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USA Today
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Freida McFadden reveals new 'unhinged' thriller: See the book cover
Freida McFadden already has three new releases (and one more on the way) this year, but the queen of psychological thrillers isn't slowing down any time soon. Best known for twisty novels including 'The Housemaid,' 'The Wife Upstairs' and 'Never Lie,' McFadden has a new story up her sleeve, McFadden and publisher Poisoned Pen Press reveal to USA TODAY exclusively. 'Dear Debbie,' a 'delicious revenge story,' will publish Jan. 27, 2026. Keep reading to see the cover and what McFadden has to tease about the novel, including a few comparable thrillers to read first. New Freida McFadden book out in January: See the cover 'Dear Debbie' promises a 'twisted tale where the bad guy gets exactly what he deserves in the end,' an ode to unhinged women reclaiming their power, McFadden tells USA TODAY. 'It's incredibly satisfying when fiction can deliver the happy ending that can elude us in our lives,' McFadden said in a statement to USA TODAY. 'Like everyone else, I have experienced frustrations in my life. The little ones like the driver who cuts me off in traffic or the people who leave their dog poop in the exact perfect place to step in it. Or the big ones that still keep me awake some nights. And what do I do when those injustices happen? Like the majority of people, I do nothing. 'That's why I created Debbie Mullen. Debbie is the cool housewife slash advice columnist who has reached the end of her rope and finally starts taking back everything that was stolen from her – piece by piece, name by name. This book is a shout out to the silence that so many women live in every day. Debbie is one of my favorite protagonists of all my thrillers, and I hope you love her as much as I do," McFadden says. What is 'Dear Debbie' by Freida McFadden about? The novel follows a woman experiencing 'the mother of all crash outs,' according to McFadden. Debbie is a mother of two teenage daughters, an advice columnist for New England wives, a gardener and a wife who uses her MIT-educated math skills to design apps to track her lying husband. But when she's fired from her job, Debbie is 'officially out of buttons to push.' While you wait to unlock Debbie's story, why not check out another suspenseful tale? McFadden shared her favorite revenge stories with USA TODAY that set the tone for "Dear Debbie": Murders, ghosts and crime, oh my!: New thrillers to read this summer Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Politico
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Politico
‘He Knows I Can Weather It': The GOP Rebel Trump Can't Crush
Kentucky is famous for its bourbon, horses and college basketball. But in Rep. Thomas Massie's fourth Congressional district, there are a few other pillars to know about: Cincinnati chili, served over spaghetti with Greek spices; a life-size Noah's Arc; and a political culture that, in the words of Northern Kentucky's political class, is a good fit for Massie's libertarian conservatism — even if it means facing the wrath of President Donald Trump. 'Yes, we're conservatives, but we also have independent thinking,' said Republican state Rep. TJ Roberts, a protege of Massie's in Frankfort. 'We have a consistent track record of having a very different taste, especially when we talk about foreign affairs.' That taste has set Massie on a collision course with Trump, whom Massie has defied at key moments of his second presidency. In March, Massie ignored Trump's wishes and voted 'No' on the current continuing resolution to keep the government funded. Then, in May, Massie opposed Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' which is to say, most of the president's domestic agenda. Just a few weeks later, he took a swing at Trump's foreign policy. 'This is not Constitutional,' Massie said on X, embedding a screenshot of Trump's blustery announcement that U.S. forces had struck Iran. Massie quickly threatened a war powers resolution, cosigned by Democrats, to rein Trump in. 'I am consequential here in Washington, D.C. In between launching B-2 bombers to the other side of the planet, the president spends some portion of his attention worried about what I'm going to do next,' said Massie, a 54-year-old, MIT-educated entrepreneur who founded a haptics company before moving back to his family home of Lewis County in the early 2000s. Massie's rebelliousness was hardly the type of behavior you'd expect from a rock-ribbed conservative representing a state that delivered Trump a 30-point margin. Or was it? Kentucky Republicans have been needling Trump like it's a part-time job ever since his return to the White House — from Sen. Mitch McConnell's long feud with Trump, to Sen. Rand Paul's vote against the 'big, beautiful bill' and support for a Democrat-led measure to end Trump's tariffs on Canada. Still, it's one thing for a senator to put pressure on his party's president. It's riskier for a Republican House member to invite a Trump-backed primary challenge, as Massie has. He has drawn so much ire that Trump's political machine dispatched MAGA campaign stars Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio to find a suitable candidate to take him down. 'Thomas Massie's constituents want a representative from KY-4 that will support lower taxes, protect the border and support the policies of President Trump that they all voted for,' said LaCivita, 'instead of a grandstander who has never accomplished a thing for his constituents.' Trump, taking to his favorite platform of Truth Social, called Massie a 'LOSER' who is just 'Rand Paul Jr.,' and who needs to be replaced by an 'American patriot.' But Massie shrugged off the invective, convinced that he has a far better feel for his district than the president. After all, Trump failed to oust him in 2020. 'I don't really think he has a vendetta against me,' Massie said. 'He's trying to keep the other people in lockstep with him by attacking me. He knows I can weather it.' His confidence is based on the particular contours of the electorate in his district, which is focused around Cincinnati's Northern Kentucky suburbs with a healthy bite of Appalachia and exurban Louisville. Local political professionals know Massie's fief to be a quizzical mixture of many right-leaning factions that don't always get along: suburbanites who identify with Ohio; Appalachians who are deeply skeptical about all forms of federal control; and a strong Catholic tradition that contrasts with the state's Bible-thumping stereotype. In the Northern Kentucky region alone, Massie says there are 'a dozen different cities,' 'about 20 mayors,' all of whom relish their independence. While these voters welcomed Trump's vitriolic attacks on Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, trans athletes and student-loan giveaways, they notably did not sign up for ballooning the deficit, expanding presidential power and engaging in another Middle Eastern conflict. Now, in the ramp-up to a possible primary, something strange is happening. Whether Massie means to or not, his defiant stand for libertarian principles is offering a roadmap for other critics of the president to do something many believe is impossible: turn some of his most ardent voters against his policies. Thousands of voters in Kentucky take their libertarianism seriously enough that they've given their candidates a name: Liberty Republicans. They're an emerging anti-establishment group in a party whose establishment is now represented by a certain New York real estate developer. 'I was the first. I was the spearhead,' state Rep. Savannah Maddox said about the clique of local GOP leaders who emulate Massie and Paul's style. Their admiration for Massie may have something to do with the manner in which he lives his principles — namely, on his farm, off the grid in Appalachia, where self-sufficiency means building a robot chicken pen to care for his birds while he's in D.C. Like Massie, the Liberty Republicans are a thorn in the state party's side that neither outside money nor heavy-handed leadership can bring to heel. Massie, who is famously not a team player in D.C., is happy to take credit for developing this bench of libertarian-leaning candidates in his district. In Massie's telling, he's fond of showing up at fundraisers for 'state senators, state reps — even magistrates and county judge executives' to help them expand his revolution. He has deliberately focused on nurturing elected officials rather than seizing control of the party infrastructure. 'I have actually distributed about a quarter million dollars directly to local candidates,' Massie said. He boasted that his Liberty acolytes 'were all challenged significantly in their last election, and they all survived.' Like him, the enmity they create in the capital seems only to amplify their appeal to voters back home. Trey Grayson, a mainstream Republican and McConnell ally who served as Kentucky secretary of state and director of the Harvard Institute of Politics, and is a longtime Northern Kentucky resident, thinks that Massie's ties with the Liberty group gives him 'protection' and 'reinforcement.' Those benefits extend beyond state lines. In the age of the Internet and social media, such boosters as Elon Musk frequently amplify Massie's libertarian message on X, which has helped him connect to a large pool of online donors. It's this point that gives Massie his sense of confidence facing down the president and any of his surrogates. In his view, Trump's real weapon against Republicans who defy him is his ability to scare off donors. 'I have a fundraising model that is impervious to that,' he said, as he elaborated on all the money that he's been able to source from fans online. According to Massie, he raised approximately $370,000; $50,000; and more than $180,000 in three separate weeks when he was in Trump's crosshairs. Those donors, he says, are pro-Trump. But they 'want to see me here delivering their view.' One person who seems to agree with that is Musk, who recently posted on X that he'd be supporting Massie's campaign. Massie said he hasn't met Musk in real life, but that he's 'definitely a fan,' adding that he owns a Tesla and uses Starlink. When asked if Musk might intervene on his behalf with a super PAC, Massie said he didn't know. 'I haven't heard that he is, but I can tell you there will be a super PAC that will be helping me,' he teased. Still, money isn't everything, and while Massie has a large network of loyalists, they aren't close to an organized machine: The very nature of libertarians makes them harder to corral. Tres Watson, a consultant with ties to the GOP establishment, believes that some of Massie's proteges are 'sharp,' but 'others are complete and absolute morons' whom party leaders have easily played off against one another. In other words, not the troops to go into battle with Trump. Liberty Republicans themselves are quick to concede that they aren't very organized. But their ability to hand out pamphlets at the county fair seems secondary to the larger point: Their existence proves that Massie's message works in Kentucky. Trump's team may have arrived at the same conclusion. On June 29, POLITICO reported that White House officials had contacted state Sen. Aaron Reed as a possible primary opponent. Reed, it turns out, has also been associated with the Liberty movement. But Reed or any other candidate faces a tough task. Because finding a good lane to run in versus Massie won't be easy. It's one thing for Trump to force out an opponent like Sen. Thom Tillis, who attacks him from a centrist position, but entirely another to get rid of someone who frequently stands to the right of MAGA. Massie's critics and boosters both acknowledge that when he does cross the president, he usually does so in the name of guiding him back to their shared conservative principles. It's a wise tactic to please voters who both love the president but also have a soft spot for anti-establishment figures. They are, after all, used to such leaders as his two GOP predecessors, the congressman-turned-Senator Jim Bunning, an irascible conservative who rarely shied away from conflict; and Rep. Geoff Davis, who came to politics as an outsider. Not to mention his across-the-river neighbors in the Cincinnati media market, Rep. Warren Davidson and Vice President JD Vance. State Rep. Maddox put her finger on where she thinks the district's pulse is today: 'President Trump is responding to an electorate of folks who asked for change,' she said. 'But the way he is trying to evoke it is causing friction with the People's branch of government, where our laws are made.' In other words, her constituents love Trump's agenda. But they're more loyal to Massie's principles of limited government. Grayson thinks this district's contrarianism is part of a much longer story. 'Kentucky has a very rural population compared to the nation. Those rural voters traditionally were pretty Democratic,' Grayson said. 'The Fourth [district] was an exception. Where Thomas Massie lives was always Republican. It was a pro-union enclave during the Civil War.' The Fourth district, that is to say, has historically been different. That history might be forgotten by the distillers on the Bourbon Trail or the businessmen sipping juleps at Churchill Downs. But those same Kentuckians are well acquainted with the vibeshift they feel whenever they cross into Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties, the longtime core of Massie's district in Northern Kentucky. Though its population is on comparable footing with Louisville and Lexington — the state's two largest cities, where establishment Republicans live — almost no one in either of those cities would ever think of Northern Kentucky as a peer. To them, Massie's constituents live in suburban spillover from Cincinnati that does not belong in their blessed Bluegrass. Snide regionalism aside, they might be half-right. 'A lot of people have moved over from Ohio for jobs, cheap land. They're not as connected to the state,' Grayson said. That much could be said about much of the Ohio River Valley, where communities often have little in common with the states they're drawn into. Independence is part of life here, and in Massie's district, it's also baked into the politics. 'I'm just going to keep supporting Donald Trump and Thomas Massie, and hope they can come to a resolution, because I think we need the two working together very badly,' said Rep. Roberts. 'Both have a constituency that represents the future of the GOP in America.'
Daily Maverick
12-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Maverick
Crossed Wires: The most important company in the world and the storm brewing around it
Is it Apple? Alphabet? OpenAI? Nvidia? Microsoft? Amazon? Nope, it is none of these, critical to the global economy as they may be. It is a company most people have never even heard of. It is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, otherwise known as TSMC. If you think China is threatening to invade Taiwan because of its potential geo-military importance or its history or its valuable real estate, forget it. It is because of TSMC. The company sits with its finger in the dyke behind which is a roiling and dangerous sea of geopolitics. No, wait. Perhaps the most important company in the world is actually ASML, based in Veldhoven, in the Netherlands. We'll get to them later. So what are these companies and why have they become the firing pin of a global hand grenade? The short answer is that TSMC manufactures the world's most advanced semiconductor chips. America has no equivalent. China has no equivalent. They stand alone; no competitors come close. Let's rewind. TSMC is a relatively new company. It was started in Taiwan in 1987 by MIT-educated Morris Chang as the world's first 'pure play foundry'. This meant that they did not design chips but only manufactured them, and never under their own name (unlike competitors such as Samsung). They were originally at the bottom of the food chain — give us a chip design, they told the world's tech giants, and we will give you the physical object, perfectly manufactured, no defects, on time and on budget. I suppose at the time this was to be expected. Taiwan was well respected as a reliable high-volume, high-tech, affordable manufacturer, but not much more than that. Apple and Qualcomm and others were (and still are) happy to hand over their designs to Taiwan for manufacture. But then TSMC got serious about being the best. They raised billions from shareholders and poured money into research and development. It wasn't just about automation or bigger plants or smoother supply chains. Their core area of research and development was focused on mastering technologies and processes that would allow them to pack more and more transistors onto a single piece of silicon. Semiconductor pioneer Remember Moore's Law? It was posited by Gordon Moore, a semiconductor pioneer in the early 1970s. Moore's Law predicted that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit would double about every two years. TSMC has been the embodiment of that law, almost as though it was written for them — their North Star. How large does the company loom today? A total of 25% of Taiwan's GDP comes from semiconductors, and TSMC dominates the industry. It constitutes 30% of Taiwan's stock market value. It will exceed $100-billion in revenue and $50-billion in profits this year. It owns 67% of the global foundry market. It manufactures one-third of all the chips in the world. It manufactures more than 90% of the world's most advanced chips. In 2023, Wired writer Virginia Heffernan went to Taiwan to report on the company and the headline of her article was 'I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory'. Perhaps it was only partially hyperbolic. In short, the company is large, profitable, dominant, defendable — and vital. And so it happened that all the tech companies handed their chip designs to TSMC for manufacturing. None of them believed that mere manufacturing was 'core'' internet protocol. TSMC was seen as a serf, a manufacturing gun for hire. Yes, well, but… in the last 37 years TSMC has built the biggest, baddest gun in the world. They are used by Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom and even other chip manufacturers. The company has created, in effect, a benign monopoly, gladly providing a completely differentiated and unique and core service to all comers. How did they attain this vaunted position in the value chain of high tech? By investment in research and development, over and over again, until they built a moat so wide that the competitive expense of crossing it became prohibitive. Michael Spencer, a widely read tech commentator and blogger, makes the stakes clear in a recent article: 'A (Chinese) threat to the island nation of Taiwan (e.g, like a blockade or invasion) and supply chains of TSMC, would immediately plunge the global economy into a severe recession. It would also likely spark a hot war involving the US, Japan and other allies.' But, as always with politics, the story gets complicated, especially where Trump is involved. TSMC started to establish joint ventures in other countries (such as Germany) around 2020, well before Trump 2.0. Biden's Chips Act provided some of the kickstart funding ($11.6-billion) for the establishment of a fab plant in Arizona in 2020. Fast forward to 2025 and the Trump tariffs, and suddenly we have the chairperson of TSMC, CC Wei, at the White House announcing a $100-billion investment in TSMC US. Good for the US, good for Taiwan, right? Not so fast. It is not at all clear whether TSMC can produce chips at a profit in the US, given the labour costs, red tape, and, after decades of neglect, a significantly thinned-out high-tech manufacturing skills base. And then there is the uber-advanced end of their product line, the so-called 2nm and 3nm nodes, which are the most efficient and densely populated with transistors. The government of Taiwan is putting its foot down — those stay in Taiwan. Further wrinkle To add a further wrinkle, we have ASML, a Dutch company, which provides a critical piece of TMSC's chip manufacturing puzzle (probably the only piece not built by them) — the ultra-violet lithography kit that etches millions of minute corridors into the silicon, the 'roadways' for electrons, a necessary step without which the chip cannot be manufactured. ASML is the only company in the world with the know-how to manufacture such a machine. It has taken more than 30 years of development and tens of billions invested. You can't get the kit anywhere else and, as with TSMC, this makes for a very deep moat. The US can't allow Taiwan to be invaded by China in case they choke off the supply of advanced chips to the US and the West more generally. For their part, the Chinese can't stand helplessly by watching TMSC empower the US with the world's most advanced chips. This leaves us with one Taiwanese company and one Dutch company standing between two covetous superpowers which both want control over the supply and manufacture of the tiny brains that now power the entire world. Neither can afford to have the other win. And presumably, AMSL simply wants everyone to bugger off so they can sell their admirable kit in peace. The standoff is not going to last. It seems likely that China will indeed invade Taiwan — all indicators point in that direction. Let us hope that TSMC's internet protocol is properly externalised to other countries by the time it happens. DM
Washington Post
16-04-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Armed with a torpedo bat, Brewers third baseman Oliver Dunn puts down a run-scoring bunt
MILWAUKEE — Brewers third baseman Oliver Dunn made his way to the plate with a torpedo bat in hand with one out in the second inning and teammate Garrett Mitchell on third base after a triple. Dunn's at-bat during Milwaukee's game against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday afternoon was significant because he became the first Brewers player to use the model. His first 'swing' with the bat, the focus of considerable attention after the New York Yankees belted a team-record nine homers with the specially-designed lumber in the season's opening days, turned out to be not much of a swing at all. Instead, Dunn put down a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt that allowed Mitchell to hustle home with the game's first run in what would turn out to be a 5-1 Milwaukee victory. 'Torpedo bats. What a difference,' Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said with a smile. 'Did you see that bunt that scored the first run?' Dunn's decision to bunt caught teammate Sal Frelick off guard. 'It was his first at-bat with the torpedo. We were waiting for him to go hack up there and he dropped a little bunt down,' said Frelick, who homered for the first time this season, a sixth-inning solo shot using a standard bat. The torpedo bat — a striking design in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin — features a design by an MIT-educated physicist. 'In my career, I had hit a lot of balls lower on the barrel and saw that's what it was for and I thought why not,' Dunn said of his decision to give the torpedo bat a try. 'It felt good but I don't think I've gotten enough swings with it on the field to feel a difference. But it swings well. It swings light. The weight's in a different spot. I liked what I've seen of it so far, for sure.' Dunn grounded out to second in his only other at-bat on the day before Vinny Capra pinch-hit for him in the sixth. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on Dunn, who said he was just trying to push across a run any way he could. 'It is funny that the first pitch I see was a bunt,' he said. 'But it's just a bat.' Dunn said he expects to continue to use the torpedo, at least in the short term. 'I'll probably roll with it initially and just get enough of a base to see if I like what I'm getting from it and make a decision from there,' Dunn said. Whether any other Brewers players turn to the torpedo bat remains to be seen, but don't expect Frelick to be one of them. 'I have no thoughts,' Frelick said when asked about the chatter surrounding the new-fangled bat. 'You chop down a tree, you should be able to hit with it.' ___ AP MLB:
Fox Sports
16-04-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Armed with a torpedo bat, Brewers third baseman Oliver Dunn puts down a run-scoring bunt
Associated Press MILWAUKEE (AP) — Brewers third baseman Oliver Dunn made his way to the plate with a torpedo bat in hand with one out in the second inning and teammate Garrett Mitchell on third base after a triple. Dunn's at-bat during Milwaukee's game against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday afternoon was significant because he became the first Brewers player to use the model. His first 'swing' with the bat, the focus of considerable attention after the New York Yankees belted a team-record nine homers with the specially-designed lumber in the season's opening days, turned out to be not much of a swing at all. Instead, Dunn put down a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt that allowed Mitchell to hustle home with the game's first run in what would turn out to be a 5-1 Milwaukee victory. 'Torpedo bats. What a difference,' Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said with a smile. 'Did you see that bunt that scored the first run?' Dunn's decision to bunt caught teammate Sal Frelick off guard. 'It was his first at-bat with the torpedo. We were waiting for him to go hack up there and he dropped a little bunt down,' said Frelick, who homered for the first time this season, a sixth-inning solo shot using a standard bat. The torpedo bat — a striking design in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin — features a design by an MIT-educated physicist. 'In my career, I had hit a lot of balls lower on the barrel and saw that's what it was for and I thought why not,' Dunn said of his decision to give the torpedo bat a try. 'It felt good but I don't think I've gotten enough swings with it on the field to feel a difference. But it swings well. It swings light. The weight's in a different spot. I liked what I've seen of it so far, for sure.' Dunn grounded out to second in his only other at-bat on the day before Vinny Capra pinch-hit for him in the sixth. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on Dunn, who said he was just trying to push across a run any way he could. 'It is funny that the first pitch I see was a bunt,' he said. 'But it's just a bat.' Dunn said he expects to continue to use the torpedo, at least in the short term. 'I'll probably roll with it initially and just get enough of a base to see if I like what I'm getting from it and make a decision from there,' Dunn said. Whether any other Brewers players turn to the torpedo bat remains to be seen, but don't expect Frelick to be one of them. 'I have no thoughts,' Frelick said when asked about the chatter surrounding the new-fangled bat. 'You chop down a tree, you should be able to hit with it.' ___ AP MLB: recommended
