My first rich boy pulled down my underpants. My last rich boy pulled down my tights. My first rich boy — I had fixed my eyes on his face long enough to know — was beautiful, with dark gray eyes and long golden-brown hair across his forehead. I don’t know what he grew up to be. My last rich boy was blond. He grew up to be the president of the United States. The first rich boy’s name was James. He was raped by his grandfather. He was raped by his uncles. He was beaten by his father. My mother told me the stories much later. When James was 6, he was taken away from his father and given to a...…My first rich boy pulled down my underpants. My last rich boy pulled down my tights. My first rich boy — I had fixed my eyes on his face long enough to know — was beautiful, with dark gray eyes and long golden-brown hair across his forehead. I don’t know what he grew up to be. My last rich boy was blond. He grew up to be the president of the United States. The first rich boy’s name was James. He was raped by his grandfather. He was raped by his uncles. He was beaten by his father. My mother told me the stories much later. When James was 6, he was taken away from his father and given to a...WW…

A Joe Biden quote I have trouble getting out of my head is this one: He reportedly said it to a bunch of wealthy donors at an event in New York in June 2019 in an attempt to reassure them that he would not “demonize” the rich. “No one’s standard of living will change,” he said. A few days prior, he had appeared at a Poor People’s Campaign presidential forum, where he said poverty was the No. 1 issue that could “bring the country down” and promised to enact policies to alleviate inequality. So which was it? Which vision would he offer to a country in a time of unprecedented crisis? Was he...…A Joe Biden quote I have trouble getting out of my head is this one: He reportedly said it to a bunch of wealthy donors at an event in New York in June 2019 in an attempt to reassure them that he would not “demonize” the rich. “No one’s standard of living will change,” he said. A few days prior, he had appeared at a Poor People’s Campaign presidential forum, where he said poverty was the No. 1 issue that could “bring the country down” and promised to enact policies to alleviate inequality. So which was it? Which vision would he offer to a country in a time of unprecedented crisis? Was he...WW…

I’d never been on Executive Foxtrot One, the presidential aircraft used to transport members of the First Family, when I ascended its red-carpeted stairs and boarded the cabin last spring to travel to a Nashville children’s hospital with Melania Trump. But thankfully, I was seated near Kate Bennett, a frequent Foxtrot flier and correspondent for CNN. Bennett is maternal and glamorous and cool, and I relied on her, asking her how things worked here and why they work this way and collecting from her the kind of precious details you can only get when you are physically there all the time,...…I’d never been on Executive Foxtrot One, the presidential aircraft used to transport members of the First Family, when I ascended its red-carpeted stairs and boarded the cabin last spring to travel to a Nashville children’s hospital with Melania Trump. But thankfully, I was seated near Kate Bennett, a frequent Foxtrot flier and correspondent for CNN. Bennett is maternal and glamorous and cool, and I relied on her, asking her how things worked here and why they work this way and collecting from her the kind of precious details you can only get when you are physically there all the time,...WW…

Monday night’s Met Gala, so you may have forgotten that, you know, it actually happened. Actor didn’t. She took to her on Tuesday to speak out against … someone who talked at length about losing weight to fit into her dress during her red-carpet interview. “To walk on a red carpet and do an interview where you say how starving you are … because you haven’t eaten carbs in the last month … all to fit in a fucking dress?” Reinhart wrote. “So wrong. So fucked on 100s of levels.” She continued: To openly admit to starving yourself for the sake of the Met Gala. When you know very well that...…Monday night’s Met Gala, so you may have forgotten that, you know, it actually happened. Actor didn’t. She took to her on Tuesday to speak out against … someone who talked at length about losing weight to fit into her dress during her red-carpet interview. “To walk on a red carpet and do an interview where you say how starving you are … because you haven’t eaten carbs in the last month … all to fit in a fucking dress?” Reinhart wrote. “So wrong. So fucked on 100s of levels.” She continued: To openly admit to starving yourself for the sake of the Met Gala. When you know very well that...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.What you first need to understand is that I learned joie de vivre from The Nanny. Literally, as in the phrase: It sneaked into the to describe the stock-in-trade of the flashy girl from Flushing, as the Nanny was, and as Fran Drescher, its star and creator, was. Ann Hampton Callaway wrote that song for her and did its jazzy performance, a stepping-stone on the way to writing hits for Barbra Streisand, which, if you’re a Jewish girl from the boroughs, as Drescher is, is a little like saying Callaway wrote for some little yeshiva...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.What you first need to understand is that I learned joie de vivre from The Nanny. Literally, as in the phrase: It sneaked into the to describe the stock-in-trade of the flashy girl from Flushing, as the Nanny was, and as Fran Drescher, its star and creator, was. Ann Hampton Callaway wrote that song for her and did its jazzy performance, a stepping-stone on the way to writing hits for Barbra Streisand, which, if you’re a Jewish girl from the boroughs, as Drescher is, is a little like saying Callaway wrote for some little yeshiva...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.I.I did plenty of things I knew I shouldn’t have done in that red-brick colonial in suburban Georgia: smeared grime from the unfinished half of the basement on the walls of the finished half; spilled ruby red sweet-and-sour sauce on the pearly carpet. During a sleepover, a friend even knocked a hole in the sheetrock as we rode sleeping bags down the basement stairs like sleds. It could’ve been any of those things or none of them that precipitated the beating I received from my father one night near Christmas, when I was 8 years...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.I.I did plenty of things I knew I shouldn’t have done in that red-brick colonial in suburban Georgia: smeared grime from the unfinished half of the basement on the walls of the finished half; spilled ruby red sweet-and-sour sauce on the pearly carpet. During a sleepover, a friend even knocked a hole in the sheetrock as we rode sleeping bags down the basement stairs like sleds. It could’ve been any of those things or none of them that precipitated the beating I received from my father one night near Christmas, when I was 8 years...WW…

Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commissionAlthough the thousands of protesters who showed up at Foley Square on Tuesday evening had presumably spent much of the day doom-scrolling, the mood was oddly jubilant. At 5 p.m., demonstrators in abortion-rights green trickled into the square to protest that revealed the justices have privately voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.It’s an outcome reproductive-rights advocates have feared for years. Yet at Tuesday’s protest, it was hard not to feel hopeful. Among the “Abortions Save Lives” signs, small children had “My Body, My...…Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commissionAlthough the thousands of protesters who showed up at Foley Square on Tuesday evening had presumably spent much of the day doom-scrolling, the mood was oddly jubilant. At 5 p.m., demonstrators in abortion-rights green trickled into the square to protest that revealed the justices have privately voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.It’s an outcome reproductive-rights advocates have feared for years. Yet at Tuesday’s protest, it was hard not to feel hopeful. Among the “Abortions Save Lives” signs, small children had “My Body, My...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.You may have noticed a weird tic in some of the reporting about Representative Karen Bass of California, rumored to be on Joe Biden’s shortlist for vice-president. Several stories include mention of her aversion to having her photo taken.“She was a worker bee. She didn’t need to be in front of a camera all the time,” former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told of the time they spent together in the 1970s organizing around police abuse (her) and immigrants’ rights (him), while the New York Times presented Bass’s habit of...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.You may have noticed a weird tic in some of the reporting about Representative Karen Bass of California, rumored to be on Joe Biden’s shortlist for vice-president. Several stories include mention of her aversion to having her photo taken.“She was a worker bee. She didn’t need to be in front of a camera all the time,” former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told of the time they spent together in the 1970s organizing around police abuse (her) and immigrants’ rights (him), while the New York Times presented Bass’s habit of...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.I know the day we started feeling sick — at least two of us in our Brooklyn apartment — because that Saturday our 2-year-old son ran around outside. Walking past the farmers’ market at Fort Greene Park, I sent my friends photos of the clusters of people hanging out. “Can you believe this,” I texted, “the photos don’t do it justice.”My husband Patrick woke up that morning annoyed, his whole body hurting. I took our toddler out of the house so he could sleep, or try to — we also have a 4-month-old baby. I did feel a little off, but...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.I know the day we started feeling sick — at least two of us in our Brooklyn apartment — because that Saturday our 2-year-old son ran around outside. Walking past the farmers’ market at Fort Greene Park, I sent my friends photos of the clusters of people hanging out. “Can you believe this,” I texted, “the photos don’t do it justice.”My husband Patrick woke up that morning annoyed, his whole body hurting. I took our toddler out of the house so he could sleep, or try to — we also have a 4-month-old baby. I did feel a little off, but...WW…

Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.This article was featured in , New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. to get it nightly.You walk beneath a white molded archway. You’ve entered a white room.A basketlike lamp hangs overhead; other lamps, globes of brass and glass, glow nearby. Before you is a couch, neatly tufted and boxy, padded with an assortment of pillows in muted geometric designs. Circles of faded terra-cotta and pale yellow; mint-green and mustard confetti; white, with black half-circles and two little dots — aha. Those are boobs. You look down. Upon...…Please read our updated and , effective on December 19, 2019.This article was featured in , New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. to get it nightly.You walk beneath a white molded archway. You’ve entered a white room.A basketlike lamp hangs overhead; other lamps, globes of brass and glass, glow nearby. Before you is a couch, neatly tufted and boxy, padded with an assortment of pillows in muted geometric designs. Circles of faded terra-cotta and pale yellow; mint-green and mustard confetti; white, with black half-circles and two little dots — aha. Those are boobs. You look down. Upon...WW…