I first encountered Tom Stoppard’s work in high school, incredulous at the wit and fun of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; then, decades later, found myself silenced by the ending of Leopoldstadt in a London theatre gone eerily quiet with pathos. Goodbye, one of literature’s true greats.

That’s quite a lede @newscientist.com www.newscientist.com/article/2503...

SCOOP: CDC officials on Monday linked for the first time the measles outbreak that began in Texas with another in Utah and Arizona, a finding that could end America’s status as a nation that has eliminated measles. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/h...

The CDC website now disseminates disinformation about vaccines, claiming erroneously that infant vaccines might cause autism, when we know conclusively that they do not. It is difficult to overstate just how dangerous this is. www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safe...

Nearly 1 in 3 women—about 840 million—have experienced intimate partner or sexual violence in their lifetimes according to the WHO, 316 million in the past year alone. Yet just 0.2% of global aid went to programmes focused on preventing violence against women in 2022. Absolutely insane numbers.

The Germans, of course, have a word for this — Ostalgie — the rose-tinted memories of life under communism in the DDR.

TV conspiracies: we’ve hacked their computers but they’ve perfectly cleaned up the evidence! Real conspiracies: To: conspirator From: famous person Attachment: evidence.png

“The American naturalisation system REQUIRES any alignments with communism or terrorist activities to be disclosed. I’m doubtful he disclosed them. If this is confirmed, put him on the first flight back to Uganda.” The system only dreams in total darkness.

USAID contributions cost Americans just $24 a year in taxes, having saved an estimated 92 million lives over the last two decades. Now, another estimate suggests 600,000 have already died since the Trump administration’s gutting of the agency, two-thirds of them children. This is just the start.

Well, this critic does say some excellently delicious things about a very important issue plaguing the media.

“But, you know, people don’t want to be made to feel bad about things that they like. (Understanding this would help the left win a lot more elections.)” Funny and insightful, and probably (and unfortunately) @helenlewis.bsky.social last report from Saudi Arabia for the foreseeable future.

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

Jane Goodall, the most extraordinary human, is gone. I so hope we don’t let her down, going forward, but I fear we will.

Well, at least irony is still alive and kicking. #AI

"Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, for when the time comes." — Margaret Atwood, "The Handmaid's Tale" (1985)

Well, Trump did promise to cut drug prices...

New, from me: It was a terrible week, one that inspired some truly awful takes. The worst was the effort by Bari Weiss and The Free Press to smear universities as "the biggest culprits" to blame American political violence, with faculty training "jihadis." donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-worst-...

“.. I can’t remember anyone ever telling me we can’t say anything critical about a civilian like this. He was not in our chain of command or anything,” the officer said. @nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

As the world unravels, somewhere out there, far beyond the remainder of common sense and meagreness of knowledge, a Guardian columnist decides to boil his wooden spoons and tell us all about it.

I wrote about what I think is a genuinely revealing document of elite depravity and impunity. It is shocking and sickening. But it's also a crucial moment. We're about to see what happens when conspiracy theorists actually get what they asked for but it turns out not to be what they want.

In 19th-century Vienna, it was customary for women to receive a gift upon entering a ballroom. So far, so good, right? Well, because this was the age of industry and progress, and this was Austria, not Italy with its flowers and perfumed soaps...

This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

“…the chatbot told the Guardian.”

BREAKING: The Trump administration says it's reviewing all 55 million people with U.S. visas for potential deportable violations.

Amazing, this thing

What a riveting discussion with @philippesands.bsky.social providing thoughtful insight into the origins of modern international law, its contradictions and limitations, and, most importantly, the deep human tragedy behind the terminology we so often cling to as accusation or defense.

"Evidence suggests that strangulation is now the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40. ... The samples from the women who’d been strangled showed elevated levels of S100B, a marker of brain damage." This isn't really fun and games, is it.

A sobering refresher from @andreapitzer.bsky.social for those who think history only rhymes.

NEW: Tony Blair's staff took part in a BCG project for the redevelopment of Gaza along the lines of the 'Trump Riviera' plan www.ft.com/content/0b1b...

A much-needed essay @chaykak.bsky.social looking at the way using AI affects our thinking. Given what autocorrect has done to people's spelling, he's spot on in raising the alarm about the very average, extremely mundane reality of AI-aided creativity heading our way.

If “Animal Farm” is being made into a “family comedy”, can’t wait for them to tackle “1984” — maybe a musical?

Last week, @rhodesben.bsky.social and I did a Munk Debates against Kevin Roberts and Kellyanne Conway on whether Trump is leading America into a new golden age. We won. This is from my closing statement. There’s nothing golden about a movement that bathes in gratuitous cruelty.

I have been sick for a week and I just read about "something going around" in a subreddit, which I guess is how I get my information now that the CDC is officially spending the next four years determining when and how microscopes became gay.

Reuters examination of data from the Gaza Health Ministry found that more than 1/5 of those killed were children under 12. Over 1,200 families (one of 14) were completely wiped out. About half were males aged 15-65–slightly more than Israeli estimates of the number of Hamas fighters eliminated.

At a time when so much of the conversation around AI is doom, gloom and hyperbole, here is a story about how it can be used for the common good. My latest for Al Jazeera English.

I’m sure the Stasi wish they’d thought of the phrase “crowdsourced patriotism.”

Good read by Nicolas Pelham on al-Sharaa that takes you back to his childhood, through his role in the region’s brutal wars to where Syria finds itself now. The great pretender: how Ahmed al-Sharaa won Syria econ.st/3XIbZ8Z

Russia’s ruling party gave MEAT GRINDERS to the relatives of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine and then had the bright idea to post it on social media. Sometimes you gotta wonder if apparatchiks are even human

Winston Churchill visiting the WH in 1942. Not wearing a suit

WSJ sub: “Indian Partition went smoothly enough, right? Will try to remember to check this before publishing.”

How very meta

The Donald Trump Library for Kids Who Can’t Read Good

Jim Gilmore, former governor of Virginia, when discussing opposition to Robert F Kennedy Jr’s nomination, including a letter signed by 77 Nobel laureates, just said live on air that he doesn’t necessarily consider Nobel prizes as symbols of legitimacy. I can’t even think of a snarky comment to add.

Spent today talking to several Ukrainian NGOs. That brutal aid cut, entirely crafted by the White House, is already severely affecting civilians—including displaced people, children, and veterans—as well as local humanitarians, many of whom may lose their jobs. It’s only week two. What a nightmare.

NEW: My staff has confirmed reports that Medicaid portals are down in all 50 states following last night's federal funding freeze. This is a blatant attempt to rip away health care from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed.

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

So, apparently, the salute was popularised in the theatre and silent film, and was widely used by American children to honour the flag. And then the Nazis ruined it for everyone.

I bet Jamie Oliver loves having to share a cover with Hitler. That’s some absurd yin yang.

This is going to be super interesting.

This is what restricting access to women's health and reproductive services looks like on the ground in Texas. This is the nauseating reality — not some elegiac myth of babies saved from the deathly clutch of abortion.