Ms. Maxwell and the pardon factor. On Friday, the U.S. Justice Department released a 337-page transcript and audio recordings of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s July interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell is currently serving 20 years for sex trafficking and related charges. The disclosure represents an extraordinary departure from standard Justice Department procedures—and appears to be the first time a convicted defendant seeking clemency from a U.S. president has been interviewed personally by a deputy attorney general he appointed.

It all follows weeks of political crisis over the Trump administration’s handling of Epstein files. Initially, it refused to release additional materials despite earlier promises of transparency. After facing fury from both Democrats and Republicans, the administration reversed course, conducting these high-level interviews with Maxwell and releasing the results as what you could hardly be blamed for seeing as damage control.

In the interviews, Maxwell told investigators she never witnessed inappropriate behavior by President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, or Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during their interactions with Epstein. She insisted there was never any Epstein “client list,” contradicting the very widespread conspiracy to the contrary.

Maxwell said that Trump was “always very cordial and very kind”; that Clinton “absolutely never went” to Epstein’s private island, despite Trump’s repeated claims that Clinton visited “28 times”; that she “never witnessed anything untoward” in Trump’s friendship with Epstein; and that “I do not believe he died by suicide, in reference to Epstein’s death.

Notably, Maxwell was convicted partly for lying about her knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s activities. Now she’s telling investigators she never saw Trump, Clinton, or Kennedy do anything wrong; she’s meanwhile seeking a presidential pardon—all right after the Trump administration’s deputy attorney general conducted this unusual interview with her … following massive political pressure to release Epstein files.

What’s her testimony actually tell us, then?

Famine and the fog of information war. On Thursday, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification declared famine conditions in northern Gaza, making this only the fifth IPC-confirmed famine in the organization’s 20-year history—and the first ever in the Middle East.

The IPC cites plummeting food consumption, with more than one in three people going days without eating; acute malnutrition rates doubling in some areas; and mounting evidence of starvation-related deaths. According to the World Health Organization, 74 Gazans died from malnutrition in 2025—63 in July alone. Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry reports 271 malnutrition deaths in total, including of 112 children, since the conflict began.

The Israeli government responded immediately, calling the report not only “an outright lie” but “a modern blood libel.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office cited successful humanitarian deliveries and falling prices for basic goods, arguing that shortages were on account of systematic thefts of aid by Hamas—while Israeli officials argued that while current shortages are connected to an 11-week aid blockade, that ended months ago; non-Israeli factors are driving circumstances now; and there is, in all events, no intentional Israeli starvation policy.

Meanwhile, as Gaza’s 2.1 million residents live through the circumstances, others near and far are parsing competing narratives from organizations with fundamentally different stakes in the outcome.

So what’s actually happening?

‘Pillows Plumped for the Guests.’ David Grubbs, the avant-garde guitarist and piano player (in Gastr del Sol and other bands), has put together a collaborative record with the Athens-based cellist Nikos Veliotis, the Japanese electronics ace Taku Unami, and the American percussionist-composer Sarah Hennies. As you might expect, none live in the same city—so they emailed files to each other to make this haunted drone-based record … under the name Bitterviper.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Hurricane Erin. So far, 2025 has been a fairly quiet season for tropical systems in the Atlantic Ocean—but Hurricane Erin did its best to stir things up, even if it missed the East Coast and delivered only a glancing blow to the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos—and a brush past Bermuda. 

Now it’s off toward Ireland and the United Kingdom …

But when it gets there next week, Erin will be an extratropical cyclone—a cold-core storm that will pack less of a punch than a warm-core storm would. The GFS model shows Erin spinning in the waters between Iceland and Ireland for several days, bringing rains from Tuesday all the way to Saturday in Dublin.

Then, a combination of wind shear and sinking air over the Atlantic will throw a blanket over hurricane season for a while. But the season for tropical systems in the Atlantic doesn’t end until November 30, meaning there’s plenty of time for more tropical mayhem in 2025.

—Brendan Hasenstab

‘Wilderness.’ The cover of Farshad Akbari’s new album, Echoes of Nothingness, shows a sand-bleached skull sitting on dunes of empty desert as far as the eye can see. In this track, you can hear echoes of soaring, symphonic synth artists of the 1970s and 80s, like Vangelis or even Tangerine Dream—but also more dissonant sounds that can be characteristic of Persian and Afghan compositions: Akbari was born and raised in Tehran, and now lives in Kabul. This is music to drift away to.

What is that dissonant sound in Middle-Eastern music?

—Brendan Hasenstab

The revolution’s the easy part. Throughout July of last year, Bangladeshi student-led protests swelled in Dhaka and other cities. Prime Minister Sheikha Hasina, whose party, the Awami League, had arrogated power over the judiciary and the security services during her 15 years in office, insulted the demonstrators as “razakars”—a pejorative for people who’d collaborated with Pakistan’s armed forces in 1971, when most Bangladeshis wanted or even fought for their country’s independence.

This insult brought people from all classes—including, crucially, many women—into the streets. Some women used sticks and stones to fight against police and Awami League enforcers, and images of their courage only drove more support for the demonstrators. Police and paramilitary units reportedly killed at least 800 protesters, which violence in turn inspired more Bangladeshis to join the rebellion.

On August 5, Hasina fled the country to India, as protesters stormed the prime minister’s residence. The country installed a provisional government led by Muhammad Yunus, the 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who’d successfully used microcredit to promote economic development in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi prosecutors charged Hasina with crimes against humanity, the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission filed corruption charges against her, its International Crimes Tribunal sentenced her for contempt of court, and its interim government revoked her passport.

Yet one year later, the interim government appears to be following some of the tactics from Hasina’s authoritarian playbook: They’ve arrested critics and former Awami League supporters—on plainly bogus charges, including aiding genocide. They’ve banned the Awami League, which still has significant voter support; it’s the oldest party in the country and helped lead its struggle for independence. Neither is the government seriously pursuing the documentation and prosecution of human-rights abuses, including forced disappearances, of Hasina’s regime. Yunus’s government had delayed national elections, which only now, one year after the overthrow of Hasina, he’s finally scheduled for February.

What’s gone wrong?

—Michael Bluhm

‘Wedding in Leipzig.’ Block out some time to take in Jens Lekman’s new single, from his upcoming album, Songs for Other People’s Weddings, out September 12. It runs a little longer than 10 minutes, telling the story of a wedding singer traveling to Leipzig for a marriage in a church where Bach used to work—and ends up sitting with strange people at the singles table. Don’t be fooled, now, by the fake ending around 4:30 …

—Brendan Hasenstab

Deadlock in Seoul. The constitutional crisis that began with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s failed martial-law gambit in December continued this week when his wife, former first lady Kim Keon-hee, appeared in court over allegations that the couple exerted undue influence on the conservative People Power Party to nominate a candidate they preferred during the 2022 election. With Yoon himself under arrest on insurrection charges—the first sitting president in South Korean history to get himself in such a situation—the proceedings highlight how deeply the scandal has penetrated the country’s political establishment.

Eight months in, the crisis continues with no resolution in sight—and its effects are radiating: Unemployment spiked in December; the won, South Korea’s currency, has fallen to 15-year lows; and the central bank has cut growth forecasts. More troubling for Seoul’s international standing, the prolonged governmental paralysis has created what analysts have called a “quiet crisis” for the U.S.-South Korea alliance, with critical policy discussions stalled just as the Trump administration moves aggressively on multiple fronts. And domestically, the stakes go way beyond Yoon’s personal fate—to the question of how well South Korea’s 40-year-old democracy can withstand this level of institutional stress without suffering permanent damage.

How bad is it?

The Gaza City question. On August 8, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a plan for the Israeli Defense Forces to occupy Gaza City, the Palestinian territory’s largest population center and one of the last areas that hadn’t been under full Israeli control. On August 10, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the escalation, saying Israel would clear Gaza City and central areas of civilians by moving them to “designated safe zones” where they’d receive “ample food, water, and medical care.”

Despite tens of thousands of Israelis protesting the plan, Netanyahu recommitted to his position this week, claiming it represents “the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily.” The announcement drew international condemnation, with Germany suspending military-equipment exports that could be used in Gaza and Australia imploring that Israel “not go down this path.” After 22 months of war that’s brought widespread destruction and loss of life to Gaza, Netanyahu’s persistence in the face of mounting opposition from advisors and allies alike draws out an ongoing uncertainty, as to how well anyone fully understands his government’s objectives—and how much remains deliberately ambiguous.

What can we say about this?