Six months ago, on a family vacation in Maine, Cecile Richards, the long-serving president of Planned Parenthood, discovered that her hand had seemingly forgotten how to write. Alarmed, she and her husband, Kirk Adams, drove back to New York and, eventually, went to the ER at NYU. As Richards was getting wheeled into surgery for a brain tumor two days later, her eldest daughter, Lily, an assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department, was in labor at another hospital. By the time mother and daughter were each discharged, Richards, 66, had her first grandchild and a diagnosis of glioblastoma: incurable brain cancer for which the median survival rate is 15 months.
“Teddy is getting hair,” she says cheerfully of her grandson when we meet at the Financial District co-working space where she is still strategizing for the abortion “war effort,” as she calls it. Richards is publicly divulging her illness for the first time. She gestures toward her lavender head wrap, which has replaced her signature sideswept, white-blonde pixie cut: “And I’m losing it.”
Always rangy and elegant, she’s a bit thinner now. The Texas drawl is more halting, but thanks to speech therapy and good fortune, Richards has remained remarkably cogent. She tells me she’s learning to write again; she’s still ahead of the baby on that.
Denne historien er fra January 29 - February 11, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra January 29 - February 11, 2024-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
THE BIGGEST PODCAST MOMENTS OF THE YEAR
A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
THE BEST THEATER OF THE YEAR
IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
The Art of the Well-Stuffed Stocking
THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
