Some countries still want to save the world
America may have shut down USAID, but some countries — Spain, Ireland, South Korea, and Italy — are pledging to increase their foreign aid budgets. As Sara Herschander writes, “Their decisions point to the possibility of a new future for foreign aid that could be more collaborative and less paternalistic than before.”
The sad young literary man is alive and well on Substack
“Book twitter” has been decimated. You don’t want to be on BookTok. Time to throw in your hat and surrender to hot Substack summer? Constance Grady chronicles the emerging scene and notes that, hey, squint and you could mistake what’s happening now on the buzzy newsletter platform for a very different literary world: the one of 2005.
🎧 This is your brain off books
Speaking of writers, are there still readers? There’s been a lot of handwringing over how our culture is supposedly becoming illiterate, but this Today, Explained episode with Eric Levitz goes further. Eric carefully examines the claim that our media environment is bringing us back to a different way of communicating — orality — and that this is poisoning our politics. It’s a sharp exploration of a tantalizing claim. And make sure to check out Eric’s original article on orality, too.
Turns out the Trump economy is not doing so well after all
Donald Trump’s tariffs have been one of the most whiplash-causing events of the past few months — on, off, on. For a while, it seemed like this chaos might not be hurting the American economy that much. But unfortunately, new economic data suggests we’re not getting off that easy. Not only is hiring down, but prices are up, and the risk of a recession is increasing.
Is it possible to “win” a nuclear war?
The old (1985) wisdom: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Unfortunately, that’s not exactly how countries are acting today (2025). In this Josh Keating piece: MAD vs NUTS, Pentagon war games, and the risk of the world’s biggest gamble.
