In February 1987, members of a queer-student group at Queens College, in New York, started jotting down their private thoughts in a communal composition book. As in a diary, each entry was signed and dated. Members wrote about parties they’d attended, speakers they wanted to invite to campus, questions they had about their sexuality. The book, now housed in an archive at the college, was also a place to vent and snipe. In November 1991, a student wrote in all caps, “I HATE QUEENS COLLEGE.

A relatively young Ukrainian state, having freed itself from Moscow’s grasp, is trying to find its place as an independent nation in a changing world order. Moscow, however, decides to reclaim what it lost and sends an army to take Kyiv. An outnumbered Ukrainian force intercepts the Russian soldiers just north of the city. Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance.

It was a travesty—two travesties, actually, separate but inextricably linked. In May 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, a challenge that had killed more than a dozen people in the preceding decades and that scientists had once declared impossible. The catch: They breathed canisters of pure oxygen, an aid that the Everest pioneer George Mallory—one of those who died on the mountain—had once dismissed as “a damnable heresy.

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Who manages the disaster if the disaster managers are the disaster?
That’s a question that the people of the United States may have to answer soon. As hurricane season begins in the U.S., the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in disarray.

If Google has its way, there will be no search bars, no search terms, no searching (at least not by humans). The very tool that has defined the company—and perhaps the entire internet—for nearly three decades could soon be overtaken by a chatbot. Last month, at its annual software conference, Google launched “AI Mode,” the most drastic overhaul to its search engine in the company’s history.

Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at dearjames@theatlantic.com.
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Dear James,
I’m not very punk rock. Not even a little. I’m well into middle age and experiencing my first taste of the many small indignities sure to come.

Marco Restivo / Reuters
Volcanic ash and steam rise from Mount Etna, as seen from Milo, Italy, on June 2, 2025.Fabrizio Villa / Getty
A volcanic plume rises from the southeast crater of Mount Etna on June 2, 2025, seen from Catania, Italy.Marco Restivo / Reuters
Plumes of volcanic ash rise from Mount Etna, as seen from Milo, Italy, on June 2, 2025.Salvatore Allegra / Anadolu / Getty
A cloud of ash and gas rises as Etna erupts again, seen in Nicolosi, near Catania, on June 2, 2025.