The New Yorker
Notes from Underground
From a hiding spot presumed to be in the tunnels under Gaza, Yahya Sinwar remains a crucial player in negotiations to end the war with Israel—and an icon for disenfranchised Palestinians. David Remnick reports on the Hamas leader’s ruthless career and his plans to transform the region.
Above the Fold
Essential reading for today.
The Supreme Court Needs Fixing, But How?
President Biden has proposed radical changes to the Court. Reviewing them is a reminder of why reform is so hard, despite dissatisfaction and a wealth of ideas.
Inside Donald Trump’s Effort to Woo Arab Americans
Will voters fed up with Biden’s approach to Gaza turn to a man who once called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”?
Venezuela’s Moment of Reckoning
Nicolás Maduro’s claim to have won the Presidential election has further inflamed the nation’s contest between democracy and authoritarianism.
U.S.A. Basketball Is Still an Awkward Fit at the Olympics
The team probably has too much talent to lose. Still, turning twelve superstars into a selfless whole may be an impossible task.
When Jane drove by, on her way home, she was pretty sure she saw her husband’s truck.Continue reading »
Two Paths for Jewish Politics
In America, Jews pioneered a way of life that didn’t rely on the whims of the powerful. Now it’s under threat.
Our Columnists
Trump’s Racist Attack on Kamala Harris Was No Accident
Is it, perhaps, a sign that the Vice-President’s swift rise in the polls has him panicked?
Why I Finally Quit Spotify
The platform interface has gradually made it harder to find the music I want to listen to. With the latest app updates, I’d had enough.
The Politics of “Weird”
Kamala Harris’s campaign has smartly positioned her as the normal candidate. But disagreements and distractions lie ahead.
My Mother, the Gambler
For a long time, I didn’t know that what my mother was doing—playing the so-called Italian lottery—was illegal. She certainly didn’t look like a criminal.
Hezbollah and Israel’s Deadly Face-Off
Months of fighting at the border threaten to ignite an all-out conflict that could devastate the region.
The Political Scene
Does Kamala Harris Need a Latino Campaign?
Republicans have offered a different approach—speaking to Latinos the same way they do to everyone else.
It’s Too Early to Give Up on Homelessness in America
The country’s most powerful deep-blue governor, Gavin Newsom, ordered encampments to be dismantled. But lasting solutions are still needed.
Will Black Men Turn Out for Kamala Harris?
In Philadelphia, the Independent city councilman Nicolas O’Rourke is ambivalent about the Democrats but waging an effort to swing soft Trumpers to Harris.
Trump World Takes On Its New Opponent
As Kamala Harris’s campaign begins, Trump says he wants to save the country from a conspiracy between the élites and the press.
Evan Gershkovich Is Finally Coming Home
In a multinational prisoner exchange, the Wall Street Journal reporter was freed, after being detained for more than a year in Russian jail.
In the Dark
In Season 3, Madeleine Baran investigates the killing of twenty-four civilians in Haditha, Iraq, and asks why no one was held accountable for the crime. Subscribers get early access.
Episode 1: The Green Grass
A man in Haditha, Iraq, has a request for the In the Dark team: Can you investigate how my family was killed?
Episode 2: I Have Questions
A trip to a Marine Corps archive reveals a clue about something that the U.S. military is keeping secret.
Episode 3: Sounds Like Murder
We travel around the U.S. to find the Marines who were on the ground in Haditha on the day of the killings.
Under the Bridge of Sighs
On watching—and rewatching—“A Little Romance,” George Roy Hill’s late-seventies classic teen-age love story.
The Critics
The Macabre Ironies of “Trap”
Lurking beneath M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller are the commonplace horrors of family life.
In “Lady in the Lake,” Ambition Is Everything
Natalie Portman stars in the Apple TV+ mystery as a sixties housewife who leaves her family for her career—and gets tangled up in a murder.
Are You an Artist?
The creative life is shrouded in mystery. Two new books try to discover what it takes.
Jake Gyllenhaal, and His Eyebrows, on Trial in “Presumed Innocent”
Ruth Negga and Peter Sarsgaard also star in this adaptation of the 1987 Scott Turow novel.
James Casebere’s Visions from After the Flood
In Casebere’s pictures from the exhibition “Seeds of Time,” water has not just inundated individual structures but seems to have drowned the whole world.
Reckoning with the Dead at the Sphere
A run of lost Las Vegas weekends for Deadheads prompts a longtime fan to wrestle with what the band has left behind.
What We’re Reading This Week
A novel that is both a hilarious picaresque and a series of meditations on family, colonialism, and the history of soccer; a profoundly intimate biography that traces the life of the revelatory gay poet Thom Gunn; a journalistic chronicle that attempts to portray the ways in which China’s transformations of the past thirty years manifest on a personal scale; and more.
Dept. of Hoopla
From the mind of Blythe Roberson.
How Christian Fundamentalism Was Born Again
Nearly a century ago, a single trial seemed to shatter the movement’s place in America. It’s returned in a new form—but for old reasons.
Goings On
Recommendations from our writers on what to read, eat, watch, listen to, and more.
Flamenco and Goya at Joe’s Pub
The dance form feels right at home in a tavern, writes Brian Seibert. Plus: “Job” on Broadway, Justin Chang’s three favorite disaster movies, and more.
Strange Delight Channels New Orleans the Right Way
Helen Rosner visits the new seafood restaurant in Fort Greene, which treats the Crescent City with subtlety and studiousness, without sacrificing any fun.
A Sorbet-Colored Revival of “Once Upon a Mattress”
On Broadway, the oddball, quasi-medieval musical frolic. Plus: Missy Elliott’s first solo headlining tour, a Claire Denis masterwork, and other recommendations from our critics.
Listening to Elizabeth Taylor
Richard Brody review a new documentary about the star, based on 1964 interviews, that lays bare the gap between private self and public image.
Cole Escola’s Great Day on Broadway
With their deranged portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln, the actor and writer emerges from the “gay shadows” in a hysterical farce.
Dept. of Summer Games
How Simone Biles and Team U.S.A. Gymnastics Came Soaring Back
A sense of doubt had plagued the sport since Biles’s withdrawal from the Tokyo Games. The team’s success in Paris should definitively quash it.
What Makes Katie Ledecky Great
The preëminent swimmer is unique not only for winning races by body lengths but also in her emotional and psychological approach.
Who Gets to Play in Women’s Leagues?
What a blood test taught me about testosterone, athleticism, and sex.
Sha’Carri Richardson Tackles Time in “Sub Eleven Seconds”
In Bafic’s documentary short, sprinting is not just a sport but a means of self-expression.
How a Rare Disorder Makes People See Monsters
A mysterious neurological condition makes faces look grotesque—and sheds new light on the inner workings of the brain.
Ideas
Should We Abolish Prisons?
Our carceral system is characterized by frequent brutality and ingrained indifference. Finding a better way requires that we freely imagine alternatives.
The Danger of Sharkless Waters
Sharks are ancient creatures, long feared by humans. We should keep our distance, but not because of the threat they pose to us.
Reimagining China in Tokyo
A new community of expats is opening bookstores, attending lectures, and imagining alternatives to Xi from the relative safety of Japan.
When Yuppies Ruled
Defining a social type is a way of defining an era. What can the time of the young urban professional tell us about our own?
Boys on Their Bikes
In the early nineties, the photographer Stefan Ruiz captured lowrider culture in Northern California.
Blood Relatives
For decades, questions have circled the Whitehouse Farm murders. The British justice system has made it extraordinarily difficult to get definitive answers.
Puzzles & Games
Take a break and play.
In Case You Missed It
Fiction from the Archives
Mavis Gallant
Selected Stories
The Other Paris
“No wonder she was not in love, she would think. Where was the Paris she had read about?”Varieties of Exile
“What I craved at this point was not love, or romance, or a life added to mine, but conversation.”From the Fifteenth District
“Having lived an exemplary life is one thing; to have it thrown up at one is another.”Voices Lost in Snow
“Asking questions was ‘being tiresome,’ while persistent curiosity got one nowhere, at least nowhere of interest.”
Selected Stories
The Other Paris
Varieties of Exile
From the Fifteenth District
Voices Lost in Snow
The Talk of the Town
Daily Cartoon
