The idioms of a language—its jokes, expressions, and well-worn wordplay—are windows into its speakers’ values and points of view. In both French and English, certain phrases—métro, boulot, dodo (“commute, work, sleep”), for instance, or nose to the grindstone—reflect a shared assumption about labor: that work is drudgery, eating up time and hindering happiness.
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Know thyself is the most famous maxim of Greek philosophy, carved into stone on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Why? you might ask. The greatest philosophers and writers throughout history are more likely to tell you why not, so foundational is the idea of self-knowledge to a meaningful existence.
We speak with the award-winning author and journalist Omar El Akkad, whose new book about the war on Gaza is titled One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. The book expands on a viral tweet El Akkad sent in October 2023, just weeks into Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian territory, decrying the muted response to the carnage and destruction unfolding on the ground.
President Trump’s Africa envoy Massad Boulos has finished a tour of several East African nations, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he discussed a peace deal that could involve the U.S. tapping the country’s rich mineral resources, including cobalt and lithium. Several Western mining companies are already reportedly lined up to take part in the U.S.-backed mineral resources partnership.
Sudan is facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis after two years of war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Thousands have died, and some 13 million have been forcibly displaced. There are also widespread reports of sexual and ethnically motivated violence and a worsening hunger crisis.
Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, joins us as President Trump’s defiance of the courts is pushing the United States toward a constitutional crisis, with multiple judges weighing whether to open contempt proceedings against his administration for ignoring court orders. On Wednesday, U.S.
Jillian Berman joins Emily Peck to discuss her new book on our dysfunctional student loans system.
If Americans must work with their hands, we could at least build something we need.
This kind of volatility is not business as usual.
“Trump is back!” they screamed, apparently unaware that the tariffs were his idea in the first place.
“Medicaid is where most of us think they will go,” he said.
Fired workers and outside experts say the cuts leave the nation more vulnerable to health threats.
The HHS secretary’s remarks shocked staffers at the Food and Drug Administration, prompting some to walk out.
The Waves also discusses the Riverside Church controversy and the case of Sarah Milov.
What we say matters, especially depending on whom we say it to.
The Waves also discusses the case against Jeffrey Epstein and Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble.
The president is foreshadowing deals with multiple trading partners in an apparent effort to quell economic anxiety and prove his tariff plan is working.
Recent polls showed Americans were wary of tariffs, even before the president launched his plan to realign the global trade order.
The president’s sweeping tariff plan has thrown markets into chaos and risks sparking a global trade war.
He also said he isn’t worried about stock market turbulence, following the worst week in the market in two years.
The normally bullish Trump over the weekend declined to rule out the possibility of a full-blown recession as his tariff policies threaten to spark a massive global trade war.
A new set of documentaries directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney premieres April 15 and April 16 on HBO. The films in The Dark Money Game series investigate the origins and impacts of campaign finance in the U.S. “Our country is being run by a small group of people who have an enormous amount of money, and they dominate our politics,” says Gibney. “It’s almost as if bribery has become utterly legalized. It’s pay to play. It’s quid pro quo.
After Elon Musk made a public show of remedying an apparent error in DOGE’s massive cuts to foreign aid, the Trump administration has quietly doubled down on its decision to stop sending emergency food to millions of children who are starving in Bangladesh, Somalia, and other countries. Without urgent intervention, many of these children are likely to die within months, experts told me.
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Late last month, Jonathan Braun was arrested on allegations of shoving a 3-year-old, “causing a red mark on his back and substantial pain.” This is only his latest brush with the law over the past four years.
The Trump administration is mulling sharp budget cuts at health agencies.
The manosphere is mentioned explicitly for only a few minutes in Adolescence, the wildly popular Netflix show about a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering his female classmate, Katie. Its influence on the withdrawn protagonist, Jamie (played by Owen Cooper), is largely implied. Yet Adolescence’s clear reckoning with the online world that’s shaped him has come to dominate reactions to the series.
This past December, I was driving down the Trans-Amazonian Highway, near the city of Santarém, in northern Brazil, when the road disappeared into what I thought was fog. When I got out of the car, though, I realized that the haze was smoke, wafting thick and acrid from the burning forest. The week before, Santarém had registered at 581 on the air-quality index—among the worst ratings in the world.
