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    Are US women protesting Trump by ‘swearing off sex with men’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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    Have rumours of a US sex strike been greatly exaggerated?Sex sells. Sex strikes, meanwhile, make for an irresistible headline. Ever since Donald Trump overwhelmingly won the election, there have been endless headlines about how American women are emulating South Korea’s fringe 4B movement (which encourages heterosexual women not to date, procreate, marry or have sex with men) and “swearing off sex with men” in protest.“A Sex Strike Is a Losing Strategy for American Women,” a recent op-ed in the New York Times proclaimed, for example.“No sex. No dating. No marriage. No children. Interest grows in 4B movement to swear off men,” a PBS headline declared.“Ahead of Trump’s Second Term, Calls for a Sex Strike Grow Online,” the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) wrote.It’s certainly true that there has been a spike in US interest in the 4B movement. Voluntary celibacy was growing in popularity long before the election but Trump’s victory gave it a huge boost. There are more than 100,000 videos about 4B on TikTok and there has been a surge in Google searches relating to it. There have also been various viral calls for women to withhold sex in order to protest against Trump. (Just in case you’re wondering if you have a severe case of deja vu, there were also calls for a sex strike during Trump’s first term.)But is this online chatter actually translating to offline action? It doesn’t seem that way yet. There is zero evidence that there are large-scale sex strikes protesting against Trump happening in the US. All the hand-wringing by the likes of the New York Times seems to be over something that doesn’t actually exist. The headlines treating women as some sort of monolith also obscure the fact that, according to AP VoteCast, 53% of white women voted for Trump this year.Still, that doesn’t mean that growing interest in 4B should be written off as some sort of meaningless fad. On the contrary, engagement with the movement points to the fact that many women are not taking Trump’s victory lying down. While there may be no proof of widespread strikes in the sheets, there have been plenty of demonstrations on the streets. Meanwhile, online sales of emergency contraceptives and abortion pills are rocketing before the “reproductive apocalypse” that will be Trump’s second term. With rights being rolled back and pregnancy growing increasingly dangerous in the US, women are also reconsidering whether they want to have children.Let’s say that sex strikes did actually take off, however. Might they be effective? The most famous sex strike certainly was. In the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, women withhold sex in an attempt to end the Peloponnesian war and the ruse pays off: peace is declared. Since then, there have been plenty of other real-world sex strikes with varying results, waged everywhere from Belgium to Liberia. A small town in Colombia held a “crossed legs” protest in 2011, for example; women refused sex with their husbands until the government paved a road linking their town to the rest of the province. The protest is widely considered to have been successful.Less headline-worthy forms of protest, however, tend to be rather more effective. This, by the way, is the rather less talked-about message in Lysistrata itself. As the cultural critic and classicist Helen Morales told the Guardian back in 2022, the play isn’t just about sex strikes: “There are elder women seizing control of the treasury and the younger women withdraw their unpaid labour at home. They’re much more a model for effecting political change.”How the Taliban are erasing Afghanistan’s women – photo essay“It was important for us to look beyond the traditional representations of Afghan women as passive victims of the Taliban and show them as active players in their own lives,” say journalist Mélissa Cornet and photographer Kiana Hayeri in this piece for the Guardian.Argentina votes alone against UN resolution combating misogynistic online violenceWhich is not a huge surprise as Argentina’s President Javier Milei is incredibly rightwing and a vocal critic of the UN.Gender-fluid Mary, Queen of Scots ballet to debut at Edinburgh festival 2025It’s the latest example of a trend of gender-neutral casting in artistic productions. You can guarantee that this will drive the usual suspects completely bonkers.Armie Hammer’s mother gifted him a vasectomy for his birthdayThe disgraced actor, who has been accused of sexual abuse by multiple women, has returned to public life via a podcast. He seems to be having trouble rustling up guests so recently had his mum on the podcast, where she shared this little snippet of info.What happened to Palestinian-Egyptian actor May Calamawy’s role in Gladiator II?When Calamawy was originally cast (long before 7 October 2023) it was reported that she’d have an “important” or leading role. Now it seems like she has been all but cut from the movie – relegated to a tiny non-speaking background part. There has been a lot of speculation that this is punishment for her pro-Palestinian advocacy. As we have seen, talking about a genocide and ethnic cleansing can be a real career-killer.Sydney Sweeney says female solidarity in Hollywood is ‘fake’Wait, you’re telling me that Hollywood – a place that fetishizes unrealistic beauty ideals and where women over 40 struggle to find roles – isn’t a utopia of intersectional feminism? You’re kidding me!Iran announces ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy strict hijab laws“It won’t be a clinic, it will be a prison,” one young woman from Iran told the Guardian.Sweden’s minister for gender equality is terrified of bananasAs someone who also hates bananas with a passion, I would like to extend my solidarity to Paulina Brandberg, whose banana-phobia has made international headlines. As one of her colleagues noted, we should be focusing on her work to help vulnerable women rather than her hatred for an alarmingly yellow fruit.The week in pawtriarchyJust in case you were wondering whether the US could get any more dystopian, it turns out that robot dogs are guarding Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. Still, probably better to have robots rather than the real thing considering how close Trump is to Kristi Noem. The South Dakota governor, whom Trump has just picked for head of homeland security, famously wrote about shooting and killing her family dog, Cricket, and an unnamed goat. More

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      At Least 38 Killed in Attacks in Southwestern Pakistan

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      At least 38 people have been killed in several assaults across Baluchistan Province since Sunday in what appears to be part of a campaign by armed separatists in the region.The violence began with blasts that ripped through a military camp in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province late Sunday night, killing at least one soldier. Around the same time, armed men stormed into at least four police stations in the province, spraying bullets at officers and setting police vehicles on fire, local officials said.By daybreak, militants had destroyed a bridge, bringing the major railway that runs across it to a halt. Then early Monday morning, the violence hit its apex when gunmen held up traffic on a major highway, shooting and killing nearly two dozen people.Over a 24-hour period, the new wave of violence carried out by an armed separatist group has seized Baluchistan Province in southwestern Pakistan and left at least 38 people dead, worsening the country’s already deteriorating security situation.The spate of coordinated attacks in Baluchistan began on Sunday, as the group, the Baluch Liberation Army, or B.L.A., announced that it was starting a new operation across the province. The B.L.A. is one of several insurgent groups that has demanded the province’s independence from the central government in Islamabad.The deadliest single attack in the campaign so far unfolded in Musakhel, a district in Baluchistan, officials said, when armed men stopped traffic on a highway and demanded that passengers on buses and trucks show them their identity cards, officials said.The gunmen forced some of the passengers out of the vehicles, and then shot and killed them, officials said. Nearly all of the victims were from Punjab Province, officials said, and the gunmen set at least 10 buses and trucks ablaze before fleeing the area.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On Anniversary of Taliban Takeover, Glee, Mourning and an Embrace of Jihad

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      Celebrations marking the third year since the U.S. withdrawal are amplifying a divide in Afghanistan over what principles it should be governed by.The parade of cars rolled through Kabul from morning until night, clogging the streets in end-to-end traffic. Crowds of Taliban and their supporters lined the routes, chanting “God is great!” and “Long live the mujahedeen!” One truck dragged an American flag, a red X drawn across its stars and stripes.Outside the old U.S. embassy, young children — maybe 6 or 7 years old — wearing military fatigues stood on the top of a gray Toyota pickup, clutching small white Taliban flags. A dozen others crammed into the back of the truck, white flags draped over their shoulders. Yet more flags were stapled onto wooden poles, waving in the air.“Our way is jihad!” a man shouted through a loudspeaker from the passenger seat. The children responded: “Long live jihad!”With August in Afghanistan come weeks of celebrations marking the anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal — the last American planes peeled off the runway at Kabul’s international airport on Aug. 30, 2021 — and the Taliban’s return to power.The month has become a time of victors and vanquished, the swell of white flags marking conquered territory, just as past empires planted their own banners. It is also a time of heightened emotions, seeming to amplify the gulf between those who support the Taliban’s conservative rule and those who embraced the liberal ideals of the U.S.-backed Afghan government.The country remains deeply divided over fundamental questions of what principles it should be governed by, and what ideals it should hold. The only point of consensus seems to be that three years into Taliban rule — with its extreme version of Shariah law — it is here to stay.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Taliban Talks With U.N. Go On Despite Alarm Over Exclusion of Women

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      The meeting is the first between the Taliban and a United Nations-led conference of global envoys who are seeking to engage the Afghan government on critical issues.Taliban officials attended a rare, United Nations-led conference of global envoys to Afghanistan on Sunday, the first such meeting Taliban representatives have agreed to engage in, after organizers said Afghan women would be excluded from the talks.The two-day conference in Doha, Qatar, is the third of its kind. It is part of a United Nations-led effort, known as the “Doha process,” started in May 2023. It is meant to develop a unified approach for international engagement with Afghanistan. Envoys from around 25 countries and regional organizations, including the European Union, the United States, Russia and China, are attending. Taliban officials were not invited to the first meeting and refused to attend the second meeting, held in February, after objecting to the inclusion of Afghan civil society groups that attended.The conference has drawn a fierce backlash in recent days after U.N. officials announced that Afghan women would not participate in discussions with Taliban officials. Human rights groups and Afghan women’s groups have slammed the decision to exclude them as too severe a concession by the U.N. to persuade the Taliban to engage in the talks. The decision to exclude women sets “a deeply damaging precedent” and risks “legitimatizing their gender-based institutional system of oppression,” Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement referring to the Taliban’s policies toward women. “The international community must adopt a clear and united stance: The rights of women and girls in Afghanistan are nonnegotiable.”Since seizing power from the U.S.-backed government in 2021, Taliban authorities have systematically rolled back women’s rights, effectively erasing women from public life. Women and girls are barred from getting education beyond primary school and banned from most employment outside of education and health care, and they cannot travel significant distances without a male guardian.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Qaeda Commander at Guantánamo Bay Is Sentenced for War Crimes

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      A U.S. military jury decided on a 30-year prison term. But under a plea deal, the prisoner’s sentence will end in 2032.A U.S. military jury on Thursday ordered a former Qaeda commander to a serve a 30-year prison sentence for war crimes carried out by his insurgent forces in wartime Afghanistan in the early 2000s. The military judge excused the panel from the chamber and then announced that, under a plea agreement, the prisoner’s sentence would end in eight years.The outcome was part of the arcane system called military commissions, which allows prisoners to reach plea deals with a senior official at the Pentagon who oversees the war court but requires the formality of a jury sentencing hearing anyway.In handing down the maximum sentence, the jury of 11 officers rejected arguments by defense lawyers for Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi that he deserved leniency, if not clemency, for his early humiliations in C.I.A. custody, subsequent cooperation with U.S. investigators and failing health.Mr. Hadi, 63, was aware of the deal that reduced his sentence to 10 years, starting with his guilty plea in June 2022. It was unclear whether victims of attacks by Mr. Hadi’s forces and their family members had been told. None of the five people who testified last week about their loss commented as they streamed out of the spectators’ gallery on Thursday morning following an at-times emotional two-week sentencing trial.The prisoner also did not appear to react when the jury foreman, a Marine colonel, announced the harshest of possible sentences. Mr. Hadi, who is disabled by a paralyzing spine disease and a series of surgeries at Guantánamo, sat in court in a padded therapeutic chair, listening through a headset providing Arabic translation.His case was an unusual one at the court, which was created to prosecute terrorism cases as war crimes after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. While prosecutors cast Mr. Hadi as a member of the Qaeda inner circle before those attacks, there was no suggestion in his plea agreement that he knew about the plot beforehand.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Battlefield Commander’s Case Goes to Guantánamo Jury

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      The panel is deciding a sentence for a prisoner who pleaded guilty to commanding Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan that carried out war crimes.A military jury on Wednesday began deliberating a sentence for an admitted war criminal at Guantánamo Bay after prosecution and defense lawyers portrayed the prisoner as, alternately, a senior member of a global Qaeda conspiracy or a battlefield commander defending Afghanistan from the U.S. invasion.Many of the U.S. officers serving on the 11-member panel are themselves veterans of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. How they view the crimes of the man called Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi could influence the length of his sentence, and whether they heed his lawyer’s request to recommend clemency.The closing arguments focused on the battlefield in wartime Afghanistan, in contrast to the court’s better known cases, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S.S. Cole bombing in 2000, which are portrayed as acts of terrorism.Mr. Hadi, 63, who was captured in 2006, pleaded guilty in 2022. Under the terms of his agreement, he is to receive a sentence in the 25- to 30-year range. But he could be released to the custody of a trusted country, if one can be found that will give him specialized care for a paralyzing spine disease that has left him disabled.Douglas J. Short, the lead prosecutor, called Mr. Hadi a “senior member of one of the most notorious conspiracies to date, Al Qaeda,” who joined the movement before the Sept. 11 attacks and did not give up the fight when the United States invaded. Mr. Short said that Mr. Hadi put civilians in harm’s way in a campaign of suicide bombings and other operations in the early 2000s in Afghanistan, when the United States was pursuing a “hearts and minds” strategy.He offered a timeline of the deaths of 17 U.S. and foreign coalition soldiers in 2003 and 2004. They were war crimes, he said, because the Taliban and Qaeda forces who carried them out blended in with the civilian population and used unorthodox methods of warfare, such as turning civilian taxis into bombs by packing them with explosives.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden administration failures drove the fall of Kabul, say top former US generals

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      The top two US generals who oversaw the evacuation of Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban in August 2021 blamed the Biden administration for the chaotic departure, telling lawmakers on Tuesday that it inadequately planned for the evacuation and did not order it in time.The rare testimony by the two retired generals publicly exposed for the first time the strain and differences the military leaders had with the Biden administration in the final days of the war. Two of those key differences included that the military had advised that the US keep at least 2,500 service members in Afghanistan to maintain stability and a concern that the state department was not moving fast enough to get an evacuation started.The remarks contrasted with an internal White House review of the administration’s decisions which found that Joe Biden’s decisions had been “severely constrained” by previous withdrawal agreements negotiated by former president Donald Trump and blamed the military, saying top commanders said they had enough resources to handle the evacuation.Thirteen US service members were killed by a suicide bomber at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate in the final days of the war, as the Taliban took over Afghanistan.Thousands of panicked Afghans and US citizens desperately tried to get on US military flights that were airlifting people out. In the end, the military was able to rescue more than 130,000 civilians before the final US military aircraft departed.That chaos was the end result of the state department failing to call for an evacuation of US personnel until it was too late, both former joint chiefs chairman Gen Mark Milley and US central command retired Gen Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie told the House foreign affairs committee.“On 14 August the non-combatant evacuation operation decision was made by the Department of State and the US military alerted, marshalled, mobilized and rapidly deployed faster than any military in the world could ever do,” Milley said.But the state department’s decision came too late, Milley said.“The fundamental mistake, the fundamental flaw was the timing of the state department,” Milley said. “That was too slow and too late.”Evacuation orders must come from the state department, but in the weeks and months before Kabul fell to the Taliban, the Pentagon was pressing the state department for evacuation plans, and was concerned that the state department was not ready, McKenzie said.“We had forces in the region as early as 9 July, but we could do nothing,” McKenzie said, calling the state department’s timing “the fatal flaw that created what happened in August”.“I believe the events of mid and late August 2021 were the direct result of delaying the initiation of the [evacuation] for several months, in fact until we were in extremis and the Taliban had overrun the country,” McKenzie said.Milley was the nation’s top-ranking military officer at the time, and had urged the US president to keep a residual force of 2,500 forces there to give Afghanistan’s special forces enough back-up to keep the Taliban at bay and allow the US military to hold on to Bagram Air Base, which could have provided the military additional options to respond to Taliban attacks.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden did not approve the larger residual force, opting to keep a smaller force of 650 that would be limited to securing the US embassy. That smaller force was not adequate to keeping Bagram, which was quickly taken over by the Taliban.The Taliban have controlled Afghanistan since the US departure, resulting in many dramatic changes for the population, including the near-total loss of rights for women and girls.The White House’s 2023 internal review further appeared to shift any blame in the 26 August 2021 suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai international airport, saying it was the US military that made one possibly key decision.“To manage the potential threat of a terrorist attack, the president repeatedly asked whether the military required additional support to carry out their mission at HKIA,” the 2023 report said, adding: “Senior military officials confirmed that they had sufficient resources and authorities to mitigate threats.”A message left with the state department was not immediately returned on Tuesday. More

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      Today’s Top News: DeSantis Acknowledges Trump’s 2020 Loss, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Along with other Republican presidential candidates, Ron DeSantis has been testing new lines of attack against Donald Trump.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:DeSantis Bluntly Acknowledges Trump’s 2020 Defeat, with Nicholas NehamasWhat’s at Stake in Ohio’s Referendum on Amending the State ConstitutionThe Taliban Won but These Afghans Fought On, with Christina GoldbaumEli Cohen More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Is Ukraine’s Counteroffensive Here?

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      Also, train service resumes near India’s crash site.Initial reports showed movements of larger units, which could show that Kyiv had deployed its NATO-trained forces. Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesHas the counteroffensive begun?Ukraine intensified attacks on Russian positions along many sections of the front line yesterday. U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the surge in attacks could indicate that Ukraine had begun an expected counteroffensive, which could be its best shot at regaining territory and coming to any peace negotiations with a strong hand.The officials based their assessment in part on information from military satellites, which detected an uptick in action from Ukrainian positions. Ukraine has long said it would make no formal announcement about the start of its counteroffensive.Russia also said that a major operation had begun at five locations along the front in one eastern region, Donetsk, but that it had repelled them. Bloggers affiliated with the Russian military reported that Ukraine’s forces had advanced in some areas and had taken a village in Donetsk, but the claims could not be corroborated.U.S. military analysts said they believed that Ukrainian units were making an initial push to determine the positions and strength of Russia’s forces, a traditional tactic that Americans had been training Ukrainian forces to use.Strategy: Attacks were reported to take place to the east of where analysts had expected the counteroffensive to begin. But even starting in that area would allow Ukraine to keep the same goal: to head south toward the Sea of Azov and cut off the “land bridge” connecting Crimea to Russia.The stakes: If the counteroffensive is successful, Kyiv could secure longer-term commitments of military aid from the West. Victories also could strengthen President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hand in any peace talks with Russia. Failure or a lack of major progress could complicate Ukraine’s path forward and lead some Western officials to question the war strategy.People looked at damaged coaches from a train at the site of the train collision.Adnan Abidi/ReutersTrains restart near crash site in IndiaRail lines reopened at the Bahanaga Bazar rail station, where at least 275 people were killed in a catastrophic crash on Friday. The resumption of service could ease disruptions and help more families reach the area and identify their loved ones. There are still more than 100 unclaimed bodies.Questions continue to swirl about who was responsible for the three-way accident. (These graphics show how the disaster unfolded.) Officials are focused on an electronic signal’s malfunctioning, but they have not ruled out sabotage. They are also looking into whether negligence played a role, but they have not identified any suspects.Reaction: Opposition politicians called for the resignation of the railway minister and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of not doing enough to ensure rail safety. Modi’s focus: India spent almost $30 billion on the rail system during the past fiscal year, more than 15 percent than it did the year before. But most of Modi’s initiatives have been aimed at improving speed and comfort — not basic safety. The amount spent on track maintenance and other safety measures has been falling.The suggestion that someone had tried to poison schoolgirls rattled young girls and their parents.Samiullah Popal/EPA, via ShutterstockPossible poisonings in AfghanistanAfghan officials believe that 89 schoolgirls and their teachers were deliberately poisoned at two schools for girls. Some were hospitalized with respiratory and neurological symptoms, and officials said that security and intelligence forces were still searching for the perpetrators.On Saturday, 63 students and staff members in the northern Sar-i-Pul Province became sick shortly after arriving at school, officials and parents said. The next day, 26 more students and staff members at a nearby school reported similar symptoms.The cases come at a precarious time for Afghan women and girls. Restrictions on education have become a flashpoint since the Taliban seized power in 2021. They are emblematic of the government’s policies toward women, which have effectively erased them from public life. The Taliban has barred girls from attending school above sixth grade; most of these students were 6 to 12 years old. History: The U.N. investigated similar cases between 2012 and 2016 and found no trace of chemical gas or poison, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.N. concluded that the symptoms were the result of mass psychogenic illness, a form of social panic.In Iran: Earlier this year, hundreds of schoolgirls were hospitalized after what officials said could have been deliberate attempts to stop them from attending school. The Interior Minister blamed stress and anxiety for some of their symptoms.For more: On “The Daily,” three Afghan women talk about how life changed under the Taliban.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificJacinda Ardern considered declining the title, but said she accepted it as a way to show gratitude.Gabriel Monnet/EPA, via ShutterstockJacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, was awarded the title of dame for her service to the country.A Hong Kong Court overturned a ruling against an investigative journalist, a rare victory for the news media there.Australian officials freed Kathleen Folbigg, who was convicted of killing her children in 2003. Scientists now say that they probably died from natural causes.Around the World“Even if they shoot me, I won’t go back,” said Rasha, a Syrian refugee in Lebanon.Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York TimesSome Syrian refugees are afraid they will be pressured to return home now that the fighting there has lessened and President Bashar al-Assad is emerging from diplomatic isolation.Mike Pence, who was Donald Trump’s vice president, formally entered the race for president.Tech NewsU.S. authorities accused Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, of lying to regulators and mishandling customer funds.Twitter’s U.S. ad sales dropped by 59 percent, possibly because advertisers are worried about a rise in hate speech and pornography on the site.Apple introduced a $3,500 virtual reality headset.A Morning ReadOne vendor said wants his food to reach Filipino Americans “from Millennials to Gen Z, as well as their parents — the titos and the titas, the real cooks in our families.”Adam Amengual for The New York TimesA tiny pop-up market in Los Angeles is trying to become a hub for the city’s Filipino community. Its creators imagine it as an intergenerational space where new Filipino businesses can experiment, connect with their audience and expand.ARTS AND IDEASBelinda Jiao/Getty ImagesPrince Harry vs. the tabloidsPrince Harry’s bitter, yearslong feud with Britain’s tabloids is coming to a head this week. Today, he is set to testify in a London courtroom against the Mirror newspaper group, which he says hacked his phone more than a decade ago. He has filed two other suits against Britain’s tabloid publishers related to illicit information gathering.Harry’s lawyers say that the Mirror used private investigators to illegally obtain information about him, in part by intercepting voice mail messages. The publisher apologized and admitted to unlawfully getting information on Harry in one instance, but denies the hacking charges.The testimony is putting the House of Windsor on edge. Harry will be the first senior member of the royal family to be cross-examined in a legal case since the 19th century. (Usually, the family prefers to settle legal claims.) In court, Harry could face questions about his personal life, or his relationships with other royals.Background: The case is about more than just money. Harry has said he holds the tabloids responsible for the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in 1997. In his memoir, he also described the trauma that intrusive tabloid coverage has caused him.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.Practice grilling basics with these five recipes.What to WatchIn “Past Lives,” a wistful what-if story, two childhood friends from Seoul pass through each other’s lives across decades and continents.What to ReadIn “August Blue,” a new novel by Deborah Levy, a pianist refashions herself amid personal and global crises.From WirecutterHow to get rid of your old electronics.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Mushrooms and such (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Fictional cocktails, a puppy’s bowel movements: We asked readers to show us the contents of their Notes apps.Thanks for your feedback. You can always reach us at briefing@nytimes.com. More