The White House was scrambling to backtrack on Friday night after President Joe Biden, asked whether he was now pushing Israel to delay its invasion of Gaza for the sake of the hostages, replied: ‘Yes’.
Two Americans were released by Hamas on Friday, after being kidnapped on October 7 and held in Gaza for 13 days. A further 200 hostages are believed to remain in Hamas captivity.
Israel’s military has been given the green light to invade, and on Thursday
Most Europeans have a unique idea about what Americans look like in each US state, and artificial intelligence has brought these views to life in lifelike images.
Midjourney, a system that creates images based on users’ text prompts, created an image for each of the 50 states based on how those across the Atlantic perceive them.
According to AI, Europeans think Alabamians typically have missing teeth, all Utahans are Mormons and Virginians are stuck in the Victorian era. And everyone
Updated at 5:17 p.m. ET on October 4, 2023
Inequality is one of the great constants. But what sets those at the top of society apart from those at the bottom has varied greatly. In some times and places, it was race; in others, “noble” birth. In some, physical strength; in others, manual dexterity. In America today, most of these factors still matter. The country is racially unequal. Some people inherit great wealth; others become celebrities through sporting prowess.
Plus: Will the Hunter Biden story spell trouble for Democrats?
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
If you could pose one earnest question to any of the Republican candidates, what would it be? (No insults disguised as questions allowed.)
August 24, 2023
This has been a violent American century—but even less recognized is how our War on Terror helped us to turn on one another.
A police armored vehicle patrols an intersection on August 24, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis.
(Brandon Bell / Getty Images)
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Blame Donald Trump and all too many of his
It’s always election season in America. Dozens of local contests are taking place across the country this month, from Montgomery, Alabama to the Mariana Ranchos County Water District in California. On August 8 alone, Custer County, Colorado held a recall election for a county commissioner; Ohio asked residents to consider a major ballot measure; and voters in Oklahoma weighed in on several ballot measures.
America has roughly 90,000 local governing bodies, and states do not—at least publicly—track all of
Over the past eight years or so, I’ve been obsessed with two questions. The first is: Why have Americans become so sad? The rising rates of depression have been well publicized, as have the rising deaths of despair from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. But other statistics are similarly troubling. The percentage of people who say they don’t have close friends has increased fourfold since 1990. The share of Americans ages 25 to 54 who weren’t married or living with
The architect of the attacks on affirmative action has pitted Asian Americans and Black Americans against each other—letting white folks off the hook.
Legal architect: In June, the Supreme Court gave Edward Blum his most consequential victory since his successful challenge to the Voting Rights Act.
(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
In the late 1990s, after making a “small fortune” as a stockbroker, Edward Blum quit his day job to focus
FIRST ON FOX: The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 marked the start of retired Green Beret John Paluska’s fight to keep his Afghan brother in arms, Habib, from facing a gruesome death at the hands of the Taliban. After Habib found temporary reprieve by getting himself to Turkey, Paluska flew to Istanbul to find his friend a pathway to safety in the U.S. Unfortunately, he found that Habib’s journey to freedom is far from over.
Before playing a
A father-of-three has revealed how he lost his life savings, his home and his wife after he was tricked into investing in bogus cryptocurrency schemes by two women he met on social media.
Michael Holloway, a 62-year-old real estate agent from New Jersey, was conned out of $500,000 by online fraudsters, who lured him in with fake relationships before persuading him to drain his entire retirement pot.
Michael was so distraught by falling victim to the cruel scam that he
