CATEGORIES

EACH MORTAL THING

What other creatures understand about death.

A PIECE OF HER MIND

Does the Enlightenment’s great female intellect need rescuing?

SONGS OF WAR

Early on in “Blitz,” Rita Hanway (Saoirse Ronan), a London factory worker, puts her nine-year-old son, George (Elliott Heffernan), aboard a train. Rather, George puts himself aboard; he twists angrily free of his mother’s grasp—“I hate you!” he cries—and tears off down the platform.

From the Wilderness

One morning in the rainy season, I went to bed at 6 a.m. after working all night and was on the verge of falling asleep when I was startled by the sound of my father’s voice coming through the air-conditioner next to my bed.

THE LAST MILE

The aid workers who risk their lives to bring relief to Gaza.

STAR-CROSSED

“Sunset Blud.” and Romeo Juliet,” on Broadway.

You Are Going to Die - Oliver Burkeman has become an unlikely self-help guru by reminding everyone of their mortality.

"The average human lifespan," Oliver Burkeman begins his 2021 megabest seller, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, "is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short." In that relatively brief period, he does not want you to maximize your output at work or optimize your leisure activities for supreme enjoyment. He does not want you to wake up at 5 a.m. or block out your schedule in a strictly labeled timeline.

PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCE

Hi, Billy's dad! Andrew, right? Thanks for meeting on such short notice. No, don't worry, this actually isn't about Billy.

FOREIGN INFLUENCERS

How the U.S.government decides when to alert the public about election meddling.

PURCHASING POWER

What do the biggest donors to Donald Trump's campaign expect to get in return?

WAR DOGS

The facility lies two miles away from the main terminals but within the grounds of the airport, at the end of a service road that skirts a pond where geese flock during their migrations.

CITY OF GOD

The Met’ revelatory show on Siena.

CLOSED CHAMBERS

What can memoirs by Supreme Court Justices teach us?

ALPHA GIRLS

Inside the tight-knit world of Kamala Harris's sorority.

PIVOTAL, SEMINAL, RARE

He built an empire in high-end books. Then a rock star pressed charges.

BUCKS WITHOUT BORDERS

In the geography of the rich and mobile, sovereignty is for sale.

POP CULTURE

How dirty soda became a Utah delicacy.

AMERICAN REFRAINS

“Hold On to Me Darling,” Our Town,” and Sump’n Like Wings.”

GIG ECONOMY

The decline of the working musician.

THE IMPRESARIO

Alvin Ailey’ crusade to build a home for himself and other Black dancers.

AMERICAN ATTITUDE

The docuseries Mr. McMahon” explores the underbelly of the WWE.

MY CAMP

Human nature, yes. Nature nature, no. I know nothing about it.

TWERKERS' COMP

Earlier this year, the Cannes Film Festival observed a heroic first: the director who won the Palme d'Or, the event's highest honor, dedicated the prize to \"all sex workers, past, present, and future.\"

PRISON DIARIES

The Russian opposition leader’ account of his last years and his admonition to his country and the world.

COWBOY-DANCE FUTURE WORLD

It t is the year 2248. We live in what some would call a perfect world.

ORIGIN STORY

Ta-Nehisi Coates and the temptations of narrative.

Theater - Artificial Theatrics - Ayad Akhtar's play about AI is missing a human touch.

Here's an ai prompt: Write me a vehicle for a movie star intent on making a debut on Broadway. Let's say he's a veteran of superhero flicks, so we want a character akin to his persona and a subject that comes with some contemporary relevance; maybe, because he played a tech genius onscreen, we have him wrestle with the vanguard of technology onstage. He's also acclaimed as a dramatic actor, so let's throw in a few hefty themes: addiction, suicide, adultery, trauma, and, for that genuine flawed great man zing, a pinch of misogyny.

Silicon Valley's Influence Game - From crypto to A.I., tech titans are pouring money into super PACS to savage their political opponents.

One morning in February, Katie Porter was sitting in bed, futzing around on her computer, when she learned that she was the target of a vast techno-political conspiracy. For the past five years, Porter had served in the House of Representatives on behalf of Orange County, California. She’d become famous—at least, C-span and MSNBC famous—for her eviscerations of business tycoons, often aided by a whiteboard that she used to make camera- friendly presentations about corporate greed. Now she was in a highly competitive race to replace the California senator Dianne Feinstein, who had died a few months earlier. The primary was in three weeks.

The K-Pop King - Chairman Bang is bringing his formula for creating idols to the U.S.

Scooter Braun was in a tailspin. It was February, 2021, and the music manager, who had made his name launching the careers of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, was nearing forty and facing a brutal divorce. An equally nasty battle with Taylor Swift, over his ownership of her song catalogue, had sullied his public image. Rumors circulated that the future of Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings, was in doubt. Amid this tumult, he was surprised to receive an invitation to speak with someone who had long fascinated him: the South Korean producer Bang Si-hyuk—known to admirers as Hitman Bang.

WHEN THE ICE MELTS

What the fate of the Arctic means for the rest of the Earth.