My grandfather was born in 1882 in the small Ukrainian town of Zawale, which was part of the vast, multiethnic Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1914, this mega-state, like so many European nations, threw itself into a world war with frenzied enthusiasm. My grandfather later told my father how puzzled he had been to watch thousands of happy young men—really still just boys—boarding trains in Vienna, cheering as they went off to what was almost certainly their death.

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Demonstrators hold signs as they march down Dolores Street protesting the Trump administration during the “No Kings” rally in San Francisco on June 14, 2025.Fritz Nordengren / ZUMA Press Wire / Reuters
A protester carries an “Impeach Trump” sign among others in front of the Iowa State Capitol during the “No Kings” mass protest in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 14, 2025.

The story I’d heard was that Mick Jagger bought his first Clifton Chenier record in the late 1960s, at a store in New York’s Greenwich Village. But when we talked this spring, Jagger told me he didn’t do his record shopping in the Village. It would have been Colony Records in Midtown, he said, “the biggest record store in New York, and it had the best selection.” Jagger was in his 20s, not far removed from a suburban-London boyhood spent steeping in the American blues.

Early this morning, a gunman apparently impersonating a police officer targeted two Democratic Minnesota state lawmakers in their homes. First, he shot State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, who were seriously wounded. Law-enforcement officials believe the same gunman then shot Melissa Hortman, who served as Minnesota’s speaker of the House from 2019 to 2024. She was killed, along with her husband, Mark.

This is the week that Gavin Newsom stopped thinking so much.
The governor of California has found himself in a hot swirl of events: Federal authorities are patrolling streets, ICE agents are raiding Home Depots, and protests (mostly though not entirely peaceful) are spreading across the state. President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, very much against Newsom’s wishes. He also endorsed the idea of Newsom being arrested.

When I caught Donald Trump by phone this morning, the president wanted to make one thing clear: “America First” means whatever he says it does.  “Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,” Trump told me. “For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.