South Asian Americans report facing rhetorical and physical attacks, egged on by right-wing politicians and intellectuals. The latter are debating the so-called Indian question of whether ethnic minorities can truly assimilate into the American community. And the conversation, critics say, has dark echoes.

‘Scourge of hate’
Indian Americans and South Asian migrants have become a “conspicuous target of online conservative anger,” said Vox. People of Indian heritage are not being “stereotyped as antisocial, criminal, coming here illegally,” said journalist Zaid Jilani to the outlet. Instead, their growing prominence in business and academic “positions that I think a lot of people have typically associated with white folks” have made them a “status threat” to middle-class Americans.

The result is a growing “scourge of anti-Indian American, anti-South Asian hate,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) to The New York Times, after a Hindu temple in Illinois (pictured above) was targeted in an alleged mass shooting plot. Critics point to rhetoric such as that used by Bo French, a Texas Republican who sparked controversy last month when he posted an image of South Asians at a college football game. The “problem” of migration is “now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,” said French on X.

Other observers cite The Indian Question, a podcast episode recorded last month by conservative commentators Jonathan Keeperman and Christopher Rufo. Many Americans “prefer to live in a homogenous [sic] society,” said Keeperman on X. Critics of Indian migration are pushing back against progressive attempts to “subdue any explicit political effort to maintain a white majority.”

‘Nativists have prevailed’
Talk of an “Indian question” amounts to the “mainstreaming of anti-Indian bigotry,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. A “historical rule of thumb” is that bad things happen when “your social identity is being made the name of a ‘question.’”

“Playing by America’s rules is no longer enough” for Indian immigrants, said Anang Mittal at Firstpost. The U.S. “told immigrants to come legally on the basis of merit, and Indians did.” But it seems the “nativists have prevailed for now.”

Antibiotic-resistant shigellosis infections have been spreading in the U.S. Many are sexually transmitted and can affect the most vulnerable communities.

What are the symptoms and transmission methods?
Shigellosis is a gastrointestinal illness caused by a group of bacteria called Shigella. Associated symptoms include acute diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and fever lasting up to seven days. In most instances, those with shigellosis can recover on their own, but patients with more severe cases may require antibiotics and hospitalization.

The primary way shigellosis spreads is via the fecal-oral route, usually from contaminated food and water. However, another transmission method has become increasingly prevalent: There’s a “distinct and intensifying sexual transmission of shigellosis,” said a study published in The Lancet. Typical preventative measures, like handwashing and food safety, are “not likely” to help with this type of spread. 

The infection is most commonly passed between men who sleep with other men. “Many men who have sex with men are unaware of the serious and increasing risk posed by sexually transmitted Shigella,” said senior study author Kate Baker in a statement.

How common is it?
Despite public concern about the illness’ spread, there hasn’t been a major outbreak. Almost 15,000 people have been diagnosed with shigellosis in the U.S. in 2026, and it has been found in 47 states, according to the most recent CDC data. These numbers are similar to last year’s count, but the number of antibiotic-resistant cases has risen.

Among nearly 17,000 Shigella species isolates with resistance data, extensively drug-resistant (XDR) isolates increased between 2011 and 2023, according to a CDC analysis. Most U.S. outbreaks “involved drug-susceptible strains and primarily affected children,” but “national surveillance data indicate that most XDR cases occurred among adult men.”

XDR shigellosis is risky for children and disadvantaged populations like the unhoused. The infection has “gone from being relatively treatable with off-the-shelf drugs” to being “close to untreatable over the course of the last decade or so,” said Baker.

Spectators watch waves breaking near Portland Bill Lighthouse on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. Storm Austen is bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the country’s southern coast, leaving thousands without power. People are “urged to avoid” flooded roads, as well as “seafronts and harbors due to waves overtopping,” said the BBC.
Henry Nicholls / AFP / Getty Images

Because a handful of authors dominate mainstream horror fiction, it can be easy to miss how rich and diverse literary horror is, including, of course, the work of Stephen King. These four novels combine sharp prose with well-crafted terror.

‘The Haunting of Hill House’ (1959)
An enormously influential work of dread, Shirley Jackson’s classic haunted house tale remains one of the rare horror books to receive literary awards. It’s one of the “20th century’s finest horror novels and maybe the definitive haunted house story,” said Lara Zarum at The New York Times.

‘The Stand’ (1978)
Among King’s dozens of books, “The Stand” remains his epic masterwork. The story details a flu named Captain Trips that wipes out 99.4% of the world’s population and forces survivors to choose between the forces of good and evil. King’s “most sweeping horror novel” is also a “kind of inventory of American culture,” said Kirkus Reviews.

‘Come Closer’ (2003)
Short enough to read in a single sitting, Sara Gran’s chilling story of an architect succumbing to demonic possession will leave readers stunned and unsettled. A book that “could damage the unwary psyche,” its “genius is in making the strange details so commonplace and incidental that ambiguity survives,” said Neil McRobert at Esquire.

‘The Grip of It’ (2017)
A troubled young couple moves from the big city and buys a small haunted house in a familiar setup made terrifying by the way the reader is plunged into nonlinearity and fear alongside the characters. In “prose that’s poetic and bereft of consolation,” author Jac Jemc “unsettles our notions of the boundaries between ourselves, our partners and anything else that may hurt us,” said Ahsan Butt at The Rumpus.