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Donald Trump’s efforts to change the architecture of Washington, D.C. have included projects such as repainting the Reflecting Pool, tearing down the East Wing of the White House, and proposing the construction of a triumphal arch.

On a recent morning partway through France’s historic heat wave, Dhafer Kahri, an air-conditioning technician, let me join him on a house call to an apartment in Paris’s 16th arrondissement, where he was trying to bring a unit back to life. Kahri’s phone rang so often—several times an hour, all day long—that he worked with his AirPods in.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
For something that sounds so simple, leisure can be surprisingly difficult. Give people an hour with nothing scheduled, and many fill it with thoughts of to-dos: the unanswered email, the errand that’s been put off, the project due next week.

This article contains spoilers through the series finale of The Bear.
If an episode of The Bear were a dish being served at the show’s titular restaurant, the recipe would probably go something like this: In a saucepan, combine headache-inducing worry, financial pressure, and familial dysfunction. Stir vigorously until the mixture boils over and causes the staff to scream.

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If there’s one thing Donald Trump wants Americans to understand, it’s that he knows how to build.
At a Pennsylvania petrochemical plant in 2019, he told workers, “I was a good builder. I built good. I love building.” Talking to reporters in the spring: “What I do best in life is build.

Donald Trump cares deeply about the Justice Department, and he appears to care about exactly one thing: an attorney general who will do whatever he says, specifically in the realm of trying to lock up as many of his political enemies as possible.
William Barr, a former attorney general under Trump and an esteemed legal mind within the conservative movement, also cares deeply about the Justice Department, but for different reasons.

If you wanted to make an argument that we are all living in some cruel simulation, a key piece of evidence might be that the news keeps providing us with absurd, occasionally quite alarming metaphors for what it’s like to exist in 2026. To wit: The London School of Economics recently canceled an event on extreme heat because of an extreme-heat warning issued by the United Kingdom’s Met Office.

In stifling apartments and sweaty row houses in England, Germany, and even Scandinavia, some Europeans are considering a very American idea: They really need an air conditioner.
One of their most accessible options, though, might feel unfamiliar to anyone accustomed to central air. Among Europe’s commonly used types of air conditioning is a clunky, inefficient unit that stands a few feet high and has a wide exhaust tube meant to go out a window.

The six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have made one thing clear: People may have rights, but in many cases they have no way to enforce them. Four decisions released this week have that paradox at their core.
Two of them, both issued Tuesday, held that the plaintiffs lacked “causes of action”—the legal authorization to sue to vindicate their federal rights. In Cisco v.