David Kaufman

Major strikes are planned across Israel this Sunday (July 22) to protest a new law that essentially excludes LGBT couples from state-supported surrogate pregnancies. The law, which received a last-minute vote from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, previously allowed only heterosexual married couples to qualify for government-funded surrogacy under Israel’s national health care system.

White people in America—especially well-meaning white people—have a long history of calling the police when they suspect that black people are up to no good. Sometimes the responding officers merely harass or arrest the black folks in question—like the two men arrested while waiting for a business meeting at a Starbucks this year in Philadelphia or the napping Yale student who was confronted by police last month after falling asleep in her dormitory. But on other occasions when phones are deployed before facts—think John Crawford or Stephon Clark—African Americans end up dead.

In Argentina he’s the most influential journalist in the land, but in the English-speaking world, Jorge Lanata was a virtual unknown when his interview with Woody Allen hit the airwaves Sunday night. During their sit-down, the embattled American director and actor—accused of sexually abusing his adoptive daughter Dylan some 25 years ago—declared himself a “poster child” for the #metoo movement and a staunch ally of women actors in general. Allen’s claims were met with near-universal skepticism.

As threats of trade wars, culture wars, and actual wars stream from the White House, Donald Trump’s “America First” approach is steadily isolating the US internationally. Countries ranging from Mexico to Malaysia are beginning to consider—if not enact—policies and partnerships that could eventually push America far from the center of international statecraft.

When you belong to a mixed-race family like my own—white mom, black dad, Asian uncle, Latin husband—you get used to hearing all kinds of crazy things. “Where are you from?” What’s your mix?” And that perennial favorite: “What’s your nationality?” (Full disclosure: I’m American!)

The second episode of the new miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace, airing on FX now, is steeped in the lore of America’s AIDS and HIV epidemic. Most of the episode takes place in mid-90s South Beach—a place far removed from modern-day Miami, with its status as a mecca of art, real estate, and luxury living.  Back then, South Beach was where folks came to die. With its thriving club scene, endless sun, and run-down Art Deco hotels, Miami offered easy, affordable living for a generation of gay men who were battling AIDS—and likely to lose.

This was an important week for minority media. On Thursday (Jan. 4), Essence—the nation’s leading African American-focused publication—was sold by Time Inc. to a newly formed company backed by Richelieu Dennis, a multimillionaire personal-care-products mogul. “This will give Essence a platform and a voice to serve its consumers, which are women of color,” Dennis told the New York Times earlier this week. “We can now invest in women of color as consumers.”

Like Moonlight before it, the critically adored Lady Bird is a film of unexpected highs and very few lows. This unusual coming-of-age tale centers around a character type that is often overlooked for top-star billing—a young, working class, and struggling teenage girl, desperately seeking a place in a world that frustratingly eludes and confounds her. Moonlight focused on a similarly sidelined type: a young, black, gay man.

Everyone knows that Bravo TV’s Andy Cohen is gay. But it wasn’t until recently that we learned he’s a Gold Star Gay. Unfamiliar with the term? Gold Star Gays are gay men who’ve never—ever!—had sex with a woman. Cohen is proudly Gold Star—as is, apparently, his ever-present sidekick, CNN host Anderson Cooper.

The royal period drama The Crown has returned to Netflix with its second season, to chronicle the next era of Queen Elizabeth II’s seven-decade-long reign. The first time around, The Crown focused mostly on Elizabeth’s final years as a princess—the period immediately following her wedding to Prince Philip in 1947 and ending with her coronation five years later.

Not much isn’t swoon-worthy about Call Me By Your Name, the coming-of-age love story by Italian director Luca Guadagnino set in the early-1980s.

Barack Obama may have been a hero to “black America,” but for biracial Americans like myself, the former president never quite felt like the champion we’d waited so long for.

Amid all the scrutiny that Malia Obama has been subjected to in her first months at Harvard University, nothing has attracted as much press attention as her being snapped by eager paparazzi kissing a white guy.