Zachary Lazar’s new novel is a meditation on life in Trump’s America — and how to escape it.

Another mass shooting has claimed the lives of school children, with at least 19 students and two teachers dead in Uvalde, Tex., after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday. The deadly attack has police and schools on the South Fork on high alert, though no specific threats have been identified.

In the aftermath of the racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo on May 14, the New York State Education Department announced this week that it is canceling this year's Regents exam in United States history because of concerns that some of the test's content "has the potential to compound student trauma caused by the violence in Buffalo, which created an unexpected and unintended context for the planned assessment."