Stunner, by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, in this week's @newyorker.com . Deep reporting and gorgeous writing about Anthropic, AI, and the soul of the new machine: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Poland will launch an investigation into possible links between the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence, as well as any impact on Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.

This piece from inside Iran @equatormag.bsky.social is fascinating and horrifying: www.equator.org/articles/the...

Manchester 1976, what a photo

A two act play... Yesterday: Deutsche Bank's offices raided in German investigation into money-laundering. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Today: Deutsche Bank announces record profits of 9.7 billion euros. www.db.com/news/detail/...

This is possibly my favourite quote about politics. paw.princeton.edu/article/stil...

Can confirm that being a journalist is occasionally very sick indeed.

Strong AKA game from the freshly-indicted Ryan Wedding:

Rifaat al-Assad has died. This obit in NYT omits a) he used to own Witanhurst, and b) his vast offshore wealth was partly managed for nearly a decade by Mark Bridges, the Queen's private solicitor. (Obit does mention: Mitterand gave him the Legion D'Honneur ffs.) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/w...

The US granted visas to Jews but only allowed 30,000 in from Germany a year. You had to wait for your number to come up. Meet Robert Smallbones. An unassuming British diplomat who 'hacked' this system so effectively (saving 48 THOUSAND Jews) the UK government kept his scheme secret for decades /1 🧵

We're absolutely delighted to welcome Sophie Heawood and @nivenj1.bsky.social to The Fence as columnists for the print magazine in 2026. Their first outings will be in Issue 27. Subscribe today to get eyes on their words first. www.the-fence.com/shop/

The Prime Minister of Belgium speaks:

Cleminson Street, Salford. Salford pioneered play streets, traffic-free from 8am till sunset (borrowed from New York) in the 1930s. Legislation followed: there were 700 in England and Wales in the 1950s, all but forgotten by the 1980s.

Lovely essay by John Phipps about a man and his cello. (Contains the word "luthier", which improves any piece.) www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

'She was long in the body, but strong of limb and rib, and her muscles moved under the skin like currents in a bay of the river. She was swift as the wind or as the summer swallow . . .' from Sean Jennett's ‘I Was A Labourer’. Photograph: Chris Killip

There is one rule for criminals in Dubai: no violence. Someone forgot the rule. The Turkish gangster Şeyhmus Muhittinoğlu was shot dead in Dubai just before Christmas. Some eighty Turkish nationals have since been arrested by Dubai police. What a place. www.crimeworld.com/internationa...

Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline Kennedy, has died at 35. In November, she wrote about receiving a terminal diagnosis following the birth of her daughter. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/hsZC7S

Over Christmas, something remarkable: the Dutch extradited Kidane Habtemariam, an Eritrean people trafficker, from the U.A.E. He will now stand trial in the Netherlands. I wrote about Kidane's life and many crimes here: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Make it even more vulgar.

*gasp* #cricket

Really interesting development, grateful to @harrystopes.bsky.social for highlighting it. Read the thread...

Beautiful piece by @TimAdamsWrites on the brilliant Observer journalist Rachel Cooke who could write wonderfully about anything, has died tragically young and will be hugely, hugely missed by so many people. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Was sent this bit of news overnight. "Irish mafia" arrested in Colombia, during Clan del Golfo raids. Eagle-eyed readers of @newyorker.com will note that Clan del Golfo has recently worked with the Kinahan group.

Woman in a purple hat, Manchester, 1985, photo by Shirley Baker (1932-2014).

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair... Amazing piece about NEOM, The Line, and where fantasy meets reality in Saudi Arabia. Chapeau @financialtimes.com

A rail worker credited with saving multiple lives during a mass stabbing on a train has been named as Samir Zitouni. The 48-year-old's actions on the Doncaster to London King's Cross service on Saturday evening were described as "nothing short of heroic".

So fun to write this short tribute to a classic @newyorker.com story: Up and then Down, by Nick Paumgarten. www.newyorker.com/magazine/tak... But don't read that read the original. It's about eight thousand words long and it will make your day better. www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...

Honoured.

No More Kings, by @willoyd.bsky.social -- an essay very much worth your time. www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Thank you to the Sunday Long Read... Kinahan and many other delicious treats in this week's buffet.

Heaney, by @fotoole.bsky.social : observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America

Robin Lane Fox's rules for life, printed in the latest fabulous issue of @thefence.bsky.social

I wrote about Daniel Kinahan and his family for @newyorker.com. The story features boxers, assassins, Hezbollah, a billion-dollar cocaine empire, the Open University, and a debonair gangster in a prison in Rome who is singing like a canary... www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Astonishing journalism and storytelling: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Thrilled that Bookbanks is expanding with the help of @thetimes.com . I love being a volunteer in Manchester, and see first hand the good it does. www.thetimes.com/article/de95...

Curtice says that because of vote distribution, even with the Tories polling fractionally above the Lib Dems, if this was translated into an election, the Lib Dems would end up being the much bigger party in parliament.

Protest group coming down Rustaveli. Now it's quite some numbers. And they keep coming. #Tbilisi #Georgia

News organisation explainer: What do we know about the new Archbishop of Canterbury? Sarah Mullally [1] is the new [citation needed] (What you actually want to read is Tim Wyatt on her handling of various chaotic things: www.the-fence.com/in-the-shado...)

Can confirm: sensational book.

“Stop crying,” Rick Rescorla told his wife, on September 11, 2001. “I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I’ve never been happier. You made my life.” #NewYorkerArchive

At Old Trafford for the Test today. Reminded of the time in COVID when I came and watched the Test on my own, then attempted to explain the sport to Americans... www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

Lovely response, not least the people emailing me with their family's WW1 stories. The other cool thing is that I'm now in conversations about how to provide an exhibition space for these images in the UK, on which I hope to have more soon. Would love for more people to see these powerful photos.

As a journalist and emerging public historian, I spent much of the past week reading through transcripts of oral histories made and collected by residents of Kerr County, Texas – where flash floods killed more than 100 people this month. There’s one recording that stood out to me. 🧵

I love Test cricket.

“The soldiers laugh, frown, flirt. They bounce local children on their knees, they pet dogs, they wear silly costumes, they sit on horses. In some photos, the men have dirt on their boots and faces. It’s as if they’d left a trench only a minute before the shoot.” www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

I'm not sure if people share stories here (or read the ones that are shared) but fwiw, I've got a new story out in @newyorker.com today that means a great deal to me. It's about a writer I love, and an amazing cache of long-lost photographs from WW1: www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

If you woke up this morning longing to read an essay about MrBeast that quotes Walter Benjamin, you're in luck. @mrkocnnll.bsky.social on the Junklord of Misrule is depressing, hilarious, bang-on: www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...