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I admit it: I have a thing for tech CEOs who are trying to make America stronger and safer—like Alex Karp at Palantir and Palmer Luckey at Anduril—so I was excited to be in Washington, D.C. recently for a16z’s American Dynamism Summit. My goal was to interview another tech CEO I have a thing for: Bridgit Mendler, the founder of Northwood Space, a space-satellite company that a16z is helping to fund.

If you’re under 30 years old, you undoubtedly know the real reason I was so eager to talk to her. Before she was the beautiful tech CEO who has been written up in Bloomberg, she was Teddy Duncan, the main character of the Disney Channel sitcom Good Luck Charlie. In my youth, I lived for that show.

Mendler played a Goody Two-shoes who got upset when she got her first bad grade—a B. Like me, she tried a rebellious phase. And also like me, her parents reacted with laughter rather than horror.

I was hardly the only member of Gen Z for whom Good Luck Charlie is an iconic memory. When I announced in Slack here at The Free Press that I was interviewing her, those of us under 30 (a sizable portion of the place) were starstruck. Friends outside work who had zero interest in my interviews with Bill Maher or Larry Summers suddenly had newfound respect for my journalistic career.

But here was my question: How in the world did she go from being a Disney star to a space CEO? That’s what I wanted to learn.

“I actually don’t think that I’m very smart, and probably people that know me would think the same thing,” the 33-year-old Mendler told me within two minutes of our meeting. Rather, she attributes whatever success she’s had to one thing: determination. “If I want to do it, I will find a way to make myself do it.”

The awards season this year was particularly gnarly. Timothée Chalamet’s bid for an Oscar spawned its own genre of meta-commentary, and the breakout stars were in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. At the ceremony this past Sunday, red carpet interviews, led mainly by influencers angling for a viral clip, were a mess. You can’t have the people on both sides of the mic trying to promote themselves.

One particularly bad question, posed to the British actress Charithra Chandran, was “What does it smell like?,” which made me long for the now unchic “Who are you wearing?”

As for the ceremony itself, the results were deeply mixed. Amy Madigan won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Aunt Gladys in Weapons? Sure, why not. Sean Penn didn’t even show up to accept his statue—opting instead to hang out with the Ukrainian president. And Javier Bardem wore a picket sign on his lapel to protest war. Groundbreaking stuff all round.

But just when I think I’m out of love with the movies, they pull me back in. Ryan Gosling has come out with a true sci-fi stunner. I know the Oscars were just last weekend, but I’m calling it now: Project Hail Mary should win all the awards next year. My campaign starts now.

The second time I shed a tear because a pile of rocks said something moving to Ryan Gosling, I thought to myself, Sister, get it together. Then it happened twice more. The space part of Project Hail Mary, the sci-fi thriller that dropped this week, is secondary to the sheer scale and humanity of it. Which is especially impressive since the lion’s share of the movie features just one human: a science teacher turned astronaut, Ryland Grace, played brilliantly by Gosling. He’s been recruited by an international space organization and tempted out of retirement after mysterious “space dots” showed up and began to cloud out the sun, dropping the earth’s temperature and imperiling the entire population.

I did a podcast once about a psychiatrist named Ike Herschkopf, who got his hooks into patients by entering their lives in ways that went way beyond therapy. One woman first started seeing him because her business was in trouble. One day, he arrived unannounced at her job. “I was so impressed,” she later told me, “that he cared enough to visit my office.”

Before too long, they were having their “therapy sessions” in some of New York’s most expensive restaurants (she paid), and she had written him into her will. It took her a decade to break loose from him.

Another patient, Marty Markowitz, first came to Ike in the early 1980s because he was in a terrible dispute with his uncle over who should take over the family business. Ike told Marty that he would handle Marty’s problems, and he did. But Marty’s vulnerability allowed Ike to rule over him for the next 30 years: He took over his patient’s house in the Hamptons, used Marty to type his unpublished mystery novels, and even became the president of Marty’s small fabric company.

In both of these cases, Ike had committed “boundary violations.” As Dr. Paul Appelbaum, an expert on psychiatric ethics, told me, “A boundary violation is something that takes place for the benefit of the therapist and with the possibility of harm to the patient.” Even when the therapist’s motives are benign, it can psychologically damage the patient.

Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a poem or paragraph that all of us should commit to heart. This week, British novelist Howard Jacobson reflects on Daniel Deronda, a novel by 19th-century author George Eliot that captures the idealistic roots of the Zionist movement.

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There is a story—perhaps apocryphal—that Theodor Herzl, on his way to the First Zionist Congress in 1897, carried under his arm the novel Daniel Deronda, by Mary Ann Evans, better known by her pen name, George Eliot.

Whether or not the story is true, the association is apt. We live in a time when the debate over Zionism has been crushed into a rhetorical bloodbath, when even some Jews have lost sight of the definition of the word. Amid the noise, Eliot’s novel captures the moral and emotional beginnings of a movement that now both captivates and enrages the world.

But first, let us backtrack. You might think, given how large a part university campuses play today in the dissemination of anti-Zionism, that there would have had to be some reckoning, between marches, with George Eliot’s pro-Zionist fervor. But that’s to give away my age. A well-read student body can no longer be assumed. Still less a student body that is familiar with the works of George Eliot. And even where the name of that greatest of Victorian novelists rings a bell, her politics vis-à-vis the Jews don’t.

Would it matter if they did? Well, it should. Every ideology has a history, and it is crucial, if we are to be intelligent and informed about ideas we find abhorrent, that we understand their origins, their onetime necessity, the hope they once inspired.

When I was a younger, more impressionable man, I was obsessed, like millions of boys before me, with novelty rap songs. “Amish Paradise” by “Weird Al” Yankovic, The Lonely Island, the entire oeuvre of Lil Dicky—I loved them all. But the king of this genre of funny rap songs was undoubtedly a Los Angeles rapper called Joseph Edgar Foreman, known and beloved by his fans as Afroman. I was fixated on his magnum opus—“Because I Got High”—a meandering, fun song that became part of the soundtrack to an infinite number of days with my friends doing nothing and having the time of our lives. I have a vivid memory of sitting around a fire at a summer camp in upstate New York with my best friends in the world and an acoustic guitar, riffing on another incredible Afroman hit—widely known as “Colt 45”—just guys being, you know, dudes.

Now in my 30s, I haven’t thought much about Afroman lately. So this week it was an unexpected joy seeing his triumph in a defamation suit brought against him by members of an Ohio sheriff’s department in what can only be described as a tremendous victory for both the American justice system and the First Amendment. Let me explain.

In 2022, while he was performing at a concert in Chicago, 350 miles from his home near Cincinnati, Afroman’s house was raided by the police. Alleging possible kidnapping and drug offenses, they got a warrant from a judge—and acted on it. Watching the CCTV feed on his phone, Afroman saw it all. He saw a huge squad of officers break his gate, kick down his door, rummage through the pockets of his suits, and confiscate thousands of dollars in cash. The police eventually left the property, leaving an estimated $20,000 worth of damage in their wake. They found nothing incriminating and no charges were pursued against the rapper.

Voltaire famously joked in the 1700s that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. A similar critique could be made of Hulu’s show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which just dropped its fourth season. The nine women who star on this incredibly popular show, a group of online influencers styling themselves #MomTok, don’t lead secret lives at all—they’re almost pathologically incapable of privacy. They mostly aren’t wives, with the show often listing their partners as “baby daddies” or exes. And while most of them grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they’re not really that Mormon.

Their real religion is something else. Since the show has started, they’ve been catapulted into becoming full-time micro-celebs with millions of followers, elevating fame instead of Joseph Smith.

As a result, their lives are so messy that, aside from the fact that filming for the show’s fifth season has been suspended, the biggest concern you have when watching the show is “How much are these people spending on therapy?” Between the nine starring women and their husbands, there are personal therapists, relationship therapists, intimacy specialists, and healing retreats.

It’s enough professional intervention to suggest that, by now, some of them ought to be fixed. And yet no one is. This season alone, two of the women separate from their husbands and contemplate divorce. One struggles with an eating disorder. What the show documents instead isn’t healing, but the performance of it.

It’s Friday, March 20. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Yuval Levin on why the filibuster isn’t going anywhere. A new play brings Roald Dahl—and his poisonous politics—to Broadway. Our editors’ picks. And much more.

But first: Suzy Weiss on the rise of the news avoiders.

One of the many reasons I love The Free Press is because I don’t much like the news. Let me explain: I hate when I’m scrolling on Instagram and I’m hit with an infographic, or admonished by a secondhand clothing influencer that it’s very important I pay attention right now. I don’t like how reading too many posts on X makes me feel; or how the lowdown on current events is often accompanied by instructions on how to feel about them, or else screaming heads tell me that whatever is happening is surely a precursor to the end of democracy—or the world. In an algorithmic age, staying informed can come at the cost of sanity. Which is why I love reading our essays and updates, which are sober and to the point, and come straight to my inbox, so I can go about my day.

But there’s a tribe of people, let’s call them the News Avoiders, who don’t want to read the news at all. They’re recovering news junkies—their words—and they spoke to me about why they’re dropping out from the 24-hour news cycle. Of course, no Free Presser should feel inspired to become a total News Avoider, though I’d support at least deleting X on the weekend. But to learn more about the people going the whole way, or as close to it as possible, read my piece below.

—Suzy Weiss

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As the war in Iran drags on, one question grows more and more urgent: How will it end? That’s the question several of our pieces tackled this week. First, Niall Ferguson on how one of the most technologically advanced wars in history is now confronting a very old problem: control of a strategic waterway. Read Niall’s piece to understand why the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil normally passes, could determine whether the Iran war goes global. Next, Michael Doran argues that, despite mounting pressure on President Donald Trump to bring the war to an end, anything less than “decisive victory” would leave the global balance more fragile than before. And for an inside look at the strategy on the ground, turn to Eli Lake’s reporting on how Israel’s national intelligence agency has spent years covertly aiding Iranian opposition groups. Much remains uncertain about how the regime might fall, he says, but Mossad is “evening the odds for a revolution.”

You may not recognize the name Arthur Liu, but you probably know his daughter, Alysa, who skated her way to gold at this year’s Winter Olympics. Watching her perform, Arthur wrote this week, was “another lesson in how precious freedom is”—one he knows all too well. In 1989, he was placed on China’s “most wanted” list for organizing pro-democracy demonstrations, and this year, he watched Jimmy Lai receive a 20-year prison sentence for fighting for the same cause. It’s an essential read about how easily freedom can be taken for granted—and how costly it remains for those still fighting for it.

Howard Kessler has never been interviewed by a journalist. That is, until Gabe Kaminsky headed to his Palm Beach mansion this week for a conversation with the architect of one of Trump’s most controversial decisions: signing an executive order to set the stage for looser federal marijuana restrictions. How did a 78-year-old credit card pioneer persuade the president to buck decades of Republican dogma on marijuana? Read Gabe’s piece to find out—and get a window into how things happen in MAGA world.

In case you missed it: This week, we reprinted a sweeping essay by our friend Alana Newhouse, first published in Tablet magazine. At a moment defined by questions—about AI, about artificial wombs, about drone warfare—why is it, she asks, that “all anyone can talk about is . . . Zionism?” According to Alana, the answer is about far more than Israel. It’s a provocative, wide-ranging piece—and well worth your time this weekend.

The Front Page will be back on Monday morning. Until then, look out for The Weekend Press—featuring Maya Sulkin’s Two Drinks with Bridgit Mendler, Joe Nocera on the Apple TV series “Shrinking,” and more.

If you pay attention to politics, you probably had your eyes on the primary held in Illinois’s safe-blue 9th Congressional District this week. Daniel Biss, the mayor of Evanston, emerged victorious in a high-profile Democratic congressional primary, beating out more than a dozen contenders, including Kat Abughazaleh, a young, uber-left-wing social media influencer currently under federal indictment for obstructing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. The 48-year-old candidate’s big win came just hours after he was accused of being a groomer by a woman online.

Had Biss pursued a relationship with a minor? No. Had he used his position to coerce someone into a sexual relationship? No. Had he raped someone? No. Had he even had sex with this supposed “victim” at all? No.

Was this an opportunistic political hit job? The allegation, posted on Bluesky by a Stanford Law School instructor named Megan Wachspress, certainly makes it look like that.

“If he’s going to get a national profile on the strength of a younger woman’s campaign,” Wachspress wrote, seemingly referring to Abughazaleh, “I’m going to come out and say it: During his short-lived tenure as a math professor, Biss had an inappropriate romantic relationship with one of his undergraduate students. I was that student.”

How was the relationship inappropriate? In a Substack post, Wachspress elaborates. In 2004, Wachspress was a 20-year-old University of Chicago undergraduate who attended one of Biss’s math classes. After the term ended, Biss, who was 26, asked her out on a date.

She agreed.

“I was a news junkie for a long time,” Jon Shaivitz told me. Was he a cable guy? A lurker on social media? An internet rabbit-hole spelunker? “Yup,” all the above.

For years, Shaivitz woke up and flipped on MSNBC and CNN. The LA-based filmmaker, now 40, remembers his cable news habits during the Covid pandemic especially: “I was glued to the television,” he remembered. Shaivitz wouldn’t miss, say, a Dr. Anthony Fauci appearance on Rachel Maddow’s show. He kept abreast of the clusters of cases, the death counts, and where vaccine development stood. He also caught the morning headlines, and the evening news. On the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, he woke up at 5 a.m. to watch Donald Trump leave the White House at the end of his first term. Back then, he was caught up in the “drama and conflict,” he said; though looking back, he added, “There’s almost no logic to why.”

Now, he’s not following the back-and-forth between the Pentagon and Anthropic. He doesn’t know about what’s going on with Cesar Chavez. He’s not monitoring the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. “I’m not hooked into the day-to-day circus,” he said—though he cops to knowing the general contours, since it’s “almost impossible to cut yourself off from reality.”

Did he consciously decide to cut back? Not really. After years of being plugged in, Shaivitz’s work picked up in the summer of 2023. He shot his first feature film, and got busier, and even though he still worked from home, he stopped turning on the TV in the morning. He logged out of a burner account on X where he’d follow news organizations and journalists. He started to notice a difference. Before, when he was “glued” to the television, it kept him exhausted, and in an endless state of worry. Now, he said, “that anxiety isn’t there.”

A nonprofit group that works with popular Democratic political influencers is under investigation by the House Oversight Committee for “a disturbing pattern of activity” possibly intended to evade campaign finance disclosure rules.

In a letter Friday to Creator Collective, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, demanded information about a program called Chorus. Wired reported last August that it offered influencers as much as $8,000 per month to bolster Democratic talking points on social media. The outlet also reported that Creator Collective founder Graham Wilson, to whom Comer’s letter was addressed, told influencers in a Zoom call that their names would not show up on reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The letter, reviewed by The Free Press, said that the committee is examining possible efforts to “obscure the distinction between activities of legitimate journalists from campaign operatives.”