John Ross

1 week ago | vanityfair.com | John Ross

It’s official: China is reducing the number of Hollywood films allowed to play in the country as part of its ongoing trade war with Donald Trump. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that China was considering a full-out ban on all Hollywood films, so maybe movie executives here should feel lucky that it will only “moderately reduce,” as Bloomberg reports, the number of US movies it imports.

4 weeks ago | vanityfair.com | John Ross

It’s official: Starting in 2027, Sundance will move to Boulder, Colorado—and luckily, not Cincinnati, the possibility of which was a major concern for attendees this year. After an extensive search that started in April of 2024, the festival revealed Boulder, Cincinnati, and nearby Salt Lake City as its three potential new host cities. Of those, the Colorado hamlet won out.

4 weeks ago | currentaffairs.org | Stephen Prager |John Ross |Nathan J. Robinson |Kyle Kulinski

Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was given a once in a lifetime opportunity to show us how the powerful act when nobody is watching. Instead, he left the room. On Monday, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that a member of the Trump administration unexpectedly added him to a group text chain in which top national security officials were discussing immediate plans to carry out airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthis (Ansar Allah).

1 month ago | currentaffairs.org | Stephen Prager |Alex Skopic |Nathan J. Robinson |John Ross

Donald Trump is cynically using the idea of Jewish safety to launch a regime of political persecution. But he and his allies barely disguise their own antisemitism. [Content warning: Antisemitism, misogyny]The Trump administration has begun arresting political prisoners, and it’s using a supposed crackdown on antisemitism as a pretext to do it. Last week, ICE detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate of Columbia University who is in the United States as a lawful permanent resident.

1 month ago | currentaffairs.org | Alex Skopic |Nathan J. Robinson |John Ross

It’s a testament to human arrogance and cruelty that this is even being considered. Can you imagine what it would be like to kill an owl? To look down the barrel of a rifle or shotgun, pull the trigger, and watch a feathery body fall to the ground with a dull thud? Probably not. Owls are fascinating, beautiful creatures, and they’ve done nothing to harm humans, so the thought of murdering one in cold blood is repellent. But not, apparently, to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.