The DOJ Wants “AI Dominance” at Any Cost

Encyclopedia Britannica, the publisher of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Strike 3, an adult-film company, may not seem to have much in common. But they all agree on one thing: They want payment for the use of their work in training AI models. In the past year, each of them has brought a lawsuit against the big AI companies, claiming that their content was used to train models without permission.

The Climate Movement Is Out of Big Ideas

The day the Biden administration celebrated the first major piece of climate legislation in U.S. history, the weather happened to be sublime. The White House’s South Lawn, a billiard-table green, stretched out beneath a cerulean sky. Ben Beachy, who served as a special assistant to President Biden and would help oversee the law’s implementation, told me that “it felt like the dawn of a new era.”

The Lesbian Bar That Broke the Internet

Way back in the wilds of 2013, I organized an event on feminism at a public venue in London. I was then the online editor of a left-wing magazine, and we had some of the best feminist columnists around. What a chance to show them off! A warm and supportive evening to celebrate a social movement that was then having a resurgence! Can you guess where this is going?!

Maybe Serially Interviewing People Is Not a Great Way to Find Love

Many modern daters seem to have the same complaint: water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Possible mates abound—on dating apps, in the databases of professional matchmakers—but none of them appeal.

Maybe Alex Gibney Did Elon Musk a Favor

Watching Musk can feel a bit like staring into the sun—uncomfortable and unpleasant, given that the new documentary is almost four hours long and is filled with distressing footage of the richest man in the world. Despite Elon Musk being a near-permanent fixture in the headlines, the film pushes viewers to pay even closer attention to him, arguing that Musk’s motivations for amassing so much power are as important to scrutinize as how he did so. Maybe the mogul truly seeks to establish a future in which people walk on Mars.

Photos of the Week: Human Tower, Pumpkin Pyramid, Monster Town

The Americans Having the Most Sex

In the popular imagination, religious faith and a thriving sex life don’t tend to go together. Movies, books, and TV shows depict religious couples as sexually inhibited or dysfunctional. For example, in Caro Claire Burke’s best-selling novel, Yesteryear—soon to be a movie starring Anne Hathaway—a Scripture-quoting tradwife puts up a good front for Instagram but is privately miserable with her husband, who not only is passive but also struggles to perform in the bedroom.

The Myth of the Apolitical Concert Comes Crashing Down

Among the many reckonings sparked after the rapper Macklemore was booted from Ed Sheeran’s tour earlier this month, one of the more amusing ones has been about taste. Macklemore, who’d gotten ejected after saying “Free Palestine” onstage, is widely seen as a goofy mascot of Millennial cringe. Sheeran, who put out a statement declining to share his personal views on “this devastating conflict” and then continued his tour, is a folk-pop singer beloved at children’s birthday parties.

How Exactly Is AI Supposed to Kill Us All?

Ever since Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, announced on X that he was resigning because “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Americans have become preoccupied with the apocalypse. A frantic debate is unfolding over whether and how to slow down the pace of AI development to avoid some kind of cataclysm.

The Houthis Have a Rich Sense of Irony

When U.S. forces launched air strikes against the Houthis in March 2025, Michael Waltz, then the national security adviser, celebrated in a Signal text chat with other senior Trump-administration officials (and the editor in chief of this magazine) by posting three emojis—the fist bump, the American flag, and fire. Steve Witkoff, the Middle East special envoy, dropped American-flag and prayer-hand emoji, along with a flexed bicep. President Trump, later that month, declared that the Iran-backed terror group in Yemen was “absolutely on the run.”

Trump’s Public Service Announcement: ‘Love Me’

The campaign-style ad starts with grainy video footage of President Trump, followed by a clearer look at his red-bathed profile, as his voice promises: “Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America.” Then comes the strobe-style rapid display of images of the president. A pause. Then a dozen more Trumps. The pattern repeats several times.

Trump Should Stop Hosting Summits

State visits are a normal and necessary part of diplomacy. National leaders should, from time to time, sit with one another in person and have candid conversations. Summit meetings between the American president and his counterparts from Moscow and Beijing are particularly tricky because of the innately tense relationship between two adversaries.

A Time-Honored Midterm Tradition That Almost Never Works

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Democratic Staffers Can’t Stop Complaining About Their Bosses

In February 2024, according to a former staff member who told the story to The New York Times, Representative Mary Peltola, an Alaska Democrat running for the Senate, pushed an aide. As the Times put it in a report published yesterday, Peltola “shoved a male employee in the chest with one hand, causing him to stumble backward.”

Why Fauda Is So Popular in the Arab World

Before this week, I’d never watched an episode of Fauda, the Israeli-made, Netflix-distributed counterterrorism thriller. The show stars Lior Raz as Doron Kabilio, an undercover Israeli mista’arvim (Arabic-speaking) operative who over the course of the show infiltrates various Hamas and Hezbollah cells.

Committed Parents Can Only Overcome So Much

Every parent can empathize with the wrenching, humiliating experience of trying to do what’s best while only making things worse. But very few could stomach discussing these failures publicly. One recent exception is the New York Times Magazine writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, who this week published a self-excoriating essay titled: “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?” In it, Hannah-Jones lays out the consequences of enrolling her daughter in troubled New York City neighborhood schools for the sake of “upending the status quo.”