The New York Times: Τι λέει ένας σταθμός μετρό από την κόλαση για τον πόλεμο της Ουκρανίας – Κίνα: Η χώρα θα τιμήσει την ήττα της Ιαπωνίας στον Β’ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο με μια παρέλαση πυραύλων, στρατιωτών και ηγετών, συμπεριλαμβανομένου του Κιμ Γιονγκ Ουν της Βόρειας Κορέας και του Βλαντιμίρ Πούτιν της Ρωσίας – Υπάρχουν πολλά που δεν γνωρίζουμε για το πώς ένας κόσμος που θερμαίνεται επηρεάζει το σώμα μας. Η συνάδελφός μου Χιρόκο Ταμπούτσι επισκέφθηκε ένα εργαστήριο στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Κονέκτικατ, όπου οι ερευνητές προσπαθούν να κατανοήσουν τι κάνει η ακραία ζέστη στους ανθρώπους που είναι αναγκασμένοι να την υπομείνουν – Πολιτιστικό κεφάλαιο: Κάθε καλοκαίρι, το Φεστιβάλ του Σάλτσμπουργκ καθιστά την αυστριακή πόλη το κέντρο του κόσμου της κλασικής μουσικής – Ο πόλεμος δημοσίων σχέσεων της Ρωσίας στη Δύση – Ένας δικαστής έκρινε ότι η ανάπτυξη στρατευμάτων του Προέδρου Τραμπ στο Λος Άντζελες ήταν παράνομη

What a subway station from hell says about the Ukraine war

When I spoke to my colleague Ivan Nechepurenko about the enormous festival that has taken over Moscow this summer, his description of one pavilion stuck with me: an immersive experience of the New York City subway.

In footage Ivan sent me, neon lights flicker in a gloomy tunnel. The floor is dirty. Sewage water pools in a corner. “Welcome to America!” an actor impersonating a wild-eyed hustler selling fake designer bags shouts in English.

When you’ve made your way through this hellscape, you emerge into a Moscow subway station. This station, all marble and mirrors, is spotless and orderly, no crazy people in sight.

Ivan wrote a great story about how Russian authorities are overwhelming Muscovites with fun to distract them from the war in Ukraine. You can watch my conversation with him above.

But I want to focus on another purpose for this festival. Russian authorities are using it to showcase Moscow — and by extension, Russia — as a place where life is better than in the West.

“The message is basically: ‘The West wants you to believe Russia is backward, dark, and unsafe — and look what it’s really like,” Ivan told me. And this message is also shaping the war.

Warring narratives

Russia is putting on a show of its own resilience. Doing so sends a message internally: we can keep going in Ukraine until we can end the war on our own terms. But it’s also part of a larger strategy aimed at sending a message to the outside world that the West’s promise is fading.

It’s a message directed at, among others, the 2.7 million tourists who visited Moscow this past year — most of them from non-Western countries. It’s the same message regularly delivered by RT, the Russian state media broadcaster that pumps out programming highlighting Western democracies in disarray.

Part of the power of this narrative comes from its grounding in some truth: Many Western countries are in disarray. And in July, 57 percent of Russians surveyed by an independent pollster said they were satisfied with their lives — the highest number since such polls began in 1993, two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

So is Russia’s message landing? Polling since the invasion of Ukraine reveals a growing rift in global public opinion. A study found that the vast majority of people living in liberal democracies hold negative views of Russia, but the opposite is true for much of the rest of the world. Among the 6.3 billion people not living in liberal democracies, most felt positively toward Russia — and skeptical of democracy.

‘Hot political messes’

What does this have to do with Ukraine?

I spoke with Charles Kupchan, a former foreign policy adviser to President Obama and professor at Georgetown University. I wanted to talk about why President Trump’s efforts to end the war had yielded so little.

It’s not just that Trump didn’t prepare for his meeting with Vladimir Putin, Kupchan said. It’s also that the world has changed. The U.S. can no longer enforce its will unchecked. Russia has the means to resist, with the help of other countries like China, India, and Turkey, which buy its oil and help it work around Western sanctions.

America’s diminished influence is mostly a result of the diffusion of power and the West’s relative economic decline. But it’s also due to subtler factors. The West used to be an aspirational club. Today, the big Western democracies, as Kupchan put it, are “hot political messes.” And for those living outside of them, “it’s not self-evident that democracy is the way to go.”

Is this percolating sentiment the reason Putin was embraced in Tianjin this weekend? It’s not something that can be measured directly. But it’s worth noting: while Putin was holding hands with Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping, the French government was teetering on the verge of collapse (again) and Donald Trump was promising to send more troops into major U.S. cities. Moscow, meanwhile, is planning its Winter Festival.

Jade Gao/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Andrew Couldridge/Action Images, via Reuters

Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times

There’s a lot we don’t know about how a warming world affects our bodies. My colleague Hiroko Tabuchi visited a lab at the University of Connecticut where researchers are trying to understand what extreme heat does to people forced to endure it.

While running on a treadmill in a hot room, Hiroko was sweating profusely and her heart was racing, but she held up. Read more.

Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

A new top editor at American Vogue

For the first time in 37 years, there is a new editor of American Vogue. Anna Wintour has surrendered the title that transformed her into a titan of the fashion world. Stepping into her shoes — well, sort of — is Chloe Malle, the 39-year-old editor of Vogue’s website and co-host of its podcast. Wintour will remain as the company’s chief content officer and Malle’s boss.

Malle, a daughter of the actress Candice Bergen and Louis Malle, a French director, said that she wanted to make a “noticeable shift” at Vogue. Vanessa Friedman, our chief fashion critic, looked at what that might mean.

Cook: This noodle salad is packed with bold flavors and textures.