Subscribe
Editors’ Picks:
Read the Latest Issue
Crime and Scandal
Modern Times
Cartoons
The Morning Meeting Podcast
September 13, 2025
The Best
of
The
News
from
Abroad
No. 322
Weekend
Edition
Saturdays

at 6:00 AM
In This Week’s Issue
THE NEW PURSUIT OF LOVE

Ditching the dating apps, Gen Z–ers are instead turning to random hobbies—from run clubs to backgammon to cornhole speed dating—in search of old-school, real-life romance …

ERIC OF ARABIA

After deporting undocumented immigrants, the Trump administration is finally on the ball with its plans to send Eric Adams to Saudi Arabia …

LAW AND DISORDER

Alex Acosta cut Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart deal in 2008, reducing his child-prostitution sentence to 13 cushy months. Now he’s the one pleading his case …

HERE’S TO YOU, MRS. DALLOWAY

In celebration of its centennial, Daphne Merkin looks back at Virginia Woolf’s breakthrough novel and its abiding appeal, all these years later …

SUPREMELY ILL-JUDGED

Led by John Roberts, the six right-wing justices who control the Supreme Court have handed Trump 18 consecutive wins, which may have seismic consequences for the public …

OF VICE AND MEN

Founded by a pair of itinerant hipsters, Vice was the biggest media story of the 2010s. A decade later, a new documentary explores how it all fell apart—and why former employees aren’t surprised …

MYSTERY MAN

The prolific Welsh author Ken Follett tells Air Mail’s Jim Kelly about the inspiration for his thrillers, whose settings range from the Middle Ages to World War II to, most recently, Stonehenge …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!…

Beyoncé and Jay-Z cross the pond … the nightclub that inspired Bowie … Shakespeare’s biggest rival … Dame Muriel Spark’s superpowers … J. Press is back and preppier than ever … more Mitford-mania … an ode to Nona Summers … And another insane week in American health!

But First …
Issue No. 322

The View from Here Eric Adams as ambassador to Saudi Arabia? Sure, whatever. Anything to get him off New York’s mayoral ballot

By Helen Schulman
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
Affairs of the Heart

Finding Love, the Old-Fashioned Way From backgammon clubs to cornhole speed dating, Gen Z–ers with app fatigue are looking for their other halves in real life

By Paulina Prosnitz
Read On
Games

The Daily Waffle!

A positively addictive word game to go with your morning coffee
The Picture of Health

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

This week in American health: more R.F.K. Jr. madness, fluoride follies, and putting the kibosh on contraceptives
Nothing fishy here: R.F.K. Jr. hangs out with Russell Brand and Dr. Mehmet Oz in February.
Read On
Adventures in Real Estate

Wigginton State of Mind Beyoncé and Jay-Z are buying land near the Cotswolds. Will they visit the local dump?

By Hilary Rose
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
Deal with the Devil

Epstein’s Sweetheart Former U.S. attorney Alex Acosta was extremely lenient on the notorious pedophile. Congress isn’t returning the favor

By Daniel Bates and Susie Coen
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP
Read On
Air Supply

Pre-Game Paradise

Tailgate season is on, and it’s no time to play. AIR SUPPLY has everything you need to make your game-day spread prime-time
Shop
Photo: Sjoberg/Imagebroker/Shutterstock (camping)
Guest Edit

Angela Westwater’s Favorite Things When she co-founded Sperone Westwater, in 1975, Angela Westwater was the rare woman pioneering SoHo’s art scene. As the gallery celebrates 50 years, she shares a few of her must-haves

Shop
Literary Classics

Mrs. Dalloway at 100 A century on, Virginia Woolf’s breakthrough novel remains modern

By Daphne Merkin
Read On
Media Follies

The Unlikely Rise and Inevitable Fall of Vice Once hailed as the “Millennial CNN,” Vice rode hipster shock journalism to a $5.7 billion valuation—before hubris, big business, and the fleeting currency of cool brought it all crashing down

By Gavin Haynes
Read On
T.G.I.S.

The Attention-Whore Index Scott Bessent wants to step outside, Eric Adams wants to stay put, and Oliver North wants to put a ring on it

By George Kalogerakis
Read On
Small Talk

Runner-up The 107 Days that shook Kamala Harris

By John Ficarra
Read On
Best
carry Sézane It was bad enough when we couldn’t stop buying the pants. Now the bags are also a problem. Sézane, the Parisian fashion… LOOK The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki For more than four decades, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated masterpieces have carried Japanese culture… BROWSE BluePhoto Collective Buying photographs online can be a dicey proposition, with questions about provenance, pricing… READ The Metrograph Magazine The Metrograph has a special talent for breathing new life into old forms. Take the movie theater’s… tailor Frank Shattuck It may be difficult to believe, but the best Irish toadstool cap isn’t made on the Emerald Isle. It’s cut and sewn over the course… READ Lynn Wyatt A new coffee-table book by Ronda Carman is a loving tribute to one of America’s greatest dames, Lynn Wyatt, showing off… carry Sézane It was bad enough when we couldn’t stop buying the pants. Now the bags are also a problem. Sézane, the Parisian fashion… LOOK The Worlds of Hayao Miyazaki For more than four decades, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated masterpieces have carried Japanese culture… BROWSE BluePhoto Collective Buying photographs online can be a dicey proposition, with questions about provenance, pricing… READ The Metrograph Magazine The Metrograph has a special talent for breathing new life into old forms. Take the movie theater’s… tailor Frank Shattuck It may be difficult to believe, but the best Irish toadstool cap isn’t made on the Emerald Isle. It’s cut and sewn over the course… READ Lynn Wyatt A new coffee-table book by Ronda Carman is a loving tribute to one of America’s greatest dames, Lynn Wyatt, showing off…
Courting Disaster

Judge Not Far from being an institutionalist, Chief Justice John Roberts has rubber-stamped Trump’s most authoritarian orders—and sided with the president against the very legal system he is supposed to protect

By Ed Pilkington
Read On
Social Studies

Death Becomes Them Now even funerals are a scene for the social climbing and peacocking of the Instagram age

By Katia Kulawick-Assante
Read On
Travel Advisory

Trump to World: Get Lost From sky-high visa fees to social-media vetting, Trump’s draconian travel rules have tourists giving the U.S. a wide berth

By Robert Jackman
Illustration by Ross MacDonald
Read On
Clubland Confidential

The Blitz Spirit With its flamboyant fashions and synth beats, London’s Blitz nightclub defined the 80s aesthetic, inspired David Bowie—and irked Mick Jagger

By Shelley Rubenstein
Read On
Books
Tobias Grey On

Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

by Stephen Greenblatt
Read On
Eight Questions

Ken Follett’s World Without End The Welsh thriller author on producing such a vast archive—and the lure of Stonehenge, the subject of his latest book

By Jim Kelly
Read On
Open Book

Still More Mitford-Mania Mimi Pond has written and illustrated a graphic novel about her own lifelong fascination with the infamous sisters

By Ben Schwartz
18
The Mitford sisters’ father had hoped they would marry respectable men—“the chinless horrors,” as his daughters called them.
Deborah, seen here in 1938, became the Duchess of Devonshire.
A page from Do Admit.
From left: Jessica, Nancy, Diana, Unity, and Pamela in 1935. (The youngest sister, Deborah, is not pictured.)
Another page from Do Admit.
Unity, Diana, and Nancy in an undated photo.
Jessica joined the Communist Party.
Diana with Bryan Guinness, on their wedding day, 1929.
Politically, the Mitford sisters ran the gamut from Fascism to Communism.
Unity, an ardent Nazi, attempted suicide after Britain declared war on Germany.
Jessica later became a muckraking journalist, best known for her exposé of the funeral industry.
Nancy and Jessica both became best-selling writers.
Nancy, seen here in 1931, occasionally modeled characters in her novels after her sisters.
Nancy in 1970.
Diana was “the most hated woman in England.”
Top, Diana and her husband, Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, under house arrest in 1943; above, Unity with Adolf Hitler, 1936.
Diana spent the early years of World War II interned in Holloway Prison.
Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire.
Read On
Film

A Lighter Shade of Darren Aronofsky His movies—Black Swan, The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream—are notoriously heavy. But the director’s latest, Caught Stealing, is a romp around the East Village of the 1990s

By Xan Brooks
Read On
Elements of Style

Rakish Charm After a winning run at Rowing Blazers, the fashion designer Jack Carlson is bringing prep-school stalwart J. Press into the modern era

By Joseph Bullmore
Read On
Small Talk
“This is your captain speaking. We may hit some turbulence as I write ‘Marry Me, Samantha’ in the sky for a few extra bucks.”
“This is your captain speaking. We may hit some turbulence as I write ‘Marry Me, Samantha’ in the sky for a few extra bucks.”
The Writing Life

The Bard of Britain At 77, Ian McEwan hopes to be remembered for more than Atonement

By Johanna Thomas-Corr
Read On
Highlight
The Joy of Skating, by Leonora Carrington, 1941.

Renaissance Woman

When a teenage Leonora Carrington announced to her father, a wealthy industrialist in the north of England, that she wanted to study art, he proposed that she breed fox terriers instead. Carrington, who maintained a lifelong aversion to conformity, fortunately did not follow her papa’s advice. At the age of 15, in 1932, she traveled to Florence, where she received her first formal training in painting, at Mrs. Penrose’s Academy of Art—a reputable boarding school whose alumni included the dancer Gloria Braggiotti Etting and the art historian Sir Harold Acton. READ ON

Read On
Inside Story

Spark of Genius Muriel Spark, one of the most admired British novelists of the 20th century, led a mystically charged life that uncannily melded fact and fiction

By Frances Wilson
Read On
Curiosity Shop

Where Homer Simpson Meets Osama bin Laden Lock Books stocks and publishes the world’s strangest collection of ephemera—from masks used by bank robbers to 9/11-themed video games

By Spike Carter
Read On
Listen

Darling, Death Becomes You! On this week’s podcast, a look at how funerals have become a scene for the new social climbing

Read On
The Art of Aging

The New Fountain of Youth Forget red-light therapy and intermittent fasting: a new study finds the secret to staying young is being ageist

Read On
Close-up

Chuck George The Filipino-American chef is taking the smashburger craze across the Atlantic with Chuck’s

By Elena Clavarino
Read On
Small Talk
“O.K., whose turn is it to throw the ball?”
“O.K., whose turn is it to throw the ball?”
Great Lives

The Inimitable Nona Summers A director remembers a great love

By Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Read On
The Seasoned Traveler

Samin Nosrat The author of the James Beard Award–winning cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat reveals her travel routine

Read On
Eric Hanson’s Sketchbook
Is Edited By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

Creative Director

Angela Panichi

Managing Editor

Chris Garrett

Deputy Managing Editor

Julia Vitale

Deputy Editors

Ashley Baker Ash Carter Nathan King George Pendle

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Communications and Film + TV Development

Harrison Vail

Books Editor

Jim Kelly

Arts Intel Report Editor

Laura Jacobs

Senior Editor

Elena Clavarino

Investigations Editor

Clara Molot

Photo Director

Ann Schneider

Copy Editor

Adam Nadler

Research & Legal Editor

Matt Kapp

Production Editor

H. Scott Jolley

Junior Editors

Carolina de Armas Jeanne Malle Paulina Prosnitz

Associate Editors

Victoria Herman Lucy Horowitz

Art Director

Paloma Huerre

Senior Photo Editor

Emine Gözde Sevim

Deputy Art Director

Zoé Gillette

International Editor

Isabelle Harvie-Watt

Columnists

Dana Brown Cazzie David Lisa Henricksson
Walter Isaacson Pico Iyer Rachel Johnson
John Lahr Jonathan Margolis Linda Wells
James Wolcott

Writers at Large

Lili Anolik Bridget Arsenault Johanna Berkman Joseph Bullmore Spike Carter Vassi Chamberlain William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Matthew Gurewitsch Michael Hainey Stuart Heritage George Kalogerakis Sam Kashner James Kirchick Alexander Lobrano Alexandra Marshall Daphne Merkin Sam Wasson

Contributing Artists

Monica Ahanonu Barry Blitt André Carrilho Pip Carter Paul Davis David Downton Andrea Ferolla Josh Gosfield Cathy Graham Eric Hanson Angelica Hicks Hilary Knight Danielle Kosann Michael Lindsay-Hogg Ross MacDonald Joe McKendry James McMullan Donald Robertson Charles Dare Scheips Grant Shaffer Ed Sorel Ralph Steadman

Contributing Photographers

Jonathan Becker Justin Bishop Alex Board James Emmerman Marcos Fecchino Daniel Paik Art Streiber Sharon Suh Justin Weiner

Architectural Consultant

Basil Walter

Head of Audience Development

Rachel LeSage

Audience Growth Manager

Merritt Johnson

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Music Supervisor

Randall Poster

Technology

Brooks Oakley Justin Rubaloff

OUR CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER ARE

Bill Keenan and Emily Davis

General Manager, Commerce & Brand Partnerships

Anjali Lewis

Business Development Director

Catherine Scott

European Sales Director

Selim Mataraci

Financial & Business Operations

Marc Leyer

Chief Strategy Adviser

Adam Mendelsohn

Editor, Commerce, and Chief Merchandiser

Jennifer Noyes

Shop Editor

Jessica Iredale

E-Commerce Manager

Isaac Metlitsky

In Memoriam

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

Issue No. 322
September 13, 2025
Loading issue contents …
Issue No. 322
September 13, 2025
View the Archives
Every editorial product is independently selected. If you buy something through
our links, AIR MAIL may earn an affiliate commission.