You can’t go wrong with a meatball, says chef Georgina Hayden. Light, lemony and spring-like, this brothy meatball recipe is both comforting and fresh – and a gorgeous way of getting greens into your dinner. My kids love it, especially when I roll the meatballs really small.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 bunch spring onions
• 1 garlic clove
• ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley
• a few mint sprigs
• 50g breadcrumbs
• 400g minced meat (beef or pork, or a mixture)
• 1 unwaxed lemon (zest and juice)
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil
• 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
• 180g mini pasta shells, or other small pasta shapes
• 150g peas, frozen or freshly podded
• 40g pecorino or parmesan (optional)

Method

• Trim and finely slice the spring onions.
• Peel and finely slice the garlic.
• Finely chop the herb leaves.
• Place half the sliced spring onions in a food processor with the sliced garlic clove, the breadcrumbs, half the chopped herbs and the minced meat.
• Finely grate in the lemon zest, season generously with salt and pepper and blitz until it all comes together. (You can of course do this by hand and mix well in a bowl.)
• Roll the mixture into small meatballs, around 2.5cm wide.
• Set a large casserole over a medium heat, drizzle in 3 tbsp olive oil and fry the meatballs for around ten minutes, turning, until they are browned all over.
• When the meatballs are browned and gnarly, pour the stock into the pan, bring to the boil and then stir in the pasta shells and the peas.
• Return to the boil, and simmer for 5-7 minutes, or until the pasta is tender.
• Remove from the heat and squeeze in the lemon juice.
• Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning as needed.
• Finish by stirring in the remaining herbs and spring onions, and serve in warmed bowls, finely grating over the pecorino or parmesan cheese, if using.

Taken from MEDesque: Everyday Recipes with Mediterranean Roots by Georgina Hayden.

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“Samantha Niblett’s Summer of Sex.” It sounds like something the police would have shut down in the “grubbiest era of Soho peep shows”, said Madeline Grant in The Spectator. But it is, in fact – “just as the world teeters on the brink of geopolitical collapse” – an “actual initiative” announced by a Labour MP last week.

Awash with sex

Niblett, the “dignity-phobic” member for South Derbyshire, said she wants to encourage “open, inclusive, lifelong sex education”, and have a “national conversation” about pleasure, including the benefits of masturbation. As part of her “Summer of Sex” scheme (launched with the appallingly ungrammatical tagline: “Yes Sex Please, We’re British!”) she has teamed up with Cindy Gallop, the founder of an adult website. Together, they’re planning a series of events, including a sex toy exhibition in Parliament. Really? Is there “literally no area of life” that’s safe from “government intervention”?

Fifty-odd years ago, when people thought you could “lose your virginity by riding a bicycle”, this sort of campaign might have had its place, said Shane Watson in The Times. “But, my goodness, where have you been, Niblett?” You can’t move for people talking about sex these days: the world is awash with porn and sex toys; it’s hard to switch on the TV without seeing a sex scene.

Noble stand

Maybe so, said Rowan Pelling in The Daily Telegraph, but I still think Niblett is taking a “noble stand”. She believes, surely rightly, that issues such as consent and sexual abuse are still not well enough understood. And she and Gallop are in fact campaigning against the warping effects of hardcore porn. (Gallop’s website is called Make Love Not Porn.)

I agree that people’s attitudes need a reset, said Hadley Freeman in The Sunday Times: the rising prevalence of choking, hair-pulling and “other abusive behaviours that porn dresses up as sexy” proves this. But Britain doesn’t need more sexual liberation, sex toys or online porn, even if it’s “ethical” porn.

Niblett should be teaching people – especially those who grew up with internet porn – that sex shouldn’t be degrading; it’s about intimacy and understanding other people. Understand that, and they will have “many happy summers – and years – of sex”.

Two summers ago, the Scottish National Party was in a sorry state, said Annabel Denham in The Daily Telegraph. It had lost 38 Westminster seats in a punishing general election, and the party was “mired in scandal”, with its chief executive being investigated for embezzlement. It was haunted by policy failures – including a “stagnant education attainment gap”, poor health outcomes and “deteriorating public services” – that remain a problem today.

A recent poll found that 58% of Scots disapprove of the party's record in government. Yet bizarrely, the SNP is set to come top in next month's Holyrood elections, a result that would secure it its fifth win in a row.

Lure of independence

There are two main explanations for this, said Ian Swanson in the Edinburgh Evening News. One is that the party can always count on a solid base of support among pro-independence Scots. The other is that the rise of Reform UK as a political force in Scotland has fragmented the opposition vote. The result is that the SNP, like Labour in 2024, is on track to win a “loveless landslide”.

Under John Swinney, the SNP is doing its best to woo voters by sticking with its strategy of making Scotland the home of “free stuff”, said Chris Deerin in The New Statesman. Having already delivered free university tuition, eye tests and prescriptions, and baby boxes for every new parent, it's now promising a free school bag of stationery and books for every new primary school pupil. The SNP also plans to cap prices for essential food items in supermarkets. Then, of course, there's the lure of the independence issue: Swinney insists that a vote on breaking up the UK could be held as early as 2028.

‘Political panto’

On this issue, Swinney has got himself in a bit of a pickle, however. When he declared last year that the SNP would push for “Indyref2” if it won a majority in the Holyrood election, he no doubt assumed that he had set the bar safely high, said Andy Maciver in The Herald. The party is weakened, and it doesn't feel confident of winning a referendum now. It would rather leave the fight until the end of the decade, by which time it can hope to have a stronger record in government to point to – and the divisive Nigel Farage might be in No. 10.

The timing is not right for the SNP, agreed Robert Shrimsley in the FT. But it can still safely demand a new referendum because it knows Labour will veto any such effort. Swinney can then act all aggrieved. Everyone will play their part in this “political panto”, knowing full well that nothing will come of it. “The starting gun for the break-up of the union? Oh no it isn't.”

Most people live lives whose day-to-day features aren’t exactly gripping viewing and whose trajectories are difficult to squeeze into the structures and strictures of serialized television. So what these standout biographical series accomplish is even more impressive. They take sometimes mundane or contradictory raw material and turn it into art that both entertains and informs.

‘Elizabeth I’ (2005)

There’s a lot of royalist television out there, and much of it is either pretty mid or revels in bodice-ripping trashiness. But HBO’s “Elizabeth” stands far from that crowd, arriving two decades ago at the dawn of the prestige TV era and covering the back half of the queen’s 45-year reign, concluding with Essex’s Rebellion, a failed putsch against the monarch.

It didn’t hurt to land Helen Mirren, one of the finest actors of her generation, as Elizabeth. This comparatively brief, two-part limited series depicts one of the “few figures in history” who is “influential in their time” and “intriguing to future generations,” delivering a “richly drawn portrait of a powerful woman who is both ruthless and sentimental, formidable and mercurial, vain and likable,” said Alessandra Stanley at The New York Times. (HBO Max)

‘John Adams’ (2008)

The early aughts saw a flowering of popular interest in some of the less widely-revered figures in early American history, including HBO’s adaptation of pop historian David McCullough’s best-selling biography. The casting of two darlings of early 2000s indie cinema — Paul Giamatti as Adams and Laura Linney as First Lady Abigail Adams — was inspired.

The show’s scope is epic, beginning with Adams’ legal career in prerevolutionary Boston and tracing his life and American history until his retirement and death in 1826. A series that was “doggedly determined to remind us how bad everyone’s teeth were in the 18th century,” its greatness is due to its status as one of the “few depictions of the American revolution that treats the founding fathers as people, whose particular hang-ups and fractious personalities informed the republic they were building,” said Vince Mancini at GQ. (HBO Max)

‘House of Saddam’ (2008)

You have to hand it to the makers of “House of Saddam” because making a biographical series about one of history’s most notorious, violent dictators is one heck of a big swing. Yigal Naor shines in this BBC/HBO coproduction as Saddam Hussein, following the Iraqi dictator from his bloody rise to the country’s presidency in 1979 through his capture and trial after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Saddam towered over Iraq’s political regime for nearly 30 years, plunging the country into multiple destructive wars, persecuting his own citizens and inflicting widespread trauma and suffering. Nonetheless, Naor’s inspired performance carries the series. “His Saddam is guilty of hubris, of believing his own propaganda, of murder many times over, but he’s still presented on a human scale,” said Troy Patterson at Slate. (HBO Max)

‘The Crown’ (2016-2023)

As ambitious as anything Netflix has attempted, creator Peter Morgan’s ‘The Crown’ is a sprawling look at the life and times of the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II, starting in 1947 and running through the nuptials of her son, then-Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. Over the course of six lavishly-produced seasons, she is played by three different, and phenomenal actresses: Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton.

Though the series was usually sympathetic to the royal family, it also refused to shy away from its public dysfunction, staggering privilege and often shocking insularity. While reviews are less kind to its later seasons, the series offers the kind of narrative scope that is hard to find on television. “The Crown” benefits from an “inspired strategy, casting different collections of performers to play the royal family in different decades, leveraging an astonishing lineup of talented names,” said Eric Deggans at KQED. (Netflix)

‘The Dropout’ (2022)’

Based on a podcast of the same name about the notorious rise and fall of the blood-testing company Theranos, “The Dropout” is anchored by Amanda Seyfried’s performance as the company’s founder, Elizabeth Holmes. The series begins with her decision to drop out of Stanford University to pursue her idea with her much older boyfriend, Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews).

The show keeps a tight focus on Holmes’ gradual descent into fabulism, driven by repeated failure of the company’s signature and purportedly revolutionary blood-testing device. Seyfried’s brilliant turn allows the show to nail the “way Theranos begins as a sincere dream and slowly becomes a pile of lies and manipulation,” said Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture. (Hulu)

‘George & Tammy’ (2022)

In the great tradition of biopics about hard-partying, troubled musicians comes “George & Tammy,” which traces the doomed marriage of country music superstars George Jones (Michael Shannon) and Tammy Wynette (Jessica Chastain). When they meet in 1968, they are both married to other people, and their tumultuous romance and subsequent marriage leave very cinematic wreckage in their wakes.

Jones was a sometimes violent alcoholic, and Wynette developed a lifelong addiction to painkillers after a botched hysterectomy. Shannon and Chastain do their own singing in the show, which succeeds in humanizing these two troubled music legends. The show “isn’t an easy watch, but it keeps you gripped by the authenticity of its musical interludes and by a pair of towering central performances,” said Adam Sweeting at The Arts Desk. (Paramount+)

‘A Small Light’ (2023)

The tragic story of Anne Frank is one of the most well-known in literature and history. Much less is known about Miep Gies (Bel Powley), the secretary who helped hide her boss, Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber), his wife, Edith (Amira Casar), and his daughters, Margot (Ashley Brooke) and Anne (Billie Boullet) in the attic of an Amsterdam office building for two years before they were apprehended by Nazi occupiers.

The series begins in 1933 when Gies takes a job working for Frank and follows her through the outbreak of the war, the ordeal of occupation and the melancholy denouement that sees Otto emerge as the lone survivor from the attic. An “immensely affecting show,” its eight episodes highlight “something profoundly true about the essential goodness of those who kept their humanity in the face of one of the most inhumane episodes in history,” said Chloe Schama at Vogue. (Prime Video)

‘Mussolini: Son of the Century’ (2025)

Its current home on niche arthouse streamer Mubi limits its reach, but director Joe Wright (“Darkest Hour”) delivers an important and resonant series with this biography of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Luca Marinelli). The eight-episode limited series focuses on the years between the founding of the country’s fascist movement in 1919 and Mussolini’s consolidation of power in parliament in 1925, offering modern audiences an entry point into understanding how elected leaders can dismantle democracy from within. Mussolini is “humanized by his corrosive flaws and how attractive they are to a faltering nation,” said Craig Mathieson at The Age. The series “can be overwhelming, even hinting at a rapturous trance state” in the way it shows us how war-traumatized Italy fell for such a madman. (Mubi)

When you are already scrolling on your phone, your credit card information is saved and shipping is free, it can be a little too easy to click ‘buy.’ Even if that purchase is small, these shopping slip-ups can quickly add up. Over time, they may push your well-laid financial plans off track.

Such incongruence between actions and intentions can also bring about feelings of guilt. According to a study by Liquid Web, “14% of shoppers have bought something within one minute of seeing an ad, and 85% regret an impulsive online purchase,” said Investopedia.

So how can you keep your focus on the big picture, instead of falling for the short-term high of shopping? Friction maxxing may be the answer.

What is friction maxxing?

In essence, friction maxxing refers to the practice of adding friction, or some degree of difficulty or inconvenience, to a task. The practice can apply in practically any area — it may look like “cooking from scratch instead of ordering a delivery, finding your way using road signs instead of just plugging in the [GPS] or reading a book rather than half-listening to the audio version of it,” said The Guardian.

The point is not to make your life harder, but rather to cause you to slow down and be more intentional about your time and choices. When it comes to finances, that might mean deleting your saved payment information from your favorite shopping sites, so you are forced to pause for a moment, get up and get your physical credit card; during this time, you could reevaluate whether the purchase really aligns with your broader financial goals.

How can adding friction help you spend less?

When spending “feels easy, it grows quickly,” so the idea is that by “adding small inconveniences, known as ‘friction,’” it “gives your brain a moment to assess whether a purchase is worth it,” said Empeople Credit Union. During this pause, you gain a little bit of space to more deliberately weigh your decision to purchase, and you may ultimately decide against it.

Course-correcting these seemingly small decisions can add up. While “each decision may add only a few dollars to a receipt,” when it reoccurs “over weeks and months, these minor deviations can total hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year,” said Yahoo Finance.

You can also introduce friction around your exposure to spending opportunities. After all, if you do not even know an item exists, you cannot feel tempted to buy it. After committing to “block social media and shopping apps from 5 to 9 p.m. on weekdays,” one finance writer reported cutting their spending “by $300 compared with the previous month,” which they then put into their family’s “sinking funds, rather than let it slip away toward impulse purchases,” said NerdWallet.

What are some easy ways to add friction to your financial life?

If you are intrigued by the idea of financial friction maxxing, there are some easy ways to institute it:

• Delete saved payment information
• Turn off one-click purchasing
• Get rid of shopping apps
• Cut back on time spent scrolling and on social media
• Institute a waiting period, such as 24 hours or even a week, before making a purchase

‘Texas is to blame for nation’s redistricting disaster’

The Dallas Morning News editorial board

The “redistricting power grab that President Donald Trump launched in Texas has ended in a stalemate for the parties and a huge loss for our nation,” says The Dallas Morning News editorial board. After “10 months of out-of-cycle, coast-to-coast congressional redistricting, Democrats and Republicans control about the same number of seats as they did before the mess began,” but “democracy and good government, meanwhile, are in negative territory.” This “has squandered public resources by requiring frivolous elections.”

Read more

‘I’m one of Cuba’s political prisoners. When will I go free?’

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara at The New York Times

Amid “mounting U.S. pressure, the Cuban government announced that it was releasing over 2,000 prisoners in what the Cuban Embassy in Washington called a ‘humanitarian and sovereign gesture,’” says Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. But amnesty “would not extend to those who had committed ‘crimes against authority,’ a term generally applied to political dissidents.” Cuba’s government “has denied holding political prisoners,” but is “still scared of people like me, who have not been afraid to challenge the state’s authority.”

Read more

‘A “barbaric” problem in American hospitals is only getting bigger’

Elisabeth Rosenthal at The Atlantic

If you “need admission to the hospital, you can remain in the emergency department — in the hallway or a curtained bay on a hard stretcher or in a makeshift holding area — for more than 24 hours,” says Elisabeth Rosenthal. In this “limbo state,“ the “rules governing acceptable care and safety measures become much less clear.” If an “ED boarder has a medical complaint that needs quick attention, it’s easy for them to fall through the cracks.”

Read more

‘How the tech world turned evil’

Timothy Noah at The New Republic

Even “in its more innocent days, Silicon Valley inclined toward grandiosity, heralding not just a new technology but a new advancement in human consciousness,” says Timothy Noah. But “now a prince of the technocratic elite,” Peter Thiel, is “framing tech’s future prosperity quite literally as a battle against agents of Satan.” And his “was merely the most literal expression of a millenarian sentiment about the coming of AI that’s now conventional wisdom among tech barons.”

Read more

Apple founder Steve Jobs created the iPhone and cultivated a rockstar reputation for innovation. His successor, Tim Cook, turned the company into a globe-spanning colossus of profit. What will the next CEO, John Ternus, do to build on their legacies?

The 51-year-old Ternus “knows Apple at its core” after a quarter-century at the company, said CNN. As a senior executive since 2021, Ternus “led the hardware engineering behind Apple’s most recognizable products” like the iPhone and iPad and was “essential” in developing the new mid-price MacBook Neo.

His promotion to CEO “isn’t much of a surprise,” given that he had been seen as a front-runner to succeed Cook “for at least the last year,” CNN said. His task is to position the company for further success in the age of artificial intelligence. Ternus faces pressure to “produce success out of the gates,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note.

An ‘Apple lifer’

Ternus is a “safe choice in a dangerous moment” for Apple, said Semafor. Cook replaced Jobs when Apple was at the “height of its influence” and built it into the first company with a $1 million market cap. The company is “still a financial juggernaut” though it does not command its former cultural cachet. Ternus is an “Apple lifer” unlikely to take Apple in a “radical new direction” that would “squander its lucrative business.” But his ascension comes as AI transforms the “entire concept of computing and technology.”

The “defining challenge” for Ternus is “fixing the company’s AI strategy,” said CNBC. Apple has so far avoided “hefty capital expenditures” on AI data centers and “punted” on its own AI model. Instead, Apple has bet that consumers will use its iPhones and other products to run AI. Choosing Ternus as CEO signals the company’s belief that the “future of AI will run through tightly integrated devices, not just software,” the University of Notre Dame’s Timothy Hubbard said to CNBC.

Apple faces an “existential challenge” figuring out “what comes after the iPhone,” said Axios. Cook “executed masterfully” to maximize iPhone’s success but “largely sputtered” with new products like the Vision Pro and a failed attempt at building autonomous cars. Companies like Meta and Google are pushing smart glasses, and former Apple design guru Jony Ive is designing hardware for OpenAI. A new leadership era opens with Apple “chasing its next hit” product. Cook demonstrated that Apple can grow. Ternus instead “must prove that it can still innovate.”

Making ‘first-rate physical things’

Apple has put the “hardware guy in charge,” said The Wall Street Journal, and is betting on itself as a “maker of first-rate physical things” in an AI-dominated world. That means navigating “complex geopolitics threatening Apple’s supply chain” and countless “regulatory battles around the world.”

Ternus is expected to “bring back Jobs-era decisiveness” to Apple’s CEO suite, said Bloomberg. Cook was known for “incrementalism” in moving the company’s product line forward, Forrester Research’s Dipanjan Chatterjee said in a note. Ternus “must define Apple’s future as ferociously as he defends its past.”

What happened

Meta said Thursday it will cut about 8,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, as it shifts resources to artificial intelligence. In a company memo, Chief People Officer Janelle Gale said the social media behemoth would also close 6,000 open positions “as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently” and “offset the other investments we’re making.”

Who said what

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is “reorganizing his company around AI products in a fierce race” against OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, The New York Times said. Zuckerberg has “made no secret of his AI ambitions,” including rolling out AI-powered social media he “hopes people will incorporate into their daily lives,” and he has pushed employees to “use AI in their daily work.”

Meta’s cuts are the “latest in a string of tech industry layoffs fueled” by AI’s efficiency promises, CNN said. Amazon said it would cut 16,000 workers in January, and financial-tech firm Block’s 40% workforce cut in February “came with a stark warning that more companies would follow suit.” Microsoft on Thursday said it was offering buyouts to 7% of its workforce to invest in AI.

What next?

Meta said it will notify employees being laid off on May 20.

President Donald Trump’s desire to outdo and undo the achievements of former President Barack Obama is well-documented. Trump in 2018 tore up the 2015 agreement by his predecessor to limit Iran’s ability to develop its own nuclear weapons. Now Trump faces a challenge of getting a better deal as he tries to wind down a costly war.

The president is “adamant” he can exceed Obama in Iran, said The Hill. The 2015 nuclear agreement was “one of the Worst Deals ever made,” Trump said on Truth Social. But foreign policy experts warn that getting a satisfactory deal with Iran will be “much easier said than done,” said The Hill. The “dizzyingly complicated” Obama agreement took two years to negotiate and involved experts “poring over the details of nuclear technology, sanctions and international banking.” The U.S. decision to abandon that agreement and go to war may have convinced Tehran that a “nuclear weapon would be the best deterrent they can pursue,” said Allison McManus at the Center for American Progress to the outlet.

The earlier agreement “capped Iran’s uranium enrichment for 15 years,” said CNN. Trump is now demanding a 20-year pause, while Iran wants limits for just five years. But Tehran is negotiating with new leverage: Its closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a “weapon that is far more usable than nuclear weapons,” said CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has sold himself as the “ultimate dealmaker,” but that image is in conflict with his “intensifying love of unilateral power,” Bill Scher said at Washington Monthly. A good negotiator has “knowledge, patience, creativity and flexibility,” but the president prefers “impatiently breaking laws and norms.” Trump launched the war with Iran amid weeks of negotiations, which have left the regime’s leaders leery of reengaging. Obama, it now seems clear, mastered the “art of the deal” and avoided a disastrous war. “Trump didn’t, and here we are.”

One big difference between the 2015 agreement and any deal the U.S. makes now: Iran’s nuclear program is “largely in rubble,” Eli Lake said at The Free Press. Tehran may still possess as many as 500 uranium-enriching centrifuges, but the country’s ability to quickly develop a weapon “has been taken away through military force” and will be difficult to rebuild. Even if Trump fails to get a deal at this moment, he has nonetheless “destroyed the nuclear program that Obama legitimized.”

What next?

Trump faces “major hurdles” getting a better deal than Obama did, said The Guardian. And if a deal is reached, he will be asked to demonstrate that the war with Iran provided a superior outcome than what pre-war negotiations in Geneva were set to deliver. Otherwise the president will have “inflicted massive damage on the world economy” when other options were available. Getting to an agreement will be a challenge. There is a “trust deficit” between the two sides that “makes a solution so difficult.”

What happened

The Justice Department on Thursday reclassified marijuana as a less-dangerous Schedule III drug for medicinal and research uses, effective immediately. The order aligns federal policy more closely with the 48 states that allow some form of medical marijuana use.

Who said what

The reclassification “will make it easier to study medicinal applications of marijuana and could shore up support from influencers who support the research,” Axios said. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reclassify cannabis in December and appeared impatient last weekend when signing a separate order to loosen restrictions on psychedelics. “Joe, they’re slow-walking me on rescheduling,” he told podcaster Joe Rogan.

This is “one of the biggest changes to U.S. drug policy in decades,” Reuters said. But after “shares of cannabis companies jumped between 6% and 13% following the decision,” they “reversed their gains” as investors in the $47 billion industry digested the “limited scope of the federal government’s immediate moves.”

What next?

Marijuana for recreational use, as allowed in 24 states and Washington, D.C., remains an illegal Schedule I controlled substance, alongside heroin and LSD. But the Justice Department said it scheduled a June 29 hearing to consider a broader Schedule III reclassification for all cannabis.

What happened

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Thursday charged a U.S. special forces soldier with insider trading for allegedly using classified information about the raid on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to net $409,000 on the prediction marketplace Polymarket. Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke placed 13 bets on the U.S. going after Maduro from Dec. 27 until hours before the Jan. 3 raid, which he helped plan and execute, the indictment alleges.

Who said what

The charges are “believed to be the first instance” of the Justice Department “prosecuting a case of insider trading on a prediction market,” ABC News said. The case, alongside other “presciently well-timed wagers around geopolitical events” like the Iran war, has “ignited broad concern” in Washington about using insider information to rig Polymarket and its chief rival, Kalshi, Politico said.

“The whole world unfortunately has become somewhat of a casino,” President Donald Trump said Thursday about government employees using prediction markets. “It is what it is. I’m not happy with any of that stuff.” But prediction markets “love the president’s unpredictability,” The Associated Press said. And Trump “seems to be a big fan, applying a light regulatory touch” and suing states “trying to ban prediction markets.” The Trump Organization is working to open its own prediction market, and Donald Trump Jr. is a Polymarket investor and a Kalshi adviser.

What next?

If convicted, Van Dyke faces many years in prison. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed a parallel civil lawsuit seeking full restitution and penalties.

The S&P 500, the benchmark US stock index, hit a record high on Wednesday. This is being mirrored in other major stock markets across Asia and Europe, despite growing concerns over global fuel and energy prices as a result of the war in Iran and the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.

“There’s a lot of risk out there and yet asset prices are at all-time highs,” Sarah Breeden, deputy governor of the Bank of England, told the BBC’s business editor Simon Jack. “We expect there will be an adjustment at some point”, she said. What “really keeps me awake at night is the likelihood of a number of risks crystallising at the same time”.

As Jack said: “It is unusual for a senior figure at the Bank to be so forthright on market movements.” With confidence fluctuating around peace talks, and reverberations in energy markets continuing, what has gone up could just as easily come down.

What did the commentators say?

“Nothing, it seems, can dent the almost inexplicable optimism coursing through financial markets,” said the ABC’s chief business correspondent Ian Verrender. In the past, stock markets would “shudder” and “tumble”, then spend a decade recovering from economic “calamity”; nowadays the recovery time is cut down to weeks, “if they bother to react at all”.

Investors are not “oblivious” to what is happening in the world, said Joe Rennison, financial markets reporter for The New York Times. They are just attuned to “what exactly the markets are measuring”, looking beyond the “immediate upheaval from the war” to concentrate on its “long-term effects on corporate profits”. Americans may be struggling to afford fuel for their cars, but companies have been “very profitable indeed” for “quite a while now”. Big tech is “riding a wave of enthusiasm”, and it is these bigger companies, like Microsoft and Meta, who have been shielded from the war and tend to influence the market more profoundly.

Although the market “rapidly rebounded – and then some” after Trump’s ceasefire announcement, having been on a steady slide for most of March, investors are “not simply taking Trump at his word” that the war is “almost over”. Instead, they are responding to the White House’s “apparent eagerness” to find an end to the combat. “Investors might not believe Trump, exactly, but they do seem to believe that the worst of the war has already passed.”

After “years of headline-driven volatility” and a “dip-buying mindset”, investors have learned not to “stay bearish for too long”, said Bloomberg. The current pattern echoes the “Ukraine-war playbook from early 2022, when an initial equities sell-off and commodity price surge” soon reversed to normal.

“It is never easy to price uncertainty,” said Tej Parikh in the Financial Times. Investors have long relied on “ebitda”, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, to ascertain the “core value of a business”. But it now appears they have changed their tune, relying on “earnings before Iran, tariffs and dubious announcements”.

What next?

Since the war in Iran began, analysts have “actually raised their expectations for upcoming profits” for S&P 500 companies, said The Associated Press. Major companies such as PepsiCo and GE Vernova have either “stuck by” or “raised” their revenue forecasts for the year, which were initially published before the start of the war. S&P 500 profits could “accelerate to 20% in the second quarter, and companies aren’t giving them many reasons to reconsider”.

Of course, the US stock market “can easily return to falling”. If US-Iran peace talks break down, or if oil supplies cause greater concern, Wall Street’s mood could “swing quickly back to fear”. If oil prices, in particular, stay elevated for long enough, that could “erode” profits and raise costs, not to mention “weaken the spending power” of consumers around the world.

Tucked down a winding road in Buckinghamshire, Burnham Beeches Hotel does not so much receive you as lower your pulse. This large mansion was once a Georgian home but now it’s a four-star hotel and spa that serves as a soothing cocoon for the soul.

Built in 1727, the grand old building has attracted many eminent visitors, including the English poet, Thomas Gray, and, less lyrically, it was the base of the England football team during the Euro 96 tournament.

The atmosphere is regal and luxurious, yet settling and unpretentious. If its character seems a little undefined then perhaps that’s the point – it’s one of those hotels where you can characterise it for yourself. You make it what you want it to be.

Why stay here?

Peace is a clear draw: every inch of the hotel and its grounds is calm. Located less than an hour from London, and a short drive from Windsor, it’s the perfect base for short day trips. The rooms are gorgeous, with options ranging from modern, elegant Nest rooms to fabulous Canopy suites with charismatic décor.

The staff are generally friendly, welcoming and helpful. Their approach is on the unobtrusive side, which adds to the peaceful vibe. If you need a lot of attention and fuss, you might feel a little ignored but the atmosphere will work well for those who prefer autonomy to validation.

The layout of the hotel is a little confusing because of a lack of signposts and labels. But any initial dazzle is a worthwhile price to pay for the homely feel that the lack of signs brings. As you prance around its beautiful floors for your next meal or spa treatment, it’s easy to pretend you own the place.

Eating and drinking

The afternoon teas, which are served in the Evergreen Tea Room, are popular and I was very keen to try one. The traditional line-up includes coronation chicken sandwiches, plain and raisin scones and an assortment of tantalising afternoon tea pastries. You can add a glass of prosecco or champagne. But I went for the vegan afternoon tea, which included sandwiches of hummus, vegan gouda cheese and chutney and beetroot. The vegan scones and cream were gorgeous. So were the plant-based pastries and the Birchall Virunga Chai I washed it all down with.

Later, I had dinner in the Arden room, which overlooks the hotel’s gorgeous lawns. I tucked into a refreshing baked celeriac, with coconut milk and chutney for starters, followed by a wholesome vegan burger, complete with gorgeous brioche bun. For dessert I practically absorbed the refreshing coconut and kefir lime panna cotta. Mocktails arrived in steady procession, each one carefully assembled, none superfluous.

The breakfast room is simple and I was thrilled with my vegan English breakfast, including scrambled tofu, mushrooms, avocado, baked beans and a hash brown. I helped myself to the standard fare of sliced fruits.

Wherever I ate or drank during my stay, I overheard the quiet choruses of my fellow guests, who were delighting in their meatier and boozier selections.

Things to do

Windsor is a 15-minute drive away, so it’s easy to head over to the royal town where you can visit the famous castle and take a relaxing post-lunch stroll down The Long Walk or visit the charming high streets of neighbouring Eton and Datchet. Other nearby attractions include Legoland, historic Runnymede, the Ascot racecourse and the town of Burnham itself. You can also borrow a bike to explore the grounds or the nearby greenery.

But I was mostly happy to stay within the hotel’s warm embrace. The spa has a gym, pool, steam room, sauna and hot tub. Treatments include unwinding massages, facials, manicures and pedicures.

I unwound with the aptly-titled “Aaahhh!” massage. It was 30 minutes of relaxation and revival for my legs and feet. I took some happy strolls around the tranquil woodland that circles the hotel and then sat looking out of the window in my room, basking in the shoulder-soothing splendour of the surroundings.

The verdict

This is a hotel of gentle calibrations and its blend of inherited grandeur and contemporary adjustment works less by declaration, more by accumulation. Which is to say, every minute I spent there was more pleasurable than the previous one. I left blissed out, feeling soothed and relaxed. This is less a hotel, more like a long exhale given architectural form.

Chas was a guest at Burnham Beeches hotel, burnhambeecheshotel.com

The FBI and a congressional committee are investigating the mysterious cases of 10 missing or dead scientists and staff who worked at sensitive nuclear or space technology laboratories.

Social media has “lit up” with theories about the disappearances and deaths, said CBS News, as speculation has “swirled” about whether they are part of an effort to “harm” US nuclear or space programmes.

‘Sinister connection’

William Neil McCasland, a retired US air force general now director of technology at an aerospace defence firm, went missing from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 27 February.

Investigators soon became aware of other aerospace and nuclear officials and researchers who have gone missing or died in mysterious circumstances. These cases included a nuclear physicist and MIT professor who was fatally shot outside his Massachusetts home, an aerospace engineer who went missing during a hike in Los Angeles, and two scientists working on nuclear fusion and astrophysics who were murdered in their homes.

“The similar circumstances of some of the disappearances” and the subjects’ involvement in sensitive and secret research have “fuelled speculation about whether coordinated foul play or foreign espionage may be involved”, said The Hill.

The FBI confirmed it is “spearheading the effort to look for connections” between the 10 cases that have come to light and the Republican-led House Oversight Committee said it will examine “questions about a possible sinister connection”. In a post on X, Nasa said that it was cooperating with the investigations, but “at this time, nothing related to Nasa indicates a national security threat”.

The speculation has drawn in the US president. “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Donald Trump told reporters, confirming that an investigation was under way. It is “pretty serious stuff” but “hopefully a coincidence, or whatever you want to call it”.

‘People do just die’

People familiar with the cases said that what “underlies” these deaths and disappearances is “not a spy-thriller plot”, but “something more personal and tragic”, said CBS News.

McCasland’s wife said in a Facebook post that it “seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets”, pointing out that her husband retired from the air force more than 12 years ago.

Julia Hicks, the daughter of Michael David Hicks, a scientist who worked at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and died in 2023, told CNN there is “no train of logic” connecting her father’s death to that of other scientists. “I can’t help but laugh about it, but at the same time, it’s getting serious,” she said.

The cases are “scattered across several years at different and only loosely affiliated organisations”, said Joseph Rodgers, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If all of the scientists were working on one project or weapons system, then I’d be more suspicious,” he said.

A former US Department of Energy official was more succinct. “People do just die,” they said.

Find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest news and other global events by putting your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

People have long sought drug-assisted therapy. Now, rumors of certain drugs helping to treat or even heal mental health disorders has led to a surge in psychedelic retreats. These trendy respites operate overseas in countries like Jamaica and Peru; they also exist in the U.S., albeit with legal gray areas. But safety concerns have cropped up following a recent study.

Dubious precautions

Mounting interest in the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs has led to a rise in psychedelic retreats around the world. Such places offer multiday trips where attendees “pay for drug-assisted experiences” and are promised “psychological healing” and “personal growth,” said The Associated Press. Nearly all of the drugs typically offered at these retreats are “illegal under U.S. federal law,” including “magic mushrooms, ayahuasca, MDMA and LSD.” But retreat companies don’t always “make that explicit.” Sometimes they claim they are “protected by a rare legal exemption for religious organizations that traditionally use psychedelics.”

The “hard line between clinical intervention and all other uses” of drugs, such as spiritual and recreational, has blurred, said Hadas Alterman, a psychedelic medicine attorney, to Fox News. Psychedelics now “serve people who aren’t in crisis but aren’t merely thrill-seeking either.”

Many retreats have safety protocols in place, but they still carry the risk for “physical, psychological and interpersonal harms,” said researchers in a paper published in JAMA Network Open. It is therefore important that anyone interested in a psychedelic retreat “do their research” and “talk to the organizers or facilitators to get more information about what is being offered and how,” said Amy McGuire, a biomedical ethicist and co-author on the study.

The study, which surveyed dozens of retreats, documented a wide range of concerning practices, including “companies offering multiple psychedelic drugs,” said the AP. Many retreats have health professionals on site, but “their roles and responsibilities are often vague.” In some cases, they “take psychedelics alongside participants,” which could impair the professionals’ “ability to respond in an emergency.” Almost 90% of the surveyed retreats additionally “require or recommend that attendees stop taking certain medications,” including antidepressants, before using psychedelics. These “washout periods” ranged from “one day to six weeks before the psychedelic experience.”

Regulatory changes on the horizon

While psychedelics are not federally approved in the U.S., that may soon change. President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order directing the Food and Drug Administration to “accelerate reviews of psychedelics that show potential for conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder,” said the AP. The order also directs “law enforcement agencies to quickly lower restrictions on any psychedelic approved by the FDA.”

Due to the state-level decriminalization of psilocybin, Oregon and Colorado have become psychedelic retreat hubs for what some call “transformative travel,” said Parade. Relying on state regulation is risky because “each one is going to be slightly different,” Albert Garcia-Romeu, the associate director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University, said to The Guardian. It would make more sense to go the “FDA-approved medication route” because that comes with a “set of authoritative guidelines from major medical and regulatory bodies.”

People in the field say today’s retreats are safer than they have been in past decades, when “psychedelic experiences were almost always conducted underground with few safety precautions,” said the AP. The growing market for psychedelics has also “allowed retreats to expand their services, hire more medical and coaching staff and take safety more seriously than we’ve ever seen in the past,” said Brad Burge, who has worked with psychedelic nonprofits, drugmakers and retreat operators, to the outlet.

Still, there are no “industrywide standards or regulations for how participants are screened, prepared or monitored afterward,” said the AP. So “what does that mean about the quality of care you’re going to have?” said Joshua White, the founder of the Fireside Project, which runs a hotline for people experiencing distress during psychedelic trips, to the outlet. Without regulation, there could be a “race to the bottom where there is no liability or accountability.”

The Department of Justice is throwing hot charcoal on the meatpacking industry’s grill, as the agency has reportedly opened an antitrust investigation that could have wide-ranging implications for the beef market. The probe, which comes following repeated pressure from President Donald Trump, is happening as beef prices continue to rise, causing consumers to have a negative view of the economy.

What is the investigation about?

The DOJ is looking into whether “large meatpackers that supply American consumers engaged in criminal anticompetitive conduct,” according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the investigation. The probe is “looking at all of the major companies that sell beef in the U.S.” Four companies currently control 85% of the country’s beef market share: the U.S.-based Cargill and Tyson Foods, and the Brazilian-owned JBS and National Beef.

The crux of the investigation is whether these companies “reached illegal agreements over how they purchase cattle from ranchers,” said Bloomberg. The Justice Department reportedly believes beef companies could be doing this to cut costs, as “beef processors have been losing money for the last 20 months as they pay producers higher prices for cattle.” The investigation appeared to come at Trump’s behest. The president said in November 2025 he would “order the Justice Department to investigate the meatpacking industry for alleged collusion,” said Axios.

Other food companies, like McDonald’s, have also accused “big beef packers of collusion and price-gouging,” said The Guardian. As of now, the probe remains a noncriminal investigation. None of the companies or their employees “have been accused of any wrongdoing and probes don’t always lead to charges or lawsuits being filed,” said Bloomberg. JBS “isn’t aware of any criminal investigation” and “operates in a highly regulated industry and is committed to complying with all applicable regulations,” a spokesperson for the company told the Journal. Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef haven’t commented.

What is the bigger picture?

Questions about the beef industry aren’t new, as ranchers have “long complained about anticompetitive conduct by the four companies,” said Bloomberg. Evidence of consolidation within the beef industry is “reflected in sharply increased spreads between cattle prices and wholesale beef prices,” said a U.S. Department of Agriculture report from 2024, with “stronger evidence of market power in the meatpacking industry.”

But a criminal investigation perhaps beginning “raises the stakes considerably for the companies and their executives, who face the prospect of steep fines and prison time,” said Bloomberg. A prior investigation “into alleged price-fixing during the Covid-19 pandemic closed without action.” The current high beef prices are “driven mostly by structural factors,” Dennis Follmer, the chief investment officer at Montis Financial, told Axios. Consumers “shouldn’t expect near-term relief.”

The prospect of Trump becoming directly involved due to rising prices remains on the table, as the president’s approval rating on the cost of living has been consistently falling throughout 2026. When Trump called for the DOJ to investigate meatpackers in November 2025, the average price of ground beef was $6.54 per pound, up 91 cents year-to-year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It has continued rising since then and is currently $6.70 per pound.

Those who live in climates with cold and rainy winters know that being stuck indoors can have a negative effect on moods. Journalist Richard Louv coined the nonmedical term “nature-deficit disorder” to describe the “human costs of alienation from nature.” With spring now in full swing, it’s time to get back outside in the warming sun and touch grass.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio

As the weather warms, it’s not only wildlife like herons, beavers and bald eagles that return to Cuyahoga Valley National Park — humans flock here too. The park’s “patchwork of plunging waterfalls, weather-pocked gorges and forested trails” draw visitors, as does the “scenic” Ledges Trail that passes through “some of the region’s most dramatic scenery,” said Travel and Leisure. Admission to Cuyahoga Valley, the only national park in Ohio, is free.

Forest Bathing Trail at Silverwood Park, St. Anthony, Minnesota

Forest bathing has nothing to do with hygiene. Rather, it’s the meditative act of immersing oneself in a forest’s atmosphere, which leads to relaxation. The Forest Bathing Trail at Silverwood Park near Minneapolis is certified by the Association of Nature & Forest Therapy, and guideposts along the .25-mile path encourage walkers to take their time and experience sensations like feeling the sun on their skin. All of the senses will awaken as they “engage with nature” in ways that boost health and “foster deeper exploration,” said National Geographic.

New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York

The “lush” 250-acre New York Botanical Garden welcomes visitors who want an outdoor escape without leaving the city, said Time Out New York. Areas to explore include the old-growth Thain Family Forest, Maureen K. Chilton Azalea Garden, Daffodil Hill and the Native Plant Garden filled with close to 100,000 trees, shrubs, grasses, ferns and wildflowers. A highlight each spring is the Orchid Show, which has a new theme every year.

Ricketts Glen State Park, Benton, Pennsylvania

All of scenic Ricketts Glen State Park is worth exploring, but the seven-mile Falls Trail is a “cascade carnival” that reveals “something new” around every corner, said Outside. Falls Trail passes 21 named waterfalls, including the 94-foot-tall Ganoga Falls. The trail is beautiful year-round, but visitors who come in spring see the “most gushers,” thanks to snowmelt and frequent rainstorms.

Saint Louis Zoo, St. Louis, Missouri

The Saint Louis Zoo is home to a “stunning diversity” of animals, with more than 12,500 mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and invertebrates living inside the park, said USA Today. They are spread out across six zones, including Red Rocks (tigers, zebra and giraffes), Lakeside Crossing (sea lions, seals and stingrays) and the immersive River’s Edge (elephants, cheetahs and hippos).

Admission to the zoo is free, but some attractions, like the Sea Lion Show ($2) and Conservation Carousel ($3), are ticketed. Plan on spending the entire day here, or make it part of a bigger adventure: The Saint Louis Zoo is inside Forest Park, alongside the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis Science Center, Missouri History Museum and The Muny.

Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York

This outdoor museum sits on 500 acres in the Hudson Valley, with more than 100 large-scale sculptures scattered across the property. Kids (and adults!) will enjoy frolicking in the wide open spaces and taking in works of art like Mark di Suvero’s “Figolu,” a bold open-steel sculpture, and Zhang Huan’s massive copper-and-steel piece “Three Legged Buddha.”

Watch Hill, Rhode Island

You can find “truly excellent” beach towns along Rhode Island’s 400 miles of coastline, and one of the “quietest” and “most idyllic” is Watch Hill, said Forbes. This tiny village is less than one square mile, so it’s “easy to explore” and hit all the highlights, like the Watch Hill Lighthouse Museum and Watch Hill Carousel. The water is frigid during the spring, but visitors can still relax on the shoreline and play in the sand at Napatree Point, Watch Hill Beach and East Beach, which boasts views of the easternmost end of New York’s Long Island.

Hungary’s ousting of longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán this month sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond. In Moscow, Hungary under Orbán had been a rare ally amid an adversarial EU. In Kyiv, Orbán’s intransigence had scuttled various European initiatives to aid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government in the country’s with Russia. But with Orbán out, Hungary will seemingly focus on repairing and normalizing EU ties. Ukraine stands to benefit from this emerging era in Eastern Europe, even as it faces a host of risks.

What did the commentators say?

Over the past four years of war with Russia, Hungary has been a “persistent source of irritation” for Ukraine, The New York Times said. Orbán’s government “maintained friendly relations” with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin while “blocking critical European Union funding” for Kyiv’s war effort and “stalling Ukraine’s path toward integration into the bloc.” Orbán’s ousting means “this sort of Trojan horse for Russia within the EU may disappear,” said Andreas Umland, a policy fellow with the European Policy Institute in Kyiv, to the Times.

Orbán’s “vociferous recalcitrance” toward Ukraine allowed him to cast himself as “virtually the only opponent of aid to Ukraine in the entire EU,” said the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “In reality,” Orbán was “simply willing to wield his veto and absorb all the backlash,” allowing other antagonists to “remain in the shadows.”

The victory of Hungary’s incoming Prime Minister Péter Magyar “clears the way for greater European support for Ukraine,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. Already, that shift has seen Hungary lift a hold it placed on a 90 billion euro loan to Kyiv, which Orbán coupled with what he claimed was Ukraine’s destruction of the Druzhba oil pipeline (Ukraine contends the pipeline was damaged in a Russian strike). The “spat” over the Druzhba pipeline also blocked a round of Russian sanctions the EU had hoped to “adopt to mark the fourth anniversary” of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in late February of this year, the CBC said.

With Orbán’s hold lifted, Ukraine is expected to make short work of the initial EU loan payments, the first of which are supposed to arrive in Kyiv “as soon as next month,” said The Telegraph. To date, Ukraine has been “reliant on donations from allies to plug the gap left by the Hungarian veto” and will use the newly released funds toward “U.S.-made Patriot air-defense interceptors to protect against incoming Russian ballistic missiles, new-fangled drone technologies produced in Ukraine and other legacy weapons, such as British Storm Shadow missiles.”

Ukraine is also taking Orbán’s ousting as an “opening to expand its energy footprint in Europe and displace Russian crude oil in Eastern Europe,” said Politico’s E&E News. Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz oil company is “eying plans to ship about 100 million barrels of oil a year” from a Black Sea port to neighboring countries, including Hungary, which could “supplant the Russian deliveries.”

What next?

Although the “dramatic change in tone” from Hungary is “certainly encouraging,” Ukrainians are “well aware that Hungary is not likely to become a major supporter,” said the Atlantic Council. Incoming Hungarian leadership has already “ruled out” arming Ukraine and “underlined” opposition to “fast-tracking the country’s EU accession process.”

While Magyar is “expected to take conciliatory steps toward Ukraine,” said the Russia Eurasia Center, “expectations may be overstated.” Ukraine’s inclusion in the EU is “increasingly unpopular in the bloc’s eastern part,” where countries like Poland and Bulgaria see Kyiv as a “direct competitor for European subsidies, jobs and agricultural markets.” Ukraine is also seen by some of its neighbors as an “obstacle to accessing Russian energy supplies.”

Removing Hungary’s vetoes on Ukrainian aid improves the EU’s “decision-making capacity,” said Zsuzsanna Végh, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund think tank, to The Telegraph. But Hungary won’t contribute to the EU funds directly, as Magyar’s Tisza party is “unlikely to embrace expansive military support.”

Ukrainians saw Orbán as the “hostile actor,” said Kyiv Independent reporter Tim Zadorozhnyy to the Lowy Institute, “not Hungary itself.” With Magyar’s promises of eased tensions and EU backing, he “now has all the cards in his hands.”

Allbirds is making a complete heel turn after the shoe brand announced its pivot to AI. And many are skeptical that the footwear company will succeed in making such a big switch to the convoluted tech space. But Allbirds is just the latest in a list of companies that got their start in one industry, then changed to something quite different.

Android

Android cellphones have become as ubiquitous as iPhones in modern years, but the company didn’t start out in the phone game. The brand was launched in 2003, originally “conceived as an operating system for digital cameras,” said software development company Velvetech. By the time Android got up and running, the “market for digital cameras significantly fell,” whereas the “mobile device market was constantly growing.”

The company was forced to pivot to stay alive and began producing an operating system with more widespread uses. It is now used “primarily for mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and other wearable devices,” said IT brand Spiceworks.

Nintendo

Nintendo has always made games but probably not the kind you’re thinking of. The company was started in 1889 when its founder, Fusajiro Yamauchi, began producing Japanese playing cards called Hanafuda in Kyoto. By 1902, Yamauchi “started manufacturing the first Western-style playing cards in Japan,” said Nintendo’s website. The company began growing in size throughout the mid-20th century.

By the 1970s, Nintendo realized it had to make a change to keep up with the times, and in 1975 “began the development of its first electronic video game systems,” said BBC News. In 1978, Nintendo “produced a computer game version of the board game Othello” and has since been responsible for producing some of the most iconic video games franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong.

Nokia

Nokia has made perhaps the biggest one-eighty of the companies on this list. While known today for its industrial-strength cellphones, the company started in the 1860s as something wholly different: a wood pulp mill in Finland. This mill was the first step in the mass production of paper. The modern company was eventually formed as a “merger between the Nokia Company (paper), Finnish Rubber Works and Finnish Cable Works in 1867,” said the Crypto Museum, a Dutch virtual museum.

Prior to its eventual focus on cellphones, Nokia became a bit of an everything brand. It has been “involved in the production of paper, rubber, electricity, car and bicycle tires, footwear, communication cables, television sets, consumer electronics, personal computers, robotics, capacitors, plastics, aluminium, chemicals, mobile phones and last but not least: military communications equipment,” said the Crypto Museum.

Slack

Slack is used today as a business-to-business chat tool by numerous companies and industries. Yet it originated in the 2010s as an “internal communication tool” for the “quirky online multiplayer game Glitch,” said Encyclopedia Britannica. The video game garnered positive reviews, but its “creators found the game to be expensive and unwieldy.” They soon started looking for alternative ways to implement the technology.

This arrived in the form of a rebrand: Slack, a “provider of a messaging tool for facilitating workplace communication, an ‘email killer’ and the ultimate collaboration app,” said TechCrunch. Today, Slack is “used by more than 100,000 organizations, including 77 of the Fortune 100 companies, demonstrating the network effect of a mature and innovative product,” according to the company itself.

Volkswagen

Volkswagen has always sold cars. But in this case, it’s the company’s history that represents a major redirect. The brand is well-known for its associations with the Nazis during World War II: In 1937, Adolf Hitler’s party “founded a state-owned company that was later named Volkswagen, or ‘The People's Car Company,’” said NPR. Volkswagen leadership would eventually disavow its Nazi ties.

The pivot came in modern times, as Volkswagen shifted from supporting antisemitic Nazi Germany to negotiating weapons deals with the state of Israel. In a tinge of irony, Volkswagen, which “produced parts using forced labor for V-1 cruise missiles used by the Wehrmacht during World War II, may soon be manufacturing parts for an Israeli-designed missile defense system,” said Haaretz.

YouTube

YouTube is best known as the video platform where you can watch just about any kind of video. But it was originally started in 2004 by three PayPal employees who had an “idea for a website for users to upload video dating profiles,” said Business Insider. The company was even trademarked on Valentine’s Day. As a dating site, YouTube “attracted little interest, forcing the co-founder to take out ads paying women $20 to upload dating videos.”

Then people began “uploading videos of all kinds to YouTube,” said Business Insider, and the website took off as a general platform. Today, over “20 million videos are uploaded daily” on YouTube, with an estimated 20 billion total videos on the site, the company said.

‘History tells us that school vouchers segregate and alienate’

Erykah Nava at the Chicago Tribune

Since the “beginning of America’s education system, Black and Latino students and their families have been excluded from building a vision for their schools,” says Erykah Nava. Americans “need superintendents, school leaders and all lawmakers to unequivocally denounce school vouchers because they harm public schools by diverting critical public funds away from neighborhood public schools that Black and Latino students rely on.” If “we don’t listen to those families, history tells us that we will regret that decision.”

Read more

‘The most deadly place for women and children: a family home’

Renée Graham at The Boston Globe

There is “no more deadly place for women and children than in a family home,” says Renée Graham. When “acts of fatal domestic violence occur, especially mass shootings, law enforcement officials often call that crime ‘an isolated incident’ to reassure the public that there is no ongoing threat.” But laws are “not enough to stop this gun-fueled misogyny so long as we cling to the false belief that what angry men do to women and children is isolated.”

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‘“Petro-masculinity” is destroying the planet. Can eco-masculinity help save it?’

Andrew Boyd at The Guardian

It “won’t come as news to most that, compared with women, men litter more, recycle less and leave a bigger carbon footprint,” says Andrew Boyd. What “connects the dots here is something more unhinged and tangled: a hyper-aggressive, oil-soaked version of toxic masculinity known as ‘petro-masculinity.’” This “suggests that fighting climate change is not just a technological or economic or political challenge, but also a cultural and psychic struggle against an entrenched and very gendered ‘petroculture.’”

Read more

‘What if China succeeds?’

Matthew Kroenig at Foreign Policy

China’s “success would likely result in a more dangerous, impoverished, and tyrannical world for everyone else,” says Matthew Kroenig. Chinese President Xi Jinping has “railed against U.S. alliances in Asia as relics of the Cold War that should be replaced,” which means “removing the U.S. military presence in the region, and leaving regional states, such as Australia, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea, vulnerable to Chinese military coercion.” This “likely means a major war in Asia.”

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Americans in privately run Medicare plans caught a break earlier this month, said Maya Goldman in Axios. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced that the government will increase average Medicare Advantage payments by 2.48%, or more than $13 billion, in 2027. That’s a big improvement over the 0.09% raise initially proposed in January. Insurers will also benefit from a decision to pause a proposed overhaul to Medicare’s risk-adjustment model, which pays more for covering sicker patients. It means benefits should remain steady for people in Medicare Advantage, which allows seniors to choose private insurance plans that are covered by the government. Some providers “said the pay boost still doesn’t reflect economic realities,” with the rising costs of “drugs, supplies, and more patient visits stoking medical inflation.” But there is growing “bipartisan concern over how much” the popular program is costing taxpayers.

The $13 billion handout “sits oddly with the Trump administration’s performative chainsaw-wielding claims about reducing spending,” said Brett Arends in MarketWatch, because it rewards a program that is “grossly inefficient.” The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent government watchdog, says that the government spends 14% more—$76 billion—for Medicare Advantage enrollees than it would if those beneficiaries were enrolled in traditional Medicare. After saying he was going to hold those costs down, Trump is back-sliding in favor of the “big insurance companies, most of them listed on Wall Street.”

Medicare Advantage enrollment numbers keep rising because the program works, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial—by “using market competition to improve care for seniors” and, yes, restrain spending. Overall Medicare spending was $431 billion less over the past decade than the Congressional Budget Office projected in 2010, “even as the share of beneficiaries in Advantage increased by half.” A Trump plan to expand Medicare Advantage further by automatically enrolling seniors in private insurance plans would “reduce Medicare waste, fraud, and abuse.” But Democrats—who prefer government-run health care—are opposed.

Trump himself has labeled health insurers “as fat cats that need to be reined in,” said Bob Herman in Stat News, yet “his policies are enriching them.” He threatened “to demand lower premiums” from health insurance companies in December but never did. Now lobbying letters reveal that the largest Medicare Advantage insurers “pressured the Trump administration not to move forward with its risk adjustment proposal,” which would have “led to more accurate, and lower, payments.” There was no justification for the pause “other than industry resistance,” analysts say. And in the end, the insurers got “exactly what they wanted.”

Twenty years ago, the “bonkers-yet-ingenious” “Avenue Q” – a sort of “‘Sesame Street’ for adults”, mixing cute puppets with jaw-droppingly offensive comic songs – “romped into the West End”, having triumphed on Broadway, said Marianka Swain in The Telegraph. For this revival it has been tweaked a bit, to incorporate references to Netflix, AI and OnlyFans. But – happily – not “one ounce of the show’s gleefully outrageous humour” has been sacrificed in the process.

The tongue-in-cheek trigger warning – “contains puppet nudity” – doesn’t begin to cover it, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. There are also puppets having sex, and joining in joyfully bad-taste songs such as “If You Were Gay”, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” and “The Internet Is for Porn” – the last led by Trekkie Monster, a puppet that exudes “Cookie Monster-turns-dirty vibes”. It’s all delightfully subversive, and extremely funny.

The show is rude, but “more full of heart than snarl”, agreed Dominic Maxwell in The Times. Songwriters Robert Lopez (“The Book of Mormon”, “Frozen”) and Jeff Marx convey the anxieties faced by youngsters entering the adult world in songs such as “What Do You Do with a BA in English”; and in the bad-taste ones, they “smartly, catchily” endorse neither nastiness nor self-righteousness. Their message – which is arguably even more relevant now than 20 years ago – is that life is “more complicated than that”.

There’s much to enjoy here, including pin-sharp performances, said Louis Chilton in The Independent. But parts of the show felt dated to me. “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” seems rooted in “an understanding of racism that society has mercifully grown beyond”. Younger audiences will not understand the reference to Gary Coleman, a child star from the 1980s who died in 2010. Yes, some of it has aged badly, said Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times. But it’s still a treat. “Avenue Q” is a “fundamentally big-hearted show” with a message to “hang on in there” – and this revival is packed with the same combination of “silly, sweet and saucy comedy that bagged it a fistful of awards in the Noughties”.

Shaftesbury Theatre, London WC2. Until 29 August

What happened

The FBI started investigating a journalist with The New York Times last month after she reported in January that FBI Director Kash Patel had assigned an around-the-clock SWAT team to protect and escort his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, the Times said Wednesday, citing a person briefed on the matter. FBI agents “recommended moving forward” to determine whether the reporter “broke federal stalking laws,” the Times said, but Justice Department officials shut down the inquiry, viewing it as legally baseless “retaliation” for the article.

Who said what

FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson did not dispute the SWAT detail report. Investigators were “concerned” that the Times journalist’s “aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking,” he said in a statement Wednesday, but “no further action” was “ever pursued by the FBI.”

Patel “hasn’t been reluctant to fight back against reporting that displeases him,” The Associated Press said. A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday dismissed a defamation suit filed by Patel against former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi for saying last year on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than” at FBI headquarters.

What next?

It’s “not clear whether the Times has any recourse other than asking a federal inspector general to review” the FBI’s actions, the AP said.

“Jude Law as Vladimir Putin? It’s a casting decision so absurdly flattering to the Russian president”, you might wonder if it was part of an FSB psy-op, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph.

In this “meaty political procedural”, no effort has been made to alter Law’s “debonair good looks”, nor his “honeyed English accent” – which actually makes a sort of sense: had this Putin come across as a “malevolent gnome”, it would be “harder to buy him as the cruelly charismatic operator” the storyline depends on. And though Law is no lookalike, he does capture the Russian’s mannerisms – his “coy, heavy-lidded glower” and “weird” pout. It’s a scene-stealing turn.

But in this film, his is not the central character: the “wizard” of the title refers to a fictional Moscow TV producer, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), loosely based on Putin’s former aide Vladislav Surkov. Baranov spends most of the film telling an American academic (Jeffrey Wright) about his own life, and how, during Boris Yeltsin’s chaotic leadership, he and his boss Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen) set out to find and groom a new figurehead. They choose Putin, a colourless new Yeltsin appointee – and “a tsar is born”.

“The Wizard of the Kremlin” is an adaptation of a novel published before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. In the light of events since then, the relatively softball depiction of Putin will rankle with many. The film does vividly evoke a specific time and place, and give a sense of the “shifting quicksand of Russian politics”, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. But it suffers from “stodgy pacing”, and is undermined by Dano’s terrible performance. Jarringly affected, he delivers his lines in an artificial sing-song tone better suited to a cartoon snake.

What happened

Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) has died after nearly five decades in elected politics, his office announced Wednesday. The 80-year-old had recently filed to run for a 13th term and voted in the House as recently as Tuesday. Scott’s death widens the Republicans’ narrow majority in Congress ahead of November’s midterms. He was the fifth House member to die in office this Congress; four were Democrats.

Who said what

Scott, the first Black lawmaker to chair the House Agriculture Committee, was “once a leading voice for Democrats” on farm and food aid policy, The Associated Press said, but he “faced criticism and concerns in recent years because of declining health.” In his district, Scott sponsored “annual job and health fairs so popular they almost guaranteed his reelection every two years,” even as “age and physical ailments” limited his visibility, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.

What next?

Scott had been facing “strong challenges from well-funded Democrats” in his May primary, the Journal-Constitution said. Under Georgia law, the governor “has 10 days to call a special election to fill Scott’s seat,” with the election held “at least 30 days after that,” The Washington Post said.

In this “queasily stylish” drama-thriller, the swimming pools, locker rooms and dorms of a boys’ water polo camp in New England are a “puberty Petri dish livid with sinister bacteria”, said Jessica Kiang in Variety.

It is 2003, and a sensitive 12-year-old named Ben (Everett Blunck) has arrived at the camp part-way through. He’s new to the area, and desperate to fit in with the popular boys. At first, their “deceptively cherubic” ringleader Jake (Kayo Martin) is friendly enough, mainly because he has spied a better target for his ridicule: an oddball named Eli (Kenny Rasmussen) with a nasty rash that Jake declares to be “the plague” – leading to the boy’s total ostracisation. Ben “feels for Eli’s predicament”, but lacks the social cachet to risk being seen with the outcast kid.

Everything about the camp, with its beige corridors and scuffed canteen, is familiar and nondescript, said Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times, but writer-director Charlie Polinger knows how to make the everyday ominous. In the first shot, we see the boys treading water, to a guttural score that is “vaguely reminiscent of the Jaws theme”. The viewer is confused: is everything normal, or is something truly sinister happening? – which is what Ben is wondering too.

This is not a nice movie with reassuring lessons about kindness or being true to yourself; it’s darker and more feral than that, much like adolescence itself. The first hour is terrific, said Phil Hoad in The Guardian. Polinger (a graduate of such camps himself) is astute about the way boys talk; he observes Jake’s mob like a nature documentary; and the young stars excel. Sadly, the film becomes more predictable, and it never resolves the suggestion that, if not quite real, the “plague” might be psychosomatic.

We tend to think of our medieval ancestors as warty, unwashed, riddled with fleas, doomed to die young, and with little or no knowledge of medicine, or the body’s workings, said Helen Carr in The Telegraph. But in this “richly” detailed book, Katherine Harvey seeks to explain what they did, thought and knew – and it turns out that many of their concerns mirrored our own, from digestion and hair loss to mental health. Their medicine was based on the idea that the body was made up of four “humors” – blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile – connected to air, fire, earth and water. Good health relied on keeping them in balance, by blood-letting for example.

Medieval physicians’ views on diet, said Gerard DeGroot in The Times, were surprisingly similar to ours; they recognised the importance of fresh air and clean water, and they perceived a connection between body and mind. During the plague in Venice in 1348, “restrictions were placed on the wearing of mourning garb because it encouraged sadness, which damaged physical health”.

That said, some of their treatments were pretty weird. A mix of cow dung and wine was thought to cure obesity; male baldness was linked to the body drying out, so baths were prescribed. As for sex, this was believed to be good in moderation – for marital harmony, and as a form of exercise. If both parties orgasmed, all the better as this would help in the excretion of harmful superfluities.

This is a terrific book: I’ve rarely had such fun learning about the past. Ultimately, it leads one to the conclusion that our ancestors were “a lot like us: they fretted about their health, took steps to improve it, and cared for those who suffered. In the process of examining the medieval body, we also get a glimpse at the soul.”

What happened

The Pentagon on Wednesday said Navy Secretary John Phelan, a billionaire financier and donor close to President Donald Trump, was leaving “effective immediately,” in what was widely reported to be a firing engineered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after months of infighting. Phelan’s abrupt departure came amid an escalating naval standoff between the U.S. and Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Who said what

After Trump unilaterally extended a tenuous ceasefire, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Wednesday attacked three cargo ships in the strait, seizing two. “These were not U.S. ships” or “Israeli ships,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News. The news media is “blowing this out of proportion.”

As the Navy’s top civilian leader, Phelan had “no role overseeing deployed forces,” The New York Times said, so his firing “is not likely to have significant implications” for the war. But it’s the latest in Hegseth’s “near-continuous purge of the military’s most senior ranks,” often “with little public explanation,” The Washington Post said.

Hegseth believed Phelan was “moving too slowly” on ramping up shipbuilding and “was also irked by Phelan’s direct communication with Trump,” CNN said. Hegeth was “particularly annoyed” when Phelan “pitched the idea” for a modern “Trump Class” battleship directly to the president, The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao, a Navy veteran and former GOP congressional candidate in Virginia, is now acting secretary.

The EU has finally signed off a €90 billion (£78 billion) loan to Ukraine after Hungary dropped its veto. The loan – agreed in December but blocked for months by Hungary in a row over an oil pipeline – is “a question of our life, of surviving”, said Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Without the money, his country was struggling to manufacture the number of weapons it was capable of producing, he told CNN.

“Ukraine really needs this,” said EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. “It’s also a sign that Russia cannot outlast Ukraine.”

What did the commentators say?

“European officials had found ways” to get some funds to Ukraine during the delay but this no-interest loan provides “far more substantial financial support”, as Moscow’s full-scale invasion extends into a fifth year, said The New York Times. Ukraine will only need to repay the loan if a future peace deal includes Russia paying reparations.

Having finally secured the loan, Zelenskyy has renewed calls to restart peace talks with Vladimir Putin, said The Independent – although US mediators are currently “preoccupied with the conflict in Iran”.

A resumption of talks seems unlikely any time soon. Only a few weeks ago, the Russian president gathered key oligarchs behind closed doors and asked them to contribute financially to the war, said independent Russian news outlet The Bell. “We will keep fighting,” its sources reported Putin as saying. “We will push to the borders of Donbas.”

And it’s the question of Donbas that led to the most recent peace talks being “placed on hold”, said political scientist Samuel Charap and military analyst Jennifer Kavanagh in Foreign Affairs. Donald Trump’s administration had “centred the talks on a core bargain”: that Ukraine cede the roughly 20% of the Donbas region it still holds to Russia “in exchange for security commitments from the US and Europe”. This approach exaggerated “the significance of territory for Russia and the importance of Western assurances for Ukraine”. It also neglected to “address the key challenge in ending any war”: convincing each side that “its enemy will really commit to peace”.

What next?

A Kremlin spokesperson has been reported as saying Putin would only meet Zelenskyy “for the purpose of finalising agreements”, said The Guardian. Instead, Russia wants the US to send Trump’s delegates Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – who “have repeatedly listened to Putin’s maximalist demands” – to Moscow.

While the EU loan is “sorted”, there is now “another issue altogether”: Ukraine gaining membership of the EU, said Henry Foy in the Financial Times. Zelenskyy has long seen this as key to securing Ukraine’s long-term security and prosperity. “Belligerent public opposition” to the idea from outgoing Hungarian president Viktor Orbán had long “provided a useful shield for many other EU leaders to huddle behind” but, with his departure, “they will be forced to clarify their positions”.

Before 2000, single fathers by choice were “virtually unheard of”, said The Atlantic. But in the past few years, this population has been growing “notably”.

English law changed in 2019 to give single parents the same rights as couples over surrogate children. Since then, the number of men applying to become sole parents of surrogate babies has tripled, according to data cited in The Times. The number is still “a tiny percentage” of the total applications, but it reflects “a growing trend”.

‘Go it alone’

There aren’t many reliable figures documenting the number of men “deciding to go it alone”, said The Guardian. Most surveys don’t differentiate single fathers by choice from widowers, or separated/divorced men. But according to the Office for National Statistics, about 15% of the UK’s single-parent households are headed by dads.

“We are seeing more men wanting to adopt than in recent years,” said Natalie Gamble, a lawyer specialising in surrogacy law. Since 2019, “the options are opening up. More British surrogates are willing to be matched with fathers.”

Many applying to become single fathers by surrogacy are gay – but not all. Some have either “struggled to find a relationship” or left partners because of “incompatible approaches to having children”, said The Telegraph. This is a “family type that does seem to be on the rise”, said Catherine Jones, a family psychology expert at King’s College London.

The “main hurdle” for surrogacy is “money rather than stigma”, she said. In the UK, it is illegal to advertise for a surrogate, or that you’re willing to become one. Single men often look to Cyprus or Belarus to find surrogate mothers. Many complain that the law in the UK is “yet to catch up with the fact that single men can now much more easily pursue fatherhood in this way”.

The increasing number of single men becoming surrogate parents has caused concern among some campaigners. “The checks on single men undertaking surrogacy are not remotely comparable to those we see in cases of adoption,” said Helen Gibson, from campaign group Surrogacy Concern.

But some single men turn to surrogacy because they were turned down by adoption agencies, said ABC News. “I called five different agencies and every one of them told me that either I would not be considered or that I would be at the bottom of the list because I was a single father,” said Peter Gordon.

“Who is going to give their kid to a 50-year-old bachelor living in SoHo, you know?” said Steven Harris, who was also rejected by adoption agencies. “I wouldn’t.”

The promise of meaning

The trend shouldn’t be surprising given that singlehood has been increasing for years, “more steeply among men than women”, said The Atlantic. The gay community has also recovered from the Aids pandemic; a new generation has “made it through” to adulthood with more financial security and societal acceptance than before.

But the fact that some men are “paying extravagantly for egg donation and surrogacy” might suggest “just how important fatherhood is” for many today. Multiple professionals described the pandemic as a “turning point for a lot of single fathers by choice”. Men came out of the pandemic wanting to “spend those moments with their loved ones before it was too late”.

And in a moment when “many of the traditional trappings of manhood” are no longer guaranteed, fatherhood can be “an answer” to questions of identity. For many single men, fatherhood “dangled a promise of deeper meaning in life”.

But in a society that is “set up to regard women as primary caregivers”, single fatherhood can be alienating, said The Guardian. “Men get questions asking whether it’s Mum’s day off,” said Sophie Zadeh of University College London, who has been researching single fathers by choice. “People assume they can’t parent properly because they are male.”

Her research also suggests men are scrutinised more than women by healthcare visitors, and can be viewed with suspicion. “They’re seen as that bit more unusual.”

Prosecutors in El Salvador have opened a mass trial of 486 alleged members of the infamous MS-13 gang on charges ranging from homicide and femicide to extortion and arms trafficking.

They have been accused of more than 47,000 crimes between 2012 and 2022, including an estimated 29,000 homicides. These trials encapsulate President Nayib Bukele’s “iron-fist approach” to fighting organised crime, said The Associated Press, in a country that has been in a state of emergency for four years.

But mass trials have been criticised by human rights organisations, including a group of UN experts who claim they “undermine the exercise of the right to defence and the presumption of innocence of detainees”. Many are held in custody for years before their trial, facing blanket rulings from unknown judges.

What is MS-13?

The MS stands for Mara Salvatrucha, thought to be a combination of “Mara” (“gang”), “Salva” (a shortening of Salvador) and “trucha” (“which translates roughly into street smarts”), said the BBC. “The 13 represents the position of M in the alphabet.”

The gang was formed “on the street corners of Los Angeles” in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants who had fled civil war, said Sky News. It only spread to Central America when the members were deported from the US.

Donald Trump designated the group a terrorist organisation last year and made “deportation agreements” with El Salvador to “exchange prisoners affiliated with the gang and others”.

The main aim of the mass trial is to target the “ranfla” – the “highest echelon” – of the gang, said The Times. Alongside its rival gang, Barrio 18, MS-13 at one stage controlled up to 80% of El Salvadoran territory through “extortion, drug dealing, contract killings and arms trafficking”. Prosecutors allege that the gang’s attempts to gain complete control amounted to a “parallel state, undermining national sovereignty”.

“Over three decades” Bukele’s government estimates the gangs have killed around 200,000 people, including many listed as disappeared.

Has a trial like this happened before?

The first “collective” trial of this magnitude took place in March 2025, said AP. At its conclusion, 52 members of Barrio 18 were convicted, with one individual sentenced to 245 years in prison.

In November, a similar trial found 45 members of a rival faction, Barrio 18 Sureños, guilty of several crimes and “handed down a 397-year prison sentence to one leader”.

What is the criticism?

Bukele’s “crackdown has drawn sharp criticism from human rights organisations”, said The Times. There is significant risk that, given the limited evidence specific to individuals, mass trials risk convicting innocent people.

Human Rights Watch estimated that El Salvador’s prison population has reached 118,000, “more than double the country’s capacity”. Set against “significantly worsening already poor prison conditions”, nearly 2% of the country’s entire population was incarcerated, “among the highest rates in the world”.

More than 500 people have already died in state custody under Bukele, and there have been reports of torture, said Agence France-Presse. Bukele has also acknowledged that “at least 8,000 innocent people” have been arrested under the crackdown, and have since been released, said AP.

Who is behind this?

President Bukele’s stance on criminal gangs has “made him the most popular elected head of state in the world”, said The Times. According to official figures released by his government, the rate of homicides fell from 7.8 per 100,000 people in 2022 to 1.3 last year, said Reuters.

Trump is a close ally. He said he had “the best relationship” with Bukele after the El Salvador president’s visit to the White House in 2025, said The Telegraph, despite previously accusing Bukele of sending MS-13 gang members to the US. Trump also signed a deal with Bukele last year, paying El Salvador between $6 million (£4.5 million) and $15 million (£11.3 million) to hold deportees in its prisons – “seemingly with little due process”.

What will happen next?

At the beginning of the trial, the judge stated that armed groups had disturbed “the peace of the Salvadoran population and the security of the state” for decades, and would be tried “with the full force of the law”.

Of the defendants, 413 of them are being held at the Terrorism Confinement Center (“Cecot”) in Tecoluca, and will watch proceedings on a screen. Cecot, a maximum-security prison built by Bukele in 2023, has “become a symbol of his controversial security policies”, said AP. The other 73 remain at large and will be tried in absentia.

Prosecutors say they have “overwhelming evidence” and will seek the maximum permitted sentence, said The Times. The trial could last up to six months.

Companies want to fly you to the moon and let you stay among the stars. Four startups are developing and launching commercial space stations in prime locations like the planet’s orbit, the moon and maybe even Mars.

Think modern, not luxurious

Voyager Technologies in Colorado is readying a space hotel for 2029. The first few visitors to its space station will likely be government-sponsored astronauts and researchers. “Instead of ‘luxury,’ ‘modern’ or ‘advanced’ is a better word,” said Dylan Taylor, the company’s CEO and chair, to Scientific American.

Galactic Resource Utilization (GRU) Space wants to go beyond Earth’s orbit. It plans to run its first mission in 2029 and operate a lunar hotel in 2032, according to its website. The startup hopes to “engineer the infrastructure required to harness resources and sustain on new worlds, ultimately creating a self-sufficient industrial autonomy on the moon, Mars and beyond,” said a company white paper.

Those “interested in a berth” just have to “plunk down a deposit between $250,000 and $1 million, qualifying them for a spot on one of its early lunar surface missions in as little as six years,” said Ars Technica. The hotel’s clientele is “expected to be participants of previous commercial space flights and rich, adventurous newlyweds looking for an out-of-this-world honeymoon experience,” said Space.com (a sister site of The Week).

‘Inflection point’ with challenges

So far, lunar exploration is limited to government missions and large companies like SpaceX. “I realized we needed to create a third pillar: the space tourism industry,” said Skyler Chan, the founder of GRU Space, to Ars Technica. “We could extend a proven market to the Moon and build the first hotel there. And then once we build the hotel on the Moon, we can build out our structures,” like “roads, warehouses and bases.”

“We live during an inflection point where we can actually become interplanetary before we die,” said Chan in a statement. “If we succeed, billions of human lives will be born on the moon and Mars and be able to experience the beauty of lunar and Martian life.”

The “shift from public to private space stations, a first in human history, brings with it new opportunities for reimagining what life in orbit will look like,” said Scientific American. But as of now, “even with all the best intentions, there are some aspects of living in a confined space in orbit that, for now, can’t be made plush.”

“Maintaining a comfortable, clean atmosphere, much less a five-star experience, on a functioning spaceship will present all kinds of hurdles,” said Scientific American. “I’m skeptical,” said Jeff Nosanov, a former NASA proposal manager, to the outlet. The “challenges of keeping a space station functional are very underappreciated.” The first space hotel is set to launch next year.

It is likely that somewhere along the way, you have heard about emergency funds and the importance of having one of your own. These cash stashes will be waiting for you when the unexpected happens, like a surprise medical bill or a burst pipe in your house. But what about those costs that you technically know are coming somewhere down the line, but they are not yet part of your regular, day-to-day budget?

This could be a roof you realize will eventually need replacing or a new set of tires after you hit a certain mileage on your car. In these situations, a sinking fund can be exactly what you need to ensure you have the cash on hand, without depleting the funds necessary for your everyday expenses or wiping out your emergency stores.

What is a sinking fund?

A sinking fund is “another name for money you save a little bit at a time for a specific purchase in the future,” said NerdWallet. This can refer to “infrequent bills,” such as your pet’s annual teeth cleaning or mulching your yard, or a “large one-time expense,” like a down payment on a home or an engagement ring, said CNBC Select.

The type of expenses that make sense to cover with a sinking fund are those that are “generally more predictable than emergencies but less so than recurring spending, and they don’t occur often,” said NerdWallet.

When can a sinking fund come in handy?

Having a sinking fund adds a forward-looking component to your budget, allowing you to earmark specific savings goals and start stashing away money for them. This ensures the expected funds are there when you need them, which can prevent you from falling back on credit, dipping into your other savings buckets or derailing your regular monthly budget when the expense arises.

While you can dedicate a sinking fund to any range of expenses, some of the most common uses include:

• Home maintenance and repairs
• Expensive appliances or electronics
• Furniture
• Vehicle maintenance and repairs
• Pet care costs
• Birthdays and holidays
• Vacations
• Wedding and engagement expenses
• Baby expenses

How can you start a sinking fund?

What sets a sinking fund apart from other savings is that it “focuses on one specific savings goal” rather than being more broadly for the future and any emergencies that may arise, said Discover. As such, one of the first steps in setting up a sinking fund is determining what goal you are putting away money for, how much you will need and what your deadline for meeting your goal will be.

From there, determine how much is necessary to set aside each month to meet your goal by the assigned deadline, as well as where you will be putting those funds. Ideally, “you want your sinking funds to earn as much interest as possible while remaining somewhat accessible,” said CNBC Select. A high-yield savings account can be a good candidate for this, especially given that “some banks allow you to open a main savings account with multiple subaccounts,” said SoFi, making it even easier to know which amount is going where.

It sometimes feels impossible to predict the shape of a single day, let alone that of years from now. But some movies, either deliberately or inadvertently, manage to offer glimpses into the future, either through visions of technological advances or predicted social and political trends.

‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)

Director Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic remains open to many different interpretations and may seem ponderous to modern audiences. Nonetheless, it is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made.

The story involves the role that a strange alien monolith may have played in human evolution, but the main action takes place on a spaceship, Discovery One, en route to check on an outpost that has gone silent. Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) is forced to disable the ship’s AI, HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain), after it goes rogue. The way the film prefigured the rise of AI is particularly impressive given that “there wasn’t yet a clear notion that computation could be something meaningful in its own right, independent of the particulars of its hardware implementation,” said Stephen Wolfram at Wired. (HBO Max)

‘The Truman Show’ (1998)

Director Peter Weir’s drama didn’t exactly predict the rise of reality television — MTV’s “The Real World” had debuted six years earlier — but the concept of a single person immersed in an artificial world populated entirely by actors came fascinatingly true in 2023 when Amazon Freevee released “Jury Duty,” a reality show about an average joe who serves as a juror on a completely fake trial.

In “The Truman Show,” Jim Carrey plays Truman Burbank, a man whose entire life from birth is a reality show watched with somewhat terrifying devotion by millions. The film’s “commentary on the media’s commercialization of the individual was trenchant at the time,” said Polygon, but it was a “series of long, deepening aftershocks” in which “social media has turned its precept into a universal way of life” that cemented “The Truman Show” as a prophecy. (Paramount+)

‘Minority Report’ (2002)

Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise at the height of his stardom) is the head of Precrime in Washington, D.C. circa 2054 in director Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster. Clairvoyant people (“pre-cogs” in the movie) churn out movie-like predictions about when and where murders will happen, and Anderton then arrests the would-be perpetrators before they do the deed.

The movie features self-driving cars and targeted ads that assail you on the street after scanning your retina. “John Anderton! You could use a Guinness right about now!” blares one. But the most far-thinking plot point come true might be the rise of “predictive policing,” which uses “computer systems to analyze large sets of data, including historical crime data, to help decide where to deploy police or to identify individuals who are purportedly more likely to commit or be a victim of a crime,” said The Brennan Center. (Paramount+)

‘Children of Men’ (2006)

Widely considered one of the best science fiction films of the 21st century, Alfonso Cuarón’s “Children of Men” depicts the aftermath of a global fertility crisis. Society’s collapse is swift and brutal, leading to widespread despair and violence.

Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is tasked with escorting a young pregnant woman, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), to a floating sanctuary called the Human Project. Much of the world is now grappling with a real (if less severe) decline in fertility. But it might be Theo and Kee’s visit to a refugee camp that will stay with viewers. As the world braces for a climate-driven refugee crisis, the way that the refugees are dehumanized (one guard jokingly calls them “fugees” while imitating their sorrow) is worth revisiting. Many of the film’s developments “feel uncomfortably familiar and have clear contemporary allegories,” particularly the way that people “must continue to plow through the activities of mundane life while society continues to crumble” around them, said Ana Carpenter at Paste Magazine. (Prime Video)

‘Idiocracy’ (2006)

After Joe (Luke Wilson) and Rita (Maya Rudolph) are selected to take part in a government-run cryogenic experiment, they wake up 500 years later into a future where culture has devolved into base vulgarity and where the least capable members of society appear to be in charge.

The most popular TV program is a reality show called “Ow! My Balls!” in which people sustain repeated and grave injury to their nether regions for laughs. Joe, who was selected because of his averageness, turns out to be the smartest person on Earth in the future and lands a job working for President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (Terry Crews). The film’s “only serious misstep was to predict that it would take 500 years for America to collapse” into such a state of moral and intellectual turpitude, said Michael Atkinson at Rolling Stone. (Prime Video)

‘Contagion’ (2011)

From the opening scene vividly depicting Gwyneth Paltrow triggering a zoonotic disease outbreak in a Hong Kong casino to the rise of anti-science quacks and the movie’s year-long vaccine timeline, Steven Soderbergh’s tense, bleak “Contagion” was essential viewing early in the Covid-19 pandemic that swept the world in 2020. It followed a group of characters during a global respiratory pandemic, including CDC epidemiologist Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) and family man Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon) as they grappled with the outbreak.

Chock-full of jargon like “R-naught” that “entered our regular lexicon” at the start of the Covid nightmare, the film “didn’t see anything coming; it just anticipated something that, frankly, we should have already been anticipating,” said Will Leitch at SYFY Wire. (Prime Video)

‘Her’ (2013)

In near-future Los Angeles, soon-to-be-divorced and terribly lonely Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with Samantha, an AI operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Perhaps director Spike Jonze’s greatest achievement with “Her” was the way that it eventually took on the trappings and feel of a traditional romance.

As the strange phenomenon of “dating” AI chatbots becomes more common, the film’s prescience feels uncanny. “With apps and humanoids and new bespoke bots to soothe our pains, we never have to directly face ourselves and each other anymore,” said Tanya Chen at Slate. But while the “tech imagined in the film is eerily similar to what’s available today, Samantha is still far too advanced to be a real operating system.” (Prime Video)

‘Ex Machina’ (2014)

Writer-director Alex Garland’s 2014 thriller is remembered for its depiction of sentient robots who are indistinguishable from humans, hardly a novel concept in science fiction but one that was pulled off with style and panache. But its more insightful narrative was the background setting.

Nathan Bateman (in a career-making turn from Oscar Isaac) plays a strange, wealthy recluse developing AI-powered humanoid robots. He invites a programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) to his isolated compound to run a Turing Test on the machines. The way that Nathan’s wealth and ideology blinds him to the implications and risks of his technology is eerily similar to the behavior of contemporary techworld figures like Palantir’s Alex Karp. (HBO Max)

With the Russo-Ukrainian War in its fourth year, both sides are dealing with critical troop shortages, and Ukrainian officials think they’ve found a solution. The country has started using remotely controlled robots in combat to account for these shortages and also reduce casualties. But some experts are also downplaying the effect these robots could have on the war.

‘Seize Russian positions solely with automated weapons’

The robots, which often feature mounted machine guns, can “help Ukrainian troops carry gear, lay mines, evacuate the wounded and attack Russian positions,” said Business Insider. At least 280 companies are working to develop these robots, many of which are used to transport ordnance because they can “carry more than roughly 10 servicemen can,” Oleksandr Yabchanka, the head of robotic systems for Ukraine’s Da Vinci Wolves army regiment, told Business Insider.

The robots are a key part of Ukraine’s fight because of their offensive capabilities. One video during combat, filmed last summer, showed several Ukrainian robots that “each carried 66 pounds of explosives,” said The New York Times. One of these robots drove into a Russian stronghold and “blew itself up, while the others held back, monitoring the position.” Several Russian soldiers surrendered, and these kinds of attacks show “that the Ukrainian military can now seize Russian positions solely with automated weapons.”

Of course, human soldiers remain the key demographic on the battlefield, but Ukraine is “eager to highlight its advances to show Western partners that its outnumbered army can stay in the fight,” said the Times, while also promoting the country’s “homegrown defense industry.” During the first three months of 2026, Ukraine’s ground robots “carried out more than 22,000 missions on the front lines,” said Business Insider, citing data from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

‘The reality is more nuanced and far less futuristic’

There are drawbacks to using robots, as they “can still fall prey to enemy drones and also face challenges in traversing battle-scarred landscapes,” said Ars Technica. Though they may be good for frontline combat, at least one Ukrainian battalion reported that robots “attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers failed to reach the positions in four out of five cases due to complicating factors.” Ukraine’s efforts are also in “competition with the Russian military, which has similarly increased its use of robots on the frontlines.”

The narrative has largely been that Ukrainian robots will eventually supersede most of the country’s soldiers, but the “reality is more nuanced and far less futuristic,” said the Kyiv Post. The expansion of these battlefield robots is mostly part of an effort to “support troops not replace them.” And even though the stories of killer robots dominate the headlines, much of the “work performed by these robots remains logistical,” encompassing the delivery of “supplies, including food, ammunition, water and equipment, to frontline positions.”

But even non-offensive missions using robots “can save lives, as they replace tasks that would otherwise require soldiers to move on foot under fire,” a senior operator of ground robotic systems from Ukraine’s 13th Brigade told the Kyiv Post. It remains “far better to send a robot on a mission. If it is destroyed, you lose equipment. But if you send two or three soldiers and they are killed, it is a much greater loss, both emotionally and for the unit’s combat capability.”

Rotavirus, a potentially deadly gastrointestinal pathogen, is being transmitted at an alarming rate across the country. Young children are the most at risk of severe infection. Experts believe that reduced vaccination rates are behind the trend.

How bad is rotavirus?

Every year, rotavirus is “responsible for 20 to 60 deaths in the U.S., more than 400,000 doctor visits, more than 200,000 emergency room visits and between 55,000 and 70,000 hospitalizations among children under 5,” said Newsweek. Infection rates are higher now than they were at the same time last year, according to CDC data. The percentage of positive rotavirus tests across the country has been steadily increasing since January. “We’re seeing a lot of rotavirus in wastewater right now,” which indicates that “there are high levels of infections in these communities,” Marlene Wolfe, the program director of WastewaterScan, said to NBC News.

Rotavirus can cause gastroenteritis with a “fever above 101 degrees Fahrenheit and vomiting for one to two days, followed by frequent diarrhea,” said Discover Magazine. While “anyone can get infected, the virus spreads particularly quickly among babies and young children via the fecal-oral route through contaminated hands and surfaces.” The virus can lead to severe dehydration, which may require hospitalization. At its peak, there can be “upwards of 20-plus episodes” of diarrhea per day, Stephanie DeLeon, the associate chief medical officer and a pediatric hospitalist at Oklahoma Children’s OU Health, said to NBC News. In the worst cases, the virus is deadly, especially among younger children.

As with most viruses, there is no specific treatment once someone develops gastroenteritis from rotavirus. Doctors “only provide supportive therapy,” including “hydration such as electrolyte drinks or IV fluids in the case of dehydration, small and frequent feeding as well as fever control with medications like Tylenol,” said Forbes. Usually, the symptoms resolve in approximately a week.

Why is it spreading?

Some of the surge in infection is because rotavirus “follows a fairly regular annual pattern, much like influenza,” Ben Lopman, a professor of epidemiology at Emory University, said to Newsweek. “What’s driving this year’s surge is the same basic biology it always has been: A highly contagious virus circulating through communities where young children are in close contact.” The disease tends to peak in late winter and early spring and decline in the summer.

While there is no treatment for rotavirus after infection, the disease can be prevented. There are two different oral vaccinations available against the pathogen. Given during infancy, “7 out of 10 children who get the vaccine will be protected from getting infected, and 9 out of 10 will be protected against severe disease,” said Forbes. Unfortunately, “doctors have fresh concerns that declining vaccinations could lead to more severe illness and a higher surge in the coming years,” said NBC News. Most of those infected and hospitalized are “either too young to get the vaccine, haven’t received all the doses yet or are unvaccinated.”

Vaccine hesitancy may have made this year’s surge worse. Parents refusing to vaccinate their children has also increased cases of diseases like measles and whooping cough. “As someone working on this virus for more than a decade, I ultimately want rotavirus to become less relevant over time, with continued reductions in severe disease and mortality,” Siyuan Ding, a professor of molecular microbiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said to Newsweek. “It is therefore concerning to see case numbers trending upward this year.”

The United States has backed Israel since its founding as a modern state in 1948. That alliance is looking fragile these days, with recent polls suggesting American public support for its longtime ally has cratered amid deadly wars in Gaza, Iran and across the Middle East.

The number of Americans who now hold a “very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel” is 60%, said Pew Research Center. That’s up seven points since last year, and “nearly 20 points since 2022.” There was once bipartisan support for Israel among U.S. voters, but 80% of Democrats now disapprove while 58% of Republicans approve. There has also been a departure from 25 years of polling, which long reported that “Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies,” said Gallup. Americans now view Palestinians more sympathetically than Israel, by a margin of 41 to 36%.

‘Heavy-handed militarism’

The United States is “falling out of love” with Israel, Edward Luce said at Financial Times. Fewer Americans remember Yitzhak Rabin, the “courageous prime minister of Israel who sought peace with the Palestinians” but was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli extremist. Benjamin Netanyahu has largely dominated Israeli politics since then, wielding a “heavy-handed militarism” in Gaza, and Americans have noted his role in persuading President Donald Trump “that it was a good idea to attack Iran.” Rabin lost his life for peace. “What will posterity say of Netanyahu?”

Netanyahu may be remembered as the “prime minister who lost Israel’s most important ally,” Michelle Goldberg said at The New York Times. The country’s faltering reputation is mostly a “consequence of its oppression of the Palestinians” and particularly the “mass killings” in Gaza during its war with Hamas. But the growing split is also the result of Netanyahu’s “aligning Zionism” with Trump’s “American authoritarianism.” U.S. views of Israel “could still have much further to fall.”

The United States “must stand with Israel,” Alex Tokarev said at The Detroit News. Like the U.S., Israel “values liberty” but is “surrounded by tyrants and terrorists determined to annihilate it.” A West that will not support its ally against such enemies “will not defend its own liberty.”

An ‘ominous turn’

Netanyahu has “torched U.S. support for Israel for a generation,” said Axios. The collapse can be seen among Democrats in Congress, where “lawmakers who started out staunchly pro-Israel are becoming increasingly vocal critics” of the U.S. ally. American leaders must “have a discussion about how to normalize” the relationship with Israel, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said to Axios.

An “unprecedentedly overwhelming majority of Democrats” last week voted against failed Senate resolutions to block weapons and bulldozer sales to Israel, said The Times of Israel. Americans are “sick and tired of spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s horrific wars,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said to reporters, per the outlet. The votes to deny arms to Israel are an “ominous turn that will encourage Iran, Hezbollah and their terrorist allies around the Middle East,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial.

‘The Constitution doesn’t make an exception for misusing police powers’

George F. Will at The Washington Post

Policing is an “indispensable and demanding craft requiring skills acquired through repetitions of good judgment in bad situations,” says George F. Will. So “litigation arising from law enforcement excesses acknowledges the craft’s exacting standards,” and “sometimes reluctant courts should provide remedies that affirm those standards.” The “militarization of law enforcement has been dramatized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents operating with too little training,” and courts may “eventually acknowledge the absence of a police-power exception.”

Read more

‘Honoring America’s 250th through service’

Mike Lawler and Bonnie Watson Coleman at Newsweek

There is “no other nation on earth, past or present, that can pride itself on citizens dedicating as much personal time and resources to causes dear to them,” say Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.). Every American “has a definition of ‘service’ — and that is something worth celebrating.” In “choosing service, we progress beyond division to action, helping write the next chapter of American history as one grounded in unity.”

Read more

‘The terrifying convergence of fetal personhood laws and abortion bans’

Melissa Gira Grant at The New Republic

“Fetal personhood laws and abortion bans are often intertwined,” says Melissa Gira Grant. But the “direct harm caused by the abortion bans has typically overshadowed the more abstract and punitive laws defining fetal personhood.” These laws “may not mention abortion at all. But fetal personhood laws are layered onto existing laws and emerging legal trends.” These are “not just legal or rhetorical strategies; they also shape how patients make health care decisions.” People’s “fears are not unfounded.”

Read more

‘Trump showers health care crooks with love’

Whitney Curry Wimbish at The American Prospect

Donald Trump has “hit on a new role as a crusader against fraud,” but a new report “shows that Trump appears to support medical fraud, as long as corporate executives and other elites are the ones committing it,” says Whitney Curry Wimbish. Republicans “stump for Trump’s pet project to punish blue states under the guise of protecting taxpayers from medical fraud” but “those talking points are a smokescreen for Trump’s real aim: justifying his destruction of the American health care system.”

Read more

This week’s question: Ohio police entered the home of a 91-year-old woman who’d failed to answer multiple check-in calls, only to find her engrossed in a video game and trying to beat her previous high score. If this nonagenarian were to write a book about the joy of late-in-life gaming, what should it be titled?

How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest@theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number for verification; this week, please type “Senior gaming” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, April 28. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page of the May 8 issue and at theweek.com/contest by May 1. In the case of identical or similar entries, the first one received gets credit. All entries become property of The Week.

The winner gets a one-year subscription to The Week.

Click or tap here to see the winner of last week's contest: Snake fasting

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday lifted the Pentagon’s longstanding policy requiring flu vaccinations for service members. The vaccines will still be available to military personnel who choose to immunize themselves against the seasonal flu. The new policy poses “no threat to our military readiness,” Hegseth suggested in a video posted on social media.

Who said what

U.S. military vaccination programs “date back to the American Revolution,” said The Associated Press, but they became a “contentious political issue during the coronavirus pandemic.” The Pentagon’s annual flu shot requirement, dating back to the 1950s, has been a “major factor in lower rates of hospitalizations among service members” than the U.S. average, said the Military Times. Hegseth’s announcement “seemed to catch some Republicans in Congress off guard,” The New York Times said. “The reason it was mandatory was to enhance readiness,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters. “You do give up certain rights when you take the oath.”

What next?

U.S. military personnel are “still required to get vaccinations for diseases including measles, mumps and polio,” said the Times. Other immunizations “may be required depending on risk and military occupation.”

What happened

The Justice Department on Tuesday charged the Southern Poverty Law Center with financial crimes, accusing the civil rights organization of secretly paying informants in the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups without telling its donors. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the SPLC paid at least eight unidentified insiders a total of $3 million between 2014 and 2023.

Who said what

Nonprofits like the SPLC are legally required to “have certain transparency and honesty” with donors, Blanche said at a press conference, and by paying KKK, neo-Nazi and Unite the Right leaders for intelligence, the group was “not dismantling extremism, but funding it.” The indictment “offers little to support the notion” the SPLC’s payments were “meant to aid the extremist groups they had infiltrated,” The New York Times said.

The SPLC began working with informants in the 1980s and kept the since-disbanded program secret to ensure their safety, interim CEO Bryan Fair said in a video statement. The group “frequently” shared “what we learned from informants” with law enforcement, including the FBI, and “there is no question” the program “saved lives.”

What next?

Fair said he was “outraged by the false allegations” and his organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff and our work.” No individuals were charged in the indictment, but Blanche said the investigation was ongoing.

What happened

Voters in Virginia on Tuesday backed a new congressional map that could flip as many as four Republican-held seats, giving Democrats a boost in November’s midterm elections. Democrats currently hold six of Virginia’s 11 House seats. The redistricting referendum, approved 51.5% to 48.5%, endorses a 10-1 map passed by the Democratic-led General Assembly that would remain in effect until 2030.

Who said what

The new Virginia map put Democrats “slightly ahead in the national mid-decade gerrymandering wars,” Politico said, an outcome “few thought possible when President Donald Trump picked the fight by pushing Texas Republicans to redraw their map last summer.” Virginia voters told pollsters “they generally opposed partisan gerrymandering,” The Washington Post said, but “many said they were willing to approve it for a limited time to send an extraordinary message to the White House.”

Trump sat out of the campaign until the end. “This is really a country election,” he told a tele-rally on Monday. Democrats did not “roll over and play dead” in the gerrymander fight, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “When they go low, we hit back hard.”

What next?

The Virginia Supreme Court is still considering GOP challenges that would “make the referendum results meaningless,” The Associated Press said. And Florida’s GOP-led Legislature is meeting next week to consider a new map “targeting as many as five” Democratic seats, CNN said, though that effort “faces several obstacles of its own.”

Claims that new AI models can outperform humans at some hacking tasks has sparked widespread alarm about the future of digital security.

Tech firms “usually create buzz around products they plan to release”, said The Economist. American artificial intelligence lab Anthropic, “has managed to create excitement – and a good deal of worry – around something it plans not to”, having announced that its new Claude Mythos model would not be released to the general public.

The problem is not that the new model is “buggy or unreliable” but rather “that it works so well that releasing it would put the world’s digital infrastructure at risk”.

What did the commentators say?

This next generation of AI models such as Anthropic’s Mythos or OpenAI’s new closed-version GPT 5.4-Cyber can not only write code, but also recognise errors – or “bugs” – in the code, which can be used to both identify potential weaknesses but also ways to attack computer systems.

“It’s impressive – and, at the same time, worrying” – because it makes cyberattacks “easier”, said professor of cyber security Florian Tramèr on ETH Zurich university’s website. A lone hacker “can suddenly try out thousands of variants” and “if one attack fails, he or she can simply try with the next one.” “This increases the risks for companies, state institutions or even private individuals,” especially “if such models become cheaper and more efficient”.

Recognising the danger this might pose, Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to a handful of trusted tech companies under an initiative called Project Glasswing. Similarly, OpenAI is providing limited access to GPT-5.4-Cyber to vetted security professionals so they can use it for defensive cybersecurity measures.

Yet even Anthropic’s strict security protocols appear to have been breached, after the company confirmed it was investigating how a group of users gained “unauthorised access” to Mythos Preview “through one of our third-party vendor environments”.

The risk of unauthorised access will only “add to anxiety” about Mythos, and “raises concerns” about whether Anthropic “can keep the technology it develops out of the hands of bad actors”, said Cristina Criddle in the Financial Times.

News of these new models’ cybercapabilities had already “sent shockwaves through the markets and prompted high-level discussions among financial institutions and global regulators”, with finance ministers from across the G7 hosting bank bosses to discuss what AI-enabled hacking might mean for their businesses.

What next?

Capitalising on a “mix of fear and excitement over AI and its future impact” has “become a hallmark of the sector and its marketing strategies in recent years”, said BBC reporters Liv McMahon and Joe Tidy.

In the case of Mythos, “we still do not know enough about it to know whether these hopes or fears are justified, or more a reflection of the hype surrounding the industry”.

In reality, “like other tools from the long history of cybersecurity”, the latest AI models “can be used for both offence and defence”, said The New York Times.

There is still disagreement on “whether one side of this struggle has gained a significant advantage through AI” and experts are “unsure how the battle will play out in the coming years”. Most agree, however, that “the companies and governments that do not embrace the latest AI for defensive purposes will leave themselves enormously vulnerable”.

With the cyberenvironment experiencing the “most change” ever, said Francis deSouza, the chief operating officer and president of security products at Google Cloud, “you have to fight AI with AI.”

President Lee Jae Myung warned earlier this month that the conflict in Iran represented a “war-like situation” for South Koreans. As oil reserves continue to dwindle, even if normal service in the Strait of Hormuz were to resume, it would take a long time for supplies to catch up.

The war is “serving as a significant turning point” for South Korea to shift to renewable energy, South Korea’s Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Sung-hwan told CNBC. We must undergo a “fundamental energy transition” and “turn this challenge into a blessing in disguise”.

Rising oil prices, and the weakening of the won against the dollar, are “dealing a double blow” to the Korean economy, said The New York Times. But reliance on oil has also highlighted the domestic tussle for green energy action in a divided South Korean system.

‘Draconian’ measures

The “brightly illuminated” satellite images of South Korea at night, compared to the “sea of blackness” in the North, have long been seen as a “wider triumph of capitalism and democracy”, said Christopher Jasper, transport industry editor, in The Telegraph. However, due to the Iran war, these lights could be extinguished “in a matter of weeks”.

Compared to fellow developed countries, South Korea is “almost uniquely lacking in natural resources”, relying on imports to meet “90% of its energy needs”. Around 70% of its crude oil shipments, in addition to 20% natural gas, come from the Gulf. The country has seen fuel prices increase by a fifth, a ban on driving one weekday in five for individuals, and calls to reduce shower times and to charge electric cars and phones only in the daytime. Much more “draconian” measures could be just weeks away.

South Korea must face a “difficult home truth”, said David Fickling in Bloomberg. Behind the “sleek modern society” is an “insatiable appetite for fossil fuels that’s undermining its economy”. But this appetite presents a climate and “strategic” threat. State utility Korea Electric Power Corporation’s (Kepco) “huge” generation plants provide “tempting targets for rocket attacks”, and its proximity to North Korea and China leaves the South exposed to mine threats, should the conflict expand.

A ‘catalyst’ for energy reform?

The fossil-fuel vulnerability highlighted by the war in Iran could be the “catalyst for a faster clean energy system”, said The Guardian. South Korea’s energy targets long predate the current war, aiming to generate 20% of electricity from renewables by 2030 and phase out coal by 2040.

As with most renewable energy, there must be the infrastructure to support it. The power generated by new energy is “colliding” with the grid’s capacity, meaning it is “in effect going to waste”. There is hope in the form of Kepco building high-voltage transmission lines to Seoul, but a decade-long wait and “resistance” from locals are taking the shine off the progress.

On top of the energy opportunities, this is a “fresh opportunity” to “strengthen Seoul’s hand” against North Korea, said Jenni Marsh in Bloomberg. According to Finance Minister Koo Yun Cheol, Middle Eastern countries are “lining up” to buy Korea’s missiles, with their 90% success rate and “affordable price tag” an attractive proposition for buyers. The crisis has also fuelled government investment into nuclear-reactor restarts to “maintain grid stability”. As North Korea’s Kim Jong Un “plays hard to get” with the US, and “refuses talks” with Lee, improving defence capabilities “looks like an increasingly smart option”.

President Lee’s “catnip” calls to transition to renewables due to the war in Iran have “no chance of being met”, said Fickling in the same outlet. For instance, Kepco has “effectively banned” all new generators in the “renewables-rich” east until 2032, all because its “crumbling grid is supposedly incapable of accepting new connections”. Decisions such as these will do “nothing to advance South Korea’s energy transition”. Society as a whole needs to fight against those who have kept them “hooked on polluting power”.

Pixar has been “changing the game” for over three decades with its “sophisticated” and “characterful” animated feature films, said Ben Travis and Jordan King on Empire. With the studio’s hotly anticipated “Toy Story 5” due to hit UK cinemas in June, now is a great time to revisit the classics. Here are some of the best.

Toy Story (1995)

“Pixar’s first feature is still the template for every great movie the studio has made since,” said Tim Grierson and Will Leitch on Vulture. Packed with “lots of giddy, witty, silly laughs”, “ripping action sequences” and “dead-on insights into human nature”, the “best comedy of the 1990s remains perfect” three decades after its release. Despite its humour, “deep down” this is a “very melancholy film”; the toys’ “battle” for Andy’s attention speaks to “everyone’s fear of being replaced”, while reminding us the “innocence of childhood cannot last”. Tom Hanks leads the “impeccable” voice cast as Woody. He’s won two Oscars but this may be the role that “immortalises” him.

Finding Nemo (2003)

The opening of “Finding Nemo” is a “nerve-shredder”, said Vulture. But despite the “terrors” throughout the film, the message is clear. If our children are “going to survive on their own”, we must “release them into the scary world” rather than “smothering” them. The movie follows a “nervous clownfish” on a “desperate search” to find and rescue his son, Nemo, with the help of a “lovably loopy blue tang”. Heartwarming, “exciting” and “visually gorgeous”, it’s a wonderful film.

The Incredibles (2004)

This thrilling animation is “arguably the best superhero film of all time”, said IndieWire. At the heart of the action is the Parr family: “a superhero clan” forced into mundane lives in a world where their powers are outlawed. But when Mr Incredible embarks on a secret mission that goes horribly wrong, it’s up to his family to save him. A “perfect mix of funny, action-packed and emotional”, it’s a must watch.

Ratatouille (2007)

This is one of Pixar’s “smartest and deepest films”, said Wilson Chapman on IndieWire. The action follows Remy, an intelligent rat with an extraordinary sense of smell who “dreams of becoming a great chef”. He soon finds an “ally” in hapless kitchen porter Alfredo Linguini, who happens to be working in the restaurant of his “culinary idol” in Paris. Remy figures out an ingenious way of turning his passion for cooking into a reality: sitting beneath Linguini’s tall white chef’s hat and tugging his hair to control his friend’s movements in the kitchen. Funny and big-hearted, it’s an “understated emotional ride” that strikes a “deep chord”.

Wall-E (2008)

Beginning “quietly and entirely dialogue-free”, “Wall-E” soon turns into a “breakneck adventure”, said Empire. The “deeply charming” titular robot is “trapped in a future hellscape of our creation – a literal world of trash, littered with remnants of our consumerism”. But as he roams the wasteland collecting rubbish, there’s a “spark of hope” when he falls in love with Eve, an advanced probe. “Narratively bold” and richly entertaining, this is a “vital piece of cinema in the climate crisis age”.

Up (2009)

“Everyone talks about the wordless opening section” of this “devastating” tearjerker, said Jesse Hassenger in GQ. The montage follows a couple from their “first blush of childhood love all the way to the uncomfortable and unavoidable truth” that most happy marriages will end when one partner dies before the other. “Heavy stuff for a family film” but it soon unfurls into an “utterly original flight of whimsy”. The “lovely little masterpiece” follows “cranky old widower” Carl Frederickson, who ties colourful helium balloons to his home, transforming it into a “makeshift air ship” to fulfil a promise to his late wife to travel to South America.

Inside Out (2015)

For a studio bursting with brilliant ideas, this “might go down as Pixar’s most dazzling”, said Empire. Riley is a little girl whose inner world is sent into “chaos” after her family’s move to San Francisco. We’re taken into the control centre in her brain where her emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness – must navigate her new life. It’s a film of “genuine emotional intelligence” packed with “delightful creativity” and “witty observations”. It’s an “all-out miracle of a movie”.

“A little blue pill is creating a stir in Hollywood,” said Dipa Kamdar, senior lecturer in pharmacy practice at Kingston University, London, on The Conversation. “And no, it’s not Viagra.”

For several years now, celebrities have been singing the praises of propranolol, a beta-blocker originally designed for heart conditions which also helps with anxiety. Kristen Bell, Rachel Sennott and Natasha Rothwell have all mentioned taking the pill at red-carpet events over the past year. Four years ago, Khloé Kardashian admitted she borrows her mother’s medication to calm her nerves, while Robert Downey Jr started his 2024 Golden Globe acceptance speech by saying he had just taken a beta-blocker “so this will be a breeze”.

These A-lister endorsements have led, in part, to a surge in prescriptions, especially among young women and girls, with propranolol now the “go-to pill for dealing with all sorts of stressful situations, from public speaking to first dates”, said The Wall Street Journal.

How does it work?

The beta-blocker was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1967 for the treatment of heart problems including high blood pressure, arrhythmia (irregular heart rate) and angina. But it soon became clear the drug also reduced physical responses to anxiety, such as high heart rate, sweating, nausea and trembling hands. And while other medications prescribed for anxiety, like certain anti-depressants, can take weeks to work, propranolol can take effect within an hour.

Unlike drugs like Xanax or Valium, which “act directly on the brain and can leave people feeling sedated, foggy, or zoned out”, propranolol doesn’t address anxiety’s “underlying roots” but “blocks its physical symptoms” by slowing down the heart rate and lowering blood pressure, said The Boston Globe.

“It’s a beta-blocker, not a bravery booster”, said Kamdar. “It won’t fix your fear of public speaking or make you smoother on a first date – though it might stop your hands from shaking while you try.”

How widely is it used?

In the US, overall prescriptions are up 28% from 2020, while NHS England figures show an increase of 37.6% over the past decade, according to data seen by The Observer. The biggest rise in the UK has been among girls aged between 12 and 17 – up from 618,813 prescriptions in 2015 to more than 1.1 million in 2025. The second highest increase in use – at 81.7% – is among women aged 18 to 23.

The increasing popularity of beta-blockers among young women and girls “points to a generation that has grown up with the pressures of social media and an epidemic of gender-based violence, as well as the isolating effects of Covid”, said the outlet.

As well as its speed and availability, its appeal may also lie in the fact that, unlike other mental health medication, “culturally” propranolol is “portrayed lightly – as if it’s nothing more than a breath mint”, said The Boston Globe.

Are there any risks?

Compared to Xanax or Valium, propranolol is a non-addictive and low-risk medication. However, “it’s not without risks or side-effects”, said Kamdar on The Conversation. Because propranolol works to reduce blood pressure and heart rate, common side-effects include dizziness, fatigue, cold hands and feet, and vivid dreams. “More serious risks – though rare – include heart failure, breathing difficulties and allergic reactions”.

In the UK, where propranolol is licensed to treat anxiety, its effects have been “more scrutinised”, said the WSJ. The General Pharmaceutical Council has highlighted the risk of overdose following the death of a 17-year-old girl in 2023, who died after taking propranolol along with other pain-relief medication. The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence anxiety-management guidelines recommend cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness and antidepressants as initial treatments.

‘Dandelion’ by Ella Langley

★★★

“Ella Langley wants to write timeless songs, ones that’ll be passed down and rediscovered in 75 years,” said Ethan Beck in Paste. The 26-year-old Alabama native may have done that with “Choosin’ Texas,” a tune that’s featured on her new album and has now been atop Billboard’s pop chart longer than any other single by a female country artist. The song warns that “cowboys always find a way to leave,” and the rest of Dandelion also finds Langley putting the Americana of her 2025 debut behind her and focusing on “slick, ethereal pop country” powered by “unquestionable hooks.” Not that Langley simply tries to replicate “Choosin’ Texas,” said Will Hermes in Rolling Stone. “Instead, she leans into a fresh color wheel of vintage influences,” delivering a “wholly laudable” cover of a 1952 Kitty Wells hit and signaling her allegiances in originals like “We Know Us,” which “begins like a Patsy Cline fever dream.” The record includes generic corn too, which even Langley’s plaintive voice can’t save. Still, it’s “a coherent, fully realized album,” one that puts her in the select company of artists bringing “smart, woman-centered songwriting” into country’s mainstream

‘My New Band Believe’ by My New Band Believe

★★★

“Cameron Picton has a way of making violence sound a little romantic and intimacy sound alienating,” said Sam Sodomsky in Pitchfork. On his first solo album as My New Band Believe, the former bassist in the now-defunct British group Black Midi embraces such contradictions and proves himself, at 26, to be “one of the most crucial voices in indie rock today.” Picton has brought the “twitching” rhythms and “controlled chaos” of post-punk into “musical settings that suggest formal attire,” flush with strings and horns and flamenco-style guitar. At times, his debut “sounds like either the most tenderhearted prog album you’ve ever heard or the most cold-blooded mutation of folk music.” Other times, “it’s just plain stunning.” The record is “teeming with musical ideas from out of nowhere,” aid Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. But My New Band Believe shows a greater concern for melody than Black Midi ever did, and it’s telling that Picton initially hoped Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks might orchestrate the record. He’s also wearing his intelligence a little more lightly than he once did, “which might be the smartest move of all.”

‘Death of a Salesman,’ Winter Garden Theatre, New York City

★★★

“Death of a Salesman has returned to Broadway, yet again in triumph,” said Helen Shaw in The New York Times. It’s been a mere four years since Arthur Miller’s tragedy last appeared on the Great White Way, and that one didn’t have Nathan Lane’s unusual take on Willy Loman. Whereas the aging, fading salesman is often portrayed as a hulk of a man, “Lane’s our song-and-dance man, after the music stops”; he’s so weightless that he “seems to drift like a tumbleweed.” That makes Laurie Metcalf the show’s center of gravity, and her portrayal of wife Linda is “a masterpiece of layered tensions.” She doesn’t cry when her self-aggrandizing husband dies, and neither will you.

While “there’s no such thing as a definitive staging of Salesman,” said Charles Isherwood in The Wall Street Journal, “this version ranks as the finest Broadway production of any classic play in many years.” Lane’s Loman seems “doomed to defeat as soon as we see him,” Metcalf is “extraordinary,” and Christopher Abbott is “a revelation” as the couple’s disappointing elder son, Biff. With its stark staging, this Salesman also feels more like an existential, rather than particularly American, tragedy. Miller’s play becomes “a resonant examination of the isolation and loneliness of life, the fear that comes with the waning of hope, the tenuousness of human connection.”

But director Joe Mantello has softened all the male characters, and that “drains the drama of its potency,” said Naveen Kumar in Variety. Though Lane is “undoubtedly” gifted, “his natural gentility is tough to dress down.” Worse, the tension we should feel between Willy and Biff never takes hold because neither seems sufficiently fixated on the idea of what a man should be. Fortunately, Mantello has Metcalf, “upholding her reputation as a Broadway MVP” by reminding us at every turn of the anxieties of reaching the end of life nearly penniless. “The revival is worth seeing for her performance alone.”

‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball,’ Broadhurst Theatre, New York City

★★★★

“Good luck naming a musical revival that has ever departed so radically from the original,” said Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. In Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s balletic 1980s kitsch fest becomes “a glitter bomb of euphoric pandemonium,” and the transformation could happen only because the show’s performers aren’t pretending to be cats anymore and are instead celebrating Cats as participants in New York City’s competitive queer ballroom culture. Though I worried the show might not transfer well to Broadway following its hit off-Broadway run, “I was delighted to find it’s even better uptown.”

“We could quibble about what’s gained and lost,” said Jackson McHenry in NYMag.com. The ballroom competition’s runway is now shorter, leaving the performers “less room to strut.” But the staging does give the soloists a brighter spotlight, and as before, this reimagined Cats “makes a thrilling number of choices to comment on the bizarre musical entity borne of a posh Brit’s love of T.S. Eliot’s poems for children.” Every cat (or person playacting as a cat) still gets a Lloyd Webber song. And the tension between the composer’s commercial juggernaut and the marginalized art form of ballroom only enriches the show and its implied message: that “given any kind of stage, some talent, and enough attitude, a person can transform into whatever real thing they want to be.”

“As always, the showstoppers are the showstoppers,” said Greg Evans in Deadline. The Wiz actor André De Shields brings the audience to his feet when he enters as Old Deuteronomy, and “Memory,” delivered by “Tempress” Chasity Moore, is bathed in “thunderous” applause. Every other number is “entirely recognizable yet completely fresh,” helping make Jellicle Ball “so flat-out fun it smothers every slight ever suffered by Lloyd Webber’s mega-musical.”