A Nashville musician once offered Kris Kristofferson some feedback on “Me and Bobby McGee,” the 1971 Janis Joplin smash Kristofferson had written. The musician loved the song’s storytelling about young lovers on the road. But, he asked, “why do you have to put that philosophy in there?”
“That philosophy” was the line “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.
On a recent Sunday morning, I sat on a cushioned mat across from Sister True Vow, a Buddhist nun at Blue Cliff Monastery. I had traveled two hours north from Brooklyn to Pine Bush, New York, to seek her perspective on the human tendency to want. “Desire and craving mean forever running and grasping after something we don’t yet have,” Sister True Vow told me, making gentle but unwavering eye contact. There was something else I wanted to know about desire, though.
Twenty years ago, Lost revolutionized television with its nonlinear storytelling, unfurling a narrative via flashbacks, flash-forwards, and even flash-sidewayses. But all of those innovations would have rung hollow if it hadn’t also given viewers some of the most memorable, complex characters in TV history.
In the fall of 2004, audiences watched with rapt attention as Dr.
Still angry about the Covid response, GOP lawmakers want to overhaul the National Institutes of Health if they win in November.
Hurricane Helene tears through the southeastern United States as scientists say climate change rapidly intensifies hurricanes. The storm devastated large swaths of the southeastern United States after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm. Officials say the death toll is likely to rise, as many are still missing. Helene is expected to be one of the costliest hurricanes in U.S.
As the Middle East gets ever closer to an all-out war, we speak with Iranian American analyst and author Trita Parsi about Iran’s response in the aftermath of Israel’s assassination of longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The powerful Lebanese militia is closely aligned with Iran and is part of the “Axis of Resistance” of forces in the Middle East opposed to Israel that also includes Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen.
We speak with Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy in Tel Aviv, who says the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday was met with “barbaric glee” by much of Israeli society. “We are getting down and down, lower and lower, believing more and more in only one thing, namely in killing and destructing,” says Levy, who warns that Israel is very likely to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon next and continue expanding the war as long as it enjoys unlimited U.S. support.
Israel is expanding its attacks across the Middle East, bombing more sites in Yemen and Lebanon over the weekend after carrying out a massive attack in the suburbs of Beirut on Friday that killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders of the militant group. Nasrallah led Hezbollah for more than three decades and was considered one of the most powerful figures in the region. Israel likely used U.S.
Air Jordans are out. “Dad shoes” are in. This week, the hosts discuss how Nike ran its cool factor into the ground.
It’s a joke hiding in plain sight.
There’s been a subtle, crucial shift that reflects the growing sense that Washington must intervene to create more housing.
The company’s direct-sales model didn’t factor in that women might actually be successful in the workplace.
Good tidings for inflation.
Some see the politicking as a moral obligation, but others see a threat to the doctor-patient relationship.
The case is part of a concerted effort by the Biden administration to lower drug prices.
As Trump pitches himself as a “leader on IVF,” GOP senators dismiss the legislation as a Democratic stunt.
A plan to expand access to the drug treatment is hung up on fears of a black market, despite bipartisan support.
The state lost millions in federal funding because it refused to offer patients a national hotline number for information about abortion.
The Treasury secretary is defending her legacy — and warning that the stability of the U.S. economy is at stake.
It was her first solo interview with a national network as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Interest rate cut “is not a declaration of victory, it’s a declaration of progress.
The move signals that the central bank is growing nervous about the declining labor market.
Biden is determined to convince a skeptical public that he strengthened the economy.
We look at the smear campaign faced by the only Palestinian American in Congress and a vocal critic of Israel, Democratic Congressmember Rashida Tlaib, after she defended the rights of student protesters. Tlaib recently criticized Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel over charges Nessel filed against 11 mostly students and alumni who were involved in a pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Michigan.
We get an update from Lebanon, where the death toll from Israeli airstrikes has risen to over 700 since Monday, following a series of explosions involving pagers and walkie-talkies in Beirut and southern Lebanon last week. The Israeli military reiterated its troops were preparing for a ground invasion of Lebanon if tensions continue to escalate. Multiple Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have appeared across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
On Thursday, federal prosecutors announced they are charging New York City Mayor Eric Adams for a bribery and wire fraud scheme spanning nearly a decade. Adams allegedly accepted illegal campaign contributions from corporations and foreign donors, including the Turkish government. Adams is accused of manipulating regulators for the Turkish Consulate and not recognizing the Armenian genocide in exchange for campaign donations and lavish gifts.
We speak with Brett Murphy, the ProPublica reporter behind a blockbuster exposé that revealed the Biden administration ignored warnings from its own experts about Israel blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza in order to keep supplying the country with weapons. USAID, the U.S.
As word spread on Saturday that Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had been killed in his underground Beirut bunker by an Israeli air strike, people began quietly reckoning with the possibility that Lebanon’s political architecture might be about to shift for the first time in more than three decades. And that, in turn, raised the prospect that locked doors might soon open across the Middle East.
Last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, the premiere of the comedy juggernaut’s 50th season, started with a battle of vibes. The lengthy cold open ping-ponged between campaign rallies for the two main presidential candidates, turning first to Vice President Kamala Harris (played by Maya Rudolph). “Well, well, well.
Illustrations by Miki Lowe
Eavan Boland is known as a poet of history, but she might’ve taken issue with that label. As she told The Believer in 2014, she was interested not in history but in the past. Boland—who died in 2020 at age 75—saw the former as the official narrative, telling the kind of stories that showed up not only in school textbooks in her native Ireland but also in the poetry of her contemporaries. These writings didn’t seem to reflect the private lives of ordinary people.