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August 30, 2025
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No. 320
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In This Week’s Issue
C-SUITE AND SOUR

William Lewis survived the News of the World phone-hacking scandal unscathed—going on to be knighted, promoted to run The Wall Street Journal, and then poached by The Washington Post—until now …

POETIC JUSTICE

In a poem for our turbulent times, the folk singer Joan Baez sounds off on quitting pessimism, the problem with optimism, and why the best thing we can do is become activists …

IT’S COMPLICATED

With the Trump tariffs, New Brunswick’s Campobello Island, off the coast of Maine, has become like a child of divorce, caught between two bickering parents: the U.S. and Canada …

STUNTED GROWTH

Diaper Diplomacy, a video-shorts series that has taken off on YouTube, uses A.I. to transform politicians to the age that best reflects their behavior …

AN EGO TRIP IN A SUN HAT

Hilary Rose suffered through all eight episodes of With Love, Meghan’s Season Two—“a series in search of a meaning, fronted by a woman in need of some cash”—so you don’t have to …

BIG WOMAN ON CAMPUS

Inside #RushTok, TikTok’s frenzied niche for sorority hopefuls, and its queen, Kylan Darnell, the University of Alabama Zeta Tau Alpha raking in millions …

RETAIL THERAPY

The stories of Barneys New York’s rise and fall and the making of Gene Pressman, the good-looking, bad-boy downtown denizen and former C.E.O., intertwine in Pressman’s tell-all memoir …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Taylor Swift’s $1 million finger … the Madoff of the art world returns … 100 years of the photo booth … Gen Z keeps it in their pants … inside the David Bowie archives … how Karl Lagerfeld’s clothes made the man … And introducing our “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” column, featuring—Who else?—R.F.K. Jr.!

But First …
Issue No. 320

The View from Here “This Is Not Optimism”: a poem for our times

By Joan Baez
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
The Picture of Health

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

This week in American health: coronavirus-vaccine bans, C.D.C. firings, measles’ return, and the No. 1 cause of child deaths (now, officially, firearms)
Nothing fishy here: R.F.K. Jr. hangs out with Russell Brand and Dr. Mehmet Oz in February.
Read On
Anatomy of a Fall

A New Twist in the U.K. Phone-Hacking Scandal Was Will Lewis—now publisher of The Washington Post—complicit in covering up the crimes that brought down an infamous British tabloid?

By Nick Davies
Read On
A Bigger Splash

The Little Island That Couldn’t Campobello Island, the favorite summer haunt of the Roosevelts, has found itself caught on the front line of the trade war between the U.S. and Canada

By Sage Lattman
Read On
A Royal Pain

The Duchess of Cringe A makeup artist slicing onions, John Legend in a closet, Princess Diana’s gold watch … there is nothing as painfully embarrassing as the new season of With Love, Meghan

By Hilary Rose
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Air Supply

Contain Yourself

As another fall semester begins in the school of life, AIR SUPPLY offers a continuing-education course in Tidiness 101. The lesson is simple: Order is liberation
Shop
Photo: Popperfoto/Getty Images (living room)
Guest Edit

Todd Snyder’s Favorite Things Todd Snyder has come a long way from detasseling corn in Huxley, Iowa, to presiding over a $130 million American men’s-wear brand. Here, he shares his style guide

Shop
Tit For Tots

Politicians in Diapers! “Our nation’s finest leaders … where they belong”: inside the infantile world of Diaper Diplomacy, a video-shorts series taking the Internet by storm

By Gracie Wiener
Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index Laura Loomer gains influence, the Princess of Wales gains highlights, and Samuel Pepys gains notoriety

By George Kalogerakis
Read On
Best
dine Cafe Yaya Tucked away from the hoopla that is the center of SoHo sits Cafe Yaya, one of the neighborhood’s best-kept secrets… WATCH AngelHeaded Hipster The pioneering glam rocker Marc Bolan was a shooting star. Alongside his band, T. Rex,… VISIT Anya Hindmarch x The Tuck Shop Is there anything more satisfying about the back-to-school experience than the purchasing… READ Hirschfeld’s Sondheim What do you get when you pair up Broadway’s greatest caricaturist with its finest composer?… Spritz Miu Miu What does cool smell like? Miu Miu has an idea. Miutine, a new eau de parfum whose name references the French word for rebel,… wear Campbell’s of Beauly Nothing stands up to the advent of autumn quite like a Shetland sweater. They’re light but warm… dine Cafe Yaya Tucked away from the hoopla that is the center of SoHo sits Cafe Yaya, one of the neighborhood’s best-kept secrets… WATCH AngelHeaded Hipster The pioneering glam rocker Marc Bolan was a shooting star. Alongside his band, T. Rex,… VISIT Anya Hindmarch x The Tuck Shop Is there anything more satisfying about the back-to-school experience than the purchasing… READ Hirschfeld’s Sondheim What do you get when you pair up Broadway’s greatest caricaturist with its finest composer?… Spritz Miu Miu What does cool smell like? Miu Miu has an idea. Miutine, a new eau de parfum whose name references the French word for rebel,… wear Campbell’s of Beauly Nothing stands up to the advent of autumn quite like a Shetland sweater. They’re light but warm…
Small Talk

Hold the Mayo There is no such thing as a safe lunch

By John Ficarra
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Landing Gear

A Lean, Mean Cleaning Machine A robot vacuum that’s quieter than your mouthy cleaning lady! Put an Antiques Roadshow host in your pocket! A recording device that could help solve a murder! And more …

By Jonathan Margolis
Read On
The Bling Ring

A Pop Star’s Best Friend Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s engagement this week has broken the Internet, but her ring—purportedly worth $1 million—is breaking the scale

By Caitlin Moran
Photo Illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
The Art of Deceit

The Gall of Inigo Philbrick From London to Miami, the art dealer tricked the ultra-rich out of millions. A new documentary traces the unprecedented scale of his fraud—and the delusions that fueled him

By Richard Morrison
Read On
Campus Follies

A Blood Sport with Blow-Dries On social media, college girls are treating sorority rush like reality TV—and earning millions in the process

By Megan Agnew
Read On
Small Talk
“He works at the corner market you’ve been going to for six years.”
“He works at the corner market you’ve been going to for six years.”
Modern Love

Sex Sober Dating-app fatigue, the fall of Roe v. Wade, heterofatalism: Do Gen Z women need any more reasons to be celibate?

By Ruby Conway
Read On
Elements of Style

The Zone of Beauty A stunning new documentary on Karl Lagerfeld reveals how the clothes made the man

By Ashley Baker
Read On
Music

The Good, the Bad, and the Bunny Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny has brought local fans and international stars together for his concert residency, which doubles as one big party

By Carolina de Armas
Read On
Books
Ruth Peltason On

They All Came to Barneys: A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Store

by Gene Pressman
Read On
Archival Treasures

Bowie in Aspic From rejection letters to annotated Berlin menus, David Bowie saved it all. Now more than 90,000 artifacts are headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum, offering unprecedented insight into the Starman and his method

By Will Hodgkinson
Read On
Photography

100 Years of the Photo Booth

Beloved by everyone from Andy Warhol to J.F.K., it’s a novelty whose novelty never wore off
Read On
Film and Television

The Rules of the Dame Helen Mirren may have turned 80, but she’s still acting—and aging—gracefully. Just don’t call her feisty

By Dominic Maxwell
Read On
Highlight

A Library Grows in Tuscany Beatrice Monti della Corte has been welcoming writers to her villa outside Florence for years. Now she’s unveiling a two-story library next door

By Elena Clavarino
Read On
Listen

A Very British Scandal—and Why It Could Cripple The Washington Post On this week’s podcast, Nick Davies reveals new discoveries about the phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the U.K.—and why Jeff Bezos might soon find himself in an awkward position

Read On
Inside Story

Don’t Believe Everything You Read About Amelia Earhart Silk slippers, a fake license, and the branding of an American icon

By Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Read On
Highlight
An illustration in Songs of Innocence and of Experience, by William Blake, 1794.

Poetry in Motion

“I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s,” wrote the poet William Blake (1757–1827) in his book Jerusalem. And he did create a system. In manuscripts of poetry and personal mythology, using a printmaking process he invented, Blake’s words and illustrations intertwine in cosmic coherence. Inspired by visions he’d begun having as a child, Blake held forth on politics, literature, and history, often in immortal verse and with drawings pulled from his private fantasies. READ ON

Read On
Small Talk
Close-up

Cooper Hoffman Four years after Licorice Pizza, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s 22-year-old son is making his science-fiction debut while shooting Luca Guadagnino’s latest film

By Carolina de Armas
Read On
Gilding the Lily

The Great Waterlily Weigh-Off From Junior’s cheesecakes to Ted Drewes frozen custards, gardens across the world are competing for how much weight their Victoria waterlilies can hold—and getting creative with their measuring tools

By Gracie Wiener
Read On
The Imperfect Ending

Michael Urie

The Shrinking and Ugly Betty actor shares his least favorite things
Read On
Risko’s Sketchbook
Happy Labor Day!
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In Memoriam

Peter Bogdanovich Duncan Hannah Jane Larkworthy Douglas McGrath Richard David Story André Leon Talley David Yaffe

Issue No. 320
August 30, 2025
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Issue No. 320
August 30, 2025
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