Home//The Week Magazine/December 6, 2024/In This Issue
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Editor’s letterAn open letter to President-elect Donald Trump: Now that you will soon assume the awesome—and greatly expanded!—powers of the presidency, I’d like to join Jeff Bezos in sending my “big congratulations” on your crushing victory over the enemy within. Please let me echo Joe and Mika of MSNBC in offering to turn the page and re-establish a thoughtful, heartfelt dialogue with you, Dear Leader. Toward that end, I would like to offer my abject apologies for describing you in this space over the years as a demagogue, would-be autocrat, white supremacist, misogynist, and narcissist. Just a bit of colorful hyperbole, like JD Vance describing you before his own red-pill awakening as “a moral disaster” and “America’s Hitler.” No hard feelings, right? I would also like to express regret for the…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Russia gains ground as U.S. rushes aid to UkraineWhat happenedRussian forces advanced in Ukraine this week at the fastest pace yet in the war, taking 90 square miles of territory, battering Kyiv with drones, and hitting central Dnipro with an experimental ballistic missile. In a bellicose speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the use of the hypersonic Oreshnik missile, which is designed to carry a nuclear payload, a “response to NATO’s aggressive actions against Russia”—meaning the Biden administration’s recent decision to allow Ukraine to fire U.S.-made ATACMS missiles into Russia. Putin threatened that nuclear attacks on NATO countries could follow. The war, he said, had “assumed elements of a global nature,” and Russia was entitled to strike countries “that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Oreshnik strike an “escalation”…3 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Only in AmericaGeorgetown University has finally agreed to accommodate a pregnant law student who is due to give birth days before her final exam. Brittany Lovely, 34, had asked to take the December exam early, or at home, but said she was initially told by Georgetown that this would be “inequitable to non-birthing students.” After an outcry, Georgetown agreed to reschedule Lovely’s exam to January. “That’s great,” says Lovely. “But why have I been fighting them for months?” Ada County, Idaho, is set to publish every ballot cast in the election. Scans of each ballot will be posted online, scrubbed of identifying information, but some forward-thinking voters adorned their ballots with telltale doodles to help locate them. “I was tired of everybody questioning elections in Idaho,” said Trent Tripple, GOP head of…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The U.S. at a glanceRaleigh, N.C.Power grab: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper this week vetoed a bill passed by the Republican-dominated legislature that would weaken the power of the incoming governor and attorney general, both of whom are Democrats. Set to lose their supermajority—and the ability to override the governor’s veto—in January, GOP legislators approved changes limiting governor-elect Josh Stein’s authority. The bill, attached to a Hurricane Helene relief package, grants the GOP more control over elections and tightens voter ID laws. It would force the governor to fill vacant state Supreme Court seats with judges recommended by the departing justice’s party, preventing Stein from appointing Democratic judges to Republican seats. And it would bar the state’s next attorney general, Democrat Jeff Jackson, from taking positions on behalf of the state that are “contrary…4 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024King’s hunger for progressBillie Jean King has spent seven decades fighting gender inequality, said Matthew Futterman in The New York Times. As the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player in the late 1960s and early ’70s, King advocated tirelessly for female athletes to receive the same opportunities—and prize money—as men. She befriended Gloria Steinem, yet felt sidelined by the feminist movement. “Jocks were thought of as not too bright, that we didn’t know what we were doing,” recalls King. “I used to tell Gloria that we’re not just from the head up.” King, who came out as gay in 1981, decided early on that she wouldn’t be someone who was “just going out talking. It’s what you do that matters.” That philosophy led to controversial alliances: She hobnobbed with tobacco executives who funded…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The hillbilly VPIn under a decade, JD Vance went from never-Trumper to Trump’s vice president–elect. What changed?How did Vance’s political rise begin?It started with the 2016 publication of his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. In the best-seller, JD Vance—then working in San Francisco as a venture capitalist—describes his tumultuous upbringing in a poor family in rust-belt Ohio and diagnoses the woes of greater Appalachia. “From low social mobility to poverty to divorce and drug addiction,” he wrote, “my home is a hub of misery.” For liberal commentators struggling to understand why so many white working-class voters backed Donald Trump in the 2016 election, the book was an eye-opener. At the time, Vance was a staunch Trump opponent. In public, he called the Republican “cultural heroin”; in private, he likened Trump to Adolf Hitler. But…5 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The GOP’s foolish attack on MedicaidMichael HiltzikLos Angeles TimesRepublicans have revived their “cruelest” health-care “reform,” said Michael Hiltzik. They want to impose work requirements on Medicaid. Contrary to GOP myth, nearly two-thirds of Medicaid users work full- or part-time, and nearly all the rest are taking care of children or aging parents, are chronically ill or disabled, or are students or retired. Work requirements only serve to throw “eligible people out of Medicaid.” These people get booted mostly through “administrative snafus,” after they fail to prove they’re working or are exempt. When Arkansas implemented work requirements in 2018, 17,000 people lost eligibility, and a federal judge declared the requirement illegal. Conservatives hold a “historic disdain” for Medicaid, viewing it as welfare “for the undeserving poor,” not as health-care insurance. This makes it “politically easier” to…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Going easy on an alleged royal offenderSigrid HvidstenDagbladetNorway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit thinks her eldest son has always been “hounded by the press,” said Sigrid Hvidsten. Yet the reality is that the press has “sheltered” him. Hundreds of articles have been published about Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old stepson of Crown Prince Haakon, since his recent arrest on suspicion of rape. But newspapers have “vanishingly few” photos of Borg Hoiby, who denies any wrongdoing. They recycle the same snapshots—one showing him with his mother at a formal dinner, another of him in a tuxedo greeting Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, and a casual close-up in a blue ball cap. Conspicuously missing are photos reflecting his troubled past. Borg Hoiby—who was four when his mother in 2001 married Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne—has been accused of…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Israel: The ICC’s arrest warrant for NetanyahuDriven by overt hostility to the state of Israel, the International Criminal Court has descended into “gangland behavior,” said Dan Zamansky in Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel). Guided by prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan, the court last week issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes in Gaza—“crimes fully equivalent to those committed by the Nazis against the Jews.” Khan began this grotesque vendetta shortly after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, slaughtering more than 1,100 people and dragging scores of civilians back to Gaza as hostages. In the entire year since the massacre, Khan has managed to avoid condemning Hamas for terrorism. Yet just six weeks into a…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024NotedDonald Trump is the first president-elect to not sign an ethics agreement that limits donor contributions to his presidential transition team in exchange for federal funding. Because no agreement is in place, donors—including foreign nationals—can give unlimited amounts to Trump’s incoming administration without public disclosure.The Guardian About two-thirds of workers who pick fruits and vegetables and spread pesticides on U.S. crop farms are migrants, and 42 percent aren’t authorized to work here, according to a Labor Department report. “Without us,” said an undocumented mother of four who picks crops for about $24,000 a year, “the food would rot.”The Wall Street Journal Donald Trump is selling guitars. In a Truth Social post last week, the president-elect unveiled limited-edition, eagle-adorned “Make America Great Again” guitars in acoustic ($1,250) and electric ($1,500) models,…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Trump’s Cabinet: An assault on MeTooDonald Trump’s election victory is ushering in a major MeToo backlash, said Emma Gray in The Guardian. “A known sexual abuser is re-entering the Oval Office,” and he is bringing “powerful predators” along with him. Trump has been accused by 28 women of sexual misconduct, and was found liable by a jury last year for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll. He’s nominated a Cabinet filled with people accused of similar abuses. Pete Hegseth (nominated as defense secretary), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (health), and failed attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz have been credibly accused of rape or assault. Trump’s Department of Education pick, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, was sued last month for allegedly enabling her ringside announcer to sexually abuse children for years. “Alleged sexual…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024AI: What if ‘bigger’ doesn’t mean ‘smarter’?AI confidence in “bigger is better” is already hitting a wall, said Scott Rosenberg and Alison Snyder in Axios. Some OpenAI employees say that the company’s next flagship model, called Orion, “will not improve on its predecessor GPT-4 as impressively as GPT-4 excelled over GPT-3.” Google and competitor Anthropic have also “encountered setbacks and delays in efforts to advance” their next generation of models. These stumbles raise questions about AI companies’ $200 billion scaling strategy, which up to this point has been “assemble mountains of chips and data, make tomorrow’s large language models even larger, and watch the technology advance.” Just two years after ChatGPT was released, AI models “have already been fed most of the quality data that’s available,” forcing the industry to begin scrambling for “alternative techniques to…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Mapping the body, one cell at a timeA groundbreaking initiative to map all 37 trillion cells in the human body is reshaping how we understand biology, reports BBC.com. Scientists had previously identified some 200 types of cells in the human body, including specialized heart, muscle, and nerve cells. But the Human Cell Atlas project has now revealed that there are thousands more cell types—and that subtle mutations in them may be the cause of many diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease and cystic fibrosis. Launched in 2016, the joint scientific venture is one of the most ambitious in biology: More than 3,600 scientists across 100 countries are performing deep analysis on over 100 million cells taken from 10,000 people. Their discoveries include a detailed map of the gut, from the mouth to the anus via the esophagus, stomach,…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024How chatbots beat doctorsChatbots appear to be more successful than human doctors at correctly diagnosing patients. Hoping to demonstrate that artificial intelligence could be helpful to physicians, researchers set up a study in which 50 doctors were given an hour to diagnose six real-life cases. Half the group were given their usual resources—such as an online database of clinical information—and half were told they could use OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The AI-assisted group did slightly better, with a median score of 76 percent compared with 74 percent for those using conventional resources. But when ChatGPT diagnosed the cases on its own, it beat both groups, with a median score of about 90 percent. Co-author Ethan Goh, from the Stanford School of Medicine, says the findings highlight not just the chatbot’s superior performance but also the…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Herscht 07769(New Directions, $17)“The best new novel I have read this year is written in a single sentence that sprawls over 400 pages,” said Jacob Brogan in The Washington Post. The latest offering from “Hungarian genius” Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Herscht 07769 takes its title from the surname and postcode of its protagonist, Florian Herscht, a simple-minded German who has begun writing long missives to his country’s prime minister to warn her of a coming apocalypse that he believes is predicted by quantum physics. Though the novel’s text has only one final period, it “pulls you straight along,” wrapping you in Florian’s mindset as he realizes far too late that he’s been associating with violent neo-Nazis. Because Krasznahorkai has always written formally challenging fiction, said Garth Risk Hallberg in The New York Times,…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Also of interest…in power shiftsCitizenby Bill Clinton (Knopf, $38)While “well-written and worth the read,” Bill Clinton’s new memoir is “not nearly as self-critical as I would have hoped,” said Wendy Kaur in The Globe and Mail (Canada). Judging by this 400-page account of his life and work since he left the White House, “he either doesn’t truly see his part in his personal and presidential mistakes—or chooses not to.” While he willingly points out his 1990s failings, “he neglects to connect any lessons learned to the world as it is now.”Dawn’s Early Lightby Kevin Roberts (Broadside, $32)Conservatives want to burn down many of America’s great institutions, and there is “no more explicit account of this program” than Dawn’s Early Light, said Freddie Hayward in The New Statesman (U.K.). Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage…2 min
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Page 6243 – Christianity TodayThe Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The $6 million banana“It’s beyond wrong, it’s immoral,” but it is also true that on Nov. 20, a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $6.2 million at a New York City art auction, said Haim Bishara in Hyperallergic. As an editor at an art publication, I witnessed the bidding on Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, and as the price rose, “I felt sick to my stomach.” Five years ago, when the work was first displayed at Art Basel Miami Beach, it was “hailed as a brilliant critique of the art market’s grotesque detachment from any economic reason.” Three editions sold back then, topping out at $150,000. But Cattelan “swims in the same swamp as those he pretends to parody,” and “the second the work became a personal investment asset, it lost any shred of…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Small ChangesThe title of Michael Kiwanuka’s Small Changes may be slightly understated, said Mike DeWald in Riff. “Some fairly significant changes” inform the singer-songwriter’s fourth album, including the pandemic, the births of two children, and his decision to leave his native London for the Southampton countryside. The result is “a clear-eyed collection of sweet and sultry, blues-tinged soul.” Once again teamed with producers Danger Mouse and Inflo, who helmed the artist’s prize–winning Kiwanuka, he “benefits from immaculate arrangements and studio work.” Kiwanuka, now 37, “has always been confessional,” but that strain of his music “now comes with life experience,” said Tom Doyle in Mojo. “We can be solid but barely make a dent,” he sings in the gorgeous opener, “Floating Parade,” which describes his desire to stifle crippling anxiety by losing…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Now playing: This year’s early holiday filmsThe biggest holiday movie of this Christmas season is “a Yuletide misfire that lands like a lump of coal,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. “A big-budget, CGI-heavy adventure that blends ’90s action with corny Christmas humor,” Red One will be easy to find in theaters, but shouldn’t be anyone’s first choice. Its Santa is a gym rat who runs a high-tech North Pole operation, and when the big guy is kidnapped, it falls to his head of security, played by Dwayne Johnson, to team up with a miscreant hacker (Chris Evans) to save the day. Because every story element feels borrowed, the movie will never be a home classic. By next year, though, “it may serve a valuable purpose: boring eager-to-stay-awake children to sleep.” Whether you’ll be more…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The StickyMaple syrup and murder don’t often go together. Unless, of course, you’re in Canada. Echoes of Fargo enliven this darkly funny series loosely based on the 2012 Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist, in which $18 million worth of tree-extracted gold was stolen from Quebec’s strategic syrup reserves. Margo Martindale steps confidently out of the character actor shadows into the spotlight as a maple syrup farmer pushed to her brink after bureaucrats shut down her farm. Her plot to strike back gets sticky when the Boston mobster she teams with goes rogue. With Jamie Lee Curtis in a juicy guest role. Friday, Dec. 6, Prime…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Wine: Costco’s treasuresI could point you to a boxed wine sold at Costco that’s undrinkable, said Dave McIntyre in The Washington Post. But some of the warehouse grocery chain’s private-label wines are not—like the $5 pinot grigio I’d gladly serve as my “house white”—merely solid bargains. I rate the three bottles below as better than excellent.2021 Kirkland Toscana ($15). Produced by a winery near the Tuscan coast, this sangiovese blend exhibits “savory cocoa-dusted cherry flavors” and “impressive depth for the price.”2020 Kirkland Barolo ($20). A good Barolo at $35 would be a bargain. This astonishing value delivers what you want from nebbiolo: “The aromas and flavors are earthy, mushroomy—and the finish lingers.”Kirkland Champagne Brut ($20). “Arguably the best value in champagne,” this “quite decent” bubbly will ably answer the call anytime you…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Getting the flavor of…The Adirondack Rail Trail“The first thing to know about the new Adirondack Rail Trail: It smells amazing,” said Diane Bair and Pamela Wright in The Boston Globe. The scent of warm pines, autumn leaves, and freshwater lakes is “more intoxicating than anything concocted in a Paris perfumery.” The reclaimed railway line will soon cover 34 miles, from New York’s Lake Placid to Tupper Lake, and it now covers 25 miles in two stretches. Avid bikers have long pedaled off-road here, but a gentle grade makes the path accessible to all riders. We rented e-bikes from Bike Lake Placid and spent two days on the trail, which “winds past wetlands and woodlands, lakes, and ponds, with a backdrop of mountains.” We overnighted at two circa-1920s hotels, the Grand Adirondack and Hotel…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The bottom lineU.S. imports of goods reached $3.1 trillion in 2023, up from $2.3 trillion in 2017. Last year, products coming from China made up 14 percent of all imported goods, the lowest share in nearly two decades. Mexico (15.4 percent) took its place as the biggest source of U.S. imports, with Canada (13.6 percent) not far behind.The Wall Street Journal The national average cost for a 16-pound turkey was down 6 percent from 2023 to $25.67, or $1.68 per pound, despite reduced supply. Farmers raised about 205 million turkeys in 2024, the lowest number since 1985. Overall, the price of a Thanksgiving dinner is still up 19 percent since 2019.CNBC.com The index of consumer sentiment in Republican households climbed more than 15 points in November, according to the University of Michigan,…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Turning a teen job into $8 billionPeter Cancro bought his first sandwich shop at age 17, then turned it into a business that he just sold for $8 billion, said Dylan Sloan in Bloomberg. Cancro, the founder and chief executive of Jersey Mike’s, said last week that the company was selling a majority stake to Blackstone “in a deal valuing the restaurant chain at about $8 billion.” Cancro, whose net worth is now roughly $7 billion, has vaulted into the ranks of the world’s 500 richest people. And he still doesn’t have a college degree. “Cancro started working at what was then called Mike’s Subs in Point Pleasant, N.J.,” as a 14-year-old in 1971. When the store was put up for sale three years later, he pulled together $125,000 with the help of his football coach.…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Charity of the weekIn 2006, hedge-fund analyst and Harvard graduate Salman Khan, who had been tutoring his younger cousin remotely, began posting educational videos explaining math concepts on YouTube. His channel took off, and became the seed of Khan Academy (khanacademy.org). The nonprofit now offers more than 700 online academic courses in more than 36 languages at levels from kindergarten through early college, providing free education in math, reading, science, history, and more to learners anywhere in the world. For older independent learners, they offer computer programming, financial literacy, and test prep courses for the SAT, MCAT, and LSAT. Their course library includes step-by-step tutorials, 12,000 videos, and more than 81,000 practice questions. More than 11 million users—35 percent located outside the U.S.—watch Khan Academy’s lessons on a monthly basis.Each charity we feature…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Automakers fear an EV upheavalCoral Davenport and Jack EwingThe New York TimesEven automakers don’t want Donald Trump to tear up the EV road map, said Coral Davenport and Jack Ewing. The president-elect campaigned on a pledge to reverse President Biden’s rules for reducing tailpipe emissions and ramping up the adoption of electric vehicles, calling them an unpopular “mandate” designed to stop Americans buying gas-powered cars. Trump has also targeted the $7,500 EV tax credit provided by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. But his plans will encounter resistance from an unlikely group. Most automakers “don’t love the more stringent rules Biden put in place,” but they crave “stability and predictability” even more. Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis have collectively invested $146 billion over the past three years “in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of EVs,”…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The teen who became a Resistance heroineMadeleine Riffaud was hurtled into the French Resistance by a kick from a German officer. In 1940, the 17-year-old was traveling with her grandfather in northern France when the officer’s boot in her backside sent her face-first into a gutter. Her humiliation quickly turned to anger, and she joined Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (Snipers and Partisans), the most Communist-leaning of the French guerrilla groups battling the Nazi occupiers. At 19, she volunteered for a mission to kill a Nazi in retaliation for the massacre of a French village. Bicycling along the Seine in Paris, she came upon a German officer and dropped him with two shots to the head. She was immediately captured and tortured by the Gestapo for weeks—beaten, waterboarded, and given electric shocks—but eventually escaped from a train as…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Trump fills out Cabinet with loyalists and billionairesWhat happenedPresident-elect Donald Trump completed his top Cabinet nominations this week, with a flurry of picks issued at record speed that veered from highly qualified institutionalists to outsider MAGA loyalists. None carried the shock value of early selections such as former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who last week took himself out of contention for attorney general (see Controversy, p.6). The GOP bomb thrower had faced scrutiny in the Senate over accusations of illegal drug use and the sex trafficking of an underage girl, allegations Gaetz denies. Within hours of Gaetz’s exit, Trump announced a new nominee for the post: former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi. A defense lawyer in his first impeachment trial and chair of a Trump-aligned think tank, Bondi has called special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s…4 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024It wasn’t all badScott Wardle, a United Airlines pilot, was flying from Houston to Phoenix in September when a passenger’s medical emergency forced him to land in Albuquerque. He expected to take off again quickly, but the plane’s flight attendants had worked overtime and couldn’t fly the next leg. Since it was dinnertime, Wardle decided to buy dozens of pizzas at the airport food court for the 155 passengers while waiting for the new crew. He even served them himself. “We had to do something to show we care,” Wardle said. When Earl Guynes was 22 and working in an auto body shop, he grabbed the chance to buy a blue 1967 Chevy Camaro with white stripes that he knew immediately was a classic. Not long after, in 1982, he was married with…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Good week/bad weekStudy aids, after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, told a podcaster that he did “very, very poorly in school until I started doing narcotics.” After discovering heroin, explained Kennedy, “suddenly I could sit still, and I could read, and I could concentrate.”Second acts, after former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who last week withdrew from consideration to be Trump’s attorney general amid sexual misconduct allegations, set up shop on the Cameo social platform, selling “pep talks” and personalized greetings for only $550 per 90-second video.Italian food, after British nano-engineers created the world’s skinniest spaghetti. Each strand is 372 nanometers wide, thinner than some wavelengths of light. “I don’t think it’s useful as pasta, sadly,” said researcher Gareth Williams, “as it would overcook…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The world at a glancePontypridd, U.K.Deadly floods: Storm Bert dumped a month’s worth of rain in 48 hours on parts of Wales, England, and Scotland last week, lashing the region with winds of 75 miles an hour and killing at least five people. In Pontypridd, north of Cardiff, the River Taff poured over its banks, turning roads into streams and forcing residents to bail out their houses with buckets. Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Conservatives in the Welsh parliament, criticized Britain’s national weather service for issuing only a yellow storm warning instead of a more dire red. Britain’s Meteorological Office said Storm Bert was “well forecast, 48 hours in advance” and that the alert for Wales was explicit: “fast-flowing or deep floodwater possible, causing a danger to life.”Bucharest, RomaniaFar-right shocker: A far-right candidate…7 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Anderson’s rural idyllPamela Anderson is finally living the life she’s always longed for, said Charlotte Ivers in The Times (U.K.). In her 20s, she found fame as a Playboy model, which led to a breakout role as a swimsuit-clad lifeguard on the hit 1990s show Baywatch. What followed was pure tabloid fodder: A sex tape with her then-husband, rock drummer Tommy Lee, was leaked. He was later jailed for assaulting her, and she would marry five more times. Through it all, she kept up her sex-bomb image—but that wasn’t the real her. “I created this character to cover up a lot of my disappointment,” Anderson says. Growing up in British Columbia, she was sexually abused by a babysitter, raped at 12, and gang-raped by a boyfriend and his friends at 14. Now…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Forgetting that vaccines save livesSarah ZhangThe Atlantic“For most of human history, half of all children died before reaching age 15,” said Sarah Zhang. That number is down to 4 percent globally, and much lower in developed countries, largely because of vaccines. Infectious diseases that used to seriously sicken or kill children, including diphtheria, smallpox, polio, whooping cough, measles, and meningitis, have been nearly eliminated thanks to vaccination. “But the success of vaccines has also allowed for a modern amnesia about the level of past human suffering.” That’s enabled anti-vaccine quacks like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to make parents more afraid of the shots than the diseases their kids aren’t getting. If the Senate approves RFK Jr.’s nomination to head the federal Department of Health and Human Services, it will normalize the anti-vaccine movement, and…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Viewpoint“Donald Trump has completed the most impressive act of political resurrection in American history, one that makes Richard Nixon’s 1968 return look trivial. The Trump campaign’s victory this year was a landmark—and not just because Trump managed to win despite his behavior and the events that have surrounded him since the last election. The campaign was remarkable also because of its breadth. It produced an increasingly multiracial party now reoriented toward working-class economic and cultural concerns, whose constituents are bound together in their skepticism of elites, all by the force of Trump’s success. If anything, his skills are underrated.”Jeffrey Blehar in National Review…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024For Americans, Britain is a cheap colonyMelissa Lawford and Lucy BurtonThe Sunday TelegraphDecades ago, U.S. companies rushed to outsource everything from call centers to factory jobs to places like India and Vietnam, said Melissa Lawford and Lucy Burton. Now, they’re increasingly turning to Britain. The rise of remote working, an advantageous time zone, and—above all—lower pay have made the U.K. the “perfect hunting ground for American companies looking for cheap, well-educated labor.” Last year, the average salary in the U.S. was more than $69,000; the U.K. equivalent was $44,000. So why would a U.S. firm hire an American IT director, say, when a U.K. one would offer the same expertise and would cost so much less? Nearly one in six jobs advertised on LinkedIn in the U.K. are now listed by U.S.-headquartered firms—30 percent more than…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024How America’s madness will infect usRaywat DeonandanOttawa CitizenRobert F. Kennedy Jr.’s quackery will make people sick on both sides of the border, said Raywat Deonandan. Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary is an “anti-vaccine zealot” who insists that “Wi-Fi radiation causes autism” and that AIDS results not from HIV but “the gay lifestyle.” His anti-vax lies fueled a 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa that killed 83 people—most of them children. If confirmed to the Cabinet, the ivermectin-popping RFK Jr. will likely demand “dramatic changes in funded research priorities and slowdowns to vaccine licensing.” And that will hurt Canada, because our Institutes of Health Research moves in lockstep with the U.S. National Institutes of Health. “But RFK Jr.’s biggest impact will be cultural.” He will normalize “anti-evidence pseudoscience”—homeopathy, urine therapy,…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Media: Morning Joe’s Mar-a-Lago summitMorning Joe “has got to go,” said Austin Sarat in Salon. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski stunned viewers of their MSNBC show last week by announcing they’d traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with President-elect Donald Trump and “restart communications.” That’s right, they made a pilgrimage to the man they repeatedly likened on air to Hitler and warned would “imprison and execute” his enemies. The “astounding hypocrisy” of the pair’s about-face will only feed “the Trumpian narrative” that the media can’t be trusted. “What’s worse, they may have done it to save their own skin,” said Richard Stellar in The Wrap. According to media reports, the married couple were afraid of retribution, specifically that Trump could order federal prosecutors to re-examine the bogus conspiracy theory that, in 2001, then Rep. Scarborough…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Trump: Can he claim a ‘mandate’?Donald Trump “legitimately has plenty to brag about” from his 2024 election performance, said Peter Baker in The New York Times. But “good is never good enough” for Trump, who proclaimed after winning the popular vote and 312 electoral votes that Americans had given him “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” Republican lawmakers eagerly hopped on the “mandate” bandwagon, with Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso hailing Trump’s “huge landslide” and Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas arguing that his colleagues must now embrace “every single word” of Trump’s agenda. But as final ballots were counted, Trump’s popular-vote margin dropped to 1.6 percent, “one of the smallest margins since the 19th century.” He even fell short of a majority, with 49.86 percent of the vote, while Kamala Harris’ 48.26 percent surpasses Trump’s share in…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Innovation of the weekOregon is experimenting with a way to harness wave energy to power homes and businesses, said Sarah Raza in The Washington Post. PacWave, a project of Oregon State University, has set up the first test site for “wave energy converters” in the continental United States. A flotilla of “buoy-like contraptions” seven miles out in the Pacific will soon “be plugged in” to a mass of subsea cables “like extension cords.” A variety of wave-energy converters will be tested—some fully submerged, and others that “move up and down with the waves.” The hope is to generate enough power for thousands of homes, and test methods for harnessing wave energy that is conceivably massive enough to “power one-third of all the nation’s homes.”…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Did NASA kill Martian life?In the hunt for microbial life on Mars, NASA scientists may have inadvertently killed some of it. That’s the unorthodox theory of astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch, reports Popular Mechanics. When two landers from the Viking 1 spacecraft touched down on Mars in 1976, their onboard laboratories found potential signs of microbial activity in soil samples. Everyone got excited for a little while, but scientists have since concluded that those findings were simply the result of contamination. Now Schulze-Makuch, from the University of Berlin, says there may be an alternative explanation. The lander’s instruments used water to examine the samples, in the assumption that Martian life—like earthly life—would thrive in the presence of liquid water. Yet Mars is vastly drier than Earth. Any microbes that evolved there would probably act more like…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024A saber-toothed kittenRussian prospectors looking for mammoth tusks in eastern Siberia have discovered the first-ever mummy of a saber-toothed cat. Thawing permafrost has released the mummified remains of all sorts of animals from the Pleistocene Era 30,000 years ago, including mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, wolverines, and cave lions. The new find is a cub from the lion-size Homotherium genus, the last of the saber-toothed cats. It’s the first time in 28,000 years that humans have seen a saber-toothed cat in the flesh. While some features, such as the kitten’s powerful neck, confirm what paleontologists had theorized from looking at fossilized bones, other traits came as a surprise: The cub had light-colored tufts of hair near its mouth, suggesting early feline sideburns or beards. And its paws had square pads, unlike the rounded ones…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Cher: The Memoir, Part One(Dey Street, $36)You can hear Cher’s voice in every line of her new memoir, said Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic. “A bracing read, peppered with caustic quips and self-effacing anecdotes,” it documents the inception, from birth through 1980, of a cultural icon we have now adored for nearly 60 years. “Cher has come to stand for a brassy, strutting kind of survival, and on this front her memoir is awash in insight and rich in details.” Born in 1946 to a mother who was an aspiring actress and a heroin-addicted father who’d soon flee, Cherilyn Sarkisian was stashed for several months in an orphanage, then grew up amid a parade of stepfathers. To Cher, the kindest of them was also such a mean drunk that she writes of him, “I…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Emmanuel CarrèreThe esteemed French writer Emmanuel Carrère is “unapologetically self-involved,” said Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times. In his latest book, V13, a firsthand chronicle of the largest terrorist trial in French history, the author asks early on, “Why inflict this on myself?” On the night of Friday, Nov. 13, 2015, terrorists in Paris had killed 130 people in a series of coordinated bomb and assault-rifle attacks. But while you could argue that Carrère should have had the humility to keep himself out of the story of the trial, he has always used his interest in his own feelings to better understand others—in this case, the defendants, lawyers, parents of the deceased, and all other material participants in the grueling, sometimes gruesome, 10-month trial. “I consider myself a portraitist. And…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024GNXKendrick Lamar’s surprise drop of GNX last week was a sign of greatness, “the kind that hits the earth like a meteor,” said Tom Breihan in Stereogum. The album captures Lamar in absolute “cobra mode,” poised to pump venom into all who suggest they’re in his league. The Pulitzer Prize–winning rapper has been creating stop-the-world moments all year, beginning with the “unforgettable spectacle” of his diss-track feud with Drake. That dustup yielded the No. 1 Billboard hit “Not Like Us” and an invite to play the Super Bowl halftime show. Yet GNX is no victory lap. “It’s driven by pride, spite, fury, disgust.” Lamar could have capped his 2024 run with something more mainstream, said Dimas Sanfiorenzo and Will Schube in Complex. Instead, he’s focused on greater Los Angeles with…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024WickedDirected by Jon M. Chu (PG)An outsider dreams of reaching the Emerald City.Though it’s only Part 1 of a planned pair of movies, Wicked is “about as good as musical adaptations get,” said Ty Burr in The Washington Post. “An overstuffed piece of Turkish delight,” the film version of the hit Broadway show “looks like a bajillion dollars,” with garish production numbers, songs that blend “Sondheim-ian cleverness” with “Webber-ovian schmaltz,” and a star who lends depth to the entire spectacle. Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba, the green-skinned future Wicked Witch of the West, who’s presented here, as in the novel that launched the franchise, as the most misunderstood character in Oz. Though the film eventually reaches the Emerald City, it focuses on a college rivalry that turns—not fully sensibly—into a friendship.…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Streaming tipsJim Gaffigan: The SkinnyThe coolest clean comic around is back, and he’s a bit slimmer. Gaffigan returns to the stage down two pants sizes and 50 pounds, so naturally, jokes about weight are in the repertoire, as are some hilarious new observations about family life. HuluJames Acaster: Hecklers WelcomeBritish comedian Acaster puts his love/hate relationship with performance to the test in his latest routine, establishing a set of ground rules that promote unrequited heckling. It’s a risky gamble that pays off in big laughs. MaxFortune Feimster: Crushing ItFortune Feimster’s third Netflix comedy special is full of uproarious bits about her marriage to her wife, Jax, from tales of their honeymoon to an unexpected display of jealousy by Feimster’s mother. NetflixAdrienne Iapalucci: The Dark QueenThe former Last Comic Standing contestant is…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Gingerbread layer cake: As regal as its mascarpone crownGingerbread isn’t just for holiday cookies, said Samantha Seneviratne in The New York Times. This moist and gently spiced cake would be delicious on its own. When it’s slathered with its creamy mascarpone frosting, “it becomes divine,” the cake and frosting each “cutting the richness of the other in just the right way.”Be sure to use regular molasses rather than blackstrap molasses, which is too strong for most baking and would result in a dense, unpleasant cake. If you don’t have mascarpone, a slightly tangy cream cheese frosting would also work well, so a recipe for one is included here.Gingerbread layer cake with mascarpone cream¾ cup/180 ml vegetable oil, plus more for pan2¼ cups/288 grams all-purpose flour2 tsp ground ginger1½ tsp ground cinnamon1½ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt¾ tsp baking…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024This week’s dream: Tulum and its many surprises“Reports of Tulum becoming a tropical Williamsburg have been greatly exaggerated,” said Matt Kirouac in Thrillist. Though the Yucatán Peninsula beach town has been transformed in places by a building boom and an influx of dance-party revelers and social media influencers, it’s still tiny compared with Cancún, and offers “more Zen vibes, chicer restaurants,” and plenty of tasteful boutique hotels that are “the antithesis of theme park–size resorts.” Better yet, it still holds many surprises “for newcomers and repeat visitors alike.”The quickest way to immerse yourself in Tulum’s natural and historic wonders is to book a tour of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve. The 2,000-square-mile UNESCO World Heritage Site includes scattered Mayan ruins that are temporarily closed to the public. But sustainable-minded Mexico Kan Tours offers highly informative jaunts that…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The new rules on airline refundsIf your flight is canceled or delayed, new Department of Transportation rules may ease some of the stress, said Christopher Muther in The Boston Globe. For decades, reimbursements seemed to be at the whim of the airline, but as of Oct. 28, “getting a refund got a lot simpler.” Carriers must now provide automatic refunds if a flight is canceled or is subject to a “significantly change,” even if bad weather is the cause. The airlines may offer credits, vouchers, or miles as alternatives, but you’re entitled to cash or a credit-card refund within seven days, including for fees on upgrades or luggage. One caveat: You don’t get a refund if the airline books you a new flight or you accept any other form of compensation.…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Treasury: Bessent choice reassures Wall StreetThere is a “collective sigh of relief coming from Wall Street” over Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, said Sam Sutton in Politico. After some unorthodox selections for other Cabinet posts, Trump settled this week on the “more traditional candidate,” hedge-fund executive Scott Bessent, “for his administration’s most powerful economic post.” Bessent, once the chief investor for George Soros’ fund, is viewed as “a realist who will understand how policy shifts might ripple across markets and the global economy.” He will have his work cut out for him. Trump has pledged “to cut taxes, impose tariffs, and unlock economic growth by boosting domestic energy production and slashing regulations,” while not causing inflation or interest rates to spike.Bessent is “a legendary stock trader who understands financial markets,” said The Wall Street…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Tariff Man: Trump threatens a trade warDonald Trump signaled this week that he’s serious about upending “a global trading system that he believes costs the U.S. dearly,” said Jason Douglas in The Wall Street Journal—and he’s happy to hurt adversaries and allies along the way. In a Truth Social post, Trump announced plans to levy “tariffs of 25 percent on imports of all goods from Mexico and Canada, accusing both countries of facilitating illegal immigration and fentanyl abuse,” as well as an extra 10 percent tariff on all goods coming in from China. After a campaign in which Trump advocated tariffs as high as 60 percent on China, the announcement of levies targeting our near neighbors—Mexico is America’s biggest source of imports, Canada the third-biggest—raises the question of “whether the threats are a negotiating ploy to…3 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024What next?As Trump plots to remove checks on presidential power, he’s hatching “plans to try to assert his power over government funding,” said Bryan Metzger in Business Insider. He wants to use a tactic called “impoundment,” which involves “simply refusing to spend money that Congress has already approved.” After President Richard Nixon refused to spend budgeted funds on programs he opposed, Congress in 1974 passed a law requiring the president to spend appropriated money unless he gets congressional approval not to. But Trump has called that law unconstitutional, and vowed to challenge it in court. The issue could “spark a constitutional clash over the balance of power in Washington,” said Chris Megerian in the Associated Press. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, budget-slashing DOGE advisers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Senate Republicans: A check on Trump’s power?“The first step of defiance is the hardest,” said William Kristol in The Bulwark. And “Senate Republicans just took it” by rejecting Donald Trump’s initial pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz. The scandal-hit former Florida congressman announced last week that he was withdrawing from consideration for the role, saying he didn’t want to be a “distraction” for the president-elect. The truth is that Gaetz, faced with detailed accusations that he had used illegal drugs, paid women for sex, and had sex with an underage girl, lacked the votes to be confirmed. At least four Republican senators in the next Congress were “hard Nos”—Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and John Curtis of Utah—enough to sink him in a 53-seat majority. So much for Trump’s…3 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024In other newsBiden proposes expanded coverage for anti-obesity medsThe Biden administration announced plans this week to have popular weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy covered by Medicare and Medicaid, a proposal Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra called “a game changer” in the fight against obesity. The plan—which would apply only to people who are obese—would expand coverage of the medications to 7.5 million Americans, and cost the federal government $36 billion over the next decade. But health advocates say the change could save the government billions on treatments for obesity-related conditions. The proposal sets up a fight with the incoming Donald Trump administration, which must finalize the plan. Trump’s pick to lead Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., argues that weight-loss drugs mask the root causes of…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Why Hall regrets speaking outRebecca Hall is done apologizing for Woody Allen, said Eva Wiseman in The Guardian. The British actress scored one of her first big parts in the director’s 2008 movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. A decade later, she took a small part in Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York—just as the #MeToo movement was exploding and just as Allen’s daughter, Dylan Farrow, was reviving accusations that he’d sexually assaulted her as a child. In every interview, Hall was asked about the allegations. “I was in a tangle,” says the actress, 42. In that moment, “it’s the most important thing to believe the women.” Hall released a statement saying she regretted taking the role, and pledged her pay to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. But now, six years later, she’s not…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024In the newsEllen DeGeneres and her actress wife, Portia de Rossi, have fled Donald Trump’s America. DeGeneres endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in August and donated at least $3,300 to the Democrat’s campaign. But the TV host and her spouse felt “very disillusioned” after Harris’ defeat, sources told TMZ last week, and decided “to get the hell out” of the U.S. The two have now settled in England’s posh, rural Cotswolds region—also home to David and Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, and Stella McCartney—and are planning to list their home in Montecito, Calif., for sale. They recently sold their mansion in nearby Carpinteria for $96 million. DeGeneres may have had few reasons to remain in the U.S.: She has spoken of being “kicked out of show business” after reports of toxic workplace behavior…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Voters resent the elites,not the richNoah SmithNoahpinion.blogMany Democrats are blaming their crushing loss to Donald Trump on the party’s failure to appeal to working-class voters, said Noah Smith. Sen. Bernie Sanders said the party must embrace “economic justice” if it’s to win elections again. But “class politics is unlikely to succeed where identity politics failed” for the simple reason that “Americans simply lack a clear idea of who the ‘working class’ actually is.” In our country, “cultural and social issues often take precedence over pocketbook concerns.” The “real class distinction” today is education level. Many Americans who identify as working class feel alienated from the progressive culture and attitudes of highly educated urban professionals—people who use terms like “cisgender,” “heteronormative,” and “cultural appropriation.” President Biden actually “did a huge amount of pro-worker policy,” with strong…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024It must be true…A man was arrested at the airport in Lima, Peru, when he tried to leave the country with 320 tarantulas, 110 centipedes, and nine bullet ants strapped to his torso. Police stopped the 28-year-old South Korean after noting his stomach looked “bulky,” officials said. When he lifted his shirt, it revealed hundreds of arachnids, arthropods, and insects in Ziplock bags, taped together and belted around his abdomen. Extracted from the Amazon, the critters “are part of illegal wildlife trafficking worth millions of dollars globally,” said a government wildlife official. An Indian family staged a lavish funeral ceremony to bury their 12-year-old Suzuki SUV, attended by some 1,500 mourners. Family patriarch Sanjay Polara, owner of a construction business, said he wanted to honor a “lucky” vehicle that “brought prosperity to the…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Spain: A dirty cop reveals the threat of cartel corruptionThere was nothing flashy about Chief Inspector Óscar Sánchez Gil, said Patricia Peiró and Óscar López-Fonseca in El País (Spain). He drove a boring sedan to his job as head of the Economic and Tax Crimes Unit that investigates money laundering. Colleagues knew him as a “discreet, quiet” cop who had won medals for a string of accomplishments since joining the national police force in 2007. That’s why few could believe it when, this month, police raided his home not far from Madrid, “knocking open walls and ceilings” and lifting a trap door in the basement to reveal $21 million stashed in neat packs of 50- and 500-euro bills. More stacks of cash were later discovered hidden in his office and his beach house, as well as a $300,000 Lamborghini…3 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024A mandate can be a tricky thingRajpal AbeynayakeSunday ObserverThe results of Sri Lanka’s snap election were “extreme”—in a good way, said Rajpal Abeynayake. The National People’s Power (NPP) coalition of the new, Marxist-leaning president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, dominated, going from just three parliamentary seats to 159, a two-thirds majority. How did it do that? Parliamentary elections were held just two months after the presidential vote, a historically swift turnaround that let NPP capitalize on its momentum. As this victory may have been “a quirk of circumstances,” the coalition should act with humility—and remember that overreach has been “the kiss of death” for many a president. When Mahinda Rajapaksa used his 2010 supermajority “to amend the constitution, lifting presidential term limits,” his party was trounced a few years later. Gotabaya Rajapaksa won a supermajority in 2020 only…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024McMahon: Will she dismantle the DOE?Teachers are rightly “flipping out” over Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary, said Michael Mechanic in Mother Jones. Linda McMahon, a major GOP donor and former pro-wrestling exec, has “scant education experience” beyond a teaching certificate she earned in college and a semester spent as a student teacher. Recently, a lawsuit accused McMahon, 76, of enabling the sexual abuse of young boys by a World Wrestling Entertainment employee in the 1980s; she calls the allegations false. But none of this is likely to trouble the incoming GOP Senate majority. They’ll almost certainly confirm McMahon to head the Department of Education because she supports the conservative goal of expanding school vouchers—in other words, draining taxpayer funds from public schools and redirecting that money to unaccountable private ones. Trump’s plans for McMahon…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Bytes: What’s new in techHow secrecy permeates GoogleGoogle has spent 15 years creating “a culture of concealment,” said David Streitfeld in The New York Times. The search giant has faced three antitrust trials over the last year, and “the judges in all three” have “chastised the company for its communications practices.” Some of the conflict relates to Google’s 2008 decision to make “off the record” the default setting for the company’s instant-messaging tool, meaning the chat history was automatically deleted. Google has assiduously stuck with that policy for years. A 2011 internal memo titled “Antitrust Basics for Search Team” also discouraged employees from using “metaphors involving wars or sports, winning or losing” in their messages. And Google encouraged employees to put “attorney-client privileged” on documents and to always cc a Google lawyer on emails.…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Why Grandma loves the internetThe links between the internet and poor mental health in teens are well documented, but a new study suggests that it’s a very different story for seniors. Looking at survey data from 90,000 adults in 23 countries, researchers found that compared with those who rarely or never went online, people ages 50 and over who frequently used the internet were happier. They had a 9 percent reduction in depressive symptom scores, a 7 percent increase in life satisfaction scores, and a 15 percent rise in health scores. The researchers acknowledge that those who were mentally healthier to start with may have been more likely to go online, but say that being a daily internet user still appears to contribute to improved well-being. Study leader Qingpeng Zhang, of City University of…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024We Who Wrestle With God: Perceptions of the Divine(Portfolio, $35)Jordan Peterson’s new book is simply unreadable, said James Marriott in The Times (U.K.). “Repetitive, rambling, hectoring, and mad,” We Who Wrestle With God will be a best-seller in the U.S., but it suggests that the divisive author of 12 Rules for Life has drifted into a line of thinking that’s “unignorably zany.” Peterson, a former University of Toronto psychology professor, built his enormous following among young men by promoting a get-tough brand of self-help and by displaying “courageous opposition to the excesses of progressive politics.” But his tedious, 500-page new offering dives into Bible study mostly to provide him a chance to list how many of the figures and motifs in Genesis and Exodus recur in literature and pop culture, from Goethe to Disney’s Aladdin. He argues that…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Best books…chosen by Niall WilliamsIrish novelist Niall Williams is the best-selling author of Four Letters of Love, History of the Rain, and This Is Happiness. His widely acclaimed new novel, Time of the Child, tells of a Christmas season that transformed one small Irish town.Station Island by Seamus Heaney (1984). Seamus’ are the books most taken down from the shelf. There are three sections to Station Island, but it’s the 33-page title poem that seems to me a masterpiece. It is a narrative sequence, both confessional and dramatic, and has the questing urgency of all pilgrimages to arrive at a place of peace.The World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry (2017). This is a collection of essays from 1968 to 2011, written with Berry’s signature grace and gravitas. Each piece stakes out its ground with authority…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Death Becomes HerLunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York CityWhen you’re adapting a cult 1992 film comedy for a Broadway stage, it helps when your co-stars are both “comic divas of the first order,” said Helen Shaw in The New Yorker. Stepping into the roles played by Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard play homicidal frenemies who separately purchase a potion that promises eternal youth and proceed to inflict “Looney Tunes–level damage” on each other, requiring frequent patch-up jobs from the cosmetic surgeon they’re battling over. “Hilty is basically playing Miss Piggy in Mae West mode,” which works nicely, while Simard turns in a “no-holds-barred” physical performance that evokes both Bernadette Peters and Kate McKinnon.“And what fine musical material they have to work with,” said Greg Evans in Deadline. The show’s…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Nobody Loves You More“A decade and more in the making, Kim Deal’s first solo album under her own name more than repays the wait,” said Kitty Empire in The Guardian. On Nobody Loves You More, the 63-year-old former Pixies bassist and Breeders frontwoman “distills her strengths into a tight 11 tracks that span heartbreak, good times, and strident guitars.” Renowned for stripped-down, frequently distorted arrangements, Deal reveals a pair of late-career surprises with the title track’s pristine strings and the horns that punctuate “Coast.” Those textures are new to Deal’s repertoire, but she has always had “an audiophile’s obsession with detail and the spaces between instruments.” In recent years, Deal lost both parents and longtime collaborator Steve Albini, who engineered eight of these new songs before his death in May, said Ben Salmon…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024QueerDirected by Luca Guadagnino (R)A gay junkie yearns for true love.“You think heroin is hard to kick? Try detoxing from true love,” said David Fear in Rolling Stone. That’s what life is like for the dissolute sexual adventurer played by Daniel Craig in Queer, a “steamy, swooning” adaptation of an autobiographical novel that William S. Burroughs wrote in the early 1950s. Craig plays Burroughs’ stand-in, William Lee, a middle-aged drug addict in 1940s Mexico City who passes his days cruising for young male lovers until he falls hard for one of his targets. While the sex scenes are explicit, the vulnerability Craig shows is more shocking. “It’s the role of a lifetime,” and the former James Bond “holds nothing back.” Drew Starkey plays the collegiate younger man with “just the…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The Week’s guide to what’s worth watchingStar Wars: Skeleton CrewThe kids are in the cockpit of the newest Star Wars spin-off, which follows four adventure-seeking youngsters who are shot into hyperspace after stumbling upon a lost Jedi temple in the woods. The kids find themselves in a galaxy far, far away, encountering pirates, monsters, and other threats as they seek to make their way back home with the help of Jod, a character who may or may not be a Jedi and who’s played by Jude Law. Tuesday, Dec. 3, Disney+That ChristmasAnyone who’s been waiting years for a repeat-worthy new animated Christmas movie should queue up this heartwarming and hectic comedy from Love Actually director Richard Curtis. Based on Curtis’ recent trilogy of holiday picture books, it focuses on a small town where the Christmas plans…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024America’s best new bars: A varied top five for 2024Because innovations spread so quickly in today’s bar industry, “a steady rise in cocktail quality” has lately been accompanied by “a palpable rise in sameness,” said the editors of Punch. But not at these five standout new bars, which all “break from the expected.”Bar Contra New York City Dave Arnold, “the godfather of the high-concept cocktail,” goes low-key at his new Lower East Side establishment, combining bar food that’s refined but playful with cocktails that are discreetly labor-intensive. The “sour-like” Sagittarius B2, for example, is made using a centrifuge and a hydraulic press. 138 Orchard St.Cobra Columbus, Ohio A “studied nonchalance” is part of the appeal at Cobra, which took over a Panera Bread space, painted the ceiling black, and started serving dan-dan noodles and other comfort dishes alongside cocktails…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024QuercusGay, Ga.At Quercus, “white-tail deer are everywhere, eagles soar overhead, and the low mooing of cows is often the only sound you hear,” said Lisa Cericola in Southern Living. Located on a bucolic stretch of the Flint River, this unusual 3,800-acre retreat is a working ranch and farm with four secluded guesthouses plus a restaurant that “rivals anything you’d find in nearby Atlanta.” Because each of the guesthouses is grandly appointed with original art and family heirlooms, “it’s tempting to stay inside.” Exploring the property, however, is “an essential part of the experience,” and you do so while horseback riding, quail hunting, kayaking, or bass fishing.worldofquercus.com, from $1,350 a night…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024This week: Homes in Montana1 Big Sky This two-bedroom log cabin stands on 5.38 pine-clad acres along the Gallatin River, 15 minutes from Big Sky Ski and Summer Resort. The renovated 1995 house has a vaulted living area with wide-plank floors, linear gas fireplace, chef’s kitchen with waterfall cooktop island, windowed breakfast nook, and glass accordion door to the riverside deck. Outside are a hot tub, firepit, and garage topped by a one-bedroom apartment. $5,950,000. Eric Becker, Big Sky Sotheby’s International Realty, (406) 539-62912 Bozeman From its cul-de-sac in the Bridger Range, this 2005 contemporary farmhouse has direct access to the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center and national-forest trails. The four-bedroom home features heated Brazilian cherry floors throughout, double-height ceilings, balconies with mountain views, open living and dining rooms and gourmet kitchen, and a lower…3 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024Culture wars: Walmart cuts DEI, pride programsWalmart is “joining a growing list of businesses retreating from DEI programs targeted by conservative activists,” said Jeff Green and Jaewon Kang in Bloomberg. Walmart said this week it will stop participating in rankings from the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign; will end its funding for the Center for Racial Equity, a nonprofit initiative that Walmart has backed with $100 million; and will prevent LGBTQ-themed merchandise from being marketed to children on its website. Walmart’s changes came after anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck said in a video “that he had threatened Walmart with a campaign to lead a customer boycott just days before Black Friday.”Toxic waste: Tesla, SpaceX cited for violationsElon Musk promises a future of reduced pollution, but his companies constantly run afoul of environmental rules, said Susan Pulliam…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024What the experts sayBrokerages add 24-hour tradingThe trading day is now stretching to 24 hours even for ordinary investors, said Krystal Hur in The Wall Street Journal. “Since Robinhood and Interactive Brokers unveiled overnight trading in single stocks last year,” other platforms—including Charles Schwab, Firstrade, and Webull—have expanded their offerings beyond the traditional trading day and the “extended hours” window that now regularly goes to 8 p.m. Proponents note that the markets for cryptocurrency never sleep and extending the windows for other assets lets investors “react faster to news.” The rise of trading communities on sites like Reddit has also “allowed Americans to be plugged into the market like never before.” Late-night trading comes with some risks for investors, though. Thinner volumes of activity “can leave markets vulnerable to sharp price swings.” Living…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The U.S. is the world’s safe havenKatie MartinFinancial TimesFor investors, yet again, “there is no alternative to the United States,” said Katie Martin. In the zero-interest rate era, pre–inflation-era fund managers had no good options in the world but to buy U.S. stocks. For a brief period as interest rates and inflation rose, that seemed like it might have changed. But right now, the “case for U.S. stocks” appears “overwhelming.” This is despite “deep unease about what Donald Trump will do” to the credibility of critical U.S. institutions such as the Federal Reserve. But what other option is there? Europe poses no real challenge, and China “is already on the ropes” and will feel more pain from tariffs. We don’t know what the Trump administration will do to bonds, or the dollar, or even if the…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The publisher who opened travel to the massesArthur Frommer democratized overseas travel. Before he started publishing the guidebooks that would eventually sell a collective 75 million copies, only rich Americans took leisure trips to Europe—experiences that usually involved luxury hotels, servants carrying steamer trunks, and almost no interaction with locals. In fact, Frommer later recalled, travel agents told Americans that because of the devastation wrought by World War II, “it literally wasn’t safe to stay anywhere other than first-class hotels.” But during his military service in postwar Germany, Frommer traveled widely and discovered another side to Europe. In Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, published in 1957, he advised middle-class tourists to sleep in boarding houses and dine at lunch counters. Not only would they save money, he believed, they would connect with Europeans in a way…2 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The British guitarist who gave James Bond his musical themeAs a sought-after British session guitarist, Vic Flick played on Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” Peter and Gordon’s “A World Without Love,” and records by Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and Paul McCartney. Yet his best-known work wasn’t aimed at the pop charts, but at movie audiences. Called in to punch up the “James Bond Theme” for the 1962 movie Dr. No, Flick laid down a twangy, driving riff played on the guitar’s low strings that soon became as closely identified with Bond as his black tuxedo and shaken-not-stirred martini. “I’m proud to be associated with it,” said Flick, who earned the equivalent of $15 for the session and saw no royalties until decades later. “But at the time I had no idea that it was going to be like that.”Flick grew up…1 min
The Week Magazine|December 6, 2024The Week ContestThis week’s question: A German astrobiologist has theorized that a 1970s NASA mission intended to find microbial life on Mars may have accidentally drowned some of it. In seven or fewer words, come up with an apology message NASA could transmit into space if this killer theory turns out to be true.Last week’s contest: As part of its efforts to cut red tape, the Argentine government may soon scrap a 1974 law intended to protect children from turning into werewolves. If a U.S. lawmaker were to introduce a similar anti-werewolf measure in Congress, what should the bill be titled?THE WINNER: No Child Left Fur-LinedEric E. Wallace, Eagle, IdahoSECOND PLACE: The HOWL (Help Offset Werewolf Levels) ActTim Mistele, Coral Gables, Fla.THIRD PLACE: Don’t Say BayEmily Dentinger, PhiladelphiaFor runners-up and complete contest…1 min
