President Donald Trump’s teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, is out of a job after he reportedly made six figures betting on the contents of Trump’s speeches, which, of course, Perez could read before almost anyone else. When the news broke, Trump put Perez on unpaid leave immediately, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called his […]

It is extraordinary how few countries can build nuclear weapons. Eighty-one years have passed, almost to the day, since the bombing of Hiroshima. Yet, of the 195 states recognized by the United Nations, 186 are technologically unable to make warheads. Beyond the original five nuclear states — that is, the five countries that sit on […]

Who would have guessed that an Italian film made in 1957, starring one icon of that nation’s cinema (Marcello Mastroianni) and directed by another (Luchino Visconti), and based, of all things, on a short story by a long-dead Russian master (Fyodor Dostoevsky), would speak more urgently to contemporary audiences’ needs, fears, and hopes than any […]