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The Economist Middle East correspondent Gregg Carlstrom explains why some Arab leaders hate Hamas, fear Iran and have some sympathy for Israel — although not for how Israel is waging the war.

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Williams was thrust into the public eye as a kid, when he starred in Everybody Hates Chris. Now, playing a teacher on Abbott Elementary, he strives to make the child actors on set feel comfortable. He spoke with Tonya Mosley about the trauma of fame as a kid, his Crohn's diagnosis, and tuning out online chatter.

Justin Chang reviews the Japanese film Evil Does Not Exist, by Drive My Car director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi.

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Kathleen Hanna's band Bikini Kill was the epicenter of the riot grrrl feminist punk movement of the '90s. Their song "Rebel Girl" was the anthem. Now Hanna has a memoir (also called Rebel Girl) about her time in the punk scene, her childhood, and finding joy in expressing anger in public.

Also, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Claire Messud's new novel, This Strange Eventful History.

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Emmy- Grammy - Oscar- and Tony-Award-winning director, comedian, actor and songwriter Mel Brooks is best known for his cinematic parodies, some of which he cast himself in. That comes from a childhood love of cinema — and his desire to be a suave leading man himself. Hear his full 1991 interview: https://n.pr/44885br | Hear his 2001 interview: https://n.pr/4d5f09x | Hear his 2013 interview: https://n.pr/4aHWzpP | Hear his 2021 interview: https://n.pr/3JvoqgQ. Listen to 40+ years of Fresh Air's archives at https://FreshAirArchive.org. Not a Fresh Air+ supporter yet? Find out more, and join for yourself, at https://plus.npr.org/freshair.

WNBA star Brittney Griner talks about the physical and emotional hell of her nearly 300 days in Russian prisons. Russian authorities apprehended Griner at the Moscow Airport when she was found carrying a tiny amount of medically prescribed cannabis — then charged her with drug smuggling. Her memoir is Coming Home.

Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead reviews a 1959 Sonny Rollins reissue.

And we'll talk about plant intelligence with climate journalist Zoë Schlanger. Her book is The Light Eaters.

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Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer has been adapted into a series on HBO/MAX. It's set in Vietnam during the last days of the war, and in LA, just after. The narrator becomes a consultant to a Hollywood film about the war. The novel is written from a Vietnamese perspective. "It's my revenge on Francis Ford Coppola, my revenge on Hollywood, to try to get Americans to understand that Vietnam is a country and not a war," he told Terry Gross in 2016. Nguyen's family fled their village in South Vietnam in 1975, when it was taken over by the North.

Also, David Bianculli reviews Let It Be, the Beatles film restored and rereleased after being shelved for more than 50 years.

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