Does it feel to you like way too much is happening, way too fast? It feels that way to me. Yesterday I suggested that someone should write “When Was the Last Slow News Day? A Slate Investigation.” Executive editor Allison Benedikt pointed out that the answer was “Wednesday.” Apparently nothing big happened on Wednesday. Hope you enjoyed the break! Here’s some things to read:
From Slate
- This week we learned that Mike Pence won’t have dinner alone with a woman other than his wife. Heather Schwedel wondered what that means for his “ability to work with or gain insight from women who aren’t Karen Pence.” Ruth Graham talked to some young pastors who abide by the same rule, and argues that it’s not as weird as it might sound to some.
- The Republican caucus is in disarray. Nancy Pelosi finds herself with unexpected leverage—and she has a plan for how to use it. Meanwhile, Michelle Goldberg wonders why no one has stepped into the vacancy for an anti-Trump Republican.
- Trump’s anti-environmental executive orders won’t bring back coal jobs—although they’ll still do plenty of damage.
- Why do Trump and press secretary Sean Spicer keep botching easy questions about hate crimes? It’s complicated.
- Katy Waldman thinks S-Town, the new podcast from the makers of Serial, is “Serial done right.”
- The damage done by the U.N.–driven cholera epidemic in Haiti is incalculable—and the U.S. government’s cover-up is only making things worse.
Not from Slate
- Donald Trump’s picture of the American city seems to come from dystopian ’80s movies about New York.
- Moving story by Taffy Brodesser-Akner about the young people who struggle to leave ultra–Orthodox Jewish communities.
- Lots of good remembrances of the great New York Review of Books founder and editor Robert Silvers: from Alexandra Schwartz; from A. O. Scott, Sasha Weiss, and others; from Laura Marsh; from Adam Thirlwell; from Andrew O’Hagan. (Here’s Laura Miller’s Slate assessment.)
- Why is health care so expensive? One reason is that no one can understand the bills.
- I found this excerpt from a new biography of Sherry Lansing, about the struggle to make Fatal Attraction, juicy and fascinating.
- How the Republicans have set themselves—and the rest of us—up for a cataclysmic failure.
Thank you for your Slate Plus membership, which makes our journalism possible. See you next week!
Gabriel Roth
Editorial director, Slate Plus
