Portside

Sunday Science: This Cell Feeds, Grows and Reproduces. And It’s Manmade. Published July 5, 2026 Scientists have long dreamed of discovering the alchemy by which chemicals can be turned into life. On Wednesday, a team at the University of Minnesota announced that it had taken a major step toward that vision. Blending together dozens of ingredients, the researchers have synthesized simple cells that feed, grow, reproduce and compete with one another for food.

The Judeo-Bolshevist Target Published July 5, 2026 Reviewed: World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews by Jochen Hellbeck Penguin Press, 536 pp., $35.00 Sometime in early 1983, toward the end of my time as a graduate student at Oxford University, I met with the military historian Michael Howard, who had served as an officer during World War II and fought in the Italian campaign.

What to Eugene Debs Was the Fourth of July? Published July 5, 2026 Eugene Debs delivers an antiwar speech in 1918.

European vs. U.S. Economic Performance: An Update Published July 5, 2026 Today’s primer is a long, dense, wonkish discussion of an issue I’ve been steadily working on in the background. To be honest, this post is aimed primarily at economists, not a general audience. And I may well get professional pushback — in fact I hope I will. Anyway, apologies in advance for its relative inaccessibility, which I don’t intend to make a habit.

Holocaust and Genocide Scholars Are Navigating a Minefield Published July 5, 2026 Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing war on Gaza, few academic fields have experienced more internal upheaval than Holocaust and genocide studies.

The American Experiment Review – Tom Hanks’ History of the US Is Absolutely Packed With Big Names Published July 5, 2026 The Netflix homepage describes The American Experiment to potential viewers unwilling to read more than four words as “Sincere. Informative. Documentary series”. Well, my goodness, is it ever that, that and that! The five, hour-plus episodes about the creation of the United States of America to mark its 250th anniversary are as sincere and informative as you could wish.

Chanting, “We are not partners, we are workers,” hundreds of workers across Mexico who provide rides and deliveries through apps held a two-hour work stoppage on May 15 demanding fair rates, an end to unjustified deactivations, and ultimately, a collective labor agreement with app giants like Uber, DiDi, and Rappi (two Uber Eats-style delivery platforms).

Zohran Mamdani on the Promise of America Published July 4, 2026 On July 3, socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered a Fourth of July address from New York City Hall, surrounded by recently naturalized new Americans. We reprint the speech here in full. Season after season, year after year, the tides have come in and out of New York Harbor. Long before the name “New York” had ever been spoken, Lenape dugouts crossed these currents.

Trump Has the Same Huge Obsession That Mussolini Had Published July 4, 2026 The roundabout known as Memorial Circle, at the west end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, is among the more forgettable patches of public grass in Washington, D.C.—one that drivers whizz past on their way into Virginia or over the Potomac River toward the Lincoln Memorial.

250 Years of the American Experiment: Who Gets To Be Free? Published July 4, 2026 Days before Juneteenth, I was talking with my teenage sons about the upcoming holiday. My youngest, a smart and generally socially aware 14-year-old, asked, “What’s Juneteenth? Is it related to Pride month?” His older brother responded by calling him an idiot. While I don’t approve of that kind of language, I was deeply surprised by the gap in his knowledge.