The New Yorker
Fighting Words
Mahmoud Khalil protested Israel as a student at Columbia. Now he’s on the verge of being kicked out of the country. Andrew Marantz reports.
Today’s Mix
The Real Meaning of the Jason Arday Scandal
In a young Black professor’s academic misconduct, a “race-realist” found a “hook for a story.”
The Mark of the Machine
Few forces have proved as powerful at tempering A.I. use as public shaming has. Now Anthropic is making it even easier to determine if text was generated by Claude.
Nayib Bukele’s Content Machine Is Reshaping Latin America
How El Salvador’s authoritarian leader loomed over Colombia’s Presidential race.
The Glorious Disorder of Michael Ondaatje’s Early Work
For writers like me, who had crossed borders to arrive in the West, Ondaatje’s disregard for established boundaries taught us how to spell out our own liberation.
The Lindsay Clancy Conspiracy Spiral
Both the prosecution and the defense agree that Clancy killed her children—conspiracy theorists don’t care.
The Children a Scientist Took Home
Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for his work on a disease in Papua New Guinea. But his biggest experiment was on the children he took back to the U.S.
The Lede
A daily column on what you need to know.
Donald Trump Is Still Trying to Make It Harder to Vote
The SAVE America Act is just one part of a package that includes an executive order and threats of prosecution, all in an effort to make Trump’s math work.
How Trump Is Trying to Weaken Migrant Children’s Legal Defense
After failing to eliminate funding for unaccompanied minors’ lawyers altogether, the Administration is pushing cases toward entities that lack both immigration expertise and the capacity to take them on.
A.O.C.’s Eggs and the Working Woman’s Inconvenient Truth
By preserving her fertility, the youngest woman elected to Congress is facing trade-offs familiar to many women. By doing it publicly, she’s driving conservatives crazy.
Is D.N.C. Chair the Worst Job in Washington?
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The organization is holding its annual summer meeting, and onlookers are calling for the head of its leader, Ken Martin. Then again, the Democrats are always doing that kind of thing.
What Francesca Hong’s Defeat Means for Democrats
The democratic socialist’s rise in Wisconsin was supposed to portend a major breakthrough for the left. Her narrow loss should still be a wake-up call for the Party’s establishment.
Who Killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo?
A death during an ICE traffic stop raises outrage in Houston—and in Mexico.
Rachel Cusk’s Protest Against Personhood
“Life of M,” the novelist’s latest book, continues a career-long attempt to dismantle character in fiction. Has she succeeded?
The Critics
“The End of Oak Street” Is a Weirdly Alienated Jurassic Lark
In David Robert Mitchell’s film, starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, a family is endangered not only by dinosaurs but also by the director’s penchant for Spielbergian nostalgia.
Usher and Chris Brown’s Audacious Joint Tour
The R. & B. megastars seem to think their genre needs saving. But from what?
“Dreams in Nightmares” Turns the Art Life Political
Struggles for personal and creative freedom fuel Shatara Michelle Ford’s second feature, about three women’s search for a friend gone missing.
Anatomy of a Sex Scandal
What a nineteenth-century uproar reveals about our zeal for public shaming—and the truths that get trampled along the way.
Phoebe Bridgers Comes Back to Earth
The indie artist’s new album, “Lost Weekend,” is a document of both rupture and redemption.
The Improbable Longevity of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”
The irreverent comedy is the longest-running sitcom in history, yet has won no major awards. What gives?
What We’re Reading
A chatty novel about a writer navigating the season of life when friendships are tested by growing families and by the realization of ambition; an exploration of wilderness through various remote sites; and more.
Our Columnists
How I Became a Middle-Aged, Middle-Class Leftist
By the time Bernie Sanders ran for President, in 2015, I was financially secure. But the previous decade had left a mark.
A Trump Grift Too Far?
A scheme to charge Wall Street traders for an early look at the President’s comments on Truth Social has generated outrage and a lawsuit.
The Red Sox Cannot Be Made to Make Any Sense
Teams get hot, then cold; they get lucky, then unlucky. Records rarely paint a full picture of a season—especially for fans determined to believe in another comeback story.
The Wealth and Glam of “The Hamptons” Looks Almost Quaint
Barbara Kopple’s documentary follows a generation of starlets, moguls, and other tanned partygoers who have no idea what tragedies and class anxieties lie in store.
How Sam Smith Found Their Voice
The Grammy-winning artist on coming out as nonbinary, writing requited love songs for the first time, and why their new album, “Hazel Eyes,” is their most personal yet.
Flash Fiction
A series of very short stories.
“The Hobbler”
Maybe there’s still hope for a new morning, for clouds that cluster like ripe grapes which, when squeezed, will release from the heavens the sweet streams of enchanted days.
“Tributaries”
He heard her crying out in the dark. He couldn’t be sure if it was in sadness or joy or both.
“The Window”
Yes, pulling the shade was my nightly task, and she’d never think to do it, but already I was half an hour away from home.
“Broken”
Usually, when I informed a guy that I had a type, that I couldn’t help whom I was or wasn’t attracted to, he moved on. Not you.
When Middle Age Comes Into Focus
A bevy of cultural sacraments marks our passage into adulthood, but the yawning decades beyond it unspool without ceremony.
Songs of Summer
A series on music and memory.
“Choosin’ Texas”
Ella Langley’s chart-topping lament is about what everyone wants to do in mid-August: give in and let go.
“Padam Padam”
Kylie Minogue’s 2023 track belongs to a category of solid, danceable pop music that barely penetrates the eardrums of self-professed thirtysomething old folks.
“It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”
This 2003 song by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett was part of a wave of hits that envisioned an escape to the seaside.
Lindsay Clancy’s Husband in the Aftermath of Her Unfathomable Act
Lindsay Clancy is currently on trial for killing her three children during a postpartum mental-health crisis in January of 2023. In a piece about the case from 2024, Eren Orbey talked extensively with Lindsay’s then husband, Patrick, and other members of the Clancy family about their view of Lindsay’s state of mind. In Lindsay’s trial, prosecutors have described a clear-headed scheme, but Patrick saw things differently: “I wasn’t married to a monster—I was married to someone who got sick.”
Ideas
Can Extreme Morning Sickness Be Cured?
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For decades, the condition was thought to be psychological, and women were shamed for their illness. Now a scientist has found a biological cause.
The Mystery of Dark Oxygen
Scientists used to think oxygen could only be found near Earth’s surface, where plants and algae grow. Then they found it deep underground—raising profound questions about what else could be down there.
How Golden Is Silence, Actually?
Kate McLoughlin’s “Silence: A Literary History” covers everything from the empty halls of “Beowulf” to COVID lockdowns and beyond.
The Myth of the Food Desert
Policymakers have assumed that people with good options wouldn’t make bad choices. What if access was never the real problem?
Are You a Human?
From branding irons to iris scans, the ancient business of proving who you are has never been stranger—or more lucrative.
The U.S. Helped Make Europe. Can It Break It?
Cold War policymakers pushed for a unified Continent. Their MAGA successors are trying to undo all that.
Puzzles & Games
Take a break and play.
Inside Russia’s New Gulag
Human-rights groups estimate that more than ten thousand Ukrainian civilians have disappeared into the Russian prison system. This is the story of one cell.
In Case You Missed It
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When Nidhi was fourteen, her mother became pregnant again. People were understandably surprised, no one more so, it seemed, than her own parents. They made their usual jokes, both about the pregnancy and about the deed that had produced it.
Her mother: “If we’d known, we’d have put some drama into the sex, yaar. Now this poor kid will grow up and become a banker or some other boring thing.”Continue reading »
