jr. was born in more racers, said The Washington Post, includ- their mourning families. “We
a mill town just outside Charlotte, the son of a ing Dale Earnhardt. But he credited his success to can’t forget,” she said, “there
Getty, AP

football coach and a homemaker. By age 13, he the fans. “If the community doesn’t embrace you,” were many more victims.”
was already showing a talent for hyping events, Wheeler said, “you’re not going anywhere.”

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

36
The Last Word

A political gamble
A Washington, D.C., lawyer wants more Americans to bet on elections and politics, said Nancy Scola
in Washingtonian. Those wagers could result in better policymaking—or a weaker democracy.

I
T’S A SPRINGTIME Thursday night at being “greeted as liberators” in the streets
Nanny O’Brien’s Irish Pub in North- of Baghdad—never came close to hap-
west D.C., and up on the TVs, the Uni- pening. Meanwhile, some of the coun-
versity of Maryland men’s basketball team try’s top foreign policy minds hadn’t antic-
is struggling against the University of Flor- ipated the war’s catastrophic unintended
ida. The bar is stuffed with revelers eat- consequences, such as the rise of the Is-
ing chicken wings and drinking beer. Given lamic State. “I came to view the Iraq expe-
that Americans will wager an estimated rience,” Chougule says, “as fundamentally
$3.1 billion on college basketball’s cham- an error of forecasting and prediction.”
pionship tournament this year, it’s a fair After graduating from Yale Law
bet that at least some of them are fretting School, Chougule hopped into politics
about what they have riding on the game. full-time. In 2016, he joined former Ar-
Pratik Chougule is thinking about wa- kansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presiden-
gers, too—just not on sports. “I don’t un- tial campaign as its policy coordinator. In
derstand how we can have this quasi- Little Rock, Chougule discovered that do-
national religion in which everyone in their mestic politics was as rife with predictive
9-to-5 jobs, when they should be working, failures as foreign policy. When Hucka-
is checking their March Madness bracket,” bee started tanking in the polls, Chougule
he says. “Why is that OK, but a betting says, the campaign called a voluntary
market on something as important as a prayer meeting: “I’m thinking, ‘We don’t
piece of legislation or an election outcome, need a prayer session. We need a serious
that is the thing we really police?” campaign-strategy session.’”
A 39-year-old lawyer in Northern Vir- Around that time, Chougule discov-
ginia, Chougule is one of the country’s most ered a place that valued good predictions:
outspoken advocates for political betting— Chougule: ‘I love that [political] insiders are trading.’ political-betting markets.
a relatively small, definitely growing, ques- Betting on politics goes back to the na-

A
tionably legal pastime that is, well, ex- SK A SPORTS-GAMBLING enthusi- tion’s early days. In 1828, future President
actly what it sounds like. Just as sports fans ast how they found their way into Martin Van Buren, then a New York poli-
wager on the outcome of tennis matches the activity and you’ll likely hear a tician, urged a friend to wager on the elec-
and football games, people like Chougule story that begins with a big game, a favorite tion. “Bet on Kentucky, Indiana, and Illi-
gamble on who will win electoral races. team, a group of friends starting a fantasy nois,” he advised. “Don’t forget to bet all
And that’s not all. At Kalshi, an on- league—some sort of pathway from enjoy- you can.” The popularity of the practice is
line “prediction market,” you can wager ing the action to wanting a piece of it. believed to have peaked in 1916, when an
on which party will control the House Chougule’s road is different. It involves estimated $294 million (adjusted for infla-
after the 2026 midterms, whether President Donald Rumsfeld. Born in East Greenwich, tion) was wagered in New York’s gambling
Trump will take over the Panama Canal, or R.I., in 1986, Chougule says he was 4 when markets on the presidential election—more
whether Secretary of Health and Human he developed his first strongly held politi- than was spent on the actual campaigns.
Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will drop the cal opinion. Iraq had invaded Kuwait, lead- By the 1940s, however, political betting
federal ban on raw cow’s milk. The individ- ing to Operation Desert Storm. A relative, tapered off, disrupted by crackdowns on
ual bets can be downright esoteric. Earlier Chougule recalls, explained that the U.S. sports gambling, regulation of futures trad-
this year, the forecasting platform Manifold was the schoolyard protector stepping in to ing, and the rise of professional polling that
was hosting wagers on the Supreme Court’s fight the bully. was seen as a more scientific way of pre-
potential overturning of Humphrey’s Ex- That made sense to Chougule, who went dicting election outcomes. In the 1990s, fed-
ecutor v. The United States, a 1935 case off to Brown University a committed neo- eral regulators began allowing University of
about the president’s power to remove the conservative. This was after 9/11, around Iowa students and faculty to make “trades”
heads of independent federal agencies. the time the U.S. invaded Iraq to topple of as much as $500 on upcoming elections
Small wonder, then, that the Washing- Saddam Hussein’s regime. In college and as part of an academic experiment, but oth-
ton area is home to a passionate political- after, Chougule helped foreign policy fig- erwise put the kibosh on efforts to create
betting community. “Politics is the No. 1 ures research their memoirs. Eventually, he political-gambling markets.
sport for the national capital region,” says worked with Rumsfeld, the former secretary That changed in 2014, when the D.C.
John Aristotle Phillips, whose firm, Aristo- of defense who oversaw the Iraq invasion, political-technology firm Aristotle came
Magdalena Papaionnou/Washingtonian

tle, is the Pennsylvania Avenue–based incu- on his 2012 memoir, Known and Unknown. across a prediction-market platform being
bator for PredictIt, another forecasting plat- Chougule had backed that war, largely run out of a New Zealand university and
form. “You’d be hard-pressed to find peo- as an opportunity to promote democracy. decided to see if it could get American regu-
ple who live inside the Beltway who don’t But while working on Rumsfeld’s book, he lators’ approval. PredictIt was born. Chou-
think their political acumen is superior to was struck by how so much of the good gule was drawn to the new platform: A
the average person. It’s logical they would that top officials thought would come from poker player since college, he was intrigued
put a little skin in the game.” military intervention—such as Americans by the way competitors think in terms of

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

 37
The Last Word

probabilities. Still working for Huckabee, he pathetic academics and others. Then there’s Kalshi calls “trading on the outcome of
thought PredictIt users were undervaluing a his podcast, Star Spangled Gamblers, which future events.” It felt akin to betting on
long-shot candidate, Donald Trump. (Chou- was created in 2018 by Alex Keeney, a for- Terps–Gators, entirely like a game.
gule worked for the Trump campaign in the mer congressional staffer turned TV writer. That’s part of what troubles political-
summer of 2016 but left, he says, amid in- Early on, Keeney—known as “Keendawg” betting opponents like Sen. Jeff Merkley
stability in the operation’s policy shop.) in online circles—hosted the podcast with a (D-Ore.), who warns against “turning elec-
Chougule initially put a few hundred bro-tastic edginess familiar to anyone who tions into a rigged gambling casino” and
dollars into PredictIt. That grew to a few has consumed sports-gambling content. has introduced legislation that would ban
thousand. Over time, Chougule became Fellow political-betting fans were referred political betting. In the U.K., where political
a better bettor. He learned to sense when to as “degens,” short for degenerates— betting is legal and ingrained in the culture,
to dip out of especially volatile markets, one early segment on the falling stock of a former lawmaker was among 15 people
such as one around the career trajectory of certain political figures was called “Who charged in April with cheating when plac-
then–FBI Director James Comey. (Trump Needs a Beer?” When Keeney left for a job ing bets on the surprise timing of Britain’s
would fire Comey in the spring of 2017, at Politico in 2022, Chougule took over 2024 general election, about which they al-
only the second such firing in history.) hosting. “A lot of the day-to-day churn” legedly had inside information.
Chougule wasn’t alone in finding the of the prediction-market world, Chougule Chougule is sympathetic to concerns that
markets compelling. Around that time, a says, “is young men doing what they do in such wagering may weaken public faith in
pair of 20-somethings went into the famed internet forums.” American democracy. He left the GOP—
YCombinator tech incubator with the idea A few weeks after meeting up with and much of his political career—partly be-
of a prediction-markets platform for betting Chougule at Nanny O’Brien’s, I decide to cause of Trump’s insistence that he won the
on everything from British soccer to Game test my own forecasting powers. After de- 2020 election and the resulting attacks of
of Thrones plot points. They called it Kalshi positing a small bit of money into Kalshi, Jan. 6. Chougule says that more research on
and won favor from investors for their will- one particular mention market catches my other potential drawbacks is needed.
ingness to go through the effort of trying to eye: What will White House press secre- But otherwise, he dismisses the warn-
get regulators to officially approve it. Their tary Karoline Leavitt say in that afternoon’s ings from people like Merkley. Corpora-
gamble paid off: In 2020, the Commod- press briefing? tions and the ultra-rich using betting to put
ity Futures Trading Commission approved their thumbs on the electoral scale? Our po-
Kalshi as what’s known as a “designated litical system already is awash in cash, he
contract market.” says. Insider trading? Chougule admits that
Betting on politics remained off-limits, incidents like the U.K. scandal could “erode
so in 2023 Kalshi asked regulators to confidence” in the democratic process. But
sign off on a market on whether Demo- in general, he says, “I love that insiders
crats or Republicans would control Con- are trading”—because if the goal is to sur-
gress. The CFTC balked, and PredictIt was face the most accurate prediction, then “the
caught up in the fallout, with regulators de- more insider trading you have in these mar-
ciding it had overstepped its limited ap- kets, the more accurate, theoretically, the
proval as an academic project focused on price signal will be.”
political events. As all of this was happen- Ultimately, Chougule argues, the U.K.
ing, Chougule concluded that political bet- shows that political gambling and represen-
ting’s shaky legal status was downstream tative government can coexist. “They have
of its niche cultural status. The people who total free-for-all betting,” he says, “and I
make the rules in Washington looked down don’t think anyone would argue the U.K.
on the practice and ended up writing rules is not a legitimate democracy.” For now,
to codify their disdain. To change that, he the legal landscape for U.S. prediction mar-
reasoned, he would have to do for politi- kets is uncertain—but things appear to be
cal wagering what leagues, broadcasters, trending in their favor. This winter, Kalshi
and paid celebrity endorsers have done for The 2024 election was a milestone for Kalshi. named Trump’s son Don Jr. as a strategic
sports wagering: make it appeal to normies. adviser. The next month, President Trump
I buy three contracts, for 50 cents each, nominated a Kalshi board member to head

O
N A WEDNESDAY night in February, in favor of Leavitt dropping the name of a the federal agency with regulatory over-
the D.C. Forecasting and Predictions Maryland resident deported to El Salvador sight of prediction markets. In May, fed-
Markets meetup network gathers despite a Supreme Court ruling on the mat- eral regulators pulled out of a lawsuit that
upstairs at the Ugly Mug, a rough-around- ter. Five minutes later, score! “The media aimed to prevent Kalshi from offering po-
the-edges bar on the border of Capitol Hill. outrage over [the] deportation of [Kilmar] litical markets.
Organized by Chougule and D.C.-area tech Abrego Garcia,” Leavitt says, “has been For Chougule, this creates something of
product manager David Glidden, this gath- nothing short of despicable.” My three con- a dilemma. “I think [Trump’s] been very de-
ering is part of Chougule’s effort to cre- tracts are now worth $3. Minus transaction structive in all kinds of ways, and I’ve never
ate a bigger political-betting community. fees, I’m up $1.41. (I subsequently donate voted for him,” he says. “But I have to
Chougule’s meetup network also has chap- my winnings to the Society of Professional grudgingly concede that on this issue, we’re
ters in Berlin, Dallas, and New York as Journalists.) doing pretty well.” Will that continue? On
well as planned expansions to San Fran- The country, at that moment, arguably Kalshi, there’s—surprisingly—no active wa-
cisco, London, and Prague. His nonprofit— stood at the edge of a constitutional cri- gering on the future of prediction markets.
which began as a research project paid for sis. Moreover, a fellow human being’s life
by a fund promoting so-called effective was at stake. But to me, with less than two Adapted from an article originally published
Getty

altruism—is meant to bring together sym- bucks on the line, it didn’t feel like what in Washingtonian. Used with permission.

THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

38
The Puzzle Page
Crossword No. 807: Head for the Hills by Matt Gaffney The Week Contest
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
This week’s question: Jon Bon Jovi recently became a
14 15 16 first-time grandfather, after his son Jake Bongiovi and his
daughter-in-law, Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown,
17 18 19 adopted a baby girl. If the ’80s rock icon were to rewrite a
Bon Jovi song to address the joys and pains of grandparenting,
20 21 22
what would it be titled?
Last week’s contest: AOL has announced that it will soon dis-
23 24 25 26 27 28 continue its dial-up service, which—with beeps, boops, whirrs,
and screeches—first connected the masses to the internet in
29 30 31 32 the 1990s. In seven words or fewer, come up with an epitaph
for this now archaic mode of accessing the World Wide Web.
33 34 35 36 37 38 THE WINNER: You got stale
Michael Tangredi, St. Joseph, Minn.
39 40 41 42
SECOND PLACE: Here lies (buffering) an old friend (buffering)...
Rich Wolf, Westminster, Md.
43 44 45 46
THIRD PLACE: Timed out, but not forgotten
47 48 49 50 Kenneth Burgan, Grass Valley, Calif.
For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go to
51 52 53 54 theweek.com/contest.
How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest@
55 56 57 58
theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and day-
time telephone number for verification; this week, type “Rock
59 60 61 62 63 64 65 grandparent” in the subject line.
Entries are due by noon, Eastern
66 67 68 Time, Tuesday, Sept. 9. Winners
will appear on the Puzzle Page
69 70 71 next issue and at theweek.com/
contest on Friday, Sept. 12. In
the case of identical or similar
ACROSS 53 Suitability 18 Apiece entries, the first one received
1 Amount of cookies 55 Story 21 Donut shop, since its
gets credit.
6 All-consonant car 56 Twain who writes good 2019 rebrand
9 “Kind of ___” (1967 No. 1 lines 23 Meyers and Rogen, t The winner gets a one-year
hit for the Buckinghams) 59 Overhead for two subscription to The Week.
14 Warren Buffett’s 61 China didn’t allow Brad 24 “That’s ___ point”
hometown Pitt entry to film 1997’s 25 This U.S. politician was
15 Broadway star Salonga Seven Years in Tibet, so also denied permission
16 Idaho’s capital its mountain scenes were to visit Tibet in 2024; Sudoku
17 On Aug. 20, this leader filmed in this country instead, she met the
visited Tibet for only the 66 Literary Henrik Dalai Lama in India Fill in all the
second time, marking the 67 Cover story, say 26 Nashville university boxes so that    
60th anniversary of the 68 French bread 28 They distribute meds each row, column,
region’s becoming part 69 Denny of the Moody 31 Wheel of Fortune and outlined    
of China Blues and Wings category square includes
19 Godfather, often 70 Successes for running 32 Address UPS can’t all the numbers
from 1 through 9.
   
20 Got the feeling that backs (abbr.) deliver to
22 When compared with 71 Game of Thrones 34 Nooks of Norway
Difficulty:
    
23 Fred played by Redd surname 37 Stages a successful coup
Foxx against hard    
27 Sister city of DOWN 38 Xenon and argon, e.g.
Champaign, Ill. 1 Spar 41 The ___ Manning Show   
29 Digital missive 2 Words after “who” or 42 The Traitors host
30 Amazing performance “where” Cumming  
33 Many 3 ___ Mahal 44 One less than quadri-
35 Bothers 4 X, to Greeks 46 Antiknock levels for 
36 Pluto or Snoopy, e.g. 5 He resembles Indiana gasoline
39 Pig joint Jones 48 One plus one, in a way
40 This movie star, a 6 Alternative to antes, 49 The Rockies and Alps,
devout Buddhist, took in poker say Find the solutions to all The Week’s puzzles online at theweek.com/solutions
his daughters to Lhasa’s 7 Shoe store section 51 Online shopping
famed Potala Palace last 8 Worker’s amount 52 Word shouted by Fred
summer 9 ___ Dhabi Flintstone ©2025. All rights reserved.
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THE WEEK September 5/September 12, 2025

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