The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the humanities? Yes—and every student gets a personal chatbot. www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

“The retired general [said] more than 10% of Gaza’s 2.2 million population had been killed or injured – “more than 200,000 people”. That estimate is…close to the current figures provided by Gaza’s health ministry, which Israeli officials have frequently dismissed as Hamas propaganda.”

For the past year, journalists at CBS News have been up against extraordinary pressure. The network reached a tipping point. Read the report by Adam Piore. www.cjr.org/feature/cbs-...

“'What if we take seriously the idea that AI assistance can accelerate learning — that students today are arriving at their destinations faster?' Hsu asks. But what if we don’t?" www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

This is the most entertaining thing I’ve read in some time, and extremely insightful about the coroprate bland-ification of American life.

Lisa Borst and I spoke to @hamrahrama.bsky.social about the new Cracker Barrel logo www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

As long as we’re on the subject of Netflix and movies (however reluctantly!) I recommend this piece by @tavlin.bsku.social about why so many Netflix movies suck: www.nplusonemag.com/issue-49/ess...

Fascinating and depressing article on why almost everything on Netflix is shit

I went to Il Cinema Ritrovato for @airmail.news airmail.news/issues/2025-...

a political consultancy that does what now?

If you're near a landlord, go put your hand in his pocket for no reason

He was detained outside church. “He was in chains at his feet,” Alondra Sotelo-Garcia told a local news outlet about seeing her father arrested. “Shoelaces were taken off, his belt was off, he didn’t have his ring, he didn’t have his watch. Everything was taken from him.”

A man with a green card said ICE agents arrested him in #Lynn, Mass then took him to a detention facility—but first made a detour to a cemetery, where they took him out of their vehicle and beat him. #mapoli #Massachusetts

n+1’s 50th issue is out today! Feat. @hzeavin.bsky.social, Andrew Liu, @hamrahrama.bsky.social, @richardbeck.bsky.social, Iman Mersal, @cgvanderburg.bsky.social, Gemma Sack, @sarahlovescali.bsky.social, E. Tammy Kim, Lisa Borst, Gillian Linden, and Maureen McLane. www.nplusonemag.com/magazine/iss...

This was just posted by @tbretc.bsky.social on another platform. The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?

‘Fetterman went on to make statements that shocked people. In opposing a cease-fire, he said, “Let’s get back to killing.” A person who heard the conversation told me, “He said, ‘Kill them all.’”’

I’ll be speaking about Netflix and Casual Viewing at Stanford shortly. Zoom link here: events.stanford.edu/event/four-l...

SCOOP: Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi went into an interview today hoping he would come out a U.S. citizen. Instead, ICE arrested him. theintercept.com/2025/04/14/i...

The thing about "it's so important to read people who interview people who work at these companies" is the giveaway. The idea that only people who work inside a company can understand it is how journalists become stenographers

What a grim paragraph www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/u...

Deeply concerning: US citizen lawyer getting detained and his phone searched on reentering the U.S. at Customs. www.freep.com/story/news/l...

NEW—DHS claims, without citing proof, Rumeysa Ozturk "engaged in activities in support of Hamas." Among "activity" Ozturk engaged in was co-writing an op-ed urging Tufts to heed student resolutions to acknowledge the Palestinian genocide & divest from companies tied to Israel.

my god

What's up with Variety doing Wikipedia hagiography for Netflix lately? This reads like an excerpt for a nonexistent boosterish Netflix memoir, several of which already exist variety.com/2025/film/ne...

Generally not a great sign when Dan McCrum starts looking at a small discrepancy in your company's balance sheet www.ft.com/content/62df...

SCOOP: Hooded ICE agents snatched Indian-born Georgetown postdoc Badar Suri from Rosslyn street Monday, per court filing. Like Khalil, linked to pro-Palestinian views & Rubio 'foreign policy' power, lawyer says. Then whisked to Louisiana. w/ @kyledcheney www.politico.com/news/2025/03...

Le Monde reporting that a French scientist traveling to Houston to attend a conference was denied entry to US after a search of his phone & computer revealed messages critical of Trump's science cuts, "which [says CPB] conveyed hatred of Trump & could be qualified as terrorism". Computer confiscated

From a source: “Just had a co-presenter for a buildings research conference bow out. She’s a dual citizen and the FBI came knocking to ask her about her involvement in coauthoring chunks of the Paris Agreement. Climate science is being literally (and I mean literally) criminalized.”

Tapping the sign

SCOOP—Emails obtained by @zeteo.com show Mahmoud Khalil reached out for help from the Columbia administration *one day before* ICE detained him. He said he couldn't sleep from threats he was receiving. He even wrote that he feared ICE "might come to my home."

“Working conditions are learning conditions, we like to say, and it is so obviously true you want to tattoo it on your clavicle.” New: Peter Coviello on austerity in the English department.

Steve Bannon: "The people of Israel got to understand something. The number one enemy to the people in Israel are American Jews that do not support Israel and do not support MAGA. Okay, MAGA and the evangelical Christians and the traditional Catholics in this country have Israel's back..."

NEWS: Last night, the Department of Homeland Security detained a Palestinian who helped lead the Columbia encampment. Agents told him his visa was revoked. He said he had a green card. They were confused—then said that was revoked too. His attorney demanded a warrant. Agents hung up instead.

Are there tariffs on buying movie rights? Like does it cost 25% more to distribute Atom Egoyan movies now?

Unbelievable headline

There's too many quotes and paragraphs to highlight in Hamrah's Oscar column this year. An all-timer www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

For @nplusonemag.com, me on 17 Oscar-nominated movies and David Lynch: www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

In today’s newsletter, @tavlin.bsky.social discusses his Issue 49 essay about Netflix’s assault on cinema. Read the whole interview here: mailchi.mp/nplusonemag/...

I went on Here and Now on @npr.org to talk about how horrible Netflix is www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2...

They put me on Chapo www.patreon.com/posts/121705...

There is no bottom

We had @tavlin.bsky.social on the podcast this week to talk about his great n+1 essay on Netflix. It's a solid hour on the future of slop, what Netflix replaced and what's worth missing about it, and increasingly windy monologues from me about the 1997 film Breakdown. defector.com/the-movie-st...

I went on The Distraction with @davidjroth.bsky.social and @drewmagary.bsky.social to talk about my @nplusonemag.com essay on Netflix. Listen here! the-distraction-a-defector-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/apo...

This week's Distraction featured a longass talk with @nplusonemag.com writer Will Tavlin about Netflix and its corrosive impact on filmmaking. the-distraction-a-defector-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/apo...

The Big Mouth (Jerry Lewis, 1967) will be playing in 35mm at BAM on Mar 4, so the programmers asked Chris Fujiwara and me to discuss it, which you can read here: theaterofthematters.com/texts/the-bi...

Great reporting. The Israeli army said that most people killed in bombing a Beirut apartment block were Hezbollah. The BBC found that nearly all were in fact civilians, and a third were children. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Krug says that the NYT brass told him that writing a column and a newsletter was *too much content* www.cjr.org/analysis/pau...