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Many Americans may soon lose crucial federal assistance, leaving some lawmakers asking whether it’s time for Donald Trump to begin negotiating with Democrats.

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When did dinner stop being an occasion and become just another transaction? The convenience of delivery apps has quietly hollowed out one of America’s most beloved rituals, Ellen Cushing writes.

The Trump administration has taken the government shutdown as an opportunity to end federal oversight of the education services offered to more than 8 million children with disabilities in America. Last month, the Department of Education attempted to fire nearly every staff member left at the Office of Special Education Programs—an action now stuck in litigation.

On first appraisal, the nine universities that the Trump administration singled out appeared to have no real choice but to concede to the administration’s demands. As set forth in the so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, these include an oath to abide by the White House’s biological theories of gender and to show respect for “conservative” (but not liberal or centrist) values.

When Donald Trump abruptly demolished the White House’s East Wing last month, he shattered a culture of consultation with experts that has shaped Washington’s architecture for 125 years—since the last time an administration tried to massively enlarge the White House.

Tucker Carlson slapped his nicotine-pouch container down on the table and got straight into it: “Nick Fuentes, thank you for doing this,” he said. “I want to understand what you believe, and I want to give you a chance, in a minute, to just lay it out.” The two were sitting in Carlson’s barn turned podcast studio at his home in Maine.

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Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan briefly crossed paths last week. The Canadian province of Ontario arranged the encounter.

Bugonia, the latest film from the Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, begins with shots of bees. As they gently buzz about in a field of wildflowers, a voice-over intones the glory of the insects’ lives. Their ability to help another species reproduce through pollination is, the speaker marvels, like “sex, but cleaner.” Their beauty emerges from their “larger organizing principle.

Updated with new questions at 3:50 p.m. ET on October 31, 2025.
It’s said that the 17th- and 18th-century polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was the last person to know everything. He was a whiz at philosophy, law, logic, science, engineering, politics—the works. But there was also simply less to know back then; the post–Industrial Revolution knowledge explosion killed the universal genius.
Which is to say that I bet Leibniz wouldn’t know the full oeuvre of K-pop if he were alive today.

President Donald Trump’s theory of executive power does not lend much weight to the views of his predecessors—especially those who happen to be Democrats. But as the government shutdown enters its second month, Trump is showing an odd degree of respect for legal guidance first adopted under a president he has mocked: Jimmy Carter.
Government shutdowns are a relatively modern phenomenon.