Jerome Groopman writes: As I am writing this, my DNA is changing. And, as you read this, so is yours. People tend to assume that the genes we inherit from our parents are a fixed blueprint for our growth and development, immutable throughout our lives, and that the DNA in each cell of our body is the same as in every other cell. In fact, changes in our DNA, known as mutations, occur from the time we are in the…
Edward Wong writes: Power plants, desalination stations, oil wells, roads, bridges and other infrastructure. They are the foundations of civilian life in Iran, and their destruction by American and Israeli forces would cause widespread suffering among the country’s 93 million people — and in most cases would be considered a war crime under international law. Yet President Trump has repeatedly threatened to do exactly that, with the aim of sending Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” as…
The Washington Post reports: Pope Leo XIV used his first Easter speech Sunday to deliver a resounding call for peace in times of renewed war, declaring, “Let those who have weapons lay them down!” “Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!” Leo said. “Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them! We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent….
The Wall Street Journal reports: On the 19th day that the oil tanker ASP Avana was stuck in the Persian Gulf, its 47-year-old captain, Rakesh Ranjan Singh, died. Singh had boarded the vessel in early February and sailed to the Persian Gulf to load crude. But his journey back to Asia ground to a halt Feb. 28 when U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iran. With no ships allowed to cross the Strait of Hormuz, under threat of attack, his ship…
Ryan Grim reports: Gulf sovereign wealth funds are undertaking a sweeping review of American investments, driven by a combination of commercial necessity and political recalibration driven by the Iran war, according to sources familiar with deliberations around the high-level financing deals. In particular, the planned merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery, made possible as a result of Gulf financing, is getting a new look. A postponed meeting of the board of the Qatar Investment Authority will reconvene within…
The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration has appealed a federal judge’s order to halt the construction of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, arguing in an emergency motion that pausing the $400 million project would raise national security risks. The motion, which was filed Friday night in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, argues that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s “shocking, unprecedented, and improper injunction” to stop construction would imperil Trump, his family and White House…
Politico reports: In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington quietly removed from its website educational resources about American racism and canceled a workshop about the “fragility of democracy.” The changes, which have not been previously reported, came as Trump cracked down on what he called “corrosive ideology” at the Smithsonian Institution, demanding a slew of alterations at the world’s largest museum network to more closely align its content with his…
AI models derive their assumptions from English-language sources based in the United States. Weiquan Lin/Moment via Getty Images By Gareth Barkin, University of Puget Sound A friend in Indonesia recently told me about a conversation he had with ChatGPT. He had typed a question in Indonesian – Bahasa Indonesia – about how to handle a difficult family dispute. The chatbot responded fluently, in perfect Indonesian, with advice about communication strategies and conflict resolution. The grammar was flawless. The tone was…
The Wall Street Journal reports: Oil tankers, container ships and bulk carriers shimmer all over the horizon to the left of the windswept beach here at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. They have been bottled up in the Persian Gulf ever since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran more than a month ago. To the right, with the Iranian coast only 40 miles away, the dark-blue sea is completely empty. Only a handful of vessels…
The New York Times reports: Iranian operatives have been digging out underground missile bunkers and silos struck by American and Israeli bombs, returning them to operation hours after an attack, according to U.S. intelligence reports. Iran has also retained a significant amount of its missiles and mobile launchers, the reports say. The Pentagon and White House this week claimed to have made substantial progress against Iran. At a briefing this week, the Pentagon said it had struck 11,000 targets in…
The Wall Street Journal reports: An Iranian drone attack last month on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia did more extensive damage than previously disclosed, current and former American officials said, showing Iran’s ability to hit Washington’s assets in the kingdom. The attack happened March 3, when an Iranian drone evaded the air defenses guarding Riyadh’s gated Diplomatic Quarter and slammed into the American compound. A minute later, a second drone flew into the hole made by the first one…
Timothy Snyder writes: We are seven months away from the most consequential midterm election in the history of the United States. Meanwhile, we are fighting a war. These are the structural conditions for a coup attempt in which a president tries to nullify elections and take permanent power as a dictator. If we see this, we can stop it, overcome the movement that brought us to this point, and make a turn towards something better. President Donald Trump and Secretary…
Pablo Andreu writes: I was born in the wee hours of Dec.15, 1980 at St. Mary’s Hospital, now Hoboken University Medical, the same hospital where Frank Sinatra was born. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I learned my family was undocumented at my birth and on through my early childhood. I was an adult by the time I realized I had gained U.S. citizenship through birthright, which the Trump administration is now attempting to strike down. On Wednesday…
The Guardian reports: As he rushed to finish off his cigarette before heading to class, Ákos, 20, confessed that he has more at stake than most as Hungarians prepare to head to the polls in the coming days. “If things remain the same, or get even worse, I can’t see a future here,” said the aspiring teacher. “There are many people who want to try living elsewhere, and that’s totally fine, but I’m not one of them. For so long…