The New Yorker
How CoComelon Captures Our Children’s Attention
For a long time, TV was rarely marketed to children under two. Then YouTube arrived. Jia Tolentino reports on CoComelon, which was created by two immigrant parents and is now owned by a media company with backing from Blackstone. Its shows are streamed for billions of hours each year. Should we be worried about that?
Above the Fold
Essential reading for today.
The Trials of Hunter Biden
The President’s son has been found guilty of gun charges. Testimony from those close to him told a story of a man who is part black sheep and part golden child.
Is Biden’s Israel Policy Cynical or Naïve?
Evaluating eight months of the President’s attempts to moderate Netanyahu’s bombing campaign in Gaza.
How Smart Are Plants?
A new book about plant intelligence highlights the messiness of scientific change.
Caitlin Clark’s New Reality
Clark isn’t yet the best player the W.N.B.A. has ever seen. What can she learn from the player who is?
How a Palestinian/Jewish Village in Israel Changed After October 7th
Wahat al-Salam/Neve Shalom was founded on a total belief in the power of dialogue. In the wake of Hamas’s attack and amid Israel’s war in Gaza, a “very loud silence” has fallen.
Kanye West Bought an Architectural Treasure—Then Gave It a Violent Remix
How the hip-hop star’s beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy turned a beach house in Malibu, designed by the Japanese master Tadao Ando, into a ruin.
The Political Scene
Fighting Trump on the Beaches
Biden’s fiery D Day speech in Normandy warns against the ex-President’s isolationism, while Trump is back home, targeting “the enemy within.”
What Israel’s Leaders Can’t or Won’t Say About Biden’s Ceasefire Announcement
Netanyahu’s chief rival, Benny Gantz, has demanded the Prime Minister come up with an exit strategy for the war. What options are available to him?
What’s Behind Biden’s Harsh New Executive Order on Immigration?
Neither the declining number of border arrivals nor the intransigence of congressional Republicans has improved the President’s standing on the issue.
Speech Under the Shadow of Punishment
For years, universities have been less inclined to protect speech and quicker to sanction it. After this spring’s protests, it will be difficult to turn back.
How Members of the Chinese Diaspora Found Their Voices
In the past few years, many Chinese people living abroad have found themselves transformed by the experience of protest.
The Critics
What COVID Did to Fiction
The early pandemic was a painful, lonely, and disorienting era in American life. It was also a chance to get some writing done.
The Sexy Mind Games of “Hit Man”
In Richard Linklater’s romantic crime comedy, an undercover operative transforms his love life by means of professional deceptions.
What Does Freud Still Have to Teach Us?
Come for the Oedipus complex. Stay for the later troubled musings on the fate of humanity.
Charli XCX Toys with Stardom on “BRAT”
The artist has often treated pop music as a game—something to play with so she doesn’t get bored, and something that reliably creates winners and losers.
When the C.I.A. Messes Up
Its agents are often depicted as malevolent puppet masters—or as bumbling idiots. The truth is even less comforting.
The Delicate Art of Turning Your Parents Into Content
Gen Z creators are learning the lessons of Scorsese and Akerman: putting mom and dad in your work brings pathos, complexity, and a certain frisson.
What We’re Reading This Week
A Shakespeare scholar’s history of the theatre at the center of a mid-century culture war; a zesty account of how cats came in from the alley and took up their place at the hearth; a memoir about a fraught journey into parenthood which considers pregnancy through the lenses of science and art; and more.
Ideas
How Liberals Talk About Children
Many left-leaning, middle-class Americans speak of kids as though they are impositions, or means to an end.
States of Play
Can advocates use state supreme courts to preserve—and perhaps expand—constitutional rights?
How the Fridge Changed Flavor
From the tomato to the hamburger bun, the invention has transformed not just what we eat but taste itself.
Are We Doomed?
Climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear annihilation, biological warfare—the field of existential risk is a way to reason through the terrifying headlines.
An Unsung Hero in the Story of Interracial Marriage
Fifty-seven years ago today, the Supreme Court struck down state bans against interracial marriage, in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia. In 2016, David Muto wrote about the Japanese American attorney who argued the case, and how the decision allowed his parents to marry a few years later.
What Is the Opposite of Oil Drilling?
A growing industry aims to remove carbon from the atmosphere—but it’s still in its infancy, and greenhouse-gas emissions remain dangerously high.
Puzzles & Games
Take a break and play.
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