SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2026 · MORNING EDITION
THE WORLD NEWSREEL
Showing posts with label cucina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cucina. Show all posts
10/20/26
THE WORLD NEWSREEL
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 — Morning Edition
Know today the truths of tomorrow.
TODAY'S HEADLINES
EUROPE IN THE STREETS — Public order becomes a central political question in France and Italy.
WASHINGTON AND KYIV — A widening diplomatic rift raises new questions about Europe's strategic dependence on America.
THE MIDDLE EAST — Yemen and Lebanon remain active fronts of regional instability.
THE MILAN QUESTION — The deployment of military personnel and the limits of civilian authority.
THE NEW GEOGRAPHY OF POWER — Energy disruption and the changing strategic importance of the Americas.
WHO OWNS THE NEWSPAPERS? — The proposed acquisition of the Telegraph and the politics of foreign influence.
THE LEAD
Europe in the Streets
The European crisis is no longer confined to diplomacy, energy supplies, or parliamentary debate. It has reached the streets.
In France, disturbances and the authorities' response have placed public order at the centre of political controversy. The closing phase of Emmanuel Macron's presidency is increasingly overshadowed by questions of legitimacy, governmental authority, and the capacity of the state to contain social unrest.
Italy faces its own version of the problem. Following disturbances in Milan, the government has announced additional security measures, including the deployment of military personnel.
The immediate circumstances differ. The political question is remarkably similar.
Can a government restore order without restoring consent?
The distinction matters. A police operation may reopen a street. It cannot, by itself, repair a broken relationship between government and governed.
STRATEGIC DESK
Washington, Moscow, Kyiv: The Alliance Under Strain
The diplomatic relationship between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky has become a central uncertainty in European security.
The dispute concerns more than public statements. American intelligence, satellite capabilities, air defence and military assistance remain indispensable elements of Ukraine's capacity to resist Russian attacks.
For European governments, the question is becoming increasingly uncomfortable: how much of their own security architecture can they sustain independently of Washington?
The possible use of frozen Russian assets has returned to the discussion. Yet the apparent simplicity of the proposal conceals difficult questions of sovereign immunity, property rights, countermeasures and international responsibility.
The larger issue is structural. An alliance built upon American predominance must now confront the possibility that its principal guarantor may redefine his interests.
MIDDLE EAST
The Wars That Continue
The conflict in Yemen remains an active component of the wider Middle Eastern crisis. Renewed attacks and heavy casualties demonstrate the persistence of a war too often overshadowed by developments elsewhere.
Lebanon presents another difficult equation. The relationship between Israeli military operations, the withdrawal of forces and the proposed disarmament of Hezbollah remains unresolved.
In Israel, the approach of the parliamentary elections adds a domestic political dimension to an already unsettled regional situation.
These are not independent crises. They are interconnected conflicts in which territorial security, domestic legitimacy and the interests of external powers continually overlap.
ITALY / AFFAIRES
The Milan Question
The decision to employ military personnel in response to urban disorder deserves attention beyond the immediate incidents that occasioned it.
The distinction between military and civilian authority is among the fundamental constructions of the modern constitutional state.
Yet it is not an absolute separation. European states have repeatedly employed armed forces in domestic emergencies, sometimes under exceptional legal provisions, sometimes through ordinary statutory arrangements.
The important question is therefore not simply whether soldiers appear in the streets.
It is whether an exceptional response becomes an ordinary instrument of government.
The history of constitutionalism suggests that the transformation often takes place gradually, without any formal declaration that a constitutional boundary has been crossed.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The New Geography of Power
The disruption of Middle Eastern energy supplies has renewed attention to production in the Americas.
The United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and other Western Hemisphere producers may acquire greater strategic importance as governments seek to diversify supply.
This is not merely a story about oil prices.
Energy geography has always been political geography. The location of resources, the security of transport routes and the capacity to control supply have repeatedly influenced the distribution of international power.
A prolonged Middle Eastern crisis could accelerate a reorientation already visible in the world economy: the growing strategic weight of the Americas.
PRESS & POWER
Who Owns the Newspapers?
The controversy surrounding the proposed acquisition of Britain's Daily Telegraph raises a question older than the newspaper itself.
Who controls the institutions through which a society learns about the world?
Foreign investment in media enterprises may be a legitimate commercial activity. Yet the acquisition of a politically influential newspaper by investors connected to another state's interests raises questions that cannot be answered by competition law alone.
Editorial independence, national security and freedom of expression become entangled.
The paradox is familiar. A free press requires independence from government. But preserving that independence may itself invite governmental intervention.
It is an excellent illustration of the difficulty of separating private property from public power.
OUR COMMENT
The Return of Public Order
There was a time when the central political question appeared to be the distribution of prosperity.
Today, in an increasing number of countries, it is the preservation of order.
In Paris, the authorities confront disturbances in the streets. In Milan, the government turns to additional security forces. In Ukraine, the survival of a state remains dependent upon the uncertain commitments of its allies.
These situations are not equivalent. Yet each exposes a different aspect of the same fundamental problem: the relationship between authority and obedience.
The modern state has traditionally claimed a monopoly over the legitimate use of force. But legitimacy and force are not interchangeable terms.
A government may possess the means to compel obedience while losing the political capacity to command it.
Nor does the problem disappear when the instruments of coercion become more sophisticated.
Surveillance, intelligence, military deployment and emergency legislation may increase the operational capacity of the state. They do not necessarily increase its authority.
The distinction is one that modern politics repeatedly rediscovers and repeatedly forgets.
The question of our time may no longer be simply who governs, but by what means government remains possible.
The World Newsreel — Editorial Desk
THE NINETEENTH HOLE
Golf, the Last Civilised Disagreement
There is something almost subversive about golf.
In an age devoted to acceleration, golf insists upon delay. In a civilisation increasingly persuaded that every human activity should be made more efficient, golf demands four hours to accomplish what might otherwise be described as putting a small ball into a hole.
It is also one of the few remaining activities in which a gentleman may suffer a complete humiliation without being entitled to blame the government.
The essential drama of golf is not the contest between two players. It is the contest between a man and his previous shot.
The drive that appeared to promise everything has disappeared into the trees. The cautious approach has found the bunker. The putt that required no thought whatsoever has stopped three inches from the hole.
And yet the player continues.
Perhaps this is why golf has survived the destruction of so many other aristocratic conventions. It requires no hereditary title, but it imposes a discipline upon vanity that no hereditary title can escape.
The nineteenth hole, fortunately, restores the natural order of things.
Here the defeated player may reconstruct his round as it ought to have happened. The lost ball becomes an unfortunate accident of topography. The missed putt is attributed to the greenskeeper. The scorecard remains the only reliable witness.
And the witness, as usual, is unwelcome.
THE WORLD NEWSREEL KITCHEN
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca — A Dish with an Unreliable Biography
Few dishes possess a more entertaining name or a less certain history than spaghetti alla puttanesca.
Its origins have been attributed to Naples, to Ischia, to late-night improvisation and to stories whose principal attraction is that they are probably untrue.
This is not necessarily a defect.
A good recipe does not require an authenticated birth certificate.
For four people: 400 g spaghetti, 400 g peeled tomatoes, two cloves of garlic, four anchovy fillets, a generous handful of black olives, a tablespoon of capers, extra-virgin olive oil, parsley and a little dried chilli.
Warm the garlic gently in olive oil. Add the anchovies and allow them to dissolve. Introduce the tomatoes, olives, capers and chilli, then cook until the sauce becomes concentrated but not dry.
Boil the spaghetti until just short of al dente. Transfer it to the pan and finish cooking with a little pasta water.
Add parsley and serve immediately.
The sauce should be assertive, salty, fragrant and slightly unruly. Cheese is unnecessary.
The great virtue of puttanesca is that it requires almost nothing fresh and yet tastes unmistakably alive.
It is a small triumph of Mediterranean civilisation: a meal assembled from preserved ingredients that behaves as though it had been planned for days.
10/19/26
THE WORLD NEWSREEL
Know Today the Truths of Tomorrow
Politics · Power · Culture · Fashion
PRESPACK — MONDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 19, 2026
An independent view of the world, edited in the spirit of Poor Richard.
TODAY'S HEADLINES
FRANCE — THE MINISTER WHO WAS NOT ALLOWED TO RESIGN
Macron keeps his Interior Minister after a weekend of riots. The government preserves its chain of command, but the Republic faces a more difficult question: the preservation of public confidence.
UKRAINE — THE THREE-MAN PEACE TABLE
Putin reportedly proposes talks with Trump and Xi. Kyiv fears that its future may be negotiated by powers with rather different interests.
THE OBSERVER'S DESK — THE EMPTY CHAIR
Diplomacy, sovereignty and the curious disappearance of the country whose fate is being discussed.
ITALY — THE REPUBLIC OF AFFAIRES
Ambrosio examines the national press and the art of choosing which crisis deserves the front page.
THE NINETEENTH HOLE
Eugenio Chacarra conquers Delhi and takes the lead in the Race to Dubai.
CULTURE & THE ARTS
Turin revisits the relationship between fashion, the city and modernity.
THE SILVER SCREEN
Roger Corman returns to the Cinema Massimo.
ACADEMY
The geopolitics of legal authority: who writes the rules when the great powers negotiate?
1. WORLD & POWER
FRANCE: THE MINISTER WHO WAS NOT ALLOWED TO RESIGN
The Élysée preserves the police chain of command. The crisis of political confidence is another matter.
PARIS, Monday. French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez's offer to resign after a weekend of nationwide demonstrations that descended, in several cities, into rioting, looting and attacks on public buildings.
The Élysée's explanation was revealing. Nuñez was to remain in office to preserve continuity of command within the police and security forces. The president also demanded new measures against looting and violent disorder.
The decision makes administrative sense. A government confronting widespread disorder can scarcely afford uncertainty over who commands its security apparatus.
But administrative sense is not necessarily political reassurance.
The demonstrations began amid anger over living costs, public services and educational conditions. Their participants and motives were diverse; peaceful demonstrators must not be confused with those responsible for arson or looting. Yet the disorder has exposed something larger than a policing problem.
A government can replace a minister. It cannot replace public confidence by decree.
The comparison with February 1934 remains instructive, although the political movements and historical circumstances are profoundly different. Then, too, France discovered that the survival of a ministry and the authority of the Republic were not identical questions.
The immediate issue is whether the state can restore order. The deeper issue is whether restoring order will restore legitimacy.
Reporting: Reuters, 19 October; Associated Press, 19 October.
Sources:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-declines-interior-ministers-offer-resign-2026-10-19/
https://apnews.com/article/f5ce07c2ef46ad0c02c6ff7018532a59
2. WORLD & POWER
PUTIN'S PROPOSED THREE-MAN PEACE TABLE
Trump, Xi and Putin may discuss Ukraine. But who will represent Ukraine?
WASHINGTON–MOSCOW. Vladimir Putin has reportedly suggested a November summit with Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to discuss a settlement of the war in Ukraine.
Reuters, citing a report in The Wall Street Journal, says preliminary discussions have taken place. A possible meeting on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen has been mentioned. No summit or agenda has been definitively agreed.
The diplomatic architecture is nevertheless striking.
Russia would be represented by its president. The United States by its president. China by its president.
Ukraine, the sovereign state whose territory and security are at issue, does not appear in the proposed three-man configuration.
This is not yet an agreed negotiating format. It is a reported Russian proposal. But proposals have political meanings even when they never become meetings.
Meanwhile, Washington's easing of sanctions on Moscow and its diesel agreement with Russia have provoked criticism from Kyiv. Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and Russian attacks on Ukraine's power system continue to make the language of an energy ceasefire particularly fragile.
The military contest is being accompanied by a struggle over the right to define the peace.
And in international politics, deciding who sits at the table is frequently the first substantive decision.
Reporting: Reuters and Associated Press, 18–19 October.
Sources:
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/putin-proposes-summit-with-trump-xi-discuss-ukraine-deal-wsj-says-2026-10-19/
https://apnews.com/article/f813d3725b8b5f23958a68a95729fd0d
3. THE OBSERVER'S DESK
THE EMPTY CHAIR
On the difference between ending a war and deciding the fate of a country.
There is a certain elegance in arranging a peace conference for three men.
Three chairs. Three flags. Three interpreters. Perhaps a fireplace, perhaps a photograph, certainly a communiqué.
The difficulty begins when one remembers the fourth country.
Ukraine is not merely the location of a war. It is a state. Its government, population, territory and independence are not incidental details of a diplomatic transaction between Washington, Moscow and Beijing.
The great powers have always been tempted by the economy of deciding the affairs of smaller powers among themselves. It is an old European habit, now advertised as geopolitical realism.
One might recall the Congress of Vienna. One might recall Yalta. One might also recall how often the resulting arrangements were subsequently described as inevitable by those who had not been invited to negotiate them.
The present proposal remains unconfirmed as a meeting. It would be premature to write the outcome of a conference that has not taken place.
But the underlying question is already before us.
Is peace simply the termination of hostilities, or does it require the political consent of those who must live under its terms?
A cessation of fighting may be negotiated between powerful states. Legitimacy is considerably more difficult to distribute.
And there is another irony.
While Washington and Moscow discuss the possible terms of European security, France is struggling to preserve domestic authority in its own streets. Europe possesses governments, treaties, institutions and an elaborate vocabulary of strategic autonomy. Whether it possesses a decisive voice at the relevant table is less obvious.
History rarely repeats its costumes. It does, however, retain an alarming fondness for its furniture.
The empty chair is sometimes the most important chair in the room.
Good night, and good luck.
4. WORLD & POWER — THE EUROPEAN WEATHER
A CONTINENT OF PROTEST
The French disorders have occurred against a wider background of European discontent over living standards, public services and political representation.
It would be a mistake to describe these movements as a single European uprising. Their causes, participants and objectives differ. What connects them is less an ideology than a recurring question about the responsiveness of established institutions.
The danger for governments is to interpret every demonstration as merely a problem of policing.
The danger for demonstrators is to suppose that public anger, by itself, constitutes a political programme.
Between these two mistakes lies the difficult business of representative government.
5. ITALY — THE REPUBLIC OF AFFAIRES
THE FRONT-PAGE INQUEST
AMBROSIO READS THE ITALIAN PRESS
THE REPUBLIC, THE RIOT AND THE PRIMARY ELECTION
The most revealing feature of a newspaper is not always what it reports. It is what it considers worthy of the largest type.
This morning, Il Fatto Quotidiano gives substantial attention to the dispute over Elly Schlein's leadership and the centre-left primary-election question. Its edition also reports the disorder in Milan, the confrontation over police responses and Macron's address to France.
Elsewhere, the Italian front-page landscape includes a distinctly different vocabulary. Il Tempo advertises a supposed plan to set Italy ablaze.
There we have two familiar political grammars.
In the first, the crisis is interpreted through parties, leaders and the mechanisms of political competition. In the second, the disorder becomes the organising principle of the national story.
Neither editorial selection is innocent, nor need it be dishonest.
A newspaper cannot publish everything on page one. It must choose. But the choice is an argument about the country.
The reader is invited to see either a political system struggling with itself or a nation threatened by disorder.
Ambrosio's observation is that the front page does not merely tell us what happened. It tells us what sort of country the editor believes we inhabit.
And the reader, who has not yet finished his coffee, is asked to inhabit it too.
Sources: Il Fatto Quotidiano's 19 October edition; Giornalone's front-page archive; RaiNews photographic press review.
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/edizione/lunedi-19-ottobre-2026/
https://giornalone.net/
https://www.rainews.it/photogallery/2026/10/fotorassegna-stampa-le-prime-pagine-dei-quotidiani-di-lunedi-19-ottobre-2026-d45cfc64-f94b-4cb6-9360-103d16ac3d4b.html
6. THE NINETEENTH HOLE
CHACARRA CONQUERS DELHI
An Indian victory and a European title race transformed.
Spain's Eugenio Chacarra has won the DP World India Championship at Delhi Golf Club, finishing at 21 under par, two strokes ahead of New Zealand's Daniel Hillier.
It was a remarkable victory in an event repeatedly interrupted by adverse weather. Chacarra had to complete 25 holes on Sunday, and the victory moves him to the top of the Race to Dubai standings.
Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, finished well down the field, tied for 42nd.
Golf occasionally offers a salutary correction to celebrity. A tournament may begin with its most famous names on the posters and end with somebody else holding the trophy.
Chacarra's achievement was not simply a display of power. It was a demonstration of endurance and composure under awkward conditions.
At the nineteenth hole, we raise a glass to the player who managed the course rather than merely attacking it.
7. THE ART OF GLAMOUR
WHEN ADVERTISING PHOTOGRAPHY HAD A PERSONALITY
There was a time when a fashion photograph could be recognised before one read the photographer's name.
Richard Avedon understood movement, expression and the astonishing possibility that elegance might laugh. Helmut Newton preferred tension, theatricality and the suggestion that a perfectly dressed woman had just entered a rather dangerous story.
Neither photographer merely illustrated a garment.
They created worlds in which the garment acquired meaning.
The distinction is worth remembering in an age when photographic perfection is increasingly available without photographic imagination.
A beautiful picture is not necessarily a memorable picture. The memorable one contains an idea.
8. CULTURE & THE ARTS — TURIN
THE CITY AS A FASHIONABLE BODY
Palazzo Madama's exhibition Il corpo della città: Moda e arti tra Liberty e modernità, 1884–1961 offers a particularly attractive subject for an autumn visit.
Its chronological frame invites us to think of fashion not as an isolated sequence of dresses but as part of the visual history of modern urban life.
Architecture, decorative arts, clothing and the changing public appearance of women belong to the same history of taste.
Turin is an especially appropriate place for this conversation: a city whose bourgeois elegance was shaped by the passage from nineteenth-century decorum to industrial modernity.
The exhibition runs from 15 October 2026 to 22 February 2027.
Source:
https://www.comune.torino.it/vivere-comune/eventi
9. THE SILVER SCREEN
ROGER CORMAN'S MONDAY AT THE CINEMA MASSIMO
Two films by Roger Corman are scheduled in Turin today:
4:30 p.m. — Bloody Mama (Il clan dei Barker, 1970)
A gangster family story in which crime, family and American mythology meet in suitably disreputable fashion.
6:30 p.m. — The Pit and the Pendulum (Il pozzo e il pendolo, 1961)
Vincent Price, Edgar Allan Poe and the peculiar splendour of low-budget Gothic cinema.
Both are listed in original language with Italian subtitles.
The programme also includes Fatherland at 4:00 p.m. and the Ocean Film Festival at 8:00 p.m.
Corman's genius was to understand that imagination could compensate for money, but money could never compensate for the absence of imagination.
Source:
https://www.cinemamassimotorino.it/calendario-completo/
10. ACADEMY — COMPARATIVE LAW
WHO WRITES THE RULES OF PEACE?
International law begins with a proposition that geopolitical practice repeatedly places under strain: states possess juridical equality even when they possess radically unequal power.
The proposed three-power discussion over Ukraine makes the distinction unusually visible.
The question is not whether great powers can influence the settlement of a war. Plainly they can. It is whether their capacity to influence outcomes should be mistaken for a legal authority to dispose of another state's rights.
Here comparative law and international relations intersect.
The formal vocabulary is one of sovereignty, consent and obligation. The operational vocabulary is one of leverage, strategic interests and credible enforcement.
Neither vocabulary can simply replace the other.
A serious account of world legal order must therefore study both: the rules that institutions proclaim and the practices through which power selects, modifies or occasionally disregards those rules.
The comparison is not between law and anarchy. It is between different ways in which authority is produced and recognised.
11. ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO
OCTOBER 1926: EUROPE BETWEEN TWO ORDERS
A century ago, Europe was living in the uneasy interval between the postwar settlement and the crises that would destroy it.
The Locarno agreements of 1925 had encouraged hopes of diplomatic stabilisation. Germany had entered the League of Nations in September 1926. Yet the European order remained dependent on a combination of treaties, national ambitions and the willingness of governments to respect their commitments.
Italy was already under Fascist rule. The Soviet Union stood outside much of the Western diplomatic system. The apparent recovery of international stability concealed deep disagreements about power and legitimacy.
The historical resemblance to our own time is not an identity of events. It is a warning against confusing the existence of diplomatic machinery with the existence of political agreement.
Historical retrospective; not a transcription of a newspaper dated 19 October 1926.
12. FROM THE KITCHEN
VITELLO TONNATO
A Piedmontese classic, served cold.
For four people, take approximately 700 grams of veal, 150 grams of good-quality tuna in olive oil, two anchovy fillets, a tablespoon of capers, two egg yolks or prepared mayonnaise, lemon juice and a little olive oil.
Gently cook the veal with aromatic vegetables and white wine until tender. Allow it to cool completely, then slice it thinly.
Blend the tuna, anchovies, capers and mayonnaise into a smooth sauce, adjusting with lemon juice and a little cooking liquid.
Arrange the slices on a platter, cover lightly with the sauce and refrigerate before serving.
Garnish with capers.
The essential virtue of vitello tonnato is restraint. The sauce should accompany the veal, not bury it.
Serve with a dry Piedmontese white wine.
13. POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK
“A peace conference is a splendid invention, provided the people whose peace is being negotiated are invited.”
— Poor Richard, 19 October 2026
THE WORLD NEWSREEL
Know Today the Truths of Tomorrow.
End of the Monday Morning Edition.
10/18/26
THE REPUBLIC AND THE STREET
OUR COMMENT
Paris, 1934–2026. A warning from history.
PARIS — Saturday night, October 17, 2026.
Good evening.
Ninety-two years ago, an American reporter walked into the Place de la Concorde and found a bus burning beside the obelisk.
His name was William L. Shirer.
It was February 6, 1934.
Across the Seine stood the French Chamber of Deputies. Between Parliament and the crowd stood the police.
Then came the shooting.
By morning, there were dead men in the streets. And a government that had survived a parliamentary vote of confidence would shortly resign.
Tonight, Paris is troubled again.
There have been fires, broken windows, confrontations with the police and hundreds of arrests. There have been injuries. But, according to the reports available this evening, no confirmed fatalities from today's demonstrations.
That distinction matters.
In 1934, men died.
In 2026, the line has not been crossed.
We should be grateful for that. We should not assume it cannot be crossed.
But there is another resemblance, less visible than the flames.
In 1934, the crowds included royalists, nationalist leagues, veterans and even some communist militants. They did not agree about the future of France. They agreed that the existing political order had failed them.
Today, France's streets bring together students, trade unionists, Yellow Vests and citizens of very different political convictions. The organised far right and the organised left remain adversaries. They are not marching under one command.
Yet discontent increasingly travels across the old political boundaries.
The left distrusts the government.
The right distrusts the government.
And the government discovers that opposition to its authority may be more widespread than support for any single alternative.
This is not yet a revolutionary coalition.
It is something more difficult to measure: a crisis of legitimacy.
A government can possess the law, the ministries, the police and a constitutional mandate.
And still lose the confidence of those it governs.
Shirer witnessed that separation in 1934.
We are witnessing signs of it again.
There is, however, a second story. It lies beyond France.
In the 1930s, Germany had a strategic interest in the weakness and division of the French Republic. Hitler had come to power the previous year. A France distracted by domestic crisis was a France less capable of responding to the destruction of the European security order.
The demonstrators in Paris were not therefore German agents. Their grievances were French. Their political organisations were French.
But the consequences of French instability extended well beyond France.
Today, the corresponding strategic question concerns Russia.
Moscow need not command the demonstrations in Paris. It need not finance every protest in Rome, Berlin or Brussels. There is no reason to imagine that the legitimate grievances of European citizens originate in the Kremlin.
The important question is what happens when European governments become so occupied with defending their authority at home that they struggle to exercise it abroad.
Sanctions require political endurance.
Military assistance requires parliamentary consent and public support.
European security requires governments capable of making commitments — and keeping them.
Domestic disorder does not necessarily destroy these capacities. But prolonged political paralysis can weaken them.
And that possibility has an obvious place in Russian strategic calculations.
There is a final distinction.
In 1934, the French Republic was threatened by organisations that included declared enemies of parliamentary democracy.
In 2026, the right to protest remains an essential part of democratic legitimacy. The government cannot preserve the Republic by treating every dissatisfied citizen as an enemy of the state.
Nor can it restore confidence merely by clearing the streets.
The police may control the square.
The question is whether the government still commands the country.
Tonight, the Place de la Concorde remains a symbol. The principal Paris demonstration was directed elsewhere, after the authorities refused to permit its original route toward the square.
Ninety-two years ago, the shooting began.
Tonight, the shooting has not begun.
That is a difference worth preserving.
For history does not repeat itself by appointment. It offers no timetable, no guarantee and no warning bell.
Only the uncomfortable knowledge that a government may remain perfectly legal long after its authority has become uncertain.
And that other powers are watching.
Good night, and good luck.
Historical reference: William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary, entry of February 7, 1934. Contemporary reporting: Reuters, Associated Press and Le Monde, October 17, 2026.
10/17/26
PRESPACK — SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 17, 2026
Politics · Power · Culture · Fashion
TODAY'S HEADLINES
WASHINGTON AND KYIV — THE ALLIANCE THAT CANNOT AFFORD A QUARREL
Trump and Zelensky clash over Russian oil, Ukrainian strikes and the price of American support.
WASHINGTON — THE PRESIDENT'S CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD
With the midterms approaching, Republicans discover that an electoral machine can turn upon its operators.
THE OBSERVER'S DESK — THE POWER TO WITHDRAW
The most revealing instrument of modern diplomacy may be the ability to withhold what an ally cannot replace.
UNITED NATIONS — FIVE VETOES IN SEARCH OF A SECRETARY-GENERAL
Seven candidates, five permanent powers and no agreement.
THE GULF — THE WAR THAT TRAVELS BY SEA
Attacks on ships and renewed violence expose the fragility of the region's uneasy arrangements.
DELHI — THE DRIVER STAYS IN THE HOTEL
At Delhi Golf Club, Rory McIlroy discovers the continuing value of restraint.
ITALY — THE REPUBLIC OF AFFAIRES
What the Italian newspapers choose to put on their front pages—and what their choices reveal.
100 YEARS AGO — A SUNDAY IN THE OLD REPUBLIC
Washington, October 17, 1926: the newspapers of a world that had no idea what was coming.
WORLD & POWER
WASHINGTON AND KYIV — THE ALLIANCE THAT CANNOT AFFORD A QUARREL
Trump and Zelensky discover that the most dangerous argument between allies concerns not their enemies, but their dependence upon each other.
The latest dispute between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky has moved beyond the familiar exchange of diplomatic insults. According to Reuters, the quarrel now concerns Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy installations, the American administration's concern over fuel prices, and the reliability of vital support supplied to Kyiv.
Trump has criticised Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. Zelensky has defended them as a response to Russia's continued attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. Reuters also reports disruptions affecting satellite services and growing anxiety in Kyiv over American military and intelligence assistance. reuters.com
This is not simply another episode in the unhappy relationship between two presidents. It exposes a fundamental asymmetry.
Russia and Ukraine are enemies. America and Ukraine are allies. Yet the United States possesses instruments of pressure over Ukraine that Moscow does not: it can threaten to withdraw assistance on which Ukraine's ability to resist depends.
The resulting diplomacy is almost medieval in its structure. Protection creates dependence; dependence creates leverage; leverage begins to resemble authority.
The old vocabulary of sovereign equality survives. The actual relationship is rather more complicated.
Source: Reuters, October 17, 2026.
WASHINGTON — THE PRESIDENT'S CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD
An election approaches, and the governing party begins investigating itself.
With the November midterm elections drawing nearer, Donald Trump is reportedly increasingly dissatisfied with the performance of the Republican political operation.
Reuters describes criticism directed at campaign strategists, questions over the effectiveness of enormous political expenditures, and tensions involving senior White House figures. Republican redistricting calculations are also under renewed scrutiny as the party confronts the possibility of losing its majority in the House of Representatives. reuters.com
There is something almost theatrical about an administration which has made loyalty its organising principle discovering the advantages of blame.
A successful political machine has a leader, a strategy and a disciplined apparatus. An unsuccessful one begins to resemble a committee appointed to determine who was responsible for following the leader's instructions.
Trump's difficulty is especially interesting because he is not himself standing for election. His personal political authority must be translated into victories for other candidates.
That is the moment at which charisma meets organisation—and organisation sometimes has the last word.
Source: Reuters, October 17, 2026.
THE OBSERVER'S DESK
THE POWER TO WITHDRAW
On the strange political authority of those who can take their assistance away.
There was a time when power was measured principally by what a government could command.
Armies. Territory. Taxes. Men.
Our age has developed a more discreet instrument: the power to interrupt a service.
A satellite connection. An intelligence report. A financial guarantee. A shipment of ammunition. An energy supply.
The interesting feature of these instruments is that they may be withheld without any formal declaration of hostility. An ally need not become an enemy. It need only become less useful.
This week, the dispute between Washington and Kyiv has provided a particularly uncomfortable demonstration.
The Ukrainian government possesses sovereignty in the language of international law. It possesses considerably less freedom in the practical organisation of its defence.
And the Americans possess a power that is difficult to classify. They do not govern Ukraine. They do not command its armed forces. They are not legally entitled to determine every Ukrainian military decision.
But they can influence those decisions by controlling the conditions under which they remain possible.
A nineteenth-century diplomat would have recognised the arrangement immediately, although he might have used a less flattering word for it.
The modern international order likes to describe itself as a community of independent states. Its daily operations are increasingly those of a network of dependencies.
Perhaps this is the great political invention of our time: authority without office, coercion without command, and subordination without a formal superior.
Good evening.
UNITED NATIONS — FIVE VETOES IN SEARCH OF A SECRETARY-GENERAL
The United Nations searches for a leader. Its permanent members search for someone they can tolerate.
The latest informal Security Council ballot has failed to produce a candidate acceptable to all five permanent members.
Among the leading contenders are Rebeca Grynspan, Rafael Grossi and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, but none has yet escaped the objections of the powers whose consent is indispensable. The selection process continues. apnews.com
The procedure is an elegant reminder of the United Nations' constitutional architecture.
The secretary-general is supposed to serve an international community. The officeholder must nevertheless survive a selection process controlled by five particular states.
This is not an accidental defect in the institution. It is part of its founding compromise: a universal organisation resting upon an oligarchic settlement.
The General Assembly represents the world. The permanent members decide which candidates the world may choose.
Source: Associated Press, October 17, 2026.
THE GULF — THE WAR THAT TRAVELS BY SEA
The Middle East's conflicts continue to spread across the geography of commerce.
Reports of attacks on vessels in the Persian Gulf, a possible mine strike in the Strait of Hormuz, and renewed violence in Yemen and Gaza illustrate the difficulty of containing conflicts that are politically separate but strategically connected.
Associated Press reports that maritime authorities are investigating attacks on two ships near Saudi Arabia. The crews were reported unharmed. Iran has also reported a tanker incident involving a naval mine. These accounts require distinction: not every reported incident has been independently established. apnews.com
The geography matters. The sea does not respect the neat divisions by which diplomats distinguish one conflict from another.
A missile launched on land can become a question of maritime insurance, energy security and international commerce.
The Gulf has long been a place where local hostilities acquire global consequences. It remains one.
Source: Associated Press, October 17, 2026.
THE NINETEENTH HOLE
DELHI — THE DRIVER STAYS IN THE HOTEL
Rory McIlroy brings enormous power to a course that prefers a little discretion.
Delhi Golf Club, New Delhi. Archival view of the course.
At the DP World India Championship, Rory McIlroy has chosen to leave his driver and three-wood out of the bag.
The reason is the Delhi Golf Club itself: a relatively short but narrow course, with tree-lined fairways and doglegs that punish excessive ambition. McIlroy has opted for a five-wood and long irons instead. golfmonthly.com
The competition has also been disrupted by rain, leaving the schedule behind. Saturday's reports described a crowded leaderboard, with Ángel Hidalgo, Joost Luiten and Adrian Meronk sharing the lead at eight under in the reported standings. indianexpress.com
There is an agreeable lesson here.
Modern professional golf has spent years celebrating the spectacular length of the drive. Delhi replies with an older proposition: the object of the game is not to hit the ball as far as possible. It is to put it in the right place.
A remarkably conservative doctrine. One hopes it survives.
Sources: Golf Monthly; Indian Express, October 17.
THE ART OF GLAMOUR
MARIO SORRENTI — WHEN FASHION ENTERS THE MUSEUM
Loro Piana turns a fashion campaign into an exercise in cultivated understatement.
Mario Sorrenti's Fall/Winter 2026–27 campaign for Loro Piana, photographed at the Menil Collection and Rothko Chapel, Houston. Campaign imagery © Loro Piana; view the original photographs through the official link below.
The latest Loro Piana campaign, photographed by Mario Sorrenti, unfolds within Houston's Menil Collection and Rothko Chapel.
The location is not merely a luxurious backdrop. It is an assertion about the relationship between clothing, architecture and artistic taste.
Rather than staging fashion as a noisy spectacle, Sorrenti places it within environments associated with contemplation and restraint. The garments are presented through their textures, movement and relation to the surrounding space.
It is a clever form of advertising: the product borrows something from the cultural authority of the museum, while the museum acquires the carefully constructed intimacy of a private wardrobe.
Luxury has always required more than money. It requires a convincing theory of why the expenditure is civilised.
The campaign supplies one.
Photographs and credits: Loro Piana — Official Fall/Winter 2026–27 Campaign.
CULTURE & THE ARTS
LETIZIA BATTAGLIA — THE CAMERA AGAINST SILENCE
Turin opens a major retrospective of the photographer who made Palermo impossible to ignore.
Letizia Battaglia and the photographic world of Palermo. The exhibition's original photographs are credited to the Archivio Letizia Battaglia.
Today, October 17, CAMERA in Turin opens Letizia Battaglia. L'opera 1970–2020, a major retrospective curated by Walter Guadagnini.
More than 200 photographs explore the work of a photographer commonly associated with the violence of the Sicilian Mafia, but whose achievement extends well beyond crime reporting.
Her Palermo contains death and intimidation, certainly. It also contains children, celebrations, gestures, neighbourhoods and the ordinary stubbornness of human life.
Battaglia's photographs are powerful precisely because she did not allow organised crime to monopolise the meaning of Sicily.
The exhibition runs until February 7, 2027. camera.to
Exhibition and original images: CAMERA — Letizia Battaglia.
JESSICA LANGE — AMERICA THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS
The actress who became a photographer brings another America to Turin.
Still Image, Jessica Lange's photographic exhibition at the Musei Reali, Turin. Exhibition photography and press materials are available from the museum.
At the Musei Reali, Jessica Lange's exhibition Still Image presents more than 200 photographs spanning nearly thirty years of work.
The exhibition includes photographs associated with Highway 61, the great American route connecting Minnesota with the South, as well as images from her travels.
There is a pleasing reversal here. Cinema made Lange's face internationally recognisable. Photography allows her to disappear behind the camera.
The result is not Hollywood's America, but an America observed through its roads, faces and passing moments.
The exhibition continues until February 7, 2027. museireali.beniculturali.it
Exhibition and press photographs: Musei Reali — Press Kit and Images.
ITALY — THE REPUBLIC OF AFFAIRES
THE FRONT-PAGE INQUEST — A POPE, A PRESIDENT AND THE ITALIAN ART OF CHOOSING THE NEWS
The newspapers agree on the day's principal story. That does not mean they agree on what it means.
Italian front pages, October 17, 2026. For the original newspaper covers, see the dated press review linked below.
Today's Italian newspapers provide an instructive example of how a common event can be turned into different political narratives.
La Repubblica leads with Pope Leo XIV's telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin and the appeal for a humanitarian truce at Oleshky. Its headline presents the episode as an appeal to feed those facing hunger.
La Stampa gives the same diplomatic intervention a more immediate political formulation: the Pope asks Putin for a truce.
Both newspapers also report the deteriorating relationship between Trump and Zelensky. La Repubblica places particular emphasis on Zelensky's reliance upon Europe.
The student demonstrations and clashes, including those in Turin, receive substantial prominence, as do the European agreement on energy costs and the truck drivers' protests. tg24.sky.it
What interests us is not whether the Pope's intervention deserves attention. Of course it does.
The question is what happens when an appeal for humanitarian relief becomes the principal way of telling the story of a war.
The central strategic development today is not merely the Pope's request. It is the increasingly uncertain relationship between Ukraine and the power on which much of its defence depends.
The newspapers report that development. But their hierarchy of headlines encourages the reader to enter the crisis through the language of humanitarian diplomacy rather than through the architecture of power.
There is nothing illegitimate about that choice.
There is also nothing inevitable about it.
An editorial decision is not a fact of nature. It is a judgment about which facts deserve precedence.
And this is where The World Newsreel respectfully parts company with the Italian press.
We prefer to begin with the power that can alter the course of the war, then consider the diplomatic attempts to alleviate its consequences.
One might say that the Italian newspapers have chosen the language of conscience. We have chosen the language of causation.
Neither language is sufficient by itself. But confusing the two is a reliable way of misunderstanding politics.
The other Italian story worth watching is the investigation reported by several newspapers into two Israeli ministers in connection with the flotilla. That is a potentially significant legal affair, involving the intersection of criminal jurisdiction and international politics. Its procedural details deserve proper examination before any conclusions are drawn.
Front-page evidence: Sky TG24 — Italian Newspaper Front Pages, October 17, 2026.
100 YEARS AGO
WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 17, 1926 — THE WORLD BEFORE THE CRASH
A Sunday newspaper from a republic that still believed it understood the future.
The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., October 17, 1926. Original issue preserved by the Library of Congress.
Exactly one hundred years ago today, readers in Washington could open the Sunday edition of the Evening Star, a substantial metropolitan newspaper serving the capital of the United States.
The original issue survives in the collections of the Library of Congress. Its pages can be consulted as scans, with the advertisements, typography, columns and visual conventions of the period intact. loc.gov
The fascination of such a newspaper lies partly in what its readers did not know.
They lived in the prosperous America of Calvin Coolidge, three years before the Wall Street crash, seven years before Hitler became German chancellor and thirteen years before the outbreak of another European war.
The future was already approaching them. It had not yet acquired the appearance of inevitability.
This is why old newspapers are often more revealing than history books.
The historian knows what happened next. The journalist did not.
And the reader, on that October Sunday, had every reason to believe that tomorrow would be another ordinary Monday.
Original archive: Library of Congress — The Evening Star, October 17, 1926. The link opens the actual historical newspaper, not a modern retrospective.
FROM THE KITCHEN
RISOTTO AL BAROLO
An autumn evening in Piedmont.
A proper Barolo risotto requires Arborio or Carnaroli rice, a shallot, butter, good stock, Parmigiano Reggiano and a generous glass of Barolo.
Soften the finely chopped shallot in butter. Add the rice and toast it gently. Pour in the wine, allowing it to reduce before adding hot stock a ladle at a time.
Stir until the rice is tender but retains its centre. Remove from the heat and finish with cold butter and grated Parmigiano.
Allow it to rest briefly before serving.
There is no need to improve this dish with truffles, cream or other demonstrations of culinary ingenuity.
A good Barolo has already done most of the work.
POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK
Saturday, October 17, 2026
A newspaper tells you what happened. Its front page tells you what its editor wishes had mattered.
— Poor Richard
PRESPACK — SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2026
Politics · Power · Culture · Fashion
TODAY'S HEADLINES
BANGKOK — THE DIPLOMACY OF THE EMPTY CHAIR
Diplomats walk out. International cooperation carries on.
WASHINGTON — THE REPUBLICANS' CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD
An approaching election exposes the rivalries inside Trump's political machine.
AMERICA — A DEMAND FOR CHANGE, BUT TO WHAT?
The electorate is dissatisfied. The opposition has yet to convince it.
PARIS — THE RETURN OF THE STREET
France's unofficial second parliament prepares to assemble.
YEREVAN — THE PRICE OF SAVING NATURE
International promises encounter the inconvenient question of who pays.
DELHI — THE DRIVER STAYS IN THE HOTEL
Rory McIlroy discovers that a golf course can still defeat technology.
MARIO SORRENTI — WHEN FASHION ENTERS THE MUSEUM
Loro Piana, the Menil Collection and the art of creating an atmosphere.
LETIZIA BATTAGLIA — THE CAMERA AGAINST SILENCE
A major Turin exhibition revisits fifty years of photographic memory.
JESSICA LANGE — AMERICA THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS
The American landscape as a geography of memory.
ROGER CORMAN — POE RETURNS TO TURIN
Vincent Price, Gothic nightmares and the extraordinary economy of imagination.
THE OBSERVER'S DESK — THE POLITICS OF ABSENCE
Institutions may continue functioning long after confidence has departed.
WORLD & POWER
BANGKOK — THE DIPLOMACY OF THE EMPTY CHAIR
Diplomats walk out. International cooperation carries on.
Nearly half the delegates reportedly walked out during remarks by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov at a meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee in Bangkok.
According to Reuters, the protest included senior European central bankers, among them Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey. The walkout expressed opposition to Russia's war in Ukraine.
Yet the committee subsequently agreed on its final statement. Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan, who chairs the committee, emphasized that the institution had accomplished its business.
There is something wonderfully revealing about this episode.
International institutions are designed to make disagreement manageable. They cannot abolish disagreement. Indeed, the modern diplomatic ritual increasingly consists of performing disapproval while preserving the machinery of cooperation.
The delegates leave the room. The institution continues its work. Everyone returns home having demonstrated a principle.
The communiqué survives.
Source: Reuters, October 17.
WASHINGTON — THE REPUBLICANS' CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD
An approaching election exposes the rivalries inside Trump's political machine.
President Donald Trump has criticized senior aides and political operatives over the Republican midterm campaign, according to Reuters reporting published Saturday.
The tensions reportedly involve James Blair, the political operation surrounding MAGA Inc., and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Disagreements concern campaign expenditure, electoral redistricting and candidate selection. The White House disputes accounts attributed to unnamed sources, while Trump publicly defended Wiles on Friday.
The congressional elections are scheduled for November 3.
American politics has a peculiar talent for transforming electoral uncertainty into an internal struggle for control.
The immediate question is not merely whether Republican candidates can persuade voters. It is who controls the campaign's money, personnel and strategy — and who will be held responsible for the results.
Political loyalty does not eliminate institutional rivalry.
In fact, it may intensify it.
Source: Reuters, October 17.
AMERICA — A DEMAND FOR CHANGE, BUT TO WHAT?
The electorate is dissatisfied. The opposition has yet to convince it.
An AP-NORC poll published October 15 found widespread dissatisfaction with Washington and President Trump's performance.
The survey included 1,119 adults, among them 925 registered voters. Its reported margin of error for registered voters was approximately 4.2 percentage points.
Democratic respondents expressed somewhat greater enthusiasm about voting than Republican respondents. Yet the poll also revealed considerable dissatisfaction with both major parties.
The demand for change is not necessarily a mandate for the opposition.
American voters may reject an administration's performance without developing much confidence in its alternative.
This is one of the recurring paradoxes of democratic politics: an electorate may be perfectly capable of deciding what it dislikes while remaining profoundly uncertain about what it wants.
That distinction will matter beyond November.
Source: Associated Press — AP-NORC survey, October 15.
PARIS — THE RETURN OF THE STREET
France's unofficial second parliament prepares to assemble.
France faces nationwide demonstrations on Saturday, bringing together students, trade unionists and supporters of the Yellow Vest movement.
Reuters reports that protests originating in schools in the northern suburbs of Paris have expanded into a wider movement over living costs, public services and inequality.
The CGT trade union supports the mobilization.
President Emmanuel Macron has defended the right to protest while calling for peaceful demonstrations. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has warned of possible unrest.
The demonstrations come as France approaches its 2027 presidential election amid deep political fragmentation.
France possesses two political constitutions.
One is written, institutional and presidential.
The other is performed in the streets.
The Fifth Republic was designed to protect executive authority against parliamentary instability. But the concentration of authority in the presidency has another consequence: almost every major grievance eventually becomes a confrontation with the President himself.
The French street is not an alternative legislature. It is something more troublesome — an unpredictable source of political legitimacy.
Sources: Reuters, October 17 · Associated Press.
YEREVAN — THE PRICE OF SAVING NATURE
International promises encounter the inconvenient question of who pays.
Delegates are preparing to gather in Armenia for the United Nations COP17 biodiversity conference.
According to Associated Press reporting, the financial resources mobilized to protect ecosystems remain substantially below the international targets adopted in Montreal in 2022.
Governments agreed to protect 30 percent of important land and water areas by 2030, alongside major financing commitments.
International environmental law increasingly consists of ambitious collective commitments supported by uncertain national implementation.
The difficulty is not drafting another declaration. It is determining who must pay, who must act, and what follows when governments fail to deliver.
In that respect, biodiversity diplomacy resembles the wider international legal order: impressive in its normative architecture, considerably less impressive in its machinery of enforcement.
Source: Associated Press — Biodiversity financing.
THE NINETEENTH HOLE
DELHI — THE DRIVER STAYS IN THE HOTEL
Rory McIlroy discovers that a golf course can still defeat technology.
At the DP World India Championship, the narrow fairways and strategic doglegs of Delhi Golf Club have persuaded Rory McIlroy to leave his driver out of the bag.
The course measures approximately 6,900 yards. Its defenses are not principally length but trees, angles and the penalties attached to misplaced tee shots.
McIlroy has opted to rely on fairway woods and long irons.
Meanwhile, storm interruptions have disrupted the tournament schedule. Saturday's reporting described Ángel Hidalgo, Joost Luiten and Adrian Meronk sharing the lead at eight under par, with the field at different stages of their rounds.
There is a pleasing irony in watching one of the game's most formidable drivers voluntarily surrender his principal weapon.
Delhi offers a reminder that golf architecture can defeat technology without adding another hundred yards.
A well-positioned tree may be worth considerably more than a newly constructed bunker.
Sources: Golf Monthly — McIlroy's equipment decision · Indian Express — Tournament report.
THE ART OF GLAMOUR
MARIO SORRENTI — WHEN FASHION ENTERS THE MUSEUM
Loro Piana, the Menil Collection and the art of creating an atmosphere.
For its Autumn/Winter 2026–27 campaign, Loro Piana has chosen the Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel in Houston as settings for photographs by Mario Sorrenti.
The campaign includes models Jacqui Hooper, Noor Khan, Selena Forrest and Sigrid de L'Epine.
The result belongs to an increasingly interesting tradition of fashion advertising: photographs that construct a complete atmosphere rather than merely display garments.
The architecture, artworks and restrained palette become part of the story.
The distinction between a fashion photograph and a catalogue photograph is not the price of the clothes.
It is the presence of a world.
The most memorable fashion images suggest that the woman wearing the clothes has a life before the photograph and will continue living after it.
Sorrenti understands that elegance is often most persuasive when it appears incidental.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS: View Mario Sorrenti's Loro Piana Autumn/Winter 2026–27 campaign.
Photography: Mario Sorrenti. Images © their respective rights holders.
CULTURE & THE ARTS
LETIZIA BATTAGLIA — THE CAMERA AGAINST SILENCE
A major Turin exhibition revisits fifty years of photographic memory.
An exhibition devoted to Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia opens today, October 17, at CAMERA, the Italian Centre for Photography in Turin.
Letizia Battaglia. Works 1970–2020 runs until February 7, 2027.
Battaglia's photographs occupy a special place in the history of Italian photojournalism. Her work is inseparable from Sicily's violent political and criminal history, but it cannot be reduced to a photographic record of the Mafia.
She photographed a society: its rituals, children, streets, poverty, gestures and silences.
The camera can perform an extraordinary political function without becoming an instrument of propaganda.
It can preserve what power would prefer to forget.
The documentary photograph is not merely evidence of an event. It is also evidence of a way of seeing.
Exhibition: CAMERA Torino.
JESSICA LANGE — AMERICA THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS
The American landscape as a geography of memory.
Turin's Musei Reali are presenting Still Image, an exhibition of more than 200 photographs by Jessica Lange, running until February 7, 2027.
The exhibition includes work inspired by Highway 61, the great American road stretching from Minnesota towards New Orleans.
Here the American landscape becomes a geography of memory rather than a Hollywood backdrop.
There is an America that exists in political speeches and another that survives in photographs.
The second is usually quieter, older and more difficult to explain.
Exhibition: Musei Reali Torino — Still Image.
THE SILVER SCREEN
ROGER CORMAN — POE RETURNS TO TURIN
Vincent Price, Gothic nightmares and the extraordinary economy of imagination.
Cinema Massimo continues its Roger Corman retrospective today with three films in their original-language versions, subtitled in Italian.
4:30 p.m. — HOUSE OF USHER (1960)
Vincent Price presides over the decaying family mansion in Corman's first Edgar Allan Poe adaptation.
6:30 p.m. — THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964)
A richly colored meditation on aristocratic power, plague and the illusion that wealth can purchase immunity from mortality.
8:30 p.m. — X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES (1963)
A scientist acquires the ability to see beyond ordinary human perception, with increasingly disturbing consequences.
Corman's reputation for economy sometimes obscures his real achievement.
He understood that a small budget could become an aesthetic discipline.
In the Poe films, painted interiors, saturated colors and theatrical dialogue transform limited resources into a remarkably coherent imaginary world.
And X poses a question worthy of a philosophical treatise: what happens when the desire to see everything becomes incompatible with the ability to live?
Cinema listings: House of Usher · The Masque of the Red Death · X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes.
THE OBSERVER'S DESK
THE POLITICS OF ABSENCE
Institutions may continue functioning long after confidence has departed.
Bangkok, Paris, Washington.
Three cities. Three political dramas. Three variations upon the same question: what happens when established institutions cease to command the confidence of those who must operate within them?
In Bangkok, diplomats leave a conference room to protest the presence of a Russian minister. The meeting continues, and its final statement is adopted.
In Paris, demonstrators challenge the government from outside the institutions of the Fifth Republic. Their protest is not a parliamentary vote, but it is nevertheless an assertion of political authority.
In Washington, the struggle over the congressional elections has become, according to Reuters, a struggle within the President's own political organization.
These are not identical events. Their causes, consequences and moral significance differ considerably.
But they illuminate a common feature of modern government.
Institutions are not sustained by formal rules alone.
A constitution may distribute powers. An international organization may prescribe voting procedures. A political party may establish offices, committees and chains of command.
None of these arrangements can manufacture confidence.
And confidence, once withdrawn, does not necessarily produce institutional collapse.
More often, the machinery continues to operate.
The conference adopts its communiqué. The French government remains in office. The American campaign proceeds towards election day.
It is tempting to mistake this continuity for stability.
Yet the distinction between an institution that continues to function and one that continues to command authority is among the most important distinctions in political life.
The twentieth century furnished enough examples of governments that survived long after their legitimacy had begun to disappear.
The twenty-first century has become remarkably skilled at preserving the appearance of institutional normality.
The chairs remain arranged around the table.
The microphones are switched on.
The communiqué is ready.
What remains uncertain is who still wishes to sit down.
— The Observer's Desk
FROM THE KITCHEN
RISOTTO AL BAROLO
A Piedmontese dish for an October evening.
For four people: 320 grams of Carnaroli rice, one small onion, approximately 250 ml of Barolo, hot beef or vegetable stock, butter, Parmigiano Reggiano and a little olive oil.
Soften the finely chopped onion in butter and olive oil. Add the rice and toast it gently. Pour in the Barolo and allow the alcohol to evaporate. Continue cooking with hot stock, adding it gradually.
After approximately 16–18 minutes, remove from the heat and finish with cold butter and grated Parmigiano.
The result should be fluid, glossy and intensely aromatic.
A modest suggestion: do not use a wine you would be embarrassed to drink.
POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK
“When the delegates abandon the conference, the communiqué becomes considerably easier to write.”
— Poor Richard, October 17, 2026
11/4/23
Massimo Bottura: il miglior cuoco d'Italia
"Non si tratta mai semplicemente dell'anguilla!". insiste Bottura, con aria scandalizzata. "Il nostro menu è scritto come un'opera. C'è l'ouverture, poi l'adagio e l'allegro" - devo sottolineare che, a questo punto, Bottura sta dirigendo un'orchestra immaginaria, anche se senza bacchetta - "poi il minuetto e il gran finale. È un'intera esperienza emotiva del cuore. Non si può mai dire che è solo l'anguilla o il vino, altrimenti non si capisce la nostra filosofia".
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/massimo-bottura-interview-italian-food-restaurant-mrfdpmm5v
11/2/23
Come fare in casa il proprio 'Pollo del Kentucky'
La ricetta originale del pollo fritto di Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) è un segreto ben custodito e conosciuto solo da pochissime persone al mondo. Tuttavia, puoi preparare una versione casalinga del pollo fritto in stile KFC con una ricetta approssimativa. Ecco come puoi farlo:
Ingredienti:
- 8-10 pezzi di pollo (cosce, ali, petti, o quello che preferisci)
- 2 tazze di farina
- 1 cucchiaio di sale
- 1 cucchiaio di paprika dolce
- 1 cucchiaio di pepe nero
- 1 cucchiaio di aglio in polvere
- 1 cucchiaio di cipolla in polvere
- 1 cucchiaio di peperoncino rosso in polvere (opzionale, se ti piace piccante)
- 1 tazza di latticello (buttermilk)
- 2 uova
- Olio per friggere
Istruzioni:
1. In una ciotola, mescola la farina con il sale, la paprika, il pepe nero, l'aglio in polvere, la cipolla in polvere e il peperoncino rosso in polvere (se lo stai usando). Questa sarà la tua miscela di condimenti.
2. In un'altra ciotola, sbatti le uova e aggiungi il latticello. Mescola bene.
3. Passa ogni pezzo di pollo nella miscela di condimenti, assicurandoti di coprirlo uniformemente. Quindi immergi il pollo nella miscela di uova e latticello e infine rimettilo nella miscela di condimenti. Questo doppio rivestimento darà al pollo una crosta croccante.
4. Riscalda l'olio in una pentola o friggitrice a circa 170-180°C.
5. Fai cuocere il pollo nell'olio caldo fino a quando è dorato e croccante, ci vorranno circa 15-20 minuti, a seconda delle dimensioni del pollo. Assicurati che il pollo sia cotto completamente.
6. Scola il pollo su carta assorbente per rimuovere l'olio in eccesso.
7. Servi il tuo pollo fritto in stile KFC caldo e croccante con contorni come purè di patate, cole slaw o biscotti.
Ricorda che questa ricetta è solo un'approssimazione della ricetta segreta di KFC. Il gusto esatto potrebbe variare, ma dovresti ottenere un pollo fritto delizioso e croccante!
Il vostro aceto balsamico è autentico? E quali sono le bottiglie migliori?
Per le cose veramente buone, cercate l'Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena o di Reggio Emilia sulle etichette, che sono disciplinate dalla denominazione di origine protetta (DOP) europea. Sono prodotti con il 100% di mosto d'uva appena spremuto (succo d'uva con buccia, raspi e semi), che viene bollito e ridotto, quindi invecchiato in botti di legno per un minimo di 12 anni. Le uve devono essere di varietà trebbiano o lambrusco e l'aceto che ne deriva è denso, lucido e dolcemente acido. Una bottiglia costa più di 50 sterline per 100 ml.
Il gradino successivo è rappresentato dall'Aceto Balsamico di Modena IGP o IGP (che sta per indicazione geografica protetta). Deve essere invecchiato per due mesi e può essere miscelato con aceto di vino. La qualità e il prezzo possono variare molto. Tutti gli altri prodotti contrassegnati come aceto balsamico o condimento balsamico possono essere aceti di qualsiasi tipo, addolciti e scuriti con caramello e persino addensati con farina. Siete confusi? Non temete. Ecco sei aceti balsamici che meritano un posto nel vostro scaffale dei condimenti. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/is-your-balsamic-vinegar-authentic-and-what-are-the-best-bottles-67bvfp6ql
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