Before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, young Africans were asked whether they expected their continent to fare better under Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Across a range of measures, responses to the African Youth Survey showed Biden as a better bet (42%-44%) than Trump (23%-24%). Cut to the most recent African Youth Survey, and nearly two-thirds of the 18- to 24-year-old participants believe Trump’s leadership could benefit their countries. That’s despite the president’s foreign aid cuts, dismantling of development programs, and “disparaging remarks about the continent,” said Foreign Policy.

‘Bombastic, straight-talking’
Trump has “seldom been polite” about Africa, said The Economist, “allegedly dismissing Nigerians as ‘hut-dwellers’ and African states as ‘shitholes.’” Yet he’s “more popular in Africa than in any other region.”

In Nigeria, the most populous African nation, there has long been a “large affinity toward him,” said The Guardian. His image as a “bombastic, straight-talking, self-made billionaire made his books a hit” even before he became president. He “strikes a chord,” and his business acumen is admired. 

Nearly 80% of Nigerians have confidence in Trump to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” according to a 2025 Global Attitudes Survey by the Pew Research Center. That’s over 20% higher than the same survey recorded in 2017. 

‘Defender of family values’
Many Nigerian Christians see Trump as the only president to defend them, as his administration claims Islamist groups are persecuting them. There’s an “overall African evangelical love for Trump,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. African Christians share with American evangelicals a feeling of “being simultaneously persecuted by secular authority and pressured by a cultural momentum,” particularly concerning sexuality and gender. Trump is viewed as a “defender of family values.”

The so-called manosphere exerts a strong influence in Africa, and it views Trump as a “positive role model,” said Foreign Policy. In South Africa, he also enjoys strong support among the anti-migrant movement. “As an African, what resonates with me most about the America First message is not that Africa should become America,” said a member of the anti-migrant group Operation Dudula, but that African countries “should also put their own citizens first.”

While glucagon-like peptide-1s have been widely celebrated for transforming weight loss, some who attempt to use the medications find themselves in a less-studied patient category called nonresponders. This minority of people haven’t experienced any significant change in weight even after adjusting their dose or switching brands.

What are the influencing factors?
Between “9% and a third of participants” in clinical trials for GLP-1 weight loss drugs lose less than 5% of their body weight after months of use, which is the threshold associated with health improvements, said The Guardian. Now, researchers are “trying to work out why.”

For now, the “short answer” to why some people don’t respond is “we don’t really know,” said Alexander Miras, an obesity expert at Ulster University, to The Guardian. Research suggests factors such as “motivation, intelligence, education and socioeconomics” are not predictors. But characteristics such as age, sex and whether or not someone has Type 2 diabetes do appear to have an effect. 

Certain medical factors like “thyroid disorders” can “disrupt metabolism,” said Yale Medicine. People with “impaired glucose regulation,” including those with diabetes, therefore tend to “lose less weight on these medications.” 

Studies have also suggested “ancestry might have an impact,” with the medications “most effective in people of European ancestry and least effective in people of African American ancestry,” said The Guardian. And some labeled nonresponders simply “do not take the medication correctly” or “discontinue treatment before adequate therapeutic effect can be achieved,” said biologists Nadine Wehida and Ahmed Elbediwy at The Conversation. 

Is there hope for nonresponders?
There’s “no reliable way” to predict what group one will fall into when trying GLP-1s, said Stanford Medicine News Center. The good news is that “you don’t have to wait long to find out.” If the dose is not associated with weight loss, “waiting three months on the same dose is not going to give you more answers,” said Sun Kim, an endocrinologist at Stanford Medicine. You should “increase the dose and reassess.” Whether it’s working tends to become clear within a few weeks.

There’s a “series of promising new drugs in development,” said The Guardian. In the meantime, for nonresponders still struggling to lose weight, “weight-loss surgery” can be a good option.

Frances Tiafoe hugs fellow American tennis pro Alex Michelsen after beating him in a lengthy U.S. Open quarterfinals comeback. Michelsen “cried on” Tiafoe’s shoulder after the match’s “devastating end,” said ESPN. “We’re just good friends,” Tiafoe said to the media. “I just wanted to come up there and dap him up.” 
Jennifer Pottheiser / USTA / Getty Images

 Jean-Georges Vongerichten, the prolific chef and restaurateur in New York City, operates more than 45 restaurants around the world and has written five cookbooks. All of them capture the remarkable way he merges simplicity and elucidative flavor combinations. His fourth book, 2011’s “Home Cooking with Jean-Georges,” does so in particularly utilitarian fashion.

Cooking with eyes wide open
Take his watermelon salad, a ferocious overturning of how you think about a favorite fruit. The rich funk of the blue cheese and resonant twang of the black pepper convince the watermelon to let its sweetness glow. The fruit’s juicy core tangoes with the olive oil’s grassy unctuousness. Pop, pop goes the flaky salt.

In the recipe’s intro, Vongerichten offhandedly notes the salad “tastes even better when the watermelon is cold and the cheese is room temperature and soft.” Texture steps into the spotlight and turns a sublime recipe all the grander. 

Vongerichten tosses this intel at the reader as an aside. He cannot help himself. Wisdom plops out of him like ice in a sleet storm. This is a book in which the tricks, takeaways and techniques are embedded in the recipes themselves. 

Famous chef, best-in-class writer
A chef creating a cookbook is only as reliable as their writer. For “Home Cooking,” Vongerichten enlisted one of the finest in the game, Genevieve Ko, an editor at The New York Times. She ensures the recipe’s instructions are as pristine and legible as Vongerichten’s cooking is nimble and gleaming.