Recently in The Signal: Why are people’s cognitive skills declining? Gloria Mark on how consumer technology is making us more error-prone, more stressed, and less productive.
Today: “U.S. society is less trusting of experts. People follow their own networks, their own thinking—or they follow influencers on X or whatever—and that gives legs to new fads like high-protein diets or certain exercise regimens. If someone around me, or someone I listen to, happens to be eating more protein, I’m more likely to—regardless of whether or how the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommendations might have changed.” Why are people in the United States eating record amounts of meat? Glynn Tonsor on a mysterious outlier trend in the Western world.
+ Who’s winning the struggle for power and influence in Syria?
& new music from Maria Somerville.
First: what we’re tracking for this week’s member’s despatch …
An election surprise in Australia
The Australian Labor Party and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won a landslide victory in national elections on Saturday, increasing their majority in the 150-seat Parliament from 78 to 86 seats.
- Labor’s victory was a shock, as the center-right Liberal-National Coalition led in polling throughout 2024 and the beginning of this year.
- The election was the first time in 21 years that the country’s incumbent party won re-election.
- Most analysis blames the unpopularity of U.S. President Donald Trump in Australia for Labor’s come-from-behind win. Coalition leader Peter Dutton styled himself somewhat after Trump—notably denouncing “wokeness,” for instance—and Coalition candidates wore MAGA hats while campaigning.
It would appear dislike for Trump globally is harming right-wing parties in elections in Western countries like Canada and Australia. And yet the populist forces that helped him win two presidential elections are still strong, as voters showed last week in local U.K. elections and the first round of Romania’s presidential election, where candidates from the populist right scored big successes. It’s too soon to know whether and to what extent the first pattern will grow or disrupt the second.
Tremors in Gaza
Israel announced on Monday that it would dramatically escalate its military operations in the Gaza Strip—if Israel and Hamas didn’t reach a ceasefire in the imminent future.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address that Israel’s armed forces would invade Gaza and stay there—and that the Palestinian “population will be moved, for its own protection.”
- Netanyahu is under political pressure by the far-right parties in his government to demolish Hamas and free the roughly 150 remaining Israeli hostages they’re holding.
- U.S. President Donald Trump will visit Arab Gulf countries in mid-May. Israeli officials said they’d wait to start new operations until after Trump’s visit.
Many reports question whether the announcement means Israel intends to occupy large parts of Gaza indefinitely, or whether the goal is just to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages—or even a political maneuver by Netanyahu to keep his coalition partners and voters happy. The UN and U.K. immediately denounced Israel’s military plans, but it seems as though Netanyahu and his cabinet don’t care—as long as the Trump administration backs them.
Meanwhile
A record number of 1.1 million people have applied to run the 2026 London Marathon, far ahead of the 840,318 entries for this year’s race, which took place on April 27. More than 56,500 runners finished that marathon, also a record—just surpassing the roughly 55,600 finishers of the last New York Marathon: “Believe it or not, until 1975 women in Britain were banned from competing in running road races longer than 6km, with female runners making up just 4 percent of the 7,000-strong field at the inaugural London Marathon. In this year’s edition, 45 percent of the 56,640 participants were women—and women made up 49.55 percent of U.K. applications for the 2026 ballot.”
Feature
Allison Braden
Connections / from the member’s despatch
Who’s winning the struggle for power and influence in Syria?
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Coming soon: Lucy Suchman on the risks of automated weapons systems targeting civilians …
