The New Yorker
Spoiler Alert: Leftovers for Dinner
Between thirty and forty per cent of the food supply in the United States is thrown away. Patricia Marx hosts a potluck dinner party for nine using a pre-trash haul from Too Good to Go and other food-waste apps. Tip: don’t invite the carb-averse.
Above the Fold
Essential reading for today.
King Donald’s Day at the Supreme Court
A political hit job? A military coup? Trump’s lawyer tests the boundaries of a truly imperial Presidency.
What Harvey Weinstein’s Overturned Conviction Means for Donald Trump’s Trial
The legal issue behind Weinstein’s successful appeal is also at the heart of the former President’s hush-money case.
What George Kelly’s Mistrial Says About How We See the Border
The Arizona rancher was accused of killing a migrant. A tragedy, and a possible murder, quickly became a political cause.
The Supreme Court Appears Poised to Protect the Presidency—and Trump
In arguments about Presidential immunity, the conservative Justices made clear that they are less concerned with holding Trump accountable than with shielding former Presidents from retribution.
How Columbia’s Campus Was Torn Apart Over Gaza
The university asked the N.Y.P.D. to arrest pro-Palestine student protesters. Was it a necessary step to protect Jewish students, or a dangerous encroachment on academic freedom?
The Food Issue
New items on the menu throughout the week.
The Political Scene
Donald Trump Is Being Ritually Humiliated in Court
At his criminal trial, the ex-President has to sit there while potential jurors, prosecutors, the judge, witnesses, and even his own lawyers talk about him as a defective, impossible person.
The G.O.P.’s Election-Integrity Trap
Trump has spent years arguing that mail-in voting is fraudulent and corrupt. Now the Republican National Committee, which sees mail-in voting as essential, must persuade his base to embrace it.
The Biden Administration’s Plan to Make American Homes More Efficient
New building codes from the Department of Housing and Urban Development are the latest addition to a long list of Earth Week environmental wins for the White House.
The War Games of Israel and Iran
While Netanyahu and the Islamic Republic exchange ballistic “messages,” the question of Palestine demands the moral and strategic courage of actual statesmen.
In Search of Lost Flavors in Flushing
Rediscovering the tastes of childhood in New York’s biggest Chinatown.
The Critics
Love Means Nothing in Tennis but Everything in “Challengers”
Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist sustain a three-way rally of romance in Luca Guadagnino’s almost absurdly sexy sports film.
The Tortured Poetry of Taylor Swift’s New Album
“The Tortured Poets Department” has moments of tenderness. But it suffers from being too long and too familiar.
Could “Mind the Game” Change the Way Sports Are Covered?
The podcast, co-hosted by J. J. Redick and LeBron James, combines analytical commentary with an insider’s perspective—and bypasses traditional media.
“Civil War” Is a Tale of Bad News
Alex Garland’s grim political fantasy about secession and violence revolves around a war photographer but has little to say about the making and consumption of news images.
In Justine Kurland’s Photographs, a Mother and Son Hit the Road
Some of the portraits in “This Train” have an Edenic quality to them, as if Kurland is asking: What if my kid and I were the only two people in the world?
American Confinement in “We Grown Now” and “Stress Positions”
A crisis turns home into a place of constraint in two new independent features.
What We’re Reading This Week
A retelling of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the perspective of Jim, a collection of piquant essays on our predilection for minimalism, a memoir that charts the investigation of a mother’s murder across a quarter century, and more.
Secret Ingredients
The Most Treasured Jar in My Pantry
There is nothing “plain” about vanilla when your extract is home-brewed.
How to Season Your Food Like the French
I didn’t really know what black pepper was until I lived in Lyon.
The Unexpected Hero of My Baking Repertoire
Cakes that usually come at you two-fisted—pure butter and sugar—begin to relax when you swap some of the usual white-wheat flour for buckwheat.
A Tamarind Tree’s Sweet and Sour Inheritance
My ancestor was gifted a huge orchard just outside Delhi. The fruits it produced were the taste of my childhood.
When Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Told Their Stories
This week, a New York appeals court overturned the former movie mogul’s 2020 rape conviction. In 2017, multiple women shared harrowing accounts of aggressive overtures and sexual assault by the film producer. Ronan Farrow’s groundbreaking exposé unveiled a cascade of allegations against Weinstein and revealed a pattern of abuse that had long been concealed.
Goings On
Recommendations from our writers on what to read, eat, watch, listen to, and more.
Teresita Fernández’s Shifting Sculptural Landscapes
Plus: the eerie chills and tender warmth of Jane Schoenbrun’s new film; this year’s Long Play Festival, which celebrates contemporary music and minimalism; and Helen Shaw’s top theatre picks.
Stories About Human-Robot Relationships Push Our Buttons
Jennifer Wilson writes about two new novels, “Annie Bot” and “Loneliness & Company,” that reflect anxieties about A.I. coming for our hearts as well as for our jobs.
“The Sympathizer” Has an Identity Crisis
Inkoo Kang reviews HBO’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel—a genre-bending TV series that’s part espionage thriller, part war drama, and part Hollywood satire.
The Return of the Power Lunch
Helen Rosner visits Four Twenty Five—a luxe new dining room from the mega-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten—which takes square aim at the expense-account crowd.
Ideas
How to Die in Good Health
The average American celebrates just one healthy birthday after the age of sixty-five. Maybe it doesn’t have to be this way.
How Gullible Are You?
People may fervently espouse symbolic beliefs, cognitive scientists say, but they don’t treat them the same as factual beliefs. It’s worth keeping track of the difference.
Get Real
Video-game engines were designed to mimic the mechanics of the real world. How perfectly can reality be simulated?
What Is Noise?
Sometimes we embrace it, sometimes we hate it—and everything depends on who is making it.
The Message of Chernobyl
On April 26th, 1986, a reactor in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. The disaster, Jonathan Schell wrote that year, was more than a warning. Such accidents “are all that is given to us to know of the end of the world.”
The “Epic Row” Over a New Epoch
Scientists, journalists, and artists often say that we live in the Anthropocene, a new age in which humans shape the Earth. Why do some leading geologists reject the term?
Puzzles & Games
Take a break and play.
In Case You Missed It
That they were “not young,” though described by observers as “amazingly youthful,” must have been a strong component of their attraction to each other.Continue reading »
The Talk of the Town
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