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Drawn to the coast of her youth and with a yearning for more space to raise her young family, Arabella Wilson, set her home search on Victoria’s rugged western coastline, where a lazy Sunday drive resulted in a surprise discovery. “Spotting the roadside ‘for sale’ sign was a stroke of luck and fate – I organised a viewing right there and then,” Arabella laughs. “The moment I walked in, I knew instantly that this was ‘the one’ and that Chris, my husband, would love it.” The couple – who have two young daughters, Marlowe and Lottie – swiftly purchased the property, and a short time later swapped their city living in Melbourne for a laid-back life by the beach. “One of the things that I love most is the fact that…

Sometimes, in the winter, you just want a little hygge, that sense of cozy well-being signified by balsam-scented candles, puffy coverlets, and lumpy sock knitting. For your other, darker moods, there’s Scott Cooper’s The Pale Blue Eye, a chilly murder mystery set at West Point in 1830 in which a taciturn local detective, Christian Bale’s Augustus Landor, enlists the help of a young cadet in solving a rash of homicides at the school. The cadet, played by English actor Harry Melling, is a hunched, pale lad whose sentences unspool in loquacious curlicues. He seems out of place at a military academy, and pretty much out of place anywhere practicality and speed might be valued. But he already knows he’s a poet, and though he hasn’t yet made a name for…

When Christopher Columbus returned to Spain from his first voyage to the Americas, he brought news of a people adorned with gold. It sparked a Spanish gold rush, which would run like a glittering seam through the whole history of Spain’s exploration and conquest of the Americas. But reality often belied the wild imaginings of the Spanish conquistadores. Hernán Cortés, having overthrown Aztec Mexico, seized a cache of gold, silver, and precious stones valued at two billion pesos. Expectations soared. But then suddenly sources of Mexican gold and silver seemed to dry up until the Viceroyalty of New Spain, established in 1535 to govern the lands Spain conquered in the New World, sought new territory for mining. Even before the arrival of Cortés, the search for gold was directed south, to…

RUSSIA’S WAR IN UKRAINE HAS EXACERBATED food shortages—already worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic—and shed light on global agriculture’s massive nutrient and energy needs. Most fertilizers are made from coal or natural gas, and Western sanctions on Russia, which is the world’s top fertilizer exporter, have further increased natural gas and fertilizer prices. In June, the cost of fertilizer nearly surpassed its August 2008 peak. As a result, farmers could be forced to reduce global fertilizer use by as much as 7 percent next season—the largest decline since 2008. Use is projected to fall the most in sub-Saharan Africa. In May, the president of the African Development Bank warned that fertilizer shortages could lead to a 20 percent decline in food production on the continent. These fertilizer shortages are a burgeoning crisis:…

Having punched well above its weight for several decades and making long-lasting impressions in diverse and competitive international markets, Wales’ economy is riding high despite the challenges triggered by the U.K.’s departure from the EU. The proud and ambitious country of three million people is no stranger to adversity and a strong part of its national identity has been chiseled from its highly successful transformation from a predominantly agricultural-dependent economy to one concentrated on industrial and service-based activities. As well as hosting cutting-edge factories and research and development operations for blue-chip companies like Airbus — which has a huge factory in North Wales — the nation offers a wealth of investment and commercial opportunities in sectors including life sciences, technology, renewable energies and tourism. At the same time, the Welsh Government is…

If anyone knows the secret to happiness, it’s surely the people who have dedicated their careers to studying it. The first thing they’ll tell you? Being happy all the time isn’t a feasible—or even desirable—goal. “It’s not a yellow smiley face,” says positive-psychology expert Stella Grizont, founder and CEO of Woopaah, which focuses on workplace well-being. “It’s being true to yourself and all the emotions that come up.” Grizont was among 18 leading happiness experts surveyed by TIME about their daily habits, and the professional insights they’re most likely to apply to their personal lives. The results are illuminating—and could help all of us boost our mood and well-being. The meaning of happiness is, to an extent, subjective. But nearly every expert we surveyed emphasized the same cocktail of ingredients: a sense…

Fighting during World War II led to surprising discoveries near the Bulgarian city of Kazanlak. Bulgaria had sided with Nazi Germany, and toward the end of the war, the country was bombed by the Allies from the west, while the threat of Soviet invasion loomed in the east. To protect their lands, the Bulgarian Army built antiaircraft defenses near the central city of Kazanlak. These works set off a remarkable series of archaeological discoveries that would hugely expand knowledge about the ancient peoples who lived in the region thousands of years before World War II. Their kingdom was called Thrace. Horses and Gold Ancient Thrace extended over what today is Bulgaria, northwest Turkey, southern Romania, and southeast Serbia. Not unlike 1940s Bulgaria, Thrace sat at a geopolitical crossroads, surrounded by great rival…

A February poll found that 71 percent of South Koreans wanted their country to have nuclear weapons. Another in May found that 70.2 percent supported indigenous nuclearization, with 63.6 percent in support even if it violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The drivers, unsurprisingly, are North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs, and China’s growing belligerence. These factors impact the Japanese nuclearization debate, too, though interest there is noticeably lower. The United States has long opposed South Korean and Japanese counter-nuclearization. But in the light of the Russia-Ukraine war, Washington should not hegemonically dictate the outcome of its allies’ WMD debates. NATO anxiety over possible Russian use of WMDs following its invasion of Ukraine illustrates the potential limits on U.S. counter-escalation when facing a nuclearized opponent. Western pundits have been…

Moscow, Idaho The man accused in the mysterious killing of four University of Idaho undergraduates stabbed in their home appeared in court last week as details emerged revealing how police honed in on a 28-year-old criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University. Bryan Kohberger was arrested Dec. 30 at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania. Investigators said DNA from a piece of trash recovered outside the home was a strong match for DNA on the knife sheath found in one of the victims’ beds. Investigators reportedly used forensic genealogy to identify relatives of Kohberger’s whose DNA in databases matched that on the sheath. Kohberger also drove a white Hyundai Elantra like the one videoed leaving the murder scene, and police say his phone data indicated he left and returned home during…

A few years ago, it might have been daunting to try to start a union at an arts organization during times of economic uncertainty. But that’s exactly what Jorie Moss, 34, and a group of professional singers did in early December when they asked the Philadelphia Orchestra Association to recognize them as a union so they could negotiate a contract. A recession may be coming, says Moss, but the pandemic changed what workers are willing to tolerate. “The time that we all had to sit in our rooms and think about what we’ve done—I’m talking about the pandemic—gave us a chance to reflect on the fact that these are conditions that we don’t have to stand for, we should be treated better, and we deserve to ask for it,” she says. It’s…

All the talk right now is about hardware capable of faster and faster speeds. PCIe 5.0 in particular has gotten a lot of attention with Intel’s 12th-generation Alder Lake and AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 processors often in the news as of late. These next-gen CPUs bring support for the cutting-edge specification to mainstream PCs. Such widespread adoption can put pressure on to get the fastest model possible when buying an SSD, especially in the wake of recent announcements of consumer PCIe 5.0 drives that are face-meltingly fast. But as exciting as new tech is, you can still live a very speedy digital life with a less cutting-edge SSD, without giving up too much responsiveness in the process. In fact, waiting for high-end specs to trickle down to a mid-range budget can…

From the start, Huerto Rico was like no urban farming start-up I’d visited before. When I approached its then-headquarters in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, for the first time in 2019, I became a bit nervous. As an editor at an agriculture-focused magazine in New York, I had seen big money scale up production of hydroponic lettuce, herbs, and—yes—mushrooms, which are Huerto Rico’s focus. But these headquarters looked like a nondescript suburban home, not the warehouses I was accustomed to, with their sleek technology controlling temperature, light, and humidity. Sebastían Sagardia, Huerto Rico’s founder, answered the door in a baseball cap and T-shirt. He had quit his advertising job a few months earlier, following his dream to bring specialty culinary mushrooms to the Puerto Rican market. Sagardia rented the space from an owner…

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless previously earned our Editors’ Choice award for wireless gaming headsets thanks to its clear audio, strong noise cancellation, and easily swappable batteries—but that said, it costs $349.99. If you like that headset’s features but don’t want to spend so much money, check out the Arctis Nova Pro. The wired version of the headset is compatible with Nintendo Switch, PC, and PlayStation (or Xbox, depending on which version you buy) and features robust sound, useful EQ software, and excellent build quality. But, it exchanges wireless connectivity and active noise cancellation (ANC) for Hi-Res Audio support. If you don’t mind that trade-off, you’ll find that the Arctis Nova Pro is one of the best wired gaming headsets on the market, making it worthy of our Editors’…

IN WESTERN SLOVENIA, two hours from Ljubljana, the Soča River cuts through the hills around a cluster of storybook villages, in a region where the Julian Alps meet the Italian border. But on this late winter morning, a parade of monsters is gathering on the outskirts of the town of Ukanje (pictured above). It’s part of Pust (pronounced Poost), Slovenia’s version of Carnival, with roots in pre-Christian ritual. This traditional pre-Lenten celebration has evolved and adapted through the centuries, at times in response to church leaders and, in later years, a socialist regime. But it has always retained its spirit of seasonal rebirth. Today Pust is one of Slovenia’s biggest cultural events. Festivalgoers dress up in elaborate, handmade costumes and masks, some wearing belts of cowbells that clatter as they traipse through…

This June, Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress settled on a former governor of Lagos state, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as its flag-bearer for the 2023 elections. Slightly over a week earlier, the largest opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had chosen former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as its own. Both choices ended the possibility that the next president of Africa’s most populous country would be someone belonging to an emerging—rather than dying—generation. Tinubu claims to be 70, although his opponents say he’s at least 80, while Abubakar is 75. To be sure, older presidential candidates are a familiar sight in many countries, not least the United States. But the average age in Nigeria is just over 18, making the contrast with much older contenders even sharper. The problems don’t end there,…

Sports mode on the V4 S is nuts. So much fun: 170 horsepower on tap to loft the front wheel, charge between corners, give sportsbikes a serious hurry-up … the adrenaline rush is amazing. This is a high-power Ducati, and it shows. It’s seriously fast, fast enough for fun days at racetracks – yet slip it into Enduro mode and it’ll happily charge down dirt roads. Performance, versatility and then there’s touring ability, especially if you add the optional panniers. And it’s Ducati red. And it’s actually pretty good looking … for an adventure bike. But how much of an adventure bike is the Multistrada V4? Ducati has been building Multistradas for decades. The early models, powered by the old air cooled L-twins, were as ugly as anything I can think of from the…

On a drizzly December evening in Washington, D.C., Kimberly Mata-Rubio marched from Union Station to Capitol Hill with dozens of other families from Uvalde, Texas. Her 10-year-old daughter Lexi Rubio was murdered in the shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24. Mata-Rubio had never been on a plane before the shooting, but this was now her seventh trip to Washington in as many months to pressure lawmakers to pass restrictions on assault weapons. When the march ended, Mata-Rubio, 33, was weeping. This is not the vocation that Mata-Rubio envisioned for herself, but it is now her future. While she’s taking on the legislative battles, she is also navigating her complicated and painful grief. She is mourning the loss of her daughter—but also the loss of the life she and her…

As the global economic head-winds that buffeted countries during and after the COVID-19 crisis begin to recede, some nations are emerging in far better shape than others, having handled the impact of the pandemic in a proactive and positive way. The Philippines is one such success, with the government’s economic strategy striking just the right balance and laying the foundations for a record year of foreign direct investment of $10.5 billion in 2021. That up-beat trend has continued into 2022, with FDI up 8% year-on-year in the first two months of the year to $1.7 billion and ministers upgrading their full-year economic growth forecasts to 7-8% for 2022 and 6-7% for each of the next two years. “For the Philippines, at the height of the pandemic, we didn’t sit idly by and…

As globalization was gaining steam in the 1990s, Western publics learned about a new concept: off-shoring. Even then, it was often unpopular with the public, even as corporate executives gleefully embraced the prospect of cheaper—and less empowered—labor. And China, with its well-trained workforce and growing middle class keen to buy Western goods, was the ideal combination of manufacturer and market. What a difference a couple of decades make. Now companies are trying to move production to friendly countries where they won’t need to worry that they’ll be caught in the geopolitical line of fire. Friendshoring has arrived. “President Bush is on an eight-day tour of Asia. He’s visiting American jobs,” talk show host David Letterman quipped in 2005. Lots of American jobs had indeed left the country—but that was just the…

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, panicky headlines about a global wheat shortage appeared. As a crop scientist, I knew that wasn’t right. The regional supply crunch was real: Nations that source grain from the Black Sea suddenly had to order it from farther away, upsetting supply chains. But it wasn’t a global shortage. Thanks to record crops in India, Australia, and elsewhere, there was enough to feed everyone. We just had to move it. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the news, though. Coverage of food supply chains featured scare tactics and distortion that drove speculation and trade restrictions, worsening the problem. By early July, global commodity prices finally fell to reflect the availability of food, rather than speculation. Yet while the panic was unfounded, the suffering it caused…

In a field of bare red dirt in São Paulo state, Paula Costa is trying to turn back the clock. Five hundred years ago, this land was part of the Mata Atlantica, a dense, diverse rain forest that covered 15% of Brazil. Its trees stretched more than 2,000 miles along the eastern Atlantic coast, and far inland. But today 93% of the forest has been stripped of trees, with much of it turned over to monoculture farming. Costa, a 36-year-old biologist, bangs the ground with her fist: it’s hard, the dry soil degraded by the tropical sun. Yet on this sweltering morning in March 2022, a few green shoots have forced their way through the surface. The rain forest is making a comeback. “These will be jack beans. These are millet.…

Getting to the village of Nongtraw in northeastern India involves navigating down 2,500 steep steps. The hourlong descent is one reason the 200 or so people who live deep within the valley where the village lies, all members of the Khasi tribe, rarely travel far from home. The beauty of this place pulls you in. From the top step, you can just make out a small rectangle of reddish-brown soil, mostly hidden by tropical vegetation and tree cover. This is the only clearing amid the miles of thick and lush green below. As you walk deeper into the valley, you begin to see that the rectangle is Nongtraw’s village square, the community’s focal point, surrounded by some 30 bamboo houses. Toward the end of the descent, tree branches seem to reach…

Every January, nearly half of Americans pledge to make big changes. Why will most of us fail? How did the tradition start? New Year’s resolutions go back at least 4,000 years, to the Babylonians. The ancient Mesopotamian culture is believed to be the first to have celebrated the new year, but in March, not January, to coincide with the start of the growing season. As part of Akitu, their 12-day religious festival, they pledged to the gods to repay debts and return borrowed items. During the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar established Jan. 1 as the start of the year around 46 B.C., and Romans used the month of January to reflect on the previous year and make promises of good behavior. The month itself was named for Janus, the god of beginnings…

In 2022, social media inspired many of the ways we tried to get and stay healthy—but not always for the better. Talk about weight-loss drugs spread like wildfire online, as did our collective agreement to stop going the extra mile at work. We turned to Dr. TikTok again and again, and focused perhaps too much on body image—even when we tried to keep things positive. The new year is the perfect time to re-evaluate these habits, experts say. Here are five wellness trends you’d be better off ditching in 2023—plus healthier alternatives. 1. Weight-loss shots Ozempic and Wegovy, two injections that are used to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity, are hot commodities—even among people without those conditions. “There are people on Reddit and TikTok and other platforms hearing about it,” says…

Back in 2017, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov and I had a disagreement in the marketplace of ideas (Twitter, that is), which ended with Durov saying he was willing to bet $1,000,000 to prove he was right. He wasn’t, but I don’t think I’ll ever see a payout—and ethically could not accept it anyway. But how this happened in the first place is indicative of some of the information security industry’s worst impulses. It doesn’t have to be this way. PLACE YOUR BETS This all started when Durov tweeted about how the Signal secure messaging app had received money from the US government. This is true; Signal received funds from the Open Technology Fund (OTF)—a nonprofit that previously was part of the US-backed Radio Free Asia. According to the OTF’s website, it gave…

Fast, maneuverable, and dangerous, the trireme was the most feared ship in ancient Greece. With powerful bronze rams and the ability to turn on a dime, it would leave enemy ships dead in the water by punching holes in their sides or smashing their oars. In his Histories, Herodotus writes how Greek naval dominance owed so much to the brilliant use of triremes in battle. In the fifth century B.C., Athenian shipyards had the capacity for over 300 triremes, the most famous warships of antiquity. The trireme—a term derived from the Greek trieres, “three rows of oars”—was the result of the continuous development of naval technology in the Greek world. The epic poem Iliad (attributed to Homer, and written in the eighth century B.C.) mentions ships called triaconters and penteconters, vessels…

Anyone standing today by the windswept shore of Epaves Bay at the northern tip of Newfoundland might find it hard to comprehend the enormity of the modest archaeological site that extends around them. Here, at L’Anse aux Meadows—the name is probably a garbled reference to an old French naval vessel—lies what is still the only known Norse settlement in North America. A few humps and bumps in the grass, a replica building, and a fine museum mark the point of first contact between human populations across the Atlantic. It is an astonishing place, but its significance was only recognized in relatively recent decades. Until as late as the 1960s, the Viking adventure in North America was known only secondhand from the Icelandic sagas, the great epic tales that form one of…

During my years in the Marine Corps, I participated in military operations as diverse as night ambushes, amphibious raids, and helicopter assaults. All required intricate planning. Gathered around maps and satellite imagery, my colleagues and I had to consider all three of the dimensions in which war is typically waged: land, sea, and air. Once our plans were laid, there was always one last step before our mission: we would synchronize our watches. This ritual acknowledged the final dimension in which war is waged: time. Too often our analysis of a conflict neglects time as a space through which armies maneuver. But in Ukraine, as winter sets in and the war enters its second year, time will prove decisive. Time is not on Ukraine’s side. A strategy of maximum pressure may…

TED BAKER REVERSIBLE BELT Black? Brown? Can’t choose? This 100% bovine leather belt is the solution with black on one side and dark brown on the reverse. Both sides are high-shine while the brushed dark silver buckle features a Ted Baker logo. £40, mainlinemenswear.co.uk PAUL SMITH OLIVE JACKET While this shirt jacket is a bit of an investment its classic cut works with both a casual and a tailored look so it will earn its keep over the years. Dark green suede is embellished with logo-engraved snap fastenings. £1,500, paulsmith.com CAMPERLAB DERBY SHOES Smart doesn’t mean a compromise on style. These black 1978 Derby shoes balance a classic aesthetic with contemporary charm featuring a squared-toe and block heel. The rubber sole is topped with leather upper and Derby lacing system. £255, matchesfashion.com TOM FORD SILK TIE Ease the pain of…

From early 2020 to late 2021, Thailand experienced near-daily protests triggered by the disbanding of the Future Forward Party, which was seen by Thai progressives and young people as a force for democratic reform. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest the military government brought to power in a 2014 coup. But activists soon turned their critique to the monarchy and the laws that shield the royal family from criticism. As the protesters’ agenda expanded, so did their iconography and lexicon. They dressed up as Minions from the movie Despicable Me to mimic the yellow shirts worn by royalists and pro-military activists and paraded around in Tyrannosaurus rex costumes to represent Thailand’s “dinosaur-age” establishment. Many protests were characterized by a tongue-in-cheek brand of humor that Thais call kuan teen—literally,…

The collapse of the crypto exchange FTX seemed to materialize out of nowhere. In the space of one week in November, FTX went from one of the most trusted parts of crypto to a bankrupt disgrace that lost more than $8 billion of its customers’ money, according to authorities. FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried faces criminal charges, including fraud and money laundering. He is free on $250 million bail and entered an initial plea of not guilty on Jan. 3 in federal court in New York City. While much of the press coverage has focused on Bankman-Fried allegedly spending customer money on political donations and a Bahamian real estate empire, it appears that a far greater amount of FTX money disappeared in the wake of an earlier and lesser-known crypto crash. Increasing evidence…

What happened President Biden touted a major shift in his approach to immigration this week, making a trip to the border after announcing an overhaul of the asylum process. The new “humanitarian parole” policy will allow a pathway to legal entry for up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti, who will be able to get a U.S. work permit if they pass a background check and secure an American sponsor ahead of time. If migrants from those countries attempt to enter the U.S. at the border without such authorization, though, they risk being expelled immediately to Mexico under the administration’s expansion of Title 42, a pandemic-era public health rule. “Do not just show up at the border,” Biden warned would-be migrants. “Stay where you are and…

The Globetrotter In both of the Vinland sagas, the largest and most significant of the voyages is that of Thorfinn Karlsefni and his wife, Gudríd Thorbjarnardóttir. Whether Gudríd had wanderlust is unknown, but she lived her life on the move, spending time in Iceland, Greenland, and North America. She was born in the late 10th century at Snaefellsnes in western Iceland. As a teenager she emigrated to Greenland with her family who were following Erik the Red. Surviving a rough voyage and shipwreck, they were taken in by Erik’s household. In one saga, Gudríd was already married, but her husband died the first winter in Greenland. This was a time of religious transition, and Gudríd was right in the middle. A committed Christian, as a girl she had nonetheless learned the special…

Are you looking for a laptop that can do it all, whether you’re at your desk or traveling across the country? The Dell XPS 17 might be your next choice. This massive laptop is a versatile machine that’s enjoyable to use day-to-day and packs strong overall performance. The display is also beautiful and battery life is impressive. While the keyboard is nothing to write home about, we feel the pros far outweigh the cons. Read on to learn more. SPECS AND FEATURES The base Dell XPS 17 has an Intel Core i5-12500H processor with integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 1920×1200 display. My review sample packs multiple upgrades, however, including an Intel Core i7-12700H processor, Nvidia RTX 3060 mobile graphics, and a 4K touchscreen. CPU: Intel Core i7-12700H Memory: 32GB Graphics/GPU:…

As Putin threatens to strike Ukraine with tactical nuclear weapons and Biden warns that this risks escalation to nuclear Armageddon, many observers have wondered aloud whether the septuagenarian or the octogenarian or both have lost touch with reality. Pundits declare Putin’s threats “irrational,” since according to them no rational leader could order a nuclear strike on another state. Critics of Biden have seized on his references to Armageddon—for example, when he recently said that “for the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat to use nuclear weapons” which “could end in Armageddon”—as evidence of “senility.” Even observers less judgmental about Biden and Putin have dismissed these two leaders’ talk about nuclear weapons and war as a throwback to the last century. Having come of age since…

Have you heard the one about the Google engineer who thinks an AI is sentient? It’s not a joke—although Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer with the company’s Responsible AI organization, has become a bit of a joke online. Lemoine was put on leave from Google after he advocated for an artificial intelligence named Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) within the company, saying that he believed it was sentient. Lemoine had been testing LaMDA last fall, and as he said to The Washington Post, “I know a person when I talk to it.” Lemoine published an edited version of some of his conversations with LaMDA in a Medium post. In those, LaMDA discussed its soul, expressed a fear of death (i.e., being turned off), and when asked about its feelings, said,…

In 1725 a child was born in the Republic of Venice who would grow up to be Casanova, known for his lifelong obsession with the pursuit of pleasure. Wreathed in beauty and splendor, Venice in the 18th century exuded opulence and mystery. It shaped the young man’s worldview and attitudes. Through its celebrations, theaters, casinos, and bordellos, he came to embrace a life of exploration. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born to two actors in the Venetian neighborhood of San Samuele. Much of what is known about his life came from his own pen; in middle age, he wrote an exhaustive memoir, Histoire de ma vie, which chronicles the first 50 years of his life. His detailed and candid recollections stretch all the way back to his childhood, revealing how the city…

Looking at the world around us, happiness may seem an unattainable goal. As we move into the fourth year of a pandemic that has killed millions and continues to threaten health and well-being worldwide, compounded by devastating consequences of climate change, spikes in hate crimes, and continued fallout from systemic oppression and inequality, there seems little reason to be happy. Indeed, results from the 2022 annual Stress in America survey indicate one-third of the respondents report that their stress in the face of these challenges is “overwhelming.” Simply ignoring or denying stress, or suppressing your negative emotions and pretending everything is just fine, will not lead to enduring happiness. In most cases, negative emotions are, surprisingly, useful—they provide important signals about our environment and can guide us to an appropriate response.…

In the predawn darkness of the western Mojave Desert, workers make their way across a parking lot toward a sprawling complex of factories, hangars, and runways. Teams of armed military and civilian guards patrol the grounds leading to the 5,800-acre facility, which is ringed by an elaborate security system and monitored from space by orbiting reconnaissance satellites. At a fence bristling with razor wire, the men and women pull key cards from their belt-loop lanyards, flash them on a contact sensor, punch in their numerical codes, and push through high-gate turnstiles. Inside, they stow signal-emitting electronics like iPhones and earbuds at a bank of storage shelves, then swipe in at computer monitors to confirm their identities and security clearance. At last, they step onto a gleaming production floor the size of…

It is a well-established empirical finding that democracies have declined in number and in quality in recent years. It seems to follow that another political system is becoming more prevalent—but how the alternative differs from previous forms of autocratic politics remains an unsettled question. Although much attention has focused on so-called strongmen, such as former U.S. President Donald Trump and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, they are hardly novel characters in world history. But what enabled their rise now, and can their brand of governance survive beyond them? Three recent books considering 21st-century political systems arrive at very different answers to these questions. One demonstrates how today’s autocrats prefer manipulating their citizens to outright repression; it may be the most sophisticated and robust account of the new alternatives to democracy. Another…

The European Union and its 27 member states have invested more money, effort, and political capital in energy policy than any other region in the world. Until this year, Europe was admired globally as the gold standard for energy and climate policy. Germany’s Energiewende—or energy transition—was especially touted as a shining example of how to green the energy supply. No one aspires to emulate the Europeans today. Germany and the EU have spiraled headfirst into the globe’s worst energy crisis since the Arab oil embargoes of the 1970s and 1980s. All across the continent, Europe’s energy policies have led to astronomical price increases, industry shutdowns, potential energy shortages, and geopolitical vulnerability. Germany, in particular, is in crisis mode and will likely see much worse. Its entire economic model—based on energy-hungry manufacturing,…

Twenty-five years ago, Mark Kurlansky’s Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World hit the shelves. The book was a surprise sensation, a New York Times bestseller about a fish that, by Kurlansky’s own reckoning, the average American ate, at most, 4 pounds of each year. (That average American consumed, by contrast, 233 pounds of red meat.) Cod also spawned its own genre of global food microhistories. By 1999, just two years later, readers could consume books on the “humble potato,” nutmeg, and chocolate. Cod wasn’t the first history to use food as a lens. Sidney W. Mintz’s 1985 classic, Sweetness and Power, showed how the trajectory of a food—in Mintz’s case, sugar—could be used to tell a story of imperial power, the rise of the modern world, and…

What happened The new Republican House majority passed a package of rule changes and established new investigative committees this week, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy began delivering on deals he cut to win the votes of 20 far-right members who forced the most contentious election of a House speaker in over a century. McCarthy (R-Calif.) won the post after a televised battle that stretched over five days and 15 votes. He squeaked out a 216–212 win after the last six holdouts, including Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), agreed to vote “present” instead of for an alternate candidate. To win over extremists who attacked him as an “establishment” Republican, McCarthy agreed to concessions that give him a weak hold on the speaker’s gavel, while empowering GOP hard-liners. He consented to…

The Declaration of Independence promises “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But if you’re lucky enough to live in states like Virginia, New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and a number of others, your rights get even better: the 18th century constitutions of all these states spell out not only a right to seek happiness, but also to obtain it. Of course, blandishments about happiness meant little to enslaved persons or the Indigenous. And there were others—from people struggling at the margins to women trapped in abusive marriages—for whom happiness was inconceivable at the time. We are quick to identify those shortcomings today, pointing out where the founders, for all their farsightedness, were blind. Yet, even as many have worked hard to extend rights more broadly and raise expectations along…