The Air Mail Archive: Every weekly issue

Issue No. 285

December 28, 2024

BADGE OF DISHONOR

Who else could’ve won this year’s Attention Whore title but the defending champion and president-elect? Alongside Trump’s predictable victory, we look back on a year of brazen narcissism

STORMY WEATHER

Despite what Republican lawmakers would have you believe, Mother Nature is in an uproar—and things are only going to get worse. Herewith, a look back at recent climate disasters

IN MEMORIAM

Alain Delon, Quincy Jones, Françoise Hardy, Maggie Smith, Ethel Kennedy, Bob Newhart … as 2024 comes to a close, we raise a toast to some of this year’s dearly departed

Issue No. 284

December 21, 2024

PAPACY PURLOINED

Despite a global publishing-industry effort to keep it under wraps, an advance manuscript of Pope Francis’s upcoming autobiography has been stolen and leaked online—and book-world insiders think they know who did it

GUESS WHO’S SPOILING DINNER?

The difficulties of hosting a successful dinner party are not lost on Cazzie David, who suggests taking a page out of her father Larry’s book

DOUBLE SHOT

From the assassination of her husband John F. Kennedy to being thrust into the public eye, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis didn’t live an easy life. Her court case against the ruthless paparazzo Ron Galella was no exception

Issue No. 283

December 14, 2024

THE NAME OF THE GAME

For much of his life, Rich Cohen felt as though his name was holding him back. That is, until he attended a party filled entirely with other Richard Cohens

ESCAPE CLAN

Following a heinous 50-year regime, the murderous Assad family has at last been run out of Syria—and into the unwelcoming arms of Vladimir Putin

VACCINES, AND VAPES, AND PERSONAL TRUTHS, OH MY!

Is The Bear actually good? Does monogamy get a bad rap? Our inaugural Over-Under List weighs in on the 2024 hype

Issue No. 282

December 7, 2024

HELL IN A HARRODS BAG

As rape and sexual-assault allegations continue to mount against Mohamed Al-Fayed, a former employee reflects on the deplorable tyrant’s office manner and the relationship between his son Dodi and Princess Diana

FRIGHT IS RIGHT

The resurgence of Trump and his right-wing ethos is far from just an American phenomenon—governments everywhere, from Georgia to Israel to South Korea, are following a similar path

DESIGN FOR LIVING

From Tom Wolfe’s LSD stories to a legendary Bob Dylan poster, Push Pin Studios’ eclectic, inimitable graphic-design style revolutionized an art form, explains Ash Carter

Issue No. 281

November 30, 2024

HOT OUT OF THE OVEN

Every Brit has an opinion on Gail’s, London’s hottest—and most controversial—bakery chain. Bridget Arsenault goes straight to the notoriously reserved source: Gail, of Gail’s

DÉJÀ BOO-HOO

Cancel The Apprentice! Tie his shoelaces together! In light of a second Trump presidency, we can only fantasize about what a time machine could’ve done to prevent it

HOLDING COURT

Marcia Clark—the lead prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson case—revisits the infamous 1955 Barbara Graham murder trial and the errors that plagued it

Issue No. 280

November 23, 2024

AT FAULT?

Jannik Sinner, the Italian tennis wunderkind, has swatted down opponents with ease since reaching his World No. 1 ranking. Now a recent drug test could tarnish his legacy forever

SURVIVOR, ROGUE-STATE EDITION

Stealing rhino horns and smuggling illegal booze are just some of the things diplomats of North Korea and other countries have resorted to in an attempt to keep their foreign embassies alive

THE GOD OF THE POD

British former soccer star Gary Lineker reveals how he re-invented himself as a media mogul with a successful podcast empire covering history, politics, entertainment, and, not surprisingly, sports

Issue No. 279

November 16, 2024

SLIPPERY BUSINESS

How did Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water company, manage to fall $20 billion in debt—despite their monopoly over the most in-demand product in the world? Jonathan Margolis investigates

THE VOICE OF REASON

In an interview with Jim Kelly, veteran political columnist Peggy Noonan talks all things Trump, from the note he sent her in his signature Sharpie to the conditions that led to his victory

DEVIL OF THE NIGHT

Just when you thought the trial of Dominique Pelicot—a Frenchman who drugged his wife so other men could rape her—couldn’t get more abhorrent, his daughter reveals he may have done the same to her

Issue No. 278

November 9, 2024

DEPRAVED NEW WORLD

With Donald Trump and his supporters firmly at America’s helm, we mustn’t forget the importance of character when it comes to leading—and saving—our country, write AIR MAIL Co-Editors Alessandra Stanley and Graydon Carter

BEER UNDER THE BRIDGE

Among the 20 nuns who run a much-beloved brewery in Belgium hides Sister Gertrude, a humble Christ follower who also happened to facilitate massacres during the Rwandan genocide

NOT-SO-HOLLYWOOD ENDING

Greta Garbo! Charlie Chaplin! Quentin Tarantino! They’ve all stayed at the Krotona apartments, a once coveted L.A. getaway that’s now fallen prey to dilapidation and neighborhood infighting

Issue No. 277

November 2, 2024

BOOMER BUST

No one holds more responsibility for the state of the country than the baby-boomer generation, write reluctant members Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

NOT-SO-SMOOTH SAILING

An influx of cruise ships has sent the WASP-y town of Bar Harbor, Maine, into a frenzy. Now a group of locals is fighting back

HEAD IN THE CLOUD

How an employee at the elite Kent boarding school allegedly stole personal photos from dozens of female students’ laptops—and almost got away with it

Issue No. 276

October 26, 2024

MILLION-DOLLAR-SHOE MYSTERY

Mark Seal hits the yellow brick road in search of Judy Garland’s missing Wizard of Oz slippers, whose theft uncovered a cast of memorable characters—and a years-long F.B.I. investigation

BRAVE NEW WORLD

A quarter-century ago, protests against the World Trade Organization saw more than 40,000 progressives fight globalization. How did their cause become a defining rallying cry of Trumpism?

CLOSET DIARIES

When Lili Anolik set out to write a book about Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, she didn’t expect to discover new clues about John Gregory Dunne’s rumored homosexuality. Anolik reveals all in an exclusive excerpt

Issue No. 275

October 19, 2024

THE FATE OF THE BAYESIAN

Sam Kashner wades into tech billionaire Mike Lynch’s shocking end aboard his sunken super-yacht and the mysterious death of the “British Bill Gates’s” business partner

ROCK THE VOTE

While Kamala Harris totes her Glock and R.F.K. Jr. battles his “lust demons,” today’s musicians are getting chastised for the slightest infractions. Have politicians and rock stars switched roles?

HIDE YOUR GRANDPAS!

Alongside her burgeoning Hollywood career, the 30-year-old Noor Alfallah has found her type: aging stars, from Mick Jagger and Nicolas Berggruen to the father of her son, Al Pacino

Issue No. 274

October 12, 2024

THIS IS FILMMAKING. THERE ARE RULES!

White Russians! Nihilists! Bowling on Shabbos! Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, and others reflect on the making of The Big Lebowski

THE HOME FRONT

As the Russo-Ukrainian war rages on, our woman in Moscow describes the daily life of citizens who fear their authoritarian government but are too focused on survival to rebel

PAGE-BURNER

Is Melania Trump’s new memoir worth slogging through? Before hitting the bookstore, take Andy Borowitz’s all-things-Melania quiz

Issue No. 273

October 5, 2024

SUPPORT SIS-TEM

With Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government stumbling, the Italian prime minister has brought in her sister and lifelong co-conspirator, Arianna, to help batten down the hatches

BLOWING THE WHISTLE

Is Mohammed bin Salman’s purchase of the Newcastle United soccer team a bid to rescue a working-class city in northern England or just another attempt to launder Saudi Arabia’s reputation?

MAYBE YOU CAN JUDGE A CROOK BY ITS COVER

What do Olivia Nuzzi, Sam Bankman-Fried, and Ezra Miller have in common? For one thing, each was featured on Forbes’s 30 Under 30 list before torpedoing their careers

Issue No. 272

September 28, 2024

THE LAST WOMAN STANDING

Louise Stratten recalls moving in with—and later marrying—director Peter Bogdanovich after her Playboy playmate sister, Dorothy (who was Peter’s former partner), was brutally murdered

THE STAIN OF HARRODS

No thanks to the British Establishment, Mohamed Al-Fayed’s serial sexual harassment has long been an open secret. Now a former biographer reveals the resentments that motivated him

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAOS VEGAS

Drugs, human trafficking, and gambling are all par for the course in the anarchic G.T.S.E.Z., the Chinese-owned “Golden Triangle” of land in Laos that’s turning into the next Sodom and Gomorrah

Issue No. 271

September 21, 2024

STOP THE PRESSES

New York’s star political reporter Olivia Nuzzi usually writes news, but this week she’s in it after being placed on leave for having a lengthy sexting affair with her former profile subject R.F.K. Jr.

PRESIDENT OR BUST!

With hundreds of millions of dollars in legal debts looming over him if he loses the election, Trump finds himself in an all-too-familiar position—though this time it might not be so easy for him to get out of it

SOFTBANK’S HARD RIDE

Inside the titanic wins and colossal losses of Masayoshi Son, the businessman whose risky and idealistic tech investments have made—and could break—the Japanese bank

Issue No. 270

September 14, 2024

GRUBBY HUBBY

Although Sergio Pino appeared to be a pillar of his community, the Miami developer’s continual attempts to murder his wife backfired in the worst possible way

PUTIN THE WORD OUT

By peddling Kremlin-approved propaganda, former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has found in Russia what’s eluded him in America all his career: notoriety

JUSTICE IS SERVED

When tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg’s reporting on domestic-abuse claims against Alexander Zverev resulted in a libel case, his own troubles started

Issue No. 269

September 7, 2024

PIERCING THE VEIL

The over-the-top weddings that appear in Vogue often seem too good to be true—and, as AIR MAIL’s investigation into what happens after the honeymoon phase reveals, they often are

50 WAYS TO KILL YOUR LOVER

When Sergio Pino’s wife filed for divorce, the developer tried everything to kill her, from fentanyl to poisoning the brussels sprouts she made for “Friendsgiving”

FRANKLY WRONG

Instead of turning the only Frank Lloyd Wright–designed skyscraper into the epicenter of “Silicon Ranch,” the crypto-currency tycoons who bought the historic building have all but destroyed it

Issue No. 268

August 31, 2024

A LITTLE LIFE

To celebrate R.F.K. Jr.’s appointment to Trump’s transition team, AIR MAIL has compressed his “greatest hits”—bare-chested push-ups! Whale decapitation!—into a single Joycean sentence

CAUGHT RED-HANDED

Is recently arrested Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov a libertarian tech bro or a Putin puppet? We may never know, but Andrew Ryvkin reports that, either way, Durov has been a troublemaker since his school days

ESCAPE FROM IDAHO

A year and a half after Bryan Kohberger was arrested for the murder of four college students, his defense team is fighting to move the trial away from the small town where the crime took place

Issue No. 267

August 24, 2024

SERMON ON THE MONDO

Before founding his single-topic, anti-Zionist Web site, Mondoweiss, Philip Weiss was a journalistic heavyweight who wrote stories about Bohemian Grove, Jeffrey Epstein, and topics with “a slightly priapic air”

TWISTED SISTERS

When a group of chocolate-making Spanish nuns seceded from the Vatican, they made it known that they don’t support the Pope—they prefer to worship cult-affiliated bishops and far-right ideologues

FEMME FATALE

Gavin Newsom! Anthony Scaramucci! Donald Trump Jr.! To help you make sense of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s tangled web, AIR MAIL has put together an indispensable guide

Issue No. 266

August 17, 2024

GREY GARDENS REVISITED

Tyler Huntting Jr. was little more than a crotchety East Hampton eccentric until his death, when he was revealed to be a descendant of one of the town’s most storied families

OUR NATIONAL NIGHTMARE

Before next week’s Democratic National Convention, Buzz Bissinger weighs in on the hellish standard Republicans set at the R.N.C., and how Kamala Harris can set herself apart

WAR COLLEGE

As Jewish academics fled Europe during W.W. II, many found an unlikely refuge teaching at Black colleges that would later count Kamala Harris and Toni Morrison as alumni

Issue No. 265

August 10, 2024

TERROR INCOGNITA

Over the past three decades, Hamas has operated on American soil under the cover of an intricate web of charities and activist organizations, reports Johanna Berkman

THE UNDERBELLY OF THE BEAST

As the YouTube sensation MrBeast faces allegations of racism and sexually inappropriate behavior, his squeaky-clean, altruistic image is suffering

THE PARENT TRAP

When he criticized childless women, J. D. Vance failed to heed the example of Andrea Leadsom, the former British P.M. candidate who lost for that very reason

Issue No. 264

August 3, 2024

OPEN SECRETS

In the wake of shocking allegations of abuse against Alice Munro’s husband, critic Daphne Merkin recalls interviewing the Canadian short-story writer in 2004 and thinking that, even then, something seemed amiss in the author’s family life

UP IN THE OLD HOTEL

When the owner of the Hotel Negresco in Nice died, leaving behind a $500 million fortune, prosecutors alleged she had been the victim of a scam by her favorite employee

BRAT-URDAY NIGHT FEVER

Is there anyone who hasn’t learned the viral dance to Charli XCX’s song “Apple,” which has helped make “Brat Summer” more than just a fleeting trend? Even we’ve gone “brat green” for an issue

Issue No. 263

July 27, 2024

NSYNC UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

After a very public arrest in the Hamptons last month, Justin Timberlake hired Edward Burke Jr., a local lawyer known for getting the rich and mighty off the hook

WORDS OF A FEATHER

You’ve heard of snail mail, but what about bird mail? A former foreign correspondent recalls when war reporters used carrier pigeons to get stories from the front lines to the newsroom

PARTNERS IN CRIME

Amid Nicolas Sarkozy’s corruption troubles, at least he had his wife, Carla Bruni. But now that Bruni’s been charged as part of his criminal conspiracy, could Sarkozy soon be without her?

Issue No. 262

July 20, 2024

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

How Paris leveraged the Olympics to transform a rust-belt dockland area into a 125-acre “Village” featuring Paris’s greatest natural asset: the Seine

BEHIND THE WHITE CURTAIN

Michael Rubin may be top dog among guests of his annual White Party, but some Wall Street insiders question the health of his company, reports William D. Cohan

DONALD, DUCK!

In the wake of last week’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Peter Osnos—who edited The Art of the Deal—recalls the former president’s other narrow escapes from disaster

Issue No. 261

July 13, 2024

GLASS CASTLES

A sprawling Manhattan apartment, summers in Southhampton, and then, a suspected suicide—how the fairy-tale life of socialite Candice Miller and her husband, real-estate developer Brandon Miller, unraveled

WHITE HOUSE OF CARDS

As Biden’s support staff continue to prop up their candidate—and dismiss concerns about his age—they’re engaging in a ruinous game of self-deception, argues Todd S. Purdum

BLURRED LINES

Multiple women have come forward accusing The Sandman author Neil Gaiman of sexually assaulting them—in a manner similar to the grotesque acts described in his best-selling graphic novels

Issue No. 260

July 6, 2024

LESSONS IN SENESCENCE

Like catching your parents having sex, you can’t unsee what you’ve seen, says Graydon Carter, who argues that Biden’s debate performance proves he should not seek re-election

NOT YOUR CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD ENDING

Inside the 50-year-old unsolved murder of Cynthia Bouron, a mother who supposedly had flings with Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra before being bludgeoned to death in L.A.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD THAT KING BUILT

Black homeowners have driven Hancock Park’s residential boom, yet in the 40s that same L.A. neighborhood took great pains to keep Nat King Cole out

Issue No. 259

June 29, 2024

BUMPY HUSTINGS

If you’re an American who’s exhausted by U.S. politics, Andy Borowitz has found the perfect antidote: U.K. politics, which this week sees Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer facing off for the prime-ministership

NOT OUR RIVER’S KEEPER

Michael Oreskes reveals that R.F.K. Jr.’s environmentalism has often been diluted by sloppy science, self-aggrandizement, and craven funding calculations

GOBLET GUMSHOE

To the chagrin of inquisitive M.I.6 agents and Spanish Civil War incendiaries—not to mention Indiana Jones—it turns out the Holy Grail was inconspicuously hidden away in a postwoman’s sofa