Le livre “Nous les Français” cartonne en librairie et suscite l’intérêt des politiques à l’approche de la présidentielle. Il dresse en 100 thèmes une radiographie de ce qui caractérisent les français en 2026. Air fryer, doudounes, usage des vocaux, pratiques d’hospitalité, poids de la nostalgie, phénomène Voisins vigilants et solidaires… Où se crée du commun ? Qu’est-ce qui nous divise vraiment ? Où se niche le politique ?
Pour cet épisode spécial enregistré en public au sommet sur la compétitivité économique organisé par POLITICO mardi 13 octobre à Paris, Anthony Lattier reçoit Laureline Dupont et Jean-Laurent Cassely, deux des co-auteurs de l’ouvrage publié aux éditions Robert Laffont.
To camp with kids makes me question my sanity. I crush tasks. Setting up the tent, laying out the bedding, stacking coolers on a bench. The picnic tables are skeined with leaves after a season of rain. I peel and drape their skeletal outlines over a nurse log. Forest doilies. We brought bikes. Our sons pop wheelies in the parking lot, safer than it sounds because few campers have braved late spring at Seaquest State Park.
On the drive along Spirit Lake Highway to Mount St. Helens, the houses are few and well-priced. I marvel; Brian scoffs. That’s because this whole place was destroyed forty years ago. Having timed our trip to the eruption’s anniversary, we ascend through what had been a trail of devastation. Once seared by lahars, the landscape has greened into a wildlife corridor that winds around the Toutle River.
Scientists didn’t think life would come back this fast. Scant weeks after the blast, fireweed poked its green head through the ash, sending purple flowers skyward by July of 1980. The next year, I was born. We don’t always know where hope resides. I spent four decades guarding a secret. Quietude is a fertile state. Sure, I published hundreds of articles with my byline. But I rarely disclosed my own truths.
To this sunny weekend, I had invited a couple that Brian and I met in Seattle. Like him, they’re from the Midwest. Friendly people. She sang at our wedding with her two sisters, one of whom was our officiant. They moved to Portland a year after we met. We have stayed friends, which says something because I have lost contact with people who live in north Seattle. Together we decide on the Hummocks Trail. It’s only 2.5 miles long. I used to burn for monthlong expeditions, but it’s a good length for short legs.
I had never heard of hummocks before, which is the privilege of choosing one’s encounter with destruction. Hummocks are pieces of the mountain blown off by the eruption and carried downhill by a landslide. By the time we arrived, they had settled into place.
Seeds grow best when given space. To heal from my origin so that I could become myself and a mother, I have accepted estrangement as necessary. My parents are unable to reconcile our facts. They prefer façades. But to remain in relation with falsity is too deep a strain. My narrative belongs to me.
Upon these chunks of rock, ecosystems arise. Beneath the alders, bushy green horsetails wave in the unaccustomed sun. Their bright stalks, notched like bamboo, are topped with long fronds that grow in a feathery circle, like squirrel tails. With more than 300 million years of evolutionary strategy in the making, horsetails are hard to remove when they take root. It doesn’t matter how many times you pull them. I was charmed when they touched down in my garden. There, like here, they grow high enough to tickle my children’s hands along the path.
Our boys throw sticks into the ponds. Called the lifeblood of the hummocks by helpful plaques I read at a gallop to keep the kids in sight, the ponds are more like seeps. Or rainfall catchment basins. They were born when chunks of shattered glacier melted, forming pits filled by water then buried in ash. No longer held together by the mountainside, the hummocks slumped apart. Water dribbled through gray crannies. Now exposed to the sky, the ponds are thick with algae and cattails. Damselflies and dragonflies lay their eggs in the stillness. In springtime, the toad and frog eggs hatch into tadpoles which wriggle through the murk.
The ponds are unstable and evaporate quickly. To survive their home, the creatures must reproduce early and often. By the time I birthed our boys, I was in my thirties and had fortified my self-regard. Each autumn, the frogs and toads bury themselves in the muck to wait for spring. I had no knowledge of such metaphors when I was a girl. But I waited for my season to come.
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(Steve Terrill/Getty Images) Mount St. Helens erupting
Fireweed has many uses. I can only name a few. Epilobium angustifolium fights inflammation, bacteria and aging, among other properties. What I can say about fireweed — I know what it is to harden in resistance, to become a seed that flowers in adversity. I work to overcome a tendency toward hypervigilance and its attendant crises of critique and anxiety. My husband has a hard time getting me to relax.
He is practiced. I am wary of his wiles. But Brian loves the prickly spine of me. He did not show up just to harvest the blossoms. He takes time to water the roots. He opens channels to the sun. He accepts sudden rains for the blessings they bring. I married an easygoing man. He trusts eventuality. Our sons scamper down the path with their friends, secure in their innocence.
Called Lawetlat’la, Loowit, or Louwala-Clough, which means smoking mountain, Mount St. Helens didn’t remake itself overnight. The eruption began on the same day in March that our eldest was born and that the Attis passion week concludes. Lavatio. A public ceremony that washes the image of the mother goddess, following Hilaria, a time for celebration. Few continue to worship Cybele, if any, but her rituals persist in other guises. Images of the Madonna are promenaded through the streets of Catholic towns throughout Europe and South America. She is showered in petals gathered from the hills, just like in pagan times. Carried in procession, her image is exposed to public view so that she may confer protection upon that community. With sorrowful eyes and an enigmatic smile, she tells them a story about themselves.
Mount St. Helens collapsed in three separate blocks, the first of which hurtled toward where we are hiking. Standing in the sun, passing snacks, it is hard to imagine the ground — which feels solid under my feet — as it had been, spinning down the mountain at up to 155 miles per hour.
A few seconds after the first block slid, the second block broke through, powered by the blast of released pressure and the magma welling from beneath. Before Mount St. Helens erupted, scientists didn’t know how far away to keep onlookers. Geologists thought the volcano would blow its top upward, rather than sideways. The mountain did not perform according to plan. For this and other reasons — some decided to wait it out — fifty-seven people perished that day in May. Decades of subsequent study have shown that the earth held this knowledge for us, but we did not see it.
Scientists had noticed mounds near other volcanoes, but they believed the hills had formed from mudflows or glaciers. But they were, in fact, evidence of catastrophe. In New Zealand 23,000 years ago, Mount Egmont’s debris avalanche traveled 19 miles. Closer to home in California, Mount Shasta’s debris avalanche traveled 30 miles. In 1888 Japan, a debris avalanche traveled 7 miles from Mount Bandai and became a hilly forest that people now call home. Glistening in the sun, the scooped cone of Mount St. Helens’ summit can be seen from these hummocks which came to rest 14 miles from their source. Snowmelt unfurls from the crater like tentacles.
My home in Seattle is 3,093 miles from the island of my youth. It would take forty-six hours to drive that distance, or forty-two days to walk the diagonal across a country which has not always felt great enough to protect me. I hew to my beloved jagged coast. This place helped make me who I am, a woman who carries stories for our descendants. May they know greener times.
Seeds grow best when given space. To heal from my origin so that I could become myself and a mother, I have accepted estrangement as necessary. My parents are unable to reconcile our facts. They prefer façades. But to remain in relation with falsity is too deep a strain. My narrative belongs to me.
When this book is published, I anticipate my birth family will not speak to me again. While the pull toward my parents is real, separation brought relief to my body. Do these hummocks miss their brethren shoved against the valley walls? Their silt and silica trickle downhill together, grain by grain.
While the pull toward my parents is real, separation brought relief to my body. Do these hummocks miss their brethren shoved against the valley walls? Their silt and silica trickle downhill together, grain by grain.
Most entanglements are quantum. The braids of Toutle River are akin to the Missoula Flood patterns, visible from astronomical heights which reveal our land’s history: A mighty ice dam gave way, again and again, to the water it held in abeyance. I have worked hard to pry apart the fractals that have locked my kin into repeating errors at various orders of magnitude. To move forward, I have relinquished the belief that my happiness depends on our unity. They don’t have to show kindness for me to heal. They have their reasons for being puzzles I no longer need to solve. Forgiveness does not imply reconciliation.
Releasing them has freed me to hold space for my own story. My liberation has stoked resentment and dissent. You’re hurting us, they accuse, meaning, You’re hurting our idea of us, and this idea is all that we are. In these pages, I remain in relation to forebears who no longer define my future. Our shared memories make us a family the way rivers carry snowmelt to the sea.
It can be hazardous to leave the path that was planned for you. Here on the hummocks, in full view of the mountain which mothered them, I step off trail and slide down scree that skins my shin into a shining ruby constellation. I don’t bother to shield my legs from the sun. My scars remind me: Forging a desire line can be dangerous. So is failing to follow your hope. When I think of my family now, I look for roots I’ve grown into the earth. Sturdy enough to bear witness, they send signals of welcome to you whose presence I embrace, unseen.
With our communion comes responsibility for what happens next. That, too, is mine to accept, though not control. The route to the goddess unmakes you. Our journey was never meant to be linear. Find the whole in the fragments.
Dusk cloaks the grove around our tents. A cinder cone rebuilds herself on a horizon I cannot see. Here I feel safe to revel in the gloaming. Evenings are ceremonial for parents. We remain open to the world in defiance of routines which structure our days. Rituals are made through repetition. We feed our children and tell stories. Not much remains to be done. In the forest, there is no bathing, except in beauty.
Our kids stay up. The campfire warms their small faces. Wet wipes provide the semblance of clean hands after s’mores. The fathers are tasked with bedtime. With kisses good night, my sons step into our tent. My husband zips up the door. From the fire circle, I hear their murmurs and laughter amidst the slight rustle of sleeping bags. My friend smiles, her eyes agleam with patient hope. She is ready for our song time. The night stills but for the crackles of sap. We sip from metal cups, our sparks spiraling toward the stars.
“Desire Lines” is available in print from Red Hen Press or as an audiobook narrated by the author, who is currently on a book tour.
The team behind director Takashi Yamazaki’s new film created their kaiju roars by setting up speakers on top of an outdoor dam. The people walking by weren’t prepared for what they heard.
Just what you’ve been waiting for: a story that just about out-pervs “Hot Tween Nurses.” Speaking of waiting, this one made the rounds of some other blogs a short while ago, but we figured, hey, let’s try not to subject our readers to a full eyeball scrub more than once a month.
But now it’s May, so here goes. Some of us are fortunate to have lovely memories of growing-up milestones with Dad. Mine taught me to ride a bike, to drive, to whistle with a blade of grass. You may recall a father-daughter picnic, a father-daughter heart-to-heart.
And how about a Father-Daughter Purity Ball? This past spring brought us the fourth annual such event sponsored by Colorado Springs’ Generations of Light Ministries; according to Focus on the Family, other cities and organizations are following suit.
Call these balls “Virginity Pledge: The Musical.” Or “Pretty Baby,” without the actual auction. Dolled up in tiaras and pearls — or perhaps abstinence jewelry — the girls (some of whom look young enough to wish they were home watching “Dora the Explorer”) are escorted by their dads to this creepy cotillion that, as far as I can tell from the photos, includes some sort of interpretive dance, as well as “a memorable ceremony for daughters to pledge commitments to purity and their fathers to pledge commitments to protect their girls.”
Here’s daddy’s script: “I, [daughter’s name]’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.” OK, “high priest?” Also, I’m guessing the part about “I will pay for my daughter’s therapy in perpetuity” is in the fine print.
I mean, for one thing, I’d want my dad thinking hard, really hard, about my virginity even less than I’d want to think about my parents having sex.
Here’s what one 11-year-old (or adult publicist) for the Ministries had to say: “The moment I put my hand in my father’s, I felt like a princess. In those six precious hours, I believe I grew in relationship with my father more than I ever have. I knew it was my night, and I treasured every minute of it.” I probably don’t have to spell this out for you, but replace the word “father” with “boyfriend” (or, to be charitable, “new husband”) and … eeuw.
Want some more? “How can you measure the value of your eleven-year-old looking up into your eyes (as you clumsily learn the fox-trot together) with innocent, uncontainable joy, saying, ‘Daddy, I’m so excited!'” wrote a dad who has taken both of his daughters to the ball. “It is impossible to convey what I have seen in their sweet spirits, their delicate, forming souls, as their daddy takes them out for their first, big dance. Their whole being absorbs my loving attention, resulting in a radiant sense of self-worth and identity. Think of it from their perspective: My daddy thinks I’m beautiful in my own unique way. My daddy is treating me with respect and honor. My daddy has taken time to be silly, and even made a fool of himself, learning how to dance. My daddy really loves me!” I don’t know, I’m pretty sure my dad got that same feeling from taking me out to the yard to play badminton.
Look, I’m not a parent yet, but I’ve been thinking about how to have a cool and convincing “Why I recommend that you wait to have sex” conversation with my daughter — and, I might add pointedly, my son — for years. And surely there’s some truth to the suggestion that the health of a girl’s relationship with her father (or father figure, if any) can have some effect on the health of her relationship with potential boyfriends. But … a dance? A public pledge? An, ahem, Georgia O’Keeffe-shaped canopy of white balloons? And where do the boys come in? Will these girls grow up thinking of them as predators from whom they need daddy’s protection, or as peers with whom they can set boundaries together? Better these parents should teach their princesses to throw balls instead of dress for them.
A priest speaks to parishioners during Sunday Catholic Mass inside the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on August 10, 2025, in Mission, Texas. | Tom Brenner for the Washington Post via Getty Images
To the average observerconcerned with the future of American democracy, it might be easy to conclude that religion has been part of the problem — particularly over the last few years. Right-wing religious leaders, including the leading Southern Baptist televangelist Robert Jeffress, have endorsed “Christian nationalism”; other evangelical pastors and conservative Catholic intellectuals have been openly pondering if America should become more of a theocracy; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who once called for an “American crusade,” evoking bloody medieval religious campaigns, has referenced Christian theology in statements about the Iran war.
To critics, these examples show that American religion is becoming an active threat to pluralism and tolerance — the ideas that make American democracy work.
But what if the solution to this anti-democratic slide is also religion — more religion than the US currently has?
Key takeaways
The authors of a new book argue that declining levels of religiosity have worsened polarization, which has led to a backslide in democracy.
To reverse this trend, the authors suggest everyone, but particularly liberals and secular people, engage with religion more and take lessons on debate and disagreement from faith traditions.
For those who do identify as religious already, this would mean participating in organized religion; for those who are not religious, this would mean approaching religion and religious people with more openness and curiosity.
This argument has limitations, but there are signs it is becoming more widespread, including the rise of religious Democrats and the pope’s recent comments.
A new book by two thinkers from opposing ends of the ideological spectrum argues that declining levels of religiosity across the board, but particularly among liberals, have deepened political polarization, which in turn has corroded democratic norms. Now, they argue, one of the most effective ways for liberals to stand up for democracy is to engage with religious communities and their scriptural traditions with more respect, openness, and curiosity. The authors also urge liberals who are believers themselves to embrace organized religion and return to it themselves.
Conservative evangelical Christian Matthew Kaemingk and liberal Muslim writer Shadi Hamid argue in Can Religion Save Democracy? that there’s a necessary and unique role that religious institutions and organized religion must play in American public life. Religion serves a fundamental regulating purpose, tempering emotions, fundamentalism, and nihilism. And when that fades away, those base instincts and emotions get channeled into our politics.
They write:
As Americans exit churches in droves, they’re not leaving behind their religious passions. Instead, they’re transferring those passions to the political battlefield. In this new post-religious context, Christian faith and Scripture function less as moral constraints within evangelical circles and more as political cudgels to use against one’s opponents.
“We’re not trying to convert [nonbelievers],” Hamid told me in an interview. “Believing is one thing, but believing that religion can play a positive role is another. And we want to encourage secular readers to embrace the second proposition, even if they don’t believe religion is true or don’t believe God exists.”
What happens when religion recedes from the public square
At the core of Kaemingk and Hamid’s argument is a simple case: There is an innate religion-shaped hole in people in the 21st century, which has been slowly replaced with politics, unbridled passions, and secular ideologies. The loss of religion hasn’t meant a loss of religious convictions, but instead has meant the rise of a new fanaticism, either secular or fundamentalist, while depriving everyone of the good things that organized and institutional religion can do.
It’s not a completely novel argument; it’s a combination of St. Augustine’s famous line that “our hearts are restless until they rest in [God]” and of the political scientist Robert Putnam’s modern case that churches and religious communities provided the third spaces that fostered civic partnership, trust, meaning, and belonging.
But they also connect these lines of thinking to what the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper used to argue around the turn of the 19th century: that all people are religious, and that something very similar to religious fervor quietly powers all political movements. Religion is “pervasive, public, and pluriform” — an essential part of being human, whose absence leaves nihilism, fear, and distrust in isolated, but still fanatical, individuals.
“If Kuyper is correct that all human beings desire ultimate belief and belonging, then erasing or sequestering religion won’t extinguish our spiritual passions. They will simply shift elsewhere,” Kaemingk and Hamid write. And that shift has been toward politics, candidates, elections, and secular “creeds” that provide identity, belonging, moral certainty, and salvific promises without the accountability, guidance, and caution that religious traditions can provide.
It’s not hard to find examples of what Kaemingk and Hamid mean here. From 2016 to 2024, many observed elements of quasi-religious fervor in movements powering Trump and Woke 1.0. Trump’s strongman appeal generated a cult of personality around him, while anti-Trump resistance efforts and progressive social movements often took on qualities people also found quasi-religious: in-group markers, language, and customs, BlueAnon theories. What’s left is a stalemate, with more conservative religious believers bunched up on one end, and nonreligious but equally passionate citizens on the other end.
Kaemingk and Hamid argue that people on the left often respond by denigrating religion and religious people, dismissing those who try to defend or practice it in the public square, or forcing them to adopt secular language and thinking instead of letting religious people bring their full selves to the public space. But the way out of this current stalemate, Kaemingk and Hamid suggest, is for people on the left to be open, curious, and respectful with the devoutly faithful, whether they’re neighbors or candidates running for office.
“For that audience, my desire is to say, ‘Hey, you don’t have to believe in religion, but you can recognize the positive aspects of religion,’” Hamid told me.
That involves practical, daily activities and more high-minded appeals. In regular life, the authors recommend prayer, or prayer-like practices for nonbelievers, to help better understand and forgive opponents. They suggest there can be benefits for both nonreligious and religious people to meditate on scriptural and theological teachings about forgiveness, debate, disagreement, salvation, and why earthly politics shouldn’t be taken so seriously.
And they urge liberals in particular to reengage with religious communities and congregations. Religious liberals should avoid isolation or solitary, individualized faith, the authors recommend, and instead return to congregations and specific churches or places of worship to become part of a community and find purpose. For nonreligious liberals, Kaemingk and Hamid suggest they reexamine their own ideological priorities and be open to the possibility of being wrong on some of them, and potentially engage with organized religion to better understand a religious worldview.
Kaemingk and Hamid offer a specific challenge for liberals and secular Americans that might seem a bit unsavory: They have to realize that they are not blameless for the polarization and radical religious fervor that exists right now through their dismissal of organized religion. Their earlier denigration of organized religion around the turn of this century (think of the New Atheist movement), combined with many leaving institutional churches or failing to participate in religious life, has all contributed to the capture of these institutions by unsavory political opponents, or helped in the decline of more moderate congregations. And any attempt to stop this continued slide away from pluralistic democracy hinges on a collective effort between religious and nonreligious Americans to reverse these trends.
This argument has its limitations
Here’s an obvious question: If religion is so good at moderating people, why hasn’t it been able to temper emotions among the religious already? The most loyal Republican voters over the past few cycles have tended to be evangelical and nondenominational Christians, followed by white Catholics — both of which tend to report above-average levels of religious participation. They’ve stuck with Trump and the GOP over the last decade, which has been defined by polarization, authoritarian policies, and even moments of political violence, that both Kaemingk and Hamid say religion can fix.
Here’s an obvious question: If religion is so good at moderating people, why hasn’t it been able to temper emotions among the religious already?
More generally, while there is evidence to suggest that evangelicals who leave their churches become more cynical and individualistic — a point in Kaemingk and Hamid’s favor — there’s not much evidence to suggest that the converse is true: that religious participation has actually tempered emotions, passions, and politics. Instead, there’s a case to be made, as the writer Robert P. Jones laid out recently, that the opposite seems to be true: The most religious folks tend to still be the most likely to support harsher Trump-era policies.
Hamid acknowledged that this is a challenge,but argued this isn’t about the religion itself — rather a Trump-specific phenomenon:“Many evangelicals have let partisan loyalties take precedence over religious commitments,” he told me. “This is the distorting effect that Trump has had on the evangelical movement.”
He emphasizedthat evangelicalism has suffered because many of the most fervent MAGA supporters who identify with that religious movement are not actually very religious. “Evangelicals aren’t going to church as much as they used to on average,” he said. “There has been a kind of process of de-institutionalization in the kind of Protestant domain. And the people who tend to be more fervent MAGA supporters tend to go to church less.” He compared the level of evangelical support that Ted Cruz and Trump got in 2016: Trump had an upper hand among unchurched evangelicals.
Beyond this, the practical reality is that, as things stand today, religiosity does not seem likely to bounce back to the levels it was at two decades ago — at least, not without the help of secular Americans.
What the authors prescribe for politics and elections
Still, it’s an attractive idea, and it’s not hard to see why people might be open to it. Even Democrats themselves seem to understand that writing off religious voters for years was a bad idea. Some of the most promising Democratic candidates in red states in upcoming midterm elections are religious, including Texas Senate nominee James Talarico and Kansas Senate nominee the Rev. Adam Hamilton. A dozen other pastors or believers are running in down-ballot races across the country, while potential 2028 presidential candidates like Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro talk openly about their personal faiths, the role of organized, institutional religion, and seem comfortable doing so.
“It’s promising,” Hamid told me about this trend. “Part of what we argue in the book is that Americans should be able to bring their full convictions into the public arena. If they’re editing themselves or suppressing their religiosity out of fear of alienating constituencies, that’s not good for democracy.”
And Kaemingk and Hamid also have a very influential intellectual ally in this mission: Pope Leo XIV just made a similar case in France for secular liberals to reexamine their understanding of religious liberty and how to balance it against the rise of right-wing religious politics.
“A Christian engaged in public service and guided by the light of his or her conscience, illumined by faith, cannot be considered a proselytizer or a threat to the unity of the nation,” he said in Paris, appealing directly to France’s fiercely secularized civic leaders. “Indeed, authentic secularity does not exclude religion but is capable of valuing it as an educational resource.”
Aboard a plane back to Rome, Leo continued, arguing that religion must have a role in the public square and pointing to the decline of religion in Germany as something that may have facilitated the rise of a far-right movement that cloaks itself in religious language.
“It would be interesting to study, analyze if and how there may be a relationship, for example, between the growth of these groups on the far right,” Leo said mid-flight, “…with some expression of a combination of these far-right points of view with a certain kind of religion, which…is not an authentic expression of Christianity.”
This may be an unsavory ask for liberals and secularists most upset about creeping religious nationalism in the Trump administration and around the country. The recent creation of a new Office of Religious Affairs in the Pentagon, the invocation of God and Scripture to support military action and immigration enforcement, and the attacks on the wave of religious candidates running as Democrats this year all make it understandable why there may be hesitancy in accepting this challenge. But Kaemingk and Hamid are undeniably right about one thing: In a diverse and pluralistic nation, we have no choice but to live with each other.
Actress Selma Blairwas arrested Sunday night after allegedly attempting to open an airplane door midflight and assaulting two flight attendants aboard a Delta flight from Los Angeles to New York, according to multiple reports.
Blair, 54, allegedly punched one flight attendant and bit another during the confrontation, TMZ first reported Monday.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed that officers responded to Delta Flight 938 after it arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport around 11 p.m. Sunday. Two flight attendants reported injuries, and one was transported to a hospital for further evaluation.
Blair was taken into custody and transported to a hospital for evaluation. The FBI is investigating the incident.
A representative for the actress told TMZ that she had experienced a medical emergency. “Selma experienced a medical emergency that led to the alleged conduct,” the representative said. “Upon landing, she received immediate medical attention and is currently in stable condition.”
The nature of the reported medical emergency has not been disclosed.
Blair, known for her roles in “Cruel Intentions” and “Legally Blonde,” publicly revealed her multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2018. She has since become an advocate for people living with the chronic neurological disease. In April, Blair said she remained in remission but continued to experience fatigue and other lasting symptoms. There is no confirmed connection between her MS diagnosis and Sunday’s incident.
Delta said in a statement to Variety that it has “zero tolerance for unruly or unlawful behavior,” adding that passenger and crew safety is its priority.
The airline said the flight landed ahead of schedule despite the incident.
A five-minute shopping trip to Brooklyn has turned into a multimillion-view social media feud for Kelly Clarkson, who accused a novelty shop of treating her like Julia Roberts’ character in *Pretty Woman* — all over a $15,000 mechanical singing bird.
Clarkson visited Art of Play, a high-end shop on Atlantic Avenue, on Saturday and said an employee looked at her as though she couldn’t afford its merchandise.
“Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy,” Clarkson wrote on X, adding that an employee offered to find her something comparable.
Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn’t afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me. Wow, dude. You’re an idiot and just lost a huge sale. But y’all should go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts character in Pretty Woman. For sure, check it out 👎
“Wow, dude. You’re an idiot and just lost a huge sale,” she wrote, suggesting others visit the store if they enjoyed being treated like Roberts’ character in the 1990 film.
The object at the center of the dispute was Molly, a mechanical yellow bird mounted on the store’s wall and used in its magic shows.
this being the bird kelly clarkson wanted to buy😭 https://t.co/jnjtJlkbJw
Art of Play responded Sunday that Molly was permanently attached to the wall and wasn’t for sale, although it acknowledged that Clarkson’s description of the encounter would resonate with anyone who had felt judged while shopping.
“Imagine our surprise when our small local business was suddenly attacked by 8 million people who have never visited our store,” the business wrote on Instagram, describing the backlash as a “surreal experience.”
Clarkson disputed the explanation, saying she had pointed to a $15,000 price tag and been told the bird was available. She accused the employee of looking her up and down before offering to find her something comparable.
“So you’re not only rude, you’re also a liar. Got it,” Clarkson wrote.
Cool, cool. Sure, it wasn’t for sale. That’s the narrative Art of Play is gonna go with 👍 so the whole conversation we had when I asked you if it was for sale whilst pointing to the price tag hanging on the wall with the title Singing Bird didn’t happen as you elevator eyed me saying in a condescending tone “yes, it’s for sale but it costs 15,000 dollars so if you’d like me to find something comparable for you I can.” That all never happened and now it’s not for sale. Okay, cool. So you’re not only rude, you’re also a liar. Got it ✅
And by the way, I obviously support small businesses because I was literally at a small business trying to purchase things. I love small businesses and know they are important and I always support them, but you don’t get a free pass to treat people less than in your store just because you are a small business. It’s not that hard to be kind. I never blast people but you my friend were an exception.
Your store is really cool.
Unfortunately, you aren’t.
In a subsequent statement, Art of Play said a nearly identical bird made by Seattle artist Bliss Kolb was available for $15,000. The store also said it offered Clarkson a German-made alternative priced at $2,000, but that she left before seeing it.
The business said it had contacted Clarkson privately in hopes of resolving the disagreement.
Its original response ended with a pointed reference to one of the singer’s biggest hits. “As a talented popular singer once said ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’” the store wrote.
By Monday morning, Clarkson’s original post had been viewed more than 40 million times, according to The New York Times. The dispute has divided social media users between those sympathetic to Clarkson’s experience and others who say her enormous platform has unleashed disproportionate backlash against a small business.
Clarkson rejected the suggestion that supporting small businesses meant overlooking poor treatment.
“I love small businesses and know they are important and I always support them, but you don’t get a free pass to treat people less than in your store just because you are a small business,” she wrote. “It’s not that hard to be kind.”
Art of Play said it has contacted Clarkson privately in hopes of clearing up the dispute.
American Eagle is standing by its fall denim campaign starring “Euphoria” and “Anyone But You” star Sydney Sweeney after a wave of criticism accused the ads of leaning into racially coded language and imagery.
The campaign hinges on a pun: Sweeney talks about inherited traits before a male voiceover says, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
In some ads, “genes” is crossed out and replaced with “jeans.” What AE framed as playful wordplay struck a nerve with critics, who argued it echoed historic eugenics rhetoric, particularly given the ad’s focus on her physical appearance like her blond hair and blue eyes.
Social media reaction was swift, with detractors calling it “tone‑deaf” and “Nazi‑coded,” while supporters, especially conservative commentators, praised the joke and dismissed the outrage as performative.
On Friday, American Eagle posted a statement to Instagram defending the campaign: “This is about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,” the company wrote, adding, “Great jeans look good on everyone.” The retailer noted that proceeds from Sweeney’s campaign will go to Crisis Text Line to help victims of domestic violence.
Sweeney herself has stayed silent. Still, the uproar has boosted visibility for the brand, driving spikes in online engagement and even a reported uptick in AE’s stock price — suggesting that in the culture‑war economy, controversy can be as valuable as the clothes themselves.
American Eagle’s new fall campaign starring Sydney Sweeney is under fire—not for the jeans, but for the tagline: “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.”
The phrase, used in bold on billboards in Times Square and Las Vegas, was designed as a denim pun. But online, many saw something else: “great genes,” a phrase historically used to celebrate whiteness, thinness and attractiveness. This makes this campaign seem to be a tone-deaf marketing move.
And it’s not like they were being subtle about it. One campaign advertisement literally has Sweeney “painting” over the words “great genes” to become “great jeans.”
“Maybe I’m too … woke,” one viral post read, “but getting a blue-eyed, blonde, white woman and focusing your campaign around her having perfect genetics feels weird…” Others described the slogan as too close to “master race” propaganda and said it echoed eugenics-era language used to validate and promote the superiority of white beauty.
Eugenics movements in the U.S. often promoted the idea of “good genes” to encourage reproduction among white, able-bodied people while justifying the forced sterilization of others. Critics say those ideas still show up in modern advertising and influencer culture, often unexamined.
American Eagle has not addressed the backlash directly. The campaign features Sweeney modeling a limited-edition “Sydney Jean” denim collection that benefits Crisis Text Line (a helpline for victims of domestic violence), along with AR filters, AI try-ons and massive 3D billboards in Times Square and Las Vegas.
Despite the controversy, the campaign caused American Eagle stock to spike by as much as 16%. Analysts pointed to meme stock behavior, a viral surge driven by retail traders on Reddit and Stocktwits, not by fundamentals. Like GameStop or AMC before it, AEO became a momentary favorite based on online buzz and speculation.
One commenter summed up the tension: “It’s not just about the jeans. It’s about who gets to be the face of America’s ‘best genes.’”
It’s audition day at New Jersey’s Brook Arts Center, and everyone is a bundle of nerves. Actors dot the lobby, doing vocal warm-ups between mini panic attacks and greeting old friends from past shows. This year’s production is “Nosy Neighbors,” a forgotten musical about a New York apartment building and its kooky tenants, including its superintendent, Miss Danielle — a dreamer who, despite repairing clogged toilets and collecting rent for a living, hasn’t let the city spit her out. The role is a bit part, but features a showstopping centerpiece number, the kind of song musical theater performers eat, sleep and breathe. But for mousy housewife Mona Friedman (Julianne Moore), the size of the part or the strength of the song don’t matter. Miss Danielle seems like the right choice to audition for because the role is age-appropriate, and Mona wants to be included however she can be.
And though this might be New Jersey community theater, the standards are just as high as on Broadway. Renowned local director Jerry Blankenbuehler (Paul Giamatti) demands perfection; anything less than excellence won’t touch his stage. Mona, of course, has no way of knowing this. She’s an interloper among established thespians, a woman in her late 50s who has only just begun listening to the little voice inside her, the one begging her to step outside her comfort zone. She’s up against seasoned actors and singers who know what they’re doing, whose every step, gesture and note resonates effortlessly. Yet, somehow, that doesn’t stop her. Despite her nerves, she stands in the spotlight and sings Miss Danielle’s big number. It doesn’t matter how timidly the words might’ve come out; what’s important is that Mona did it.
(A24) Julianne Moore in “The Debut”
Mona transforms before our eyes from a diffident mother of two in an unhappy marriage into the star she always could be, though not without a few bumps in the road. It’s these obstacles that make Eisenberg’s film feel all the more realistic, accurately representing how much work it takes to find oneself, an arduous process that must be experienced over and over in different ways.
This is the brilliant way writer-director Jesse Eisenberg thrusts us into his third — and best — feature, “The Debut,” screening at this year’s New York Film Festival and premiering in theaters December 11. We meet Mona in media res, nervously tapping her shoes on the carpeted lobby floor and fretting over her audition. But instead of the traditional cutthroat audition setting, where every actor silently sizes up the competition, the Brook Arts Center fosters a warm environment. Fellow actors Stef (Halle Bailey) and Trish (Bonnie Milligan) assure Mona she’ll be wonderful. And though Mona’s audition might be far from it, that little spark of community and care is all she needs to feel like she’s right where she should be.
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Finding this sense of contentment isn’t easy. Some go their whole lives searching for it, aching to find where they belong, or what gives them purpose. The longing is what makes life beautiful and also impossible. We’re so often told in childhood that we can be anything and anyone we want to be, dazzled by illustrations of astronauts smiling through their helmets while floating in space, or ballerinas gracefully twirling while dancing “The Nutcracker.” But just as often, these turn out to be children’s fantasies — wide-eyed dreams of imaginary futures, tempered by real life. Bills must be paid. Kids have to eat. We have to survive. And in the pursuit of survival, there’s rarely time for side quests.
That’s precisely why “The Debut” is such a brilliant revelation. There’s no shortage of cinematic depictions of people getting their groove back, but seldom is the search for the self portrayed with as much tender empathy as Eisenberg and Moore have for Mona — an instant all-timer in Moore’s stacked repertoire. Over the film’s blissful 105 minutes, in which Moore appears in every scene, Mona transforms before our eyes from a diffident mother of two in an unhappy marriage into the star she always could be, though not without a few bumps in the road. It’s these obstacles that make Eisenberg’s film feel all the more realistic, accurately representing how much work it takes to find oneself, an arduous process that must be experienced over and over in different ways. As Mona discovers, the stumbles are as important as the triumphs. There is no greatness without embarrassment.
(A24) Paul Giamatti and Julianne Moore in “The Debut”
But to be embarrassed, one must first get the chance to be embarrassed. The role of Miss Danielle is Mona’s to lose, and lose she does to local legend Serena Cherry (a wonderful cameo by Bernadette Peters), who gives Mona’s big song all of the polished oomph of the Great White Way. But competition isn’t any concern of Mona’s. She’s more interested in what simply auditioning made her feel, how she came alive, if only for a brief few moments until Jerry cut her off. On a double date with her husband and their best friends, Mona, beaming, tells the group that she’s auditioned for “a musical show.” Her inadvertent gaffes with industry terminology might make her seem silly and out of her depth. But they also indicate an eagerness to learn, a will that makes Mona’s eventual callback after Serena Cherry drops out of the show seem almost like manifestation.
And, really, that’s all achieving anything in this life is: manifestation. While the word has been co-opted and corrupted by vision-board romantics and TikTok gurus, it’s still the key to making what we want happen. Manifestation doesn’t mean something we want pops out of thin air just because we think about it; it means hard work and relentless effort. And if struggling is how Mona will mold herself for the theater — stretching and shaping her performance into something worthy of the greater New Jersey area’s most prolific stage — so be it.
It takes immense skill for a great actor to convincingly play a novice performer. And because Moore is so talented — so uniquely proficient at finding the human depth at the core of all her characters — she can make Mona unforgettable. Here, Moore shows reverence not only for her own craft, but for all the hopeful idealists who pine to know what it feels like to lose yourself in someone, or something, else. As Mona goes deeper into Miss Danielle, turning a minor role into something far bigger and more unwieldy than anything she or Jerry prepared for, Moore reminds us why we lie awake at night, convincing ourselves there might be more to life. We don’t just search for something that fulfills us because we want to know what it feels like to be happy in our work or hobbies; we do it to make sense out of a nonsensical life, to understand what being a human is all about.
To say I can relate would be an understatement. I rarely find myself both crying with laughter and crying through my laughter in the span of the same film. It moved me deeply to be tossed headlong into Mona’s life, to sit beside someone who, one day, decided that she wanted something else for herself. I saw reflections and heard echoes of all of the reservations I had about becoming a writer, telling myself that I’d never be able to conjure the commitment it takes to write consistently, afraid that everyone else had sharper, smarter worldviews than mine — that they could see things I’d never be able to. I’d convinced myself that it would take too much time to start over, and that it wasn’t worth trying.
Moore reminds us why we lie awake at night, convincing ourselves there might be more to life. We don’t just search for something that fulfills us because we want to know what it feels like to be happy in our work or hobbies; we do it to make sense out of a nonsensical life, to understand what being a human is all about.
But, like Mona and her fond memories of childhood church choir, I couldn’t let the urge go. It wasn’t enough to simply watch films; I needed an outlet for all the ways they made me feel and all the ideas they inspired. My life didn’t feel complete just watching other people’s art. I wanted to make my own, too. And, again, like Mona, accepting that dream as a potential reality can shift your self-perception entirely. I’m not the same person I was when I first started this, and I often feel like I don’t recognize the person who first put finger to keyboard. Getting here now — typing away while I sniffle with a cold, a life I wouldn’t change for the world — required carefully deflating a rapidly overblown ego.
There’s a tendency to think that, because one has had any success at all, be it a musical callback or a greenlit freelance piece or a short story selected for publication, that they know best. But that’s never the case, at least not in the arts. And as Eisenberg continues to remind us that this is not Mona’s musical — that everyone in the cast and crew is just as important as she is — “The Debut” starts to sing even more beautifully than it already had.
But “The Debut” is not only for those in, or interested in, the arts. It’s a film for anyone who has put aside their desires and told themselves it’s too late or too scary to try something new. Be it gardening, ceramics, hang gliding, mountain climbing, swimming, competitive hot dog eating (well . . . consult your doctor), photography, skeet shooting, upholstery, or even just journaling, trying anything and everything to be closer to your happiest self is worthwhile. You may crash and burn, sure. But you might also come to understand your reason for living. Either result will paint a fuller picture, widening the spotlight little by little, until everything begins to glow.
The French government is closely watching a cybersecurity crisis at supermarkets after they were forced to throw out food due to an attack that knocked out refrigerators.
The office of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told POLITICO that he is “personally monitoring the situation” after cyberattacks targeted the refrigeration systems of several major supermarket chains. Lecornu has asked the country’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI to look into it, his office added.
News reports on Monday said that hundreds of supermarkets were affected. Intermarche and Cooperative U, two French supermarket chains, told AFP that they had been affected. Intermarche told AFP that affected stores will have to throw away affected fresh and frozen food.
Dominique Schelcher, the CEO of Cooperative U, confirmed on X that a cyberattack hit “the cold production facilities of several stores in our network” since Sunday night.
EU agriculture and food commissioner Christophe Hansen condemned the attack, also mentioning Leclerc, France’s largest supermarket chain, which has not yet publicly confirmed that it is affected.
French news reports state that the attack hit refrigerators manufactured by Danish company Danfoss. Prime Minister Lecornu’s office said ANSSI has found a flaw in software provided by “a Danish company” and has contacted it. The agency is coordinating with European counterparts as other countries may be affected, the office said.
Danfoss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
EU cybersecurity agency ENISA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There’s nothing subtle about a movie where Nicole Kidman crawls on her knees to lick milk out of a saucer. And yet, Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl” is perhaps the most thematically complex and provocative film of the year, kitty-play and all — one that will continue to reveal its multitude of layers long after Sky Ferreira’s scorcher of an end credits song has dulled its blaze.
It’s a cornucopia of titillating treats, best exemplified by the film’s centerpiece scene, which features the most memorable orgasm since “When Harry Met Sally.”
That dissonance between Reijn’s deliciously clever writing and her narrative’s more forthright eroticism is encapsulated by the film’s outré promotional rollout. To tantalize and tease prospective viewers, the marketing team behind “Babygirl” has leaned all the way in, emphasizing the movie’s Christmas Day release in promotional materials that demand audiences “get everything you want” this holiday. Trailer drops and sneak peeks have been accompanied by milk emojis, while official stills flaunt Kidman’s costar Harris Dickinson’s back muscles.
It’s no shock that, for a film that plainly features kinky sex, the “Babygirl” marketing team would want to stress the movie’s raw eroticism to get curious viewers in theater seats. It’s a trick almost as cunning as the one Reijn pulls off in the movie itself, as she disguises a stirring work about controversial pleasure and cerebral expansion as a kind of elevated “Fifty Shades.” Once audiences get eyes on “Babygirl,” they quickly find that the movie is so much more than milk emojis, gold chains and rippling back muscles. Rather, it’s a cornucopia of titillating treats, best exemplified by the film’s incredible centerpiece scene, which features both the most memorable orgasm since “When Harry Met Sally” and gobsmacking bits of screenwriting and acting that will force you to reconsider good sex as you know it.
By the time we arrive at this moment, Kidman, Reijn and Dickinson have done a good bit of work to make the payoff so satisfying. Kidman’s character, the incredibly successful and even more brilliant automation industry magnate Romy Mathis, has inadvertently found herself locked into a sizzling affair with Dickinson’s character Samuel, an intern at Romy’s company. During their first meeting as part of a new company-wide mentorship program, Samuel matches Romy’s slippery intensity, and his reluctance to ingratiate himself intrigues her. The pair soon engage in a series of high-stakes games where Samuel is in control. They play with one another under everyone’s noses, yet never consummate their dynamic with more than a kiss. That is until things between Romy and Samuel become so heated that neither party can ignore the magnetic pull any longer.
Samuel arranges for Romy to meet him at a seedy hotel room, a far cry from the luxury that Romy is used to and expects. She arrives before he does, and when he opens the door to meet him, she chides his behavior. “Leaving me notes, texting me, calling me, sending me milk, are you f**king insane?” Romy asks. “Keeping me waiting in this disgusting hotel? I mean, I don’t wait for anything.” Romy got to the top of her field by ingeniously developing ways for fleets of robots to automate repetitive tasks, and her sexual exploits are no different; waiting around is time wasted and money lost.
But the line between sensual restraint and true inconvenience is one that Romy has never established, and her annoyance is only confusing for Samuel, who we soon realize is just as unfamiliar with this particular energy as Romy is. He can’t tell if Romy’s vexation is genuine or just another part of their game, and tries to figure it out with a command. “Get on your knees,” he orders. When Romy immediately objects, Samuel laughs in response, himself confused about where Romy’s desire ends and where it begins. “I don’t know how to . . . is that what you want? Be honest.”
Romy tells him that she worries about his age and about hurting him, and Samuel — the shrewd student that he is — reads between the lines. “Hurt me?” he asks with a smirk. “I think I have power over you, because I could make one call and you lose everything. What, does that turn you on when I say that?” Romy holds his gaze, silently communicating her arousal, and Samuel responds by once again telling her to get on her knees. She begins, but stops herself, getting up and gathering her things to leave before stopping at the door and running back into his arms. Samuel, however, doesn’t want reluctance. He wants certainty.
When he pushes Romy off of him, the two wrestle to the ground, playfully slapping each other and grunting. It’s a brilliantly uneasy moment, and Reijn ensures that the viewer will never quite know where it will go until it’s over. Kidman giggles and then grows timid. Suddenly, the fear that something violent will happen becomes very real, but Samuel only subdues Romy and tells her to stop so they can figure out what’s happening. He clamps his eyes closed, and when he refuses to open them at Romy’s request, she reaches up to pry open his eyelids, causing him to smile.
By now, the scene already feels like a masterwork in erotic tension, with most audiences undoubtedly on the edge of their seats. The banter between Samuel and Romy is mischievous and childlike, at once sexy and threatening before turning around again to feel wholly loving. Much in the way that Romy is desperate to understand what exactly it is she wants, so is Samuel. The lines are blurred again later in the film, when the threat of ruining Romy’s life becomes more than a seductive trick, and that inevitable turn wouldn’t be nearly as gratifying for the viewer if it weren’t for the intense intimacy established in the remainder of this scene.
Samuel helps Romy off the floor and positions her in the corner of the room, like a child in time-out. This is Reijn’s most explicit image of Romy working through her incontrovertible Freudian shame, a humiliation that has troubled her for her entire life and which has no identifiable source — despite her attempts to pinpoint it through every therapeutic treatment known to man. At this stage, Romy is unwilling to remove her clothes, so Samuel circumnavigates the traditional nude image of sex to find a different route to her pleasure. He asks her to get on her knees before unwrapping a piece of hard candy and placing it into his hand. Romy crawls forward and picks it up with her mouth, allowing Samuel to pet her like a dog. Gently, he places Romy onto the dirty hotel room floor, facing away from him, and reaches into her skirt to finger her.
It’s a brilliantly uneasy moment, and Reijn ensures that the viewer will never quite know where it will go until it’s over.
What comes next (no pun intended) is one of the most startlingly crude and incontestibly incredible sex scenes in recent memory. Reijn’s camera closes up on Kidman’s face while Samuel works in the background, out of focus. We watch as Romy moves through pleasure, fear, bliss and confusion. Here, Kidman is using her powers as both a grade-A movie star and a true artist to mesmerize us, fully in service of Reijn’s vision. It’s a staggering bit of genius and one of the most unforgettable scenes in any film this year, a truly affecting look at the heady pursuit of physical euphoria. As Romy nears her orgasm, she’s terrified, and when she objects and tells Samuel that she “doesn’t want to pee,” we realize that she has no experience physically ejaculating. He quells her worries and brings Romy to orgasm, and she is immediately stricken with a massive wave of grief and guilt.
But Romy’s remorse doesn’t just stem from the fact that she’s cheated on her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas), it comes from her realizing that her husband — the person she loves the most, with whom she shares two children — has never made her feel such full-bodied pleasure. Samuel bears a power that takes hold of Romy, the kind of hypnotic sway that she’ll have to contend with eventually. But first, she sobs, crumpling into Samuel’s arms while he holds her close.
It must be said that this scene demands everything of Kidman, and she bares herself entirely without any nudity at all. It is positively thrilling to see someone act at this level, so much so that Kidman’s performance demands that the viewer shed all pretenses. It’s impossible not to admire the complex, sophisticated work in this scene, which is so beautifully constructed that it defies whatever vulgar, less refined terms that may be used to define it going forward. Here, “Babygirl” graduates from to inviting to important, blowing past the tactics that marketers used to get people to pay the price of admission. Reijn’s film is more than just an erotic thriller, it’s a landmark piece of mainstream erotic cinema that, like Samuel and Romy, relishes the opportunity to push the boundaries.
Germany has rejected Ireland’s proposal for the EU’s next seven-year budget, despite €159 billion in cuts. And it’s not alone: Governments are divided over where the cuts should fall, while the European Parliament is threatening to block the deal.
Zoya Sheftalovich and Nick Vinocur unpack the backlash and what it means for this week’s EU leaders’ summit.
Plus, Zoya interviews Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner about Europe’s efforts to curb irregular migration and plans to tighten restrictions on Russian visitors and former soldiers.
And why the influencers expected at this week’s EU summit won’t be showing up after all.
Questions? Comments? Let us know on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.
BRUSSELS — Europe will lose out because of €159 billion in cuts to the bloc’s next long-term budget, the European Commission has warned days before EU leaders gather in Brussels for talks on the bloc’s future spending plans.
In an unusual attack, the Commission told governments that scrapping billions from several rainy-day funds will leave Europe less equipped to deal with crises during the next seven-year budget cycle, said four EU diplomats briefed on the talks, granted anonymity to speak freely about confidential discussions.
The Commission’s top budget official, Stéphanie Riso, delivered the warning to the EU’s 27 ambassadors during a closed-door meeting on Sunday, a day after the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU, which is steering the talks, proposed cutting around 8% from the bloc’s total budget from 2028 to 2034.
The Commission is “very concerned about cuts to flexibility,” said one of the EU diplomats.
As a result of the changes, “we will have no ways left to help farmers and regions when crises hit, because of climate change or geopolitical tensions,” they added.
EU ambassadors gathered to discuss the Irish plan, which envisages cuts of €159 billion in current prices from the Commission’s nearly €2 trillion proposal. Of that amount, €38 billion was cut from foreign aid, €75 billion was axed from competitiveness, and at least €22 billion was slashed from rainy-day funds.
But even those reductions were criticized as insufficient by a German-led group of states pushing for cuts of several hundred billion. During the closed-door meeting, a rival bloc of 17 countries, known as the Friends of Cohesion, welcomed the fact that the Irish presidency had spared agriculture and regional payments from cuts.
EU governments are racing to finalize a deal on the budget among themselves by the end of the year — before elections in France, Italy and Poland that threaten to disrupt the negotiations.
A leaders’ summit on Thursday and Friday will give early signals as to whether the end-of-year deadline is achievable — or whether leaders should start preparing contingency plans.
One EU diplomat said the pressure is now on those leaders: “What could make a difference is if Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron show up, hand-in-hand, and say we live in a new world.”
Cuts to the future
The Commission warned that cuts such as those put forward by Ireland will shrink the next budget — excluding repayments to post-Covid debt — below the current one.
The cuts overwhelmingly affect EU-wide priorities such as competitiveness, defense and foreign aid while leaving traditional policies untouched such as agriculture and regional payouts, which make up almost half the budget.
Friedrich Merz and Micheál Martin during a press conference in Dublin on July 28, 2026. | Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images
The changes undermine the Commission’s proposal, which envisaged more flexibility and steered hundreds of billions of euros toward new priorities.
In a further setback for the Commission, Ireland also downsized — or even scrapped — several financial cushions to shelter EU countries from unforeseen events such as natural disasters or public health emergencies.
The EU executive argues these changes will make spending in the next budget more rigid than in the current one — and potentially warrant a midterm review of the budget further down the line.
However, Ireland’s Europe Minister Thomas Byrne disputed this claim in a press conference on Saturday, saying the budget proposal “offers increased flexibility … in response to the clear call from member states for a simplified and more flexible, modern [budget].”
Another source of tension in the next budget came from Ireland’s watering down the link between EU payouts and economic reforms.
The Commission has repeatedly defended using regular budget payments as a carrot to nudge governments to undertake reforms that will make them more competitive.
However, Ireland’s ambassador to the EU, Aingeal O’Donoghue, said during the meeting that the new text will not link EU cash disbursements and “fiscal reforms,” according to one of the diplomats.
Though writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” fancies itself a journalism thriller, the film offers only a handful of real thrills. Fans of the subgenre, known and loved for its depiction of journalism’s slow yet effective behind-the-scenes processes, might see this as a fatal flaw. After all, isn’t a journalism thriller without tension just a drama? Perhaps. But in the case of Sorkin’s latest — billed as a companion piece to the massively successful, defining 2010 film “The Social Network,” which he also penned — the lack of twists and revelations is a feature, not a bug.
Set between 2019 and 2021, Sorkin’s film stares down the dawn of a new decade, preparing for the birth of our current web of chaos, cruelty and thinly veiled deceit. Fifteen years after Facebook first took the web by storm, the company has now grown into a conglomerate whose arms shuffle politics, culture and social mores around the world’s face like pieces on a game board. Facebook’s users are being radicalized at alarming rates thanks to algorithms that feed them extremist groups and all of their content. Facing problems everyone else turns a blind eye to, Facebook civic integrity team member Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) reluctantly begins a working relationship with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White). At the risk of losing her job and being indicted for violating her NDA, Frances provides information droplets that eventually become the Journal’s “Facebook Files” series, exposing a deluge of damning, ethically dubious information against the company. In other words: The perfect material for someone like Sorkin.
(Sony Pictures Entertainment) Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) and Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) in Columbia Pictures’ “The Social Reckoning.”
Of course “The Social Reckoning” arrives too late to feel revolutionary; it would be late even if it depicted something that happened last week. Wedged in the tiny space between irrelevancy and timeliness, Sorkin’s companion piece doesn’t need to say anything new to do its job. The film only has to persuade us to pay attention to its shouts.
Between “The West Wing” and “The Newsroom,” Sorkin’s indulgent forays into the sociopolitical have long been criticized for their hubris. But despite his work being a bastion of Hollywood’s overwrought liberal optimism, “The Social Reckoning” presents a similar but discernibly different picture from the ones Sorkin’s already painted. Here, Sorkin funnels his penchant for self-important sanctimoniousness through the journalism thriller’s always-intriguing lens. And though the result is sometimes stale, the banality creates an eerie dissonance between the film’s subject matter and the world outside the cinema, pitting the snail’s pace that good investigative journalism requires against an external culture that moves at 5x that speed. This same discrepancy has made the journalism thriller itself feel somewhat archaic. If audiences already know the intimate details of how a very real public leak, whistle-blow, or scandal came together, what’s left for them to learn by fictionalizing it all?
The answer, unfortunately, is very little. But just because the viewer might not learn something new by watching “The Social Reckoning,” doesn’t mean that they won’t understand something better. Sorkin’s film highlights the conflict between slow-moving reporting and the light-speed pace of modern culture, a velocity enhanced by the very tech the film has in its crosshairs. The movie isn’t so much about the Facebook leaks as it is about an era when bone-chilling data revealing a company’s malevolence isn’t enough to stop evil machinations in their tracks. Of course “The Social Reckoning” arrives too late to feel revolutionary; it would be late even if it depicted something that happened last week. Wedged in the tiny space between irrelevancy and timeliness, Sorkin’s companion piece doesn’t need to say anything new to do its job; it only has to persuade us to pay attention to its shouts.
And persuade it does — for the most part, anyway. While “The Social Reckoning” might stand in the shadow of its formative predecessor, the film confidently asserts its own merit. It’s a well-oiled machine, moving at a perfectly amiable pace thanks to Madison and White’s lead performances alongside a host of quippy, Sorkin-style side characters. (Few things in the film are more enjoyable than Betty Gilpin’s wise-cracking Wall Street Journal bureau chief.) Granted, much of this pleasantness relies on watching the movie anytime before sunset. This is a matinee coffee film, not a popcorn feature, lest anyone expect edge-of-your-seat tension.
Because, really, what’s ultimately compelling about a movie peering into Facebook’s impropriety? That’s like asking someone if they know that violence is bad, or puppies are cute. The funny thing is, though, that nowadays, surveying 10 people about those questions could easily return 10 different answers, or responses rife with caveats and asterisks. That intentional confusion and misdirection is exactly what Sorkin gestures to in vignettes of Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong), intercut throughout the film, preparing for a civil hearing about Facebook refusing to fact-check political ads on its platform. Zuckerberg is a spin artist, skilled at worming his way out of trouble by tailoring the world around him to suit the beast he created. Facebook feeds a culture where up is down and left is right, and vice versa. Sorkin’s depiction of Zuckerberg as a sniveling coward might be smug, but it’s not inaccurate. The intention is not to show the audience who Zuckerberg is — Sorkin spent one film doing that already; it’s to assess the trickle-down effect of his spinelessness.
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Zuckerberg and his cronies have the upper hand. They can change things in the blink of an eye, so imperceptibly that users will barely notice a change if at all. Journalism can’t move at that pace — not good, well-sourced, fact-checked, influential journalism, that is.
To do this, Sorkin compares Facebook’s reluctance to fact-check political advertising with its enthusiasm for spinning the truth to get engagement. Naturally, these two things are the same, but their effects eventually diverge, meaning that political ads are only one metric for inciting engagement. The most frightening aspect of mining engagement — the part we might not always think about — is how the tools and algorithms designed for it must change as users age out of different platforms. How do Facebook, Instagram and all of Zuck’s other spawn remain integral parts of our lives until we die if users eventually get weary enough to figure out their existence is better off without them? For publicly traded companies like these, declining engagement results in lost value.
This is the crux of Frances and Jeff’s concerns. (And, by extension, Sorkin’s film.) They want to expose the obscure operations, to implore users to reconsider their relationship with these platforms. The problem is that Zuckerberg and his cronies have the upper hand. They can change things in the blink of an eye, so imperceptibly that users will barely notice a change if at all. Journalism can’t move at that pace — not good, well-sourced, fact-checked, influential journalism, that is. When Frances hands Jeff documents that confirm Facebook knows all about Instagram’s negative impact on teenagers, she urges him, “Get it out there, before they start marketing Instagram Kids.”
The line chills not because something like Instagram Kids feels plausible, but because it’s already a reality. Impressionable people of all ages around the globe have direct access to the platforms that exacerbate rage and depression for monetary gain and immeasurable power. They had that access before “The Facebook Files,” and they have it today, years after those stories ran. So, what’s the point of all this?
I’d wager the film’s purpose is not to explain, but to appeal. “The Social Reckoning” exists to make what we already know compelling again, reminding — perhaps even convincing — viewers that journalism is not only worthwhile, but critically important. So, too, are the movies that depict journalism’s procedures and how arduous and exhausting they are. Everyone’s mileage will vary, but I find the film’s matter-of-fact formal structure more convincing than not. “Spotlight” won the best picture trophy only a decade ago. And while that film far exceeds “The Social Reckoning,” I wonder whether the reaction would be entirely the same today. Haugen and Horwitz battled similarly daunting foes, and the rot they uncovered was just as systemic and frightening as the reporting. The primary difference is that the corruption Sorkin points to is unique to the digital age, where everything is ephemeral — trumped by the next headline. Maybe, he posits, we shouldn’t forget so easily.
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about thrillers that aren’t entirely what they seem
After congratulating the crew on completing thousands of combat missions with “zero casualties, zero flight mishaps, and zero working toilets,” Jost’s Hegseth offered an update on developments back home.
“In December, as we get into the Christmas spirit, we’re gonna execute a guy in a wheelchair on live TV,” he announced. “That’s right, public executions are back,” he continued, joking that anyone who survived the firing squad would have to fight boxer Jake Paul.
The sketch also mocked a controversial Department of War logo, with a sailor asking whether it featured a Nazi eagle. “It’s an American eagle with a Nazi vibe,” Jost’s Hegseth replied.
James Austin Johnson later appeared as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announcing plans to expand cold and flu season to include listeria, measles and “trench brain.”
Later, Jost returned to the Weekend Update desk, opening with what he called a “tragic developing story” involving Trump. “It’s that President Trump has sadly not won the Nobel Peace Prize,” Jost said, introducing a clip of the president complaining about the award’s recipient.
“He’s genuinely angry that he didn’t win the Peace Prize,” Jost said, pointing to Trump’s military actions before adding, “And he still thought, ‘This is my year.’” Jost compared Trump’s expectations to believing he might win an Oscar for *Tom & Jerry*.
Michael Che returned to the execution controversy, joking that the Pentagon’s proposed livestream would mark the first public execution in the United States since “a couple of weeks ago,” drawing groans from the audience.
Saturday’s episode was hosted by comedian Shane Gillis, with Rosalía as musical guest.
The episode also featured an unscripted moment when host Shane Gillis accidentally dropped an uncensored F-bomb during a Green Eggs and Ham parody. Gillis broke character after realizing his mistake, prompting cast member Mikey Day to incorporate the slip into the sketch. Gillis apologized during the show’s closing credits.
From Disney Plus to HBO Max, almost every major established streaming service is experimenting with ways to get into vertical content. It's clear that these companies see video-focused social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram as existential threats. In this arms race for viewers' attention, it has often felt like everyone is trying to find new ways to exist on people's phones. But a new startup thinks that the next step in vertical series' evolution is going to take place on our wide-screen televisions.
Unlike most vertical microdrama / series streaming platforms on the market that have focused on mobile viewing experiences, Vurt ha …
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