News (old posts, page 851)

Zohran Mamdani offered New Yorkers a political revolution – and won | Bhaskar Sunkara

Now the New York mayoral candidate he needs to ensure an electoral win that translates into tangible improvements in people’s lives

Zohran Mamdani’s triumph in New York City’s Democratic primary represents more than just an electoral upset. It’s a confirmation that progressive politics, when pursued with discipline, vision and vigor, can resonate broadly – even in a city known for its entrenched power structures.

This was no ordinary primary. Andrew Cuomo, a former governor whose political fall from grace seemed irreparable only a few years ago, had positioned himself as the overwhelming favorite. Backed by millions from corporate interests, super PACs, and billionaire donors such as Michael Bloomberg and Bill Ackman, Cuomo relied heavily on institutional inertia and top-down endorsements. Yet Tuesday night, it became clear that this alone couldn’t carry him across the finish line.

Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of The Nation, the founding editor Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme Inequalities

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‘Pop music can be so scared to offend’: Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, the Argentine duo subverting machismo

After going viral with their Tiny Desk concert, the impish pair are heading to Glastonbury. They explain their ‘no shame, no fear’ approach – and their ridiculous muscle suits

Over impeccable jazz-funk arrangements and Latin percussion, a man in a furry blue trapper hat raps like he’s inhaled a Benson & Hedges multipack, while his partner brings lip-curling, hair-twirling attitude to his own lyrical delivery. This is Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso’s Tiny Desk Concert, an online performance that turned the two Argentine vocalists into global sensations almost overnight after it came out last October. It has now racked up 36m views and Rolling Stone has called them “the future of music”.

Some eyebrows were raised, though, by the English translations of their lyrics: crude, daft, often hilarious tales of parties, sex and girls – even, accidentally, goes one punchline, the same one. “We’re always having fun and trying to confuse people,” Amoroso explains on a video call from Madrid, during a 53-date tour that includes London, Glastonbury and Japan’s Fuji Rock. “Yesss, confuse!” his co-pilot pipes up, impishly. “Our life is like a TV show and we change in every episode. We have our meloso [schmaltz], our punky side, our rapper side.”

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Trump is angry with a world that won't give him easy deals | Rafael Behr

In the Middle East as in Ukraine, the president is discovering that simple bullying tricks don’t resolve complex international crises

It was as close as Donald Trump might get to a lucid statement of his governing doctrine. “I may do it. I may not do it,” the president said to reporters on the White House lawn. “Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

The question was about joining Israeli air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Days later, US bombers were on their way. Some expected it to happen. Others, including Keir Starmer, had gone on record to say they didn’t. No one had known. The unpredictability doctrine wouldn’t have been violated either way.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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Mango chicken schnitzel and Balinese pork rolls: Gurdeep Loyal’s recipes for mango chutney

There’s so much more to mango chutney than a relish for curry or a dip for pappadoms. Use up that jar in an upgraded chicken schnitzel or Balinese crispy pork rolls

A cleverly curated pantry is a home cook’s best friend, and holds within it the power to take your daily meals in countless different directions at the mere twist of a lid. The simple truth is that all you really need to create flavourful food at home is a capsule of flavourful pantry ingredients. This, for me, includes everyday staples such as toasted sesame oil, dark maple syrup and peanut butter, and bold taste-boosters such as tamarind, pecorino romano and gochujang. Another ingredient I turn to repeatedly is mango chutney, a beloved staple at the Punjabi table of my childhood upbringing in Leicester. Today, I use it in infinite different ways to enliven whatever I happen to be cooking, leaning into its characteristics as a sticky and vinegary, bustlingly tropical, flamboyantly spiced, sweet and mellow flavour hero. These recipes show you just a few ways that mango chutney, or indeed any ingredient in a thoughtfully stocked pantry, can be used when you liberate yourself to play with ingredients with creative joy.

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Ironheart review – the small screen can barely contain the energy of this Black Panther spinoff

This rapid-fire new Marvel Cinematic Universe show for a younger audience is packed with cartoonish violence and flashy effects. Dominique Thorne’s reprisal of her Wakanda Forever role is stunningly charismatic

Amid the usual welter of pre-emptive criticisms, hopes, dreams, doubts and hostilities that suffuse the internet whenever a new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – or any other alternative world beloved of a fandom – is announced, Ironheart (the 14th TV series in the MCU and following on from the events in 2022’s film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) has at last arrived.

In the film, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne, reprising the role on the small screen, which can barely contain her charisma or energy) was the genius MIT student who invented the vibranium detector that rather kicked off the whole vibranium power struggle, then the metal exoskeletal suit that aided the Wakandans in their face-off with Talokan. At the end, she returned to MIT and that is where we find her at the beginning of Ironheart, on a Tony Stark fellowship, and trying to wangle an extra year of grant money to refine the suit that could potentially transform emergency services provision. “Help would never be too late!”

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