Comma Queen: The Strippers, J.F.K. and Stalin—or, the Importance of Serial Commas
By Mary Norris
Mary Norris takes on a grammar rule that has become the subject of passionate debate among scholars, journalists, and copy editors.
The Iowa Caucuses
Ted Cruz Wins, Trump Loses—For Now
By Amy Davidson
Pop Music
Sia Gives Us What We Want
By Carrie Battan
Her forceful, uplifting record “This Is Acting” is the Platonic ideal of a modern pop album.
Daily Comment
Could There Be Another O. J. Case?
By Jeffrey Toobin
The trial captured the public’s attention in the nineties, but the phenomenon seems likely to remain an anomaly.
Elements
How Zika Spreads
By Carolyn Kormann
Mosquitoes may cause the great majority of transmissions, but researchers have discovered another way the virus can be communicated.
Politics and More Podcast
The Woman Who Covers ISIS
With David Remnick
The magazine’s editor talks with Rukmini Callimachi about the problem of Islamic extremism.
Elements
San Francisco’s Man of Fashion
By Om Malik
Remembering Wilkes Bashford, who brought a touch of elegance to the city for half a century.
The Latest
Bernie Sanders Just Changed the Democratic Party
By John Cassidy
Sanders has pulled off a rags-to-riches story, and with a message that is more radical than anything Presidential politics has seen in decades.
Ted Cruz Wins Iowa, Trump Loses—for Now
By Amy Davidson
Cruz emerged as the front-runner in Iowa, but the Republican establishment has no clear idea of what to do with him.
Could There Ever Be Another O. J. Simpson?
By Jeffrey Toobin
Why the man and his case, now back in the spotlight, are likely to remain an anomaly.
Cruz Victory Gives Hope To Despised People Everywhere
By Andy Borowitz
Dozens of pariahs said that the Cruz triumph meant that “the sky’s the limit” for widely hated people like them.
Spotlight
The Political Scene
Trump and the White Nationalists
By Evan Osnos
By stoking paranoia about immigration, Trump has found a following among far-right extremists.
Comment
Extreme Politics in Iowa and New Hampshire
By George Packer
Direct primaries were created in the belief that voters were less partisan than party bosses. This year challenges that theory.
Faceoff
On the Road with Trump and Cruz
By Ryan Lizza
Insiders loathe them; voters love them. Who will decide the future of the G.O.P.?
Benjamin Wallace-Wells
The G.O.P. Beyond Iowa
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
In this campaign, the more interesting questions haven’t been about how the right got here but about where it’s going.
Cartoons from the Issue
The Magazine
In This Week’s Issue
Art
The Cooper-Hewitt’s Delightful Design Triennial
Beauty is the theme at this exhibit, featuring the work of sixty-two international participants.
Fiction
“Mother’s Day”
By George Saunders
“Well, if he wanted a fight, she knew how to fight. She liked it. She was good at it. She’d make him pay. The way she always had.”
Paris Postcard
The Doggy Bag Comes to France
By Lauren Collins
A local politician in Paris tries to get his countrymen to reduce food waste.
Our Columnists
John Cassidy
The Likely Winners in Iowa
By John Cassidy
Trump and Clinton have solid leads, but both races may turn out to be closer than surveys suggest.
Amy Davidson
Iowa Meets the Trump Family
By Amy Davidson
On the whole, Ivanka and the rest of the gang have been a glossy, determined sales force, as disciplined as Melania’s smile.
Borowitz Report
Millions Forced to Side with Megyn Kelly
By Andy Borowitz
Many Americans are calling the state of affairs “intolerable.”
Benjamin Wallace-Wells
John Kasich and the Fading Republican Establishment
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
The problem of social ascent is everywhere in this election. But Kasich runs into it more frequently than anyone else does.
From the Desk of Bob Mankoff
The Ball Is in Our Court
By Robert Mankoff
In the latest episode of The Cartoon Lounge, Bob enters a fierce doubles ping-pong tournament.
Richard Brody
Elaine May’s Tribute to Mike Nichols
By Richard Brody
In a splendidly gracious and loving way, she distinguishes Nichols’s great talent, his enduring artistry, with faint praise.
Podcasts
Episode 15: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Marc Maron, and the Broads of “Broad City”
From the New Yorker Festival, three comedians and a musical-theatre messiah: Marc Maron; Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson; and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Photo Booth
Train Church
By Alexis Okeowo
Before the fall of apartheid, black South Africans found impromptu moments of spiritual ecstasy during their morning rides to work.
Video
The Ball Is in Our Court
By Nathan Fitch
In the latest episode of The Cartoon Lounge, crossword-puzzle wiz Will Shortz and cartoon wiz Bob Mankoff team up for a fierce ping-pong doubles tournament.