Adrian Tomine’s “Post-Vacation”

Adrian Tomine’s “Post-Vacation”

For the cover of the January 26, 2026, issue, the cartoonist Adrian Tomine depicted a scene that New Yorkers often encounter in the depths of winter. “I inevitably see some suntanned subway rider, just back from a beachy getaway, and it almost seems like they’re gloating,” Tomine said. “In all fairness, I’ve occasionally been that…

Read More

The Cold Comfort of a Helene Schjerfbeck Painting

The Cold Comfort of a Helene Schjerfbeck Painting

“Self-Portrait with Black Background” (1915).Art work by Helene Schjerfbeck / Courtesy Finnish National Gallery / Metropolitan Museum of Art; Photograph by Hannu Aaltonen In 1883, Schjerfbeck travelled to Brittany, where her first coup of ingenuity arrived, with paintings like “Clothes Drying” (1883) and “The Door” (1884). By filtering the grammar of naturalism through a fine…

Read More

How to Kill a Fish

How to Kill a Fish

A full week later, when I unwrapped the bonito fillets that Yamasaki had sent me home with, I was amazed to find the skin undiminished, the flesh a rosy pink. I’d grown used to being disappointed by fish from the supermarket, its flavor so often muddy or bitter, with the occasional bracing whiff of ammonia.…

Read More

Vietnam opens pivotal Communist Party meeting to pick top leaders

Vietnam opens pivotal Communist Party meeting to pick top leaders

Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party on Monday opened its National Congress, a closely watched political gathering that will determine the country’s top leadership for the next five years and set its policy direction. The 14th National Congress, which runs through Sunday, is the country’s most important political event. It is held every five years. In the…

Read More

Iran projects calm amid blackout, labels protesters as ‘armed aggressors’

Iran projects calm amid blackout, labels protesters as ‘armed aggressors’

NetBlocks reported that at hour 238 of the digital blackout, there was a “significant return to some online services, including Google, suggesting that heavily filtered access has been enabled.” Tehran intensified efforts to portray normalcy across state television, with media outlets such as Russian-linked Viory and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) pushing headlines…

Read More

Acts of Self-Destruction

Acts of Self-Destruction

Friedkin’s film sucked much of the humor and twisted romance from the play, I realized, treating it as straight horror. Although I have some issues with the latest interpretation, directed by David Cromer (it veers hokey, and it is missing the feeling of the vertiginous, the fear that we might be at risk of falling…

Read More

Ugandan leader extends 40-year rule after winning contested poll

Ugandan leader extends 40-year rule after winning contested poll

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has been declared the winner of Thursday’s election extending his four decades in power by another five years. He gained 72% of the vote, the election commission announced, against 25% for his closest challenger Bobi Wine, who has condemned what he described as “fake results” and “ballot stuffing”. Wine has not…

Read More