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IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked some of the week’s best reads for you to savour.
Doug Whitney’s rare genetic mutation meant that he should have developed Alzheimer’s 25 years ago – but he didn’t, and he still hasn’t. Researchers trying to find out why are hoping they will discover something that could lead to wider prevention, or even a cure.
(The New York Times, approx 13 mins reading time)
For 14 years now, Mr. Whitney has been the one-person focus of exceptionally detailed scientific investigation, for which he travels periodically to St. Louis from his home in Port Orchard, Wash. It is not because he is ill. It is because he was supposed to be ill. Mr. Whitney, 76, is a scientific unicorn with potential to provide answers about one of the world’s most devastating diseases. He has a rare genetic mutation that essentially guaranteed he would develop Alzheimer’s disease in his late 40s or early 50s and would likely die within a decade. His mother and nine of her 13 siblings developed Alzheimer’s and died in the prime of their lives. So did his oldest brother, and other relatives going back generations. It is the largest family in the United States known to have an Alzheimer’s-causing mutation. “Nobody in history had ever dodged that bullet,” Mr. Whitney said.
This piece from Philip Oltermann could easily be turned into a film. It focuses on a gang of Georgian nationals that embarked on a continent-spanning book heist, stealing over 150 rare editions of Russian classic books from libraries across Europe.
(The Guardian, approx 23 mins reading time)
In 16 October 2023, a young man and woman sat down in the back row of the second-floor reading room of the university library of Warsaw, Poland. Their reading cards carried the names Sylvena Hildegard and Marko Oravec. On the desk in front of them were eight books with yellowing pages that they had ordered up from the library’s closed-storage 19th-century collection: rare editions of classic works of poetry, drama and fiction by two greats of the Russian canon, Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol. They studied the books closely, taking photographs on their phones and measurements with rulers. When the duo did not return from a cigarette break and the invigilators checked their desk, they found that five of the eight books had gone. One of the missing Pushkin works was a narrative poem about the adventures of two outlaws, The Robber Brothers. It was as if the thieves had wanted to send a message.
The drink has become extremely trendy largely thanks to social media influencers, and demand for it is soaring. This fascinating deep dive explores how Japan’s tea industry is having to adapt to keep up.
(Financial Times, approx 14 mins reading time)
No longer an esoteric drink for health freaks and Japanophiles, matcha is now a staple in Starbucks and trendy cafés. “Uji matcha is the best anywhere in the world,” says Sam Giordano, a native of New York who arose at dawn to secure her position in the Nakamura Tokichi Honten queue. “I’ll get my allowance here, because it’s the first to open, then we’ll go down the street to the places that open later and get some more. This isn’t for gifts. I’m a matcha addict.” Japan’s exports of powdered green teas were up 75 per cent to ¥27bn ($177mn) in 2024 and have trebled since 2019. It has already exported twice as much matcha and green tea, in value terms, during the first seven months of 2025 as it did in the whole of 2020. The price of Uji’s machine-harvested leaves for matcha production has tripled since last year, to ¥14,141 per kilogramme, according to the JA Zen-Noh Kyoto, the regional branch of a farmers’ co-operative. Supply cannot keep up and the strains are being acutely felt.
More than 200 federal workers shared what it was like to live through Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle US government agencies. This is what they said.
(WIRED, approx 19 mins reading time)
During the early weeks of the administration, emails from DOGE started showing up in federal workers’ inboxes—or at least in their spam folders. “I logged on to find several emails tagged ‘External,’ because DOGE just brought in their own servers and plugged them into the network. Then there were several subsequent emails from different leaders saying things like, ‘Thank you for all the phishing reports, but the emails are real and need to be followed. But also please keep reporting things that look like phishing. Except from DOGE … but probably even then. And this is totally fine and normal.’” —Contractor for the Veterans Administration
The Venezuelan opposition leader, who has been living in hiding since last year, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this week. Fernanda Santos interviewed her.
(Elle, approx 13 mins reading time)
The last night Machado slept at home was the night before the presidential election: July 27, 2024. She did not pack a bag; she had every intention of returning the next day. And as the vote count started rolling in, it showed “impressive, favorable results” for her ally González, she recalls. Early the following morning, the government announced Maduro’s reelection. Leaders of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, previously sympathetic or neutral to Maduro, started clamoring for proof of his victory, while thousands of Venezuelans joined protests. Machado showed up in their midst unannounced, climbed onto the roof of a car, and, in an impromptu speech, told the huge crowd all around her, “We won’t leave the streets.” The government responded with a “brutal crackdown,” according to Human Rights Watch. The violence was widespread as authorities moved “against young people, against women, against the elderly, against people walking down the streets,” Machado says. She herself received threatening messages calling her a terrorist and warning her that the government was coming for her. “At that moment, I had to make the decision to protect myself,” Machado tells me. She had to disappear.
If you’ve ever shopped online, you’ve likely come across Klarna. The company that lets you pay for things in installments is one of several B.N.P.L. services that have become more popular since Covid – but some users have overindulged. Amy X. Wang writes about consumerism and the influence of social media on some people’s spending.
(The New York Times Magazine, approx mins reading time)
When she signed up for TikTok in 2020, Berman saw everyday people, not influencers, raving about gorgeous “must buys” she had never heard of. Soon she was cycling through her B.N.P.L. apps, dropping thousands a month on splendid novelties: dinners at in-the-know restaurants, luxury sweat sets, an Equinox gym membership, model-approved facials at Manhattan’s Rescue Spa — whose shelves stocked Augustinus Bader, so she went out and bought some of those luscious potions too. Other TikTokers endorsed using B.N.P.L. to cover such extravagances, posting flip remarks like: “Afterpay is for the girls! It helps us feel better about our poor financial decisions!” and “P.O.V.: Me on the phone to Klarna telling them I couldn’t pay all that money back after overspending again
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