Features
Bill and Hillary Clinton had a choice: face criminal contempt charges or come clean about their friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. After months of resisting, the former president and his wife have now agreed to testify before the House. Clinton will be the first former president to appear before Congress since 1983, when Gerald Ford discussed
Features
Early last November, during a White House press event to announce a Trump administration deal with pharmaceutical companies to cut the prices of weight-loss shots, a drug company executive fainted in the Oval Office. Fortunately, there was a doctor in the house. Doctor Mehmet Oz, whom Donald Trump had appointed to run Medicare and Medicaid,
Features
“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom,” espoused German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Having spent the past two weeks in the grip of both, after fracturing my femur so disastrously it necessitated a total hip replacement, I can confirm he’s correct. And given I did it tripping in a hotel restaurant, I would
Features
“We gotta win the midterms,” President Donald Trump told the crowd in Iowa at the end of last month. “I’m here because we’re starting the campaign to win the midterms. That means Senate and it means House.” Trump is, by all accounts, obsessed with the upcoming elections in November. Having been distracted by various foreign
Features
There’s something very religious about nihilism. For proof, look to the new capital of American nihilism, Minneapolis. A callousness toward death and danger has fallen over the city. Of the many disturbing videos to come out of Minnesota’s anti-ICE protests, one of the stranger examples shows a white man walking up to a line of
Features
They say you should never meet your heroes, a rule that is not always correct. But I did have a salutary session some years ago when a friend in New York asked me if I wanted to meet a comedian I really do admire. I had been looking forward to the meeting, but unfortunately it
Features
After two deadly shootings in confrontations between Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the activists obstructing them, Minneapolis was starting to remind people of Kent State. By “people” we mean progressive baby boomers, inclined to make the Vietnam War the measure of all things. For them, the massacre of four student protesters by
Features
Of all the weapons in Vladimir Putin’s arsenal, the most strategically crucial has proved to be not hypersonic missiles but the motley fleet of oil tankers that have allowed Russian oil to keep flowing to international markets. Oil dollars have been the lifeblood of Russia’s war economy during four years of conflict. And the West’s
Features
Buenos Aires, Argentina My last visit to Buenos Aires was a whistlestop assignment exactly 40 years ago. All I can remember was that the generals had gone, but the ache of the Falklands/Malvinas debacle had not yet subsided. Most memorable was the haunting story told me by my wealthy, upper-middle-class host about the loss of
Features
No matter how many jurisdictions discover the hard way that wealth taxes backfire, in California an initiative is collecting signatures to put a “one-time” (ha!) 5 percent tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires on November’s ballot. Hey, those guys are rich. They won’t even notice. But the funny thing about
Features
Where is it that the chickens go to roost? If you said “home,” you don’t quite get it. The correct answer is “Fulton County, Georgia.” At least, that’s where the chickens were congregating at the end of January when the FBI raided a Fulton County election office and made off with some 700 boxes of
Features
One of the enduring myths about Donald Trump is that he is an isolationist: a president bent on dismantling alliances and hauling up the drawbridge on America’s engagement with the world. The reality is more unsettling. Trump’s instincts may incline toward retrenchment, but they coexist with a pugnacious temperament and a visceral conception of American
Features
I left the Greenlandic parliament – the Inatsisartut – last year and walked to the Hotel Hans Egede to grab my swim trunks. I came here to explore one of the last frontiers on Earth. Greenland is a quasi-communist country that prohibits land ownership and depends on Danish aid. Perhaps the US will change that,
Features
From the very start, there was something weird about Operation Absolute Resolve. The official story went something like this: after a whirlwind air attack, which included the use of suicide drones for the first time, special operators from the US Army’s renowned but shadowy SFOD-D unit (“Delta Force”) were helicoptered into the Fuerte Tiuna military
Features
The BBC reported terrible news recently about polar bears: they are thriving. This is very annoying of them as it goes against the interests of environmental activists, polar bears being the very emblem, mascot and clickbait of climate change cataclysm. But the bears’ stubborn refusal to get the memo and starve has become too obvious
Features
Democracy has not been kind to William Shakespeare. His works may be read and performed more widely than ever, but readers and audiences understand less and less of what they see. Egalitarianism encourages narcissism, and narcissism interprets all art as autobiography. Shakespeare could only write about his own life, and if, in fact, he wrote
Features
How might the ayatollahs know an American strike force is coming? Advanced radar technology, perhaps, or a mole somewhere in the Pentagon. Or they could just look at Polymarket. There is currently around $125 million wagered in the largest market predicting when the US will next strike Iran. Given the current odds, traders reckon an
Features
On a cold January night in New York City, Chris Hayes walked off the set of CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert only to face a pressing ethical dilemma. As he left the Ed Sullivan Theater and walked on to Broadway, he got a text from a friend who covers technology for NPR with a
Features
Late in January, while the Washington Post was gearing up for the Olympics, staffers got an email from managing editor Kimi Yoshino. “As we assess our priorities for 2026,” she wrote, “we have decided not to send a contingent to the Winter Olympics.” A few days later the Post announced that it would send four
Features
When the Artemis II mission eventually blasts off, it will take humans back to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen will travel further out into space than anyone before when they loop 4,700 miles beyond the Moon, seeing parts
Features
Last month, during the Arctic Blast that still has a few states trapped under ice (greetings from Illinois), someone posted an altered Google Earth screenshot to Facebook. The image displayed a snake-like shape in the Atlantic Ocean, east of Virginia. “The Leviathan is waking up,” the caption read. “This is why they are creating a
Features
Late last year, I published the first theoretical physics paper in which the main idea originated from artificial intelligence – from an AI. And my experience working with the most powerful AI models left me both impressed and wary. The most accurate analogy I can offer is that it’s like something familiar to anyone who
Features
Depending on where you stand on AI, January 30, 2026 will go down in history for one of two things. Either it is the day when the AI singularity really began and the robots became conscious – or the day when it was revealed that far too many people are credulous about AI and were
Books and Arts
Americans who are concerned with heightened levels of political violence should understand that we are fortunate compared with Pakistan, whose most visible political family, the Bhuttos, have a history that makes even that of the Kennedys look tame. One survivor, journalist Fatima Bhutto, born in 1982, encapsulates the family tragedies. Her grandfather, the charismatic prime
Books and Arts
George Saunders’s luminous new novella Vigil begins with a fall of a kind – lower-key, sinless and very funny: “What a lovely home I found myself plummeting toward, acquiring, as I fell, arms, hands, legs, feet, all of which, as usual, became more substantial with each passing second.” With the fallen narrator landing headfirst, ass
Books and Arts
For any serious lover of cinema, the 1970s were both a golden decade and the beginning of the end of film as an art form. After the permissiveness and countercultural impact of the 1960s, a whole generation of new filmmakers emerged, many of whom remain household names. These men – and they were almost exclusively
Books and Arts
Tucker Carlson may be the most divisive man in America, a human tuning fork vibrating at frequencies that delight half of the country and drive the other half demented. Few public figures inspire such simultaneous loyalty and loathing. To his admirers, he’s a truth-teller with a preternatural instinct for cultural anxiety. To his critics, he’s
Books and Arts
On March 16, 1966, Neil Armstrong and David Scott became the first astronauts ever to dock with another spacecraft when they linked their Gemini 8 capsule to the uncrewed Agena target ship. However, the cheers had barely died down at Mission Control Houston when Scott realized they had a problem. The conjoined spacecraft had begun
Books and Arts
Is music getting worse? Rick Beato is a musician, producer and critic with more than five million YouTube subscribers. His answer would be: yes, pretty much. In a recent video, he compares the 2026 Grammy Song of the Year nominees to those of 1984. There are a few bright sparks among the slate of new
Books and Arts
Recognition can be late in coming for many artists, but perhaps especially so for women whose originality and talents too often become overshadowed by their more famous romantic partners. Museums are often eager to put on shows making this very argument as women artists are rediscovered. Sometimes the thesis succeeds; other times, it does not.
Books and Arts
Recently, Timothée Chalamet gave the world a refreshing show of ambition when, after winning a SAG award, he said that “the truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.” Ambition perhaps turned into arrogance when, during an interview
Books and Arts
H is for Hawk is an adaptation of the bestselling memoir by Helen Macdonald who, following the sudden death of her beloved father, channels her grief through the training of a goshawk, Mabel. The film stars Claire Foy, who is superb, as is the nature photography, but is it right, keeping a wild animal captive,
Books and Arts
This year marks the anniversaries of two of David Bowie’s most compelling and powerful albums: 1976’s Station to Station and 2016’s Blackstar. Given that they are often – rightly – described as Bowie’s crowning artistic achievements, amid severe competition from his other releases, they also have the intriguing fillip that both were originally released in
Life
Does every billionaire have a private jet? Are they standard toys for these very special people? Intrigued by this uniquely modern possibility, I inquired of Palm Beach International Airport (PBIA) how many private jets are registered here. The answer: 172. Some of them are no doubt owned by corporations, but that number compares well with
Life
Over the past few years, I’ve written regularly for this magazine about my devotion to New York City. I love the cultish exercise classes that test your psychological mettle and the cryptic linguistic idiosyncrasies of the people you meet here. I love the know-it-all doormen – the actual kings of Gotham – and that any
Life
A frisson of fear tends to run through non-Americans when they face immigration in the United States. For years, young Brits have been warned prior to their first trip: “When you meet the immigration officer, don’t make jokes!” To boys cultivated to be insouciant in Britain’s posher schools, this usually means approaching the booth nervously
Life
The US has not known social and domestic peace since the start of the present decade, and it is unlikely that it will know it again for the foreseeable future. This is because it has ceased to be a country at all, assuming that nationhood implies fundamental unity, which America no longer has. When novelist
Place
On New Year’s Day, I was awake at 5 a.m. – but not for the reasons you might think. I hadn’t been out all night celebrating with friends. I was awake early because it was a powder day in Utah, the type of day skiers and snowboarders dream of. I had to be at my
Food and Drink
Going downtown in New York used to be cool. Before Soho became a glorified shopping mall, it was a haven for starving artists. Before Chelsea became family-friendly, Michael Alig was throwing Blood Feast parties at the Limelight. The rebel heart of downtown, which attracted generations of avant-garde creatives, is much harder to find today. All
Food and Drink
Long before “decolonization” was a glint in the eyes of left-leaning political scientists, Hyder Ali, an upstart mercenary soldier turned sultan of Mysore, and his nepo baby son, Tipu Sultan, fought four bloody wars to keep the British from controlling the south of India. If wars were like soccer league tables, the Hyder/Tipu team would
Food and Drink
It was a dark night in November that the criminals stole softly upon the sleeping snails. They snipped away the fencing, pried open the door with a crowbar and knocked out the security lights. Then, they advanced upon their victims, who were lying, defenseless, in cold storage. No use for the snails to flee; heliciculturists
Food and Drink
When I heard that Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar had gotten into the wine biz, I thought “Hot dog! If she is as good at wine as she is at investing, this should be spectacular.” I mean, talk about creatio ex nihilo. Just a few years ago, Omar had a net worth of about $1,000. Now
And Finally
It is widely known that when a Duke of York is down, he is down, and the recent hit-piece in Heat – “‘Pathetic’ Andrew’s tantrums over prized teddy bears” – found a new way of kicking Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Its royal source said that “being forced to move [out of Royal Lodge] has sent him into
And Finally
‘How many letters?’ asked my husband, as though it were a crossword we were doing together. ‘Five,’ I replied. ‘Begins in b, ends in h.’ The clue, according to the Daily Telegraph, was that the head of Norfolk county council had told opponents not to ‘b—h and moan’. ‘Belch?’ asked my husband optimistically, adding at
