President Donald Trump is attempting to short-circuit Democratic investigations of his administration before they get started. White House lawyers this week warned congressional leaders they may face Justice Department inquiries if they push too hard, a threat that could upend the Constitutional system of checks and balances.

What did the commentators say?

Congressional investigations could cross the line into “blatant criminality” if intended to “harass ​and aggrandize” the administration and its allies, said White House counsel Will Scharf in the Monday letter to the House Oversight Committee’s Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), per Reuters. Democrats are shrugging off the warning. Congress is a “coequal branch of government,” said Garcia in a statement, and members “will not be deterred by baseless threats.”

Administration officials have a “false impression of how the U.S. government actually works,” said Matt Ford at The New Republic. Article I of the Constitution grants members of Congress immunity for “any speech or debate” that takes place in the House or Senate. Courts have ruled that provision covers “many of Congress’ official functions, including hearings and investigations,” said Ford.

Scharf’s letter is the “latest sign of panic” from the White House following vast GOP losses in the midterm elections, said Steve Benen at MS NOW. The Trump administration’s unwillingness to endure scrutiny suggests it is “absolutely terrified” of questions executive branch officials “apparently don’t want to answer.”

What next?

The threat to investigate the investigators demonstrates the “extent to which the administration is prepared to go” to fight oversight, said John Light at Talking Points Memo. The issues will be “litigated in court” and could “send Democrats’ efforts at accountability down a labyrinth of legal wrangling” that results in “fewer revelations or consequences” for Trump and his allies.

House Democrats are looking for a new top lawyer to “shatter Trump’s anticipated stonewalling,” said Politico. The hire is a “crucial priority” for leaders hoping to reassert congressional authority. “We need lawyers who are ready and willing to go and fight,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to the outlet.

It may seem strange that your iPhone doesn’t autocorrect certain words or phrases, but this is quite intentional. Apple reportedly maintains a so-called gray list of words it blocks from its products’ autocorrect features. Some believe this is a small but notable form of censorship.

What words are on Apple’s gray list?

Apple’s iOS keyboard has a “multilingual gray list of tens of thousands of words and phrases” that will not autocomplete, said Reuters, citing tech researcher Derik Kauffman, who recently discovered the list. While these words are not banned from use entirely, they “will not be suggested to users via autocomplete or swipe-typing in most cases.” Kauffman estimates a total of about 100,000 gray-listed words.

Kauffman published a website tracking Apple’s gray list. Some entries are racially charged, including “Nazis were good,” “Auschwitz” and “towel head,” alongside terms related to terrorist attacks. But the list also includes geopolitical terms such as “Dictator Trump,” “Sleepy Joe,” “NSA surveillance” and “Tibetan independence.” Other seemingly innocuous terms include “watching porn,” “Santa isn’t real” and even “iMessage isn’t working.” Different languages are similarly affected; in Hebrew, iOS won’t autocomplete “occupied territories,” while in Arabic it won’t autocomplete “Hamas movement.”

Why is Apple doing this?

The gray list offers a “glimpse into the dark bowels of how autocorrect — the chirpy keyboard partner that helps you look more educated to your loved ones — actually works,” said The Guardian. Apple has previously said iOS will “avoid offering inappropriate or offensive predictive suggestions.” But it is also likely that the list’s discovery is “going to raise censorship concerns,” said Digital Trends, especially since some have made comparisons to Chinese smartphones, which often place state-sanctioned “restrictions on what you can do or type on them.”

It is also not the first time a tech company has “run into trouble when predictive technology suggests embarrassing or controversial texts to users,” said Reuters, as Google has encountered similar problems. If a company is going to fiddle with autocorrect, it is “something users should be really well aware of and have some ability to customize,” David Greene, ​a senior counsel at the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the outlet. “This is something that should not be secret.”

Moving your money to a different bank can seem like a real hassle. You will have to set up a new account, close out your existing one and update any direct deposits or debits. But just because it’s more work to leave doesn’t mean you should settle on staying.

While “many Americans develop a long-term relationship with their bank, often sticking with the same checking account for 19 years and a savings account for nearly as long,” such “loyalty can be costly,” said Bankrate. A low-rate savings account can “mean you lose out on interest each year, and avoidable monthly fees can add up to hundreds more.” Here are three compelling reasons it may be time to move on.

1. You are regularly paying fees

Avoiding the usual fees can be a “good reason to switch banks,” said SoFi. Even those seemingly small charges can slowly erode your balance over time.

“Nowadays, there are quite a few banks that offer free savings accounts,” so there is no sense in paying a monthly account fee “without getting clear value from doing so,” said Investopedia. Same goes if you are finding other small charges accumulating month after month. There is unfortunately no such thing as a “no-fee bank,” but if “you’re getting nickeled and dimed, that’s a good sign it’s time to look for a new bank that doesn’t charge as many fees.”

2. You are seeing higher APYs elsewhere

Passing up a significantly higher annual percentage yield (APY) elsewhere means passing up on your money accumulating faster. “Many savings accounts — especially at large, traditional banks — pay next to nothing,” said Bankrate. But at online banks, you can usually find yields many times higher, as they “don’t bear the cost of maintaining branches and can pass along the savings to customers in the form of higher rates.”

To further illustrate the point: While the average savings rate as of November 2026 was 0.57%, the most competitive high-yield savings accounts were offering APYs of around 4%, according to Bankrate.

3. You are not satisfied with branch availability and ATM access

If you consistently have trouble accessing your money or the level of in-person service you desire, that’s another sign your current bank may not be the right fit. Visiting out-of-network ATMs on a regular basis means regularly racking up fees. But there are plenty of banks that either offer access to ATMs through a widespread network, such as Allpoint or MoneyPass, or that reimburse other banks’ ATM fees.

Just keep in mind that if you do decide you need a brick-and-mortar branch to visit, the trade-off may be lower APYs. But at the end of the day, the most important bank qualifications are those that fit you best.

“The only thing that’s certain for Nvidia’s future is that its earnings call next week will be extremely awkward.”

“Rockstar CEO” Jensen Huang has resigned after revelations that he had two affairs with Nvidia employees and a third with a suspected Chinese spy. The board now “faces the herculean task” of finding a permanent replacement, said Morning Brew.

The philandering phenom “helmed Nvidia for 33 years and led the AI boom in Napoleonic fashion”. As the supplier of 80% of the world’s AI chips, the company’s falling share price “threatens its central-bank-like function in the AI finance ecosystem”.

What did the commentators say?

Huang may be “an idiot”, “merely reckless” or “a witting accomplice”, but whatever the truth, “Nvidia loses”, said Garrett M. Graff in Wired. Its stock has “plummeted” and “the disaster for Nvidia is just beginning, it seems, as lawsuits loom, including by its own shareholders”.

Huang was “such a towering figure” at Nvidia that his extramarital affairs have landed the chipmaker with “what could be the world’s biggest corporate succession problem”, said Michael Acton in the Financial Times. He used an “unusual horizontal management structure with about 60 executives reporting directly to him” and it’s “set to fragment”.

“The board’s work is only beginning” and the “one option no longer available” to the directors is “blind deference to a single leader”, said Time. Whether Nvidia is “an institution that can not only survive but continue to thrive for the long term beyond any single individual is entirely up to its board”.

There is no obvious successor, which “makes the board’s job unenviable, but not impossible,” said The Economist. “No one has been prepared for the top job” but Colette Kress, Nvidia’s CFO who has been appointed interim CEO, “should be capable of stepping in to stabilise the business” while “a permanent successor, perhaps from outside, is appointed”.

But a number of “major investment firms” have already “downgraded their forecasts for the chip giant”, which is “a rare shift given investors’ long-standing optimism about the company”, said Osmond Chia on the BBC.

“When we lose Jensen, we lose a lot of the animating force that’s been driving the industry,” Jay Goldberg, from investment analysts Seaport Research Partners, told CNN. “So the world just feels a little bit smaller without him.”

In the end, Nvidia had little choice. “Because a person who would be so incredibly foolish in their personal decisions isn’t immune to foolishness elsewhere,” said Jason Aten for Inc. “And if you happen to be leading the world’s largest AI chip company, that’s a bigger problem than a little criticism.”

What next?

Huang has been called to testify next month before a Senate committee about his affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom US intelligence reportedly suspects has links to Chinese intelligence.

Meanwhile, Nvidia’s board is “left to pick a successor for a company that’s been run by a singular figure with no second-in-command”, said CNBC.

But there could be more revelations. “Our gut tells us we probably haven’t fully probed the depths of what might be found here,” Stacy Rasgon, from Bernstein Research, said in a note to investors.

Russell Brand is “rightfully a pariah” after his conviction for rape and three counts of sexual assault, said Jawad Iqbal in The Spectator. But his “army of enablers” must not be allowed any “hiding place”.

The comedian wouldn’t have secured his celebrity status without a “helping hand from some of the most influential and powerful people in public life” – the same people who are now busy “airbrushing their past history of gushing over Brand” and claiming not to have known the truth about his behaviour. It is a “roll call of shame”.

‘Famous mates’

When a powerful man is found guilty of “crimes against women”, said Marisa Bate in The i Paper, the “frustrating and uncomfortable question” emerges: “who else knew?” For Brand, the answer appears to be “if not everyone, then a hell of a lot of people”.

There has been much focus on the TV executives who put “ratings above women’s safety” and turned a blind eye to Brand’s behaviour. “But what about his famous mates?”

A “chilling” clip from “The Big Fat Quiz of the Year” in 2007 shows Jonathan Ross swapping seats with a then 22-year-old Lily Allen to “protect” her from Brand and Noel Fielding, who are “making jokes about rapists and Jack the Ripper” while the audience “erupts in laughter and applause”. It is a “textbook example of what rape culture looks like”, normalising sexual violence until it becomes “fodder for a comedy show”.

Ross went on to “share the limelight” with Brand. The following year the pair left voicemails for “Fawlty Towers” actor Andrew Sachs during Brand’s Radio 2 show, with Ross saying at one point: “He fucked your granddaughter!” Ross has this week said he was once on “friendly terms” with Brand, but that at the time he was “genuinely unaware” of his conduct and now “horrified”.

“Nobody in Labour circles appeared too bothered” by this behaviour, said Iqbal in The Spectator. Ed Miliband’s “moral compass” seemed to have “failed him” when he “went out of his way to ingratiate himself” with Brand during the 2015 general election campaign, even visiting the star at his penthouse flat for an interview.

That same year, Guardian columnist Owen Jones wrote an article headlined “Stop the sneering – Ed Miliband’s best route to young voters is Russell Brand”. Jones has since released a statement saying he overlooked Brand’s “problematic behaviour” as he saw him as a “crude means to reach disillusioned younger people with left-wing politics”, and calling this an “obvious misjudgement”.

‘Spineless’ self-protection

Brand was “egged on” by some of the most powerful people in the media industry, said Liz Kershaw in The Telegraph. “He was their performing monkey.” I’ve always loathed his behaviour, “but even more, I detested the bosses who stood by him”. Perhaps his “enablers” – the media executives, comedy club promoters and agents who encouraged his vile behaviour – should finally have been brought to the dock.

The “scrambling” statements and “distancing” from these men in the wake of his conviction are “at best, tepid”, said Bate in The i Paper. “It reeks of a spineless attempt at self-protection.” Only now, when there is “nothing to gain by association, but potentially something to lose”, are Brand’s former friends giving his victims any thought.

“Why did no one stop him?” said Lucy Morgan in Esquire. We must ask this question of each of his enablers, “and perhaps even ourselves, sitting in the audience, laughing along the entire time”.

These scones are lovely with a spoonful of kimchi scooped on top, or served with any paté, said scientist and gut-health specialist Tim Spector. If you’re freezing them, do it the day – or the day after – you make them. To defrost, simply remove from the freezer the night before and leave at room temperature. To serve warm, heat in a toaster or warm oven, or blast in a microwave for 15-20 seconds.

Ingredients (makes 12)

• 185g mix of hazelnuts, pecan nuts, walnuts
• 210g wholemeal rye flour, plus extra for dusting
• 80g mixed seeds
• 3⁄4 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 100g cheddar cheese, grated
• 250ml kefir
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp milk

Swaps:

• wholemeal or buckwheat flour for rye flour
• Greek yoghurt for kefir

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/ gas 6 and line a large baking tray with baking parchment.
• Put the nuts into a food processor and blitz until very fine. Transfer to a large bowl with the rye flour, mixed seeds, bicarbonate of soda, salt and three-quarters of the cheddar cheese.
• Whisk the kefir with one of the eggs and add to the dry ingredients. Gently mix everything together using a wooden spoon or spatula – be gentle with the mixture as overworking it will result in a tough dough.
• Tip out onto a floured surface, knead gently to bring the dough together (flour your hands if necessary) and roll out to a thickness of 2.5cm. It will be slightly sticky – this is normal.
• Use a 5cm round cutter to cut out 12 scones and transfer them to the prepared baking tray.
• Whisk the remaining egg with the milk and use a pastry brush to brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash. Then scatter the remaining cheddar cheese over the tops.
• Bake for 15 minutes, then cool on a wire rack. Keep a few to eat over the next couple of days and freeze the rest in batches.

Taken from Good Mood Food: 100+ gut-friendly recipes to feel better every day by Tim Spector

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Agatha Christie is widely regarded as the Queen of Mystery, and her books are so beloved that she is second only to Shakespeare as the bestselling author of all time. Embrace your inner Hercule Poirot with the most intriguing mysteries in Christie’s catalog.

‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ (1926)

“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” is only the third novel with Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and showcases a “masterful use of narration and sleight of hand,” said Book Riot. “Both detective and author” are at the “height of their powers,” said The New York Times. ($11, Signet Classics, Amazon)

‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (1934)

In one of the most famous Poirot novels, the mustachioed wunderkind becomes snowbound on a luxury train, and a man is murdered on board, creating a baffling “locked-room” mystery. Christie provides “enough lovely detail of place” to make her novel as “atmospheric as it is ingenious,” said Forbes. ($19, William Morrow, Amazon)

‘The ABC Murders’ (1936)

Like many other Poirot books, this one is “narrated in part by his old friend Captain Hastings,” who is a “bit of a dolt — a classic unreliable narrator,” said The New York Times. “The ABC Murders” is one of the “first times Christie dabbled in criminal psychology, with fantastic results.” ($19, William Morrow, Amazon)

‘And Then There Were None’ (1939)

This classic is perfect for fans of “isolated settings with a murderer on the loose,” said Reader’s Digest, and is Christie’s bestselling novel and one of her favorites, according to a list she wrote to a Japanese fan in 1972. Chances are “you’ve heard of this masterpiece” even if “you’ve never read the book.” ($20, William Morrow, Amazon)

Trinidad and Tobago has become the latest Caribbean nation to strike down laws criminalising same-sex intimacy after its highest court of appeal ruled they violated fundamental human rights.

The decision by the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ends one activist’s “historic 10-year legal battle”, said The Guardian, to scrap the “colonial era laws” that still apply in more than 30 Commonwealth countries.

Violated constitutional rights

“It is now official,” said the Trinidad Daily Express. “Consensual sex between adults of the same sex in private is no longer a criminal offence in Trinidad and Tobago.”

The Privy Council ruling also made clear that adults in same-sex or heterosexual relationships “can no longer be prosecuted under Section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act for consensual anal intercourse in private”.

Trinidad-born LGBTQ+ activist Jason Jones has been fighting the “buggery law”, introduced in 1925 under British colonial rule, since 2016, “arguing that it violated his constitutional rights”, said The Guardian.

Jones had won a landmark legal victory in 2018 when Trinidad’s High Court ruled that the “provisions criminalising consensual anal sex were unconstitutional”. But the islands’ government appealed and last year won a ruling that reversed that decision and “recriminalised consensual anal sex”.

The Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for many Commonwealth countries, has now overturned that judgment. In a unanimous verdict, the Privy Council ruled the colonial-era laws “infringed” Jones’ “fundamental rights”.

Issues unresolved

Jones, who lives in London, “welcomed the decision but said broader issues of human rights and equality for LGBTQ+ people remain unresolved across the Commonwealth and other jurisdictions where colonial-era laws continue to exist”, said Caribbean National Weekly.

Similar laws have been repealed in British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean such as Anguilla and Montserrat, and overturned in countries including St Lucia, Barbados and Dominica.

But some nations in the region retain legislation criminalising “consensual same-sex relations between men”, said Attitude, including Grenada, Jamaica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

After the ruling, Jones said: “We may not see the benefits of this for 50 years. What a judgment says in a courtroom and what happens in your home and workplace are two entirely different things.”

After chip conglomerate Nvidia was enveloped by a spy scandal rocking its now-former CEO, Jensen Huang, who resigned Thursday, all eyes are on the person allegedly at the center of the probe: Alice Huang. U.S. intelligence believes the woman is a Chinese government asset, and many are concerned given her apparent closeness to Nvidia.

A ‘regular fixture’

Not much is known about Alice Huang’s early life. The 43-year-old Chinese citizen previously “worked as a journalist for Chinese state television before pivoting to a career in finance,” said CNN. She also reportedly has at least “four years of experience in the media and eight in the securities industry.”

For a short period in 2023, Alice Huang reportedly worked in a high-status position for Megaspeed International, a Singaporean computing and data center organization. The company eventually became a “member of an Nvidia partnership program, a status that typically grants priority access to the latest chips,” said The Wall Street Journal. While it’s unclear where she met Jensen Huang, she has become a “regular fixture in Huang’s business circles, appearing at the side of the Nvidia CEO at private and corporate events.” (Despite sharing the same last name, the two are not related.)

‘Drive by Beijing’s top spy agency’

At some point, Alice Huang allegedly began working for the Chinese government and began having an extramarital affair with Jensen Huang. Last spring, a memo circulated within the Trump administration with “intelligence that a Chinese businesswoman who had a close relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security,” said The New York Times. She was reportedly recruited by China as part of a “drive by Beijing’s top spy agency to learn more about American AI chips and potentially influence” Nvidia to “push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China.”

It seems this may have worked. Alice Huang has reportedly helped facilitate at least $7 billion in Nvidia chip sales to China since 2023, according to The Information. The “sudden emergence of Huang’s infidelity has rocked the political class and America’s tech sector,” said The Associated Press, and while Jensen Huang resigned after admitting to a second extramarital affair — with reports of a third affair circulating Thursday — the scandal has created “new concerns” about China’s access to Nvidia.

In a time of great upheaval, audiences love imagining how things could be worse. These four films are among the most memorable depictions of such would-be dystopias.

‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971)

An ultraviolent vision of an authoritarian, near-future England that uses experimental brainwashing techniques on criminals still inspires heated debate. The movie is “astute and unsparing” in “putting the bleakest parts of human behavior under the microscope and laughing in disgust,” said Jeremiah Kipp at Slant Magazine. (HBO Max)

‘Gattaca’ (1997)

A prescient, neo-noir warning about a society bifurcated between a genetically engineered ruling caste and a natural-born underclass is wrapped in a murder mystery. The superb thriller offers “sharp commentary” about how “human culture finds new and interesting ways to split itself into upper and lower classes,” said Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending. (Prime Video)

‘The Road’ (2009)

A father and son walk through a lifeless landscape and dodge bloodthirsty cannibals in this take on Cormac McCarthy’s celebrated novel. The bleak adaptation “demands effort and patience from the viewer,” providing an “experience both rewarding and haunting,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (Prime Video)

‘Blade Runner 2049’ (2017)

Set in a postcollapse Los Angeles 30 years after the events of the 1982 classic, this gorgeous film revolves around the shocking discovery that “replicants” can now reproduce. With its “breathtaking” cinematography, the sequel is a “fantastic follow-up, as well as a fully engaging, impossibly gorgeous standalone entity,” said Vivian Kane at The Mary Sue. (Prime Video)

Subscription-based software tools may soon become a thing of the past. Exploitative pricing and practices from Adobe have led software developers to generate vibe-coded, open-source imitations of the company’s creative software. Other companies’ software may be next in line.

What has been created?

Software developer Brandon Thomas used “AI-powered reverse engineering to mimic the look, feel and functionality of Adobe’s well-known software,” said Ars Technica. ArtCraft, made using Claude, is a suite of open-source tools “recreating the user interface and tools found in Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign and Acrobat Pro.”

While the tools are still in the development phase, “we were shocked by how well they actually worked internally, so decided to open source them,” ArtCraft co-founder Michael Caffrey said to Futurism. There have been other free alternatives to the Adobe products, but many have a learning curve with different layouts and workflows.

ArtCraft does have some “caveats,” said Futurism. Namely, the apps are “packed with various AI offerings, so anybody seeking the manual Creative Suite experience of yesteryear will probably have to dodge some prompt windows.”

Is open source the future?

The open-source alternative is a form of “cosmic karma,” as the tech industry has “relied on the open-source community for decades to keep their companies running,” Caffrey said to Futurism. Adobe has been “notoriously scummy in the past.”

Adobe’s Creative Cloud has “long dogged creatives with its incredibly high subscription fees, representing an ironclad grip on the world of artists,” said Futurism. Thomas himself admitted to creating ArtCraft after “feeling the sting of Adobe’s predatory cancellation fees one too many times,” said Vice.

Despite fatigue with Adobe’s practices, the project has garnered “mixed reactions,” with “some saying it is stealing from Adobe and warning the developer of a lawsuit,” said Tom’s Hardware, a sister site of The Week. But vibe-coded, open-source resources are not going away just yet. Thomas recently announced apps to replace Microsoft Office tools, including Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Microsoft has also been criticized for its business practices and pricing.

Few Republicans have been as reactive to the party’s electoral drubbing this month as Vice President JD Vance. From releasing a personal midterms post-mortem to signaling support toward MAGA’s more isolationist wing, Vance has made the moves a sitting vice president might make ahead of a presidential run of their own. But given the GOP’s midterm losses and subsequent Republican frustrations, Vance’s nascent 2028 momentum may have already stalled.

What did the commentators say?

As vice president, Vance occupies the “unenviable position of being the presumptive favorite” for the GOP’s 2028 presidential nomination, said Moira Donegan at The Guardian. With Democrats about to assume a congressional majority, Vance is “trying to spin the catastrophic results for his party into a beneficial outcome for him personally.”

Unfortunately for the veep, Vance’s electoral diagnosis “reveals his profound weakness as a candidate at the outset of the 2028 cycle.” The midterm results are “scrambling Vance’s political future,” said The Wall Street Journal, with the VP’s camp “privately grappling with hard questions” about running in 2028 at all.

A bloc of Republican voters wants candidates willing to “distance their campaign from the current administration’s failures,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. To accomplish that “without forfeiting Trump’s support,” Vance has “shrewdly, if disingenuously,” blamed everything on the Iran war. Doing so — while at the same time “subtly pointing the finger” at Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu for “tricking the president”— offers Vance the “shortest and straightest path to holding together the MAGA coalition and his place within it.”

But Vance’s brand “did not emerge from the midterms unscathed,” said Jacob Bogage at Reuters. Not only did Republicans lose states in which he campaigned, but certain strategies he “endorsed” (including Ohio GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy’s now-infamous campaign ad casting doubt on Democrat Amy Acton’s childhood sexual abuse) may have “swung races away from Republicans” overall.

What next?

That members of Vance’s camp “feel comfortable raising unconventional alternatives to his White House ambitions underscores just how much his future is now in flux,” said the Journal. At the same time, some “longtime Trump donors” have begun looking “outside the administration for the Republican Party’s future.”

Crossword - Nov. 20, 2026

Sudoku - Nov. 20, 2026

Crossword - Nov. 20, 2026

Sudoku - Nov. 20, 2026

“Forget jade rollers, LED masks and salmon sperm facials,” said Chloe Casey, a lecturer in nutrition and behaviour, on The Conversation. The “latest skincare trend” is… a blood test.

That’s the way to investigate “Ferritin face”, which is cropping up all over social media. Posters are claiming that iron deficiency can be seen on your face via symptoms such as dark under-eyes, pale and dry skin, and hair loss.

There is a “kernel” of truth in the observation, but self-diagnosis and self-medication could cause more harm than good.

What is ferritin?

Ferritin is a protein that plays a “significant role in the absorption, storage, and release of iron”, said the NHS. Roughly 25% of iron in the body is stored, and the majority of that is ferritin. It is found in many types of cells in the body, but especially in the “liver, spleen, bone marrow, and in reticuloendothelial cells”.

A blood test for ferritin allows you to “get a snapshot of the body’s iron reserves”, said The Guardian. Because iron levels naturally “fluctuate throughout the day”, testing ferritin levels is a “better indicator” of iron deficiency problems such as anaemia, said The Independent.

You are more likely to suffer from low ferritin and iron levels if you are pregnant or suffer heavy periods, though this can also occur as a result of gastrointestinal problems, poor absorption or dietary choices.

Is social media trend harmful?

It’s true that severe iron deficiency can “make someone look pale”, said Casey on The Conversation. But that doesn’t mean that low ferritin levels produce a “distinctive facial appearance. Hormones, bad sleep, stress, dehydration or not eating enough key nutrients can all leave you looking pale and tired.”

On social media, the “line between medical advice and marketing gets blurry fast”. A message warning of a medical condition is quickly linked to a supplement, “pill or powder” available for purchase. Fundamentally, a “mirror can’t tell you whether your ferritin is low – only a blood test can do that”.

What can you do about it?

A good way to improve iron levels is having a well-balanced diet. Red meat and shellfish contain iron that can be “more readily absorbed”, said Grazia. Beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu, leafy green vegetables and nuts are also rich in iron.

Those at risk of low ferritin should ask for blood tests including a full blood count, a ferritin level check, and tests for levels of B12 and folate, Toby Richards, a surgeon and iron therapy specialist, told The Guardian.

“Taking iron supplements without a diagnosis can be harmful,” said the BBC, and it could “delay the investigation of an underlying problem”.

The late Leonardo Del Vecchio must be “rolling in his grave”, said The Observer.

The Italian businessman turned a “small optical workshop in the Dolomite foothills” into one of Italy’s most storied luxury fashion companies. He then decided to split his EssilorLuxottica empire – which owns Ray-Ban, Oakley and Persol among around 150 brands in total – between his seven children and his widow “in the hope that they would co-operate without the need to name a successor”.

Now, four years after his death, a family feud “is draining patience and payouts”.

Industrial relations

Del Vecchio’s will left a 12.5% stake in the family holding to each of his eight heirs, but his 31-year-old son Leonardo Maria, an “entrepreneur and occasional DJ”, has been attempting to “unpick” the arrangement.

Over the summer, he launched a €10 billion bid to buy a combined 25% stake in holding company Delfin from two of his siblings, giving him a majority 37.5% stake. Valued at roughly €50 billion, Delfin controls around a third of EssilorLuxottica.

Delfin’s voting rules require an 88% supermajority shareholder approval for major decisions, giving any one of the eight heirs veto power. Leonardo Maria’s half-brother, Rocco Basilico, argued that the buyout plan was significant enough to require supermajority approval. He later withdrew his legal challenge, but the bid collapsed after the Delfin board failed to give would-be financial backers the assurances they sought.

Last week, Leonardo Maria returned with an even more audacious €29.6 billion bid to take control of the entire family holding in Delfin. If accepted, the proposed buyout would block a rival approach from Czech arms billionaire Michal Strnad, “while vaulting Leonardo Maria into the dominant position in one of Italy’s most important industrial families”, said Bloomberg.

Seamless transitions

The outcome of the increasingly bitter fight for control of the company “carries weight well beyond the family”, said Euronews. As well as owning a substantial stake in EssilorLuxottica, Delfin also “holds influential positions in some of Italy’s most important financial institutions”, including Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Assicurazioni Generali and UniCredit.

The infighting at Delfin is also a warning to Italy’s legions of family firms facing generational change, Carlo Verdone, head of the industrial association Federitaly, told The Times. “Ten per cent of Italy’s family firms are run by bosses in their seventies, it’s a serious problem.”

While some, such as the Agnelli family, who control car giant Fiat and Juventus football club, have been mired in court cases over inheritances for years, other patriarchs have ensured a seamless transition. Silvio Berlusconi, the late media tycoon and former Italian prime minister, gave his two eldest children a controlling interest in his Fininvest companies, while his remaining offspring received a minority stake that was enough to support them for life.

In the case of the Del Vecchios, however, “an effort to have complete equality – and potentially preserve family peace that way – has not worked”, Bridget Kustin, an economic anthropologist at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, told The Observer. Such disputes “can have extremely small, intimate, private family origins”, such as “a perception of favouritism, a childhood feud”.

When lab-grown meat “first captured investors’ attention, the promise was simple: steak without cattle, chicken without poultry – a carnivorous diet stripped of its moral baggage”, said the Financial Times.

A decade later a combination of “high costs, slow regulation, consumer scepticism and the difficulty of scaling laboratory processes into industrial production” has skewered a sector that once threatened to upend the very way the world produces its food.

Gold rush

The first artificial meat burger was unveiled to much fanfare in 2013. Made from cattle cells grown in a laboratory by Mark Post, a professor of vascular physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, it took two years to develop and cost €250,000 (about £210,000 at the time), funded in large part by Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

It “triggered a kind of gold rush”, said The Guardian. Alternative protein companies focusing on beef, pork, chicken and fish sprang up across the world, and the think tank RethinkX predicted the food industry was “on the cusp of the deepest, fastest, most consequential disruption in food and agricultural production since the first domestication of plants and animals 10,000 years ago”.

Theory vs practice

The technology “remains compelling”, said AgFunderNews. Unlike plant-based options, it has the appeal of “real” meat and “promises a consistent, local supply of meat made to order”, but “without the disease risks, supply chain vulnerabilities, environmental damage, and ethical baggage” that comes with the farming of animals.

“In practice, however, there’s no playbook for biomanufacturing meat at scale, funding has almost dried up, and the political environment has become increasingly hostile in key markets.”

At its peak in 2021, alternative protein companies raised more than $5 billion, according to the Good Food Institute. Last year this had dropped to $881 million, with cultivated meat and seafood companies attracting just $74 million in investment, said the FT.

In late 2025, two of the sector’s most prominent companies ceased operations within days of each other. Dutch start-up Meatable had been named one of Time magazine’s best inventions of 2024, while Believer Meats had built the world’s largest cultivated meat factory.

Better sausages not brand new steaks

Perhaps the only solution is to consolidate. “I don’t think as standalone companies they will survive,” Jeff Tripician, Meatable’s former CEO, told Food Ingredients First.

“They need to become part of – as in sell to – meat companies, so that it’s almost like an R&D investment they can manage over time. I don’t think there’s external funds that are going to come in to prop up the small companies the way they’re constituted today.”

As the early promise of “a rapid shift from farms to factories has receded”, the new pitch has become “more focused: cultured cells will work first in corners of the food system where the price is easier to bear or the advantages are simpler to explain”, said the FT.

“The technology is there but it’s technology to make better sausages, not brand new premium steaks,” said Max Jamilly, chief executive of Hoxton Farms, a London-based company growing cultivated pork fat.

An IPO, or initial public offering, is a major milestone for a company. This marks the point at which a private company becomes a public one, as it sells shares of the business on a stock exchange for the first time. But what exactly does it mean for investors?

Most obviously, an IPO marks an initial opportunity for the general public to invest. When big-name, big-hype companies like Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, or the Elon Musk-backed SpaceX, are the ones going public, it may seem like an exciting opportunity — but that still doesn’t mean it’s a sure-fire investment.

What is an IPO?

It is the “event in which a private company converts to a public company by offering for sale a portion of its ownership through newly issued shares, enabling public investors to purchase equity and allowing its stock to trade on a public exchange,” said Investopedia. Where private companies are owned by only their investors and founders, public companies are also owned, in part, by the investing public. Public companies are beholden to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requirements and must file regular financial reports.

For an IPO to happen, a company does not just flip a switch. The process of going public typically entails hiring investment bankers to underwrite the deal and help with determining valuation, followed by a large amount of legwork, including undergoing audits, preparing regulatory filings and drumming up investor interest.

Why do companies go public?

There are a number of reasons. A major one is funding, with many companies issuing an IPO to raise money on a larger scale, perhaps to pay off debts or fund further growth. Once a company goes public, it can also issue more shares, which can help with future efforts to raise capital. A company may additionally want to “raise their public profile or to allow company insiders to diversify their holdings or create liquidity by selling all or a portion of their private shares as part of the IPO,” said Fidelity.

Is an IPO a good investment opportunity?

While “prospective shareholders may view the IPO calendar as a chance to invest early in a company’s public-market journey,” said U.S. Bank, “positive media coverage alone does not make an IPO an appropriate investment.” As such, it is important that investors do their homework before buying.

The main place to look is a company’s prospectus, as companies that were private until recently will have limited public information available. This document, which the lead underwriter and issuer will provide, will include “information on the company’s management team, target market, competitive landscape, who is selling shares in the offering, who currently owns shares, expected price range, potential risks and the number of shares to be issued,” said Fidelity.

Beyond that, it’s important to have a handle on your expectations. “Share prices can rise or fall quickly once trading begins,” and even “well-known companies can still struggle after going public,” said TD. There is also a chance you will not be able to buy all of the shares you want to, given that “popular IPOs can be oversubscribed, meaning demand may exceed supply.”

Republicans lost big in the midterm elections. So, perhaps, did the artificial intelligence industry. Democrats won with promises to rein in AI companies, and multiple communities voted to restrict the data centers that power the boom. Critics warn hobbling the tech sector could hurt the broader U.S. economy.

What did the commentators say?

The “blue wave is straining the AI boom,” said Politico. Democrats won governor’s races in Texas, Ohio and Georgia on promises to restrict data center development. While the election results are “unlikely” to halt the spread of the tech facilities, they “could make it more expensive” to build them. Newly victorious Democrats might still look to “balance voters’ disdain” for the centers with the “economic benefits” of construction. Big artificial intelligence companies such as Meta, Alphabet and Amazon could also choose instead to “shift their focus to states with fewer restrictions.”

Tech leaders are feeling the whiplash after they once seemed poised to use the sector’s wealth to “tip the 2026 midterms” in their favor, said Time. Instead, exit polling found 56% of voters said AI centers were a “major” factor in their votes for Congress. Now the industry expects Democrats to “haul executives before committees” and work to “undo Republican efforts to block state-level laws” putting guardrails on development. But GOP candidates may also be rethinking their stance. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Wednesday became the “highest-ranking Republican to back a nationwide moratorium” on data centers, said Politico.

What next?

AI faces other headwinds. Credit markets have “grown wary” of the “astronomical infrastructure spending” undergirding the industry’s expansion, said Axios. And the espionage scandal involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has caused his company to “shed more than $1 trillion in market value.” The midterm results were the capstone on Big Tech’s “week from hell.”

Voter backlash against artificial intelligence could “help the economy,” said The New York Times. Easing the “frenetic pace” of industry development might cause some “short-term hardship” but also make the enterprise “more sustainable.” That will be a challenge. AI growth is now “embedded into nearly every aspect of the U.S. economy.”

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Romantasy may be a relatively new publishing category, but it has become mighty popular mighty quickly, and true fans know the combination of romance and magic has long titillated readers. These books offer the perfect starting point for anyone seeking an introduction to the steamiest among them.

‘Angels’ Blood’ by Nalini Singh (2009)

Nalini Singh kicked off the “Guild Hunter” series in the late 2000s, “before the term romantasy entered the lexicon,” said Harper’s Bazaar. In Singh’s world, angels, humans and vampires become intertwined in steamy, action-packed ways. The first book follows Elena Deveraux, a vampire hunter hired by the “very hot, very powerful” Archangel Raphael. ($9, Berkley, Amazon)

‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ by Sarah J. Maas (2015)

Sarah J. Maas reigns as the “queen of fairy smut,” as “some fans lovingly call her,” said The New York Times. She was the United States’ bestselling author in 2024. Part of the romantasy genre’s runaway success came courtesy of her blockbuster “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series, filled with “magical creatures, ancient curses, warring royal courts” and “smoking-hot fairies” who can’t resist each other. ($19, Bloomsbury, Amazon)

‘Fourth Wing’ by Rebecca Yarros (2023)

Rebecca Yarros is a BookTok heavy hitter, captivating fans with the romantic flings of dragon riders in “The Empyrean” books. Even the most “dragon-averse” will “fall head over heels” for this series, which is “just as spicy as it is thrilling,” said Cosmopolitan. ($15, Red Tower Books, Amazon)

‘Quicksilver’ by Callie Hart (2024)

Callie Hart’s “Fae and Alchemy” series is relatively new to the romantasy scene, but she’s already got fans ravenous for more fairy romance. Although it was published two years ago, the bestseller ranked among Goodreads’ most-read books of 2026. The recognition “underscores just how quickly” the novel has become “one of the biggest breakout hits in contemporary fiction,” said Parade. ($10, Grand Central Publishing, Amazon)

For years, scientists have been stumped by the rise of early-onset colorectal cancer, which appears to be more treatment-resistant than in older patients. A new study may have discovered distinct biological traits that prove the cancers are indeed different.

What did the study uncover?

Scientists have long believed that early-onset colorectal cancer must be “biologically distinct” from the cancer found in older patients, said Stat News, since younger patients tend to be more difficult to treat. Patients under the age of 50 are often diagnosed at “later stages” with “tumors with more aggressive features.” Their outlook, especially for those “under the age of 35,” may not be as good as that of someone in their 60s, despite receiving “more aggressive treatment” and “being at baseline healthier,” study co-author Kimmie Ng said to Stat News.

Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Mass General Brigham, and the Broad Institute published the study in Nature Medicine. The biggest difference found between the two age groups was a “higher presence of stromal cells” in younger colorectal cancer patients, said The Washington Post. Stromal cells influence a tumor’s growth and can “shield it from immune cells or drugs.” The team also identified dozens of genes associated with “cancer’s propensity to metastasize and spread,” perhaps explaining why early-onset colorectal cancer is faster-growing, said the Post.

What will the findings change?

Researchers hope the paper will encourage more research into the distinct attributes of early-onset cancer tumors and how to approach them. Patients are typically treated the same, regardless of age. But following up on these findings could highlight “therapeutic targets” for a more precise treatment approach in the future for young patients, Ng said to the Post.

While the study doesn’t offer any “immediate new takeaways” for young people concerned about colon cancer, study co-author Ana Anderson suggests following existing guidance to lower your risk, said Business Insider. The recommended screening age was lowered from 50 to 45 a few years ago, but you should see a doctor sooner if you experience common colon cancer symptoms. If you’re “extra cautious,” she said, it’s never a bad idea to stay active and cut down on inflammatory foods.

The 2026 midterms last week lacked something that has become a hallmark of some in the Republican Party: an effort to sow doubt about election results. The blue tsunami that will send Democrats cruising back into power could be the end of Republicans, including President Donald Trump, stoking claims of fraud.

‘Slowed to a trickle’

In the months leading up to the midterms, some Republicans “spread baseless theories that the vote would be rigged,” and experts had “anticipated a wave of legal challenges from election deniers seeking to contest the results,” said AFP. Some were especially concerned Trump himself would “try to tilt the outcome in his favor — as he did when he tried to overturn his 2020 election defeat.” But none of that occurred, and “evidence-free claims of fraud slowed to a trickle.”

Experts say the size of the blue tsunami made these claims impossible. It was “essentially too big to rig,” a Trump adviser told CNN. Even allies who propped up Trump’s false 2020 claims accepted the Democratic midterm wins. But other factors may be at play. “I don’t know necessarily that margin of victory makes much difference to those who have profited off of the economy of grift around election conspiracies," David Becker, the executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told AFP.

‘Does not mean an end’

Most Republicans did not contest the elections. In the races involving GOP election deniers, almost “all of them lost, and none of them, or the network of activists and groups backing them, have raised any questions about the results,” said Wired. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.), who questioned former President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, lost his reelection bid and “conceded defeat without any reference to election rigging.” Colorado GOP secretary of state candidate James Wiley “made undermining trust in elections a centerpiece of his campaign,” but after he lost, he conceded the race “without questioning the results.”

This “does not mean an end to the administration’s war on alleged voter fraud by noncitizens,” said the Los Angeles Times. And Trump himself, despite initially accepting the results, is still casting doubt. “Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” said Trump on Truth Social. “It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!”

This week’s question: An Italian chef claims he was fired from a restaurant in Australia after he refused to put pineapple on pizza, calling the topping an “insult” to his culture. If this pie purist were to write a memoir about his culinary act of conscience, what might it be titled? 

How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest@theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number for verification; this week, please type “Pineapple pizza” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, Nov. 17. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page of the Nov. 27 issue and at theweek.com/contest on Nov. 20. In the case of identical or similar entries, the first one received gets credit. All entries become property of The Week.

Click here to see the results of last week's contest: Mummy rights
The winner gets a one-year subscription to The Week.

“My heart sank” when I heard Gordon Ramsay’s production company has made a docuseries about the sweary chef’s rise to fame and notorious beef with Marco Pierre White, said Carol Midgley in The Times.

But now I’m “eating my words”. This isn’t just another “vanity epic” – the show “sizzles with gossip, snark, strutting macho energy and anecdotes that are the stuff of HR managers’ nightmares”.

The drama builds to a first meeting between the feuding chefs for 20 years, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph. It’s a “fascinating study of two great talents and their competing egos”.

Viewers are transported back to London in the late 1980s and early 1990s when White “almost single-handedly transformed Britain’s culinary reputation and ushered in a new generation of brilliant young chefs”. Ramsay is a familiar presence on television, but it’s “far more interesting” to get White’s insights – he “retains a knack for stealing the show”.

“It’s a culinary willy-waving contest,” said Michael Hogan in The Guardian. At one point, White brags: “We were bigger and better than the Beatles.” The “mouthwatering question” from the start is whether, decades after their “bitter bust-up”, White and Ramsay can meet without “taking copper-bottomed saucepans to each other’s heads”. Both sides of the feud are “picked over in chewy detail” – “there is, in a very real sense, beef”.

Heston Blumenthal is also at the table. But he “often feels like a gooseberry” and “third wheel”. Instead of sharing the limelight, the Fat Duck chef becomes the “palate cleanser between courses”.

When White and Ramsay do finally sit down together to hash things out in the third and final episode, it’s as captivating and “infuriating as you might expect”. The former is “prickly and unrepentant”, while the latter still seems to have an enormous chip on his shoulder. “Does it make for delicious entertainment? Yes, chef! Service please.”

The “stench around ‘sandpapergate’ is as overpowering now as it was” eight years ago, said The i Paper.

Australian batter Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera during a Test match against South Africa in Cape Town in 2018 trying to rough up the ball with sandpaper he did in his trousers. Bancroft, captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner received suspensions for their part in one of the biggest sporting scandals of recent years.

It is once again leading the news Down Under. In his autobiography published this week, Usman Khawaja, the Australian batter who retired in January, says the whole team knew about the tactic and it had been used before they were caught. Warner has since come out in support of Khawaja, saying his recollections were “100% accurate”.

Cricket Australia has said it will not reopen its inquiry, having completed a three-day investigation at the time. Khawaja claims he was not interviewed during that period.

Bowlers’ claims ‘ludicrous’

Cricket Australia’s decision not to reopen the inquiry is not only “sad” and “predictable”, but demonstrates “exactly why a new investigation is needed”, said Robert Craddock in The Australian. There is “enormous public interest” in “the most notorious event in Australian cricket this century”. There are clear, conflicting views: this whole chapter “needs a proper full stop”.

“So far, so much stalemate,” said BBC Sport. The latest revelations have “done little to shift views that were entrenched” already. Australian cricket is in “sandpaper limbo, a halfway house full of historical scandal, innuendo and unanswered questions”.

Had Khawaja spoken up at the time, his career would have disappeared faster than “that bit of sandpaper disappeared down Bancroft’s pants”, said Zachary Gates on Nine. Khawaja’s version of events “smells like the truth”. It seems “incredibly unlikely” that he would do “untold damage” to his relationships with former team-mates by making false claims. And the idea that the bowlers, as they continue to claim, had no knowledge of ball tampering is “ludicrous”.

Eight years on, it’s “hard to see how many lessons have been learned”, said ABC. It’s the public who have been most hurt: they care less about the “whodunnit and more about the irreparable breach of trust” they feel. The “wounds that remain stem from a feeling of betrayal”.

‘Taint an entire generation’

“Apologies for the crude analogy but for Australian cricket this is the unflushable turd,” said Stocks in The i Paper. Current Test captain Pat Cummins has kept quiet so far, but he has also come under pressure for his recent performances. “Could this tip him over the edge?”

Khawaja’s allegations, “whether true or not, promise to taint an entire generation of Australian cricketers”. Looking ahead to the Ashes in England next year, the “soundtrack of the summer” promises to be home fans chanting: “Same old Aussies, always cheating”.

Perhaps there is another “unpalatable” scenario for why the case hasn’t been reopened, said BBC Sport. Australia’s last two captains “lost the job in disgrace” – Smith for sandpapergate, and his successor, Tim Paine, for a “sexting” scandal. Perhaps Cricket Australia has “no desire to open the door for fear of what might lie behind it”. Sandpaper, however, is the “stench Australian cricket cannot shake”.

What do defrosting refrigerators, a record cryptocurrency heist, bomb threats targeting airlines and newsrooms, and Ukraine’s emergency alert app sending out a fake nuclear strike alert have in common?

They are “just the foothills” of a new hacking landscape, according to the head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre. “There are so many vulnerabilities out there,” said NCSC CEO Richard Horne, referring to flaws in IT systems exposed by AI technology, that “you could say are waiting to be exploited”.

What did the commentators say?

It is not yet clear who is exploiting these new-found weaknesses and why but there are “two factors underpinning the NCSC warnings: geopolitics and AI”, said Dan Milmo and Aisha Down in The Guardian.

North Korea has been widely blamed for October’s hack that stole a record £4.7 billion from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, while cybersecurity experts have said last week’s Europe-wide fridge attacks bear the hallmarks of Russia.

If Russia were responsible, such attacks could be intended to demonstrate the costs of Europe’s continued support for Ukraine, said Sidharth Kaushal, from the RUSI think tank. “I think it’s more about cost imposition,” he told CNBC. “Convincing the European political leadership that the costs of a war can come home to them.”

Others have pinned the blame on criminal gangs or even enterprising teenagers testing the boundaries of what is possible with AI.

“Whether nuisances or true threats, the events collectively highlighted Europe’s vulnerability in a digitally connected era,” said Adam Goldman in The New York Times. The “mix of disarray and upheaval” in recent months has “left European officials rushing to identify culprits and residents inconvenienced, confused or fearful”.

“Psychological destabilisation has been achieved,” said Ciaran Martin, former CEO of the NCSC. “At a time western Europeans have enough things to worry about, now they are getting news that they might go into the supermarket for a convenient meal on a busy day and find that it has melted. It does feed into that insecurity.”

What next?

With cyber disruption becoming the new norm, private firms and governments are racing to protect themselves, their users and citizens.

Yet countries’ abilities to withstand hybrid threats vary substantially across the continent, said Kaushal. “As one goes further west in Europe, the level of preparation, both against hybrid attacks, but also just simple missile attacks of the kind that we’ve seen in Ukraine, is far less great.”

The UK is belatedly trying to catch up. The Times has reported that UK defence chiefs have begun deploying “hunt forces” abroad to disrupt enemy hackers who are preparing to cripple Britain’s military systems.

“The threat continues to increase in both its complexity and its persistence,” said Major General Mike Fayers, commander of the MoD’s Defence Cyber and Electromagnetic Force. So “we have a responsibility as citizens, armed forces and the private sector to make sure we are as prepared as possible from the boardroom to the router at home”.

You never truly ‘complete’ London. I’ve been visiting for more than 30 years, and there is always something new to find in this dynamic and ever-changing metropolis.

Of course, for new visitors a stop at Big Ben or seeing Buckingham Palace is a must, but there is so much more to discover, and London’s artistic heritage is hard to beat. With world-class museums, truly innovative galleries, and cultural landmarks in every neighbourhood, art lovers will never get bored.

So, discover your inner culture vulture and head to the capital for a sophisticated and creative weekend.

Things to do

London has some of the best museums in the world, many of which are free, including the Tates Britain and Modern, The British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Natural History Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum.

The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square is an obvious place to start, but it is a perennial favourite for a reason. With works from artists of the highest calibre, from Leonardo da Vinci to Jan Van Eyck to Vincent Van Gogh, you can spend hours in its hallowed halls. Make sure to check out the latest exhibitions, such as the current Renoir and Love.

But there are plenty of lesser known galleries to discover too. Just off the newly pedestrianised Oxford Street you will find the wonderful Photographer’s Gallery; in Marylebone there’s the exceptional Wallace Collection; the Courtauld is in the famous Somerset House, and in Lincoln’s Inn Fields you can visit Sir John Soane’s Museum, which is dedicated to the eponymous architect.

Out of central London you can find some really fantastic hidden gems. Learn about a master craftsman at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow; try the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which is home to some impressive changing exhibitions; or the Horniman in Forest Hill is perfect for a leisurely day out.

If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, the Art Fund’s National Art Pass is a fantastic way to find smaller galleries that are worth going to, and there are literally hundreds to choose from.

You will also find plenty of art as you explore. Street art in areas like Shoreditch, Brick Lane, Hackney, Camden, Southbank or Brixton is known internationally. If you like a guide, you can take a tour with Get Your Guide, but there are also dozens of free maps online.

A unique piece of art can also be the perfect souvenir, so try a dedicated art market, such as Spitalfields or one of the Open Art Spaces’ events. But if your budget is a bit more generous, then Frieze London is an internationally renowned art fair that takes place every October, as is the annual London Art Fair, which next takes place in January 2027.

Eating and drinking

With London’s history, it isn’t hard to find somewhere where the great and the good of the art world have been regular customers. The French House in Soho has been popular with creatives, such as Lucien Freud or Tracey Emin, since it was established in 1891, and it remains a spot to people-watch to this day.

If you want to be as efficient as possible, then grab lunch at Osteria Locatelli inside the National Gallery. The food and drink menu often reflects the artists on display in the gallery’s exhibitions; for example, Renoir was represented by a vodka, Pernod and apple cocktail (a nod to late 19th-century Parisian cafe culture).

The art at Vibrato in Soho has been carefully selected to complement the bistro’s relaxed and dimly lit vibe. It is contemporary yet classic in style, with a menu that espouses the very best of Italian ingredients. In the evening you may be lucky enough to enjoy live music from the piano.

Aki London is a glamorous Japanese restaurant in a restored Grade-II listed bank on Cavendish Square, and is perfect for a flavourful feast or a late-night drink. The menu often celebrates artistic events in London, this year offering a Frieze Art Fair special cocktail curated by artist Ken Nwadiogbu.

Where to stay

The Imperial in Russell Square opened just a few months ago and is already an impressive new face on the hotel scene. Its location just off this pretty Bloomsbury square is perfect for anyone exploring the city, with Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras a short walk away, while both the Central and Piccadilly Tube lines are also nearby. It is also close to many of the city’s best galleries and museums.

This is an iconic modernist building, standing out against the local Georgian architecture with its angular windows and simple aesthetic. For 2026 it has been completely refurbished, each of its 357 rooms impeccably appointed in mid-century modern style. Mine had a mezzanine cinema, with a large screen and popcorn. Each guest is given a champagne welcome in a sparkling new lobby, and the well-equipped gym is perfect for keeping up with your routine.

On the rooftop, you’ll find Arcus, a restaurant and bar with views across the city. They offer lunch, dinner and drinks well into the evening, but it is also the perfect spot to fuel up with the hearty and delicious brunch before a day navigating London’s galleries.

Jaymi McCann was a guest of The Imperial, Vibrato, Aki London and Osteria Locatelli

A virulent avian flu strain has made its way to a Utah mink farm, which could potentially open the door for the virus to spread to — and between — humans. Many are concerned about the federal government’s lack of action in preventing the spread.

Bird to mink to human

This strain of bird flu is “so virulent that if a single chicken tests positive, the U.S. government requires farmers to kill the whole flock to protect other farms as well as public health,” said ProPublica. The virus, though, has spread uncontrolled through the mink farm for more than two months, and there are “no federal rules for how to deal with sick mink.” In “other countries where such outbreaks have occurred, the government has ordered farms to kill their mink,” said The Guardian. No similar plans exist in Utah for now.

The outbreak is particularly concerning as “mink have lungs and airways that on a cellular level are remarkably similar to those of people,” said ProPublica. In the past, the animals have contracted Covid-19 and spread it to humans. Bird flu could emulate the same trajectory.

Fuzzy instructions

Despite the risk of a major public health issue, “there’s just not a lot of options out there other than kind of sitting and waiting and seeing what happens,” Utah’s State Veterinarian Amanda Price said to ProPublica. Mink are “bred in captivity and raised on farms, occupying a regulatory gray area between wildlife and agriculture,” said The Salt Lake Tribune. One bird flu vaccine is approved for mammals, but “only USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins can authorize its use.” Because bird flu in mink is new in the U.S., “there’s little research to guide the dosage or determine how well it would work.”

The good news: A pandemic threat is not present just yet. “The risk is greatest among people who have exposure to sick animals,” Brown University epidemiology professor Jennifer Nuzzo said to The Guardian. “If that is not you, I think you can take this off your worry list.” But it still “does not abdicate the government of its responsibility to try to prevent a pandemic.”

Violent clashes between more than 200 protesters and Ukrainian police and military personnel at an army holding centre on the outskirts of Kyiv could have been the work of Russian disinformation agents.

On 2 November, a crowd gathered outside the building in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka in response to reports on social media and local Telegram channels that Ukrainian soldiers inside “were being illegally detained and tortured”, said UA.News.

Russian provocation

The angry mob clashed with police after attempting to storm the building, later identified by officials as a “temporary deployment site” for draftees and former deserters run by the “Azov” Corps of Ukraine’s National Guard.

Protesters – including relatives of the detained men – attempted to climb into the compound, threw stones and firecrackers over the walls, and smashed up military and police vehicles. “In response, foam and tear gas were fired from inside the compound; later, gunshots rang out and smoke grenades exploded.”

The National Police of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine have identified 130 people who may have been involved in the unrest, which they believe to have been fuelled by Russian disinformation. Among them is 49-year-old Valentyna Moloda, identified by investigative journalism news site Slidstvo.Info as responsible for initially spreading rumours of a “torture basement” at the site. Moloda arrived at the protest in a private ambulance, claiming to be a doctor tasked with evacuating injured draftees held within. She has since been arrested.

However, the head of the Presidential Office, Kyrylo Budanov, has cautioned against dismissing the incident as merely an act of Russian provocation, arguing that it had exposed deeper societal tensions over conscription.

‘Not enough people’

“Forced mobilisation – a reality of Ukrainian life under martial law – remains one of the greatest sources of social and political tension in Ukraine, frequently leading to violent clashes between recruiters and civilians,” said Kyiv Independent.

In August, a draft officer in Lviv in western Ukraine was stabbed to death, and the following month a recruitment centre in the city was damaged by an explosive. In October, a man suspected of draft evasion opened fire at a recruitment centre in Kyiv, injuring three police officers and three military personnel.

Budanov has warned Ukraine needs to mobilise at least 30,000 new recruits each month just to maintain the current defence against Russia.

“Reforms to mobilisation, training and the way the army is organised” are among the “most sensitive issues under consideration” by the Ukrainian defence ministry, said The Associated Press.

New military contracts designed to reduce desertion and draft-dodging seek to make infantry roles more attractive by offering higher salaries and fixed terms of service for those willing to serve on the front lines.

But the problem ultimately remains a simple one, an official from the ministry said: “There just are not enough people.”

As Washington prepares for a Democratic majority in the coming legislative session, some of President Donald Trump’s top legal lieutenants are using this lame-duck period to explore greener professional pastures. Since polls closed this month, at least four top Justice Department officials have submitted resignations. With Trump looking to the DOJ and Attorney General Todd Blanche as an animating force behind much of his second-term agenda, what do these sudden defections mean for MAGA moving forward?

What did the commentators say?

The high-profile resignations include Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon, U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, Civil Division boss Brett Shumate, and John Eisenberg, who led the DOJ’s national security section. Although a post-midterms “wave of resignations” is “not unheard of in any administration,” the DOJ’s “rapid-fire series” of departures in recent days makes it an “early outlier among federal agencies so far,” said The Washington Post. Four senior, Senate-confirmed DOJ figures “heading for the exits after barely a year and a half on the job” is the “sort of turnover that raises a serious question,” said former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance on Substack: “What’s going on inside the Justice Department?”

The “thinning” of the department’s “upper ranks” leaves Trump’s DOJ without “some of its most seasoned hands,” said Politico. Democrats, meanwhile, are “salivating at the chance to use their newly minted majority” to investigate the department’s most “politically sensitive decisions,” and Trump’s role therein. Reding Quiñones in particular had been a “key figure” in DOJ investigations into law enforcement figures involved in previous probes into Trump’s conduct, said MS NOW. Those efforts are “widely viewed” as part of a “retribution campaign against the president’s perceived enemies.”

What next?

Reding Quiñones’ exit leaves the “future of his office’s marquee probe” into Trump’s alleged enemies “in doubt,” said the Post. The White House could “struggle to replace Senate-confirmed officials” in the coming term, said Politico. Democrats will have the power to “delay any confirmation,” forcing the DOJ to “rely on acting appointees for those jobs.” Ultimately, said Vance, the resignations “only buttress” a broader point that A.G. Blanche “should be impeached as soon as possible if he won’t resign.”

Stratton, Vt.

This 2004 timber-frame home in southern Vermont is on more than 5 acres and abuts the Green Mountain National Forest. The five-bedroom’s great room features a block-stone fireplace, a wall of windows, and a kitchen with a pantry, while a lower level has a live-edge billiards table, wet bar, and media room.

A screened porch and deck overlook the woods, and the property also includes a firepit, hot tub, and barn with a gym. $2,700,000. Betsy Wadsworth, Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, (802) 579-8689

Woodstock, N.Y.

Five minutes from town and Cooper Lake, this 1973 contemporary mountain home sits on more than 6 wooded acres. The renovated four-bedroom’s living room has an Italian plaster fireplace, oak beams, and pale wood floors. The open kitchen includes soapstone counters, and the primary bath has a soaker tub and heated floors.

A screened porch opens to a pool and deck, and there’s a newly built garage. $2,395,000. Laurie Ylvisaker and Leslie Foti, Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty, (845) 901-6129

New Marlborough, Mass.

On more than 9 acres in the Berkshires, about 20 minutes from Great Barrington, this 2025 four-bedroom modern double-dome home features a main dome with vaulted, wood-clad ceilings with windowed panels, plus a loft that connects to a cupola with 360-degree treetop and East Mountain views.

A theater, gym, sauna, two kitchens, and bonus space fill out the interior. Outside are yards, a deck, a garage, and a brook. $3,250,000. Tim Lovett, Compass, (413) 446-0059

Darby, Mont.

This 2005 forested estate on more than 20 acres in the Bitterroot Valley includes two creeks. The three-bedroom main mountain home has hardwood floors, ceilings with exposed timber trusses, a chef’s kitchen with Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances, and an upstairs bunk room.

Sharing the land are a two-bedroom guesthouse, patios, a pizza oven, a hot tub, a three-car garage with a studio, and parklike grounds. $5,950,000. Dawn Maddux, Engel & Völkers Western Frontier—Missoula, (406) 550-4131

Oregon, Wis.

Started as a homestead in 1837, Five Bridges Farm, an 80-acre estate about 15 minutes from Madison, is dotted with many tree varieties, with Swan Creek running throughout. The 2018 modern four-bedroom has a 30-foot-high central room with floating stairs, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a woodstove.

The land includes prairie, pasture, and forest and has a restored barn, a riding arena with paddocks, a studio, and a tree house. $6,000,000. Melissa LeGrand, Christie’s International Real Estate @properties elleven, (608) 438-2130

Egremont, Mass

This 1970 gambrel-roof A-frame in the Berkshires is on almost an acre surrounded by mature deciduous trees. The onebedroom has wood-clad walls, vaulted ceilings, a mid-century modern fireplace, a bedroom loft, and a wall of windows framing leafy views. A basement has room for guests, a den, and an office.

A screened porch and deck look out onto the property, which is less than 10 minutes from Catamount Mountain Resort. $589,000. Antonio Segalla, William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, (413) 329-4075

As an art form, fantasy has always sailed into the fierce headwinds of elite dismissal. Then there are the wild exceptions, including these superb series beloved by both critics and audiences alike.

‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ (1997-2003)

A group of teenagers in the town of Sunnydale battles demons and vampires emanating from the “Hellmouth” in this witty, kitschy cult classic that doubles as a coming-of-age story. A “knockout” series, it articulates the “realities of growing up, when perception and loyalties are constantly shifting,” said Steve Vineberg at The New York Times. (Disney+)

‘Charmed’ (1998-2006)

Three San Francisco sisters lead double lives as benevolent witches fighting the forces of evil in a show that delivers a masterclass in network-era storytelling. In addition to “schlock horror, campy giggles and skintight leather pants,” the series contains “some really meaningful and resonant messages,” said Isabelle Oderberg at The Guardian. (Peacock)

‘True Blood’ (2008-2014)

Sporting cinematic aesthetics, a lavish budget and A-list actors, “True Blood” follows Louisiana vampires who can join human society by drinking a synthetic blood substitute, a premise that leads to intrigue and social upheaval. It’s a “juju-laced, borderline-bonkers slab of Southern Gothic that delights in its pulpiness,” said William Thomas at Empire. (HBO Max)

‘Game of Thrones’ (2011-2019)

Ultraviolent and explicit, HBO’s franchise-launching, discourse-driving hit revolves around the warring kingdoms in the fictional realm of Westeros as they battle one another plus supernatural threats. The “singularly epic” series became a “cultural juggernaut that heralded new norms in TV storytelling,” said Inkoo Kang at Slate. (HBO Max)

Phantom Blade Zero

The latest game from the Chinese studio S-Game “plays like something straight out of a wuxia epic,” said Travis Northup in IGN. The Chinese fantasy genre pioneered the kind of sword fighting you’ll relish while playing as a martial arts fighter who has just 66 days of life left to seek vengeance. As the clock runs down, you battle “all manner of beast and badass” spread over eight maps, each filled with side quests, treasure, and secrets. “Precise parry-and-dodge mechanics” accompany a system of upgrades that roll out so smoothly you slip into them “like a tailored set of flowing wuxia robes.” I could quibble about “occasional performance issues,” but there were few moments across 50 hours of playing time when I wasn’t “absolutely thrilled.” In every smile-inducing fight, my present foe and I “weave graceful tapestries of blocks, lunges, dodges, and violently flamboyant strikes,” said Luke Kemp in GamesRadar+. That’s partly owing to the motion-capture contributions of Donnie Yen, a legend of kung fu cinema. Satisfyingly, the action unfolds in a realm that “subtly fuses supernatural horror, Chinese mythology, and a hint of the modern world.”

Silver Pines

Silver Pines could be a lost David Lynch movie from the 1990s,” said Keith Stuart in The Guardian. You play this survival horror game from a Scandinavian studio as private eye Red Walker, trying to track down a missing musician in a fog-veiled deserted town filled with “fizzing neon signs.” Like a Lynch sleuth, Red energizes by guzzling black coffee, the better to explore buildings and other locations “loaded with detail.” And though some of the gameplay feels “incredibly familiar,” this homage to neo-noir stands apart from other point-and-click adventures with its “brilliant sense of style” and “wonderfully constructed” mythology. “Every moment I spent in Silver Pines felt delightfully eerie and meaningful,” said Stephanie Watel in Dualshockers. While you eventually do battle with otherworldly monsters, the game excels most at imbuing a player with “that compelling urge to discover what’s in the next room.” Solving certain puzzles required “substantial running around,” but “Silver Pines itself is so mesmerizing to look at that I honestly didn’t mind.”

Wall Street is feeling the fallout from last week’s midterm elections. Stocks initially rose following the Democratic sweep, then briefly plunged as markets realized the new Congress will closely scrutinize the AI investment boom. Investors are watching to see if the new political landscape boosts or busts their bottom lines.

‘Knee-jerk reaction’

The Democratic victories “rattled” Wall Street, said Rebecca Patterson at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank. The S&P 500 posted its “biggest one-day decline” since 2005 on Thursday amid fears the election results have “thrown into doubt” the AI spending boom. Democrats may put new “guardrails” around “AI-exposed” firms like Amazon, Apple, Meta and Tesla, but that will come with a tradeoff. Those companies represent “more than one-third of the index’s total market capitalization.” An artificial intelligence slowdown could “weigh on economic activity.”

“Don’t trust the market’s knee-jerk reaction to the midterms,” said James Mackintosh at The Wall Street Journal. The altered political landscape “adds another threat” to the buildout of AI data centers, but that threat is “probably not as severe as the consensus trade suggests.”

‘Sign of things to come’

Some traders hope the “stark” election results will “ease political uncertainty” that has hovered over the economy since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, said Harriet Clarfelt, Kate Duguid and Claire Jones at the Financial Times. Voters “chose moderation and markets appreciate that choice,” said economist Daleep Singh to the outlet. Other investors see the “potential benefits of gridlock” between Trump and a Democratic Congress, said FT. But that divide could also trigger the “mother of all debt-ceiling showdowns” next year, said Singh.

Historically, stocks “typically rise in the year following midterm elections,” said Jamie McGeever at Reuters. Investors like that a divided government usually limits the “likelihood of major, radical policy changes” that can upend businesses. Trump, however, has taught investors that the old rules “no longer apply.” The question is whether Wall Street’s initial post-election jitters are a “sign of things to come.”

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Hungarian British author David Szalay’s acclaimed novels include All That Man Is and Turbulence. His most recent book, Flesh, now out in paperback, won last year’s Booker Prize and follows the rags-to-riches trajectory of an impulsive Hungarian man.

‘The Diary of Samuel Pepys’ (1660–69)

Picking this up to read a single short entry, I can easily get stuck with it for an hour. As fascinating as the differences between our world and the world of the 1660s are the similarities. And the man himself? He’s just very human, and massively engaging in the perfect frankness he brings to his endeavor. Buy it here.

‘Lord Jim’ by Joseph Conrad (1900)

Conrad’s Marlow might be the first appearance of a pervasive 20th-century type: world-weary, disillusioned, and discouraged by what he has seen of humanity, but somehow still fundamentally humane. It is this perspective that makes the novel so morally modern and therefore so full of urgent interest, even now, well over a century after it was written. Buy it here.

‘As I Lay Dying’ by William Faulkner (1930)

The device of having chapters offering different points of view on some situation has become perhaps overfamiliar. In what might be its original iteration here, though, it feels fresh and powerful. Particularly when combined with the way Faulkner ventriloquizes the rough language of his characters, while giving them a sort of Homeric grandeur in their closeness to the essential experiences of human life. Buy it here.

‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang (2007)

The three segments of this novel interact in powerful but mysterious ways. Its impact is unquestionable, but its meaning (something to do with physicality) is ultimately impossible to pin down— which is perhaps as it should be. Buy it here.

‘The Largesse of the Sea Maiden’ by Denis Johnson (2018)

With the naturalness of someone talking, stories flow into one another, or merge, or divide. The comedy is deeply humane. The prose is a constant delight. The profundity sneaks up on you. Buy it here.

‘Alphabetical Diaries’ by Sheila Heti (2024)

A sort of cubist work of autofiction, which I hope makes it sound intriguing rather than impenetrable. Heti took years’ worth of personal diaries, got a computer to arrange the sentences in alphabetical order, and then, without tampering with the order, winnowed the material to the length of a novella. The result is unique and mesmerizing. Buy it here.

‘The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World’ by Nathaniel Philbrick

“The Gold Rush is a fascinating saga, especially in the hands of so capable a chronicler as Nathaniel Philbrick,” said Richard Snow in The Wall Street Journal. The bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and three George Washington books turns his gaze to the prospecting dash—second only to the Civil War as the defining event of 19th-century America. It all began in 1848, when carpenter James Marshall noticed something sparkly in the channel below the California sawmill he was building. By the following year, more than 50,000 fortune seekers from every continent had arrived, hunting the flakes, nuggets, and veins of gold spread along 150 miles of the Sierra Nevada. Philbrick chooses “as our inaugural guide to gold country” one Vicente Rosales, a highhearted Chilean who kept observant diaries of the madness he witnessed as he sought his own fortune, if unsuccessfully.

Philbrick’s “engrossing” tale recounts “the birth of California, and the way gold and greed remade the nation,” said Hamilton Cain in The Boston Globe. The influx of prospectors and those profiting off them spawned cities including San Francisco and Sacramento, and, by 1850, California, newly taken from Mexico, had joined the union. The battle for the heart of the new state is reflected in its two maiden senators. Staunch slavery opponent John Frémont duked it out with William Gwin, a former plantation owner who sought to cleave off Southern California as its own slave state. Conjuring “time and place in lush detail,” Philbrick “grounds California’s fractious debates in human stories,” including those of Samuel Brannan, the con man who co-founded Sacramento; the murderous judge David Terry; and Native women victimized within their own homeland. And the author “spins his tale with aplomb, hitting his notes just so.

The Rush is “a sprawling book, characters and stories spilling out everywhere, as dense with claims as the goldfields it describes,” said Kathryn Schulz in The New Yorker. Woven throughout are two dominant ideas: The scramble for wealth, labor, land, and power contributed to the onset of the Civil War, and the rush birthed a new, distinctly American taste for novelty and transformation that still informs our character. Sadly, Philbrick is “not particularly convincing about either of these claims,” which are “a little rickety” and “too different to comfortably coexist in a single book.” The Rush is “at its best when it simply shows us this mayhem as it unfolded in a specific place and period,” not when using it to illuminate the present. After all, “the past is its own kind of gold— abundant, difficult to access, inordinately valuable—and sometimes it is enough to let it shine.”

‘Redemption: Faith, Justice, and Sisterhood on Death Row’ by Lawrence Wright

“Here’s a cheery subject for a book,” said Timothy Egan in The New York Times. Redemption explores what happens when a group of nuns ministers to seven women on death row outside Waco, Texas, many of them convicted of unspeakable crimes. And yet in the hands of Lawrence Wright, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Looming Tower and Going Clear, “this tale is oddly compelling, even, dare I say, uplifting.” At first, it’s hard to feel sympathy for inmates whose alleged crimes include the murder of a toddler. But what elevates Wright’s “latest master class in narrative nonfiction” is how he finds “nuance behind the notoriety,” forcing us to question the looming execution of women who may be innocent or have at least changed for the better.

Wright “explores not just their gruesome crimes but their horrific backstories,” said Julia M. Klein in the Los Angeles Times. Most were victims of violence and sexual abuse; many succumbed to drug addiction and lived in poverty. Given “extraordinary access,” the author recounts how visits from the Sisters of Mary Morning Star instilled in them a sense of community, spirituality, and creative potential. Throughout, Wright “interrogates the boundary between severe mental illness and evil, and wonders whether, even in extreme cases, redemption might be possible.” Still, in expanding a 2025 New Yorker article to book length, he “sometimes loses the thread, indulging in digressions that detract from his study of transformation and redemption.”

This “may be Wright’s most personal work of journalism,” said Kate Tuttle in The Boston Globe. He grew up worshipping at a Methodist church in Dallas, but he saw early on how religious fervor could stoke political extremism. Redemption’s “most revealing” parts find him exploring his and America’s relationships with the death penalty, which, one law professor tells him, wouldn’t exist here without Christians’ support. Wright says he’s not attempting to solve capital punishment’s moral dilemmas. But having absorbed his “richly observed and beautifully rendered” profiles of these inmates and nuns, “it’s difficult to imagine any reader’s faith or support of the death penalty could withstand the evidence his reporting so eloquently illustrates.

The swift downfall of “one of Wall Street’s most vaunted law firms” last month has put the legal industry on edge, said Erin Mulvaney and Andrew Scurria in The Wall Street Journal. Weil, Gotshal & Manges—a fixture among corporate dealmakers for nearly a century—was “one of the 20 most profitable in the business,” raking in $2.1 billion in revenue last year with “relatively few liabilities,” apart from a lease on a roughly 380,000-square-foot office on Fifth Avenue in New York City. What it didn’t have was loyalty. The firm has “hemorrhaged top lawyers” in recent months after rivals poached top partners, including private-equity attorney Ramona Nee, who was chosen to lead the firm in 2027. In September, Weil’s “top dealmaker,” Michael Aiello, left too, and “confidence in Weil’s future cratered” in a matter of weeks. “A law firm’s most valuable asset is its people,” said bankruptcy attorney Albert Togut. “If they go home one night and don’t come back the next day, it’s over.”

This is the “logical consequence of an industry engaging in a Darwinian war for talent,” said Chris Bryant in Bloomberg. Some legal superstars today are making up to $40 million a year, an impossible figure for most small or even midsize firms to match. “Big Law has moved away from paying counsel according to seniority”—which incentivized allegiance—“and has oriented more toward an individual’s results.” It’s created an “eat-what-you-kill” attitude that has made the entire legal industry unstable. Rivals “shouldn’t kid themselves” if they think “the same couldn’t happen to them.”

It also didn’t help that Weil “botched” its succession plan, said Diane Brady in Fortune. The choice of Nee was made unconventionally, without much partner input, and “there was no plan B” when she announced in September that she “no longer planned to take the role.” That’s one of the “lessons” that other CEOs should heed from this “sad narrative.”

The legal industry looks strong today on the surface, said Sara Randazzo in Reuters, but it is “astonishingly fragile.” Unlike corporate executives, partners aren’t “sitting on stock options that give them a powerful financial incentive to stay.” Even a slight “loss of confidence in a firm’s direction can be enough to set off a rush for the exits.”

The partnership structure, “once an instrument of stability, is now a liability” when your talent prefers to think of themselves as “the world’s best-paid gig workers,” said The Economist. How can order be restored? Noncompete agreements have “never been used by law firms” in the U.S., but they are customary in the U.K. and on Wall Street. “The legal industry’s Lehman moment” might require a drastic change to how law firms do business.

Marissa Mayer is back, and people aren’t “thrilled,” said María José Gutiérrez Chávez in Fast Company. In an interview last month with The New York Times, the ex-Google engineer and former Yahoo CEO introduced her new artificial intelligence startup, Dazzle. The women-focused AI assistant analyzes photos in users’ camera rolls to build a detailed dossier on them, and can then make proactive suggestions and perform tasks. But the example Mayer gave about how Dazzle might be used left some observers “confused.” Mayer said her daughter’s teacher had asked for “three bullet points to summarize what made the 10-year-old special.” Struggling with the task, Mayer handed it to Dazzle. After scanning her camera roll, it suggested: “empathetic, creative, and an animal lover.” The anecdote sparked a backlash on social media, where commenters called it “bleak” and criticized the efforts of tech leaders trying to offload “human emotions and parenting to an agent.” Mayer should have been well aware of the brewing disquiet about machines replacing “thinking”: Two years ago, Google had to pull its ad featuring a father using AI to write a fan letter for his daughter.

This interview was yet another example of how “out of touch” Silicon Valley has become, said Amanda Silberling in TechCrunch. Mayer is hardly the first “sheltered billionaire” to “suggest that we outsource child rearing” to a computer “that is incapable of understanding human emotion.” OpenAI’s Sam Altman said last year he “cannot imagine” raising a newborn “without ChatGPT.” Mark Zuckerberg envisions people relying on AI for emotional support or as romantic partners. Part of this thinking seems to “stem from the culture of the tech industry, which prizes efficiency” and optimization in all things. That’s fine if you’re building electric vehicles or semiconductors. “But our relationships with other people are not a tech product.”

It’s nice to see Mayer build a product for women, said AJ Dellinger in Gizmodo. “Women,” she told the Times, “tend to take more photos,” and so her product is geared toward making their lives a bit easier. Until now, most tech leaders have been male and they’ve imposed their biases “onto everything from the training data to how AI models communicate and how people interact with them.”

I’m just not sure Dazzle is “what we had in mind,” said Beth Kowitt in Bloomberg. Rather than challenge structural inequities, Dazzle “seems to accept and amplify them,” intensifying the pressure on overextended mothers to be even more perfect. But what can we expect from a woman who “doesn’t see gender inequality in tech as an urgent issue”? In the Times interview, “she equated maternity leave to peacing out.” Dazzle proves “that it’s not enough to have women build AI”; everyone in the room must also “question the assumptions being built into it.”

‘Wild Horse Nine’

Directed by Martin McDonagh (R)

★★★

John Malkovich “has made a career out of blending fragility and menace,” and, at 72, he’s landed “the role of his career,” said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. Martin McDonagh’s latest comedy drama casts Malkovich as Chris Carlisle, a dying CIA assassin who in 1973 is visiting Chile’s Easter Island with a protégé, played by Sam Rockwell, who just may kill his mentor before their getaway is over. “A melancholy hangout drama masquerading as a hitman comedy,” Wild Horse Nine is a film built around its lead’s “queasy charisma,” and Malkovich, playing an at once insouciant and rueful agent of U.S. imperialism, “has never been better.” Rockwell’s Lee Chesterfield “isn’t granted the same depth by McDonagh’s script,” said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. But the younger actor, who won an Oscar for his work in an earlier McDonagh film, is “highly attuned to the rhythms of the filmmaker’s prose,” and “his chemistry with Malkovich is fantastic.”

Unfortunately, Wild Horse Nine fails in its attempts to make a meaningful political point. Both Chris and Lee are operatives sent to Chile to help stage the coup that will topple socialist president Salvador Allende, yet the potential gravity of that storyline is “undercut by the material’s increasingly cartoonish tone.” Still, “the fiendish ingenuity” of the writerdirector’s plotting allows it to finish with “a bloody yet strangely moving climax in which McDonagh continually subverts expectations,” said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. Once again, he’s displayed “a masterful ability to offset corrosive dark comedy with searing poignancy.”

‘Godzilla Minus Zero’

Directed by Takashi Yamazaki (R)

★★★

The sequel to 2023’s acclaimed Godzilla Minus One “falls into the same trap that every sequel to a solemn Godzilla movie fell into before,” said William Bibbiani in The Wrap. While this latest Japanese import rates as “a great Godzilla sequel, maybe even one of the best,” it’s “not one of the greatest Godzilla movies.” And the reason is that the monster serves well enough as a metaphor for nuclear warfare when he’s wreaking havoc alone but becomes nearly impossible to take seriously when he’s “wrasslin’ another beastie.” In Minus Zero, 1949 Japan is still recovering from the devastation of war and Godzilla’s attacks when a rival, the dragon-like Ghidorah, strikes, prompting some of the human heroes of the previous film to mount a response that eventually brings in a revived Godzilla.

Though “much of Minus Zero feels like a rehash,” said Clint Worthington in RogerEbert.com, the sequel earns its R rating in the way director Takashi Yamazaki lingers over charred and maimed bodies, underlining his commitment to making no-nonsense monster films that once again invoke the anxieties of postwar Japan. Yamazaki goes further, said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. Before his revival of the franchise, “when did anyone ever talk about performances in a Godzilla movie?” — yet he and his actors make us care about each of the central human characters. Better still, when the climax arrives, Yamazaki delivers “a clash of the titans that will reduce everyone in the audience to a wide-eyed, jaw-dropped child.”

M. John Harrison has supplanted Margaret Atwood to become the oldest winner of the Booker Prize, scooping the prestigious award for “The End of Everything”.

The 81-year-old English author won the £50,000 prize for a post-apocalyptic novel that has divided opinion. The judges’ chair, Mary Beard, called it a “challenging read”.

But while previous Booker winners have dabbled in the tropes of science fiction, Harrison is the first to have “emerged from the bona fide SF world”, said Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation. It is “a historic win”.

‘A genre-defying writer’

“The End of Everything” is set in “a semi-gentrified seaside art town” on the south coast of England and in a near-future that has seen the arrival of a mysterious race of aliens called the iGhetti, said The Times.

The narrative follows Phillip Tennent, a beachcomber, who fishes a strange creature out of the sea and decides to go on the run with it, along with his elderly aunt, Marnie. The “outlandish developments” of the plot are told in “prose of deadpan precision”, while the “origins, motives and even physical existence” of the iGhetti remain mysterious, as does the nature of the disaster that has caused society to collapse.

Harrison said he “deliberately omitted” as much explanation as possible, said the BBC, so readers feel “the same disorientation as the characters”.

He has been called “the titan of literary science fiction”, but Harrison “dislikes labels like science fiction and fantasy”. He is “a genre-defying writer”, said Wood.

‘Famously overlooked’

Science fiction is “famously overlooked” by the Booker Prize committee, said The Guardian. But although “The End of Everything” is set on Earth, readers can detect “the operatic wonder and alienation of space opera”.

Harrison published his first short story in Science Fantasy magazine in 1966, and became part of the New Wave science fiction literary movement in the 1970s. But from the beginning, he “butted at genre conventions”.

The “most capacious pigeonhole” for his novels is “Weird literature”. It emerged in the 1990s, blending elements of science fiction, fantasy, satire and horror, “often through a politically aware lens”. British novelist Olivia Laing called him “the missing evolutionary link between William Burroughs and Virginia Woolf”.

It’s easy to see why Harrison dislikes labels; he’s “spent half a century being dismissed as a sci-fi hack”, said The Telegraph. But this “gem” isn’t quite sci-fi, nor is it a thriller. It’s a “strange and beautiful thing”, one that “speaks to our deepest fears about collective memory and big tech”. It might be “speculative fiction” – but “unless you’re a bookshop, you don’t need to call it anything”.

Harrison’s Booker triumph is a reminder that the notion of “genre fiction” is “a paper tiger”. “Look down on sci-fi” and you’re looking down on J. G. Ballard, Frank Herbert and John Milton.

The government is preparing to extend Palantir’s controversial NHS contract despite growing concerns over its software’s performance and widespread reluctance across hospitals to use it.

MPs, medics and campaigners have urged Health Secretary Yvette Cooper to trigger an early “break clause” in February, said the Financial Times. But ministers reviewing the £330 million deal to deploy the US tech giant’s flagship AI system have concluded that removing Palantir would be “too disruptive”.

What is Palantir’s contract with the NHS?

In 2023, NHS England awarded a Palantir-led consortium a contract to link datasets across hospitals and trusts. The result, the Federated Data Platform (FDP), is powered by Palantir’s Foundry software and loaned out to NHS teams to build applications, coordinate patient records, schedule procedures and reduce waiting lists.

The deal was controversial from the off due to Palantir’s work with US immigration enforcement and the Israeli military. Officials privately warned Wes Streeting, then health secretary, last year that Palantir’s reputation would deter NHS trusts from using its software, said The Guardian in February. Accusations that the procurement process was rigged also deepened after it emerged that Palantir had hired Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm ahead of the successful bid.

In June, the Commons Health and Social Care Committee recommended that the contract not be extended. “People don’t trust Palantir, its benefits are contested and other tools could deliver the same or similar advantages,” said committee member and Labour MP Ben Coleman in The Guardian.

Has its software helped the NHS?

The NHS and government claims of benefits are fiercely contested. Many doctors say the FDP is less effective than existing technology; some senior NHS leaders called it “slow and clunky”, said Peter Geoghegan and Lucas Amin in the London Review of Books.

Active usage is far lower than official claims suggest. NHS England said that, as of June this year, 139 NHS trusts were “live” on Palantir’s software. But 52 of them “did not use a single FDP app”, said the LRB, citing a Department of Health and Social Care official.

NHS England claims Palantir’s patient discharge tool was responsible for a 15% decrease in delayed discharges. But the Health Foundation think tank reported that hospitals using the tool saw “no noticeable improvement” compared with those that didn’t, said The BMJ.

Palantir has claimed it is helping to deliver “99,000 more NHS operations”, but digital rights advocacy group Foxglove says that nearly a third of NHS trusts using Palantir’s theatre scheduling tool performed fewer procedures after it was deployed.

In July, the Office for Statistics Regulation said that NHS England lacked sufficient evidence for its claims that the FDP was directly responsible for performance improvements.

What might happen next?

The National Audit Office, the independent public spending watchdog, is reviewing the rollout and costs of the FDP, and will publish a report this winter. NHS England also commissioned Imperial College London to evaluate clinical outcomes, with that final report due in 2029.

The government’s review of Palantir’s contract is still under way, but Cooper told MPs she wanted to use the NHS “to develop UK sovereign AI”. The government is planning to put the FDP contract out to tender, said The BMJ. That would force Palantir to “rebid against UK-based competitors”.

Health officials have been “sounding out a handful of British companies to bid to run the FDP”, said the FT. Rivals “insist they are ready to take over the contract”, but Palantir’s defenders claim switching to “an untested alternative” would be “a significant gamble”.

Did you hear that the world is ending on Friday? That's according to three scientists in the 1960s.

“Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve,” they said in an article in the journal Science published on 4 November 1960. “They will be squeezed to death.”

Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, AD 2026

The Austrian-American physicist Heinz von Foerster and two colleagues wrote the paper that had the sobering title: “Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, AD 2026”.

“The work was based on a simple observation,” said Science in October – “the time it took for the human population to double in size kept getting shorter”. So, drawing on population estimates from about 400BC until 1958, the authors “came up with an equation that best described the trend”.

By 2020, they predicted, the human population would exceed 25 billion, but the researchers “didn’t calculate when humanity would run out of food, land, or energy”. They merely concluded that “at some point” in 2026, their equation “ceased to give meaningful results because the predicted population shot towards infinity”.

The claims caused an “immediate stir”, said Alan MacEachern, a history professor from Western University in Ontario, Canada, on The Conversation. There were stories in Time and The New York Times and the findings “became the subject of a series of Pogo comic strips”. Many commentators thought the article was “strictly a tongue-in-cheek comment on population fears”.

Lobbyists leapt upon it. In 1963, a witness from the chemical industry told a Canadian parliamentary committee that the report was an argument for chemical pesticides, which would, they argued, be needed to “feed the approaching population explosion”. In a 1971 US Supreme Court abortion case leading up to Roe v. Wade, it was cited as proof “there was no compelling reason for the government to favour increased population”.

Provocation and predictions

But there were sceptics from the start. “In view of the comments that subsequently were published in this journal, an extensive discussion of this article does not seem to be required,” said Harold F. Dorn in Science two years later. Witheringly, he added that the prediction would set a record “for the short length of time required to demonstrate its unreliability”.

Demographers were “annoyed by what they saw as a provocation by outsiders” and “pointed out obvious flaws”, said Science in October. Yes, the “time it takes for the number of humans to double could get a lot shorter”, for example, but “certainly not shorter than the nine months it takes for a baby to develop”.

Nevertheless, the article was “regularly cited” and its predictions continued to appear “remarkably accurate”. That was the case until around 1993, “halfway to the predicted ‘doomsday’, when the global population began falling behind its forecasts”, said MacEachern.

Now, the global birth rate is “slightly less than half what it was in 1960”, so “hopefully, we will all wake up on November 13 to an ordinary day”.

For generations of fans, Patrick Stewart was the voice of authority. Over more than 60 years on stage and screen, Stewart took command as Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Claudius, Prospero, and even Othello, and embodied intelligence and compassion as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, leader of Marvel’s X-Men. He delighted in subverting that stately image by playing against type, including as a vicious neo-Nazi in 2015’s Green Room and the poop emoji in 2017’s The Emoji Movie, and by goofing off on red carpets and talk shows with his lifelong friend Ian McKellen. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished British actors of his era, Stewart escaped a tormented childhood to attend the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Theatre School at age 17 and spent the rest of his life as a performer. “Acting was my only means of self- expression,” Stewart said in 2003. “The first time someone put me on a proper stage, I experienced the safest environment I had ever been in.”

Despite his regal bearing, Stewart “was born into poverty,” said The Times (U.K.). Raised in a West Yorkshire household without an indoor toilet or hot water, he had an “emotionally distant” father, an alcoholic who often violently assaulted Stewart’s mother. Stewart did poorly at school until age 12, when his teacher Cecil Dormand had the class read The Merchant of Venice aloud; Stewart was Shylock. “I barely understood a word,” Stewart said later, “but I loved the feel of the words and sounds in my mouth.” Dormand began casting him in plays, secretly paid for him to take an Easter-break drama course, and encouraged him to pursue acting as a career. In 2021, Stewart called him “the most significant person in my life,” saying, “he saved me.

Stewart soon “shed his Yorkshire dialect” and developed a “commanding baritone voice,” said The New York Times. Already bald by age 19 from hereditary alopecia, he sometimes donned wigs onstage but was also able to play roles older than his years. Joining the Royal Shakespeare Company at age 25, he appeared in Hamlet, King Lear, and The Taming of the Shrew, and by the 1970s, he was also moonlighting with “substantial roles” in British TV series such as Fall of Eagles and I, Claudius. In 1979, he won an Olivier Award for his performance as Enobarbus in an RSC production of Antony and Cleopatra.

Despite steady work in the U.K., Stewart “was unfamiliar in America when he was given command of the USS Enterprise,” said The Hollywood Reporter. The Los Angeles Times described him at the time as an “unknown British Shakespearean actor,” and even Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had doubts that fans would accept a middle-aged Brit playing the French captain. But Stewart imbued Picard with such moral power that the role ended up having global resonance. The Next Generation ran for seven seasons, from 1987 to 1994, earning 58 Emmy nominations and winning 19. Leadership courses now use Picard as a model to aspire to.

“It is hard to emphasize enough how dramatically Stewart’s life changed” after Star Trek, said Variety. He became a major Hollywood star, playing Professor X in eight Marvel blockbusters and reprising Picard in four feature films. Still, “his best dramatic performances” in this later period came “on the stage,” said The Guardian. He played Macbeth on Broadway, won another Olivier Award for playing Claudius in a 2008 RSC production of Hamlet, and starred with McKellen in a touring production of Waiting for Godot. Though his final stage performance was in 2016, he will appear as Professor X in next month’s Avengers: Doomsday. “I can’t imagine ever officially retiring,” Stewart said earlier this year. “I’ll always and forever be an actor.

Amid rising interest rates, investors may be wondering where to put their money. Enter money market funds.

While higher interest rates are generally viewed negatively as a “drag on the economy, a burden for people seeking mortgages and a punishing hurdle for stocks,” said The New York Times, they are also an “unambiguous boon in one unheralded area: money market funds.” For this specific type of mutual fund, “higher rates almost immediately funnel more money to investors without major complications.”

What are money market funds?

This type of mutual fund invests in “highly liquid, near-term instruments” such as “cash, cash equivalent securities and high-credit-rating, debt-based securities with a short-term maturity, such as United States Treasuries,” said Investopedia. Like other kinds of mutual funds, money market funds pool money from numerous investors to buy into these investments, which then earn interest that the fund pays out to investors as dividends.

Money market funds have a “fixed price of $1 per share,” and they “aim to maintain their net asset value,” which “means your account value shouldn’t change other than any growth from your earnings,” said Vanguard. Their yields can vary, however.

When can money market funds make sense to invest in?

The goal of investing in a money market fund is generally to “keep your money’s value stable, easy to access and earning a competitive interest rate until you need it,” said Schwab. Money market funds tend to generate higher income than you would typically earn with a bank account.

At the same time, they are “less prone to market fluctuations than many other types of investments,” said Fidelity. They are also “subject to less interest rate risk than longer-maturing bond fund investments” due to their focus on near-term instruments. This translates to providing some level of safety and stability.

Money market funds are potentially most advantageous in a rising-rate environment. “When rates are rising, income from money market funds will typically rise as well,” said Vanguard.

Are there risks to money market funds?

One important thing to note about money market funds is that, unlike savings accounts and CDs, they are not FDIC-insured. Instead, as securities, they are protected by the SIPC. Investing always carries the risk of loss.

You will also want to be aware that the “income generated by money market funds typically won’t protect you against the loss of purchasing power over time due to inflation,” said Schwab. While the returns from a money market fund are likely “better than the nearly nothing you would receive in a standard checking account,” they are “so small, they are barely visible” when compared to investments like stocks, said the Times. Still, the stability and small wins they offer when rates are rising can make them worthwhile.

President Donald Trump was not necessarily chastened by Republicans’ historic midterm election losses last week. On Friday, the president elevated Stephen Miller, author of his administration’s most aggressive anti-immigration policies, to serve as his chief of staff. It’s an unmistakable sign that Trump is digging in for battle against the new Democratic Congress.

‘Double down on Trumpism’

Miller’s appointment is the “clearest signal” that Trump will spend the final years of his presidency reinforcing his “core beliefs” despite last week’s electoral rebuke, said The Wall Street Journal. Miller has been one of the president’s “most loyal advisers” since Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016, known for his “hard-line approach to immigration.” But incoming Democrats have an “aggressive” agenda of their own and Miller “will have his hands full.”

The chief of staff can be expected to “double down on Trumpism,” said Mark Antonio Wright at the National Review, a tendency that is not always helpful to the president. Miller’s “overheated rhetoric” on immigration during last winter’s ICE raids in Minnesota “contributed to the steep decline in the popularity of strict immigration enforcement.” He is unlikely to be found “driving a course correction” to pursue “policies more in line with the public’s preferences.”

Stephen Miller is “not what voters asked for,” said Erika D. Smith at Bloomberg. His rise is “likely to further infuriate” the U.S. public while making it more difficult for Republicans to reclaim power in 2028. If nothing else, it shows Trump has “learned nothing from the worst political shellacking in a half-century.”

‘Bunker mentality’

Miller has “unleashed billions of taxpayer dollars to brutalize and kill American citizens” via the administration’s mass deportation efforts, said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on ABC’s “This Week.” Democrats will not work with Miller and “what he represents.”

Trump’s “bunker mentality” has been exposed with Miller’s promotion, said Jacob Heilbrunn at The Spectator. There is no White House figure “more loathed among Democrats,” and choosing Miller could “accelerate the meltdown of his presidency,” if only because it reveals the president will do nothing to “placate an angry electorate.”

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As their interests expand and reading skills improve, children are lucky that literature evolves alongside them. These are the best chapter books for young readers transitioning to more complex stories.

‘Amelia Bedelia Means Business’ by Herman Parish (2013)

Parents and grandparents might remember the bumbling Amelia Bedelia from Peggy Parish’s original books. Her nephew, Herman Parish, continued that legacy of literary humor and idiom-fiddling with a series of chapter books tailored to young readers that starts with “Amelia Bedelia Means Business.” ($7, Greenwillow Books, Amazon)

‘Meet Yasmin!’ by Saadia Faruqi (2018)

Feisty second-grader Yasmin gets creative to solve everyday problems, with help from her Pakistani American family. The “colorful illustrations, short chapters” and an “approachable amount of text” create “a win-win,” said The Every Mom. ($3, Picture Window Books, Amazon)

‘Pug Blasts Off: A Branches Book’ by Kyla May (2019)

“Diary of a Pug” is another series popular among younger readers today. This installment introduces kids to Baron von Bubbles, aka Bub, the self-proclaimed world’s cutest pug. It is part of Scholastic’s Branches line of early chapter books “designed for those ready to read independently,” which helps them “transition from leveled readers” to chapter books, said Scholastic. ($8, Scholastic, Amazon)

‘The Princess in Black’ by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale (2015)

Princess Magnolia lives the royal life, but she also secretly transforms into the Princess in Black, a monster-fighting dynamo hiding her identity from the nosy Duchess Wigtower. This installment in an action-packed series for young readers is “great for read-aloud or beginning readers,” said Common Sense Media. ($18, Candlewick Press, Amazon)

Licking his wounds after last week’s midterms, market capitalization losses for his companies SpaceX and Tesla, and the announcement of his Cybertruck’s discontinuation, Elon Musk has found his latest venture. The tech billionaire hopes to get a foothold in telecommunications by acquiring one of the U.S.’s most notable mobile phone companies.

Making a ‘play’ for the US market

Musk wants SpaceX to acquire Boost Mobile via a deal with parent company EchoStar, according to The Washington Post. Marketed to low-income customers, Boost is one of the United States’ largest budget-friendly cellular companies, and a deal with SpaceX could result in Musk “gaining access to its network, which it leases from AT&T and T-Mobile,” said the Post. Such access would “allow Musk to make a play for a U.S. wireless market that equity research firm MoffettNathanson estimates is worth $235 billion.”

Musk’s Boost venture comes after he approached AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon about “buying capacity on their networks,” said TechCrunch. All three carriers declined. Together, these companies have about 100 million subscribers, far more than Boost. While the “acquisition would give SpaceX an immediate bump in subscribers,” the “true value of the deal” for the company would be getting “access to terrestrial cellular networks,” or land-based cell communications.

SpaceX was already making moves in this space. Last year, it “acquired wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar” and “recently purchased a portfolio of low-band spectrum licenses,” said The Verge.

‘Unparalleled ground coverage’

Despite Musk’s status as a divisive figure given his exorbitant wealth and unprecedented government access under Trump, some experts say there could be upsides to this deal. A joining of SpaceX and Boost would “combine SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband network with new mobile antennas, fiber connections and other ground infrastructure,” said Bloomberg, possibly bringing about “unparalleled ground coverage that makes wireless dead zones a thing of the past.”

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the deal’s prospects. It would “support Musk’s ambition to turn his business empire into an artificial intelligence powerhouse” by giving him a platform through which to create future tech, said Bloomberg, at a time when anti-AI sentiment has reached a fever pitch. Musk’s “ultimate goal” may not be to “disrupt the well-established and long-entrenched wireless industry” but rather to “create a type of network that will enable future technological breakthroughs.”

Musk may also face challenges in building the network he desires. SpaceX would “likely ​need to invest heavily in ground infrastructure, customer ​service, handset subsidies and promotions — costly areas of the wireless business where the Big Three already ​have extensive operations,” said Reuters.

When did this crime wave start?

The blitz began on a Sunday morning in Paris in October 2025. The Louvre had already opened its doors to visitors when thieves climbed up the outside of the building on a truck-mounted ladder, opened a window with power tools, and slipped into the venerable museum’s Apollo Gallery, home to France’s crown jewels. After threatening security guards, they cut through glass display cases to nab more than $100 million worth of national treasures. The whole thing took less than seven minutes, and of that haul only one crown, dropped by the robbers on their way out, has been recovered. Several people were arrested in connection with the break-in, but that hasn’t prevented “a plague of copycats,” Arthur Brand, a private art detective, told The New York Times. “Thieves all around the world see the Louvre and they think ‘Hey, don’t we have a local museum?’”

Which other museums have been hit?

There have been more than a dozen big heists over the last year, nearly all in Europe, spanning the continent from Wales to the Mediterranean. Hours after the Louvre heist, thieves lifted 2,000 gold and silver coins from a museum three hours from Paris that’s dedicated to philosopher Denis Diderot. Near Parma, Italy, in March this year, a gang busted through the gate of the Magnani Rocca Foundation with a tractor and left with paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse. A Burgundy museum lost its prized gold artifact, the 2,500-year-old torque of Vix, after a daytime robbery in July. The following month, maskless thieves paid for tickets to Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), where they freed a 200- carat diamond-and-platinum necklace from its display case with 41 hammer blows. Burglars swiped two Renoirs from the artist’s eponymous French Riviera museum in September. The trend hasn’t yet hit the U.S., but more than 1,000 historic artifacts were stolen from an Oakland museum’s off-site storage facility last year.

What happens to the stolen items?

Contraband paintings are tough to sell, because reputable art dealers can easily sniff them out. And black-market customers, knowing the risk of buying a recognizable work, will typically only cough up about 10% of the actual value. More commonly, thieves will try to force the museums to pay a ransom for the paintings, hold them as collateral in criminal deals with other gangs, or use them as a bargaining chip to negotiate for a lighter sentence in a different crime. That means paintings are a bit easier to recover: Works from the Parma and Renoir museums have now been returned. Coins, crowns, and jewels, though, are often melted down or recut into smaller gems, obliterating their historical value and making them harder to trace. “This destroys us,” said Fulgencio José Cerdán, the mayor of a Spanish town that saw its Bronze Age collection of gold artifacts stolen from a local museum in August. “It’s part of our heritage.” Thieves seek gold because the price has surged, hitting nearly $5,600 an ounce earlier this year — up 134% over 2024 prices. That makes even the riskiest break-ins worthwhile, and it’s why the recent thefts are much more brazen than the sneaky capers of the past.

What’s different about these heists?

They are faster and more violent. Museum theft “has always existed,” said Anthony Amore, head of security at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but “is without question spiking.” In 1990, the Gardner lost 13 masterpieces worth a combined $500 million, an unsolved robbery that was heavy on subterfuge, with the suspects disguising themselves as cops and spending over an hour inside. In 1911, one Louvre employee hid in the museum overnight and nicked the Mona Lisa; he was caught when he tried to sell it. But today’s burglars, who often form ad hoc teams recruited via social media, have replaced deception with brute force. According to an August Europol report, they’re “breaching premises and display cases using tools such as sledgehammers, axes, crowbars and, in some instances, explosives,” often in broad daylight. They’re also quick, sometimes getting in and out in as little as three minutes.

Why are museums so vulnerable?

Museums are soft targets that tend to have much less security than high-end jewelry stores. The Louvre’s single security camera outside the Apollo Gallery didn’t cover the window the thieves used to enter and exit. Vienna’s MAK only installed metal detectors after the necklace robbery. Many European museums even lack a dedicated security chief. Lack of funding has played a role — France cut its heritage spending by $46 million in 2025 — but so has architecture. Europe’s museums are often housed in former palaces or mansions, and curators don’t want to “undermine the beauty or historical integrity” with security retrofits, says cultural heritage lawyer Walker Schulte Schneider. Modern museums may have better security technology than their predecessors, but their designs aren’t foolproof, either. Glass facades enhance visibility, skylights serve as entry points, and spacious open galleries create blind spots.

What is being done to harden them?

Museum officials everywhere are waking up. Weeks after the Louvre heist, the museum announced an $89 million security plan and put in charge the veteran police officer who had modernized security for the Paris transport system. For smaller museums, some of which have remained closed since being targeted, experts recommend displaying replicas in lieu of their most cherished possessions or even taking priceless exhibits down altogether. While ramping up security seems like a no-brainer, museums have to consider the effect on the visitor experience. People “engage more deeply when they can approach an object, examine its detail,” Guy Turton, an audience strategist, told the BBC. “Greater distance and more prominent barriers can weaken that connection.”