Fleeing lawmakers in Texas are unlikely to stop Republicans from redrawing the state’s congressional maps, but their effort has offered a rallying cry—and a reminder of the Democratic Party’s weaknesses. By Jonathan Blitzer
How an Ultra-Rare Disease Accelerates Aging
Teen-agers with progeria have effectively aged eight or nine decades. A cure could help change millions of lives—and shed light on why we grow old. By Dhruv Khullar
How Much Is Trump Profiting Off the Presidency?
An honest accounting of our Executive-in-Chief’s runaway self-enrichment. By David D. Kirkpatrick
As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump made his world view plain: there was “us” and there was “them.” Once he was in the White House, the fear factor would prevail. By David Remnick
The Pain of Perfectionism
It’s the fault people humblebrag about in job interviews. but psychologists are discovering more and more about the real harm it causes. By Leslie Jamison
As plans are laid for a new casino, one can trace, through four figures, a history of rivalry and excess, rife with collisions of character and crime. By Adam Gopnik
What to Do When the Supreme Court Rules the Wrong Way
The blows have been coming weekly, as Trump tries to ransack the Constitution. Yet recent Court history shows that what feels like the end can be a beginning. By Amy Davidson Sorkin
“No Tax on Tips” Is an Industry Plant
Trump’s “populist” policy is backed by the National Restaurant Association—probably because it won’t stop establishments from paying servers below the minimum wage. By Eyal Press
Israel’s Zones of Denial
Amid national euphoria over the bombing of Iran—and the largely ignored devastation in Gaza—a question lurks: What is the country becoming? By David Remnick
The President has tried to blame the Democrats, and, more unexpectedly, he has called those in his base who have asked for a fuller accounting “weaklings” and “stupid.” By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
“Yes, And” for Downsized Federal Workers
A Washington, D.C., improv theatre invited recently laid-off civil servants to a free workshop. The goals: stay adaptable, and maybe even laugh. By Sadie Dingfelder
For some 95 years, cartoons in The New Yorker magazine have captured the spirit of their times. “Sunday Morning” presents a recent sampling from cartoonists Victoria Roberts, Pia Guerra and Ian Boothby, Jeremy Nguyen, and David Sipress.
Before she published “Silent Spring,” one of the most influential books of the last century, Rachel Carson was a young aspiring poet and then a graduate student in marine biology. Although she couldn’t swim and disliked boats, Carson fell in love with the ocean. Her early books—including “The Sea Around Us,” “The Edge of the Sea” and “Under the Sea Wind”—were like no other nature writing of their time,
Jill Lepore says: Carson made you feel you were right there with her, gazing into the depths of a tide pool or lying in a cave lined with sea sponges. Lepore notes that Carson was wondering about a warming trend in the ocean as early as the 1940s, and was planning to explore it after the publication of “Silent Spring.” If she had not died early, of cancer, could Carson have brought climate change to national attention well before it was too late?
Excerpts from Carson’s work were read by Charlayne Woodard, and used with permission of Carson’s estate.
Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.
Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer, and financial security. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the reissued version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths.
Late in the 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially some problems that she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was the book Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Although Silent Spring was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides. It also inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.