What Trump’s Bible stunt says about his complicated history with Christianity On Tuesday, the president read from the Bible in a taped message. Religious scholars were not impressed

“If you like reading the Bible, try living it.” — Pastor Doug Pagitt of Vote Common Good
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Dave Mason, co-founder of Traffic who had a star-studded solo career, dies aged 79 British singer and guitarist wrote and performed Traffic classics including Feelin’ Alright? before platinum-selling solo albums and work with Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac and more

“I realised I needed more life experiences in order to write stuff that would become timeless.” — Dave Mason
www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

Opinion | Trump Holds the American People in Total Contempt

“We should heed the wisdom of the founding generation. To them corruption was poison, a cancer that ate at the foundations of self-government. A state so stricken was bound to succumb to political death.” — Jamelle Bouie
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/o...

Why is the Maga project teetering? Because not even Trump supporters voted for this dysfunction | Moira Donegan The president’s fixation on culture-war grievances is a colossal misreading of voters who just want prices to come down, says Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan

“Their own campaign, meanwhile, was a festival of male grievance and resentment, celebrated by the celebrities of young men’s online subcultures and touted on manosphere podcasts…” — Moira Donegan on the Republican party
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

‘All the President’s Men’ at 50: Times Journalists Look Back

“I saw ‘All The President’s Men’ in the theater when it first came out. I was 10, and something of a Watergate obsessive.” — A.O. Scott
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/i...

Behind Trump’s Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples With His Own Fears The president’s impulsive style has never been tested in a sustained military conflict, and he’s been ruminating on Jimmy Carter’s failure in Iran.

“We are witnessing astonishing military successes that do not add up to victory and that is squarely on the president and how he’s chosen to do his job—lack of attention to detail and lack of planning.” — Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute
www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

‘I became a New Order groupie’: Tim Burgess’s honest playlist The Charlatans frontman plays Kate Bush deep cuts in his car and loves a bit of Abba, but which scary industrial noiseniks soundtrack his sexy time?

“There’s no embarrassment in liking SOS by Abba.” — Tim Burgess
www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never Picks 5 Essential Minimalist Compositions The experimental composer Daniel Lopatin names several key works that define the genre.

“Minimalism doesn’t necessarily have to be about a Marie Kondo lack of things in the room. It can be very dense, like staring at an ocean.” — Daniel Lopatin
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Cabalar Lager in Lancaster, PA.

Aging in a Brightly Lit, Big City

“Best of all is being young in the city. Which I no longer am. But I am certainly not about to give up on it.” — Jay McInerney
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/s...

Two Delicious Food Memoirs, Two Very Different Menus

“‘Don’t be a bland chicken cutlet,’ was the subtext in all my mother’s suggestions to live with reckless abandon.” — Zahra Tangorra
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/b...

90s rock icon Bob Mould: ‘When Cobain died, I pulled the plug – there was nothing worth saving’ Mould’s fearsomely loud power trio Sugar rode the wave of grunge, but called it quits when the scene lost its innocence. Now the band are reuniting – before it’s too late

“I didn’t wear earplugs when I started playing with Bob. But soon afterwards, I did. It was just deafening.” — Malcolm Travis
www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

When Peter Hujar Met Paul Thek A new joint biography traces the lives and work of the two artists, who became lovers in the 1960s.

“I was a wreck, the block was a wreck, the city was a wreck; and I’d go to a gallery and there would be a lot of fancy people looking at a lot of stuff that didn’t say anything about anything to anyone.” — Paul Thek
newrepublic.com/article/2073... via @newrepublic.com

Opinion | This Is Not a Man in Control of Himself

“To have spent any amount of time observing President Trump over the last month is to conclude that he is in far over his head.” — Jamelle Bouie
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/o...

babe, wake up, new form of mansplaining just dropped

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Erupts at Pope and Draws a Backlash

“While receiving a McDonald’s food delivery to the Oval Office, the president told reporters that he posted a photo that depicted him as a robed, Jesus-like figure because he thought it had depicted him as a doctor.” — Katie Rogers www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04...

The shared excitement over NASA’s recent mission compared to the general indifference to SpaceX missions speaks to the power of something seen as the product of communal human effort rather than just the ego and avarice of one obnoxious dork.

David Sklansky, ‘Mathematician’ of High-Stakes Poker, Dies at 78

“You had to beat the local players, you had to beat the cops who were raiding the quasi-legal games and you had to beat the outlaws who would come after you after you won the money.” — James McManus www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/u...

Pete Hegseth is a disaster of a defense secretary. It’s no surprise | Margaret Sullivan The former Fox host has misled the public, prayed for violence and clashed with the press. This is not a serious military leader

“With his bloodthirsty utterances, his fierce loyalty to Trump and his appalling inability to manage this huge moment in world history, Hegseth is every bit the disaster that anybody sensible could have seen coming.” — Margaret Sullivan
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The 48th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament kicks off this morning!

While it’s underway, Games World of Puzzles is running a special discount subscription rate.

It’s only good until 2 p.m. Sunday.

Click the link below or use the QR code.

gamesworldofpuzzles.com/acpt

For Trump and Hegseth, the Iran war is a game | Judith Levine Amid death, threats, obliterated buildings and wasted money, the administration’s remarks have been head-spinning to witness

“Hegseth was armored in his usual muscle-enhancing blue suit; he declaimed in his usual ready-for-primetime style. Yet he looked uncharacteristically wan and puffy. War is hell on the complexion.” — Judith Levine
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Deborah Levy: ‘CS Lewis’s White Witch terrified me – but I wanted to meet her’ The South African author on discovering Colette, being inspired by JG Ballard, and the subversive joys of Asako Yuzuki

“James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and The Lover by Marguerite Duras remain the defining texts that steer my own writing. Why? The depth charge of the prose, its beauty and pain, plenty of wit and high emotion.” — Deborah Levy
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

A Particular Beauty: Irmin Schmidt Interviewed | The Quietus From Can's "school of pain" to the electroacoustic, treated piano work of new album Requiem, Irmin Schmidt reflects

“I am from the School of Pain, which is called Can! We four criticized each other pitilessly, but especially Jaki. It’s like giving birth to something which is painful but absolutely worth it. Otherwise it wouldn’t have existed.” — Irmin Schmidt
thequietus.com/interviews/i...

An Interview with David Berman - Believer Magazine When David Berman ended his rock band Silver Jews, in 2009, he announced it on his record label’s website, writing, “I’ve got to move on. Can’t be like all the careerists doncha know,” and “I always said we would stop before we got bad.” It was painful, but not shocking. He sang of “chemical dependencies” […]

“As for the future, I would like to live in a hotel like an old Victorian bachelor.” — David Berman
www.thebeliever.net/an-interview...

Between the Impossible and the Inevitable: The Case for Defiance (aka Never F**king Surrender) I have been hesitating to hit send on this one, because across the world we are all under the shadow of Trump's threat to commit war crimes that will "eradicate a whole civilization" in Iran while Ira...

Claims we have no power to impact what happens are nevertheless an intervention in what will happen, by discouraging participation, by encouraging passivity, surrender, acquiescence. If you insist that a given outcome is inevitable, you are lobbying against resistance.

My Lover, the Rabbi by Wayne Koestenbaum review – as fierce and strange as anything you’ll read this year With echoes of Balzac and Proust, this tale of obsessive love evokes the dangers and delights of forbidden desire

“The writing, meanwhile, treats all realist convention with a kind of exalted scorn, conjuring the dangers and delights of obsession in prose that is itself unashamedly obsessive – and wonderfully frank...” — Neil Bartlett
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Absolutely exhausting, but also profoundly morally corrosive, to live like this.

How Did Black Music Take Over the World? Let Melvin Gibbs Explain.

“When you use scholarship to hold somebody else’s hand, that’s the kind of person Melvin is.” — Georgia Anne Muldrow
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/a...

A big part of the authoritarian playbook is war. War takes over the news. War blots out criticism. War divides a nation’s people, subjecting those against it to being called unpatriotic. War grants leaders all sorts of emergency powers. War consumes everything else.

We mustn’t let this war do so.

The man who watches Trump all day, every day Aaron Rupar spends up to 80 hours a week following the US president, from meandering speeches to impromptu press conferences. He says it’s ‘pretty bleak’

“It’s difficult to cover him in a way that conveys how unhinged he is. Journalists are trained to be like, ‘OK, what did he say that was newsworthy?’ So you convey that to your audience. But in reality, when you actually watch, you see he's full of hatred, lying constantly, and very incoherent.”