Table of contents for October 31, 2025 in Newsweek

CONCERNS OVER A SOFTENING labor market are prompting many Americans to cling on to their jobs, with some accepting lower salaries, while others are willing to take roles below their level of experience. Research by TopResume found that 66 percent of U.S. professionals could be classified as “job huggers”—sticking to their role out of financial necessity, and being anxious about leaving due to a lack of opportunities elsewhere. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of those surveyed were willing to take a job for which they were overqualified and 26 percent had already done so, while 75 percent said they would take a pay cut to keep their job, with 16 percent having accepted one. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently announced that “available evidence suggests that both layoffs and hiring remain…

FERRARI’S FIRST BATTERY-ELECTRIC vehicle, the Elettrica, will go on sale in 2026, marking the start of what the automaker sees as an important step toward growing its buyer base. “We want to bring people [to the brand] who want to only drive electric cars,” the company’s CEO Benedetto Vigna said in a presentation to investors on October 8 in Maranello, Italy. The company was shy about how much it can expand production to fit demand for the new model. In the last decade, Ferrari has sold more than 73,000 cars. It has one of the highest reported profit margins per vehicle of any automaker. In 2018, that number was $80,000 per car sold, according to Dr. Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a director with CAR-Center Automotive Research, at the time. In the first…

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent points a crowd-control weapon at a man in Chicago’s East Side on October 14 as bystanders gather following the crash of a federal vehicle during a pursuit. The Department of Homeland Security said the scene “turned hostile” and “crowd control measures were used.” Days later, on October 18, “No Kings” demonstrations drew protesters to downtown Chicago as part of nationwide actions against U.S. immigration policy.…

When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre joined an impromptu Zoom meeting on July 21, 2024, she was shocked to find out that President Joe Biden was withdrawing from his reelection bid. A lifelong member of the Democratic Party, Jean-Pierre had disapproved of how party leaders were treating Biden following his debate performance against now-President Donald Trump, but she thought that he could withstand the critics. However, when he announced his decision to pull out of the 2024 election, Jean-Pierre—the first Black person and openly queer woman to hold her position—realized that the party that had shaped her worldview and career had shifted. In her new book, INDEPENDENT: A LOOK INSIDE A BROKEN WHITE HOUSE OUTSIDE THE PARTY LINES, Jean-Pierre dissects the party politics surrounding the campaign and how she…

IT WOULD BE HARD TO IMAGINE TODAY, but for a week in the fall of 1990, it seemed almost everyone in America was watching the same thing, at the same time. Nearly 40 million people tuned in for at least one episode of Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War as it unfurled over five consecutive nights on public-access television. The miniseries pulled in an average of 14 million viewers a night—more than double the viewership of Jimmy Kimmel’s recent episode returning from his suspension. Fourteen million Americans tuning in at the same appointed hour to hear a sweeping, painstaking retelling of a historical event some 130 years prior that is widely considered the country’s original sin. It remains the most popular program ever to air on PBS. The smashing success…

NATAŠA PIRC MUSAR HOLDS OBVIOUS AFFECTION for Melania Trump. When her name comes up while Newsweek speaks to the first lady’s former lawyer in a room in the capital Ljubljana, she grins and chuckles, before remarking that Mrs. Trump still immediately replies to her emails. But Pirc Musar isn’t Melania Trump’s lawyer anymore. Instead, she is approaching the three-year mark of her term as president of Slovenia. Yet some things don’t change. She’s still in touch with the woman who has the ear of the most powerful politician there is—and the first lady hasn’t forgotten her mother tongue, Pirc Musar says with a grin. “I’m really proud of her,” says Pirc Musar, whose law firm handled cases for Melania Trump between 2016 and 2019. “I see her as a lady…

ETHAN HAWKE HAD TO WAIT ABOUT A DECADE to begin filming his latest role. Blue Moon stars Hawke as a fictionalized version of Lorenz Hart, the brilliant lyricist who worked alongside composer Richard Rodgers before Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II. In this less well-known partnership, Rodgers and Hart wrote Great American Songbook standards like “My Funny Valentine,” “Manhattan” and the titular “Blue Moon.” And the film itself is the latest outgrowth of another long-running creative partnership—between Hawke and director Richard Linklater. Opening nationwide from October 24, Blue Moon marks their ninth feature-length collaboration and the first since 2014’s Boyhood. Despite the lengthy layover, “We’ve been talking about making this movie that whole time,” Hawke says. The idea for the film dates back a dozen or so years, when…