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March 7, 2026
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No. 347
Weekend
Edition
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at 6:00 AM
In This Week’s Issue
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF BARCLAY

Joseph Bullmore chronicles the bitter Barclay family feud that makes Succession look like Modern Family as the once billionaire owners of the newly sold Telegraph and London’s Ritz face bankruptcy …

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE AYATOLLAH

Elaine Sciolino recalls her 1982 meeting with the angry young mullah who would become the Ayatollah Khamenei, and what it revealed about the ruthless dictator, who was killed after four decades ruling Iran …

A ROYAL COLD SHOULDER

Despite siding with King Charles and Prince William against their scandal-tainted parents, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have been pushed to the margins of royal life. Might they find refuge in Montecito?

RUSH HOUR

Once the province of southern campuses, Greek life is now booming at northeastern schools, including the Ivies, as TikTok and sorority consultants transform recruitment into its own kind of admissions process …

HELL HATH NO FURY

How Lily Allen got exiled from the music world—and staged an unlikely comeback with West End Girl, a rage-fueled, starkly candid album written in the aftermath of her red-flag-ridden marriage …

HOTEL SPLENDIDE

A temple to Alpine sports and high society, Saint-Moritz’s Kulm Hotel—which has welcomed everyone from Cresta Run thrillseekers to champagne-fueled après devotees for over a century—gets a refresh …

GROWING UP MINNELLI

In a new memoir, Liza Minnelli revisits the great loves of her life, Martin Scorsese and Peter Sellers, and the great sadness of being raised by Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

A night celebrating Cazzie David’s Delusions, romantic and otherwise, with Seth Meyers and Susie Essman … the nation’s dogs celebrate Kristi Noem’s firing … and news of the world you’ll actually want to read—including naughty cardinals and Dubai tax dodgers—in our latest AIR MAIL Diary …

But First …
Issue No. 347

The View from Here In 1982, the first American journalist admitted to Iran after the hostage crisis interviewed a prickly Ali Khamenei—before he became an ayatollah. His death in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike brought the encounter rushing back

By Elaine Sciolino
Read On
Barry Blitt’s Sketchbook
Royal Follies

The Princess Diaries Following their father’s arrest, their mother’s Middle Eastern exile, and their own appearance in the Epstein files, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have been banned from Royal Ascot. Prince Harry to the rescue!

By Kevin Maher
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Games

The Weekly Waffle

A positively addictive word game to go with your morning coffee
Small Talk
“I thought I’d outlive my enemies, but I keep making new ones.”
“I thought I’d outlive my enemies, but I keep making new ones.”
Dynastic Dysfunction

The Fall of the House of Barclay How did the former owners of the Ritz and The Telegraph go from billionaires to bankrupts?

By Joseph Bullmore
Read On
Modern Times

Invasion of the Sororities! The Greek-life craze that has dominated campuses in the South is creeping northward, with the Ivies and small liberal-arts colleges buying in—and specialized “consultants” cashing in

By Maggie Turner
Read On
Small Talk

The Wicked Witch Is Dead! Dogs everywhere, rejoice! Kristi Noem, U.S. secretary of homeland security and confessed puppy murderer, has been given the boot. Here, we take one last look at her career

By Andy Borowitz
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Air Supply

Spring Break, Packed

Whether you’re headed somewhere warm or inspired to make sudden travel plans, spring break still comes down to the same essentials: good luggage, reliable swimwear, proper sun protection, and a few smart accessories. AIR SUPPLY’s edit covers the rest
Shop
Photo: Disney General Entertainment/Getty Images (Field in Gidget)
Guest Edit

Sarah Bonello’s Favorite Things The founder of The Park knows that the strength of a wardrobe lies in the pieces doing the quiet work. Here, she shares items that hold their own but also make everything around them look better

Shop
News of the World

The AIR MAIL Diary The Sistine Chapel is caked in sweat, thousands of Japanese men are clad in loincloths, and other strange stories from around the globe …

By George Kalogerakis
Photo illustration by Chop Choppish Shop
Read On
Best
read Lucien It is impossible not to fall under the spell of Lucien Orsini-Conti, whom the reader first meets through the eyes of his Harvard-freshman-year… smell Gallia Rae When I first came across a Gallia Rae diffuser, I assumed it was manufactured by a centuries-old firm for its heirloom-like quality. But… read The Once and Future King Need a palate cleanser from the romantasy blockbusters spreading like a pestilence over bookstores and… dine En Brasserie x Serpent à Plume We all miss Hudson Street’s En Japanese Brasserie in New York, which closed in December 2024… listen The Now Sound of Ursula 1000 Late-1990s and early-2000s romantic comedies promised a flirtatious and glamorous life working in journalism… watch Breaking Away Can a film about an Indiana-raised, blue-collar teenager who becomes obsessed with Italian cycling make you feel patriotic? In a word… read Lucien It is impossible not to fall under the spell of Lucien Orsini-Conti, whom the reader first meets through the eyes of his Harvard-freshman-year… smell Gallia Rae When I first came across a Gallia Rae diffuser, I assumed it was manufactured by a centuries-old firm for its heirloom-like quality. But… read The Once and Future King Need a palate cleanser from the romantasy blockbusters spreading like a pestilence over bookstores and… dine En Brasserie x Serpent à Plume We all miss Hudson Street’s En Japanese Brasserie in New York, which closed in December 2024… listen The Now Sound of Ursula 1000 Late-1990s and early-2000s romantic comedies promised a flirtatious and glamorous life working in journalism… watch Breaking Away Can a film about an Indiana-raised, blue-collar teenager who becomes obsessed with Italian cycling make you feel patriotic? In a word…
The Music World

Lily Allen’s Revenge Era The star who redefined confessional pop—and aired the wreckage of her marriage on West End Girl—is now taking her show on the road

By Eleanor Halls
Read On
After Hours

A Night Celebrating Cazzie David Seth Meyers, Lisa Taddeo, Susie Essman, Kareem Rahma, and others gathered at the AIR MAIL Newsstand in the West Village to fête the writer’s new essay collection

By Carolina de Armas
Photographs by Daniel Paik
11
Top, Cazzie David and Julia Vitale; above, Seth Meyers and Kareem Rahma.
Top, Cazzie David and Romy David; above, Alyssa Reeder and Josh Duboff.
Top, Amanda Lee Burkett; above, Seth Meyers, Alexi Ashe, and Julia Vitale.
Top, Laurie David; above, Carolina de Armas and Jensen Davis.
Top, Kareem Rahma and Cazzie David; above, Sasha Rosenberg and John Ortved.
Top, Kyra Kennedy and Charlotte Currey; above, Cazzie David getting ready to cut the cake.
Top, John Lippman and Audrey Cadogan; above, Paulina Prosnitz and Jeanne Malle.
Top, Orson Fry mogging Carolina de Armas and Clara Molot; above, Cazzie David signing a guest’s copy of Delusions.
Top, Elisa Kalani, Cazzie David, and Madeline Brewer; above, Julia Vitale and Adam Rapoport.
Top, Sarah Hoover; above, Lisa Taddeo and Jackson Waite.
Top, Sloane Crosley, Susie Essman, and Cazzie David; above, a slice of funfetti cake made by Gaby Scelzo.
Read On
Books
Sam Wasson On

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!

by Liza Minnelli
Read On
Around the World in Culture
On Broadway
Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon has been adapted into a play starring The Bear’s Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach… In Chicago
The Art Institute spotlights Henri Matisse’s paper cut-outs—a technique he began experimenting with late in life… On MGM+
In American Classic, Kevin Kline plays a self-obsessed Broadway star who, after a public meltdown, returns home to save a family-run theater… In New York
The Grolier Club revisits the life of Jack Kerouac, the definitive voice of the Beat Generation and author of the seminal novel On the Road… On Netflix
A professor (Rachel Weisz) obsesses over a young colleague (Leo Woodall) in Vladimir, a series adapted from a book of the same name… In London
The first retrospective of Catherine Opie’s work in the U.K., on at the National Portrait Gallery, traces the photographer’s 30-year career…
Close-up

Charly Clive The Edinburgh Fringe Festival sensation is starring in a new series alongside Steve Carell and Connie Britton

By Lisa Liebman
Read On
Portfolio

The Nine Lives of Lillian Bassman Colleague to Alexey Brodovitch, friend to Richard Avedon and Irving Penn … an exhibition in New York celebrates the postwar fashion photographer and art director

By Ruth Peltason
12
Summer Supplements: Daytime Editions, photographed by Lillian Bassman in 1959.
A solarized fashion study, circa 1960.
The May 1946 cover of Junior Bazaar, designed by Bassman and Alexey Brodovitch, with a photograph by Hermann Landshoff.
The Starched Coif, 1954.
A variant of The Wonders of Water, 1959.
The maquette of a Harper’s Bazaar cover designed by Bassman, 1949.
A variant of Perfecting the Line, 1955.
The December 1945 cover of Junior Bazaar, by Bassman and Brodovitch, with a photograph by Leslie Gill.
Exercises for Skeptics, 1952.
A variant of The Yellow Smock Coat, 1950.
The January 1947 cover of Junior Bazaar, by Bassman and Brodovitch, with a photograph by Ernst Beadle.
The Vocabulary of Courage, a collage by Bassman, with a photograph by Rouben Samberg, 1944.
Read On
Highlight
Ignorance = Fear/Silence = Death, a print by Keith Haring, 1989.

Acting Up

“I never saw such fear in a room in my life,” the fashion designer Stan Herman told me, recalling a 1981 gathering of prominent gay men at author Larry Kramer’s Manhattan apartment. A medical professional was educating the guests about the sexually transmitted infection that was killing their friends. That condition would soon be known as “AIDS.” In 1986, the virus that caused it was named “H.I.V.” Over the next 20 years, the scourge of AIDS—Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome—would exceed even the most dire predictions. READ ON

Read On
Small Talk
View With a Room

The Peaks of Luxury At the Kulm Hotel in Saint-Moritz, gravity, glamour, and glugs of champagne are ever present

By Joseph Bullmore
Read On
Ruby Wright’s Sketchbook
Red notice: a visitor spots her favorite color at the V&A’s Photography Centre.
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In Memoriam

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

Issue No. 347
March 7, 2026
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Issue No. 347
March 7, 2026
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