Earlier this week, we learned that a senior State Department official called Secretary of State Marco Rubio stupid. The insult was delivered using peculiar phrasing — “low IQ” — that’s actually quite telling about the nature and ideas of the American right today. The official in question, Darren Beattie, is the acting under secretary of state […]

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff. Today I’m focusing on negotiations between the US and Ukraine, where new developments have immediate ramifications for the war in Europe — and for our understanding […]

Civil rights advocates are accusing the Trump administration of trampling the First Amendment following the arrest of an immigrant who was involved with pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly showed up at Mahmoud Khalil’s university-owned apartment in Manhattan on Saturday and arrested him without telling him or his pregnant US […]

If I ever need a reminder that I’m not a natural extrovert, I need only to look at the journal I kept during the early days of my improv classes. “I am having incredible dread about improv tomorrow,” I wrote one day. “I would literally pay any amount to get out of this class,” I […]

Exactly five years ago today, after more than 118,000 cases and more than 4,200 deaths across 114 countries had been recorded, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic.  With the virus spreading rapidly around the world, the need for a vaccine was desperate — but the prior record for the fastest development […]