New York City Comptroller Mark Levine defended his decision not to use the city’s pension funds to invest in Israeli bonds, after the Jewish Democrat faced mounting criticism (on.wsj.com)
The Justice Department sued California to try to block the state from counting mail-in ballots it receives from 20,000 people the Trump administration says may not be U.S. citizens (on.wsj.com)
The FBI said it is investigating suspicious mailings—some containing an “unknown substance”—sent to election offices across the country, just weeks before midterm elections. (on.wsj.com)
Florida’s Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon gets more love on TikTok than big-name Democrats, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer gets more grief, a WSJ analysis found (on.wsj.com)
Texas Democrat and Senate hopeful James Talarico faced off with friendly, undecided and skeptical voters during a CNN town hall Wednesday night, five days before early voting starts in Texas (on.wsj.com)
Cold Kills Batteries, Screen Glare Destroys Night Vision: I Built HushHike with Render, ElevenLabs & Mastra to Navigate the Alpine in 30 Seconds (dev.to)
Spoiler Alert: Keeping Movies Under Wraps - Why do so many new films have plots and structures that make reviews a delicate dance of hints and secrets? (www.newyorker.com)
The Death of a Young Haitian’s American Dream - Pierre Damas Bel was a twenty-year-old college student planning for his future. His family says that ICE monitoring made him lose hope. (www.newyorker.com)
What’s at Stake in the 2026 Midterms - The midterms could deliver a major victory for Democrats. What would that tell us about Trump’s hold on the country—and the party hoping to succeed him? (www.newyorker.com)
The Doxing of Jane Doe - The alleged perpetrators in the “Cornell Seven” case were doxed. But so was the victim. And the person who doxed her. And people with no connection to the case at all. (www.newyorker.com)
Marco Rubio’s Wild, Wild West - In Greece, the Secretary of State cast the West as a civilization defined by its warriors and conquerors, not by its democracies. (www.newyorker.com)
The Secret History of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock - At the Met, a landmark exhibition doesn’t just show that the painters were equals. It makes it impossible to imagine their art existing without their marriage. (www.newyorker.com)
Reasons You Might Be Calling Me Instead of Texting - You’re feeling too lazy to text, and you know perfectly well that I’m just going to let it go to voice mail and then text my response anyway. (www.newyorker.com)
What a Public Execution Looks Like - Dexter Filkins on Pete Hegseth’s planned public execution of Nidal Hasan and his memory of a public execution by the Taliban in Kabul. (www.newyorker.com)
Tom McCarthy’s Meaningless Men - For decades, the novelist has dismantled the tropes of realist fiction, writing about mysterious individuals trapped in byzantine systems. In “The Rhyl Poster,” that approach may have reached its limit. (www.newyorker.com)
Is This the Beginning of the End of Indian Democracy? - The Modi government has removed more than a hundred million people from voter rolls and is cracking down on a vigorous protest movement. (www.newyorker.com)
Encountering the Past in “Music Against the Night” - John Field and Adelaide Percheron, the protagonists in my new book, were born in the eighteenth century. Was I writing a historical novel? (www.newyorker.com)
“The Journey” Update: The D.A. Brings Charges - Three weeks after we released The Journey, Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang were arrested, and local prosecutors charged them with child abuse. (www.newyorker.com)
An Unlikely Taylor Swift Fan Gets Out of Prison, in “Daylight” - Joe Garcia, who wrote about finding Swift’s music after a murder conviction, searches for redemption in a new short film by Jon Kasbe. (www.newyorker.com)
Some Mangled Foreign Title Translations - “Dune: Part Two” to “Those Mad Worms Won’t Stop, Mate” (Australia): You think those dodgy snakes in the outback are devo? You ain’t seen nothing, mate! (www.newyorker.com)
How Tree Rings Challenged the Myth of American Wilderness - By studying fire scars in ancient wood, many scientists have become convinced that Indigenous people transformed North America long before Christopher Columbus arrived. (www.newyorker.com)