‘Your Day Will Come’ by Chanel Beads

★★★

“Of all the so-called ‘cloud rock’ bands dissolving the line between analog and digital, Chanel Beads have the most evocative melodies and moments of unlikely beauty,” said Kieran Press-Reynolds in Pitchfork. Or maybe we should credit Chanel Beads’ band, because Chanel Beads is also the stage name used by frontman Shane Lavers, who’s now put out a second album that bears the title of his group’s acclaimed 2024 debut. It’s another “nervy tangle of organic and digital sounds,” filled with songs that are “even more expressive, stricken, and achingly contradictory.” It also helps clarify how the New York City–based group, which includes multi-instrumentalist Maya McGrory and violinist Zachary Paul, leaped from playing clubs to opening for Lorde at arenas last fall. Though Lavers’ songs “have earworm qualities,” they “nevertheless unsettle,” said Grant Sharples in Paste. The song “Tyler Richard,” which references Lavers’ deceased brother, is a “pointed examination of grief and regret” that throws in a scream before settling back into a repeated piano figure and “luxe” strings. The music and Lavers’ impressions of the world feel “real and unreal at once.”

‘The Ground Above’ by Beth Orton

★★★★

“Death hangs over The Ground Above,” said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. “But for Beth Orton the inevitability of the end electrifies the present.” As she ponders mortality, the former darling of Britain’s trip-hop era continues a career resurgence that began with 2022’s Weather Alive. Acting as her own producer and working with musicians ranging from Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley to Smile drummer Tom Skinner, she’s evolved a plaintive, sprawling sound that recalls both 1980s Van Morrison and “the shadowy atmosphere of a Daniel Lanois production.” Her voice has evolved to match her somber themes, becoming “scuffed and battered” like Marianne Faithfull’s. “She stretches her breathy, cracked vocal style over songs about death, friendship, and other big themes that tend to become preoccupations in middle age,” said Will Hodgkinson in The Times (U.K.). On the album’s closer, “Otherside,” a sleepless Orton seeks clarity amid a blackbird’s morning call. She’s grateful for another day to set things right “as the track builds into a ‘Hey Jude’–like sing-along begging to be belted out in town squares the world over.”

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Fiona Sampson’s new book, Becoming George, is a biography of the cross-dressing 19th-century writer George Sand. Below, the award-winning poet and author of Two-Way Mirror, a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, recommends six other life stories.

‘How to End a Story’ by Helen Garner (2025)

Journal extracts from the Australian author create a compelling portrait of the nation’s counterculture, 1980s feminism, and, latterly, an abusive relationship with a fellow writer. But above all, this page-turner by one of today’s great nonfiction writers is alert to the glories and terrors of daily inner life. Buy it here.

‘The Years’ by Annie Ernaux (2008)

Not so much a group biography as the autobiography of the author’s generation, The Years examines the life choices, culture, and politics of France’s Baby Boomers. Ernaux, the surprise French Nobel winner, packs this absorbing panorama with domestic, academic, and pop-cultural details. Buy it here.

‘Come Back in September’ by Darryl Pinckney (2022)

Pinckney, writing like a gossipy angel, captures the fun and anxiety of a high-octane life at the heart of New York City’s literary village in the 1970s and ’80s. Come Back is both self-portrait of the artist as a young gay Black man, and a nuanced homage to his mentor, the novelist and critic Elizabeth Hardwick. Buy it here.

‘A Fortunate Man’ by John Berger and Jean Mohr (1967)

In 1966, writer John Berger and photographer Jean Mohr spent three months following a country doctor through picturesque landscapes made famous by Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” as the doctor ministered, often futilely, to the rural poor. Evocative images and writing lyrical with anger capture a lifetime’s devotion and its cost. The “fortunate man” went on to kill himself. Buy it here.

‘Hold Still’ by Sally Mann (2015)

It seems unjust that a photographer as visionary as Mann should also be able to write. But she truly can. This story of her emergence as a photographer—as well as a wife, mother, and farmer—always sends me running back to my desk. Buy it here.

‘Flush’ by Virginia Woolf (1933)

The evergreen Flush is a life portrait both of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and of her adored pet spaniel. Barrett Browning helped transform 19th-century verse, and as her biographer, I should probably mind this approach. But as a dog lover, I’m delighted. Buy it here.

‘Villa Coco’ by Andrew Sean Greer

Personal style that appears effortless often requires much invisible work, said Jacob Brogan in The Atlantic. “I thought about this distinction often while reading Andrew Sean Greer’s witty and, yes, stylish new novel.” The narrator, an American, is looking back on a sojourn in Tuscany when he was hired to work at the home of a scheming 92-year-old baronessa. But he also comes under the sway of other larger-than-life characters, including a male romantic interest, resulting in a “relentlessly charming” coming-of-age tale. Because Greer “has such a light touch,” the book “reads like a grand adventure, not a lesson,” said Chris Hewitt in The Minnesota Star Tribune. Perhaps because the Pulitzer-winning author of 2017’s Less has earned the privilege, Villa Coco “has the summery feel of someone writing whatever he feels like writing.” I have zero complaints—“other than that I wish it were longer.”

‘Rasputin Swims the Potomac’ by Ben Fountain

“Is it even possible to write a satirical novel about American politics anymore?” asked Laura Miller in Slate. If so, Ben Fountain, the author of the Iraq War–era send-up Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, “is a good candidate to try.” This time out, Fountain gives us a U.S. president who could only be Donald Trump plotting to win an unconstitutional third term by tapping as his running mate a wrestler named Rasputin. But a billionaire cabal prefers Rasputin at the top of the ticket, and as the drama levels up, Fountain’s prose “fizzes with a Dickensian color that makes the novel a blast to read.” A novel that also features a likable reality TV star turned White House staffer, a reporter named Clarence Thomas Jr., and a weeping epidemic is “a lot, for sure,” said Michael Schaub in the Los Angeles Times. “But Fountain pulls it off with his gleefully absurd sense of humor.”

‘Dolly All the Time’ by Annabel Monaghan

“Romance readers have found their book of the summer,” said Kimberly Ramirez in Los Angeles magazine. “A radiant and tension-filled love story,” Annabel Monaghan’s latest best seller revolves around a single mom and kindergarten teacher who’s pushing 40 when she returns to her Rhode Island hometown for the warmer months and agrees to a wealthy heir’s suggestion that she pose as his girlfriend. Because Dolly prizes her independence and they both have family burdens, the novel develops into a “gripping” read “packed with passion and doubt.” When the pair strike their deal, “only the truly inattentive will be shocked that complications ensue,” said Joanne Kaufman in The Wall Street Journal. That’s fine, because “the settings—sailboats, lush gardens, elegant townhouses—couldn’t be lovelier,” and resourceful Dolly “deserves every nice thing that seems to be coming her way.”

‘The Children’ by Melissa Albert

“Contemporary fantasy could certainly do with more sophisticated takes on the genre like this one,” said Jessie Lethaby in The Times (U.K.). Melissa Albert’s first foray into adult fiction hooks the reader from the moment it introduces its protagonist, Guinevere, a woman who was made famous as a child by her mother’s fantasy novels and is now releasing a dishonestly rosy memoir about her upbringing. Albert takes too long to bring the story to resolution, but as The Children advances along three timelines, there’s no denying “the sheer pleasure” of the reading experience. All along, you wonder how the fire started that killed Guinevere’s parents, said Lucy Rees in the Chicago Review of Books, and why she and her artist brother have long been estranged. “The answers converge with the meeting of the timelines in a sequence of pages so dazzling I had to take breaks to seep in the complexities.”

‘Pool House’ by Mary H.K. Choi

“Brace for the kind of heartbreak reserved for mothers and daughters who have more in common than they care to admit,” said Elisabeth Egan in The New York Times. When a former TV actor dies by suicide, his beautiful Korean American co-star and Stevie, her 20-year-old daughter, open their L.A. home to another of the show’s co-stars, who, to Stevie, is both a brother figure and a longtime crush. The house is unaffordable. Stevie wants out but can’t escape her mother’s orbit. And the domestic drama that then unfolds feels “unexpectedly perilous.” In reality, Stevie and her mom have been renting out their home and living in its pool house, said P. Claire Dodson in Vogue. As Choi tracks this unusual Hollywood trio, “Choi writes like she’s inviting you inside the joke, to the blood and sweat that make up the fame machine and the lives within it.”

‘The Shampoo Effect’ by Jenny Jackson

In her “deeply satisfying” new rom-com, Jenny Jackson “flips the usual romance novel progression of initial friction-laced attraction that melts into undeniable love,” said Carol Iaciofano Aucoin in WBUR.org. Caroline, a New York City–based writer, and Van, an environmental scientist, hook up shortly after Caroline arrives in a Massachusetts shore town, and the suspense lies in whether the pair will be torn apart, particularly after Van learns that he’s impregnated a member of his tight local friend group. The scandal, the sex, and the coastal setting “make for a perfect summer beach read,” said Julia Vitale in Air Mail. After all the complications, The Shampoo Effect emerges as “a breezy, fun novel whose ending is tied with a neat bow, as all endings of books read between Memorial Day and Labor Day should be.”

Google’s alliance with the film studio A24 shows how AI companies are “deepening their influence in Hollywood,” said John Semley in Wired. The tech giant’s artificial intelligence lab, DeepMind, last month announced a $75 million “research partnership” with A24, the indie studio behind critically acclaimed films such as Moonlight, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and this year’s horror megahit Backrooms. The studio says it will lean on Google’s AI expertise “to learn, iterate, and build” new tools “and workflows.” But it’s one in a “line of controversial marriages between Silicon Valley and Hollywood” that has made viewers and craftspeople uneasy. Nearly 1,000 actors, agents, and parents last week signed an open letter protesting a new clause in Hasbro’s contracts with child actors on the animated kids’ series Peppa Pig that asks them to hand over rights to their voices for AI cloning. Fans of A24, which has a reputation as a bastion for “serious artists,” are also worried that the tie-up with Google will introduce more “AI slop.”

Film lovers shouldn’t be concerned, said Brian Welk in IndieWire. This is not an “IP deal nor a data-training deal,” like the Lionsgate partnership with Runway or Disney’s stake in OpenAI. It’s a logical attempt by A24 to understand how these new tools can “support filmmakers when they are designed from the start to serve creative vision.”

AI on its own hasn’t produced anything “people would pay to see,” said Charles Pulliam-Moore in The Verge. Rather, human artists are starting to test how they “can leverage the technology in compelling ways.” Dear Upstairs Neighbors, an animated film written and directed by Pixar veteran Connie Qin He, was originally conceived on paper using acrylics. But Google AI brought it to life and further enhanced it “with stylized assets” that turned out to be very successful. AI is everywhere in Hollywood, said Jake Kanter in Deadline, you just don’t know it. It’s being used surreptitiously “to smooth rough edges, alter dialogue, and polish visual effects,” akin to cosmetic surgery. Producers are “terrified of audience and industry backlash.” But if the technology “is genuinely helping creatives make better movies,” then audiences should be educated about how it’s used.

The fact is that Hollywood doesn’t yet have a grip on its feelings about AI, said Aaron Pruner in CNET. Some industry legends like Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino “look down” on the technology. Others like Martin Scorsese are embracing it. There are “very real concerns that AI will make” many Hollywood careers obsolete, and that “stress is palpable.” But not everyone has given up hope that “strong and unique storytelling” can still “cut through the slop.” Better to “get familiar with the tools,” because “AI is obviously here to stay.”

Christopher Donahue was “one of the military’s superstars,” said Max Boot in The Washington Post. The four-star general led Delta Force, the Army’s top special-ops unit, commanded the 18th Airborne Corps, and rose to Army commander in Europe and Africa. Revered by soldiers and fellow officers, he fought ISIS in Iraq and Syria and helped Ukraine beat back the Russians. “Without a doubt,” he’s the Army’s “most experienced warfighter,” said retired Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli. But Donahue, 56, was forced last month into early retirement by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, making him the “latest casualty of the secretary’s insidious purge of the senior ranks.” Hegseth has removed at least two dozen respected admirals and generals and blocked promotions for dozens more, disproportionately targeting women and Black officers. Senior commanders can be relieved for cause, but “what’s unnerving” about these ousters is the lack of any “public explanation.”

Some of Hegseth’s “animus” toward Donahue may stem from the 2021 fall of Kabul, said Aaron MacLean in The Free Press. As 82nd Airborne commander, Donahue was the last U.S. soldier out of Afghanistan, and Hegseth has decreed that heads should roll for our chaotic departure. But blaming Donahue, who arrived to help impose order only after scenes of desperate Afghans swarming military cargo planes “shocked the world,” is “like blaming the fire department for starting the fire.” Canning Donahue defies Hegseth’s own metrics, said Mike Nelson in The Dispatch. He claims to want to rid the Army of “woke” distractions and focus on “lethality,” but is instead removing the battle-hardened commanders who have “the vision, skills, and excellence he claims are a priority.” Perhaps these warfighters are “a threat to his frail ego.”

Hegseth’s critics see an unsettling “agenda” at work, said Michael R. Gordon and Lara Seligman in The Wall Street Journal: “squeezing out officers with valor and command experience for less accomplished political loyalists.” The campaign “has unsettled military officers up and down the ranks who fear retaliation for expressing the wrong political opinion.” All Americans should be alarmed, said David French in The New York Times. The Trump administration is pushing the military to the breaking point with its failed war against Iran, potential war crimes in the Caribbean, and purge of officers. The institution can hold because its commitment to integrity, while not perfect, runs deep. But it “cannot hold forever.”

So it isn’t just a New York thing, said Eliza Collins in The Wall Street Journal. Last week in Colorado, Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), defeated 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette, 68, in a Democratic primary to represent the deep-blue Denver area. The win by Kiros, who most recently worked as a barista while studying for a Ph.D., is “the latest advance for a socialist groundswell that is forcing a reckoning for Democrats.” DSA candidates swept primary races in New York City last month, and insurgent leftists are now eyeing wins in the upcoming Michigan Senate primary, where progressive Abdul El-Sayed leads the polls, and the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary. The Democratic establishment fears this Tea Party–like rebellion could cost them the midterms, because DSA policies—rent freezes, abolishing ICE, ending U.S. aid to Israel—could repel moderates in November. For now, centrist Democrats are talking tough, said Andrew Howard in Politico. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has downplayed the significance of “a handful of primaries,” while 15 moderate House Democrats and candidates signed a letter reaffirming their commitment to “growth, competition, and broad prosperity.’” But in private they’re “freaking out” that “the Left’s winning streak is potentially just starting.”

Republicans can’t believe their luck, said Jonah Goldberg in The Dispatch. They’ve long caricatured Democrats as anti-American communists. But in a truly “crazy” figure like Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of the New York DSA-ers now headed to Congress, they’ve been gifted that “caricature made flesh.” Avila Chevalier has denounced relationships between minority men and “ugly [white] colonizer women”; attended a pro-Hamas rally the day after Palestinian terrorists massacred Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023; and wants to abolish prisons, preferring to send murderers back to their “community.” Kiros is similarly extreme: She refuses to describe last year’s deadly firebomb attack on pro-Israel protesters in Boulder, Colo., as antisemitic. To call the DSA a “hate group” is not hyperbole, said Noah Rothman in National Review. And while its venom is right now focused on Jews—or “Zionists,” in members’ preferred euphemism—ultimately “what it hates is America.”

Focusing on the DSA misses what’s really going on with Democrats, said Nia-Malika Henderson in Bloomberg. Yes, the party’s voters are “fed up” with its graying leaders, whom they blame for not blocking Trump’s second-term agenda. But that doesn’t mean they want “socialism.” Voters’ overriding hunger is for young, authentic “anti-candidates” willing to fight Trump head-on. In progressive areas like New York City, that translates to wins for the DSA. But in deep-red Texas, voters rejected a progressive and chose young moderate James Talarico as their Senate candidate. The DSA’s rise shows Democrats need to embrace a “bolder, less cautious approach” to politics, not necessarily “move further left.”

Voters aren’t electing socialists because they dislike President Trump, said Harold Meyerson in Prospect. They’re electing socialists because working Americans are being ground down by the cost of gas, housing, and health care, and because they’re tired of watching the “Barons of Silicon Valley” game politics to expand their fortunes and lower their tax bills. Democrats shouldn’t embrace every radical policy of every DSA firebrand. But you’d think a party that’s been fretting for a decade about how to win back the votes of working people would recognize the DSA’s rise as a sign of what needs to happen for Democrats to “return to power and hold it.”

What happened

Overturning a 91-year precedent, the Supreme Court last week handed President Trump sweeping authority to control previously independent agencies—all except the Federal Reserve. In Trump v. Slaughter, the six conservative justices ruled that Trump was empowered to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a federal trade commissioner, last year because her views didn’t align with the White House’s agenda. The decision guts the precedent set by the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor decision, which held that Congress could limit the president’s ability to remove certain federal agency officials without cause. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that because the FTC “unquestionably exercises executive power,” it “must therefore be controlled by the chief executive.” In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling gave the president “power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.”

In a separate case, though, the court made the Federal Reserve exempt from that new presidential power. Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in Trump v. Cook to rule that Trump overreached when he tried to fire Lisa Cook, a Fed governor, after accusing her of mortgage fraud. Roberts wrote that the Fed was different from other federal agencies because it was “uniquely structured” to maintain independence, and that the president must present legitimate cause before removing a Fed governor. Trump said he would begin that process “immediately” so he could proceed with ousting Cook. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, meanwhile, was skeptical of the Fed carve-out. “The court’s holding is in serious tension with Trump v. Slaughter,” she wrote in her dissent. “Might history sanction other exceptions too?”

What the columnists said

The Roberts court just took a “wrecking ball” to the separation of powers with Slaughter, said Alexis Romero in Slate. Now not just the FTC but dozens of other federal agencies designed by Congress to be insulated from partisan politics are “fully under Trump’s thumb.” You can bet a newly empowered Trump “will begin to make Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre look like a normal weekday.” He’s now free to retaliate against any agency leader who dares to investigate him for a violation of the law, refuses to attack his political rivals, or pushes back against attempts to manipulate elections. “This is the world the Supreme Court has created.”

The ruling “invites presidential abuse,” said Victoria Nourse in The Economist. Trump can now pressure leaders at the SEC or the National Labor Relations Board to ignore wrongdoing by his cronies. He can lean on the National Transportation Safety Board or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to waive safety requirements for his friends’ companies. At the Federal Election Commission, he could replace commissioners with “loyalists who deny that he lost the 2020 election.” He may not even need to fire people: Just “the threat may be enough.”

Yet it “may be premature” to declare the death of agencies’ independence, said Ilya Somin in Reason. That’s because Slaughter and Cook, as Barrett noted, appear completely incompatible. Sure, “central bank independence is a long-standing tradition,” but “the same is true of many other independent agencies.” More exceptions could follow. The two rulings are at odds because Slaughter “is good law and good policy,” said National Review in an editorial, and Cook is a mess. “If the president controls the executive branch, and doesn’t control the Fed, then what is the Fed?” It’s not a legislature and it’s not a court. “The Constitution doesn’t mention a fourth branch. But now we have one.”

It’s no surprise Roberts and Kavanaugh are willing to shield the Fed but not the other agencies, said Elie Mystal in The Nation. They “didn’t feel like crashing the global economy and tanking their 401(k)s.” Most federal agencies are there to protect the little guy the justices don’t care about: The FTC goes to bat for consumers, the NLRB for employees. The Fed, though, “protects the monetary policy that capitalists rely on to make their billions.”

The conservative justices are unruffled by this obvious double standard, said Zack Beauchamp in Vox. They consistently rule that their “own policy preferences are constitutionally mandated” while those they disagree with get extra scrutiny. The result is that the president has “an electoral dictatorship” in areas where the justices agree with him. Everywhere else, “the court sets policy.”

What happened

The Supreme Court last week struck down President Trump’s attempt to radically curtail birthright citizenship, a policy pursued by Trump for more than a decade, but greenlit other major elements of his hard-line immigration agenda. In a 6-3 vote, the court ruled against an executive order signed by Trump on the first day of his second term, which declared that future children born in the U.S. to undocumented migrants and most visa holders would not be considered citizens. Conservative justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals in declaring that the order violates the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which grants citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the order was constitutional but violated federal law. In a 91-page dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the 14th Amendment was intended only to grant equal rights to freed slaves; Justice Samuel Alito called the ruling a “mistake that will seriously affect the country’s future.”

Days earlier, the court ruled the administration could strip Temporary Protected Status from more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, setting the stage for mass deportations. That status lets migrants live and work in the U.S. if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to war or natural disasters. The administration tried to end TPS for both groups last year, drawing lawsuits that argued it had not followed proper procedures and was motivated by racial animus. In a 6-3 vote, the conservative majority said the TPS statute bars courts from reviewing the administration’s actions; on the discrimination issue, Alito wrote there was “insufficient” reason to believe Trump—who has said Haitian migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the U.S.—was driven by racism.

The ruling sowed panic among Haitians and Syrians in the U.S. Many people deported to gang-violence-wracked Haiti “are going to needlessly die,” said Geoff Pipoly, an attorney for the Haitian plaintiffs. Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine urged the Trump administration to reconsider, saying his state would lose valuable workers in manufacturing and especially health care. White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration crackdown, dismissed such concerns, saying if he had “a loved one in the hospital” he’d want “a licensed American nurse, not the illegal alien from Haiti.”

What the editorials said

The birthright decision was “a welcome, necessary defeat” for Trump, said the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. But the court “could have reached no other logical result.” The 14th Amendment is crystal clear: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” are U.S. citizens. But that win “doesn’t ease the human tragedy” of the TPS decision, which will allow a president driven by “seething racial bigotry” to uproot people who’ve worked and raised families here—forcing them back to places the State Department deems unsafe.

We oppose ejecting immigrants “who have put down roots and contribute to the country,” said The Wall Street Journal. But this was “an open and shut case.” The TPS law Congress passed in 1990 says there will be “no judicial review” of the administration’s determination of whether a country’s citizens qualify for the program, even if there are “procedural errors.” Justices’ job is “to interpret the law as written, not to impose their policy preferences.”

What the columnists said

Haitian communities “from Florida to Ohio” are bracing for what comes next, said Maria Sacchetti and Lauren Kaori Gurley in The Washington Post. Distraught immigrants “began making plans to sell or rent their homes, secure bank accounts, and figure out thorny issues like child-custody arrangements.” Factory and nursing-home owners steeled for the loss of key workers, and longtime residents reeled at the thought of being forced back to “conflict-ridden homelands they barely know.” It’s “the sickest and most evil thing somebody could do,” said Harlaine, a 38-year-old Florida nurse who left Haiti at age 7.

It’s also rank racism, said Adam Serwer in The Atlantic, and it’s astounding Alito would claim otherwise. Administration officials “have made no secret of their desire to purge the United States of nonwhite immigrants.” In her forceful dissent, Justice Elena Kagan cited Trump’s own words: that immigrants have “bad genes,” that Haitians “all have AIDS” and eat household pets, that America doesn’t take in enough “people from Norway and Sweden.” All this damning evidence was presented to the court, “yet the right-wing majority shrugged it off.”

While he’s faced the occasional setback, Trump is “winning the immigration wars,” said Adrian Carrasquillo in The Bulwark. In a second ruling last week, the court ruled that the administration can block asylum applications from outside the U.S., further limiting the ways people fleeing violence and repression can enter the country. And now it has “license to take away in an instant” the legal status of 1.3 million people living under TPS, all of whom “followed the rules to get here.”

The birthright decision was “a relief,” said Mark Joseph Stern in Slate. But the fact that the ruling was 5-4 and not 9-0 is “nothing short of stunning.” To judge Trump’s order unconstitutional “is the only remotely plausible reading of the 14th Amendment and its historical record.” Yet four justices ruled otherwise. That “shocking development” should “upend all expectations that this court can be trusted” to protect “the most basic constitutional guarantees.” If Trump came within a single vote of rolling back a constitutional amendment, then “everything is on the table.”

Round Hill, Va.

This 1950 dairy barn with a stone silo on 3 acres in the Stoneleigh community, about an hour from Washington, D.C., has been converted into a five-bedroom modern farmhouse.

The barn’s original wood structure forms vaulted ceilings over wood floors, a living room with a fireplace, and a mezzanine loft. The kitchen has soapstone counters and a walk-in pantry. Outside are a one-bedroom carriage house, run-in shed, and garage. $2,999,990. Nancy Bossard, Long & Foster McLean/Luxury Portfolio International, (703) 431-2940

Sonoma, Calif.

Dos Palmas, a barn restored in 2007, makes use of the original post-and-beam frame, which contrasts with steel, marble, brass, and walnut. The three-bedroom includes a loft with a fireplace, a modern kitchen, and a connected silo with a spiral staircase.

The nearly 3-acre lot features a guest house, pool, bocce court, and olive and fruit trees. Sonoma’s main plaza is about a 10-minute drive. $5,250,000. Erin Lail, Coldwell Banker Brokers of the Valley, (707) 333-5596

Glen Ellen, Calif.

This Australia-inspired farmhouse with a corrugated metal roof and a cupola is on more than 5 acres about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. Anchoring the home is a vaulted, wood-paneled great room with a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace; a lower level has a catering kitchen and a theater.

Sonoma Creek crosses the property, which also includes a two-bedroom cottage, a garage, and a tower with a studio and gym. $4,400,000. Wendy Storch, Sotheby’s International Realty—San Francisco Brokerage, (415) 519-6091

Kent, Conn.

On 11 acres in Litchfield County, this circa-1800 Greek Revival farmhouse is in a historic downtown along the Housatonic River. The renovated four-bedroom has a black-and-white diamond floor entry, a living room with built-ins, a wood-paneled dining room, and a chef’s kitchen with a Wolf range, a farmhouse sink, and quartz counters.

The property includes a covered porch, lawns, woods, a saltwater pool, and a barn from 1862. $2,595,000. Jeffrey Phillips, William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, (917) 284-8276

Minneapolis

In leafy Lowry Hill near the Lake of the Isles, this 2020 modern farmhouse has five bedrooms. The stylish contemporary includes oak herringbone floors, rustic wood beams, a kitchen with two islands and a teal walk-in pantry, arched doorways, hand-plastered walls, and a gym connected to the primary suite.

A lower level has a rec room and a sauna, and sliders open to a pool, spa, and lounge area. $4,500,000. Sheri Fine, Edina Realty/Luxury Portfolio International, (612) 720-2442

Upper Jay, N.Y.

In the Adirondacks near the Sentinel Range Wilderness Area, this updated 1880 four-bedroom is across from the Ausable River. The kitchen includes new flooring, a wood-paneled wall, exposed brick, open shelving, and an apron sink, while the living room has roofline windows and a woodstove.

The three-quarter-acre lot has a wraparound porch, a roomy yard, and a firepit area. Lake Placid’s dining and shops are about 20 minutes away. $539,000. Brenda Goulette, Engel & Völkers Lake Placid, (518) 637-1748

‘The Invite’

Directed by Olivia Wilde (R)

★★★

Olivia Wilde’s new comedy drama is “the kind of smart, well-crafted film for adults we are constantly complaining we don’t get enough of,” said Benjamin Lee in The Guardian. Wilde, in her third directorial offering, co-stars as a stay-at-home-mom who, to the consternation of her failed musician husband, Joe, has invited the freewheeling couple upstairs to dinner. With Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz filling out the cast, the charged get-together soon turns into “a night that Edward Albee would approve of,” except that this evening hits peak tension when the guests extend a surprise invitation to join them for a night of group sex.

Perhaps because it’s an adaptation of a 2016 Spanish play that has spawned overseas film versions, The Invite is “an American film that feels vaguely international,” said Matt Zoller Seitz in RogerEbert.com. Though the first half is overdirected to the point of being “irritating,” the showy camerawork fades away as the actors take over, creating a second half that’s “the best work Wilde has yet done as a director.” While all four actors excel, “it’s Rogen who’s the revelation,” said Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times. “His line readings fill out Joe’s backstory brilliantly, a guy who was always used to being rejected, somehow landed a girl way out of his league 20 years ago, and now is miserable that she doesn’t really want him anymore.” In this movie, relationships change because people change. “To me, that feels true.”

‘Minions & Monsters’

Directed by Pierre Coffin (PG)

★★★

Though they’re “one of the more enduring creations of 21st-century cinema,” the Minions “still get no respect,” said Scott Roxborough in The Hollywood Reporter. Maybe, though, this seventh film in the Despicable Me franchise will finally end a 16-year awards shutout, because it’s a love letter to cinema that argues, between its mile-a-minute gags, that the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time deserves a place in Hollywood’s canon. Minions & Monsters is “very much a film of two halves,” said Drew Taylor in The Wrap. In the first, a quick history tour revisits how bad Minions have been in their quest to find villains to serve, until one group lands in 1920s Hollywood and stumbles into stardom. A flurry of homages to Buster Keaton and other legends follows, until talkies arrive and put the gibberish-spouting Minions out of work.

The second half offers more-conventional Minion action, yet it “builds to an open-hearted tribute to the power of the communal moviegoing experience.” When two of the Minions start work on creating a monster movie using real monsters, this outing “does rather lose momentum,” said Guy Lodge in Variety. But as the film speeds toward a standard save-the-world climax, the latest Minions serves up the usual mayhem “with gusto and a delirious cartoon grin.” It’s “a clear peak for the series: a Minions movie with an actual idea at its core beyond general cheerful chaos.”

Who opposes data centers?

Most Americans. A recent Gallup poll found that 71% of voters, including 75% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans, don’t want a data center built in their area. Hostility to these artificial intelligence facilities is “the most bipartisan issue since beer,” Milwaukee-based comedian Charlie Berens said at a recent rally against a 700,000-square-foot Meta facility in Port Washington, Wis. Opponents of these warehouse-like complexes, which are filled with energy-hungry computer servers, are racking wins. At least 75 projects worth about $130 billion were blocked or canceled in the first three months of 2026. After a 247,000-square-foot data center was proposed in Monterey Park, Calif., voters there last month overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure permanently banning such projects. Theirs is the first U.S. city with such a prohibition, but at least 67 other towns have temporary bans. Politicians who support data centers are paying the price at the polls: Stuart Adams, president of Utah’s state senate, and two local commissioners lost their GOP primaries last week after helping to approve a 62-square-mile facility in northwestern Utah. “Everybody who touched the data center went down,” said Brenna Williams, an anti-data-center campaigner. “People just wanted to send a message.”

Why do people want to block these projects?

For some, it’s the vast amount of water and energy they use. Water is used to cool servers, which can get dangerously hot, and a large facility can guzzle up to 5 million gallons a day—about as much as a town of 50,000 people. In areas already struggling with drought, such as Utah, many residents fear the needs of data centers will be put before their own. Data centers also strain power grids. The nation’s more than 4,000 data centers now consume 6% of all U.S. electricity, up from 4% two years ago, and a single large-scale facility can use about 1 gigawatt of electricity, enough to power 750,000 homes. With data centers being built faster than new power sources are coming online, utility bills are rising fast. In states with a high concentration of data centers, such as Virginia, electricity prices have spiked 267% in five years. There are other concerns: the pollution pumped out by on-site generators, the constant hum of cooling systems, and the sheer size and ugliness of the buildings. Opposition to data centers is “rooted in the one thing that has always united Americans,” said Megan Mullin, a professor of public policy at UCLA: “Our deep affinity for where we live.”

What do AI firms say?

They argue that fears around water and energy use are overblown, and that data centers are a net gain for communities. The build-out of 3,000 planned facilities is expected to create 4.7 million temporary construction-related jobs, according to a Meta-backed policy group. It also projects that some 700,000 permanent jobs will be created to operate and manage those facilities. To reduce the environmental impact of their centers, firms including Microsoft and OpenAI have pledged to slash water use, and microchip makers such as Nvidia are designing more energy-efficient processors. But opposition to data centers is likely to remain intense.

Why is that?

Because that opposition is motivated in part by hostility to artificial intelligence. A June survey by consultancy Milltown Partners found only 8% of data center opponents actually live near a facility, and that 63% have a negative view of AI. That suggests data centers are a stand-in for anger at Big Tech and AI, which some industry leaders have warned could result in mass unemployment and—in a worst-case scenario—humanity’s extinction. The opposition “isn’t happening in a vacuum,” said Milltown’s Tom Brookes. “The AI transformation is arriving at a time when Americans already feel angry, insecure, and pessimistic.” In some cases, that anger is turning into violence. In April, an unknown attacker fired 13 shots into the home of an Indianapolis councilman who’d voted in favor of an AI facility, and left a note that read “No Data Centers.”

How are lawmakers responding to the backlash?

Some want a pause in construction. New York’s Democratic-led state legislature in May passed a one-year moratorium on new data centers; it has yet to be signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. In April, Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills vetoed similar legislation. The populist right is also pushing back on data centers, despite President Trump issuing an executive order last year to speed their construction. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in May barring utilities from shifting data center costs to ordinary ratepayers. And red-tape averse Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last month issued sweeping data center regulation recommendations for the state legislature to pass in its next session, including mandating “closed loop” cooling systems that reuse water and requiring new facilities to contribute to the state’s electricity supply.

Is a halt on construction likely?

No, because too many officials want a slice of the money being poured into the buildout; six Big Tech companies will spend an estimated $1 trillion on data centers in 2027. Few politicians on either the Left or Right have backed calls for a pause or a ban; more are pushing measures they claim will reduce the impact of data center development. Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is set to sign a tax on data center energy usage, capped at $600 million a year, while Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently paused tax breaks for AI facilities after a government report found they cost the state nearly $1.6 billion in lost revenue last year. But those measures won’t stop protests by anti-data-center campaigners, who are demanding a meaningful crackdown on the industry. “I’m frustrated,” said Annette Singh of Hilliard, Ohio, who says a huge new Amazon data center has ruined her once peaceful neighborhood. “I want better politicians.”

Refik Anadol isn’t just any artist, said Laura Hertzfeld in The Art Newspaper. He’s “a mad scientist who is translating one of the most complicated questions of our time—how we can use AI for human connection and deeper understanding—into a visceral experience.” At Dataland, a new Los Angeles attraction developed by Anadol and billed as the world’s first AI arts museum, the 40-year-old Turkish American innovator has created an immersive exhibit, “Machine Dreams: Rainforest,” that “captures something that has been lost in many museums’ experiments with new technology—a sense of joy.” Visitors entering the show don neck rings and wrist bands, the first to add the aromas of earth and flowers to the multi-sensory experience, the second to adjust the visual displays to each person’s emotional response. In the five galleries that lie ahead, digital data drawn from 16 rainforests produce ever-changing images set to orchestral music, creating an experience that’s “part science experiment, and part immersive theme park.”

“Dataland is an entertainment complex designed to astonish,” said R. Daniel Foster in Forbes. In the cavernous first gallery, “enormous flowers unfurl and sail away into fractals” while “light tunnels into new worlds” and “flocks of birds, if they are indeed birds, dive and soar.” The images are often realistic but sometimes “burst into fields of data,” as if the AI generator “has remembered that it is indeed not sentient.” Meanwhile, the “overwrought” orchestral music, blasted through 250 speakers spread throughout the show, “hits you from everywhere.” As a person who’s neurodivergent, said Julia Paskin in LAist, “I revel in sensory stimulation but can also find it overwhelming, even physically painful.” In that first gallery, “both experiences were true for me.” On the plus side, “it was the closest experience to being on a psychedelic you can get without consuming anything.”

Before visitors enter the show, they may experience shock at the ticket window, said Daniel Farr in the New York Post. Adult tickets start at $49 and reach $79 at peak times, making Dataland “one of the priciest museum experiences in Los Angeles.” But “if experiential spaces are the new films, then Dataland is Citizen Kane,” said Ann Hirsch in Artnet. A generative-art project Anadol installed in 2023 at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art was dismissed as a high-tech lava lamp, but this show “feels so real you could live inside it.” You might have questions about how your heart rate and skin temperature, as measured by your wristband, affect the images the AI generates from its data banks. But those questions don’t matter. “The data is neither the content nor the form; it’s the paint,” and Anadol has used that paint to create an incredible experience. “My 6-year-old left Dataland saying she wanted to go back every day. That may be the highest praise an artist can receive.”

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Deborah Lutz, a professor of Victorian literature and culture, is the author of six books, including The Brontë Cabinet and This Dark Night, a new biography of Emily Brontë. Below, Lutz recommends six books for lovers of biographies.

‘Virginia Woolf’ by Hermione Lee (1996)

Woolf composed her great modernist novels and her brilliant essays while troubled by suicidal thoughts and the tumult of two world wars. Lee’s portrait, searching and moving, first sparked my enthusiasm about biographies as histories of eras and of minds. Buy it here.

‘Survival Is a Promise’ by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (2024)

This book is a poetic love letter to writer, poet, philosopher, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde. Gumbs makes the case that Lorde’s community organizing, teaching, and radical feminist lesbianism had a cosmic reach. She convinced me. This book also sent me back to reading Lorde’s marvelous poetry. Buy it here.

‘The Brontës’ by Juliet Barker (1994)

A giant, door stopping account of an entire literary family, Barker’s book is a monumental achievement. But it is also riveting and tragic, telling of the passions, failures, and early deaths of the four Brontë siblings, with a specific focus on Emily and Charlotte, the authors of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Buy it here.

‘Margaret Fuller’ by Megan Marshall (2013)

Fuller, an early feminist, played a central role in many progressive movements in 19th century America, including abolition and prison reform. In this deeply researched and absorbing life story, Marshall places Fuller among the famous thinkers of her day and proves that Fuller should be as famous as they are. Buy it here.

‘Super-Infinite’ by Katherine Rundell (2022)

A short account of the life and times of the Elizabethan poet John Donne, Rundell’s book bristles with energy and vivid set pieces. She tells of his many lives—scholar, clergyman, diplomat, and adventurer—and carries the reader into the courts and brothels of London. Buy it here.

‘Jane Austen’ by Claire Tomalin (1997)

It is easy to imagine a dull biography of Austen, since, apart from writing her great novels, not much happened in her life. Brisk and amusing, Tomalin’s book contradicts such simplification. Reading about how Austen set about writing and publishing her novels is delightful. Austen’s witty letters take center stage. Buy it here.

‘Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith’ by JD Vance

“For its first 177 pages, JD Vance’s new book is a thoughtful read,” said Molly Olmstead in Slate. It begins roughly where Hillbilly Elegy, his breakthrough 2016 memoir, left off: with the 2005 death of the grandmother he called Mamaw. Vance, raised in the Pentecostal-evangelical tradition, had by then become, in his words, “an angry atheist.” In Communion, our vice president depicts his journey to converting to Catholicism in 2019 with real care. Then the account reaches the start of his political career, and “what happened here is clear”: He wrote that first part of this book before he decided in 2021 to run for a U.S. Senate seat. Vance suddenly begins trashing straw-men foes and weakly defending his flip-flop on Donald Trump, and it’s depressing because, until then, “you might have forgotten you were reading a book from the same Vance who supported Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s brutal crackdown in Minneapolis.”

He talks early on about the importance of being humble in the face of life’s complexity, said Barton Swaim in The Wall Street Journal. But by the book’s second half, “he has cast humility aside,” suggesting, among other things, that the government should do more to make businesses fairer and kinder. At one point, he falsely accuses a conservative policy analyst of prioritizing corporate profits over family, and his “egregious” misreading of her argument “typifies the low regard he has for people who profess views he dislikes.” His arrogance is such a feature of the thinking, said Alexandra Petri in The Atlantic, that his new book reads like an account of “how he finally decided that Catholicism met his exacting standards.” He has famously counseled the pope to “be careful when he talks about matters of theology,” and here he complains that Pope Leo XIV’s emissaries weren’t specific enough when they directly shared concerns with him about the Trump administration’s inhumane treatment of migrants. “What did they take issue with, exactly?” he writes.

Still, Vance’s book “offers a telling look into the movement he may try to reform,” said Christian Paz in Vox. “I found his faith journey moving,” and it tracks with that of many young men who, after becoming disillusioned by secular culture, find meaning in the millennia-old teachings and rituals of the Catholic Church. So far, though, he can’t square the cruel politics of the president he serves with the church’s teachings about how to turn faith into good works. Communion reads to me like a book by a man “who has a deeply anxious personality, carries serious real scars from his childhood, and doesn’t really know who he is even now,” said Michelle Cottle in The New York Times. Having found some answers in Catholicism, “he seems upset that he can’t find a way to map that onto the world.”

‘The Traveler: One Man’s Quest for Humanity From the South Seas to Revolutionary Paris’ by Andrea Wulf

“George Forster is one of the most fascinating figures you have probably never heard of,” said Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times. Fortunately, Andrea Wulf’s new book “thrillingly” resurrects the 18th-century polymath’s life story, recounting how he became famous by his early 20s as a traveler, scientist, and author who was ahead of his time in speaking out against racism and sexism. Born in 1754 in a Prussian village that’s now part of Poland, Forster was 10 when he began traveling with his father, a pastor and naturalist. By 17, young George was living in England and fluent in several languages when he joined Capt. James Cook’s second voyage to the South Seas. He shared his vivid observations in a remarkable 1777 book, and however forgotten he is today, “it is invigorating to read him observing, thinking, and enthusing on the page.”

Likewise, “it is unusual to devote almost half a biography to only three years of a subject’s life,” said Nick Bartlett in The Guardian. But that’s how crucial the Cook voyage was in shaping Forster’s unusual sociopolitical views. He was instantly appalled by how his fellow Europeans treated the Indigenous peoples they encountered, devoting his time to getting to know the targets of the bias. Transformed, Forster wrote about his findings in 1777’s A Voyage Round the World and for the remainder of his life railed in his writings against the racism he detected in the philosophical writings of Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Wulf came to know Forster’s mind so deeply that we follow his adventures “as if perched on his shoulder.”

“Forster was, on Wulf’s ample evidence, good to the core,” said John Banville in The Wall Street Journal. Life, though, was less kind in return. His father, who inspired his intellectual curiosity, was an irascible man who took more from George than he gave. Forster’s friends cuckolded him and his wife disdained him. Late in life, “Forster’s good sense deserted him,” as his enthusiasm for the French Revolution inspired him to openly back the Reign of Terror. He’d die in Paris of an illness at just 39. Still, “how many men of twice his age have lived a life so marvelous and rewarding?”

With its $22 billion deal to acquire Roku earlier this month, Fox suddenly became a “rather ferocious” player in “the next phase of the streaming wars,” said The Economist. Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media empire had been a “noncombatant” in the years-long melee, preferring to keep “its powder dry while companies such as Disney blew gazillions on building streaming services to compete with Netflix.” But it has been quietly amassing a substantial streaming portfolio, beginning in 2020 with Tubi—a free, ad-supported service now with as many viewers as Paramount and NBCUniversal’s Peacock—and launching Fox One last year. With Roku, which sells smart TVs and streaming hardware and software, and has its own streaming channel, Fox would become the third-largest streaming company behind YouTube and Netflix, commanding “11% of streaming viewership in America.”

Fox is finally looking beyond cable, said David Dayen in The American Prospect. Only 36% of households in the U.S. had linear TV in 2025, according to Pew Research Center data, down from 85% a decade ago. And only 16% of those cable subscribers are under 30. “It’s a matter of time” before these whole cable systems “are shut down.” Roku’s easy-to-use hardware has made it “essentially the cable box of the 21st century.” This deal gives Fox “control of that box.” We’ve hit “a turning point in the streaming wars,” said Sara Fischer in Axios, which is no longer a race to gather the most subscribers. It’s a race to see who has a bigger “competitive edge against Netflix.” For Fox, that means “bringing more eyeballs to its live programming” like news and sports, “and selling more digital TV ads.”

“What a shame,” said Devindra Hardawar in Engadget. Roku began as “an innovative streaming platform” that “pushed TVs to be smarter.” Now it’ll be just “another cog in the Murdoch empire,” soon to be “flooded with Fox News content and ads.” That it comes so shortly after Paramount, and its right-wing ownership, bought Warner Bros. Discovery is “yet another sign of media consolidation” that will “ultimately make our lives worse.”

This is Lachlan Murdoch’s biggest move since taking over from his 95-year-old father as Fox CEO in 2019, said Chris Hughes in Bloomberg. And it’s a risky gamble. Yes, he “had to do something sooner or later to address Fox’s reliance on legacy cable TV.” But this attempt “to future-proof Fox is looking incredibly expensive.” Fox offered $160 a share, “nearly 40% above Roku’s stock price.” That’s a $7 billion premium. “Cue a savage market reaction,” which slashed $4 billion off Fox’s valuation. Lachlan has spent the past couple years “tidying up his family’s messy ownership of the media empire,” which had lifted Fox’s stock price. We’ll have to wait and see if this “plot twist” pays off.

It could be the worst case yet in President Trump’s abuse of prosecutorial power to “bully his political rivals,” said Kim Wehle in The Bulwark. California Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed recently that he and his wife are being investigated by the Department of Justice. The investigations into a Trump foil and possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidate reveal “how bad things have gotten”—but Newsom is showing Americans “how to resist” Trump’s assault on the rule of law. He put the DOJ “on the defensive” by announcing its investigations himself and has filed a Freedom of Information request for documents related to two ongoing probes. “He’s coming after me because I am considering running for president,” Newsom said, adding that he is proud to join Trump’s “hit list.”

The governor’s claim of political persecution shows “savvy political skill,” but it may be misleading, said Nicole Russell in USA Today. According to the Los Angeles Times, federal prosecutors in California launched two investigations a year ago based on whistleblower tips. One investigation focused on Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, who recently pleaded guilty to fraud and false statements to the FBI; that case may now be expanded beyond her. The other probe apparently is focused on Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s finances and taxes. Her nonprofits have drawn public criticism for accepting donations from corporations that lobby her husband for favorable policies, and the governor has solicited $4.3 million in donations for a nonprofit she co-founded. But “martyrdom at the hands of a Republican plays well” in a Democratic presidential primary. In fact, Newsom “seemed almost happy to drop the news,” said Kimberley A. Strassel in The Wall Street Journal. California permits elected officials to solicit donations for nonprofits, called behested payments, and Newsom has approached many people and companies—some with business before the state—on his wife’s behalf. “Ethically ugly isn’t the same as illegal,” but “the Newsoms shouldn’t be allowed to pretend that there’s nothing to see here.”

California’s First Couple is now bracing for months of intense scrutiny, said Melanie Mason and Jeremy B. White in Politico. Law enforcement is questioning their acquaintances, and Siebel Newsom has become “a recurring target in the conservative social media ecosystem,” which villainizes her as a woke elitist. Fairly or not, the DOJ’s investigations have “opened a new front in the governor’s battle with the White House.”

When the San Francisco Giants recently held Pride Night, said Hannah Keyser in CNN.com, three of the team’s pitchers decided to make a “culture war” statement. JT Brubaker, Landen Roupp, and Ryan Walker scribbled the numbers of Bible verses next to the rainbow-colored logo on their themed caps to protest the celebration of the Bay Area’s large LGBTQ+ community. The three Christian pitchers could have simply opted not to wear the rainbow cap, as a fourth Giants pitcher chose to do, but instead they decided to express their religious beliefs about homosexuality. Major League Baseball issued a mild warning that the players had violated a rule against personally modifying on-field attire without prior approval, saying its reminder “had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message.” Still, MLB’s response sparked outrage on the Right. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) accused the league of religious discrimination, and the Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation. “Trump won,” chimed in Vice President JD Vance. “We don’t have to do this anymore.”

Tell that to the hypocritical left, said Becket Adams in National Review. Sportswriters and progressives promptly portrayed the pitchers as “villains.” But it wasn’t long ago that another San Francisco athlete, former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, refused to stand for the national anthem to protest police brutality against Black men. His demonstration was far more “conspicuous” than what the three Giants did. For expressing his views, Kaepernick was celebrated as a “civil rights hero.” Actually, said Scott Ostler in The San Francisco Standard, Kaepernick paid dearly for kneeling during the anthem. He was vilified by conservatives and “blackballed from the NFL at age 29,” ending his career. That was wrong, just as it would be wrong to punish these baseball players for “their peaceful protest.”

As a gay sportswriter, I don’t object to professional athletes showcasing their homophobia, said Jason Page in MS.now. It serves as a necessary reminder that “the fight for acceptance isn’t over.” Just look at what’s happening around the U.S., said Drew Atkins in USA Today. Polls shows that support for LGBTQ+ rights is regressing “after nearly two decades of growth.” So far this year, “nearly 800 anti-trans bills have been filed across 43 states.” A 2025 report “revealed that 1 in 10 LGBTQ youth attempted suicide.” In Donald Trump’s America, it is “a frightening time to be openly queer.”

President Trump’s Iran deal-in-progress “is Israel’s disaster,” said Ruth Margalit in The New Yorker. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied Trump to launch the Iran war, telling him they could together topple Iran’s Islamist regime, wipe out its ballistic missiles, and end its nuclear threat. Four months later, that war of choice has ended with Trump signing a “memorandum of understanding” with Tehran that not only leaves the hard-liners in charge but also does nothing to address Iran’s arsenal of long-range missiles or its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. “Perhaps most disturbingly for Israel,” said Lazar Berman in The Dispatch, the deal yields to Iran’s demand for a ceasefire in Lebanon, shielding its proxy Hezbollah from attack even as the terrorist group continues to “threaten Israel from the north.” Rubbing salt in the wound are the “gratuitous insults” from Trump, who has called Israel a “very small partner” and Netanyahu a loose cannon with “no f---ing judgment,” while praising the Iranians as “strong,” “smart,” and “very rational.”

Vice President JD Vance also had some “harsh words for Israel,” said Aaron Blake in CNN.com. Responding to criticism of the Iran deal from top Israeli lawmakers, he warned the country to tread carefully. He noted the Jewish state’s reliance on U.S. weaponry, and said some Israeli leaders needed to “wake up and smell the reality” and defer to Trump, “the only head of state in the entire world” who’s still in their corner. It’s a stunning turnabout, said Matt K. Lewis in the Los Angeles Times. Broad bipartisan support for Israel was for decades “a law of physics” in the U.S. But Israel’s bloody campaign in Gaza following the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, “repelled” many young Americans. And by allying himself so closely with Trump to “gin up a war against Iran,” Netanyahu alienated mainstream Democrats and Never Trump conservatives and infuriated “America first” populists in the GOP. Today, some 60% of U.S. adults view Israel unfavorably, up from 42% in 2022.

Netanyahu is in a bind of his own making, said Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic. “He’s built his brand on two promises” to Israelis: that “he alone could withstand international pressure to compromise on Israeli security and that he alone could handle Trump.” Facing re-election in October, he must now choose whether to defy Trump and “save his reputation as a stalwart security hawk” or cave and maintain what’s left of their relationship. He’s learning the hard way that with Trump any alliance is a “marriage of convenience.” As “a student of power” himself, Netanyahu “should have seen this rug pull coming.”

What festivities are planned?

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is being celebrated with a series of MAGA-fied gatherings, concerts, and competitions. Many of them have an overtly partisan component. The first event was a night of Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts staged on the White House lawn specifically to coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday. The next, the “Great American State Fair,” which runs on the National Mall for two weeks, was supposed to include stands from every U.S. state and territory. But at least seven states (six of them with Democratic governors) pulled out, citing costs and politics, after it became clear that the event would feature Republican themes like Make America Healthy Again Monday and the participation of conservative groups such as Moms for America. This event is “a more partisan affair than originally presented,” said Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek through a spokesman. The pro-Trump vibe also caused the cancellation of a planned June 25 kickoff concert, after country singer Martina McBride, rapper Young MC, and bands including Morris Day and the Time and the Commodores all bowed out for political reasons. Trump said he would open the State Fair with one of his political rallies instead, adding that he’d make July 4 “the most spectacular Trump rally of them all.”

Was this the original plan?

No. In 2016, Congress authorized a bipartisan nonprofit known as America250 to organize America’s milestone birthday. Inspired by the 1976 bicentennial—a widely praised extravaganza featuring 12 weeks of festivals on the Mall, events in every state, and the opening of the Air and Space Museum—the group said then it hoped to “educate, engage, and unite” Americans with programs across the country that would present and celebrate our history. So far, it has organized events such as a July 4 benefit concert in Los Angeles featuring Smashing Pumpkins and Queen Latifah; a succession of ball drops in New York City’s Times Square for each U.S. time zone on July 3; and the burying in Philadelphia of a huge time capsule to be opened in 2276. But it’s not very well funded. For the bicentennial, Congress had spent the equivalent of $900 million in today’s dollars. For this celebration, it has given less: some $80 million total between 2019 and 2025. While another $150 million was allocated in last year’s giant budget bill to top up the funds, the bulk of that money doesn’t go to America250 but to a rival group, Freedom 250.

What is Freedom 250?

It’s the Trump-chaired White House task force behind the UFC fight and the fair. Created by one of Trump’s early executive orders specifically to take the place of the bipartisan America250, Freedom 250 consists entirely of Republicans, nearly all white men. Vice President JD Vance serves as vice chair, and most Cabinet members are on the task force. Over a quarter of the partners listed on Freedom 250’s website are Christian groups or have Christian affiliations, although it also has connections with firms such as John Deere and Northrop Grumman. Freedom 250 says its mission includes inviting Americans “to pray for our country and our people and rededicate ourselves as One Nation Under God.” Both groups are running events.

How do the two groups differ?

Democrats call Freedom 250 a “Trump vanity” project, saying it promotes a revisionist, overly sanitized version of American history. Freedom 250 materials for a student art contest, for instance, describe Martin Luther King Jr. as having a “can-do” attitude but don’t mention that he fought segregation. But the Trump administration said it had to create its own task force because America250 placed too much emphasis on the darker aspects of American history, like slavery and discrimination. Chris LaCivita, a former Trump campaign manager, even accused the commission of wanting “to apologize” for the past 250 years. Meanwhile, the two sides are now squabbling over funding. America250 was supposed to get $50 million of the celebration money Congress allocated last year. As of June, though, the Interior Department had transferred only half of that.

Why the holdup? 

The administration says America250 has overspent “on frivolous, poorly attended events.” It points to the America’s Field Trip initiative, an essay contest whose winners get trips to historic sites, which is costing an estimated $10.4 million. Yet the White House has also raised eyebrows with its spending. The Interior Department has splashed out $98 million to spruce up Washington, D.C., for the celebrations, gilding horse statues and repainting the Reflecting Pool. The huge triumphal arch that Trump wants to build will cost another $100 million, at least. Plus, there are allegations of corruption: Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) launched a probe into whether the White House was running a “pay-to-play” scheme by giving wealthy Freedom 250 donors access to Trump.

Are Americans excited to turn 250?

Some are. Major concerts, festivals, and parades are expected to draw big crowds in Boston; New York; Philadelphia; Richmond, Va.; and Charleston, S.C. But Gallup found that while 84% of Americans over 65 plan to celebrate, the number drops to 66% for those ages 40 to 64, and just 54% for those 18 to 39. An NBC News poll found the number of respondents who were “extremely” proud to be an American is at a record low of 33%, and 38% told Reuters/ Ipsos they don’t believe the U.S. will be around for its 500th birthday. Some historians blame the apathy on the president. “The carnival atmosphere of cage fights on the White House lawn and a concert that everyone seems to be backing out of tells you all you need to know,” says historian James Robenalt. “There is no serious look at the nation or its complicated history.”

What happened

Far-left candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept Democratic House primary races in the city last week, a sign that the party’s momentum has lurched sharply left. Two of the three Mamdani-backed primary winners are fellow members of the Democratic Socialists of America, a political organization that favors universal health care and higher taxes on the rich and calls Israel an “apartheid regime.” Darializa Avila Chevalier pulled off the evening’s biggest stunner, unseating Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Another DSA member, Claire Valdez, beat a candidate endorsed by retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, while Brad Lander, a Mamdani ally who’s a former DSA member, trounced incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman. Much like Mamdani’s grassroots mayoral campaign last year, the upstarts relied on thousands of DSA volunteers, who knocked on doors and made phone calls to turn out votes. The DSA has also had success outside of New York, with its candidates advancing in mayoral primaries in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles earlier this month. “The Democratic establishment better wake up,” Usamah Andrabi of the progressive group Justice Democrats told Politico. “Because the Left is winning.”

Moderate Democrats fared better outside of New York City. In Utah, former representative Ben McAdams staved off progressive challengers to win his primary in a redrawn district that now favors Democrats. In Maryland, Adrian Boafo earned a chance to succeed his old boss, Rep. Steny Hoyer, a staunch supporter of Israel. Among Republicans, several candidates endorsed by President Trump pulled off upsets: In upstate New York, Anthony Constantino defeated an assemblyman backed by the N.Y. GOP, while in the race for Republican nominee for South Carolina governor, Alan Wilson, the attorney general Trump endorsed at the last minute, won in a landslide

What the columnists said

Mamdani’s “audacious gamble” paid off, said Nicholas Fandos in The New York Times. He’s now “the unquestioned political kingmaker of the nation’s cultural and financial capital,” and the DSA, after years on the margins, is “a formidable force.” But it’s too early to tell if this movement has expanded beyond the bluest parts of the state. After all, New York held primaries for all 26 of its congressional districts, 13 of which are housed, at least in part, in the city. Mamdani got involved in only three.

Those were the races in which criticism of Israel played a major role, said Lisa Kashinsky in Politico. Lander, who is Jewish and a self-described “liberal Zionist,” upbraided his opponent for failing to endorse an arms embargo on Israel “and for refusing to call its war in Gaza a genocide.” Avila Chevalier “relentlessly attacked” Espaillat for taking AIPAC money. And the crowd at several of the victory parties chanted “Free, free Palestine.” Criticizing Israel “is now not only politically survivable” for a Democrat but actually “advantageous.”

It’s not mere criticism—some of these people openly side with the terrorists who murdered Israelis on Oct. 7, said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. Avila Chevalier, a Muslim convert, is adamant “that Hamas Did Nothing Wrong.” But that’s not the only reason she is set to become “the single craziest member of Congress.” She’s also a “prison abolitionist who authentically believes murderers should not be behind bars.” In her now-deleted social media posts, she calls for abolishing national borders and nationalizing private companies and rages against mainstream Democrats. In one post, she calls former president Joe Biden a “rapist.” In another, she declares, “F--- Kamala Harris.”

In endorsing such extreme leftists, Mamdani is trying to “remake the national Democratic Party,” said Perry Bacon in The New Republic. Mayors “don’t usually interject themselves into congressional races.” Unable to run for president since he wasn’t born a U.S. citizen, this is how he can leave his mark nationally.

The charge he has led against the Democratic Party establishment is “reminiscent of the Tea Party that once shook Republicans,” said David Smith in The Guardian. That grassroots movement remade the Republican Party in the 2010s, turning it into a hotbed of anti-incumbent fury and contempt toward elites. Will the DSA surge do the same? Democratic primary voters clearly want their candidates to “stand for something, rather than nothing, because writing strongly worded letters to Trump is not enough.”

What happened

The U.S. last week removed sanctions on Iranian oil even as peace talks between Washington and Tehran appeared to descend into confusion, with the two sides issuing conflicting accounts of discussions on nuclear inspections and the unfreezing of billions in Iranian funds. An initial round of talks in Switzerland “laid a very good foundation” for a final peace deal, said Vice President JD Vance, who led the U.S. delegation. But the two sides soon sparred publicly over Iran’s nuclear program, with Vance and President Trump saying Tehran had agreed to U.N. inspections of its damaged nuclear sites while Iranians insisted they hadn’t. “They know they’re wrong,” Trump said. “They told us inside.” The two sides also disagreed over the fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, which the preliminary agreement states will be diluted. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country will “never back down from the right to enrich uranium”; Trump shot back that “he better watch his mouth” or “we’ll take over the rest of the country.”

Citing “productive” talks, the U.S. waived long-standing sanctions on Iranian oil through August and cleared the way for Tehran to be paid in dollars, including by U.S. buyers. Iranian officials said steps had been taken toward the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets. Vance said if assets were released, Iran would have to spend them on U.S. exports, but Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei insisted Iran can spend any released funds “freely.” There were also sharp divisions over the Strait of Hormuz, where hundreds of ships were stranded during the conflict. Iran said it will charge “fees” to ships using the strait in exchange for unspecified services; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that no country can charge fees for transiting an international waterway.

In Washington, the Senate passed a resolution barring Trump from resuming the Iran war without congressional authorization, with four Republicans joining Democrats in a rare rebuke of the president. The vote came amid broad GOP skepticism about Trump’s ceasefire deal, which has been widely criticized for ceding too much to Iran while achieving none of Trump’s war aims. “The administration acts like they want a deal much more than the ayatollah regime,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). It “looks like weakness.”

What the columnists said

The “sweeping rollback” of U.S. oil sanctions reverses “years of pressure designed to cripple Iran’s economy,” said Anniek Bao in CNBC.com. The 60-day license issued by the Treasury Department will unlock the sale of 67 million barrels of Iranian crude floating in the strait, yielding a “windfall” of up to $9 billion for Tehran. And it reopens “Iran’s most important revenue stream.” Sanctions are unlikely to return after 60 days, said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark. “Once Iranian oil is in the international supply line, they have Trump over a barrel,” because he won’t be able to impose curbs on Iranian exports without “pushing oil prices up again.”

This is quite the turnaround for the Trump team, said Andrew Kaczynski and Jennifer Hansler in CNN.com. For years, Trump, Rubio, and Vance assailed deals that provided financial concessions to Iran, saying they would enrich a dangerous foe that “fuels terror.” That was their “central indictment” of former president Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, which granted Iran sanctions relief and “access to frozen assets.” Now they’re poised to hand the regime piles of dollar bills.

And for what? asked The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Tehran has “made no serious concession on nuclear matters.” Lifting oil sanctions now will “gut” U.S. leverage and send cash flowing to the coffers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran claims some of its frozen assets have already been released, possibly $6 billion that was being held in Qatar. Even if Tehran complies with a U.S. dictate that such cash be spent only on food and medicine, “it frees up other funds for military purposes.”

Meanwhile, the preliminary deal signed by Trump treats our ally Israel as if it were a U.S. “puppet” with “no sovereignty beyond that which America grants it,” said Noah Rothman in National Review. By demanding a ceasefire in southern Lebanon, Iran has compelled America to tacitly take the side of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists who use the region to strike at northern Israel. “And all in the craven pursuit of a ‘peace’ unworthy of the word.”

“Negotiating with Iran has always been an extraordinary challenge,” said David E. Sanger and Yeganeh Torbati in The New York Times, but it’s even more complex under Trump. Instead of letting negotiators quietly work toward a full agreement, he likes to trumpet “his preferred outcomes as fully negotiated side deals,” in a bid to force Iran’s hand. The Iranians have their own “spin strategy”: Deny every claim, even if it contains “an element of truth.” Some “posturing” is par for the course, but at this level it raises the question of whether the sniping “will ultimately sink the whole venture.”

Hanging over the negotiations is “an uncomfortable question,” said Aviva Klompas in USA Today. What exactly has the U.S. accomplished? The hardliners remain in power in Tehran. The fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is unsettled. The Strait of Hormuz, where oil shipping was uncontested before the war, is now a “bargaining chip.” Iran has “suffered enormous losses” to its military and nuclear infrastructure. But if it is financially rewarded and retains its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, it’s fair to ask “whether Tehran has once again accomplished a tactic it has spent decades perfecting: losing the war while winning the negotiation.”

Addison, Vt.

Blue Heron Point, a shingled gambrel-roofed home on a headland with more than 1,200 feet of Lake Champlain shoreline, was built in 2001. The four-bedroom’s vaulted great room features northern hemlock timber and a floor-to-ceiling fieldstone fireplace; a lower level includes a gym, wine fridges, and another fireplace.

The 14-plus-acre property has a pool, trails, gardens, lawns, a pond, a barn apartment, and a lakeside lounge area. $5,500,000. Wade Weathers, LandVest/Christies International Real Estate, (802) 238-6362

Norfolk, Conn.

Located on 118 wooded acres, Katsura Lodge has about a mile of frontage on Winchester Lake. Built in 2004, the five-bedroom contemporary features a great room with vaulted wood ceilings, heart pine floors, a fireplace made from the property’s stones, a bay-window seating nook, and a high-end, wood-clad kitchen.

The lot includes a pool, tennis court, and boathouse. New York City is under three hours away. $7,250,000. Lenore Mallett, William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, (203) 209-1777

Six Mile, S.C.

This 2023 four-bedroom contemporary lodge in a gated community is steps away from Lake Keowee. The open-plan main room has exposed wood trusses, a stone fireplace, and a gourmet kitchen with aqua-hued cabinets and an eat-in island.

Outside on the almost 1-acre lot are a deck, a covered patio, and a dock. Clemson is about 15 miles away, and amenities nearby include a pool, gym, and dining. $5,999,000. Justin Winter, Justin Winter & Associates/Forbes Global Properties, (864) 506-6387

Grand Beach, Mich.

On the southern shores of Lake Michigan, this modern 2010 home’s glass walls offer full water views. The open-plan four-bedroom includes ceramic tile floors, a glass-sided staircase, a chef’s kitchen with granite counters, a fitness room, a balcony, and an elevator.

The nearly 1-acre lot on a private road has a pool and stairs leading down to the beach. New Buffalo’s casino, nature preserve, and dining are a short drive. $4,450,000. Liz Roch, @properties/Christie’s International Real Estate, (312) 636-8751

Sammamish, Wash.

In a Seattle suburb, this 1942 four-bedroom shingled lake home is on a stretch of private Beaver Lake shoreline. The living room has hardwood floors and beamed ceilings; the kitchen includes a peninsula and a sitting area that opens to a balcony; and the primary suite features a bath with heated floors.

Outside are evergreens, a hot tub, a wraparound deck, and a patio by the water. $3,390,000. Mei-an Yuen and Colin Dalrymple, Windermere Real Estate/Luxury Portfolio International, (425) 546-7399

Vernon, N.J.

Evergreen Cove, a 1960 ranch about 50 miles from Midtown Manhattan, is on East Highland Lake in northern New Jersey. The waterfront three-bedroom has hardwood floors, tongue-and-groove wood walls, exposed beams, a fireplace with a wood nook, French doors to a primary bedroom, and a country kitchen with a farmhouse sink and laundry.

A lake path leads to a private dock and firepit. $555,000. Robin Dora, Kienlen Lattmann Sotheby’s International Realty, (973) 570-6633

‘Maddie’s Secret’

Directed by John Early (Not rated)

★★★★

“The secret of Maddie’s Secret—or maybe it’s the central joke—is that the movie’s creator and star takes the whole thing seriously,” said Peter Debruge in Variety. In this “tricky, one-of-a-kind stunt,” comedian John Early sends up disease-of-the-week TV movies of the 1980s and ’90s while cross-dressing to play the title character, a woman with an eating disorder that’s reactivated by sudden fame. But the Search Party star “treads lightly here,” spoofing a movie genre while taking Maddie’s bulimia utterly seriously. The blend of high camp and deep sincerity works only because Early, while playing Maddie, “wins the audience over so thoroughly,” said Monica Castillo in The A.V. Club. Maddie is thrust into food-world stardom after her husband shoots a video clip that goes viral, but the pressure causes her to unravel. Some scenes in the movie are light and silly, including those pairing Maddie with a lesbian friend, played by Kate Berlant, who clearly loves her. Other sequences “take a deeply serious turn,” even landing Maddie in a hospital.

By then, “Maddie’s Secret has, without any fundamental shift in tone, begun to feel ultra-real,” said Sam Bodrojan in IndieWire. “The film’s climax, which has Maddie confronting her mother about her childhood, is a genuine showstopper, one that can only really work with the trust Early and company have built up with the audience over the preceding hour and a half.” The result is “a film of real kindness” that’s also “one of the boldest American movies I have seen in years.”

‘Rose of Nevada’

Directed by Mark Jenkin (Not rated)

★★★

“In the hands of a conventional filmmaker, this would be a conventional scary movie,” said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Two strangers in need of money take work on a potentially cursed fishing trawler and discover when they return from two days at sea that it’s 30 years earlier in their village and that the lives they’d known no longer exist. But instead of using that premise to chase scares, British director Mark Jenkin “makes of it something more elusive and complex,” a movie that “feels like a remembered dream” and conjures “the claustrophobia of family and community.”

Co-star Callum Turner brings “an absorbing swagger” to the role of a drifter who suddenly finds himself with a wife and child in his new reality, said Josh Parham in Next Best Picture. George MacKay “makes a much more lasting impression,” though, because he plays a father and husband who loses his family when time mysteriously spins back to 1993. But even though Turner’s Liam and MacKay’s Nick find themselves mistaken for two men lost when the Rose of Nevada vanished in ’93, the story that then unfolds feels more conventional than the filmmaking. Because Jenkin films on grainy 16mm and overdubs his actors’ dialogue, said Tim Grierson in the Los Angeles Times, his movies have a disorienting effect. Fortunately, “everything that the casual moviegoer would consider ‘wrong’ about Jenkin’s approach is what makes his films so transcendently jarring.”

There’s a hidden cost to working from home, said Megan Cerullo in CBSNews.com. “Americans routinely say they relish the ability” to do their job remotely, a perk that’s expanded dramatically since the pandemic. But the often lonely nature of working from home can take a toll on mental health, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The study found that from 2011 to 2024, remote workers saw “a 58% rise in hours spent alone compared with in-office workers.” They also became “significantly more likely to go a full day without any human contact”—no chats with colleagues, no after-hours socializing with friends. Perhaps because of that isolation, remote workers “visited mental-health-care providers more frequently than non-remote workers and were more likely to rely on prescription psychiatric medication.” Remote work is often credited with “increased job satisfaction and better work-life balance,” but this darker flip side is “worth considering.”

Working remotely “isn’t for everyone,” said Kate B. Odell in The Wall Street Journal. But for working moms, it has been “the biggest innovation since the dishwasher.” Blunting the traditional trade-off between paid labor and family has allowed millions of women “to contribute their skills, earn money,” and still “be a primary influence on their children.” The demands on working moms will always be high. And the women working from home now “have to work harder to develop relationships with colleagues,” and often the “laptop is on at night and before dawn.” But “not being in traffic at 5 p.m. on weekdays” may be a worthwhile compromise.

For recent grads, the boom in remote work could be worsening an already bleak job market, said Emma Ockerman in Yahoo. Another recent New York Fed study found that companies are “more reluctant to hire less-experienced workers” for remote openings, because of how difficult it can be “to train new workers from afar.” As evidence, the researchers note that unemployment rates have increased “particularly fast among young workers in occupations that can easily be performed remotely,” but have dropped slightly for older workers who perform the same roles.

There’s still no replacing the office as “a petri dish of human interaction,” said Renée Loth in The Boston Globe. Sharing a workspace means you have to live with “people with different communication styles or work ethics,” as well as learn “how to interpret subtle cues from body language or vocal tone.” You can’t get these life lessons over Zoom or Slack. We can already see the “shriveling of workplace etiquette” that has transpired in the few years since the pandemic. Just as kids struggled with social development during Covid’s isolation, we’ve learned that “adults also need to play well with others, share the cookies, and not throw a tantrum over a bad report card.”

“With her first two albums, Olivia Rodrigo proved herself perhaps the most gifted of the many chroniclers of Gen Z romance to emerge in Taylor Swift’s wake,” said Mikael Wood in the Los Angeles Times. But her best work to date, starting with the 2021 smash single “Drivers License,” conveyed “the hot sting of betrayal.” On her “thrilling” third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, the 23-year-old former Disney teen star opens with “a number of first-flush-of-love songs as potent as any breakup tune,” then brings new wisdom to the heartbreak that so often follows. To accommodate the wider range of emotions, this record “pulls in chiming folk-rock and synthed-up new wave” and even throws in “a gorgeous wine-bar piano ballad that might put the scare in Rodrigo’s pal Laufey.”

The result is Rodrigo’s “most complete, musically adventurous album yet,” said Julyssa Lopez in Rolling Stone. Beginning with “Drop Dead,” a recent No. 1 single, the initial run of songs captures the dopamine rush of love’s onset. But from about the halfway point on, “the seams come apart a little more with each track.” As the record progresses, she “dives into her insecurities with a mix of humor and honesty” until, in the end, “she comes to the brutal realization that you can adore someone more than anything and still have to let them go.”

Rodrigo “has always kind of been a theater kid,” said Jason P. Frank in NYMag.com. With this album, “she’s written a musical.” As in a musical, “the songs are constantly looping back in on each other, rewriting and commenting on what Rodrigo said before.” Arriving a track before the closer, “Expectations” is a banger that’d serve beautifully as an 11 o’clock number, the kind of showstopping tune that rouses an audience for the finale. “Now all that’s left is to get this thing onstage. Broadway producers, your job starts now.”

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Tom Coyne is the author of several acclaimed books about golf, including A Gentleman’s Game, Paper Tiger, and his latest, A Course Called Home, about his adventures as the owner of a run-down nine-hole course. Below, he names the books for which he’s most grateful.

‘Where I’m Calling From’ by Raymond Carver (1988)

I am certainly not the only MFA grad who has Raymond Carver to thank (or blame) for pursuing short-story writing as a vocation. When this collection landed in my hands, I was not only taken by the stories but also inspired to try my hand at this thing he made look so easy. These are stories I return to when I worry that I need to be writing about vampires or dragons. Buy it here.

‘This Boy’s Life’ by Tobias Wolff (1989)

Memoir gets a bad rap as indulgent and self-absorbed stuff, but this book was a lesson in memoir as entertainment and storytelling. And it would influence my next five books, steering me away from the therapeutic confessional that tempts the nonfiction writer. Buy it here.

‘On Writing’ by Stephen King (2000)

I used to not read a lot of Stephen King, and a writer reading another writer’s take on writing felt like a circular chore. But the book turned out to be life-changing stuff. The man knows literature and craft in a way that his popular fiction belies, and it’s a surprising page-turner. Buy it here.

‘My Ántonia’ by Willa Cather (1918)

If you want to write books, you have to love them, unreasonably so, and I remember falling hard for My Ántonia. Everything about it—the place, the heart, the strength. I was a high schooler who found a book I wanted everybody to read, and I told everyone who would listen that I had the book for them. Buy it here.

‘To the Linksland’ by Michael Bamberger (1992)

I went to grad school to write the Great American Novel. Instead, I wrote a book about caddies. When I found myself accidentally landing in the golf-writing genre, I wasn’t sure if I had sold out my ambitions. Bamberger’s book assuaged such fears and helped me embrace golf as a subject worthy of literary treatment. Buy it here.

‘Sailing Alone Around the Room’ by Billy Collins (2001)

Insert any of Billy Collins’ collections here. Before I sit down to write, I read a few of his poems—“Snow Day” is a favorite—to recall what great sentences sound like, and to recall that one right word trumps a thousand ambitious ones. Buy it here.

‘World Cup Fever: A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments’ by Simon Kuper

“It would be a mistake to think of World Cup Fever as a simple sports book,” said Dan Friedman in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Simon Kuper, a sportswriter for the Financial Times, has attended every World Cup tournament since 1990, and he’s “uniquely qualified” to tell each of the several stories his latest work weaves together. Besides being a memoir, a portrait of the passions soccer inspires, and an account of how the World Cup and the game itself have evolved since the inaugural 1930 tournament, “it is, in effect, a snapshot of how history has dashed the hopes of the post–Cold War generations.” FIFA, the organization that runs the World Cup, once was led by men who dreamed that sport could help create a more just and democratic world. But power eventually shifted to the “venal creeps” who’ve run the show for three decades. Indeed, after reading Kuper’s “complex and loving” indictment of the sport, “I felt physically sick.”

Kuper, “one of the best sportswriters in the English language today,” doesn’t overromanticize the World Cup’s past, said Ian Buruma in The New Yorker. Jules Rimet, the idealist who presided over FIFA from 1921 until 1954, agreed to let Mussolini’s Italy hold the 1934 event, establishing that any nation can win FIFA’s blessing if it’s willing to pay the costs of hosting. Rimet’s successors kowtowed to murderous dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, while the most recent Cups have unfolded in Putin’s Russia in 2018 and in Qatar, an authoritarian sheikdom. FIFA was always corrupt. In Kuper’s “highly engaging” book, we learn how it’s become more corrupt than ever, but we also get much more. The Ugandan-born, Dutch-raised French resident writes “superbly” about the skills of different players and national teams, and he’s just as good at observing the cultural differences between host cities and each team’s fan following.

“Each tournament Kuper has covered marked a shift in the geopolitical weather,” said Andre Pagliarini in The New Republic. When Italy hosted in 1990, hopes were high because the Cold War had entered a twilight phase. In 2018, Russia paused to host between its invasions of Ukraine. And Kuper also provides revealing portraits of 2002 East Asia, 2010 South Africa, and 2014 Brazil. “World Cups don’t change the world,” he writes, “but they do illuminate it.” He proves that over and over again, providing “a testament to the benefits of committing oneself to a subject for a long time.” As viewers around the globe watch the World Cup unfolding, “they see virtuosity, emotion, and the hand of fate at work on the grandest stage in sports.” Because the event is a mirror, “they also glimpse the world as it is.”

‘Trash! A Garbageman’s Story’ by Simon Paré-Poupart

“It’s been a long time since I’ve read so good and rowdy a memoir about blue-collar work,” said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. Written by Simon Paré-Poupart, a veteran Montreal garbageman now in his 40s, this “slim, raffish, and spirited” book “raises the blinds on his industry,” revealing the job’s taxing demands, the coarse language and renegade attitudes of its practitioners, and the dark humor that keeps them sane. “Paré-Poupart is in love with almost all of it,” including the sense that being on society’s bottom rung makes him tougher, freer, and less prone to self deception. “Trash! has been compared to Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain’s restaurant kitchen exposé. Usually, comparisons to Bourdain are fatuous. This time it’s accurate.”

“It quickly becomes apparent how vital Paré-Poupart and his colleagues are to the functioning of polite society,” said Ceci Browning in The Times (U.K.). The mostly male cohort is packed with colorful characters. A collector nicknamed Spandex often works while wearing nothing but bike shorts and flip-flops. Another vomits each day on the first block of the run, then just does the work. Many others work drunk or high, even though a run can require lift ing heavy loads for 15 hustling miles. Paré-Poupart likens the typical garbageman to Sisyphus, fated to clean up for society day after day eternally. Despite his writing’s political thrust, it’s “suffused with literary oomph and good humor,” and “I zoomed through Trash! in a couple of hours.”

“Paré-Poupart elegantly makes the case that we should all think more about the people who collect our trash,” said Amanda Perry in the Literary Review of Canada. He’s an unusual example: He has earned advanced degrees in sociology and international business since he started his career in garbage, and his memoir “mixes in blue collar curse words with references to labor history and Émile Zola.” Politically, Trash! is uneven, “offering points of critique but no coherent program of reform,” including for the way recycling programs mostly just enable the steady increase of plastics pollution. The author leaves us, though, with a provocative thought experiment: What if we compensated and glorified professions accord ing to their social necessity?

It’s about time Europe started “flexing its innovation muscles,” said John Thornhill in the Financial Times. “In spite of the ambient Euro-gloom,” the continent still boasts extraordinary economic strengths. It is home to “thousands of world-class scientists and researchers” who are seeding “a vibrant early-stage startup ecosystem.” It’s also fast becoming a worldwide leader in areas such as material sciences, pharmaceuticals, and robotics. “If it could create a VC money-mobilization machine on a par with the U.S.,” things would really transform. To that end, the European Commission recently published new legislation that it says will “encourage more investment” in areas like data centers and chipmaking, which is “a welcome sign.” The commission also revealed a new framework to reduce reliance on the U.S. and China; that will be harder to achieve. The reality is that Europe still “remains inextricably dependent on U.S. technology,” and it won’t win in a fight with the Trump administration. But it is at least “finally flicking the switch from defensive regulation to creative innovation.”

Europe is right to worry, said The Economist. “The grip of American tech is, if anything, growing tighter.” French firms alone buy more than $50 billion “in software and cloud services annually from Uncle Sam’s tech giants.” Policymakers fear the U.S. could one day “wield tech as a geopolitical weapon, in the form of a kill switch that can turn off services.” Another concern is that Europe will get left behind economically if it can’t compete in the AI race against America and China, “which reaches into many sectors where Europe remains strong.” But building tech ecosystems up from scratch “is hard,” and “America’s strong economic momentum makes it harder still.” Unplugging from U.S. tech entirely is “probably an impossible task,” said Matt Burgess in Wired. The European Parliament has switched the default search engine on its devices from Google to a French alternative, and many French government workers are using home-grown open-source office software. But Europe is “deeply intertwined with U.S.-based technology firms,” especially those that do cloud computing, AI, cybersecurity, and mobile operating systems.

European businesses fear “the EU’s efforts to wean the continent off American technology could backfire,” said Chris Dorrell in The Times (U.K.). The new legislation includes a mandatory scoring system designed to rank the safety of foreign tech systems that some entrepreneurs have already likened to “another invisible compliance tax.” Europe also needs to tread carefully here, said the Financial Times in an editorial. “Making its economy more dynamic” is critical, but “it must avoid antagonizing” a Trump White House “that views EU regulation as aimed squarely at stifling U.S. dynamism.” In a “dog-eat-dog world,” Washington will be “ready to use its tech supremacy to exert leverage.”

David Hockney showed the beauty in the ordinary. The celebrated British artist, who emerged from swinging-’60s London to take sunny Los Angeles as his muse, turned everyday vistas—a lamp, a swimming pool, rain on a window, his dachshunds lounging on a rug—into striking, playful images rendered in vibrant color. Over seven decades he demonstrated his creative force, working on canvas, paper, and iPad; making films and photo collages; and designing theater costumes and opera sets. Openly gay when homosexuality was still outlawed in Britain, Hockney was a stylish figure in British society, a chain smoker sporting bleached-blond hair and owlish spectacles, immensely popular with the smart set. The Guardian once dubbed him “British art’s first pop star.” As a painter, he found inspiration all around him. “I can look at a little puddle on a road and the rain falling on it and think it’s marvelous,” he said. “I see the world as very beautiful.”

Hockney was born into a working-class family in “England’s grimy industrial north,” said The Washington Post. Showing “precocious talent,” he won a scholarship to a local art school and then attended London’s Royal College of Art, where his work took the school’s gold medal. Upon graduating he found success quickly, selling out his first exhibition at a “trendy London gallery.” A 1961 trip to New York “established his lasting attraction to America” and its relative sexual liberation, said The New York Times. When he visited Los Angeles a few years later, he was smitten. In 1964 he settled in the Hollywood Hills and began turning out paintings that captured the city’s “sun-soaked atmosphere” and “nouveau riche leisure life,” featuring images of swimming pools and sunbathing men.

In later years “his focus shifted back to Europe” and nature, said The Wall Street Journal. He returned to his native Yorkshire to paint expressionist landscapes, and for a time rented a home and studio in rural Normandy, creating digital paintings of the changing seasons. Throughout his life he was hugely admired, with “blockbuster exhibitions” of his work drawing record crowds. In 2018, his 1972 painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures) sold for $90.3 million, then a record for a living artist. Hockney maintained a dogged work ethic well into his 80s, painting for up to seven hours a day, yet he saw it not as labor but a privilege. “Pleasure and joy” were the purpose of his art, he said. “And joy is a great thing to give to people.”

It’s a pattern “as regular and predictable as the tides,” said Moira Donegan in The Guardian: A Democrat wins an election, and President Trump says the election was rigged. His latest target is the Los Angeles mayoral primary, where Republican Spencer Pratt fell to third place—and off the November ballot—behind Democratic incumbent Karen Bass and progressive challenger Nithya Raman as late-arriving mail-in ballots were counted. Trump has since repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that the election was stolen, even storming off Meet the Press when challenged on the claim. This is “a preview of what is likely to come” in November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are widely expected to lose congressional seats and control of the House. In Trump’s world, every Democratic victory is “invalid, fraudulent, and null,” and the only fair elections “are the ones where Republicans win.”

Unfortunately, the Right “seems to be along for the ride,” said Aaron Blake in CNN.com. Prominent Republicans, including JD Vance, Ron DeSantis, and Mike Johnson, have amplified Trump’s baseless claims, with Johnson saying Democratic election fraud is “so diabolical and so far upstream it is impossible to prove.” Polls show that 70% of Republicans expect election fraud in November. Trump has a new plan to block mail-in ballots, said Adam Sella and Nick Corasaniti in The New York Times. The U.S. Postal Service has proposed an “unprecedented and potentially unconstitutional” rule that would allow it to refuse delivery of mail-in ballots in states that won’t turn over voter rolls to the federal government for “screening.” Trump recently told a group of GOP lawmakers that restricting mail-in ballots “will guarantee the midterms.”

“It does, in fact, take a long time to count ballots in California,” said Jessica Levinson in MS.now. The state accepts all ballots postmarked by Election Day, even those that arrive up to a week after. Does that sometimes mean that initial results change? “Absolutely. That’s what happens when you count votes.” Sorry, that’s no excuse, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. California Democrats have made it “exceptionally easy” to cast ballots by mail to boost turnout among their likely voters, but the result is a “sloth-like” ballot count that can leave results in question for days. It’s a “disservice to democracy” to leave voters hanging, which can only “fuel distrust in elections and play into the hands of Trump.”

“It’s been quite the journey for Hunter Biden,” said Adam Gabbatt in The Guardian. In a matter of weeks, the son of former president Joe Biden has gone from “a political liability to an unlikely galvanizing force within the Democratic Party.” That transformation began in mid-May, when Biden, 56, started posting on X about addiction and recovery, his family, art, and the hypocrisy of Republicans who hounded him for influence peddling but are now engaged in an orgy of corruption. He’s earned more than 781,000 followers with his often wry and self-deprecating posts. Asked by an X user if a bag of cocaine found at the White House in 2023 was his, Biden replied, “I would never have forgotten my drugs.” His populist posts about politics—“Groceries cost too much,” “Endless wars are stupid”—even have some fans urging Biden to run for president in 2028. Asked if that was a good idea, President Trump said that the former first son’s checkered past would present a problem. Biden, who in 2024 was convicted of six felony tax and gun charges, responded: “I’m 28 felonies, 6 bankruptcies, and an Epstein bromance short of his checkered past.”

“By all accounts, Biden is no longer smoking crack,” said Robby Soave in Reason, yet he continues to make terrible decisions. As part of his comeback tour, he sat down last month for an interview with antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. On the podcast, he tried to rescue his dad’s reputation, claiming Democratic elites pushed Joe Biden off the ticket in 2024 because “he was never part of the Epstein class.” But that’s “complete nonsense.” President Biden was not forced out because he threatened to expose a secret sex trafficking network but because his health “rendered him patently unfit to serve.” Hunter has implied that his substance abuse issues also “render him an outsider to the elite class,” said Zeeshan Aleem in MS.now. “This, too, is nonsense.” Biden traded on his father’s name to “make insane amounts of money” and had his criminal history scrubbed by a presidential pardon.

“What’s the endgame here?” asked Helen Lewis in The Atlantic. Biden is mired in debt from his various legal battles, and his paintings aren’t selling. Does he hope to spin his new social media fame into financial opportunities? Is that why he recently posted about “the value and potential utility of cryptocurrency”? Of course, “people deserve grace when they’ve screwed up,” and if Biden can help addicts in recovery, “he should post away. Just as long as he stays away from the crack den, corrupt crypto schemes, and Congress.”

What’s the goal of the SAT? 

A dreaded rite of passage for generations of high school students, the SAT—formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test—aims to gauge a student’s ability to handle collegelevel material. Last year, more than 2 million juniors and seniors took the exam, a two-and-a-half hour ordeal consisting of 44 questions in the math section and 54 in the reading-and-writing section. A high score on the scale of 400 to 1600 won’t by itself guarantee acceptance to a selective university, but it’s often a prerequisite. Yet over the 100 years that the test has been administered, its value has been fiercely debated, with critics saying it merely reinforces race and income inequality. Those allegations were a main reason more than 1,200 colleges and universities stopped requiring SAT scores in 2020 and 2021, instead basing admission on factors like GPA, essays, and extracurriculars. Since then, though, dozens of those schools have reinstated the requirement. “Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades,” said Brown University president Christina Paxson. In an era of grade inflation, they “reveal useful information.”

How was the test created?

Before the SAT, elite universities mainly admitted students from a handful of prep schools, such as Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire or Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. In the early 1900s, when intelligence tests were becoming all the rage, institutions began considering general entrance exams. Princeton University psychologist Carl Brigham created what would become the SAT in 1922, when he modified a version of the Army’s IQ test and administered it to Princeton freshmen. Yet bias was built in from the start: One of his goals, Brigham wrote in his book A Study of American Intelligence, was to prove the superiority of “the Nordic race.” By June 1926, the College Board—an association of dozens of universities and colleges— had adopted the test as a general entrance exam. The first time it was administered, 8,040 students were given 97 minutes to race through 315 questions covering foreign languages, logic skills, vocabulary, and arithmetic. Word problems reflected the culture of the day, with one math problem asking: “If a package containing 20 cigarettes costs 15 cents, how many cigarettes can be bought for 90 cents?”

How did it get so popular? 

Mainly because of the G.I. Bill. In the aftermath of World War II, some 2.5 million veterans poured into colleges, and universities turned to the SAT to help them evaluate the applicants. By 1960, more than 500,000 students were taking the test each year, and 350 colleges had made it a requirement. To meet this growing need, the College Board employs teams of teachers, professors, and testing experts to write the questions. For decades, though, that committee consisted almost entirely of white, well-off, highly educated men from the Northeast, and the test reflected their experiences—with word problems and reading passages referring to upperclass activities like sailing or riding. More recently, test makers have tried to eliminate cultural and socioeconomic bias.

Does bias in questions harm students? 

While that can’t be proved, there are certainly disparities in scores among different races and economic classes. In 2024, the average combined score was 1228 for Asian students and 1083 for white students, compared with 939 for Hispanics and 907 for Black students. A 2023 study found that over 33% of children of the top 1% in income scored a 1300 or higher, versus only 2.4% of children from the poorest 20% of households. Wealthy families, of course, can more easily pay the $68 test fee multiple times, and many can drop thousands on special SAT prep courses. Such issues were cited in a 2019 lawsuit demanding the University of California system abolish its SAT requirement. In 2020, it did, as did hundreds of other universities, including MIT, Stanford, and the entire Ivy League.

What was the result? 

Top schools received a larger, more diverse set of applications. But before long, professors complained that incoming freshmen lacked even rudimentary math skills. “I realized that for students to follow me,” said UC Berkeley string theorist Mina Aganagic, “I had to start reviewing basic algebra stuff, like fractions.” A 2024 Harvard study found that GPA alone “does a poor job of predicting academic success in college” in the absence of standardized test scores. Dozens of colleges, including every Ivy League university, have now reinstated a standardized-test mandate, and 1,400 instructors in the University of California system have signed an open letter urging the state to do likewise. “Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers,” it states. “It moves them into the classroom.”

Are there alternatives?

There’s the ACT, developed in 1959 specifically to rival the SAT; most schools accept it in lieu of the SAT, and last year 1.4 million students took it. The Classical Learning Test, created in 2015 by conservative Jeremy Tate to focus on works in the Western canon, was taken by over 180,000 students last year, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered all U.S. military academies to accept it in place of SAT scores. But are these tests fairer or more accurate than the SAT? It’s impossible to know, and some academics believe that’s the wrong question. Harvard economist David Deming says any test is bound to reflect the shortcomings and disparities embedded in the American education system. “The problem isn’t the test,” he says. “The problem is everything that happens before the test.”

Think Elon Musk “the billionaire was bad?” asked Arwa Mahdawi in The Guardian. “Brace yourself.” After SpaceX made the biggest-ever initial public offering earlier this month, the 54-year-old tycoon saw his wealth rocket to $1.1 trillion, more than the GDP of all but 21 nations. How much is a trillion dollars? Enough to spend $1 million a day for 2,700 years without going broke. “You don’t have to be a socialist or even a liberal” to find it “obscene” that the U.S. minted the world’s first trillionaire when so many Americans are struggling to afford gas, food, and housing. But the worse news is who we minted. In 2024, when he was welcoming Nazis to X and returning an autocrat to the White House, I likened Musk to a “Bond movie villain,” said Will Bunch in The Philadelphia Inquirer. That was “far too generous.” Since then, this chainsaw-wielding sociopath has shredded the U.S. Agency for International Development—causing 600,000 preventable deaths, most of them children, in a single year—and is now busy on X, rallying Britain’s white population to “firebomb and assault their Black and brown neighbors.” That this racist “monster” is the first trillionaire is a perfect symbol of “our modern empire’s decline and fall.”

“I am not a huge fan of Musk as a political activist,” said Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times. But the South African–born tech savant’s colossal fortune is “testament to human ingenuity, immigrant success, and American greatness.” Just look at everything he’s built, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. With Tesla, he launched the electric vehicle revolution. His Starlink satellite network “helped Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion.” His Neuralink brain-chip startup may let the paralyzed walk again. And SpaceX could help humanity populate other planets. Musk is our first trillionaire because “American capitalism,” by its nature, most lavishly rewards the visionaries who “make all Americans better off.”

How quaint, said Robert Reich in The Guardian. Until recently, yes, the value of American firms, like the price of their products, was set by “supply and demand” in a relatively free marketplace. But Musk and his ilk have dismantled the “old rules of capitalism.” In our “second Gilded Age,” the value of companies like SpaceX is built through hype, government connections that provide lucrative contracts and favorable regulations, “and total, arbitrary control” of pricesetting forces. Musk’s companies do have real value. But he’s a trillionaire because the system now effectively lets founders decree what their shares will be worth, then forces average Americans— through rigged markets and index-fund-driven retirement accounts “automatically” tied to SpaceX’s fortune—to buy those shares “whether we want to or not.”

We’ve been here before, said T.J. Stiles in The Wall Street Journal. A century ago, the same widening chasms—between the superrich and everyone else, between the paper value of companies and their tangible assets—provoked Americans to demand a progressive tax code and antitrust reform. Musk becoming a trillionaire on fantasies of asteroid mining could be a similar “inflection point.” Why would Musk care what Americans demand? asked TC Sottek in The Verge. He now has more “wealth, media power, and government influence” than anyone in history, and will use it to do what he wants. It’s long been clear that Musk is “the wrong man to save the world,” as some liberals once hoped he might. It’s now the world that “needs saving from him.

What happened

A tired but upbeat President Trump found common ground with fellow Group of Seven leaders in France last week, gaining their support for his Iran peace deal and lending his to a joint declaration to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia. At the first session, Trump stood at the head of the table and jokingly declared, “I’m the boss,” before ceding the floor to French President Emmanuel Macron, who was hosting the summit in the Alpine town of Évian-les-Bains. Meeting cordially with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump suggested the U.S. might reintroduce sanctions on Russian oil. But he also indicated that the Ukraine war wasn’t a major U.S. priority, saying it “has no impact on us, other than we sell weapons,” and adding, “we’re thousands of miles away.”

U.S. relations with fellow G-7 members—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K.—have been strained over Trump’s threats against allies’ sovereignty and demands that they support his Iran war, but G-7 leaders made great efforts to keep the president happy. In a joint statement, they praised Trump’s “strong leadership” in securing the Iran deal. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose recent criticism of the Iran war spurred Trump to pull some U.S. troops from Germany, gave him a soccer jersey with the number 47, and said, “We’re on the same team.” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who had sharply criticized Trump’s recent broadsides against Pope Leo XIV, was seen chatting with the U.S. president at the summit. Asked if she and Trump were friends again, she said, “We have always been friends.”

What the columnists said

“For all the sharp elbows” of the past year, G-7 leaders have decided “the best way to deal with a disruptive president is to court him,” said Mark Landler in The New York Times. At last year’s summit in Canada, Trump departed early, accusing the others of making a “big mistake” by ousting Russia from the group in 2014. This time it was all flattery, and Trump was in a better mood. Macron even bestowed a rare honor on Trump, inviting him to dine at the opulent Palace of Versailles. “Versailles is not a gold leaf,” Trump said appreciatively. “Versailles is the real deal.”

Among the G-7 leaders, “the sense of relief was palpable,” said Nicholas Vinocur in Politico. Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer even offered military support to help the U.S. open the Strait of Hormuz, the oil transit corridor Iran had closed off, in exchange for Trump backing their resolution to support Ukraine. The goodwill has raised hopes that, with a critical NATO summit coming up next month, Trump can be kept “firmly inside the camp of Western powers.”

The bar is pretty low at these events these days, said Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Dan Diamond in The Washington Post. Success is defined “by the absence of rupture.” As Max Bergmann of the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it, “Getting the United States to just be, in some ways, normal and having this come across as a relatively routine summit—that’s the win.”

New York City

In the heart of SoHo, this four-bedroom penthouse tops an 1891 building and includes a roughly 1,600-square-foot roof deck with mature plants, irrigation, and a wisteria-clad pergola over a seating area with a built-in sofa.

The home features wide-plank oak floors, a large skylight, a modern kitchen with a Viking stove, a floating staircase, and an iron fireplace. Dining, shops, and galleries are right outside. $8,500,000. Martine Capdevielle, Sotheby’s International Realty—East Side Manhattan Brokerage, (305) 773-3366

Chicago

This 1889 Second Empire–style Victorian in the Gold Coast has a spacious roof terrace with a wrought-iron decorative railing, space for alfresco dining and lounging, and lake views. The renovated historic six-bedroom townhome has a first floor with 14-foot plaster ceilings and intricate woodwork, while the chef’s kitchen includes stone checkered floors and marble counters.

Outside are a yard with an English garden and a garage with a one-bedroom coach house. $6,000,000. Kathleen Malone, Compass, (773) 600-1551

Anna Maria, Fla.

On a coastal island near Tampa Bay, this 2017 contemporary Mediterranean features an observation terrace that looks out to palms, a canal, and Gulf sunsets. The four-bedroom has a curving staircase, marble floors, arched doorways, a living room with reclaimed wood beams, and a kitchen with a Lacanche range and a walk-in pantry.

The lot includes a pool, landscaping, a pizza oven, decks, and a private dock. A beach, shops, and dining are walking distance. $7,500,000. Kimberly Dunn, Coldwell Banker Realty, (941) 993-8693

Seattle

Built in 2018, this corner-lot contemporary five-bedroom features a large turf-clad roof with a grill area, a patio, a firepit, and views of the treetops and Mount Rainier, Elliott Bay, and downtown. The kitchen has an 18-foot waterfall island of Brazilian granite, and the living room has a gas fireplace.

The lower level includes a rec room, kitchenette, and guest room. Outside are a fenced yard, patio, and garage. $3,200,000. Scott Shutes, Windermere Real Estate/Luxury Portfolio International, (206) 949-5933

Washington, D.C.

Atop a 2020 modern building in Logan Circle, this three-bedroom penthouse’s professionally landscaped roof terrace includes plantings, built-in lighting, limestone pavers, a water feature, and views of the Potomac River and the Washington Monument.

The apartment’s glass walls open to interiors with clean lines, built-ins, and sliding wall systems for an adaptable layout. Downstairs are a private garage with storage and a shared gym, dog-washing station, and concierge. $3,250,000. Daryl Judy, Washington Fine Properties, (202) 380-7219

Sacramento

In a former bread factory, this 2009 loft apartment in the R Street Corridor includes access to a shared roof deck with a grill, string lights, leafy views, and alfresco dining space.

The one-bedroom condo has polished concrete floors, high beamed ceilings, exposed rafters, brick walls, in-unit laundry, and a bedroom with translucent walls that opens to a Juliet balcony. Parks, bars, and dining are steps away. $545,900. Clara Tucker, Coldwell Banker Realty, (916) 502-0400

‘Toy Story 5’

Directed by Andrew Stanton (PG)

★★★

Toy Story 5 arrives this week as further proof that “there’s no animated franchise that’s ever plumbed the human condition so deftly,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. As “unnecessary and charming” as 2019’s Toy Story 4, it’s “a cute and funny sequel” that once again seamlessly weaves big ideas about the terrors of loss, abandonment, and mortality with suspenseful action, a heart-tugging message, and plenty of “good-natured goofiness.” The best thing about seeing the once-perfect Toy Story catalog expand again is that Jessie, the cowgirl doll voiced by Joan Cusack, “finally gets to take center stage,” said David Fear in Rolling Stone.

Jessie is the favorite toy of 8-year-old Bonnie, so when the shy grade-schooler is given a digital tablet and loses interest in her old playthings, it’s Jessie who leads the fight to expose the pitfalls of socializing online. But while screen technology fully deserves its villainous role, “Toy Story 5 is a screed in search of a story,” and all of the movie’s secondary plotlines—about Buzz Lightyear, Sheriff Woody, and one of Bonnie’s tween neighbors—“somehow feel like filler.” Sadly, “this is what happens when you beat a franchise to death.” The movie, to be sure, “doesn’t take many risks,” said Robert Daniels in RogerEbert.com. Jessie eventually makes peace with technology, suggesting we all simply find a balance between the online world’s attractions and organic living. “It’s your prototypically beautifully rendered movie tackling a heady subject in the safest possible manner”—which isn’t bad for a fifth outing.

‘The Death of Robin Hood’

Directed by Michael Sarnoski (R)

★★

The title character played by Hugh Jackman in this revisionist drama is “not the Robin Hood of green tights and swashbuckling adventure,” said Tim Grierson in Screen Daily. Disappointingly, he comes across instead in this latest drama from the acclaimed director of 2021’s Pig as “just another flinty antihero manfully attempting to make amends for his bad acts.” Though a gray-bearded Jackman endows the character with “sufficient sorrow” and “a believable ferocity,” the outlaw’s eleventh-hour pursuit of redemption leads to “earnestly executed but fairly predictable twists and turns.”

The movie, to be fair, “holds our attention for the sheer severity of its reinvention,” said Guy Lodge in Variety. This Robin Hood, despite the lore that’s already grown around him, robbed and killed to enrich only himself, and after a bloody opening skirmish he’d hoped would end his life, he awakens in a priory where he’s tended to by an abbess played by Jodie Comer. As he befriends an orphaned girl and a leper, the film proves both “a production of unimpeachable intelligence” and “a slow, steady downer” for most of its run. “For an often ponderously uneventful film, the ending also feels strangely rushed,” said Benjamin Lee in The Guardian. “There’s really impressive craft here, though,” as director Michael Sarnoski makes the most of natural sounds and settings to transport us to 13th-century England. While his unconventional latest effort winds up “stuck somewhere between epic and chamber piece,” he remains a filmmaker to watch. “Greatness will one day surely come.”

‘Cry Baby’ by Vince Staples

★★★★

“Cry Baby is a cry for revolution, a challenge to do better,” said Kiana Fitzgerald in Consequence of Sound. A “brash, guitar-led” album from “one of the most adept rappers we have,” the record finds Vince Staples “aiming his ire at the long-established American way.” On the “tense” lead single, “Blackberry Marmalade,” he delivers a “brutal but necessary” repetition of the N-word while juxtaposing the wisdom of his nana with the violence he sees haters inflicting on Black America. Across the ensuing nine tracks, the Southern California native urges people of color to stand up, and while he’s always called out abuses of power, “it’s his genuine care for the future of this nation that makes him such a welcome voice.” The use of guitar, bass, and live drums proves “a compelling artistic shift,” said Grant Sharples in Paste. “Staples and his band pull from various offshoots of guitar-forward music,” suggesting the Black roots of rock in all forms, many of them discernible in the record’s “thwacking drums” and “viscous bass lines.” There may be hope for the nation he describes here. For now, though, “the American dream is just that: a dream.”

‘Philadelphia’s Been Good to Me’ by Kurt Vile

★★★

“As the title of the album makes clear, Kurt Vile is proud of his roots in the City of Brotherly Love,” said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. So much so that on “You Don’t Know Cuz It’s My Life,” he takes affectionate potshots at two of his heroes, Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen and Ontario’s Neil Young, for contributing to the soundtrack of the 1993 film Philadelphia. Eighteen years into a career of making rootsy indie rock, the War on Drugs co-founder has kept his songwriting fresh “by thinking small, and engaging with what is happening around him.” On this, his 10th solo studio album, “Vile seems less like a confessional songwriter than a cartographer of the mind, mapping the ways that our thoughts can wander from prosaic to profound and back again,” said Stuart Berman in Pitchfork. Think of him as “the world’s drowsiest rapper,” writing songs “steeped in his peculiar POV.” Meanwhile, his countrified guitar licks, often “dripping with melancholy,” convey the subtle heartbreak of his nomadic musician’s life. As “99th Song” and “Rock o’ Stone” reveal, all he wants is to get home and enjoy doughnuts with his wife and daughters.

‘Doctrine of Love’ by Jalen Ngonda

★★★

“Smooth, easy to digest, and impeccably crafted,” Jalen Ngonda’s second album of throwback R&B “looks set to be the perfect accompaniment for summer barbecues,” said Chris Connor in The Line of Best Fit. The lead single, “Anyone in Love,” was a top-20 U.K. hit for the Maryland-born, U.K.-based singer, and this “often exhilarating” collection of new songs “proves he is far from a one-hit wonder.” Compared with his 2023 debut album, it’s “perhaps not as fresh.” But his voice is “once again a delight throughout,” and every song comes across as a “joyous embrace” of his Motown and 1960s rock ’n’ roll influences. With “a knowing ache” in his “slightly scratchy” tenor voice, Ngonda “gives off a moonlighting factory-worker vibe,” said Andy Kellman in AllMusic. But the “sophisticated backing” includes horns, four background singers, and “ample strings.” On “I Can’t Ever Leave You,” Ngonda “switches from belting to crooning in one short line—‘You treat me like a dog does a shoe’—with rare poise and nuance.” And when he sings “You never wanted me” on the album’s closing track, “the emotion is powerful enough to make an empath tremble.”

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James Lasdun’s new book, The Family Man, reckons with the Alex Murdaugh murder case, which the poet, novelist, screenwriter, and short-story writer covered for The New Yorker. Below, Lasdun names six great books about terrible happenings.

‘This House of Grief’ by Helen Garner (2014)

Garner’s life-affirming novels are rightly loved, but I have a special regard for her nonfiction account of the case of Robert Farquharson, who murdered his three young sons. Probing, self-searching, drily astute, it’s an extraordinary reckoning with the dark forces that erupt into ordinary lives. Buy it here.

‘Nada’ by Jean-Patrick Manchette (1972)

Manchette drew on pulp and noir to create vehicles for grappling with serious societal issues. The result was a set of riveting political thrillers. Nada, about a group of 1970s radical leftists who plot to kidnap a U.S. ambassador, is his cynical but mind-blowing masterpiece. Buy it here.

‘The Journalist and the Murderer’ by Janet Malcolm (1990)

In a sense, all of Janet Malcolm’s books are crime stories—needle-sharp forensic examinations of human folly—whether she’s writing about poets or psychologists or actual criminals. This one, a study of the treacherous relationship between a killer and the journalist he took into his confidence, is my favorite. Buy it here.

‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ by George V. Higgins (1970)

If this is the hardest of hard-boiled crime stories, it’s also one of the most unexpectedly moving. Higgins had a Dickensian eye and ear for the world he made his own—Boston’s seedy criminal underworld—and its denizens become tragic figures in his hands, none more so than the aging gun dealer Eddie Coyle. Buy it here.

‘The Vanishing’ by Tim Krabbé (1984)

I’m not a fan of horror, but this take on a venerable horror trope (I won’t give it away) rises to a Dostoyevskian philosophical brilliance as it entraps its two young innocents in the logic of pure evil. It was made into a very good Dutch film by George Sluizer (who remade it into a bad Hollywood film), but it is the short, utterly unsparing book that has always haunted me. Buy it here.

‘Demons’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1871–72)

The great novels of the master himself tower over just about everything else. I’m inclined to think that this tumultuous passion play, about idealists warped into murderous criminals by their own ideals, is the greatest of them all. Buy it here.

‘Whistler’ by Ann Patchett

“Is there a place in serious literature for kind, happy characters and kind, happy stories?” asked Helen Schulman in The New York Times. Ann Patchett’s “intimate and entertaining” 10th novel “makes the strong case that there is.” The tale begins in high suspense, with 53-year-old Daphne and her husband, Jonathan, seemingly being stalked while visiting New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But the stranger trailing them turns out to be Eddie, Daphne’s beloved former stepfather. She hasn’t seen him in over 40 years, and their chance reencounter brings her to tears. As the two reconnect over weeks, then months, fans of Patchett’s past novels will “wait in vain for the terror of Bel Canto or the thrills of State of Wonder,” said Ron Charles in his Substack newsletter. Instead, Whistler is “that loveliest of summer gifts, a story of reconciliation, of old affections renewed, of a family’s circumference enlarged.”

A novel both “radiantly intelligent” and “emotionally wrenching, Whistler is “the exquisite production of an author working at the height of her powers,” said Priscilla Gilman in The Boston Globe. Patchett’s masterfully constructed story intertwines two timelines. In the present, Eddie, a book editor, charms everyone in Daphne’s circle, including her mom, who divorced him decades earlier. The other story thread reveals the cause of the family split: a car crash in which Eddie was in the driver’s seat and both he and 9-year-old Daphne were nearly killed. The two storylines are “intertwined in a way that builds tension, deepens character, and allows for unexpected discoveries,” including why the novel is named Whistler. And even when the characters grapple with heavy subjects, “Patchett’s touch is light, her humor delightful, her empathy generous and vibrant.” Without a doubt, the book is “a magnificent achievement” and “I think it’s her best novel yet.

To me, Whistler is “top-shelf comfort food, the literary equivalent of pricey ice cream,” said Beejay Silcox in The Guardian. Although “we almost care about these vanilla-bean people,” and almost care about their floral arrangements and champagne brunches, it’s “all so neat” and so untouched by lingering sorrows that it “often reads like a gratitude journal.” But there’s “a sly wit and sagacity” to Patchett’s writing that here has been “honed to perfection,” said Leigh Haber in the Los Angeles Times. As it explores family trauma and life’s transitory nature, Whistler proves “sweet but never sentimental, infinitely wise and suffused with love,” and it’s clear that some of its heft owes to Patchett drawing on events from her own life. “I don’t recommend consuming Whistler in one enormous gulp. I dipped in and out, savoring scenes, reflecting on them, occasionally shedding a tear. In other words, I didn’t want it to end.”

‘View From the East Wing: A Memoir’ by Jill Biden

Jill Biden’s best-selling new memoir repeats a very self-serving story, said Tunku Varadarajan in The Wall Street Journal. Displaying a “mulish unwillingness” to face up to the evidence of her husband’s cognitive decline in 2024, she blames “Democratic elites” for robbing him of the shot he deserved to bounce back from his disastrous June 2024 debate performance and win a second presidential term. She admits he was so off that night that she worried he’d been drugged or was having a stroke. She even reports that she agreed when he afterward whispered to her, “I really f---ed up, didn’t I?” But she insists he remained fully capable of governing, campaigning, and beating a foe she detests, and the result is “a memoir that is at turns delusional, sappy, resentful, and—in a weirdly irresistible way—revelatory of the former first lady’s agitated state of mind.”

“The most charitable interpretation of Jill Biden’s book, particularly the parts dealing with her husband’s aging,” said Jake Tapper in CNN.com, “is that she’s having difficulty accepting what’s been happening to him for years.” Joe’s mental acuity, already visibly declining in 2024, has probably worsened. But she insists that he showed no signs of impairment that summer and that she’d have raised red flags if he had. Those claims are “very difficult to believe, if not just downright false.” And she can argue all she wants that Joe, at any age, would be a better president than our current leader. “But the choice wasn’t Trump vs. Biden. It was Trump vs. which Democrat would be best.”

“View From the East Wing says almost nothing of consequence,” said Scaachi Koul in Slate. Besides filling you in on, say, how many soups were served at a particular state dinner, “it follows all the regular hits for a former first lady’s memoir, reminding you that she’s a good mother and a faithful wife and a dedicated teacher.” But all of its talk about how she and Joe are good people who were doing their best reads like one of those Instagram posts you see from an acquaintance randomly reporting that she and her husband have weathered some storms but are still going strong. “It’s a woman defending her husband to an audience who didn’t ask.”

“For years, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket company operated in secrecy, overshadowed by the success of Elon Musk’s SpaceX,” said Karen Weise in The New York Times. Founded in 2000, the venture didn’t put a craft into orbit until January 2025. Over the past 18 months, Blue Origin finally seemed to be gaining momentum, getting closer to reliably launching a gigantic rocket, called New Glenn, that could lift greater payloads and potentially challenge SpaceX’s domination of the sector. But late last month, New Glenn exploded in a fireball during a test, badly damaging its sole launchpad in Florida. “At least one massive steel tower appeared to be essentially gone,” and the hydraulics and fuel systems beneath the $1 billion pad might be irrecoverable. Amazon has about 3,000 satellites it needs to launch to begin commercial operations of its Leo satellite internet service, a potential competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink. The explosion could set Blue Origin, Amazon, and other customers back a year.

One of those customers is NASA, said James B. Meigs in The Wall Street Journal. The agency is “working furiously to get its Artemis program on track to land astronauts on the moon by 2030,” and both Blue Origin and SpaceX have been contracted to develop vehicles that can carry “astronauts from NASA’s Orion capsule down to the lunar surface and back.” Blue Origin is also building a smaller “workhorse” lander called Blue Moon for ferrying humans and cargo. “But right now, the only rocket configured to carry the Blue Moon is Blue Origin’s New Glenn.” So until New Glenn is operational again, “all those plans are on hold.”

The explosion “sets the stage for Elon Musk’s dominance of space,” said Faiz Siddiqui and Carolyn Y. Johnson in The Washington Post. It leaves the U.S. government and other customers “more reliant on SpaceX’s services.” The timing could not be better for Musk and SpaceX, which last week made the largest initial public offering in history. Musk, for his part, shared a motivational message to Bezos and his team on X. “Ad astra per aspera,” he wrote—“through hardships to the stars.”

Musk would know, said Ryan Whitley in National Review. As recently as 2008, “it was not clear SpaceX would even survive as a company given its early failures.” But it persevered, because the company’s strategy “was to learn faster than anybody else in the industry”—by learning from its mistakes. Unlike NASA, which became overzealous in its pursuit of perfection under the motto “failure is not an option,” Musk brought a Silicon Valley ethos to the space industry, where “failure was a necessary feature, not a bug.” Blue Origin is at a similar crossroads. It needs to embrace this moment as a learning opportunity and get back up—quickly.

Marjane Satrapi made revolutionary Iran come alive in stark black-and-white images. The Iranian-born writer, artist, and director was best known worldwide as the creator of Persepolis, the groundbreaking graphic novel describing her childhood experiences of the Islamic fundamentalist 1979 revolution that ripped away women’s rights and led to the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War. Published in four parts, from 2000 to 2003, Persepolis sold millions of copies, and Satrapi’s 2007 film adaptation received an Oscar nomination and the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Satrapi said her goal was not just to protest the regime but also to humanize a people stereotyped as either terrorists or veiled, silenced women. “If these people scare you, look closer,” she said in 2007. “They have parents, they have lovers, they have hope, they have stories.”

“Satrapi was a born troublemaker,” said The Nation, just like the rest of her family. Descendants of a prince who became a communist, the Satrapis “opposed both the dictatorship of the shah and the theocracy that was established by the 1979 revolution.” At school, Satrapi “talked back,” wore what she liked, and hoarded tapes of rock music. When she was 14, her parents sent her to boarding school in Vienna for her safety, but she was lonely there, bouncing from dorm to dorm and even living on the streets a few months. After an illness, she returned to Iran, had a brief marriage to a war veteran, and earned a master’s degree in art. It was when she moved to France for further studies in 1994 that she finally “found her artistic voice,” said The Hollywood Reporter, as well as her longtime husband, Swedish actor Mattias Ripa. She followed Persepolis with Chicken With Plums, an illustrated story and film based on a musician relative. She then directed several more movies, including the 2019 Marie Curie biopic Radioactive, starring Rosamund Pike.

Yet her masterwork remained Persepolis, the story of the “gradual suffocation of a society,” said Le Monde (France), and of the lifelong depression that drove her to suicide attempts. Her family said she died “of sadness” a year after Ripa’s death from cancer. In her last book, she explored the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran, which started in 2022 after a woman arrested for improper hijab died in custody. “Human nature,” she said, “is made for freedom.”

What do the statistics show?

That the U.S. is experiencing the largest and most sustained drop in homicides on record. After spiking sharply at the start of the pandemic, peaking at 6.8 murders per 100,000 people in 2021, the homicide rate started to come down in 2022. Since then, murders have dropped by an average of 16% a year; they fell 21% across 35 large cities from 2024 to 2025, according to the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice. Killings declined in cities in blue and red states: Chicago and Baltimore both recorded a 31% drop (to 416 and 133 homicides, respectively), Salt Lake City 27% (to 8), and St. Louis 11% (to 121). If a similar decline is reflected in national data, the homicide rate will drop to 4 per 100,000, the lowest since 1900. Early figures for this year suggest the downward trend is continuing: New York City registered 102 murders from January to May, the lowest number on record for the period and down 21% from the same months in 2025. Such numbers are “absolutely astonishing,” said CCJ president Adam Gelb. “It’s a historic collapse in the homicide rate.” Other violent crimes are also down. From 2019 to 2025, the robbery rate fell 36% in major cities, carjackings 29%, and domestic violence incidents 19%.

What’s driving this drop?

Some of it is a reversal of the pandemic effect. The factors that sent the murder rate soaring 30% in 2020—social disruption, workplace and school closures that put young men on the street, stay-home recommendations that trapped people with abusers— faded as normal life returned. But murders have since dropped well below pre-pandemic levels. The Trump administration has a simple explanation: It says President Trump “turned the tide” by “removing savage criminal illegals” and flooding blue cities with federal agents. Experts give that claim no credibility, noting that murders started dipping years before Trump returned to office. Instead, it seems as though multiple factors are behind the decline, including important shifts in policing.

How has policing changed?

After temporarily retreating from many communities following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, which led to Black Lives Matter protests and calls to defund the police, “cops got back to work,” said former New York Police Department chief Kenneth Corey. They also became “much more focused on gun violence.” Part of that involved zeroing in on the small number of repeat violent offenders responsible for an outsize share of crimes. Advances in DNA technology and the spread of surveillance cameras also helped catch killers. “There’s nowhere in this city where you can walk without being on video,” said Frank Simpson, chief homicide prosecutor in Camden, N.J., which recorded 12 murders last year, down from 67 in 2012. But some experts question the role of law enforcement in the homicide drop, noting murders have fallen as police departments across the nation have lost manpower. Philadelphia, for example, has the fewest officers per capita in 40 years and just posted its lowest annual homicide total—222—since 1966.

What else could explain the decline?

Crime experts and local leaders point to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which then-president Joe Biden signed in March 2021 to combat the pandemic’s impacts. It sent hundreds of billions of dollars to state and local governments, which in many locales funded community violence intervention (CVI) programs. Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett credits his city’s plunging murder rate in large part to Indy Peace, a CVI program that offers support to gunshot victims and their families in the hope of preventing retaliatory shootings. “It saves lives,” said Hogsett. The federal windfall also went to other community investments that may have made a difference: summer jobs programs for teens, after-school programs, community centers, and mental health services. “I think it has gone unrecognized how incredibly effective it was in stabilizing communities,” Princeton University sociologist Patrick Sharkey says of ARPA. Other changes in American habits could also be curbing violence.

What kind of changes? 

A decline in drunkenness—54% of U.S. adults now say they drink alcohol, the lowest in nearly 90 years—has likely helped shrink the number of murders. “You get drunk, you do something stupid,” said Rafael Mangual, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. Experts also nod to the effects of social media—many young people now socialize online rather than in person—the way the 2020–22 homicide spike took potential killers off the street, and even the possible influence of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, which may diminish impulsive behaviors. But none of these factors can explain the sheer scale of the murder drop, said crime analyst and former CIA agent Jeff Asher, and neither can changes in poverty or the availability of guns. “We didn’t fix any of those things,” Asher said. “So, what you’re left with is a bunch of explanations, none of which explains all of it.”

How low will the murder rate go?

Experts don’t know that either—and point to two factors that could nudge it back up. One is that the Biden stimulus money is running out, and its effect “will wane substantially this year,” said John Roman, a University of Chicago criminal justice researcher. Then there are the steep cuts to community funding by the Trump administration. As part of its offensive against “DEI and cultural Marxism,” it terminated at least 373 grants from the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs last year, wiping out some $500 million in funding for efforts including CVI programs, victim services, and programs to aid ex-offenders. Some experts call that a tragic miscalculation after such historic gains. “Don’t take our foot off the gas,” said criminal justice researcher Jennifer Doleac. “We do have control over our destiny here.”

In this dark moment, “Scott Pelley is the hero we need,” said Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark. At a recent all-hands meeting with Nick Bilton, new executive producer of 60 Minutes, the veteran CBS correspondent demanded Bilton explain the “Black Thursday” massacre, in which correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega were fired along with other senior staff. When Bilton claimed ignorance, Pelley took him “to the woodshed.” He accused Bilton and Bari Weiss—the Free Press founder now running CBS News—of trying to “murder” 60 Minutes as a favor to President Trump, who has a long-standing grudge against the show. Not coincidentally, CBS’s billionaire owners, Larry and David Ellison, need Trump’s approval to complete their takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, home of CNN and the Warner movie studio. Bilton swiftly fired Pelley, but failed to silence him. Speaking later to The New York Times, Pelley debunked Weiss’ “ludicrous rationalizations” about revamping 60 Minutes for the digital age. (Viewership climbed 9% last season and online views 190%.) More damning, Pelley claimed that in February Weiss pushed him to impart a Trumpian spin to a report on anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis, demanding he make the demonstrators look “more violent,” and inform viewers—falsely—that protester Renée Good was “driving toward” the ICE officer who shot her dead.

I’m sorry, said Charles C.W. Cooke in National Review, but no “employee can behave like this and expect to remain employed.” Even one who makes $7 million a year. Before last week’s blowup, Weiss and Bilton invited Pelley to clear the air in private. Pelley refused, preferring to humiliate Bilton before the full staff, which he did in deeply personal terms, mocking Bilton’s “slender” credentials and sneering that he “will never be welcome here.” There’s “something unconsciously fitting” about Pelley’s self-martyrdom, said Gerard Baker in The Wall Street Journal. In his “hysterical reaction” to Weiss’ changes to 60 Minutes, the 68-year-old Pelley displayed the pomposity and unreflecting, lefty self-righteousness that made those changes necessary.

Pelley’s not the only one getting old, said Chris Cillizza in his Substack newsletter. The average 60 Minutes viewer is now 65. The show’s audience is “literally dying off,” just as broadcast TV itself has entered terminal decline. Bilton tried explaining this during Pelley’s “barrage,” likening broadcast TV to “an ice cube that is melting.” In a prior memo to staff, Bilton claimed to have a “notebook full of ideas” of how 60 Minutes can thrive in a post-broadcast world, said Brian Stelter in CNN.com, and maybe he does. But if he and Weiss bungle the execution of those ideas as badly as they’ve bungled the last two weeks, many staff fear they’ll succeed only in “speeding up the melting process.”

Maybe 60 Minutes will survive in some form, said Rick Wilson in his Substack newsletter. But its days as a beacon of “accountability journalism” effectively ended last year, when Weiss tried to scrap a report on El Salvador’s CECOT prison, then the Trump administration’s preferred destination for migrant deportees. True, David Ellison reached out this week to staff, promising to respect the show’s “editorial independence.” But with an autocrat in the White House, what sane billionaire wants to bankroll the work of asking questions that “make powerful people uncomfortable?” In our 250-year history, 60 Minutes’ “ticking stopwatch was the closest thing American power had to a conscience it could not buy. Until they did.”

Scarborough, Maine

In the Prouts Neck community between Massacre Pond and the Atlantic Ocean, this 1965 beachfront home is on more than 4 acres. The refreshed six-bedroom contemporary features a vaulted living room, eclectic pendant lights, wood floors, a steel-and-wood floating staircase, an open kitchen with two islands, and bedrooms with dramatic wallpapers.

Outside are a covered porch with ocean views, a pool, and a sandy beach. $8,950,000. Elise Kiely, Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty, (207) 838-1050

Chicago

This 1969 Gold Coast townhouse is a short walk from Lincoln Park. Transformed several times over the years, it is now an Art Deco–inspired three-bedroom with a curved bronze-and-steel staircase, inlaid oak floors, four fireplaces, a primary suite with a soaking tub carved from a block of marble, and a high-end kitchen with a banquette.

A deck, a landscaped patio with a koi pond, and a two-car garage are also included. $5,995,000. Jennifer Ames, Engel & Völkers, (312) 440-7525

Salt Lake City

The Siegel House, a 1962 modernist home designed by renowned architect John Sugden, is in the Mount Olympus neighborhood, adjacent to the Wasatch Mountains.

The four-bedroom has a rectilinear frame made of white U.S. steel and an open plan interior with floor-to-ceiling windows and original terrazzo flooring. The eat-in kitchen includes walnut cabinets, and the bedrooms have wool carpeting. Downtown is a 20-minute drive. $2,995,000. Mony Ty, Summit Sotheby’s International Realty, (801) 550-7430

Pinecrest, Fla.

Architect Barry Sugarman designed this 1966 home, on a canal about 30 minutes from Miami. The updated five-bedroom has a central vaulted rotunda with curved walls and a suspended fireplace with a rounded hearth, and other interiors have cherry wood floors and custom Italian doors.

A chef’s kitchen includes double Wolf stoves and a Sub-Zero fridge. Glass doors open to the nearly 1-acre lot, which has a pool, yards, and lounge areas. $3,295,000. Adam Levy, Compass Florida, (305) 389-3959

Zionsville, Ind.

Built in 1963 as a Dutch Colonial Revival, a 2021 gut renovation upgraded all systems and interiors in this five-bedroom home. The kitchen includes white oak cabinets, honed quartzite counters, and a walk-in pantry. The primary suite has a Japanese soaking tub, and downstairs is a sauna. A screened porch overlooks the property’s nearly 4-acre wooded lot.

Indianapolis is about a half-hour away, while a nature park, rail trail, and schools are all walkable. $2,250,000. Louise Bergmann, F.C. Tucker Company/Luxury Portfolio International, (317) 332-2046

Guerneville, Calif.

This hillside two-bedroom split-level cottage in Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley was built in 1963. The vaulted open-plan main room includes hardwood floors and a kitchen with open shelving, marble counters, and Viking appliances, plus a freestanding cone fireplace and a sky-light.

A deck bounded by the hill has a hot tub and shade from mature trees. The Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve, wineries, shops, and dining are nearby. $519,000. Summer Stubblefield Olson, Compass, (707) 319-5983

‘Disclosure Day’

Directed by Steven Spielberg (PG-13)

★★★

“It’s been a long time since Steven Spielberg directed a film as quintessentially Spielbergian as Disclosure Day,” said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. Like his best work, the beloved filmmaker’s latest alien adventure combines “a propulsive yarn” with human drama, here anchored by “deeply felt” performances from co-stars Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt. O’Connor plays Daniel, a cybersecurity expert on the run after stealing evidence that the U.S. government has been hiding proof of extraterrestrial life for decades. Meanwhile, Blunt’s Margaret, a TV meteorologist, one day develops psychic powers linked to those secrets.

Daniel’s and Margaret’s paths eventually collide in a fantastic speeding-train sequence that proves Spielberg “hasn’t lost the knack,” said William Bibbiani in The Wrap. But while he’s crafted “an incredibly fast-paced summer thrill ride,” the story doesn’t work, largely because in our age of disinformation and complacency, it’s now naive to think that society would be turned upside down if one man announced proof of alien life. “Disclosure Day would have been a great thriller in the heyday of The X-Files, but in the 2020s, it’s out of touch.” If you seek flaws, “there’s much to roll your eyes at,” said David Fear in Rolling Stone, including the story’s “frustratingly arbitrary” twists and a climax that “should feel showstopping but somehow falls flat.” Even so, “this is a Steven Spielberg film,” and he brings “a baseline of love for filmmaking” that adds vitality to every scene. Better yet, his work still emits a simple faith: “that movies still have the power to blow minds and open hearts.”

‘Carolina Caroline’

Directed by Adam Rehmeier (Not rated)

★★★

“Carolina Caroline is a story we’ve seen play out a million times,” said Natalia Keogan in The A.V. Club. It’s a lovers-on-the-lam picture in the vein of Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, and True Romance, “but there’s a down-to-earth quality here that eludes so many of these other iconic capers, and that’s what sweeps you up.” Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner are “electric” as Caroline, a Texas gas station clerk, and Oliver, the charismatic con artist who whisks her away into a life of crime.

The absence of surprises in the story once they commence their Carolina-bound bank-robbing road trip “isn’t inherently a bad thing,” said Vikram Murthi in IndieWire. “It can be fun to watch talented people play the hits,” including when law enforcement starts closing in on this pair. Weaving imbues Caroline with “just the right amount of cunning that she never comes across as a simple victim” while Gallner lends the dangerous Oliver “a potent romantic streak.” But even the two stars can only do so much with some scenes in the film’s lumpy middle that “feel like going through the motions.” Throughout, though, there’s “legitimate heat and chemistry between the two lead actors,” said Sheila O’Malley in RogerEbert.com, and director Adam Rehmeier gives them space to connect at a soul level. “When Caroline and Oliver kiss, it’s not just hot or sexy. You can feel their relief. Finally, they are not alone in this weird, sad world.”

Homebuyers are losing faith that mortgage rates will fall, said Julie Z. Weil in The Washington Post. The average fixed rate for a 30-year home loan hasn’t dipped below 6% since the fall of 2022. For a brief moment earlier this year, it looked like the tide might be turning. But then the Iran war erupted in February, and rates, which are linked to Treasury yields, have since surged more than half a point, recently topping 6.5%. Potential buyers “who had been waiting for better” news are reconciling with the reality that rates “aren’t coming down this year in a significant way.” Some are biting the bullet, hoping they can refinance later—and trying to find ways to cover higher housing costs. They include Bob Anderson, 66, who will close on a Detroit-area home in June that will cost $350 more a month than his rent. “I will admit I’m a little stressed,” Anderson said.

Home Depot is “a barometer for America’s housing market,” said The Economist. But the company’s share price has “plunged by a quarter from its peak last year,” as fewer home sales have led to lower sales of construction equipment and for DIY projects. “We have never seen housing activity this slow for this long,” chief financial officer Richard McPhail said in April. Real estate agents are also under pressure, said Nicole Friedman in The Wall Street Journal. Most realtors are “independent contractors and get paid when a deal closes.” But deals have been hard to come by this spring. The National Association of Realtors’ membership has decreased by 200,000 since 2022, and in a 2025 NAR survey, only 71% of agents “said real estate was their only profession”—a record low.

One Texas city offers a road map out of this mess, said Shaina Mishkin in Barron’s. Since Austin simplified its permit approval process a decade ago, housing “supply has increased, prices are down, sales are up, and buying costs have shrunk.” The typical household in Austin can now “afford 74% of listings, nearly on par with 2019 levels” and bucking the downward trend in other big cities. Austin’s leaders “understood that expanding the housing stock in any way, even with luxury apartment buildings, would ease pressures,” said The New York Times in an editorial. Let that be a lesson to everyone: “We need to build more homes.”

The build-more theory faces a major obstacle, said Ryan Dezember in The Wall Street Journal: rising construction-material costs. The average American home uses “more than 400 pounds of copper,” the price of which is soaring thanks in part to high demand from data centers. Lumber, fuel, resins, and plastics, as well as the costs of delivering these products to work sites, have all gotten more expensive because of President Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war. These costs are “adding to an affordability problem that is pushing homeownership beyond reach for more Americans.”