Epstein Island Revealed

A not-so-fine mess.

July 30, 2025

More Humor and Cartoons

Grammar tips from a thirty-eighty-year-old with an English degree.
What I imagine strangers think about me when I read a book in public.
Ten types of neighbors you may encounter in an apartment complex.
Plots of eighties movies had the protagonists been people of color.
Jobs you can add to your résumé as a single person.
Learn to appreciate the small things.

Barry Blitt, a cartoonist and an illustrator, has contributed to The New Yorker since 1992. In 2020, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

The Food Scene

Three Plays on the Pancake

A masa-based version at Hellbender, a riff on soufflé at Pitt’s, and a modern-classic stack at S&P Lunch.

By Helen Rosner

Takes

Jane Mayer on John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”

His monumental report changed history, journalism, and me.

By Jane Mayer

The Writer’s Voice

Kiran Desai Reads “An Unashamed Proposal”

The author reads her story from the August 11, 2025, issue of the magazine.

Fiction

“An Unashamed Proposal”

Look, Sunny said, however progressive my mother is, she is an Indian woman from another generation. Do you really think I can tell her that we sleep in the same bed?

By Kiran Desai

The Sporting Scene

What Is Lost in Luka Dončić’s Glow-Up

The rebrand of the Los Angeles Laker—who appeared on the cover of Men’s Health looking lean, buff, and bronze—makes sense. That doesn’t make it less sad.

By Louisa Thomas

This Week in Fiction

Kiran Desai on Life with Her Characters

The author discusses her story “An Unashamed Proposal.”

By Cressida Leyshon

Comment

The Politics of Fear

As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump made his world view plain: there was “us” and there was “them.” Once he was in the White House, the fear factor would prevail.

By David Remnick

Crossword

The Crossword: Tuesday, July 29, 2025

A moderately challenging puzzle.

By Paolo Pasco

The Weekend Essay

Watching the “King of the Hill” Revival from Texas

In the age of MAGA, the show’s small-town values are both a relief and slightly outdated. In the end, will we and the animated characters all live like city people?

By Rachel Monroe

Critic’s Notebook

The Banal Provocation of Sydney Sweeney’s Jeans

The American Eagle campaign, with its presentation of Americana as a zombie slop of mustangs, denim, and good genes, is lowest-common-denominator stuff.

By Doreen St. Félix

Photo Booth

At the Edge of Life and Death in Ukraine

A new photo book by Eddy van Wessel, with nearly two hundred images taken over the course of three years, offers a visual history of the war’s devastation.

By Joshua Yaffa

On Television

Sterling K. Brown’s Upstanding Archetype

In Hulu’s soapy “Washington Black,” about an early-nineteenth-century slave who escapes to Halifax, Brown rises above the material.

By Vinson Cunningham

More Humor and Cartoons

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