The photographer Vadim Makhorov, while recently cruising on the Chukchi Sea, noticed a group of polar bears that were taking shelter inside an abandoned research station on Russia's remote Kolyuchin Island....

Kat Abughazaleh knows how to create viral moments online. She's an old pro, in fact, capable of posting clips of herself that can rack up millions of views. But engineering attention in the physical world is a decidedly different challenge'one that Abughazaleh was struggling to solve on an overcast afternoon in July. The 26-year-old, who is running for Congress in Illinois, was sitting outside her campaign headquarters in Chicago, trying to connect with prospective voters during the area's annual taco crawl. Some people were stopping to chat, but others hurried along in search of their next carnitas fix. On the internet, Abughazaleh can precision-edit a video to maximize eyeballs. On Clark Street, a busy thoroughfare that cuts across the city's northeastern neighborhoods, she had to convince people cruising for excellent Mexican food that she was worth delaying their next bite. That day, at least, the solution was simple: hot sauce. Abughazaleh got a taste for the stuff growing up in Texas and never let go. She hauled out the collection of bottles she keeps in her office'many of them sent by a supporter'and lined up over a dozen on a table for pedestrians to douse their tacos. Within minutes, locals sloshing to-go margaritas in plastic cups stopped to pepper her with questions, like her stance on organized labor (pro), what her 'main issue' is ('antiauthoritarianism'), and her thoughts on contemporary sci-fi and fantasy (Red Rising is superior to A Song of Ice and Fire). It seemed every other person had a friend who was a big fan. Supporters in cars honked periodically. With help from a volunteer who translated, Abughazaleh explained to a Spanish-speaking family that her office doubles as a mutual aid hub, stocked with free pantry items and open to 'everyone except ICE.' They took campaign stickers....

We're cruising 35,000 feet over the French Riviera, the plane's wing cutting through billows of white. Below us, the sea is sparkling, and I spot a cluster of yachts anchored along the coastline. A ray of light hits my glass of Champagne and turns it to liquid gold. I take another sip. So this is what it feels like to be on cloud nine. I'm flying from London to St. Tropez with the private aviation company Wheels Up, and for the first time in my life, I don't want a flight to end. Once you've gotten a taste of the private jet lifestyle, it becomes easy to understand why wealthy travelers are so taken with it'despite the hefty price tag and contentious carbon footprint. But, as Leona Qi, president of Vista US, a private aviation company that owns VistaJet and XO, tells me, a large group of private jet travelers are not, in fact, ordering Champagne and caviar on their way to the South of France. Instead, they're more likely to be taking board meetings en route to the Midwest for a multi-million dollar IPO deal....

American liberals in search of hope can look to the Canadian election. Just five months ago, the country's incumbent Liberal Party appeared headed for an epic defeat. It trailed the Conservative Party by 25 percentage points, and its leader, then'Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had an approval rating of just 22 percent. Forecasters predicted that the Liberals would win 35 seats in the country's 343-seat Parliament, compared with 236 for the Conservatives. Instead, the Liberals are set to win at least 155'a plurality larger than they had before. How did the party pull off this astonishing feat' To many, the answer is that they didn't: Donald Trump did. 'The Conservatives' 25 percentage point lead in the polls has swiftly turned into a single-digit deficit as Mr. Trump has become the race's dominant issue,' The New York Times wrote three weeks ago. 'Trump Effect Leaves Canada's Conservatives Facing Catastrophic Loss,' read an April 16 headline in The Guardian. The theory of the case is straightforward. The Conservatives were cruising until Trump threatened to annex Canada and slapped tariffs on its exports. At that point, they were finished. Canadians rallied around the flag, which meant rallying around the incumbent Liberal government. They turned on the Conservative Party's leader, Pierre Poilievre, whose 'Canada First' slogan and promise to fire 'woke' bureaucrats sounded a lot like Trumpism....