After the Coen brothers stalled on their script Miller's Crossing, they wrote a new film in about three weeks, Barton Fink, about a playwright who moves to Hollywood and gets stuck in a strange, almost empty hotel. The brothers said the story came together easily, and they felt the break from their first project helped them. The hotel, the Hotel Earle, was the film's central idea: they wanted an art deco building falling into ruin, where you sense other guests without seeing them. The climactic hallway fire was originally planned as a digital effect, but they decided on real flames, so the crew built a set in an aircraft hangar with gas jets along the wall. Because of film guild rules, the Coens edit their films under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.

Indonesian Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka handed his resignation to parliament after questions were raised about his eligibility for office and his academic credentials. Gibran is the son of former president Joko Widodo, and his resignation came as Widodo publicly backed the president, Prabowo Subianto. Gibran had been elected vice president in 2024 as Prabowo's running mate. His candidacy was made possible by a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling on the minimum age for candidates, which was itself controversial. Parliament will now consider the resignation.

Angkor, near Siem Reap in northern Cambodia, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia between roughly the 9th and 15th centuries. At its height the city spread across about 3,000 square kilometres, making it the largest pre-industrial city on Earth by area. Its growth depended on water: huge reservoirs called barays, along with canals and embankments, stored monsoon rain and carried it to rice fields. That system let farmers harvest more than once a year and fed a very large population through the dry season. The temple complex of Angkor Wat, built in the early 12th century, is the best-known monument and still stands at the heart of the park.