The New Yorker
The British Museum’s Blockbuster Scandals
While facing accusations of cultural theft—including renewed debate over the Parthenon Sculptures—the institution announced that it had been the victim of actual theft, and that one of its own curators had sold off a pile of ancient gems. Has the museum lost the public’s trust? Rebecca Mead reports.
Above the Fold
Essential reading for today.
What Is Hope Hicks Crying About?
During Donald Trump’s criminal trial, the inscrutable former White House aide was equally inscrutable on the witness stand, despite breaking into tears while testifying.
How Worried Should We Be About Bird Flu?
According to the C.D.C., the risk to public health remains low. But the country’s initial approach has had an unsettling resonance with the first months of COVID.
There Was a Model for Luka Dončić. Now He’s Broken It
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For years, the Dallas Mavericks star was compared to James Harden, in whose footsteps he seemed to follow. But Dončić plays with a different kind of freedom.
The New Yorker Wins Two 2024 Pulitzer Prizes
The staff writer Sarah Stillman was honored for reporting on a draconian legal doctrine, and the first-time contributor Medar de la Cruz was recognized for an illustrated piece about Rikers Island.
Shibboleth
In the campus protests over the war in Gaza, language and rhetoric are—as they have always been when it comes to Israel and Palestine—weapons of mass destruction.
The Hidden-Pregnancy Experiment
We are increasingly trading our privacy for a sense of security. Becoming a parent showed me how tempting, and how dangerous, that exchange can be.
The Political Scene
Trump Is Making Victimhood a Legal Strategy
Will the jury believe that the former President’s sordid acquisition of the White House was political business as usual?
A Generation of Distrust
Among the protesters on college campuses—and among the students who oppose them, too—there is a deepening disillusionment with American institutions.
Is 2024 Doomed to Repeat 1968 or 2020—or Both?
Trump has now made clear that he won’t concede if he loses the election. Believe him.
Can the Left be Free?
The liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz wants to take back the language of liberty from the right.
Columbia’s Campus in Crisis
Scenes of dissent and defiance at Columbia University, where scores of students have been arrested for participating in pro-Palestine protests.
The War in Gaza
How Much Aid Is Actually Reaching Gazans?
The chief economist of the U.N.’s World Food Programme on imminent famine and what’s needed to avoid it.
Is This Israel’s Forever War?
Foreign-policy analysts whose careers were shaped by the war on terror see troubling parallels.
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?
Gaza’s Largest Mental-Health Organization Works Through War
Dr. Yasser Abu-Jamei on providing counselling services to Palestinian children.
Can Turning Office Towers Into Apartments Save Downtowns?
Nathan Berman has helped rescue Manhattan’s financial district from a “doom loop” by carving attractive living spaces from hulking buildings that once housed fields of cubicles.
The Critics
The Indestructible Art of Frank Stella
The artist, who has died at eighty-seven, rattled standards of modernist abstraction rather as Bob Dylan did those of folk music.
“Challengers” Is Essentially a Well-Shot Commercial
Because the film has so little to say, viewers are free to simply focus on the vibes—which happen to be the area where Luca Guadagnino, its director, has most distinguished himself.
Dua Lipa Devotes Herself to Pleasure with “Radical Optimism”
In an era of postmodern, self-referential music, there’s something refreshing about the artist’s new album.
“I Saw the TV Glow” Is a Profound Vision of the Trans Experience
In Jane Schoenbrun’s new feature, two teens search for their true selves through their shared obsession with a horror TV series.
“The Contestant” Is More Than a Cautionary Tale
The documentary charts the rise of an early reality-TV star and the ethically queasy choices that cemented his fame—but it’s elevated by its interest in what came afterward.
Three Broadway Shows Put Motherhood in the Spotlight
Paula Vogel’s “Mother Play,” Shaina Taub’s “Suffs,” and Amy Herzog’s “Mary Jane” strike back at the mother-as-monster dramatic trope.
What We’re Reading This Week
A story collection that exhibits a unique delicacy in chronicling Black life in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, a novel that cleverly intertwines paeans to the pleasures of eating with indictments of Japan’s standards for women, an immensely entertaining history constructed around medieval guidebooks and travelogues, and more.
Ideas
Academic Freedom Under Fire
Politicians despise it. Administrators aren’t defending it. But it made our universities great—and we’ll miss it when it’s gone.
How ECMO Is Redefining Death
A medical technology can keep people alive when they otherwise would have died. Where will it lead?
Beastly Matters
People who think about the use and abuse of nonhuman creatures often end up calling for changes that might seem indefensible—at least, at first.
The Revenge of the Home Page
As social networks become less reliable distributors of the news, consumers of digital journalism are seeking out an older form of online real estate.
The Secret Society Chasing Our Fading Attention
As ads and apps reduce our ability to focus, members of an order purportedly reaching back centuries seek to reset the world by understanding what happens between a person and a work of art.
The English Apple Is Disappearing
As the country loses its local cultivars, an orchard owner and a group of biologists are working to record and map every variety of apple tree they can find in the West of England.
Puzzles & Games
Take a break and play.
In Case You Missed It
Is Hunterbrook Media a News Outlet or a Hedge Fund?
The hybrid media-finance company wants to monetize investigative journalism in the public interest. Is it a visionary game changer or a cynical ploy?
The Talk of the Town
Death Skull let out a hysterical cackle, which echoed piercingly from the stone walls of his lair.
“Why so combative?” he said, emerging from the shadows. “At the end of the day, we’re not so different, you and I.”Continue reading »
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