On last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, a QVC spoof about a pillow took a meta turn. In the sketch, a young designer named Virginia Duffy—played by the pop star Sabrina Carpenter, this week’s host and musical guest—showed off her ergonomic neck pillow meant for long plane trips. The issue: When the bubblegum-pink cushion was draped just so on an upright stand, it revealed a distinct resemblance to female genitalia. Scandalized, the shopping-channel hosts tried to minimize the display.

This poem has been excerpted from Darrel Alejandro Holnes’ forthcoming book, All the World’s A Refuge.

Photographs by Jedrzej Nowicki
In a town called Staryi Saltiv, in northeastern Ukraine, many buildings lie in ruins after years of war, but only one has been demolished twice: the district school. Russian missiles leveled it in early 2022. The town gradually raised the money not just to reconstruct it but to enlarge and improve it, adding new facilities for disabled children.

The week began with a diplomatic breakthrough and a (fragile) cease-fire in a years-long war. It ends with another conflict stuck in a bloody, frustrating rut. Donald Trump has made it his mission to achieve peace in both. But the deal to halt the fighting in Gaza and return the last living Israeli hostages came about in part because Trump used his leverage to push both sides to make concessions.

Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty
A person dressed in a Statue of Liberty costume participates in a “No Kings” national day of protest in New York on October 18, 2025.Alyssa Pointer / Reuters
People attend a “No Kings” protest against American President Donald Trump’s policies, in Atlanta on October 18, 2025.Alyssa Pointer / Reuters
A person looks on during the “No Kings” protest in Atlanta on October 18, 2025.

When I was a kid, living in Lawrenceville, Virginia, I heard tales about how the James River was haunted: perhaps by the spirits of Indigenous people who were forced off this land, or maybe by those who gave their lives to revolution, or maybe by enslaved men, women, and children who drowned while trying to escape their plantations. The ghost stories seemed to suit a river that’s connected to America’s soul.

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One of my favorite moments of elementary-school science class was “microscope day,” a version of show-and-tell where kids brought in everyday objects to marvel at under the lens.

After Donald Trump’s win in 2024, commentators declared the so-called Resistance “dead” and “futile.” The opposition movement against Trump had been embarrassing, ineffective, a performative failure that did nothing “besides making the #Resisters feel good about themselves.” With the country now nine months into Trump’s second term, though, reports of the death of the Resistance turn out to have been exaggerated. The movement looks different than it did the last time around.