GREAT MIGRATIONS

\"Home\" and \"What Became of Us.\"

SICK, SAD WORLD

What COVID did to fiction.

MOVE IN FOR THE CULL

The complicated calculus of killing some wild creatures to protect others.

EVERYTHING IN HAND

The C.I.A.'s covert ops have mattered-but not in the way that it hoped.

CHICAGO ON THE SEINE CAMILLE BORDAS

I used to tell myself stories on the job, to make it feel exciting—spy stories, exfiltration stories, war stories. I used to come up with poignant little details that turned the repatriation cases I worked on into “Saving Private Ryan,” into “Johnny Got His Gun.”

A SEMBLANCE OF PEACE

How life in a co-living community changed after October 7th.

HIS BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY

Ye bought a masterpiece by Tadao Ando-and gave it a violent remix.

SCREEN GRAB

How CoComelon conquered children's television.

FOND OF FLAGS

My wife is fond of fast food. I am not. My wife is particularly fond of the Wendy’s Baconator. I argue that it’s less expensive to order a Dave’s Double with a side of bacon, then put your own pretzels on top. (I’m fond of the Rold Gold Tiny Twists Original.)

TROPHY ROOM

Going on safari.

INSIDE JOB-"Hit Man"

Years before Hannah Arendt coined, in the pages of this magazine, the phrase \"the banality of evil,\" popular films and fiction were embodying that idea in the character of the hit man. In classic crime movies such as \"This Gun for Hire\" (1942) and \"Murder by Contract\" (1958), hit men figure much as Nazis do in political movies, as symbols of abstract evil.

WHATEVER YOU SAY

Rereading Jenny Holzer, at the Guggenheim.

SUBCONSCIOUSLY YOURS

Does every generation get the Freud it deserves?

BY A WHISKER

Louis Wain and the reinvention of the cat.

Beyond Imagining

Bessie, Lotte, Ruth, Farah, and Bridget, who had been lunching together for half a century, joined in later years by Ilka, Hope, and, occasionally, Lucinella, had agreed without the need for discussion that they were not going to pass, pass away, and under no circumstances on.

STATES OF PLAY

Can advocates use state supreme courts to preserve-and perhaps expand-constitutional rights?

THE LONG RIDE

The surf legend Jock Sutherland's unlikely life.

ARE WE DOOMED?

A course at the University of Chicago thinks it through.

GOD EXPLAINS THE RULES OF HIS NEW BOARD GAME

Guys, want to play this new board game? It’s called Life. No, it’s not “one of God’s impossible-to-understand games that take three hours to learn.” It’ll be fun, I promise!

RED LINE

With the election approaching, the U.S. and Mexico wrangle over border policy.

Age of Anxiety

The love songs of Billie Eilish.

A Reporter at Large – You Make Me Sick

How corporate scientists discovered—and then helped to conceal—the dangers of forever chemicals.

OLD ENGLISH

“Player Kings,”\"The Cherry Orchard,” and \"London Tide.”

THOROUGHLY MODERN

Yuja Wang uses her star power to lead audiences out of their comfort zones.

THE PERFECTIONIST

Why we're still catching up to Brancusi.

DESERT ISLAND

Tastes of Hawati abound in Las Vegas.

HIGHER AND HIGHER

To preserve humanity—and the planet—should we give up growth?

MAXED OUT

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”

WOMAN, FROG, AND DEVIL

January Wojnicz, a retired civil servant and a landowner, was a splendid man, as they said in Lwów, handsome and dignified.

THE STASI FILES

Piecing together the secrets of East Germany’s past.