‘Social media is the new tabloid’
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
‘It needs to be said again: Leave Britney alone’
Kat Tenbarge at The New York Times
Britney Spears can “finally live on her own terms,” but an “online chorus of onlookers has howled about how she’s displayed that freedom on social media,” says Kat Tenbarge. This “time, it isn’t just the paparazzi following Ms. Spears’ every move,” as on social media “anyone can play the role of gossipmonger.” This “creates a cacophony that is difficult to ignore.” A “large audience’s benevolence” goes “only so far before it curdles into something far more sinister.”
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‘The Lorax’s warning is clear. Will we speak for the trees and our wildlife?’
Jane Davenport at USA Today
President Donald Trump’s “administration is seeking to implement sweeping rollbacks to some of our country’s bedrock wildlife regulations,” and this “would degrade habitat on public lands, undermine decades of recovery efforts and accelerate the extinction crisis we face today,” says Jane Davenport. They “represent the modern-day ax at the base of our Truffula trees. And, unless we act, the ax will keep swinging.” This “unprecedented dismantling of our conservation framework would trade irreplaceable ecosystems for short-term profits.”
‘How can overworked and disengaged college students still get straight A’s?’
The Dallas Morning News editorial board
Walk “onto a college campus and you’ll hear the same refrain: Students are exhausted,” says The Dallas Morning News editorial board. Students “feel exhausted and anxious, yet they keep delivering on the traditional indicators of success — good grades and impressive résumés flush with clubs and extracurriculars.” They “might be spending less time on their academic work, or turning to tools like ChatGPT to help complete assignments, but their results are stronger than ever.”
‘The Springsteen movie shows the problem with today’s music biopics’
Carl Wilson at Slate
The “worst thing I can say about writer-director Scott Cooper’s new biopic about the making of ‘Nebraska’ is that I can’t imagine people bothering to love or to hate it that much,” says Carl Wilson. “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” is a “worthy try at the nearly impossible task of depicting cinematically an artist making a deeply interior turn.” But its “only real courage is in that attempt, not in its own content or form.”
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15 years after Fukushima, is Japan right to restart its reactors?Today’s Big Question Balancing safety fears against energy needs
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The Week contest: Farewell, RoombaPuzzles and Quizzes
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Political cartoons for January 21Cartoons Wednesday's political cartoons include a terrifying spectacle, an absent Congress, and worst case investments
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Halligan quits US attorney role amid court pressureSpeed Read Halligan’s position had already been considered vacant by at least one judge
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Can anyone stop Donald Trump?Today's Big Question US president ‘no longer cares what anybody thinks’ so how to counter his global strongman stance?
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How Iran protest death tolls have been politicisedIn the Spotlight Regime blames killing of ‘several thousand’ people on foreign actors and uses videos of bodies as ‘psychological warfare’ to scare protesters
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‘The science is clear’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
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Trump’s Greenland ambitions push NATO to the edgeTalking Points The military alliance is facing its worst-ever crisis
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Venezuela: Does Trump have a plan?Feature Oil and democracy are both on the table
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Trump ties Greenland threat to failed Nobel Peace bidSpeed Read ‘I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,’ Trump said
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The Board of Peace: Donald Trump’s ‘alternative to the UN’The Explainer Body set up to oversee reconstruction of Gaza could have broader mandate to mediate other conflicts and create a ‘US-dominated alternative to the UN’
