LiveLive Updates August 15, 2026Share to FacebookShare to XArticle printing is available to subscribers onlyPrint in a simple, ad-free formatSubscribeComments: Zen reading is available to subscribers onlyAd-free and in a comfortable reading formatSubscribeAugust 15, 2026UpdatesJD Vance's 'Communion' gives readers a chronicle of unconvincing conversionsVance's most recent book, "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith" (June 2026) ostensibly sets out to detail the story of Vance's 2019 conversion to Catholicism, after he abandoned his evangelical Protestant upbringing for what was, among young men in the 2000s, a common melange of atheism and liberalism. Yet this is actually the story of not one conversion but three: not just his choice to be baptized a Catholic, but also his transformation from Trump critic to Trump's heir apparent, and his turn away from Republican free-market orthodoxy to a kind of "daddy-state" conservatism: pro-natalist, pro-worker and protectionist. "Communion," then, is also a campaign book intended to reintroduce the new, Trumpified Vance to the American public and, as such, an attempt to craft a coherent ideology for the future of the populist right.U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's funeral in July. The new, Trumpified Vance. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images via AFPU.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance at the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's funeral in July. The new, Trumpified Vance. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images via AFPIn his own telling, Trump's anti-establishment provocations, which previously had alarmed Vance, were what ultimately won him over. For all Trump's mendacity and vulgarity, Vance came to see Trump as an effective vehicle for the rage of middle America's dispossessed. The more coastal elites shuddered each time Trump punctured liberal pieties and shredded progressive orthodoxies, the more Trump appeared to him as a much-needed shock to the system that had failed people like his family and community. The America that produced Trump, Vance writes, was "a country where my friends' and family's life expectancy was actually declining while the media's loudest voices called them racists for being ticked off about it."9 hours agoShabbat services at major New York synagogue disrupted, congregant and security assaultedAn individual disrupted Shabbat services at Central Synagogue in Manhattan on Friday and struck a member of the congregation, according to the New York Police, who said that the attacker damaged synagogue property and spit at and headbutted a member of the security team.Police said that no one was seriously injured and that additional NYPD resources were deployed to the synagogue.The attack comes days after a group of nearly a dozen rabbis met with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, during which they urged him to moderate his rhetoric on Israel, which they say has contributed to rising antisemitism and anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city.Mamdani denounced the attack on X. "I can only imagine the pain and fear an attack like this, during Shabbat services, causes for the congregation and for Jewish New Yorkers across our city."I am horrified by the assault at Central Synagogue during services today. I can only imagine the pain and fear an attack like this, during Shabbat services, causes for the congregation and for Jewish New Yorkers across our city.