This is a moist and moreish cake to have at any tea party, said Jennifer Rinkoff. With a scrumptious mascarpone buttercream, you’ll be tempted to make it every weekend.

Ingredients (makes 1)

• 175g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
• 175g caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp strong espresso, cooled
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp milk

For the syrup and topping:

• 2 tbsp strong espresso, hot
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 250g mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
• 150ml double cream
• 50g icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• cocoa (unsweetened chocolate) powder, sifted, for dusting

Method

• Preheat the oven to 160C fan/180C/350F/gas mark 4 and grease and line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin with baking parchment.
• In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well but being careful not to over-mix. Fold in the flour and baking powder. Stir through the cooled espresso, vanilla extract and milk until smooth.
• Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• While the cake is still in the tin and warm from the oven, make a syrup by mixing the hot espresso with the sugar until the sugar dissolves. Poke small holes in the loaf with a skewer and spoon over the syrup. Leave to cool completely.
• In a bowl, whisk the mascarpone, cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract until thick and spreadable (don’t over-whisk or it may split). Spread the mascarpone topping generously over the cooled loaf using a small spatula.
• Dust with cocoa powder for a lovely finish. Chill for 1-2 hours to set before slicing, and store any leftovers in the refrigerator.
• Tip: this cake can be frozen for up to three months. The frosting and cake can both be frozen but it’s best to freeze them separately, or the finished cake can be frozen if sliced first.

Taken from ‘The Jewish Bakery: over 100 Family Recipes from east London’s oldest Jewish bakery’ by Jennifer Rinkoff.

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Every now and again, a single news story exposes what is “going wrong in modern Britain”, said The Telegraph. The head-on crash that killed two policemen and five joyriders in Middlesbrough in August, and its aftermath, is the latest.

This is “a community beset by brazen criminality”. The five young men were linked to organised crime and had 37 convictions between them. And the horrific crash has been followed by a series of gang-related incidents and acts of destruction. A house was rammed by a car and a man stabbed in suspected tit-for-tat attacks. At a memorial for one of the men, cars were smashed into each other in a field and set alight. In a separate incident, a seven-year-old and her aunt died in an arson attack. Last week, 200 officers from the National Crime Agency and other forces were drafted in to calm tensions.

‘Feral underclass’

“Almost all of the recent crimes have taken place in just one postcode,” said Felix Pope on UnHerd: TS6, a collection of deprived estates in southeast Middlesbrough with what one local politician calls “a feral underclass”. Residents speak of balaclava-clad young men on electric bikes and scooters terrorising the community. One local told The Yorkshire Post: “TS6 has gone mad.”

All this in a town that “once brimmed with pride”, said Ross Clark in The Sun. “Middlesbrough was once ‘Ironopolis’, one of the biggest producers of pig iron in the world.” Teesside shipyards turned out trawlers by the dozen. But after heavy industry went into a long and deep decline in the 1980s, Middlesbrough never recovered. The steelworks closed in 2015; the town is now one of the most deprived places in England – a place where the last two generations of many families have never known paid employment.

Successive governments should have done more to help these people, said Simon Heffer in The Telegraph. Instead, “the white working class has been pushed aside to stew on welfare benefits or in low-esteem jobs” – abandoned by a state whose first duty is to protect them. “No wonder so many of them feel no connection with it.”

‘Potential powder kegs’

Cleveland Police, the local force, is also a victim of neglect, said Leigh Jones in The Independent. Its area now has the highest crime rate outside central London. Yet it is one of the smallest forces in the country, and has been gutted by years of austerity. Had its budget kept up with inflation, it would be at £246 million this financial year; instead, it is just £196 million.

Yet this force is not an outlier, said Dominic Adler on UnHerd. Across the country, cash-strapped local constabularies are sitting on “potential powder kegs”, but these forces don’t have the resources to deal with even “modest” manifestations of organised crime, such as county-line drug gangs. Look beyond the police, and the whole criminal justice system – prisons, the courts and probation service – is poorly run, and often in crisis. Middlesbrough’s plight is the sign of a “full-spectrum failure, from nose to tail”.

America’s midterm elections are looming, and are expected to turn on voters’ frustration with the rising cost of living. Hardly the moment, then, for a damaging trade war with Canada, said Rex Huppke in USA Today.

Yet following an acrimonious breakdown of trade talks between the two nations, Donald Trump last week slapped 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, including down jackets, wine, dairy products and hockey sticks. He later threatened to double tariffs on vehicles and car parts, posting on social media: “WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, who accused US negotiators of effectively declaring war on his country by introducing a raft of unacceptable last-minute demands, promised to retaliate with dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs, starting on 8 September.

Economic pain

Carney isn’t bluffing, said Zeeshan Aleem on MS Now. Canada relies more on exporting goods to the US than the other way round, so its economy is set to lose most from any trade war, but Carney has staked his reputation on standing up to Trump. He reckons Canadians will have more tolerance for economic pain resulting from a trade war they’ll blame on Trump “than Americans will have for rising prices”.

The polls certainly suggest as much, said Andrew Day in The American Conservative. Only a third of Canadians have a favourable view of the US today, down from 54% in 2024; 76% back Carney’s stance. For someone so adept at promoting nationalism at home, Trump has a “curious blindspot” about the impact of stirring such passions abroad.

‘Personal fixation’

He can’t help himself, said Zack Beauchamp on Vox. After all his “jokes” about absorbing Canada as the 51st state, Trump has now signed an order to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” to spite the Canadians. The US and Canada have a long history of trade disagreements over issues such as dairy and lumber, but these rows have never blown up into a trade war, “for the simple reason that they simply aren’t that large as a percentage of GDP”.

There don’t appear to be any political, ideological or business interests egging on Trump to get into a fight with Canada. The desire to “vassalise” and control America’s northern neighbour is just the president’s “personal fixation” – one so important to him that he’s apparently willing to pursue it, even at the cost of jeopardising his party’s Senate majority.

‘Gloria Steinem’s final essay’

Gloria Steinem at The New Yorker

Opposition “will always come from people whose power rests on the group they were born into” rather “than on what they do as individuals,” says Gloria Steinem. “Saying that I am a feminist has always meant that I believe in the social, economic and political equality of all males and females of all races and groups.” For “some, it remains a mystery why women need a movement to distinguish our efforts toward equality. For me, it seems quite obvious.”

Read more

‘America needs its boys to play football’

Ben Sasse at The Wall Street Journal

Football is “back, and America’s boys need to play it and be shaped by it,” says Ben Sasse. While “controversy surrounds the embarrassingly blurry line between college football and the National Football League, our culture needs to take a moment to commend and steward the glorious tradition of high school football.” Americans “need young men full of energy, ambition and growing self-mastery,” and football is a “character-forming institution.” Football “creates the conditions for less, rather than more, violence.”

Read more

‘Debt, a new challenge for democracies’

Le Monde editorial board

In the “United States, Europe and Japan, investors now demand higher returns to lend to governments,” which “reveals mounting concerns over the accumulation of public deficits and the sheer volume that governments must now raise on financial markets,” says the Le Monde editorial board. Returning to “fiscal fundamentals has been painful just as funding needs have reached new highs.” The “current increase in rates acts like a vise, reducing governments’ ability to fund new priorities while making past commitments more expensive.”

Read more

‘Will those in prison help save the arts from AI?’

Mark Osler at The Minnesota Star Tribune

While on the “outside AI is increasingly doing our writing, creating our images and subverting creativity, on the inside of a prison none of that is happening — and the results can be stunning,” says Mark Osler. What is “new isn’t the existence of remarkable talent in prison,” but the “decay of the creative world outside the prison walls.” The U.S. “needs to invest in the arts within prisons and encourage more interaction across those walls.”

Read more

The American military is often lauded as the fiercest fighting force in the world, but there are gathering signs that something is off-kilter. Morale problems aboard rust-coated Navy ships, a purge of top officers in the Army, and a shortage of munitions in the Middle East have contributed to a growing sense of alarm. And critics, including some Republicans, are pointing the finger at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

What did the commentators say?

The Pentagon is in “turmoil,” said Axios, riven by internal ideological disputes while fighting a war with Iran. The secretary’s “firings and feuds” have left the Army “rudderless,” said The New York Times. The service has been without a permanent leader since Hegseth dismissed Gen. Randy George in April “without explanation.” Internal disputes reportedly led to this week’s resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who had been seen as a possible Hegseth successor.

The war, meanwhile, is “piling pressure on budgets across the military,” said The Guardian, with the Navy forced to dip into its payroll budget to “cover the costs of combat.” The conflict is also taking a visible toll on the service: The rust-covered and morale-sapped USS Abraham Lincoln this week “shocked” observers who encountered it at a Thai port after 286 days at sea, said CNN.

The various crises have led senior commanders to warn Hegseth the war is “unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere,” said The Washington Post. Hegseth is nonetheless “escalating the strain” on U.S. forces by “quietly extending troop deployments” in the Middle East, said The Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon is “giving up presence in other regions” like the Pacific in order to devote those resources to Iran, the Hudson Institute’s Bryan Clark told the outlet. The Navy, in particular, is “officially stretched beyond its limits,” Mackenzie Eaglen and Nicholas Carl said at The National Interest.

Hegseth’s “purges” of top officers has “created a dangerous leadership vacuum” that is “jeopardizing national security,” Max Boot said at The Washington Post. The secretary’s focus appears to be “publicly performing pushups” and eliminating diversity programs in the military, Jeff McCausland said at MS NOW.Hegseth still having his job is a sign that President Donald Trump “simply likes the way” the secretary is performing despite the growing criticisms, Shane Croucher said at Newsweek.

What next?

A growing number of Republicans in Congress are “sick” of Hegseth, said The New Republic. Trump should “find a new leader at the Pentagon,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said this week on X. Hegseth “has not been a very good leader in many ways,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said on CNN.

Trump disagrees. Hegseth is “doing a fantastic job,” Trump told reporters this week. But polls show that Hegseth is “possibly the most unpopular” member of the president’s cabinet, said CNN. His problems — and the challenges faced by the military — “are getting harder to ignore.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been deporting thousands of people to their home countries, but many are also being sent to “third countries,” nations the deportee is not originally from. This often leaves the deported person stranded in a place where they do not speak the language or understand the customs.

Mexico

While thousands of Mexican migrants have been deported to Mexico, the country has also been far and away the one with the greatest number of third-country deportations. About 20,000 people without Mexican heritage have been deported to Mexico during the second Trump administration, according to Refugees International’s Third Country Deportation Watch (TCDW).

These deported people are also racing against the clock, as the Mexican government “gives third-country citizens just 10 days to remain in the country, with its overstretched asylum system the only option for most,” said the Washington Office on Latin America. As it stands, at least “1,100 deported people per month in Mexico are citizens of other Latin American nations.”

Guatemala

Though the third country agreement between the U.S. and Guatemala wasn’t renegotiated until July 2025, ICE has been ramping up deportations significantly since then. Several thousand people have since been sent to Guatemala, including 2,284 Mexicans deported to the country from the U.S. between April and August 2026, according to the TCDW.

This marked a notable change for Mexican deportees, given that before the deal with Guatemala, most Mexicans deported from the U.S. were “sent almost exclusively back to their country by air and land,” said The Associated Press. But these migrants are “part of a ‘transit stopover’ before being taken to Mexico as part of an ‘arrangement’ with the Mexican government,” said Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo.

Panama

About 360 non-Panamanians have been deported from the U.S. to Panama, according to the TCDW. The nation has been a third-country destination during almost all of the second Trump administration. In one instance, a group of refugees “were put on U.S. military planes,” said Human Rights Watch. They didn’t know their destination and “realized they were in Panama only after landing.”

Another notable story came just one month after President Donald Trump returned to power, when “hundreds of asylum-seekers were sent to Panama instead of being allowed to present claims in the United States,” said the American Immigration Council. They were eventually “released by the Panamanian government and told they had 30 days to leave the country.”

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is another large Central American third-country destination where about 331 people have been deported from the United States, the TCDW said. Costa Rica agreed to take on these people because the country “seeks a closer alliance with Donald Trump’s government, which has been securing cooperation from other Central American countries in accepting deportees from other nations who have been detained by U.S. immigration agents,” said The Guardian.

Human rights observers are concerned that “some of the people being deported to Costa Rica may be asylum-seekers who were never given a fair chance to present their cases in the United States,” said Refugees International.

El Salvador

About 250 people without El Salvadorian heritage have been sent to the country from the U.S., according to the TCDW. Flights to El Salvador are relatively new, as ICE transfers to the nation only began in July 2026.

This number may seem minimal, and it is generally true that third-country deportations only “represent a small share of U.S. removals,” said the Migration Policy Institute. When it comes to the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, though, “fear may be their main function.”

Honduras

While Mexican immigrants are being sent to Guatemala, many others are also being sent to Honduras; about 170 non-Hondurans have been deported to the country, according to the TCDW. A transfer deal between the U.S. and Honduras has been in place since October 2025.

Officials have said that “one of the objectives of the deportations, which have not been formally announced by the U.S. government, is to deter illegal immigration from Mexico by sending some of its citizens further south and farther away from the U.S.-Mexico border,” said CBS News in a report on deportations to Honduras and Guatemala. This comes as Mexico has “voiced its opposition to the deportation of Mexican citizens to other countries.”

Uzbekistan

While most countries in this list are in Central America, one nation thousands of miles away also makes a surprising appearance: Uzbekistan. Over 130 people have been deported to the Central Asian nation as a third country, according to the TCDW.

Many of the deportees to Uzbekistan are from neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. There have been concerns about how these deportees are being treated in Uzbekistan, particularly “given that human rights organizations have documented a consistent pattern of harassment, restrictions and reprisals against activists and rights defenders” in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, said the Global Detention Project, which could create “risks for those being returned.”

Ghana

Over 100 people living in the U.S. without Ghanaian heritage have been deported to Ghana, according to the TCDW. But unlike some other nations on this list, legal action has actually been taken against Ghana, with an “international coalition of human rights lawyers and advocates” suing the country, said The Associated Press.

The lawsuit accuses Ghana of not allowing these people to stay in the country, instead “forcing deportees from the U.S. back to the home countries they had fled in violation of their rights,” said the AP. Many of these people were allegedly “flown from Ghana to their home countries within hours or days of arriving.”

What happened

Fox News on Thursday said it had parted ways with financial journalist Maria Bartiromo, effective immediately, thanking her for “her work over the last 12 1/2 years.” She last appeared on air Aug. 9. Asked about reports that Bartiromo was fired for leaking confidential news coverage plans to the White House, a Fox News spokesperson told reporters only that the move was a “business decision.”

Who said what

After joining Fox Business in 2014, following a long career at CNBC, Bartiromo became “one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies at the network,” CNN said. She was fired, Status reported, because she “effectively betrayed” Fox by telling the White House that network bosses had instructed staff to “steer clear of giving credence to Trump’s delusional claims” in an “unhinged” July primetime speech on election security. Bartiromo “wanted to pursue a story related to China and 2020 election voting conspiracies,” Puck’s Dylan Byers reported, and when executives told her no, she “took a screenshot of the guidance and sent it to senior White House officials.”

What next?

Fox Business rebranded Bartiromo’s namesake programs and took down her contributor pages. “Her fans, of which there are many, will not be happy,” Trump said in an online post. “Social media lit up with speculation that Bartiromo might be in line to become White House press secretary,” CNN said. But asked about that possibility yesterday, Vice President JD Vance said, “No, I don’t think so.”

What happened

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Thursday canceled all House business for the final two weeks of September, leaving just four days for voting and other legislative activity before the Nov. 3 midterms. That’s a reversal from just days ago. “Republicans are here to work,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “We are going to work all the way through September.”

Who said what

Johnson’s decision to shrink the calendar “comes as candidates agitate to get back on the campaign trail,” Politico said. It also “severely” curtails “what had been a full legislative calendar for September,” though “GOP leaders continue to struggle to maintain control of the House floor.”

The government is now funded through December. But among other consequences, the canceled workdays are “threatening to delay a bipartisan push to crack down on sexual misconduct in Congress,” Axios said. The reforms are “something that everybody wants,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (N.M.), the top Democrat on a task force set up to address the issue, told Axios.

What next?

After the House wraps up its next four-day workweek on Sept. 17, lawmakers “will return again for a lame duck session on Nov. 9,” kicking off five final weeks of scheduled “legislative business before the end of the 119th Congress,” said ABC News.

What happened

The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously that congressional maps redrawn by the Republican-led state legislature can’t be used in the November elections, likely thwarting a GOP effort to unseat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D). Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) “incorrectly” dismissed a “legal, sufficient and timely” referendum petition on the redistricting submitted in December, the court said in its opinion, so the new districts “did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters” in November.

In another “notable victory for Democrats,” The Associated Press said, the Maryland Supreme Court also agreed to let voters decide whether the Democratic-controlled state legislature can redraw congressional districts for the 2028 election, in a bid to defenestrate Rep. Andy Harris (R).

Who said what

President Donald Trump’s “quest for a midterm election advantage triggered an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle,” the AP said. Thursday’s rulings were among “only a few nationally to go against Republicans.”

The Missouri Supreme Court’s “surprising decision creates an unprecedented set of electoral circumstances,” because last month’s primaries “took place under the new lines,” Politico said. For “months, Missouri Republicans had signaled their intention” to stall “as long as possible while implementing the new maps,” and Hoskins waited until the day of the primaries to “declare the referendum insufficient.” The court’s “unprecedented decision” thrusts Missouri “into a full‑fledged constitutional crisis,” Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R) said in a statement. She vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

What next?

The Missouri court “did not specify how candidates would be determined for a general election,” The New York Times said. “Redistricting opponents had suggested that candidates who won their primaries” could “remain the nominees in the same-numbered districts.”

When it comes to weekend breaks, a good location is essential. It doesn’t matter whether the hotel is perfect – if the surroundings leave something to be desired, you’ll find yourself longing to get home. Luckily, Woodstock is charming. Just eight miles from Oxford on the eastern edge of the Cotswolds, the pretty market town is lined with traditional stone cottages, old pubs and bakeries.

On a quiet road close to the centre lies The Feathers. Tucked amid 17th-century townhouses, it looks fairly unassuming. But when you step through the doors, it’s clear that this is a swanky spot. Local property developer Daniel Ede bought the hotel in 2023 before carrying out a multi-million-pound revamp. Fast-forward to today and the hotel has an air of confidence: a collection of awards are proudly displayed on a chest in the reception area.

Why stay here?

The location is outstanding. We went for a short walk before dinner and stumbled upon the grounds of Blenheim Palace, where families lounge with picnics on the grassy slopes overlooking the lake.

Back at the hotel, the calming interiors encourage proper rest and relaxation. Our generously sized room – the Goldcrest Suite – had been carefully renovated with plush grey carpets, gilded mirrors and an enormous (and very comfy) king-size bed framed by flowing white drapes.

The layout felt a little unusual – a mini-sofa and TV were tucked awkwardly behind a semi-dividing wall, and the freestanding bathtub is in the main room, although you can pull across a golden chinoiserie-style folding screen for privacy. (There’s also a separate bathroom, with a shower, stocked with Urban Apothecary fig-scented toiletries.) This is likely due to the nature of the rambling Grade II listed building: the total of 23 suites and rooms vary in shape and size.

Thoughtful touches were everywhere, from the carefully selected tapestries adorning the walls to the tasty snacks laid out for our arrival including slices of lemon drizzle cake. Efforts have clearly been made to preserve the building’s historic details like the stone fireplace, while rooms have been updated with modern touches.

Eating and drinking

The Nest is a fun spot for dinner. Glowing wicker lamps sit atop marble tables in the bustling wood-panelled restaurant. Staff are attentive and knowledgeable but unobtrusive, and the cocktails are excellent. The menu changes with the seasons: we enjoyed a goat’s curd and parmesan tart bursting with sweet, juicy Isle of Wight tomatoes and flaky pan-roasted hake served with a decadent vadouvan curry sauce, tiger prawns and fennel shavings. Be sure to order a side of the crispy potatoes and the zingy herb salad. The Cotswolds sourdough rolls with whipped butter were a nice touch, too. If you’re looking for something more casual, head to The Aviary bar and outdoor terrace for pizzas and small plates.

Breakfast is served at The Nest. There’s a selection of fresh juices, pastries and muffins, alongside heartier classics like the full English, or smoked salmon sourdough crumpets.

Things to do

You won’t find a gym, spa or pool at The Feathers, but there’s plenty to do nearby. Keen walkers can set out on foot into the grounds of Blenheim Palace to soak up the stunning scenery. Afterwards, head back into Woodstock for ice cream at Alfonso Gelataria on the high street.

Oxford is a short drive away; consider a day trip to the historic city to wander through the colleges, go punting along the River Cherwell, or while away an afternoon in one of the many pubs or cafes.

The verdict

The Feathers ticks a lot of boxes for a weekend break. It was a cool, calming refuge when we visited during one of the many summer heatwaves, but come autumn it will be cosy and inviting. This is the type of place you leave feeling exactly as you should: well-rested, refreshed and relaxed.

Irenie was a guest of The Feathers, feathers.co.uk

“We hate the French! We fight wars against the French! Did all those men die in vain on the fields of Agincourt?” What would Edmund Blackadder think to see Emmanuel Macron and King Charles cosying up in front of the Bayeux Tapestry?

The tapestry, as Andy Burnham said at its unveiling at the British Museum this week “shows a new leader emerging from a northern territory, travelling to the south of England in search of the crown. Something clearly that couldn’t happen today.”

Macron has now become the first EU leader to visit Burnham at No. 10. This week of renewed bonhomie between the British and the French comes as Donald Trump’s America “is threatening to leave Europe to fend for itself”, said The Economist. So that might be one reason why France is “being so nice to Britain”.

What did the commentators say?

Another reason for this French “love-bombing”, as The Economist put it, is that “it costs France very little and buys it so much”, said the UK’s former Brexit negotiator David Frost in The Telegraph.

Much of the British establishment loves this kind of thing and it does so “because it sees diplomacy primarily as a matter of personal relationships and symbolism”. But that belief “generates the besetting sin of British diplomacy: the wish to be liked rather than respected” and sadly “nowhere is that truer than with France”.

But “in these fractured times, the enduring appeal of this 11th-century artefact speaks of a need for a national story”, said The Guardian. The Bayeux Tapestry is a “devastatingly human saga” and, with war raging in Europe, “this medieval masterpiece is a reminder of conflict’s brutality, human suffering and the importance of collaboration between countries”.

Indeed Macron himself “played an instrumental role over nearly a decade in pushing for the tapestry loan”, said France24, and it “is viewed as another step towards healing the rancour of the Brexit years”.

On a political level there is “no shortage of common ground” between Burnham and Macron, said Le Monde, “particularly regarding their policies on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East”. The French president praised Burnham's recent trip to Kyiv, but also highlighted that, while Paris and London “collaborate in vital areas such as defence, nuclear energy, space or artificial intelligence”, they “do not always agree on everything”.

What Macron “seems to be saying is that despite Brexit, despite Donald Trump, or perhaps because of both, France and Britain need to stick together now”, said The Economist.

A new Charles De Gaulle biopic “not only evokes nostalgia for an age of unimaginable bravery” but “also speaks to modern worries about national sovereignty, dependence and democratic values”. The film “carries another message too”: that “the dark forces of nationalism can be beaten”. With Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage on the rise, the new-found affection from Macron could signify that “this battle is yet another that Britain and France are in together”.

But “what did the love-in between Andy Burnham and Emmanuel Macron actually achieve?” said The Sun. “For a start, don’t expect the small boats to stop any time soon” as it remains in “France’s interest to let migrants set sail and wait for British border forces to rescue them – especially as we pay £1 billion for the privilege”. And Burnham was “gushing over France’s role in another terrible idea: helping him achieve closer ties to the EU”.

What next?

“To move forward on all these issues and put the entente amicale to the test,” said Le Monde. A French-British summit is due to take place later this year, Burnham confirmed, but he did not give a date.

A senior aide to Nigel Farage and Reform UK’s head of policy have both stood down after they were filmed appearing to plot ways to avoid electoral laws on foreign donations.

Undercover investigative journalists posed as a potential Reform supporter and his wealthy American father, who paid for £32,500 of polling commissioned by Reform and which benefited the party. The polling “was not attributed to Reform, and was reported in The Telegraph and The Times without those newspapers knowing that it was commissioned by the party and paid for by the US donor”, said The Guardian. The benefit in kind was then also not reported to the Electoral Commission.

But Farage told LBC the polls in question were commissioned by an independent third party. He added: “Whilst the poll benefited Reform, it wasn’t commissioned by Reform. It had nothing to do with Reform. It was an independent third party that did it. So that’s nothing. That’s nothing. Polls are funded by overseas people every single week. Every single week.”

What was revealed?

In a meeting over oysters and wine in his Clacton constituency, Farage “met with the undercover team in late July after the three polls had been published and paid for”, said Channel 4 News, who aired the investigation by a group of journalists called Verbatim. The Reform leader believed them to be “William” and his father. Farage said the polling was “amazing” and provided “bang for buck,” adding: “It worked. Boom.”

The Channel 4 report also showed Dan Jukes, a senior adviser to Farage, suggesting a way to get around electoral law to secure a foreign donation of £500,000 for the party. Channel 4 said James Orr, Reform’s head of policy, also suggested to the undercover reporter that perhaps his father could pay for opinion polling to aid Reform’s campaigning.

Farage told LBC a “couple of our contractors have said things that shouldn’t have been said” and had been “removed this morning”. But added: “The party has broken no laws, the party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that whatsoever.”

Is it illegal?

Electoral law says that to be a permissible donor to a UK political party you must be a UK registered voter, or a company registered in the UK. Not disclosing funding such as the ones for the polls would be illegal and accepting this kind of foreign funding would also be illegal.

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “The law requires political parties to report all permissible donations they accept with a value over £11,180 and all impermissible donations over £500. Information about any potential attempt to evade the controls on donations is for the police to consider.”

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have reported Reform to the Metropolitan Police and the force said it would assess the matter and any information provided to it.

Reform has denied any wrongdoing and said it had “been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign funded climate change activists”. Verbatim was founded by journalists from the Centre for Climate Reporting.

What could the fallout be?

Farage “appears to be trying to distance himself [from] Jukes and Orr, with his comments to LBC”, said the BBC. But Jukes “is widely seen as Farage’s closest aide, who is often at his side, and is judged to have an innate sense of his boss’ instincts”. Equally “Orr, a Cambridge academic who has stepped down [as] the party’s head of policy, could also be considered to be in Farage’s inner circle”.

Reform UK chairman Lee Anderson told Sky News there was “no chance” of Jukes and Orr returning to the party. But this “appeared to be contradicted”, said the BBC, by Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice, who told Radio 4’s “Today” programme minutes later that “it’s not actually, in the nicest possible way, for any individual to make that determination” as the investigation continues.

In 2024, before the US presidential election, young Africans were asked whether they expected their countries to fare better under Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

Across a range of measures, most respondents to the African Youth Survey believed Biden to be the better bet: 42-44%, compared with 23-24% choosing Trump. But in the most recent edition of the survey, nearly two-thirds of the near-5,000 18- to 24-year-old participants said they would benefit from the Trump administration, according to Foreign Policy. That’s despite the president’s foreign aid cuts, dismantling of development programs and “disparaging remarks about the continent”.

“This generation has worked out what much of the Western commentariat still refuses to,” said Ivor Ichikowitz, the survey’s founder. “Diplomacy is about what you can get from the man in the Oval Office, not whether you like him.”

‘Strikes a chord’

Trump has never made a presidential visit to Africa. He has “seldom been polite about the continent”, said The Economist in 2018, “allegedly dismissing Nigerians as hut-dwellers and African states as ‘shitholes’”. Yet “he is more popular in Africa than in any other region”.

Even before Trump entered politics, there was a “large affinity towards him” in Nigeria, the most populous African nation, said The Guardian in 2020. His image as a “bombastic, straight-talking, self-made billionaire made his books a hit” in the country. Portraits of Trump, sometimes depicted in traditional clothing or in the military uniform of Nigerian dictators, are common. His image “strikes a chord”.

“Judging by our own president, it isn’t entirely surprising that a septuagenarian economic nationalist with a born-again vice-president, minimal respect for rule of law and archaic views about women is popular in Nigeria,” said Sa’eed Husaini, a political analyst in Lagos.

Nigerians have a “unique attachment to America”, wrote Africa expert Ebenezer Obadare on the Council on Foreign Relations. Whether in an “individualism that sometimes borders on outright sedition, or a risk-taking that often verges on self-immolation”, Nigerians see in the US an “admirable analogue of their own buccaneering spirit”.

Make Africa Great Again?

In 2025, 79% of Nigerians said they had confidence in Trump “to do the right thing regarding world affairs”, according to a Global Attitudes Survey by the Pew Research Center. That’s 21% higher than the same survey showed in 2017.

Many see Trump as the only president to defend Nigerian Christians; his administration claims they are being persecuted by Islamist groups.

The US went on to strike northern Nigeria, where Islamic State has a foothold, on Christmas Day in 2025, before beginning joint counterterrorism operations with the government this year. In the 2026 Global Attitudes Survey, confidence in him among Nigerian Christians had risen by six percentage points since 2025.

But more broadly, African Christians share commonality with American evangelicals and Trump, said the Council on Foreign Relations: a feeling of “being simultaneously persecuted by secular authority and pressured by a cultural momentum”, particularly with regard to sexuality and gender.

There is “overall African evangelical love for Trump”; he’s viewed as a “defender of family values” and a “symbol of masculinity in an age menaced by a rampant effeminacy”.

Trump’s business acumen is also admired among those who aspire to wealth, said Tendai Marima in Foreign Policy.

The so-called manosphere also has a strong influence in Africa, and Trump is seen as a “positive role model because of his values of manhood”. In South Africa, there is also strong support for Trump among the anti-migrant movement.

“As an African, what resonates with me most about the America First message is not that Africa should become America, but that African countries should also put their own citizens first,” said Freeman Bhengu, a member of anti-migrant group Operation Dudula.

In the Sahel, many see Trump as “ideologically close to their own military governments”, and their “nationalist-sovereign” rhetoric, said Lisa Tschörner, an international affairs researcher. Those countries perceive the US withdrawal of aid as “amounting to non-interference”.

According to the African Youth Survey, 26% of young Africans believe the US aid cuts could actually have a “positive impact”, despite experts’ concerns. As Ichikowitz said, some young Africans associate the withdrawal of aid with the “possibility of greater self-reliance and government accountability”.

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Book releases typically pick up in the fall, and this September is no exception. Whether you are looking for something deeply educational or thrillingly entertaining, this month there are plenty of books to look forward to. New publications include a maximalist thriller set in Jamaica, another entry from horror phenom Tananarive Due, and a memoir from former ICE detainee Mahmoud Khalil.

‘Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature’ by Emily Wilson

Drawing on decades of experience as a scholar, Emily Wilson, the celebrated translator of Homer’s “Odyssey” and “Iliad,” is exploring how translation shapes our understanding of the ancient world. Her new book is a series of essays on the “challenges of translation” and the “pleasures and insights to be gained from reading the classics,” said The Guardian.

In one essay, she “probes the bawdier side of classics” and “connects the ‘lyrical flow’ of Aristophanes to Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B,” said Kirkus Reviews. It is a “lively exploration of ancient literature.” (out now, $19, W.W. Norton, Amazon)

‘The Disappearers’ by Marlon James

Marlon James, who previously won the Booker Prize for his 2015 novel, “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” has also made the longlist for this year’s prize with “The Disappearers.” The novel is set in 1988, opening with a group of “eight gay men commencing rehearsals for a play” in Kingston, Jamaica, said Harper’s Bazaar.

When a “violent, homophobic mob descends on the group,” leaving one of them dead, the survivors deal with the fallout of the attack in their own ways, said Harper’s Bazaar. Going against the minimalist trend, the Jamaican writer’s new novel, at more than 600 pages, is “instead a maximalist’s banquet,” said The New York Times. It is “humane, blood-flecked, disturbing and sustaining.” (out now, $32, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘Exit Party’ by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel’s dystopian novel is a “futuristic, fluctuating tale of doubleness and disaster,” said LitHub. The story kicks off in California in 2031, a year “disturbingly close to our present,” where a party is thrown and the “United States government has fallen.”

It’s a story of “shifting structure and ephemeral sturdiness,” said LitHub, where meanings falter, while “glimmers of truth and resolution sparkle in the distance.” There is no one who can “write a surrealist and apocalyptic universe so firmly, and horrifyingly, rooted in reality.” (Sep. 15, $32, Penguin Random House, Amazon)

‘Mazywood’ by Tananarive Due

Tananarive Due’s reputation as a master of the horror genre became clear after the highly acclaimed “The Reformatory.” Her follow-up, “Mazywood,” is a haunting tale of how an errant wish shaped the lives of one family from the era of Old Hollywood to today.

Due crafts “memorable and deeply human characters, good and bad alike,” and provides a “searing, incisive take on the politics of Black performance past and present,” said Publishers Weekly. Add “nail-biting chase scenes” and a “blistering final twist,” and this “heart-pounding horror story further cements Due as one of the greats.” (Sep. 22, $32, Simon & Schuster, Amazon)

‘No Land to Stand On: Notes from Detention’ by Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud Khalil became a household name last year when ICE “apprehended him without a warrant, separated him from his pregnant wife and New York City community, and detained him under the threat of deportation,” said Harper’s Bazaar. Based on notes from his prison diary, this memoir “unflinchingly shows the cruelty of ICE detention” while also telling the story of his “family’s expulsion from Palestine and his activism in the face of Israel’s assault on Gaza.” (Sep. 29, $28, Macmillan, Amazon)

It’s a have or have-not housing market out there, said Samantha Delouya in CNN.com. Look no further than San Francisco. Just a few years ago, the City by the Bay was a symbol of “urban decline.” Now it has the hottest housing market in the country. “Fueled by the artificial intelligence boom” that has left tech workers “flush with cash,” home prices are routinely getting bid up more than $1 million above their listing price. The median home in San Francisco now sells for $1.7 million. And the frenzy has “spilled over into the rental market as well.” Rents for one-bedrooms are up nearly 23% this year to $4,180 a month, and two-bedrooms are up nearly 26% to $6,020. And the upcoming initial public offerings from AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to only increase “the potential buying power.”

The housing market should settle the lingering debate about “whether the K-shaped economy is over,” said Anna-Louise Jackson in Fast Company. It’s “alive and well.” Entry-level homebuyers “have been priced out” and seem to have “stopped searching.” Traffic on listings of homes priced below $370,000 has fallen sharply since 2021, according to Realtor.com. But “the other end of the housing spectrum tells a very different story.” Those shopping for big, expensive houses “remain very much engaged.” Wealthy buyers are “propping up national sales figures,” said Halina Bennet in Slow Boring. Current housing data “looks decent,” but that’s because upper-end strength is masking some serious lower-end weakness. For anyone who has not “become a newly minted tech millionaire,” economic analysts say, this could be “the worst year for the housing market since 2011.”

The newly passed federal housing law could offer a potential solution, said Lily Belle Poling in The Wall Street Journal. The law makes it “easier and cheaper” to manufacture modular and prefabricated homes for assembly “on site.” Such homes “have long been stuck at the fringe of the housing market,” constituting only 3% of new construction in the U.S. But that number could soon soar. Cuts to red tape in the new law should reduce costs by $5,000 to $10,000 a home. For some homebuyers, those savings “could equal more than 10% of the original cost.” Modular homes are also moving out of the trailer parks and increasingly into the suburbs, said Julie Z. Weil in The Washington Post. Several developers are pitching them “as the way of the future,” betting that more homebuyers will be “willing to give manufactured homes” another look. Newer homes “are of a much higher quality than those of past decades,” and some of the nicest ones list for more than $600,000. But on average, a factory-built home can still be had for only $90,700.

GOP lawmakers and cattle ranchers were ringing “alarm bells” last week over President Trump’s decision to temporarily lower tariffs on ground beef, said Mallory Wilson in The Hill. To curb soaring beef prices—which have been pushed up by drought, rising input costs, and shrinking herds—Trump declared that he would let up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign ground beef into the U.S. with “no out-of-quota tariff.” He claimed the meat would be sold at 25% below the current market rate of $6.89 a pound, but offered no details on how the plan would work or which countries would participate. Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) warned that the import of cheap foreign meat will only hurt American ranchers, “most of whom are MAGA Republicans.” Meriwether Farms, a farm-to-table operation in Wyoming, called the president’s actions a “betrayal.”

This is a purely political play by Trump, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “He knows he and Republicans are being blamed” for higher prices, and it’s no coincidence that his 90-day tariff reprieve “covers the three months through the November midterm elections.” But these welcome concessions to consumers are also an admission that his tariff strategy has “failed economically and politically.” Trump may love the political leverage tariffs provide, but “he and his party may pay a price this November for raising prices” for millions of consumers.

‘The Met’s other failure’

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell at The Atlantic

The “Metropolitan Museum of Art’s announcement this week that it is canceling next year’s exhibition on the fashion of John Galliano perhaps shouldn’t have come as a surprise,” says Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, since a court previously found him “guilty of the crime of making antisemitic and anti-Asian insults.” The exhibition was “also a blow to the museum and its reputation.” Displaying “Galliano’s work, even while interrogating his past behavior, was always going to be ethically dicey.”

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‘Black women are poised for congressional gains in November’

Donna Brazile at The Hill

Black women candidates “could make historic gains in the November midterm elections,” says Donna Brazile. That is “good news for all Americans, because it’s a sign our country is overcoming centuries of racism and sexism to take advantage of everyone’s talents.” The Black women “who get elected will make America even greater than it already is because our nation’s diversity enables all types of people to combine their differing knowledge, experiences and perspectives to work together to build a better future.”

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‘Dan Driscoll is the first “Washington casualty” of the Iran war. We should all be concerned.’

Jeff McCausland at MS NOW

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll “delivered his resignation to President Donald Trump on Monday, thus becoming one of the first significant ‘Washington casualties’ of the Iran war,” says Jeff McCausland. Driscoll “repeatedly clashed with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,” and his “resignation comes at a particularly consequential moment.” The “war with Iran that Hegseth strongly advocated for looks more and more like a strategic disaster, and Driscoll’s departure is more evidence that the defense secretary is seeking to surround himself with loyalists.”

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‘The US national debt has reached $40 trillion. Should you care?’

Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times

The “revelation that the national debt had reached $40 trillion” provoked “vigorous hand-wringing across the partisan spectrum and multiple hives of economists,” says Michael Hiltzik. It is “true that there’s reason for all of us to be concerned about the size of America’s debt,” as “rising rates mean higher costs.” But it “doesn’t pay to be mistaken about what’s driving those costs.” It’s “not Social Security or Medicare. It’s ignorant and incompetent policymaking in the White House.”

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There are very few American industries that private equity has not leached into, and investors are now setting their sights on the multibillion-dollar youth sports industry, with numerous sports receiving an influx of funds. But not everyone is on board. Parents and politicians across the spectrum have raised concerns about the future of athletics under this business model.

How is private equity getting involved in youth sports?

It began when the Covid-19 pandemic threw a curveball to youth sports across the United States. Local leagues “stopped building rinks and fields and stopped maintaining the ones they had, and no federal agency exists to coordinate what replaced them,” said Fast Company. A pathway for private equity appeared.

Private ventures find youth sports appealing because they offer “pricing power that almost nothing else in consumer spending can match,” said Fast Company. American families “spend more than $40 billion a year on youth sports — nearly twice the NFL’s annual revenue.” There was also a 46% increase in the amount families spent on youth sports from 2019 to 2025, according to an Aspen Institute survey. The rise in spending grew at “twice the rate of price inflation in the U.S. economy during the same period.” Private equity has used this surge of youth sports dollars to invest in almost every sport played by American children.

One of the most notable ventures in private equity sports is Black Bear Sports Group, a firm that in “less than a decade grew into the single largest owner-operator of ice rinks in the U.S., with 47 facilities across 11 states,” said USA Today. Black Bear, the sports arm of Blackstreet Capital Holdings, has used this leverage to “steer families into its own costly ecosystem of leagues, tournaments and fees.” Families “must spend hundreds more each year or risk being shut out.”

Black Bear’s model has changed large swaths of youth hockey from a “network of community-based nonprofits into a vertically integrated, for-profit system with fewer checks on how money flows,” said USA Today. And other sports have been similarly impacted. Brand Velocity Group, a private equity firm led by Eli Manning, has purchased the “company that manages and controls the official youth sports licenses for most major U.S. professional leagues,” said Forbes, while investment firm KKR now owns Varsity Brands, one of the largest producers of youth uniforms.

How are the players and families being impacted?

Many say the influx of private equity is creating a pay-to-play culture that can be difficult to escape. There are also questions about whether parents are being “forced into buying bundled services they don’t want,” said USA Today. “We’re all paying so much money, and each year, they take away more and more,” Stephanie Kurzweil, a New Jersey hockey mom who paid $4,600 for her son’s spot on a Black Bear-owned team in 2023, said to USA Today. “They are in it for the money. There is no thought for the kids.”

An obsession with centering youth sports around traveling is another common element of private equity that is creating angst among parents. One soccer mom “was shocked when the coach made a surprise announcement that the team was going to compete in scrimmages in Europe that cost $3,500 per player,” said Intelligencer. “I was thinking, ‘There are plenty of teams we are losing to right here in our state,’” the mom, Elizabeth, told Intelligencer. “Why do we need to go lose to teams abroad?”

As a result of this increase in private money, skills and talent level “no longer act as a barrier to entry,” said Intelligencer. “When I competed, travel was more like you had to be really good. It was intimidating, and most people did not make it,” Amanda Pennel, a Georgia mother who played travel basketball as a teenager and whose son plays basketball now, told Intelligencer. Now it “doesn’t matter if you’re the worst basketball player anyone’s ever met; there’s a travel team for you.”

It’s not just regular parents who are complaining. Some high-profile individuals are also sounding the alarm about this private equity surge. “Investor money has warped youth sports in another way: It has individualized and professionalized the experience,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), whose son plays in a Black Bear-owned hockey league, said at The Atlantic.

It is a marked change given that for “most of the past century, youth sports were managed primarily by local park departments, parent-led leagues and nonprofit groups,” said Murphy. But the “high-pressure environment, driven by parents and profit-hungry owners alike, has produced a youth-sports culture in which profit and individual achievement matter more than teamwork or character building.”

What has the larger response been?

As private equity’s stranglehold on youth sports expands, many are looking to the government to intervene — and it appears that Washington, D.C., is taking notice. Several lawmakers have been “looking at the skyrocketing costs of youth sports and trying to figure out ways to regulate private equity’s role in the industry, where rising costs have priced out many young athletes,” said Cronkite News. Democrats in both chambers of Congress recently introduced the Let Kids Play Act, a bill that “would protect youth sports from so-called ‘vulture investors’ that Democrats accuse of exploiting youth sports.”

The bill, if passed, would “ban junk fees, loosely defined as fees that are hidden, offer little or nothing in return or are added only after an initial price is disclosed or paid” and “hold private equity firms liable for certain violations,” said Cronkite News. Beyond this bill, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce also held a bipartisan hearing that “scrutinized the role of private equity in youth sports,” said CNBC, another “potential sign that Congress could be inching closer to intervening.”

“Consolidation is driving up costs for families while limiting access to more affordable, community-based options,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-Calif.), the chair of the House Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education subcommittee, said during the hearing. The “simple reality is that too many children are being priced out. It’s not that they lack talent or determination; it’s that their families simply cannot afford the rising costs.”

Not everyone is happy that Congress is thinking of regulating the private equity extravaganza. “Some of the largest youth sports groups acknowledge a need for regulation but defend the role of private capital in expanding access and meeting demand,” said Cronkite News. “I agree that there is a problem with youth sports,” Matt Kanne, the CEO of youth basketball operator Open Gym Premier, said to the outlet. “The infrastructure of youth sports is underfunded and ill-equipped nationally. But why block investments?”

The proliferation of streaming options complicates the logistics of watching television, but it also means that each month brings a cornucopia of new offerings in virtually any genre. Whether you’re looking for an espionage thriller, a twisty drama or a comedy, September has you covered.

‘Last Seen’

Apple TV+ hasn’t had quite as much luck with thriller and drama series as it has with sci-fi shows like “Silo” and comedies like “Ted Lasso.” The streamer looks to change that with this Australian entry.

Ian Ridley (Patrick Brammall) is an ex-detective working as an emergency dispatcher. Like so many prestige TV characters, he’s nursing grief from an unbearable trauma — the disappearance of his young daughter, Maggie, more than a decade ago. When he receives a distress call from a girl (Chloe Jean Lourdes) calling herself Maggie, he becomes convinced it’s his daughter. The show features a “premise seemingly engineered to sit uncomfortably in any parent's chest,” said Caroline Preece at MovieWeb. (Sept. 9 on Apple TV+)

‘The Perfect Lie’

Based on Saskia Noort’s novel “The Dinner Club,” this Dutch production follows Karen (Loes Haverkort) who is invited to join an exclusive club of dilettantes and pleasure-seekers when she moves with her family to a new town. One night, one of the group’s houses is set ablaze, and their friend Evert (Edwin Jonker) is killed.

From there, secrets start to unravel and answers to the mystery of how their friends can afford a lifestyle of seemingly limitless fun are revealed. A twisty thriller in the spirit of “Big Little Lies,” the series will be “your next TV obsession,” said Lydia Patrick at Good Housekeeping. (Sept. 10 on Netflix)

‘Slow Horses’ season 6

Millennials may get their first solicitation from the American Association of Retired Persons before they see the third season of the Apple TV+ sci-fi hit “Severance.” But the streamer is cranking out seasons of the spy thriller “Slow Horses” on an impressively accelerated schedule.

The story of a fictional dumping ground for inept MI6 spies called Slough House, “Slow Horses” is blessed with a winning ensemble led by Gary Oldman as their foul-mouthed leader, Jackson Lamb, and Jack Lowden as the ambitious (but also somewhat incompetent) young agent River Cartwright. In season 6, the gang is on the lam from double-crossing MI5 official Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas). The series has in “recent years cemented itself among shows consistently vying for critical recognition,” said Trey Williams at The Hollywood Reporter. (Sept. 16 on Apple TV+)

‘Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story’

Netflix’s series of “Monster” biopics about famous murderers like Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer is possibly the grimmest franchise on television. But creator Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan look to lighten the atmosphere a bit with this bonkers-looking fictionalization of the legendary Fall River, Massachusetts, axe-murders of Andrew (Charlie Hunnam) and Abby (Rebecca Hall) Borden for which their child Lizzie (Ella Beatty) was put on trial.

Creative liberties include a romance between Borden and the family’s live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan (Vicky Krieps). “This isn’t your great-great-grandmother’s version of the Victorian-era mystery,” said Savannah Walsh at Vanity Fair, but a thoroughly modern entry with a “darkly comic tilt.” (Sept. 17 on Netflix)

‘Youth’

Fresh off the hit Apple TV+ comedic thriller “Bad Sisters,” Sharon Horgan — whose breakout role was in the superb British comedy series “Pulling” — goes back to her comedy roots with a new series for HBO Max. Horrigan plays Alex, a divorced 50-year-old literary agent with a son, Ruari (Aran Murphy), who has failed to launch.

Her parents are also in decline, which she juggles along with her on-again, off-again romantic interest, Patrick (Rupert Friend), in what seems like a natural follow-up to “Catastrophe,” the Horgan-headlined hit comedy about an unexpected late-30s pregnancy. The latest show “constantly slips back and forth between comedy and drama” and “lets its characters steep in the weirdness of ordinary life,” said Joy Press at Vanity Fair. (Sept. 20 on HBO Max).

President Donald Trump last week announced the United States is obtaining rights to 65 million barrels of Venezuelan oil reserves. The agreement was made under the auspices of unelected President Delcy Rodríguez, who owes her position to the January U.S. military operation that snatched her predecessor out of the country. It is the “biggest oil deal in world history,” Trump said in a statement. Critics say the pact is illegal and exploitative.

‘Almost certainly unconstitutional’

Venezuela is “becoming the 51st state in all but name,” Joseph Zeballos-Roig said at MS NOW. Trump’s deal would give the U.S. “privileged access” to the country’s oil production and allow the United States to replenish its “dwindling stockpiles” of petroleum depleted by the war with Iran. The agreement will also “temporarily shore up” Rodríguez’s government thanks to an influx of tax revenues. But it looks like “gilded imperialism” and will likely “deepen a disconnect between Venezuelans and hopes for a new government” after the downfall of dictator Nicolás Maduro.

The agreement is “almost certainly unconstitutional” under Venezuelan codes, Elliott Abrams said at The Washington Post. The country’s laws say petroleum resources “are the property of the Republic” and “not transferable” to outside entities. Trump’s deal “hardly meets that criteria.” The scheme also relies on a private company led by Alejandro Betancourt, who has been accused of money laundering and made his fortune “under the corrupt Hugo Chávez and Maduro regimes.” What seems certain: “The deal will fail if democracy ever returns to Venezuela.”

The Venezuela deal has given the U.S. a “strategic victory” over its rivals, Arturo McFields said at The Hill. The country’s oil fields were previously controlled by Russian and Chinese companies, and revenues flowed also to Maduro’s allies in Cuba and Iran. No more. The U.S. is obtaining “energy security” and lower gas prices, while the government in Caracas gets an agreement that “revitalizes its oil industry, creates jobs and fosters prosperity.”

‘Old-school colonialism’

The agreement could be remembered as the “moment Venezuela shut the door on communism,” Yuri Perez said at Fox News. Critics who say the government “lacks legitimacy for long contracts” are right that legitimacy “must be completed at the ballot box.” But the alternative should not be “idle oil fields and an open door to Cuba, China and Russia.” A “future democratic congress” can and should ratify the deal on behalf of Venezuelans.

“The deal smacks of old-school colonialism,” Liam Denning at Bloomberg. And it is unlikely to draw major oil companies back to Venezuela. (Chevron, the only outside oil company that remained, said this week it will double its production there.) The “opaque settlement” possibly puts new elections “further out of reach” and will thus be “inherently brittle.” Rebuilding Venezuela’s oil production and its democracy will be the “work of many years of intense effort.” Trump has instead opted for a “shortcut” that relies on “raw U.S. power.”

What happened

The NBA on Wednesday punished the Los Angeles Clippers with the largest sanctions in league history after finding that owner Steve Ballmer and other team executives violated salary cap rules to funnel millions of dollars to star forward Kawhi Leonard. The Clippers were fined $30 million and stripped of five first-round draft picks, from 2029 to 2033. Leonard was fined $700,000, and Ballmer was banned from all team and league activities for a year.

Who said what

A one-year independent investigation found that the Clippers had improperly “covered personal expenses for Leonard,” CNN said, and “funneled off-court endorsement opportunities” to him through corporate partners who were rewarded with lucrative “team business.” Paying Leonard via a team sponsor would strike at the “very heart of the NBA’s most important financial rules” to ensure a “roughly level playing field” across the league, The Wall Street Journal said. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement he was “deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations,” and “the severity of the penalties reflects” their “seriousness.”

What next?

The Clippers “vehemently reject” the NBA’s “heavily biased investigation,” the team said in a statement, and “intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us.” There is “no appeal or arbitration process available to the team,” The Athletic said, citing a league source.

What happened

New York City on Wednesday announced that AI tools will be banned in public grade and middle schools and sharply limited for high school students. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office called the one-year moratorium the country’s “most expansive” limits on AI in schools. The “sweeping new policy” for the nation’s largest school district will also bar individual screens for students until third grade, The New York Times said. “So-called companion chatbots” will be “banned in all grades,” and “all high schoolers will be taught about AI literacy.”

Who said what

“The tech industry wants us to believe that AI in early education is not only inevitable, but that it is necessary,” Mamdani said in a speech Wednesday. “We do not see it that way.” A “backlash” from parents “against the growing use of digital devices and AI in the classroom” has pushed many school districts to enact new restrictions, the Times said. The Los Angeles school district — the nation’s second-largest — just began “temporarily blocking access to generative AI tools on student devices across all grades,” The Associated Press said. Other schools are “working to teach children how to incorporate the technology while preventing them from relying too heavily on it or using it to cheat.”

What next?

New York’s new rules will be in place for this school year, which begins next week, and can be extended or amended.

What happened

The Department of Homeland Security has assigned hundreds of agents to an “intensive, weekslong hunt” for noncitizen voters, The New York Times reported Wednesday. Such “election fraud is exceedingly rare,” but DHS is “pulling agents” from “investigating such serious crimes as human trafficking and terrorism” to scour state voter rolls, sometimes by “effectively posing as individual voters.”

Any suspected noncitizen voters, or people who registered to vote before they became citizens, are referred to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit. HSI agents were assigned this week to a new “Criminal Voter Fraud surge initiative,” CNN reported. ICE is also “preparing to award” a multimillion-dollar outside contract for a “massive national database of voters,” that will include “voter registration,” as well as voting history and potentially party affiliation, Wired said.

Who said what

The Trump administration has been aggressively “targeting noncitizen voting to allege it could be a source of significant fraud during the midterm elections,” The Associated Press said. “Given the decades of evidence showing how rare noncitizen voting is, it’s unclear what the administration will discover” in its new efforts or “how verifiable any findings will be,” the Times said. President Donald Trump has already used his repeated “falsehoods about election fraud” to “sow doubt and distrust in the electoral process” and “justify sweeping voting restrictions” he is attempting to enact.

What next?

An immigrant rights group sued the Trump administration in federal court Wednesday, seeking to block DHS from “using federal databases that it alleged are being used to target naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote,” the AP said.

Zack Polanski will need to reverse his party’s faltering fortunes if he is to win the Holborn and St Pancras by-election created by Keir Starmer’s decision to leave Westminster.

Membership of the Greens has more than tripled since Polanski was elected leader almost exactly a year ago and they won their first Westminster by-election in Gorton and Denton in February. Now the leader has said he wants to stand in the vote to replace former PM Starmer in the London constituency and become his party’s sixth MP.

But the Greens have also been dogged by accusations of antisemitism, while Polanski has been criticised for a series of gaffes. There have been questions over his tax affairs, his “inflated CV and ever-presence on social media”, said Pieter Snepvangers in The Telegraph.

What did the commentators say?

Polanski’s likely candidacy “makes what was expected to be a Labour hold into a much more interesting race, with Green activists already flooding [the] constituency”, said The Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar on X.

With Andy Burnham riding a wave of optimism as the new prime minister, the Green Party’s popularity has “plunged to its lowest level ever recorded”, said Snepvangers. A YouGov poll carried out in July put its net approval rating at -23, down 28 points from last August. A majority of the public (56%) has a negative view, up from 39%.

Polanski is “easy to dislike”, said Eliot Wilson in City A.M.: there is something “preposterous and confected about him”. He demonstrates “armour-plated self-belief”, even when he’s declaring “the most implausible silliness”.

But many voters still “like what they’ve heard”. And party leaders compete now not to be the most popular, but to be the least unpopular – Polanski is far less unpopular than Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage. But “the party’s position has begun to slide” and its policy platform is “uncompromising yet unrealistic”. The question now is: “How is the Green Party to stop this leakage?”

To be fair, a fifth of the country still likes Polanski, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. But “a lot more people now feel negatively towards him”, especially voters over 35. “This may not be down to any missteps on his part. Rather, the Greens may have just reached their natural ceiling.” But the prospect of winning power “looks far away”.

True, the “unexpected resurgence of hope” in the Labour Party poses “an unmistakable threat” to Polanski, who previously “had a virtual monopoly on such things”, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Newcomers to the Green Party are now “squarely in Burnham’s sights” as he apologises for the way Starmer handled the Gaza war. But it would be “ridiculous” to assume “this Labour honeymoon can last”. With the Greens “unconstrained by the realities of government”, they will have “the freedom to say whatever Labour won’t”. That could “easily become a powerful weapon”.

At the 2024 general election, the Green candidate came third in Holborn and St Pancras, nearly doubling the party’s vote share in 2019. Meanwhile, Labour’s majority fell dramatically. Hence the “immediate pressure” on Polanski to stand, said John Rentoul in The Independent. I expect Labour will hold it, provided they choose a “solid candidate” – it is “by no means” a safe seat. But Burnham has “calmed the anti-politics rage a little, and I think Polanski will fail to catch the wave at the right moment”.

What next?

Polanski is now under pressure from Green activists to “take more radical left-wing stances to halt the rising popularity of Labour”, said Aubrey Allegretti in The Times. Animah Kosai, a member of the Green Party Council, has tabled a motion to be debated at the Greens’ conference in October. It urges the party to “embrace more enthusiastically the kind of radical policies which excite activists”, said Wilson in City A.M., including the pledge to introduce a wealth tax and attacking Labour for the sale of arms to Israel.

Holborn and St Pancras “has long been a Labour stronghold” and Labour “will throw everything at defending it”, said The Guardian’s Crerar. In the way Makerfield was Burnham’s proof of concept that he could beat Reform, “Holborn and St Pancras will be his test that he can win back progressive voters to the Labour fold”.

Great Yarmouth’s Britannia Pier bagged the top prize at the National Piers Society’s annual Pier of the Year competition – and it’s easy to see why. With a rich history dating back to 1858, the pier has recently undergone a serious renovation and now features two on-site pubs, food stalls, various rides and one of the country’s few surviving pier theatres. But there are plenty of other piers for a fun family day out. Here are some of our favourites.

Llandudno Pier, Conwy

Last year’s Pier of the Year winner was this “splendidly Victorian” structure in north Wales, said The Sunday Times. Stretching 2,295ft into the Irish Sea, it “takes a fair bashing” from the elements. There’s a Ferris wheel at the landward end and benches dotted all along it for visitors to contemplate the “beauties of the bay on one side and the massive limestone headland of Great Orme on the other”.

Clevedon Pier, Somerset

If it’s beauty you’re after, head to Clevedon Pier in north Somerset. Opened in 1869 “to receive paddle steamer passengers from Devon and Wales”, it’s England’s only Grade I-listed pier made with “discarded wrought iron railway lines shaped into eight arches” almost 15 metres high, said The Guardian. “Clevedon without its pier would be like a diamond with a flaw,” the then poet laureate John Betjeman said during a campaign to save it from demolition in 1980.

Southwold Pier, Suffolk

Southwold remains “delightfully unspoilt”, said Cambridgeshire Live. Expect “colourful beach huts”, a working lighthouse and an Edwardian pier stretching into the North Sea that’s “packed with entertainment, shops and eateries”. It’s perhaps one of the UK’s “most eccentric” piers thanks to the arcade of “wacky” slot machines designed by inventor Tim Hunkin that provide “endless seaside fun”.

Blackpool piers, Lancashire

Blackpool is the “proud home” of three piers, said The Guardian. The oldest surviving is the Grade II-listed North Pier, which features an “art-deco theatre, a two-tier carousel, bars and an arcade”. On the Central Pier you’ll find the big wheel and a bar with live shows, while the South Pier promises a “high-octane funfair” with a rollercoaster and reverse bungee ride. Just watch out for seagulls when you stop for fish and chips.

The newest search and rescue recruits are cockroaches. Scientists have outfitted the insects with capabilities to locate and administer medical care to people in remote or hard-to-reach locations. Different kinds of insects could be used for varied purposes and could be a valuable asset for disaster relief in the future.

Engineering and experimentation

Paramedic cyborg cockroaches called Paraborgs can be “field-deployable medical intervention,” said a study published in the journal Advanced Science. The robotic roaches “contain cameras and miniature medical injectors” that “could deliver supervised emergency care to people trapped in collapsed buildings, caves or other places too dangerous for rescuers to reach,” said a release about the study.

“A lot of people might not like the sight of a giant cockroach scurrying toward them,” said the study co-author and Ph.D. candidate Hai Nhan Le in the release. “But if you are trapped in rubble or stuck in a cave and need help, it could make a real difference between life and death.”

To create the cyborgs, scientists fitted North Queensland giant burrowing cockroaches (Macropanesthia rhinoceros), the “heaviest cockroach species in the world that ​measure up to 3.3 inches, with backpacks containing syringe cylinders and cameras,” said Reuters. They “start with anaesthetizing the insect, immobilizing them so that we make sure that they cannot feel anything during the implementation process,” said study co-author Thang Vo-Doan, a biorobotics ‌engineer, to the outlet. “Once we implant an electrode into the insect, we can apply a small electrical signal to activate or stimulate the nerve system so that they can respond to our command.”

While promising, “one of the biggest engineering challenges was getting the cockroaches into the correct position for an injection,” said Interesting Engineering. The insect has to “navigate to the target, position itself accurately and remain stable enough to perform the injection,” said Le in the release.

The good news is that the Paraborgs had a 95% success rate at performing close-range injections in proof-of-concept experiments. “The long-term goal is targeted human-supervised intervention in places conventional medical technologies cannot access,” said Thanh Nho Do, a medical robotics associate professor at the University of New South Wales who worked on the study, in the release.

Harnessing nature

If cyborg insects can “safely enter spaces we can’t, locate casualties and ultimately help deliver emergency care, they could become another valuable tool in the future of urban search and rescue,” said Tim Hassiotis, the superintendent of Fire and Rescue New South Wales, in the release. And other insects could offer promising methods of search and rescue in the future. “Rather than building one robot to do everything, we can harness the natural strengths of different insects and equip them for different missions,” said Vo-Doan in the release.

“Ethical guidelines for invertebrate research are not yet standardized,” said the study. Still, the cockroaches were “provided with a suitable living environment” and “decent nutrition.”

This is not the first time cockroaches have been fitted for other purposes. Scientists previously created tiny diving suits for Madagascar hissing cockroaches that could be used in perilous search operations, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. The suit contained electronic controllers to guide the cockroach and “allowed it to survive and operate in oxygen-deprived environments such as underwater” for up to three hours, “transforming it into an amphibious cyborg robot capable of operation across land and water.”

‘Gravest Gravy’ by The Cramps

★★★

For 33 gloriously scuzzy years, the Cramps served up “a proprietary cocktail of Sun-baked rockabilly, surf rock, early R&B, and punk attitude,” said Kory Grow in Rolling Stone. Gravest Gravy, an album consisting of a dozen previously unheard tracks that were recorded in 1977, with Big Star’s Alex Chilton producing, captures the band’s pioneering psychobilly sound at its birth. The group’s “B-movie aesthetic” set them apart as frontman Lux Interior and his partner in life and lunacy, guitarist Poison Ivy, made their mark on New York City’s nascent punk scene a year earlier. Lux died at 62 in 2009, but Poison Ivy partnered with punk icons Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye to restore and release this record’s early takes on originals like “TV Set” and covers like “Rockin’ Bones,” this one “far creepier” than the version on 1981’s Psychedelic Jungle. “Is this the place to start a Cramps collection?” asked Jem Aswad in Variety. “Probably not.” The 1977 lineup had a second guitarist but no bassist, making the band’s sound “even tinnier and trashier.” Still, Gravest Gravy is “a glorious surprise addition” to the catalog of “one of rock’s most brilliantly unhinged bands.”

‘Weezer (Gold Album)’ by Weezer

★★★

In concept, the third single from Weezer’s latest album doesn’t sound promising, said Ryan Reed in Consequence. “A self-referential quiet-loud rocker,” the song, titled “C.E.O.,” intentionally imitates the feel of the band’s very first single, 1994’s “Undone—The Sweater Song,” and opens with Rivers Cuomo speak-singing that he wishes he could do something new. Fortunately, “everything about ‘C.E.O.’ feels real,” from the lyrics to the angsty, fuzzed-out guitar attack. It’s not “instant-classic Weezer,” but it’s certainly “keeper-tier Weezer” and emblematic of its surroundings—the band’s “funniest, rawest, most musically spry album since at least 2014.” It’s definitely the Weezer album “with the gnarliest guitar sounds and most thunderous rhythm section,” said Tim Sendra in AllMusic. On this, the group’s seventh self-titled album and 20th overall, every tune was hashed out by the bandmates face to face, a method they’d never tried before. “Even if the songs were weak, the massive sound of the record would still make it worth a listen or two.” Fortunately, “the songs are some of the strongest Cuomo and the band have delivered in years.”

‘Monk Movements’ by Jon Batiste

★★★

Jon Batiste can’t hide his joy when he’s playing Thelonious Monk, said Michel Martin in NPR.org. On Monk Movements, one of three solo piano albums the eight-time Grammy winner released on Aug. 14, you can hear his exclamations as he constructs personal takes on “Blue Monk” and “Ugly Beauty.” Batiste fell hard for Monk’s music over 20 years ago, said Larry Blumenfeld in The Wall Street Journal. Now, as a global star, he’s released two tributes to the jazz legend, with Monk Movements the livelier of the two. Whether the Louisiana native is interpreting Monk or playing original compositions that engage with Monk’s legacy here, “it feels as if he’s letting us in on a private communion with his hero.” As on Batiste’s other piano studies albums, said Philip Martin in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “his exuberance can outrun his discrimination.” In his improvisations, he wants to explore every appealing side road. Still, that beats mere imitation. With each tune, “he takes apart the machinery, treating Monk as a composer whose structures can withstand the same sort of reinterpretation routinely accorded Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart.”

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.

Jennifer McMahon is the best-selling author of 12 suspense novels, including The Winter People and Promise Not to Tell. In her latest book, Stay Buried, siblings new to a remote Vermont town discover that the locals live in fear of a vengeful spirit.

‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ by Washington Irving (1820)

The story of Ichabod Crane terrified me as a kid. I remember running home on wooded paths from a friend’s house, certain I heard hoofbeats behind me. I was sure that if I turned back, I’d see a rider with his head tucked under his arm, and that just as I was making out the lights of home through the trees, he’d hurl it through the air at me. Buy it here.

‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson (1948)

Until I read this masterpiece in middle school, I had no idea people wrote stories about things like this: small towns full of normal people who were capable of terrible things. It really made me think about the way groups of people can normalize brutality in the name of “tradition.” Buy it here.

‘Harvest Home’ by Thomas Tryon (1973)

This quintessential folk-horror novel taught me never to trust a seemingly idyllic setting, remote location, or tight-knit community—things that all seem so charming on first glance! Buy it here.

‘Pine’ by Francine Toon (2020)

Pine is the perfect example of a book in which the setting feels like a character. The novel’s little Scottish village, surrounded by forest, feels claustrophobic, isolated, steeped in dread. Throw in a girl with a missing mother, sightings of a mysterious woman, and a vanished teenager and you have all the ingredients of a very compelling tale. Buy it here.

‘The Ritual’ by Adam Nevill (2011)

I wouldn’t venture into the woods for a long time after reading this. Four college friends meet up for a reunion hiking trip and make an ill-advised decision to take a shortcut. When they come upon a disemboweled animal hanging from the trees, we know something truly terrifying awaits them. Buy it here.

‘Starve Acre’ by Andrew Michael Hurley (2019)

This many-layered story centers on the tragic loss of a young child. His mother is convinced some part of him is still there at the family home; his father becomes obsessed with digging up the roots of a legendary oak tree. Hurley’s writing is gorgeous, the sort that I willingly get lost in knowing all the while it’s going to take me someplace unsettling. Buy it here.

‘The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy’ by Gil Durán

“Picture this: A loosely organized cabal of obscenely wealthy tech moguls aim to overthrow democracy and replace it with a corporatist dictatorship,” said Kevin Truong in The San Francisco Standard. The premise, undoubtedly, “would make for a good political thriller.” In Gil Durán’s new nonfiction hit, it makes for more unsettling reading. Durán, a journalist who’s also been a spokesman for Jerry Brown and Kamala Harris, argues that tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, the main patron of JD Vance’s career, sits at the center of an active and powerful circle of tech evangelists who believe democracy is obsolete, technology will create a utopian future, and their cohort is an elite that should decide how the future unfolds. The claim would sound like mere conspiracy theory, said Tonya Mosley in NPR.org, except that the players Durán identifies “have been stating their beliefs and aspirations out loud for years.”

“You could not ask for a more hair-raising compendium of the insane things that Silicon Valley moguls have advocated for,” said Laura Miller in Slate. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, has touted as formative to his beliefs a 1997 book, The Sovereign Individual, that arguably predicted the rise of cryptocurrency and AI while also forecasting the collapse of nation-states and emergence of individuals smart and powerful enough to pursue their ambitions without constraint. Thiel can count Elon Musk and fellow venture capitalist Marc Andreessen among his allies, and all appear to have been influenced by alt-right blogger Curtis Yarvin, who advocates putting the U.S. under the rule of a CEO-style monarch and has talked about the need to develop “a humane alternative to genocide” to address Earth’s supposed excess of unproductive individuals. While Durán “gives perhaps too much credence to the viability of Silicon Valley’s most authoritarian dreams,” his book is a “much-needed” wake-up call, warning us that today’s tech giants should be feared, not blindly worshipped.

Durán claims that tech moguls view the Trump regime as a vehicle for the expansion of their power, and “few could dispute this,” said Steve Rose in The Guardian. Remember the many tech titans standing behind him at his 2025 inauguration? Or how they helped the Trump family make billions off cryptocurrency? The payoffs have come in government contracts such as Palantir’s estimated $13.7 billion annual haul as well as in the wrecking ball taken to government oversight. Trump has even backed such nutty ideas as building 10 “Freedom Cities” that would be exempt from many existing regulations. Thiel and his allies haven’t fully triumphed yet, though, as indicated by the recent surge in public opposition to data centers. With any luck, “this could be a radicalizing moment.”

‘The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence’ by Kimon de Greef

“Readers who are unaware that the secretions from some toads may serve as portals to the divine are in for some significant revelations,” said Dave Shiflett in The Wall Street Journal. Kimon de Greef’s engaging new book takes as a given that the Sonoran Desert toad produces 5-MeO-DMT, a powerful natural psychedelic. But de Greef is also interested in the subculture that’s arisen around “the God molecule,” as advocates call it. Toad facilitators now regularly milk the toad’s glands and dry the extract so it can be smoked, generating potent trips that are said to collapse the ego. Toad smoking can cause instant psychosis, but fans of the practice include Mike Tyson and Hunter Biden, and “de Greef describes the effects of 5-MeO-DMT in such glowing terms that a foot-washing Baptist might be tempted to give it a shot.”

“For an experience this intense, a wise guide is key—or so you’d think,” said Susannah Cahalan in The New York Times. The antihero of de Greef’s story is Octavio Rettig Hinojosa, a Mexican doctor turned psychedelic celebrity who, since 2006, has championed toad smoking, claiming the practice helped him kick crack. Since achieving widespread fame in 2013, Rettig has overseen gatherings that have introduced thousands of novices to toad smoking. “If you’re familiar with the guru playbook, you know where this is going.” Rettig’s recklessness has led to suffering. At one point, he was charged in the death of a woman who stopped breathing during one of his ceremonies.

“As de Greef is keen to stress, the problem is not just one eccentric doctor,” said Lilia Marie Ellis in the Washington Independent Review of Books. Though 5-MeO-DMT is illegal in the U.S., pharmaceutical companies are displaying similar heedlessness as they race to monetize synthesized versions, which have shown promise in the treatment of addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. De Greef’s book “stalls slightly” when it turns away from Rettig, “whose energy jumps off the page.” Still, The Ego Trip “succeeds in illustrating that commercialized psychedelics are not the miracle drug many hoped for.”

If you are trying to save on your next car, you may be considering buying used instead of new. Used cars do usually cost less than new cars — but that does not mean you will automatically get a good deal on one.

“Today’s shoppers are facing record-high prices and a dwindling supply of budget-friendly inventory,” said The Washington Post, citing a new second-quarter report from car-shopping website Edmunds. Largely due to an imbalance between supply and demand, the current average price of a three-year-old used vehicle — $32,461 — is “4% higher than a year ago and a 15.5% increase from 2021.”

If you are in the market for a used car, here is what to keep in mind while shopping.

1. Know your numbers

Before you approach the negotiating table, it’s essential that you have done your homework. The first thing to figure out is how much you can actually afford to spend. “If you’re taking out a loan to pay for your car, a good rule of thumb is to cap your car expenses at 10% of your take-home pay, including your car payment and other ownership costs, such as fuel and insurance,” said Edmunds. And “if you plan to buy a car that’s out of warranty, it’s also a good idea to set aside a ‘just-in-case’ fund to cover unexpected repairs.”

If you know you need an auto loan, this is also a good time to verify your creditworthiness. Consider getting prequalified, which will not only provide a sense of how much you may be able to borrow and potential rates but also give you leverage when shopping and negotiating.

2. Make sure to comparison shop

Once you get to the point where you are eyeing up one car in particular, “look up the current market value — what other buyers have paid for that used car — in pricing guides such as Edmunds or Kelley Blue Book,” said NerdWallet. “Current pricing information from these impartial sources will give you confidence and show you how much to negotiate on a used car.”

It can also help to look at different sources. For instance, certified preowned vehicles tend to “cost the most, given that they typically have fewer miles, are often in better condition and have some warranty coverage,” whereas “private-party sales typically cost less,” though there is more effort involved, said Edmunds.

3. Dig into a vehicle’s history

A low price on a vehicle that turns out to be a lemon is not such a good deal in the end. This is why it’s important that you ask questions, and verify everything the former owner says before you sign. “Get the vehicle history report (Carfax and AutoCheck are two popular choices) to confirm the odometer reading, ownership history and reports of accidents and flood damage,” said Investopedia. And if you are “buying from a private seller, you can also ask to see a copy of maintenance records.”

Your own eyes — and nose — are a good resource too. “Visually inspect the car on a dry, sunny day to see imperfections and potential problems better,” said Consumer Reports. If you “smell mildew, the car may have been in a flood or there may be a leak somewhere, which could mean unseen water damage.”

‘Save the children. Ban everyone age 18 and older from social media.’

Joe Mathews at the San Francisco Chronicle

“Ban everyone age 18 and older from social media,” says Joe Mathews. Adults are “having the wrong conversation about digital safety.” Every “week, more grave-faced politicians declare that we must protect kids by banning them from social media, even though most unhinged people online are old enough to vote.” If any “demographic has proved it cannot handle an unmoderated feed, it is fully grown adults.” If “adults ban ourselves from social media tomorrow, what do we really lose?”

Read more

‘The unique horrors of AI food slop’

Brady Brickner-Wood at The New Yorker

The “next frontier of food imagery has proven far less appealing than whatever food porn was,” says Brady Brickner-Wood. Restaurants are “plastering menus and promotional materials with AI-generated” food. A “nauseating, nightmarish quality defines AI’s insectified interpretation of human cuisine, as if food were just another surrealist goo to stochastically iterate upon.” These “renderings of food — genuinely, slop — offend the materiality of the living in a way that AI’s distortions of words and other inanimate objects somehow do not.”

Read more

‘The price of Russian paranoia’

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan at Foreign Affairs

As “Russia’s war in Ukraine becomes increasingly costly with no end in sight, the Kremlin has kept tightening its grip over Russian society,” say Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan. Less “apparent, though, is the dramatic shift in domestic security doctrine that undergirds these efforts.” Rule by “spy hunting and paranoia has also come with significant costs,” as “proliferating social controls and prosecutions for treason have created a pervasive climate of mistrust and fueled a sense of paralysis.”

Read more

‘Trump’s ‘Golden Age’? Well, yes — for dollar stores.’

Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect

Americans are “not experiencing the Trump Boom in quite the same way that Trump is,” says Harold Meyerson. The economy has “positive metrics to be found, so long as they don’t concern the experience of the American people as such.” Most “revealingly, because this is a metric that does reflect the experience of the American people, business at dollar stores is up and rising.” These stores are the “canary in the coal mine when the economy is going to hell.”

Read more

Democrats are broadcasting cautious optimism as they head into the final stretch ahead of the 2026 midterms. As the party out of power, they are traditionally favored to make major gains when polls close in November. Republicans are meanwhile scrambling to defend their congressional majorities in the face of historic headwinds and flagging popularity.

While each of the hundreds of midterm races is a unique contest shaped by the variety of candidates and communities therein, there are certain issues that have emerged as electoral inflection points. Rising costs of living, increasingly heavy-handed immigration actions and a raging debate over transgender inclusion are just some of the factors that will likely determine who controls Congress — and to what end — come January.

Cost of living

Democrats have “gained a significant edge” over Republicans on “voter perceptions” about which party is better suited to address the rising cost of living, said Reuters. For the past year, voters have “signaled the cost of living will be the most important factor” in their midterm choices. Trump, however, has “mostly dismissed concerns about the high cost of living during his second term,” said Roll Call, “including the price of gasoline” since “joining Israel in an armed conflict with Iran.” Although it was the “financial frustration of a pandemic-weary electorate” that helped push Trump back into office in 2024, the president’s “actions in office have complicated, if not undermined,” many of his promises for financial relief, said The New York Times.

Data centers

The ongoing debate over data centers is “suddenly at the epicenter of the midterm elections,” said The New York Times. Politicians of all stripes are “racing to tap into the backlash — or inoculate themselves” — from what has become an “unusually fast-moving force that is already reshaping races for the House, the Senate and governor’s mansions.” $31 million has been spent this year on data center-focused political ads, “spiking” in July when “more than 8% of all campaign spending on broadcast TV went to data center or AI-related spots,” said CNN. This is “up significantly” from “less than 1% of ads last year.”

Because of the “huge tracts of land” needed to accommodate mammoth computing warehouses, tech companies have “been exploring deeper into rural America,” said PBS News. That has, in turn, “united conservative ranching and farming communities” with “left-leaning environmental advocacy groups” over their “combined concern.”

Donald Trump

Despite being the “most potent force in Republican primary elections,” Trump himself “may soon be something entirely different for Republican candidates,” said The New York Times: a “liability.” Trump’s approval is “well underwater” thanks to “rising prices and an unpopular war.” Accordingly, Democrats have moved to target battleground Republican candidates by “tying them” to the president in the hopes they can “ride voter anger with his administration to congressional majorities.”

Trump may be “on a mission to burnish his legacy,” said The Wall Street Journal, but some GOP insiders “privately worry that Trump’s focus on himself is backfiring with voters.” For his part, the president has reportedly decided to “lean into the Democratic strategy of focusing on himself,” said The Atlantic. To that end, Trump has commissioned a “series of television advertisements about his own record” that will “serve as a backdrop to the hundreds of individual House and Senate contests.”

Gas prices

Republicans may have “hammered Democrats on gas prices” during the 2024 national elections, said Politico. But with prices “soaring” again amid ongoing hostilities with Iran, “this time, the roles are reversed.” This year already, approximately “two-thirds of ads mentioning gas prices” are from Democratic candidates and groups.

Rising gas prices are “becoming a major concern” for voters and “GOP lawmakers trying to hold onto their seats” alike, said MS NOW. Historical electoral analysis holds that incumbents “tend to pay a more significant electoral price” in midterm races “when costs at the pump are higher.” In March, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee purchased a suite of social media ads about rising fuel costs that targeted “about four dozen battleground districts” the party “believes can be flipped,” said USA Today.

Immigration

Republican lawmakers and candidates are hoping to “reverse the damage” that Trump’s deportations and immigration policies have done to voters, said Politico. Although immigration “was a reliable winner for Republicans” in elections past, the party is now “struggling not only to convince persuadable voters” but also to “hold together their own coalition as it splinters over deportations.”

With Immigration and Customs Enforcement “revving up its operations across the country,” the White House is making a move “fraught with political risk as the midterm elections draw closer,” said NBC News. “Moderate and progressive Democrats alike,” meanwhile, have “figured out how to talk about the border,” said Politico. But “with less than three months until Election Day,” they “still aren’t on the same page” when it comes to dealing with ICE.

“Some high-profile” Democratic candidates have campaigned by pushing ICE “reforms,” while others are “calling to dissolve the agency altogether,” said Politico. Although “many in the party see an opening” given how unpopular Trump’s anti-immigration policies have been overall, some Democrats “worry that going too far on ICE could again kneecap their electoral chances in key battlegrounds.”

Iran war

Six months after President Trump declared war on Iran, the conflict between Washington and Tehran has “reshaped the rapidly approaching midterm election,” said The Associated Press. Not only have the months of violence undermined Trump’s campaign pledge to “steer clear of foreign conflicts,” the war is “challenging Republicans who would rather focus on their tax cuts” to defend their “narrow majorities in Congress.”

Republicans have urged the White House to “wrap up the conflict,” said The Atlantic, in the hopes of reducing the war’s “drag on the nation’s economy — and their reelection chances.” Although “poll after poll” has shown how unpopular the war is domestically, said CNN, Republicans remain “reluctant to publicly break with a president” who remains “popular inside their party.”

Israel

“Growing schisms” among Democrats over Israel have become a “contentious issue for the party,” said NPR, “particularly as it heads into the midterm election.” While some party insiders claim that the “divide” among lawmakers is “limited to military aid,” others say the “biggest gap” is “between the party’s elected officials and voters” who have “moved against Israel faster than their representatives” in the wake of Israeli military action in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

The pivot on historical support for Israel has been “clearest on the Democratic left,” where candidates frame the powerful Israel lobbying group AIPAC as “emblematic of big-money interests overwhelming ordinary voters,” said France 24. But criticism has “spread to the populist right” as well. Some “America First” conservatives have “attacked Washington’s support for Israel and blamed pro-Israel lobbying for drawing the United States deeper into foreign conflicts.” Approaching the midterms, a “once-prized endorsement” from groups supporting Israel “can now, in some races, be something candidates would rather their opponents talked less about.”

Transgender rights

“Across the country,” Republican-run ads attacking Democrats over “transgender athletes’ sports participation and gender-affirming medical care for minors” have “become commonplace,” said PBS News. The nationwide push is part of an “effort to tap into a strategy that was successful for President Trump in 2024,” where he framed former Vice President Kamala Harris’ openness to transgender rights as being “outside the cultural mainstream.”

For Democrats, determining how candidates “should — or should not — respond to anti-trans attacks” has “since taken up a lot of oxygen in Washington as party strategists debate the best course forward,” said The 19th. Some Democrats are confident that anti-trans ads will “backfire on Republicans as Americans increasingly embrace transgender rights,” said The Washington Times, in much the same way the party “brought voters to their side on gay marriage.”

A California high-speed rail was supposed to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020. Billions of dollars later, no track has been laid, and completion of the project is still a distant dream. Now, officials are raising questions about the project’s future.

What did the commentators say?

The rail project was approved by California voters in 2008. It has since cost “billions more than planned” and is “years behind schedule,” said The Wall Street Journal. The original price tag of $33 billion has risen to $126 billion and could grow further before the completion date, now projected for 2040. Whether that goal could be achieved is an open question. The rail system’s inspector general is warning it “could run out of money by December 2027,” said KCRA. “I honestly don’t think [it] will ever run," farmer and attorney Michael Dias said to the TV station.

Progress has been plagued by “rising costs, funding shortfalls and construction delays,” said the Daily Caller. Authorities point to the Golden State’s intensive regulatory environment as a factor. California was once “able to build infrastructure like this in a very short amount of time,” but “we kept regulating ourselves more and more and more,” rail system CEO Ian Choudri said this month in a speech, per The Fresno Bee.

China has “laid enough high-speed rail to circle the globe” during the same period that California has struggled to get traction, said the Caller. Big projects are “much easier to do in countries with weak or nonexistent individual property rights,” energy analyst David Blackmon said to the outlet.

Another locale that has won the rail race: Morocco. The country and California are “remarkably similar in size,” but the Golden State is “more than 20 times richer,” columnist Joe Mathews said at the San Francisco Chronicle. Still, Morocco built a 201-mile line thanks to a “structural simplicity” and “raw political will” that California does not possess. It helps that Morocco is “highly centralized,” while California has a “labyrinth of zoning, lawsuits, and YIMBY-NIMBY politics” that let citizens more easily obstruct construction projects. Morocco has a completed railway; “California has excuses.”

Maybe there is an alternative. The rail system will not be complete until 2040, but “robotaxis could use the I-5 sooner,” AgentCloak CEO Peter Yared said at Inc. Robotaxis from Tesla and Waymo have already “started operating on highways,” which makes them a plausible alternative to the “large capital expense and long timelines of high-speed rail.” While the state waits around on rail, self-guided electric vehicles “could easily be deployed in less than a year.”

What next?

The first high-speed rail segment connecting Merced with Bakersfield will be complete “sometime in the next decade — if it gets built,” Dan Walters said at CalMatters. Meeting that goal depends on the state continuing to dedicate revenue from its greenhouse gas permits system, but that would “require cuts in other projects.” For now, progress on the rail project continues to be mired in “seemingly endless political melodrama.”

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The Mediterranean is a place, a mood, a cooking ethos. Twenty-two countries border the cherished body of water, each with its own specialized manner of feeding their people. These books are no comprehensive consideration of every kitchen in the Mediterranean. But they sure are an exhilarating starting point.

‘The Food of Morocco’ by Paula Wolfert

Wolfert’s original book on Moroccan food was published in 1973, far ahead of its time in its insistence on the proper way to cook the food of the North African country. In 2011, she published an even more deeply considered version of that landmark book. “The Food of Morocco” is “hardly the quintessential Paula Wolfert cookbook,” said LA Weekly. “This book is Paula Wolfert.”

Her influence in the intervening decades was immense. The popularity of clay pots for cooking and the ubiquity of preserved lemons in many an American kitchen are all Wolfert’s doing. With “The Food of Morocco,” tagines of all sorts, lively salads with touches of flower water, and the proper way to make couscous can become second nature in American kitchens far from the shores of Rabat and Tangier. ($60, HarperCollins, Amazon)

‘The Food of Sicily’ by Fabrizia Lanza

Italy points its finger well into the Mediterranean Sea, but you could argue that the region most influenced by that body of water is the island of Sicily. Lanza runs a cooking school in Palermo, and “The Food of Sicily” (2023) sings a song many Americans know well, being that so many Italian immigrants to the U.S. were Sicilian.

But no entire cuisine travels with its migrants, so “The Food of Sicily” is loaded with surprises, too — swordfish stuffed with garlic and mint, octopus salad, and watermelon pudding included. Sicily has “always been at the crossroads of the Mediterranean,” said Lanza to Monocle magazine. “It’s a place where people have brought their own unique customs to enrich our table.” ($40, Artisan, Amazon)

‘The Glorious Foods of Greece’ by Diane Kochilas

Love your Greek salad and gyros to your heart’s oregano-laced content. There is a world of Greek food most Americans have never experienced. A “landmark for Greek cooking in the U.S.,” Kochilas' seminal 2001 book, “The Glorious Foods of Greece,” is the result of eight years of research across the country’s varied regions, from the mountains of Macedonia and Thrace in the north to Greece’s six main island groups, and “displays a deep grasp of history,” said Publishers Weekly.

The 400-odd recipes include savory pies of all stripes, a mind-boggling array of uses for many styles of cheese, and boundless vegetable dishes. Moussaka, you are adored, but Kochilas will have you seeing Greek cuisine in colors beyond blue and white. ($40, ThriftBooks, Amazon)

‘Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey’ by Robyn Eckhardt

Turkey, a sprawling, varied country, in the hands of Eckhardt and the photographer David Hagerman, is a “picaresque portrait of a country that doesn’t really have a national cuisine at all; it has dozens,” said Max Falkowitz at Saveur. There are the famed Urfa chiles of the country’s southeast, the seafood, greens and corn in the north that edge the Black Sea, and the grand amalgam of influences in Istanbul.

“Istanbul and Beyond” (2017) is organized according to a number of Turkey’s regions, so you acquire a sense of place as you deepen your knowledge of Mediterranean cooking. Corn and creme fraiche biscuits, brown butter scrambled eggs, sun-dried tomato and pomegranate salad, and herbed fish cakes — this is Turkish food in its truest, most varied form with an aperture in every recipe. ($22, HarperCollins, Amazon)

‘Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland’ by Anissa Helou

In “Lebanon” (2026), a book both personal and anthropological, the famed Beirut-born author Helou “returns to her girlhood roots, examining the country’s regional cooking as she makes her way from place to place,” said The Boston Globe. She learns aspects of her native cuisine she had never fathomed. Imagine, then, what we nonnatives glean.

Yogurt is everywhere, from dressing fava bean fatteh (bread salad) to wee meatballs. Vegetables, like chicory, plus artichokes and potatoes, are braised in extra-virgin olive oil. Zucchini and cabbages are stuffed; fish is cooked with tahini. This is Lebanese cuisine in all its familiar, surprising brilliance. ($50, Ecco, Amazon)

‘The New Book of Middle Eastern Food’ by Claudia Roden

Be not fooled by the title. The Middle East is a construct created by people in the West. Across 500-plus pages, the “great cook” and “captivating food historian” Roden captures the foods of countries like Greece, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey, said the blog Cooks Without Borders. What do all these countries have in common? Yes, they abut the Mediterranean Sea, just not the well-trod Mediterranean of the average American tourist.

In the book’s 16 central chapters, Roden wanders from central categories such as yogurt, egg dishes, breads and pickles, showing how the countries of this region prepare stunning variations of common foodstuffs. Your kitchen repertoire will mature as handily as your new lens on geography will if you take an open-eyed tour of “The New Book of Middle Eastern Food” (1985). ($55, Knopf, Amazon)

‘The New Spanish Table’ by Anya von Bremzen

All the hits are here — Spanish tortilla, patatas bravas, various kinds of paella. But “The New Spanish Table” (2005) is also a snapshot of the revolution in cooking that happened across Spain during the early part of the 20th century, an era in which Spanish cuisine began “rapidly usurping the culinary dominance of Italy and France,” said Publishers Weekly.

Von Bremzen spent decades traveling across and writing about Spain. There is both modernity and history in this book. The text profiles the cooking of such influential figures as the Catalan chef Ferran Adrià and the Basque Country’s Juan Mari Arzak and provides recipes for centuries-old dishes from Madrid. ($25, ThriftBooks, Amazon)

Anticipation for Grand Theft Auto VI reached a fever pitch in August when developer Rockstar Games finally released a first look at gameplay. But while the long-awaited project is widely expected to have the biggest premiere in video game history, there is also concern about what it means for the gaming industry’s future. Some say it could be the industry’s coup de grace; others are more optimistic.

Gaming’s ‘time of tumult’

GTA VI is expected to be a slam dunk for Rockstar financially, projected to generate up to $5.2 billion in sales by the end of its first launch week this November, according to gaming analytics firm Newzoo. But the game’s release also “comes at a time of such tumult for the gaming industry as a whole,” as “open-world games are arguably tired and online multiplayer games with $200 million budgets can crash and burn the moment they are launched,” said Troy Farah at Salon.

Part of the problem is that this game is “such a big release that it’s scaring off other studios from releasing their own games around the same time in November” lest they fail because “everyone is spending their cash on Rockstar’s latest,” said Farah. GTA VI’s $80 base game price and $100 ultimate version may “just seem like typical capitalist extraction, but the end result will likely be a narrower industry that squeezes creatives and makes things a lot more miserable for players.”

With the “cost of living crisis that’s eating every last penny of disposable income out of average household budget, it won’t take much to turn a chorus of Champagne corks into a firing squad aimed directly at the games industry’s already-exposed guts,” said Jim Trinca at IGN. The “real issue here is that so much of the games industry finds itself both scared by and dependent on the success of one single project.” Gamers should prepare for the “possibility that GTA VI, rather than being the savior of the video games industry, might trigger its next big crash.”

A ‘halo effect’

Despite some nerves about current trends in the industry, Rockstar hopes its upcoming blockbuster will “retain cultural influence for another decade,” said Christopher Byrd at The New York Times. Many are hoping a strong debut from Grand Theft Auto VI will also “boost the struggling console market, which has seen higher prices due to the rising cost of memory and storage,” said Jenni Reid and Alex Buckmaster at CNBC, though this game is only being released digitally.

Many insiders also hope the game will have a “halo effect for the entire industry,” said Rob Fahey at gaming news outlet GamesIndustry.biz. If it succeeds, GTA VI “will be a rising tide that lifts many other boats around it,” as the effects from the “biggest media launch of the decade being a video game will be very significant.” It could also cement a “reaffirmation of video games’ position on an equal footing with other media in the flow and transfer of styles, influences and ideas.”

Even amid industry falterings, GTA VI is the “type of game that can pull a lot of people back into gaming and even convince them to buy a new console to play it,” Dan DeFrancesco said at Business Insider. But the jury is still out on what the full effect of the release will be. “Big fires burn bright, but they need a lot of oxygen to grow.”

What happened

The House on Tuesday passed a Senate-approved stopgap funding bill that will avert a government shutdown at the end of the month. The “lopsided” 370-48 vote punts the expected fiscal 2027 “spending fight until after the midterm elections,” The New York Times said, and allows lawmakers to “quickly return to the campaign trail for the critical final weeks before the elections.”

Who said what

The stopgap measure is “simple by design,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. “No poison pills, no divisive wish lists and no political gimmicks.” At a closed-door meeting Tuesday, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the “bill was much improved from the product that passed the House earlier this summer on a mostly party-line basis,” according to The Associated Press. In its bipartisan rewrite, the Senate “made some changes, some that we don’t support,” GOP Whip Steve Scalise (La.) told The Washington Post. But “it’s much more important for the country to avoid a government shutdown.”

What next?

Once President Donald Trump signs the bill, the government will be funded at current levels through Dec. 11. That gives lawmakers time to “find compromise on a full-year measure,” said the AP, which will “likely be quite difficult.”

What happened

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at a summit in Kyrgyzstan that Moscow will continue supplying “the assistance you need” and “the necessary goods” during “this difficult period.” Since President Donald Trump “launched his war against Iran” in February, Russia “has backed the Iranians with intelligence, including on U.S. assets in the Persian Gulf,” and “drone components,” said The New York Times. Moscow has also been secretly helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles, the Financial Times reported. The U.S. and Iran traded airstrikes last night, in their “first serious combat since July,” Reuters said.

Who said what

Russia’s transfer of the “strategically important military technology” to build supersonic missiles “would require political approval from Russia’s top leadership,” Conflict Armament Research analyst Fabian Hinz told the Financial Times. Such missiles would be a “qualitatively new strategic weapons system capable of threatening U.S. Navy ships,” former CIA military analyst Jim Lamson told the Financial Times. Iran has already done considerable damage to U.S. military bases in the Middle East with a new ballistic missile it calls “the Kheibar Shekan, or ‘Castle Breaker,’” USA Today said. The missile, likely developed “with the help of Chinese and Russian technology,” can “evade American air defenses and strike with far greater precision.”

What next?

Tehran vowed to respond to last night’s airstrikes with more “crushing and devastating blows” and claimed its own counterstrikes killed several U.S. personnel in Jordan and Iraq.

What happened

The U.S. Postal Service is poised to roll out a “secretive, rushed” and error-riddled online portal for states that could “derail” mail-in voting in the midterm elections, according to a whistleblower complaint released Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). The tool was created in three months, sometimes in defiance of court orders, to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to limit mail voting before the midterms, a USPS official said in the complaint. The “slapdash” development effort and a “zero percent failure” verification requirement mean “potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all.”

Who said what

A federal judge in Boston has temporarily halted USPS from forcing states to use its new Federal Ballot Mail Portal system. But if the stay is lifted or overturned, USPS would require states to submit lists of mail ballot recipients and get approval for envelope and ballot designs with individualized barcodes. If the system worked as designed, the whistleblower said, entire batches of tens of thousands of ballots would be rejected if there were a problem with “even one barcode on one single ballot.” Blumenthal told reporters the new system is “intended to fail.”

What next?

Blumenthal gave Postmaster General David Steiner until Friday to respond to the claims detailing “USPS’s ​seemingly illegal plot to interfere in November’s midterms.” A USPS spokesperson said the Postal Service was “carefully reviewing” the allegations but will roll out the portal “soon” to states that want to use it.

This week’s question: Prince Laurent of Belgium recently recognized 26-year-old former car salesman Clément Vandenkerckhove — whose mother is a Belgian singer — as his biological son and heir. If Hollywood were to make a comedy about an American auto dealership employee who suddenly discovers his royal lineage, what should the film 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 “Royal auto-dealer” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, Sept. 25. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page of the Sept. 11-Sept. 18 issue and at theweek.com/contest on Sept. 18. 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: Woodhenge epitaph

Two top-level summits held simultaneously this week offered contrasting visions for the world and who will lead it in the coming years.

Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Indian PM Narendra Modi, and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, presenting Beijing as a driver of stability and champion of an “orderly multipolar world”.

Meanwhile, 6,826 miles away at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Asheville, North Carolina, the mood could not have been more different. Western finance ministers expressed outrage at the Trump administration’s decision to invite Russia. There was anger at the US’s ongoing trade spat with Canada, Trump’s decision to punish South Korea and, of course, the continuing economic fallout from his war against Iran.

What did the commentators say?

If the Bishkek summit was “designed to project solidarity”, then the G20 gathering “offered an image of fracture”, said David Pierson for The New York Times.

China is using ever-closer ties with Russia and Iran, which are both at war with the West, to “project its influence”, at the same time as the US is “straining the alliances and economic relationships that have underpinned decades of global leadership”.

“China’s theory of the case for bending the international political order in its preferred direction is to amass support from the ‘global majority,’” said Ryan Hass, a former White House national security official now at the Brookings Institution think tank. Xi’s role as lead convener “builds a narrative around China gaining momentum in building support for playing a more central role on the world stage”.

This shows that the “emerging global order is not simply dividing into two fixed camps”, with countries such as India “maintaining relationships with competing powers while pursuing their own strategic interests”, said Business Insider Africa. That is why Xi has also sought to build bridges with the West, hosting the leaders of Germany, Britain and Canada this year, as long-standing allies turn away from the US under Trump.

The world’s two leading economies are “uneasily preoccupied with their trajectory these days”, said Evan Osnos in a recent New Yorker article entitled “The future, made in China”. China is “eager to restore its historical eminence”, but, in a sign the centre of global politics may be shifting, having long “looked West for visions of the future”, nowadays “it favours its own”.

What next?

China’s show of strength, on display not only in Bishkek but also in Asheville where it blocked a G20 joint statement, comes ahead of a crunch meeting between Xi and Trump in Washington DC later this month.

With China now viewed more positively than the US in the majority of 36 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center, Xi could do worse than acknowledge the assessment by Beijing’s Renmin University when meeting the famously vain US president.

Entitled “Thank Trump”, it hailed his efforts to hasten the “twilight of an empire” by undermining America’s international alliances, its institutions at home and credibility abroad, said The Economist.

A “tangled web of 60-somethings” juggle “friendship, divorce, bust-ups, romance”, and the “decades of baggage” they “quietly carry on their backs” in this Australian six-parter, said Phoebe Loomes in The Senior. But the “charming and surprising” series shows that people in their 60s have “no appetite to slow down”.

It’s a “mood piece” and an “array of portraits of characters who have actually lived some life” and been “formed by meaningful experiences”, who are introduced to us at a “later stage” than we usually see on our screens, wrote Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. “They and we are only better off for it”.

“Beautifully written” and directed with “requisite subtlety”, the Paramount+ show stars Hugo Weaving as a “bonhomous retired cameraman”. A reunion of his old friends sparks a “feast” of “hilarious and heartbreaking” storylines shot through with the type of “irreverence and honesty that makes you instantly devoted to the whole endeavour”.

The characters’ history is “part of the attraction of the story”, with “marriages, children, careers, mistakes” and “decades-long friendships” that make their choices “more complicated, not less interesting”, said Scott Podmore on Starts At 60.

And they’re “not old old”, said Anthony Morris on Screen Hub. Yes, they are nearing retirement, but while some of them seem to have everything “worked out”, others are “unsure of themselves, questioning their choices” and “trying to figure out where they’re heading”. The “Sydney backdrop” makes “everyone’s troubles” seem “just that little bit more glamorous”.

“Even if you’re not in the target audience”, this is a “witty, thoughtful and often funny drama” that is well worth a watch. But if you are older and you’ve watched other shows by father-son producers John and Dan Edwards, you “finally” get the chance to “see your generation complain about aches and pains and talk about the good old days”.

Ulrich Siegmund was described as “the most dangerous man in Germany” by Der Spiegel in a recent cover story.

The 35-year-old is on course to lead his Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to power in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt this week, making it the first far-right government in post-war German history.

The party’s agenda, if put in place, would give the country its first look at what the AfD “hopes could ultimately be a cultural and demographic overhaul of German life”, said The New York Times.

What are their policies?

The party’s 156-page manifesto advocates a “complete 180-degree turn” in migration policy to include deportation and what it terms “remigration” – a word that has “Nazi connotations”, which could see the targeting of Ukrainian refugees who fled the war, said CNN.

Under an AfD government, gay pride flags would be banned at schools, public broadcasters and pro-democracy NGOs would lose funding, there would be a moratorium on new wind turbines and a rollback of other green policies, and large families of German origin would receive tax breaks. The party also wants to improve relations with Moscow, and would move to teach more Russian in schools.

But, in a policy more reminiscent of Zohran Mamdani, the liberal New York City mayor, the manifesto also includes provisions to make childcare, already heavily subsidised by the state, free.

“I want to give the citizens in Saxony-Anhalt their good, old, secure Germany back,” Siegmund told The New York Times earlier this year. “It will be a very beautiful country with a very good spirit of optimism,” especially “for the children, for the families.”

But judging by Siegmund’s campaign speeches, “the goal is a return to a bygone era – a time before Germany viewed itself as a country of immigration, when electricity came from nuclear power plants rather than wind turbines, and when LGBTQ+ rights were not yet recognised”, said Hans Pfeifer in Deutsche Welle.

Could they work in practice?

Eva von Angern, a state lawmaker from the far-left party Die Linke, has called the AfD’s plans a “violation of human rights and unconstitutional”, said the NYT.

But while some of the proposals appear to be “unworkable at a state level”, needing action by the federal government, “many others are feasible”, said the BBC’s Bethany Bell.

Whether they would work in practice is another matter entirely. Saxony-Anhalt has Germany’s highest share of pension-age residents, meaning it needs migrant labour. A study by DIW Berlin economic research institute reported in Modern Diplomacy estimates that under AfD policies such as stopping immigration and cutting state spending, Saxony-Anhalt would lose an average of €1,600 (£1,370) per person in annual income as well as around 10,000 jobs.

How likely is an AfD national government?

Since its founding in 2013, the AfD has evolved from a Eurosceptic party into a “full-scale populist uprising against mass migration, green energy policies and so-called wokeism”, said The Telegraph’s James Rothwell.

It has successfully expanded beyond its heartland in the former East Germany, and now consistently leads Politico’s poll of polls on national voting intention.

Standing in its way of entering national government is the Brandmauer, Germany’s political “firewall” agreement between mainstream parties to refuse to work with extremists. It has succeeded until now in keeping the AfD out of power at state and federal level, but has done nothing to harm the party’s popularity.

Some hope that the AfD taking control of Saxony-Anhalt will force the party to compromise and show that its radical political platform is unworkable and ineffectual.

Others, such as David Begrich of Miteinander, an organisation that fights right-wing extremism, fear the AfD intends to turn Saxony-Anhalt “into a testing ground for the whole country”, he told DW.

“Just how far can one go in overriding the written – and perhaps even more importantly, the unwritten – rules of democratic culture in a federal state?”

The sweet treat of the future could be plastic. Scientists have found a way to transform plastic waste, along with other food additives and ingredients, into edible cookies. The method could combat refuse accumulation and provide sustenance in remote or disaster locations — or in space someday. However, many are understandably unsure about eating plastic, and there’s a long road ahead before the cookies can hit shelves.

From bottle to bakery

According to research that was presented at the fall 2026 meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), scientists have “programmed yeasts to turn plastic and agricultural waste into edible proteins and flavoring molecules,” creating a treat deemed µBites (micro bites), said an ACS news release. The cookies could tackle food shortages and plastic pollution.

We were “trying to develop technologies for plastic upcycling to make more valuable products. We thought: Why not focus on making food? Because plastic is carbon, and food is carbon,” said Lahiru Jayakody, a microbiologist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale who worked on the study, in the release.

Polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, from plastic bottles and “discarded sweet corn plant stalks and leaves” were put through a process called “oxidative hydrothermal dissolution,” which “uses heat to break down the materials into components that microbes can digest,” said New Scientist. The components are “fed to yeast that has been genetically altered using CRISPR gene-editing technology,” allowing it to “convert the components into a variety of useful ingredients, including proteins, fats and acids, as well as vanilla flavoring and beta-carotene, which the body can convert into vitamin A.” Then “fiber, starch and sweetener are added, and the paste is extruded through a 3D printer into any desired shape.” Thus µBites are produced.

Bite-size solution

While the “futuristic treats received high ratings on overall aroma and the underlying science implies that µBites are safe to eat, researchers still must wait for institutional approval before beginning actual taste tests,” said Popular Science. “It has a pleasant, appealing aroma,” said graduate student Sandhya Jayasekara, who worked on the study, to New Scientist. “We have not tasted it, but it smells good, like a real cookie.”

Still, plastic cookies likely won’t be a sought-after delicacy. “We produce 400 million tons a year of plastic waste. You are not going to turn it all into cookies,” said Jason Hallett, a professor and researcher at Imperial College London, to New Scientist. It’s “not a solution to the plastic-waste crisis.”

Rather than becoming a mainstream treat, the “µBites system is a tunable and portable device that integrates all necessary components” that could be “deployed in submarines or disaster relief vehicles to produce on-demand, on-site food,” said Jayakody to ScienceAlert. The process is also “particularly suited for using carbon waste in extreme environments such as deserts, the Arctic or the Antarctic to make food” and potentially even “on Mars or the lunar surface.”

A notorious rollercoaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park in Santa Clarita, California, has been closed following claims that two people have suffered from brain injuries from riding it. An investigation by CNN found a dozen serious complaints over two decades, including customers who suffered life-altering disabilities or fell into comas after riding X2, with two dying of their injuries.

Ultimate daredevil

The Six Flags Magic Mountain website describes the X2 rollercoaster as a “right (sic) of passage for the ultimate daredevil”. What distinguishes this type of rollercoaster from others is its fourth-dimensional quality, meaning seats are rotating 360 degrees around the track, turning riders upside down, as the trains reach speeds of nearly 80mph for approximately two minutes.

Pamela Guillen said that she lost consciousness after banging her head against the seat’s headrest “multiple times” during an X2 ride in July. A CT scan revealed she had a severe subdural haematoma (bleeding inside the brain) and brain compression. Now, after learning to walk and talk again, she suffers from headaches and relies on medication to prevent seizures. “I’m taking it a day at a time to not overwhelm myself and to not go into a dark hole of mourning who I was and what I was able to do before this,” she told CNN.

A few days later, Naomi Greer-Wilkinson rode the X2 and also lost consciousness. She was hospitalised with a traumatic brain injury and remains in a coma. Her parents have been told to prepare for the worst, according to reports. Her father said that whoever decided to keep X2 open after the first July incident “has a lot to answer for,” and declared, “It’s got to stop.”

Violent halt

As well as complaints of life-altering disabilities, comas and deaths, park officials have received “scores” of complaints of head and neck injuries sustained after an X2 ride, “according to internal records cited by an expert witness for a plaintiff in court filings”. “Despite years of warnings” from riders, lawyers and medical experts about the “perils” of riding this rollercoaster, theme park officials and state authorities “allowed the attraction to continue operating”.

Six Flags Magic Mountain insists that X2 is regularly tested and meets industry safety regulations. It didn’t respond to queries from the media about the most recent injuries, beyond confirming that “the ride remains closed at this time”. Attorneys for the park have previously stated there are signs warning customers that “there are inherent risks” in park rides. The families of Guillen and Greer-Wilkinson said the park offered them food on the night of the injury, but have not been in contact since.

Last month, the family of Christopher Hawley, who died after a ride in 2022, reached a settlement with the park and with ride manufacturer S&S Worldwide Inc, said KTLA. During his ride, the coaster “suddenly, abruptly and violently jolted to a halt”, according to the lawsuit filed by the family. Afterwards, Hawley was rushed to hospital where a CT scan showed he suffered a catastrophic right subdural haematoma which the lawsuit alleged was caused by the rollercoaster, and he died the following day. His father, William Hawley, said legal action was the only way to get answers. “We want to make sure that ride isn’t going to kill somebody else,” he said.