The New Yorker
The Hidden-Pregnancy Experiment
We are increasingly trading our privacy for security. Jia Tolentino writes about how becoming a parent revealed the temptations, and the dangers, of that dubious exchange.
Above the Fold
Essential reading for today.
Trump Is Turning Victimhood Into His Legal Strategy
In the early days of the trial, lawyers on both sides have started to reveal their strategies. Will the jury believe that Trump’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.
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.
“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.
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.
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 Political Scene
Is 2024 Doomed to Repeat 1968 or 2020—or Both?
Donald Trump has now made clear that he won’t concede if he loses the election. Believe him.
Trump’s Sleepy, Sleazy Criminal Trial
In his hush-money trial, for the first time in a decade, the former President is struggling to command attention.
Can the Left be Free?
The liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz wants to take back the language of liberty from the right.
Biden and the Politics of Home Efficiency
Congressional Republicans say efficiency requirements are threats to liberty, but the Biden Administration’s new building codes are the latest in a long list of environmental wins.
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 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?
How Gaza’s Largest Mental-Health Organization Works Through War
Dr. Yasser Abu-Jamei on providing counselling services to Palestinian children.
Who’s Afraid of Judith Butler?
The philosopher and gender theorist has been denounced, demonized, even burned in effigy. They have a theory about that.
The Critics
“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.
“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.
The Beautifully Unnerving Gaze of “Evil Does Not Exist”
The Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi follows his Oscar-winning “Drive My Car” with a hauntingly ambiguous drama of nature and capitalism in conflict.
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.
The Dead Rise at the Venice Biennale
Stifled by a weird and desperate present, the show finds some life in the treasures of the past.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-Comfort Movie
“The Boy and the Heron” finds the filmmaker revising—and sometimes upending—the themes that have defined his career.
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.
How Far Should We Carry the Logic of the Animal-Rights Movement?
People who think seriously about the use and abuse of nonhuman creatures often end up calling for changes that might seem indefensible—at least, at first.
Goings On
Recommendations from our writers on what to read, eat, watch, listen to, and more.
The Sui-Generis Films of Charles Atlas
Hilton Als on a new retrospective of the director’s joyous works. Plus: “Uncle Vanya” and “Staff Meal,” reviewed; superstar pianists at Carnegie Hall; and more.
Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It?
Erik Baker writes about new books that examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.
A Martini Tour of New York City
Martinis often appear in art as symbols of joy and closure. Gary Shteyngart dedicates himself to the cult of the cocktail, in a month of vermouth-rinsing and fat-washing.
“The Fall Guy” Is Gravity-Defying Fun
Richard Brody reviews an action-comedy about a stuntman—starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt—which sticks its landings.
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 Food Issue
Spoiler Alert: Leftovers for Dinner
How to host a dinner party for nine using a pre-trash haul from Too Good to Go and other food-waste apps. Carb-averse guests, beware.
In Search of Lost Flavors in Flushing
Rediscovering the tastes of childhood in New York’s biggest Chinatown.
Why You Can’t Get a Restaurant Reservation
How bots, mercenaries, and table scalpers have turned the restaurant reservation system inside out.
When Babies Rule the Dinner Table
In the past two decades, American parents have started to ditch the purées and give babies more choice—and more power—at mealtime.
It’s foul out there, he called, but she wasn’t in the main room.
He saw the signs of water ingress in the planks below the cabin windows. A wet stain that caught the light.Continue reading »
Ideas
How ECMO Is Redefining Death
A medical technology can keep people alive when they otherwise would have died. Where will it lead?
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.
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.
On Native Grounds
The Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, faces the cruel history of the agency she now leads. As the first Native American Cabinet member, she has made it part of her job to address the travesties of the past.
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.
Puzzles & Games
Take a break and play.
In Case You Missed It
Fiction from the Archives
Colson Whitehead
Selected Stories
The Theresa Job
“No one would ever suspect Carney of telling a lie, of not being on the up and up. He liked it that way.”The Match
“The fight was rigged and rotten, another gear in the machine that kept black folks down.”The Gangsters
“According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses.”
