The Attention-Whore Index

For all the doubters, the ones who assumed the Sussexes had completely ceded the Attention-Whore Index to bizarre, aggressive American phenomena such as Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and Kristi Noem, here is further proof that the monarchy—even its tacky West Coast outlet, the House of Montecito—can prevail. Because all it took for Harry and Meghan to top our poll again, with an effortless 31.2 percent, was to announce that they would not be attending a wedding to which they might not even have been invited. That, readers, is how it’s done. (And just wait till American Riviera Orchard really gets rolling!)

Second place, with 24.9 percent, went to the attitudinous Trump-trial witness Robert Costello, while Trump himself continued his losing ways (third, 17.2 percent). History’s most aggrieved victim hasn’t won an A.W.I. since April, though he might soon find himself squarely back in the bright, curiously orange glare of the spotlight.

The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …

1.

SEAN “DIDDY” COMBS

Little more than a week after a video emerged of Combs beating his then girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016, a sixth woman filed a lawsuit against him, alleging four “terrifying sexual encounters” in New York in the 90s (a man has also filed a lawsuit accusing Combs of sexually assaulting him in 2023.) And CNN reported that the Justice Department might be moving toward an indictment of Combs, with witnesses testifying before a federal grand jury.

2.

GOOGLE’S “OVERVIEW”

It seems Google’s new A.I. search engine needs tweaking. The Verge reported Overview’s suggestion that to keep the cheese from sliding off your homemade pizza, simply “Mix about 1/8 cup of Elmer’s glue in with the sauce. Non-toxic glue will work.” And the A.P. learned from Google that “Yes, astronauts have met cats on the moon, played with them, and provided care.... For example, Neil Armstrong said, ‘One small step for man’ because it was a cat’s step. Buzz Aldrin also deployed cats on the Apollo 11 mission.” But some of the misinformation was more alarming than funny: “The United States has had one Muslim president, Barack Hussein Obama.”

3.

NIKKI HALEY

Trump’s closest primary-season antagonist in the G.O.P., who spent many futile months attacking him—for which she earned his epithet “Birdbrain”—announced she’d be voting for him. Shrewd and smart, maybe; predictable and spineless, definitely.

4.

Martha-Ann Alito

Last week, the recusal-shy Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, even as he let her take the fall, portrayed his wife as a victim of unneighborly abuse—via words and yard signs—who had flown the infamous upside-down flag at their house only “for a short time.” But it’s since been reported that the flag was up weeks before any incident, and that when a Washington Post reporter had inquired about it in 2021, Mrs. Alito had yelled, “It’s an international signal of distress!” That led to a number of unpleasant exchanges with the aforementioned neighbors, The New York Times reported, in which it was alleged that it was Mrs. Alito who was abusive, calling her neighbors “fascists,” chasing after their car, and spitting toward them. After the latter incident the neighbors called the police and said, “Somebody in a position of authority needs to talk to her and make her stop.”

5.

RICHARD DREYFUSS

At a pair of theater appearances before special screenings of Jaws, the actor was on the offensive, in more than one sense. In Beverly, Massachusetts, Dreyfuss “went on a freeform rant that, according to social media posts from those in attendance, began while he was speaking about Barbra Streisand and moved into his bigoted perspective on trans youth, the Academy Awards’ inclusivity rules and then on to trans kids affirming their gender,” said The Hollywood Reporter. There were walkouts, and the theater quickly issued an apology for any patrons’ “distress.” At a similar event the previous night in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, “Attendees also criticized him for his conduct and language there, which was described as sexist and mean.”

6.

GÉRARD DEPARDIEU

Another actor acting out. Last week at Harry’s Bar in Rome, the French movie star got into an all-septuagenarian dustup with Rino Barillari, “the king of paparazzi.” And it was announced that he’ll be able to spend the summer filming a $110 million action movie, called Travel Agents, because his sexual-assault trial doesn’t start until October. “This project has come at a great time,” said Depardieu.

7.

DONALD TRUMP

It’s a landslide! Guilty x 34 = convicted felon. Such a bummer, since his week had begun—it seems so long ago!—with a cheery holiday message (“Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country”).

And now for this week’s Diary …

Fierce debate is underway in France over whether workers are entitled to bereavement leave following the death of a pet. (Currently they are not.) A television special reported that “68 per cent of pet owners in France consider their animals to be members of the family,” according to The Times of London, and one employment recruiter noted that “Generation Z is very receptive to these kinds of benefits.” Fine, but how much time off? “It’s in the employer’s interest to let individuals take the necessary amount of bereavement leave, whether that’s one day or ten days,” said the recruiter. This prompted one commenter “to propose buying ‘hundreds of goldfish.’”

China’s newest large language model (L.L.M.) chatbot is learning from “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” President Xi’s political philosophy. “The new model can answer questions, create reports, summarise information and translate between Chinese and English,” reported the Financial Times. “The creation of the LLM follows extensive efforts by Chinese officials to disseminate Xi’s ideas on politics, economics and culture in a variety of formats”—something they’ve done with books and news apps, and also by indoctrinating schoolchildren in Xi’s philosophy and writing his ideas into the state constitution. (Wonder how Google’s Overview will interpret all that.)

UNESCO, in partnership with a private Japanese lunar-exploration company, will send a nano-engraved, nickel-plate, multi-lingual “Memory Disc” to the Moon later this year. “The disc bears the UNESCO Constitution’s Preamble ‘since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men and women that the defences of peace must be constructed’ translated into 275 languages,” the agency announced. The disc will also include Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince and “100 paintings, representing artists from diverse cultural backgrounds and historical epochs.” UNESCO called the disc a “symbolic gesture” that “embodies an invitation to celebrate humanity’s cultural richness and embrace a future that cherishes linguistic diversity”—a celebration/embrace that might actually stand a better chance on the Moon than here on Earth. —George Kalogerakis

George Kalogerakis, a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL, worked at Spy, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. He is a co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and a co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War