America’s seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker fits with the stated goals in its new national-security strategy: untrammelled hemispheric dominance. How much of the document is polemic and how much will become policy? The long-run costs of the work-from-home revolution are becoming apparent in many American cities. And the one region where Pepsi is the cola of choice.

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At every technological revolution, the industry of indecency is close at hand. We look at how sex workers and porn-peddlers are making use of AI. The sites of Syria’s most brutal civil-war deeds are just the latest destination for “dark tourists”; we explore the draw of atrocities. And to the many divisions in America, add one about a lawn-care implement.

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Of all the sackings at federal level President Donald Trump has carried out—and that the Supreme Court has upheld—the one now under consideration has the greatest implications for presidential power. Now that satellites are going up by the thousands, earthly astronomers are struggling for clear views. And how one firm is bucking the downward trend in the pen industry.

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