August 8, 2026 – Air Mail

TALES FROM THE A.I.-POCALYPSE

In 2013, one computer scientist warned that creating superhuman A.I. would be “the last event in human history.” It took OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s models going rogue for people to start listening …

CO-OP DE GRÂCE

After nearly 70 years, Harvard is shuttering Dudley Co-op, a progressive dorm with a Communist Manifesto mural and vegetarian meals. Is this about costs, or the latest sign of a nanny-state crackdown?

SAPPHIRE IN THE ROUGH

When Zendaya wore a gargantuan yellow-sapphire arachnid brooch on the Spider-Man red carpet, two historic jewelry houses rushed to claim credit. Now neither seems to know where it is …

CAMPUS CALAMITY

Jeffrey Epstein first attended Interlochen Arts Camp as a 14-year-old, returning decades later to groom his next victims. A new report reveals the school’s predation problem ran far deeper …

AY CARAMBA!

As Majorca strains under a rising tide of billionaires, Hollywood elites, and tourists, an upcoming total solar eclipse is threatening the foundations of the once quaint Spanish island …

CLOUT OF THIS WORLD

This summer, James Franco made a bizarre series of TikToks about an alien in his garage. He’s seemingly the first major movie star to join the scroll-based attention economy—but he won’t be the last …

SELF-SOVEREIGNTY FOR SALE

From Elon Musk to Sam Altman, tech-bro billionaires are quietly growing their “passport portfolios”—partially to insure themselves against A.I.-related disasters of their own making …

BUT, WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa takes on Anthony Bourdain … our tech-and-gadgets columnist recommends a grill to rival the Big Green Egg … an aperitif magnate’s private island in the South of France gets a luxury makeover … this month’s best mysteries, featuring mythic heroines … and our back-to-school edit!

Issue No. 369

The View from Here Why are A.I. agents suddenly going rogue? The computer scientist who wrote the textbook on the subject has the answer—and the solution

By Michael Oreskes

Read On

A Nanny State on the Charles Harvard has come for what may be its last campus outlier: Dudley Co-op, a lefty co-living alternative to the polished, increasingly bland school culture

By Sage Lattman

Read On

The Weekly Waffle

A positively addictive word game to go with your morning coffee

The Curious Case of the Zendaya Spider Brooch Two historic jewelry houses claimed a giant yellow-sapphire piece worn by the actress on a Spider-Man red carpet as their own. Now it has seemingly disappeared. What happened?

By Marion Fasel

Read On

Epstein’s Music-Camp Hunting Ground The abuse was well underway when 14-year-old Jeffrey Epstein first arrived at Interlochen Arts Camp. It got worse decades later when he returned to groom his next victims

By Josie Ensor

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP

Read On

Class Is in Session

For the kindergartner, the freshman, and the adult who never quite outgrew back-to-school season, because September deserves the right things, whatever grade you’re in

Shop

Photo: Universal Pictures/Album/Alamy (Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High)

The Dark Side of the Sun As Majorca strains under record tourism, next week’s total solar eclipse threatens to push the once quaint Spanish island to a breaking point

By Alice Lindsell

Read On

Joey Jalleo’s Favorite Things The hospitality impresario behind the Boom Boom Room, Chateau Marmont, and Chiltern Firehouse shares his taste for Celine, Staub, Pasha de Cartier, and incense that smells like two a.m.

Shop

James Franco, the Alien, and the Re-Invention of Celebrity Perhaps for the first time, a major movie star is pursuing our attention as shamelessly as any other wannabe influencer

By Nancy Jo Sales

Read On

read Are They Dead Yet? A good obituary is an art form, and there are few practitioners as deft as Sam Roberts, who has been writing about the recently deceased…

spritz Liis Combine elemi resin, tobacco leaves, redwood pine, and incense, and you get a hypnotic fragrance reminiscent of a coastal artist conclave…

watch Don Juan Since Don Juan was introduced in 1630 by dramatist Tirso de Molina, the Spanish Lothario has appeared in numerous re-interpretations…

listen Sunshine Superman “What goes on all around me? / What goes on? I really wanna know.” The third album from Scottish folk artist Donovan placed him alongside…

light Borne x The Pouf If it weren’t for the bugs, snakes, filth, and sleeping conditions, I’d jump at the chance to be a contestant on Survivor. And if I were, I’d smuggle…

visit Abrams Animal Farm Block Island, with its fetchingly patriotic downtown and Vineyard Vines–clad summer crowd, can feel like a highly concentrated hub…

read Are They Dead Yet? A good obituary is an art form, and there are few practitioners as deft as Sam Roberts, who has been writing about the recently deceased…

spritz Liis Combine elemi resin, tobacco leaves, redwood pine, and incense, and you get a hypnotic fragrance reminiscent of a coastal artist conclave…

watch Don Juan Since Don Juan was introduced in 1630 by dramatist Tirso de Molina, the Spanish Lothario has appeared in numerous re-interpretations…

listen Sunshine Superman “What goes on all around me? / What goes on? I really wanna know.” The third album from Scottish folk artist Donovan placed him alongside…

light Borne x The Pouf If it weren’t for the bugs, snakes, filth, and sleeping conditions, I’d jump at the chance to be a contestant on Survivor. And if I were, I’d smuggle…

visit Abrams Animal Farm Block Island, with its fetchingly patriotic downtown and Vineyard Vines–clad summer crowd, can feel like a highly concentrated hub…

A Grill to Make Grown Men Weep Earphones that sound like a million dollars! A folding phone that gets the jump on Apple! And an app for tracking oligarchs’ yachts …

By Jonathan Margolis

Read On

Papers, Please! What’s in your wallet? If you’re a 21st-century tech baron, a growing stack of passports

By Lucas Chancellor

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHOP CHOPPISH SHOP

Read On

Dominic Sessa Plucked from Deerfield Academy five years ago for his breakout role in The Holdovers, the 23-year-old is back on-screen as Anthony Bourdain in Tony, starring opposite Antonio Banderas and Leo Woodall

By Carolina de Armas

Read On

Portrait of a Country A new coffee-table book collects more than 100 rare and previously unpublished photographs by Lee Friedlander, America’s pre-eminent chronicler

7

America through Lee Friedlander’s eyes: *top,* *Waddy, Kentucky,* 1969; *above,* *New York City,* 1959.

*Top, Chicago,* 1986; *above,* *Montana,* 1974.

*Top,* *Tucson,* 1985; *above,* *Tucson,* 2011.

Read On

Murder, They Wrote This summer’s best mystery books feature heroines of Homeric proportions, from a female police chief who resuscitates a tragic cold case to a union leader turned drug queenpin

By Lisa Henricksson

Read On

On Hulu and FX

Ryan Murphy returns with The Shards, a new series based on Bret Easton Ellis’s horror novel, starring Kaia Gerber and Homer Gere…

In Provence

A small museum embraces summer fun with an exhibition on Pop art and the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s…

On BBC iPlayer

Building on AIR MAIL’s reporting, a documentary presents new allegations of sexual misconduct against the actor Jared Leto…

In London

A gallery show examines a century of American urbanization, featuring photographs by Dorothea Lange, Saul Leiter, and Diane Arbus…

In Water Mill

An exhibition explores how artists like Delcy Morelos represent their physical environments through soil, fiber, and other natural materials…

In Theaters

Willem Dafoe plays a forgotten poet revived by a group of young New York artists in Late Fame, a new film co-starring Greta Lee…

I Love Liberty, by Roy Lichtenstein, 1982.

The Statue of Liberty holds paradoxes. Forget the myth that it was a gift from the French government. Its sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, crowd-funded the statue by selling early drawings of it. And the publisher Joseph Pulitzer raised money to foot the bill for its pedestal, built on Liberty Island, off the southern tip of Manhattan. Did you know the landmark was originally envisioned as a colossal torch-bearing Egyptian woman—a lighthouse that would stand at the north entrance to the Suez Canal? READ ON

Read On

A Change of Spirit Once a retreat for Salvador Dalí, Josephine Baker, and Jean-Paul Belmondo, liquor magnate Paul Ricard’s private island in the South of France has reopened as a luxury resort after a $115 million restoration

By Alexander Lobrano

Read On

Was Founded By

Graydon Carter and Alessandra Stanley

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Julia Vitale

Chief Technology Officer

John Tornow

Senior Editors

Ash Carter Elena Clavarino George Pendle

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Ann Schneider

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Paloma Huerre

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Jim Kelly

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Laura Jacobs

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Adam Nadler

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Editor, Air Mail LOOK

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Rickie De Sole

Columnists

Dana Brown Camille Charrière Cazzie David
Lisa Henricksson Walter Isaacson Pico Iyer
Rachel Johnson John Lahr Jonathan Margolis
Jay McInerney James Wolcott

Writers at Large

Lili Anolik Johanna Berkman Joseph Bullmore Spike Carter Vassi Chamberlain William D. Cohan Rich Cohen Matthew Gurewitsch Victoria Herman 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 Dafydd Jones Daniel Paik Art Streiber Sharon Suh Justin Weiner

Architectural Consultant

Basil Walter

Head of Audience Development

Rachel LeSage

Cartoon Editor

Bob Mankoff

Music Editor

Randall Poster

Technology

Brooks Oakley

AIR SUPPLY

Editor, Commerce, and Chief Merchandiser

Jennifer Noyes

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Catherine Scott

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Selim Mataraci

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Dillon Freeman

In Memoriam

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

The View from Here Why are A.I. agents suddenly going rogue? The computer scientist who wrote the textbook on the subject has the answer—and the solution

A Nanny State on the Charles Harvard has come for what may be its last campus outlier: Dudley Co-op, a lefty co-living alternative to the polished, increasingly bland school culture

The Weekly Waffle

A positively addictive word game to go with your morning coffee

The Curious Case of the Zendaya Spider Brooch Two historic jewelry houses claimed a giant yellow-sapphire piece worn by the actress on a Spider-Man red carpet as their own. Now it has seemingly disappeared. What happened?

Epstein’s Music-Camp Hunting Ground The abuse was well underway when 14-year-old Jeffrey Epstein first arrived at Interlochen Arts Camp. It got worse decades later when he returned to groom his next victims

For the kindergartner, the freshman, and the adult who never quite outgrew back-to-school season, because September deserves the right things, whatever grade you’re in

The Dark Side of the Sun As Majorca strains under record tourism, next week’s total solar eclipse threatens to push the once quaint Spanish island to a breaking point

Joey Jalleo’s Favorite Things The hospitality impresario behind the Boom Boom Room, Chateau Marmont, and Chiltern Firehouse shares his taste for Celine, Staub, Pasha de Cartier, and incense that smells like two a.m.

James Franco, the Alien, and the Re-Invention of Celebrity Perhaps for the first time, a major movie star is pursuing our attention as shamelessly as any other wannabe influencer

A Grill to Make Grown Men Weep Earphones that sound like a million dollars! A folding phone that gets the jump on Apple! And an app for tracking oligarchs’ yachts …

Papers, Please! What’s in your wallet? If you’re a 21st-century tech baron, a growing stack of passports

Dominic Sessa Plucked from Deerfield Academy five years ago for his breakout role in The Holdovers, the 23-year-old is back on-screen as Anthony Bourdain in Tony, starring opposite Antonio Banderas and Leo Woodall

Portrait of a Country A new coffee-table book collects more than 100 rare and previously unpublished photographs by Lee Friedlander, America’s pre-eminent chronicler

Murder, They Wrote This summer’s best mystery books feature heroines of Homeric proportions, from a female police chief who resuscitates a tragic cold case to a union leader turned drug queenpin

A Change of Spirit Once a retreat for Salvador Dalí, Josephine Baker, and Jean-Paul Belmondo, liquor magnate Paul Ricard’s private island in the South of France has reopened as a luxury resort after a $115 million restoration

Was Founded By

And Is Edited By

Chief Technology Officer

Senior Editors

Photo Director

Art Director

Books Editor

Arts Intel Report Editor

Copy Editor

Legal Editor

Production Editor

Associate Editors

Senior Photo Editor

Designer

Photo Editor

Editor, Air Mail LOOK

Editor, Air Mail Dress Code

Columnists

Writers at Large

Contributing Artists

Contributing Photographers

Architectural Consultant

Social Media Manager

Head of Audience Development

Cartoon Editor

Music Editor

Technology

Editor, Commerce, and Chief Merchandiser

E-Commerce Manager

Business Development Director

European Sales Director

Account Manager

In Memoriam