Wood, I don’t think I need to work too hard to convince you, is a fairly amazing substance. It grows out of the ground and then becomes some of the most important things in the world: pencils, baseball bats, clogs, porch swings, campfires, crucifixes, tall shelves filled with books (which are also wood, if you squint a little). Solomon’s temple was wood; so was the Mayflower. So were Kane’s Rosebud and Prince’s guitar.
The post was sandwiched between a screed about capital-gains taxes and a video clip from a Donald Trump rally. Four words, all-caps: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
Haters gonna hate (hate, hate, hate, hate), Taylor Swift has observed, and the claim has been validated, now, by an expert. Yesterday morning, Trump made his current feelings about Swift known on Truth Social—an extremely belated reaction, it would seem, to the pop star’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, issued last Tuesday evening.
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On September 4, two students and two teachers were killed in a school shooting in Georgia. Nine others were wounded. The Apalachee High School shooting scarcely ranks in the top 20 deadliest such incidents in U.S. history. Apalachee was just another American massacre, an unhappy “fact of life,” in the words of the Republican vice-presidential nominee, J. D. Vance.
The Power Broker leaves us ill-equipped to understand or confront the struggles that face the city today.
When Jean Smart stepped onto the Emmys stage last night to accept the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, the six-time Emmy winner took a cue from Deborah Vance, the veteran comedian she plays on Hacks. Almost immediately, Smart told a joke: “It’s very humbling, it really is. And I appreciate this, because I just don’t get enough attention.
As Israeli forces launch repeated attacks on civilian areas in Gaza, expand their deadly incursion into the West Bank and threaten retaliation for strikes by Hezbollah and Houthis, we discuss ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas with Palestinian writer Amjad Iraqi and former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy.
As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance continue to spread debunked, racist lies that Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio, are eating people’s pets, we speak with Guerline Jozef from the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an immigrant advocacy group, about threats of violence that have forced closures and evacuations at hospitals, colleges and City Hall in Springfield, with some threats citing anger over the city’s resettlement of Haitian immigrants.
Betches CEO Aleen Dreksler explains why it’s time to take women sports fans seriously.
Even host Jesse Watters seemed a little lost.
David Muir and Linsey Davis were ready.
A smoke-filled room sets off the alarm in Washington.
A plan to expand access to the drug treatment is hung up on fears of a black market, despite bipartisan support.
The state lost millions in federal funding because it refused to offer patients a national hotline number for information about abortion.
While the risk of hospitalization and death is nowhere near what it was in 2021, there is still a danger, particularly for the elderly or those with compromised immune systems.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump want to provide relief, though they disagree on the details.
The former top U.S. infectious disease expert is expected to make a full recovery.
He was Trump’s policy whisperer to key voting blocs. Now, he’s fueling rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating cats and dogs.
Across the U.S. in November, voters will weigh proposals on election policies, minimum wage increases and marijuana legalization.
Trump arrived in New York amid growing concerns among some investors about his economic plans as Harris casts his agenda as a financially calamitous wishlist.
We speak with V, the playwright formerly known as Eve Ensler, about “How We Do Freedom: Rising Against Fascism,” a daylong educational event to be held at New York City’s Judson Memorial Church on Saturday. V is the founder of the global activist movements V-Day and One Billion Rising that is organizing the event. “The rise of fascism, from India to Italy, from Afghanistan to U.S., [is] the most pressing concern everywhere,” says V, who ties the crisis to growing loneliness and isolation.
A federal jury in Florida has found members of the pan-Africanist group African People’s Socialist Party guilty of conspiring with the Russian government to “sow discord” and “interfere” in U.S. elections. They face up to five years in federal prison. In a major victory for the activists, however, the jury acquitted them of the more serious charge of acting as foreign agents.
Supporters of Leonard Peltier are calling on President Biden to grant clemency to the Indigenous leader and activist, who marked his 80th birthday behind bars on Thursday after nearly a half-century in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. The ailing Peltier, who uses a walker and has serious health conditions, including diabetes, has always maintained his innocence over the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
In Sudan, a recent United Nations fact-finding mission documented “harrowing” human rights violations committed by both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, schools, hospitals, water and power supplies. Civilians have also been subjected to torture, arbitrary detention and gruesome sexual violence. Over 20,000 people have been killed and 13 million displaced over the past 16 months.
As he accepted the Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series last night, Richard Gadd, the creator and star of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, made a plea to the audience. “If Baby Reindeer has proved anything, it’s that there’s no set formula to this, that you don’t need big stars, proven IP, long-running series… to have a hit,” he said. “The only constant across any success in television is good storytelling, good storytelling that speaks to our times.
The best, and most disconcerting, proof of the increased threat environment this election season came today in the form of “what appears to be an attempted assassination,” according to the FBI, against former President Donald Trump. It is the second attempt on his life this year, following the July shooting in Pennsylvania when a bullet grazed his ear. There is little public information about the most recent shooter, who hid in bushes adjacent to Trump’s golf course in Palm Beach, Florida.
What does it feel like to watch a republic die? And what does it take to revive one? Whether the American republic survives could be decided in the next few months. Decades or centuries hence, the signs will seem clear; today, we live through one of those moments when we feel the weight of our own decisions, even as the larger historical forces, powerful as they might be, remain elusive in our daily life.
This article was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
Peering through his microscope in 1910, the Franco-Canadian microbiologist Félix d’Hérelle noticed some “clear spots” in his bacterial cultures, an anomaly that turned out to be viruses preying on the bacteria. Years later, d’Hérelle would come to use these viruses, which he called bacteriophages, to treat patients plagued with dysentery after World War I.
A typical film by Savanah Moss runs about 30 seconds long and costs maybe $300 to make, and yet somehow each feels like a full-body plunge into a surreal alternate universe. Many of them end in the same place they begin, and so on TikTok, where she has 11.4 million followers, they loop around and around, like a fever dream. That’s what she calls them: fever dreams. And as in dreams, plot is mostly beside the point.
Biden is determined to convince a skeptical public that he strengthened the economy.
