Author: Sam Allcock
The playbook was outdated by the time Japan’s Ministry of Finance entered the currency market on the final day of April. In relation to the dollar, the yen had fallen below 160. Vice Finance Minister Atsushi Mimura referred to the “final evacuation advisory” that officials had been issuing for days. Then came the purchasing, which was quiet, abrupt, and costly. By the end of May, Japan’s defense had spent more than $27 billion over a number of rounds; some estimates place the total cost of Golden Week and subsequent rounds closer to $35 billion. The market hardly reacted at all.…
On the evening of May 4, the second shift had begun by the time the final guests of the Costume Institute filed down the steps of the Met. Fifth Avenue was lined with black SUVs. In hotel suites, stylists were waiting with half-zipped clothing bags. The real sorting—who goes where and, more crucially, who gets in—begins after the red carpet. Observing this event every year gives the impression that the fashion industry’s social hierarchy is most transparent during the after-parties. The Costume Institute raised a record $42 million this year, and the guest list reflects that amount. The gala itself…
Pete Hegseth appears to have entered one of those political disputes that ultimately have the opposite effect of what its initiator intended. For the better part of six months, the Defense Secretary—who now prefers the title Secretary of War—has been attempting to trim Senator Mark Kelly’s wings. In the process, he has given the Democrat from Arizona a national platform, a compelling narrative, and the kind of opponent who improves your reputation simply by criticizing you. Kelly was the clear winner of the first round. Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia prevented the…
Weeks after the video first went viral, what still sticks out is how unremarkable the room appeared. A North Minneapolis community space. chairs that fold. A tiny platform. On a chilly Tuesday in January, constituents had come out to hear their congresswoman speak about Kristi Noem, ICE, and other topics that the people in Ilhan Omar’s district genuinely wanted to talk about. There was nothing about the scene that suggested danger. Maybe that was the point. The 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak did not enter by accident. He entered with a syringe full of a dark liquid, listened to Omar’s comments, and…
It’s a brief note. The first thing you notice is that. The handwriting was uneven, with some words underlined so heavily that the pen nearly tore through, and there were seven scratchy lines on a sheet of lined paper that would be found in any commissary. “NO FUN — NOT WORTH IT!!” That’s how it concludes. It doesn’t sound like the parting words of a man who created a secret empire. It has the appearance of someone making notes about his own breakdown. However, on May 6, a federal judge in White Plains finally unsealed this document, which was allegedly…
This month, the envelopes have begun to arrive in mailboxes in Minnesota. They are small and unremarkable, the kind of thing that someone might ignore if they weren’t paying attention. Paper checks are among them. Some are alerts that direct users to Venmo or PayPal. Depending on how long they were insured and how much they paid, the majority of recipients receive an amount of about $300. It’s not money that can change your life. However, it’s the last phase of a legal journey that started during Barack Obama’s first term. The case began in 2012 when subscribers nationwide filed…
On a Wednesday, the reversal occurred. On a Tuesday, the story had been published. In the middle, perhaps in a Detroit office building or during a conference call that no one will ever discuss in public, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan came to the conclusion that it could, in fact, pay for the kidney transplant that it had previously declined to cover at Michigan Medicine. It’s difficult to ignore the timeline’s math. Paperwork, phone calls, months of waiting, and a certain kind of tiredness that only sick people and their families can relate to. Next, an article in the…
Procedures were scheduled for the third day of Tennessee’s special session. The vote itself—a new congressional map that would divide up Memphis and redistribute its predominantly Black electorate across neighboring districts—was all that was left by the time the gavel was dropped on Thursday morning, May 7. The majority of the political theater had already taken place earlier in the week. It was redistricting on paper. It was completely different in the chamber. The gallery was packed. People had been coming since the early hours of the morning, some with printed copies of the proposed map in their hands and…
I was searching for a recipe my grandmother used to make when I first realized something wasn’t quite right. Twenty years ago, I would have happened upon an Ohio-based retired teacher’s blog, complete with a handwritten family narrative and a marginally damaged comment section. This time, I received an AI-generated summary that wasn’t quite correct, three pop-ups requesting that I sign up for a newsletter, a paywall, and a cookie banner. Somewhere beneath all of that was the recipe. I didn’t even try to dig. Even though it was a trivial moment, it continued to bother me. Because this is…
Something changes when you hear yourself cloned for the first time. Recently, Shari Vahl, a reporter for the BBC, sat through that exact moment and heard a banking passphrase read aloud by a synthetic version of her own voice. While phoning Santander, she had taken the audio from an old radio interview, put it into a voice generator, and hit play on her phone. In less than two seconds, the bank verified her identity. It’s the kind of thing that you would anticipate failing at some point. It didn’t. Despite its small scale, that experiment suggests something more significant. For…