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It was like something out of the horrors of New York City’s past. At half past seven yesterday morning, a man approached a woman sleeping on a Coney Island F train. The man proceeded to light the woman on fire, according to police, and then calmly watched her burn to death as transit police attempted to extinguish the flames.A suspect has been taken into custody. But the killing marks a gruesome milestone—11 murders in New York’s subways in 2024, the highest figure in decades. It adds to the pervasive sense of unease on many people’s daily commutes. Transit statistics show that other kinds of violent crime, too, have risen on a per-rider basis, leaving millions of New Yorkers worrying about whether they will be next.But it’s not just the subway. NYPD data that I have collected for the Manhattan Institute show that citywide, assaults are at their highest level since at least 2006. Crimes like robbery and auto theft remain significantly elevated over their levels before the pandemic. The city has witnessed a surge in young criminal offenders, and faces growing disorder, including a spike in shoplifting and an explosion of prostitution on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens.Not so long ago, New York was proof that big, progressive cities could also be safe and orderly. The city’s deep and sustained reduction in crime in the 1990s and 2000s—twice as deep and twice as long as the rest of the country—earned it the moniker “the city that became safe.” But while the city has brought a recent spike in murder under control, gruesome crime stories are once again a daily occurrence. What went wrong?The answer comes down to systematic failures that left the city’s criminal-justice system ill-equipped to deal with surging crime. Shortages of police officers, well-intentioned but harmful reforms, and comprehensive dysfunction in city hall have conspired to make it feel like America’s greatest city is spiraling back towards the bad old days.The problems start with the New York Police Department. The nation’s largest police force, the NYPD numbers some 33,000 sworn officers. But that’s down from around 36,000 in 2020. And as many as a quarter of officers are considering quitting, according to a recent study from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at CUNY.As a result, the NYPD does less than it used to. The precincts along Roosevelt Avenue, for example, once had 100 foot-patrol officers; today they have 20. The Police Benevolent Association, which represents NYPD line officers, has complained that the Transit Bureau is too understaffed to keep the subway safe—leading to incidents like Sunday’s brutal murder.But the problems go beyond the NYPD. Between 2018 and 2022, New York State implemented a series of sweeping reforms to its criminal-justice system. While these changes were well-intentioned and, in some cases, successful, loopholes and quirks have often handcuffed the system.The most well-known is New York’s bail reform, which significantly constrained the use of pretrial detention. Analysis from John Jay’s Data Collaborative for Justice has found that bail reform did not increase overall crime in the city, but likely did increase crime among repeat offenders—including high-frequency recidivists who have driven headlines about multiple rearrests in a single day.But the state also reformed its juvenile sentencing laws, leading to a sharp increase in crime among 16-year-olds, according to the New York Criminal Justice Agency. And it made aggressive changes to the process of evidentiary discovery, obliging prosecutors to turn over huge quantities of information to the defense in a shortened period of time, resulting in many cases going unprosecuted.Blame for the city’s problems, of course, lies first and foremost with the mayor. Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer, was elected on a tough-on-crime platform. But since taking office, he has become embroiled in scandals which have touched every part of his administration. That includes public safety: His former deputy mayor for public safety, Phil Banks, resigned amid a federal investigation. And the NYPD recently forced out its highest-ranking uniformed officer, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, amid allegations of sexual misconduct. (Maddrey denies the allegations.)New Yorkers should not have to live like this. Not so long ago, of course, they did. Through the 1970s and 1980s, New York was a hotbed of violence and urban decay. But smart policing and effective governance made it safe. And city residents and Americans alike should want it to be that way again.Getting there, though, means getting crime back under control. It means substantially expanding NYPD hiring, so that cops can walk the beat. And it also means careful, targeted changes to New York’s criminal-justice reforms. New York judges need to be allowed to detain people pretrial based on their risk of reoffending, as in every other state in the Union. Discovery reform’s too-onerous requirements can be relaxed, and we can make it easier to remove juveniles to adult court, without foiling the basic purpose of reform.Most importantly, though, the city needs new public safety leadership, untainted by scandal and corruption. Veterans of the force are optimistic about Jessica Tisch, the newly installed police commissioner who is widely regarded as a model of administrative efficiency. She needs to be given the latitude to clean up the department.All of these steps are necessary because New York’s crime problem is already out of hand. New York subway riders deserve better than to spend their commute wondering if they might be set on fire. And everyone who believes that American cities can, and should, be great deserves better too.

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One fall day in 1856, a family of Eastern gray squirrels in rural New York uncurled from a cozy nest in a chestnut tree, looked around, and joined half a billion other squirrels on a multi-state walkabout. Waves of fur, claws, and sharp incisors swarmed like locusts in squirrel armies that could be up to 150 miles long, “devouring on their way everything that is suited to their taste,” wrote John Bachman, a 19th-century naturalist. Walls of Sciurus carolinensis pulsing across the landscape befuddled naturalists and frustrated farmers, but these movements were a survival strategy, says John Koprowski, the dean of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming and a longtime squirrel expert. “Squirrels have an amazing sense of smell. They often find fruiting trees, trees with good crops, from miles away,” says Koprowski. “When you had continuous forests with acorns or chestnuts that are all blooming or fruiting at the same time or producing seed crops, that had to be a pretty powerful smell moving through the forest.” The strategy worked. By taking these mass rodent odysseys, squirrels settled new areas, found higher-quality munchies, and, in turn, made more squirrels. At one point, naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton estimates Eastern gray squirrels likely numbered in the billions. This is almost impossible to imagine today. But this emigration wasn’t the only odd feat of dispersal by wild animals. The now-extinct Rocky Mountain locusts once migrated across the country in waves. Passenger pigeons, also extinct, moved in flocks so thick they darkened the sky. Jackrabbits — still abundant today but more sedentary — once moved en masse, ripping through crops so severely during the Dust Bowl that people drove them into pens and killed them by the thousands. Some species, especially birds and some large mammals like deer and elk, still make pilgrimages. But many more, including the Eastern gray squirrel, have lost their ability to move long distances, lacking large connected forests and unable to navigate through industrial parks and parking lots, over six-lane interstates or subdivisions. “We don’t have millions of animals in those places anymore,” Koprowski says. “They’re giving us an early warning that these aren’t functioning the way they have historically, in the ways that animals have evolved to be using these spaces.” And that warning is becoming more dire. A 2024 United Nations Report found that 44 percent of the world’s migratory species are declining, a result of overhunting paired with habitat destruction largely due to agriculture, sprawling housing and commercial development, pollution, and, increasingly, climate change. Yet as wildlife lose the freedom to move, biologists say the ability to shift from one place to another to find food or escape threats will become even more necessary as our planet continues to change. There are still some incredible feats of migration that are hanging on. These epic tours serve as a reminder that not all is lost. Arctic hares that run ultras North of those once-abundant Eastern forests with their once-abundant Eastern squirrels, there’s another small mammal with a surprising penchant for long-distance quests: the Arctic hare. Protected by a special adaptation — a dazzling coat of thick fur that turns white in the winter and thinner and blue-gray or brownish in spring and summer to camouflage to its surroundings — the Arctic hare can survive frigid temperatures. But when the thermometer in the polar desert dips to below negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit, they begin hopping southwest — sometimes for nearly 200 miles. This marathon feat was a surprise to scientists who discovered the journeys in 2019. Previously, researchers largely believed Arctic hares were “sedentary species with little dispersal capacity.” Researchers at the University of Quebec at Rimouski knew hares could travel quickly — up to 40 miles per hour — but they wanted to see just how far they could go. They were stunned to discover that the creatures regularly traveled hundreds of miles — likely headed for warmer pastures with more abundant plants and glacial meltwater, says Ludovic Landry-Ducharme, a PhD student at the University of Quebec at Rimouski who is continuing the research. The Canadian researchers published their work in the journal Nature and underscored that climate change may well disrupt these patterns as snow comes later and spring melts come earlier, shifting where and when — and how abundantly — important plants grow. The propensity to look for good food and escape bad weather conditions is one of wildlife’s oldest adaptations and most often documented in more visible species like mule deer in the American West, wildebeest in Sub-Saharan Africa, and caribou in northern Canada. Indigenous people long knew wildlife moved with the seasons, and many followed those movements, taking advantage of the weather and trailing along with a consistent food source. But it was only more recently that researchers with modern satellite technology began to map exactly where the wildlife moved. Those results made headlines with stories of mule deer faithfully following the same 150- or even 250-mile migrations up and over mountain ranges. Many animals — from Arctic hares to mule deer — use what researchers call stopover points. These are areas along the way where species can rest, take a breather, and eat. Wyoming migration researcher Hall Sawyer once described stopovers as pit stops on a long interstate road trip. Drivers who stop for gas, a cup of coffee, and a meal make better decisions and arrive better rested than those who power through. For animals, it’s no different. Their cross-country trips can look meandering and erratic, but according to scientists, they are critical and increasingly threatened by everything from highways and fences to drought, fires, and floods worsened by climate change to energy developments, subdivisions, and agricultural fields. A newt’s year (or seven) of self-discovery Anyone who has gone for a walk through a pocket of Eastern forest has likely spotted a burnt-orange eastern newt. Next time you see one, thank it not only for its mosquito-killing capabilities but also wish it well on what amphibian researcher JJ Apodaca likens to its Rumspringa. When a newt enters its eft stage, it experiences a fundamental physiological change. The newt starts its life journey in a pond looking like an olive salamander with feathery gills and a narrow tail before it crawls out onto land, turns orange, and swaps out its gills for a set of lungs as an eft. Once on land, the newt sets out for parts unknown, spending two to even seven years meandering — sometimes for miles — on its tiny legs to what it surely considers faraway lands. After years of roaming, it returns to a pond or wetland, dives back into the water, and looks for a mate. Those eft walkabouts are a critical time to look for the best food while the juvenile newt grows and matures. And the more fragmented their habitat, the less cover they can find on leafy, forested floors and the higher the chance for a run-in with a car tire. They’re not the only amphibians that require room to roam. Instead of skittering horizontally, the green salamander looks upward for greener pastures. The salamanders climb trees for better food (and also likely to avoid becoming food). But as humans continue to chop down some trees — and pests and disease targets other trees — fewer and fewer salamanders remain. The ability to seek out new territory isn’t just critical for a species’ overall population, but will become even more important as habitat shrinks and the climate changes. In March 2018, a female Arctic fox wearing a tracking collar traveled from a research site on a Norwegian archipelago to the Canadian Ellesmere Island, paddling more than 2,700 miles from start to finish in the span of just four months. And she’s certainly not the only one. According to a study by Eva Fuglei, a Norwegian Polar Institute researcher, Arctic foxes have the ability to bridge continents, have crossed ice sheets, and have connected to distant populations — keeping their genetics spanning generations robust. But as sea ice melts, those populations will likely become isolated. The problem with animal islands Eastern gray squirrels continued their periodic decampments, fewer and fewer each year, until naturalists reported some of the last major ones in the 1960s. Humans’ desire for timber and space for parking lots and shopping centers eventually proved too much for even the most industrious squirrel, and the long emigrations eventually ended. Today, a much smaller relative population of Eastern grays live in piecemeal habitat, islands locked in by roads or development. Wildlife, even those as small as salamanders or as big as wildebeests, don’t function as well on islands as they do in connected landscapes. A 1987 paper published in the journal Nature showed that more specieswent extinct in 14 westernAmerican national parks than were naturally reestablished there. The island effect, as it’s called, shows that even if animals live in protected areas like national parks, those parks are often too small. “The effect of habitat loss and fragmentation on populations, going from intact to fragmented, is as close as we have to a golden rule in conservation,” says Matthew Kauffman, Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit leader and longtime migration researcher. “Populations will be less robust when you go from a large, intact habitat to the same habitat but fragmented, where animals can’t move.” Fortunately, in recent years, there have been promising moves to reconnect habitat, even within an increasingly fragmented landscape. Across the country, states, nonprofits, and the federal government have worked together to install wildlife crossings — over- and underpasses that provide safe passage for everything from salamanders to mountain lions from the forests of Massachusetts to the multi-lane interstates of Southern California. Apodaca’s organization, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy, recently completed work on a culvert under a highway to usher the increasingly endangered bog turtle from one side to another, giving the creature access to varied habitat it would otherwise seek by perilously waddling across the road. States like Wyoming and Colorado are using maps of deer, elk, and pronghorn migrations to tweak locations of oil and gas development or potentially even modify subdivisions. Wildlife managers also now understand the importance of those long-distance pit stops to wildlife abundance. Conservationists also praised efforts like President Biden’s plan to conserve 30 percent of the country’s land, freshwater, and ocean by 2030 as a way to maintain critical habitat and migration pathways. The future of those efforts under the incoming Trump administration, however, remains murky. Eastern North America may never again see swarms of half a billion squirrels skittering through forests en route to lush acorn crops, but for other species, researchers say, it’s not too late.

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Dear Therapist,This holiday season, I’ve been navigating some major challenges with my older sister and my boyfriend. The difficulty started last winter, when my boyfriend wanted to buy an investment property in the state where I’m from and my sister currently resides. My sister became very upset with me and my boyfriend for investing in a place where she lives. We received angry phone calls and disparaging text messages from her. We were shocked at her response. I have yet to make up with my sister as she never apologized, but I have been cordial with her when around the rest of our family.Recently, my sister told our immediate family that she was pregnant. She had previously had two miscarriages, so we were all quite excited. While my boyfriend and I were visiting home, he asked my parents if my sister had told our extended family about her pregnancy. Unfortunately, he was overheard by one of my aunts. We immediately requested that she keep mum, and my aunt never told anyone. But when my sister shared her news with the wider family, this aunt mentioned that she’d already known because she had heard my boyfriend mentioning it to my mom. This resulted in angry text messages from my sister about me “taking her thunder” for this announcement.I’ve since blocked her on text and social media, but as we head into the holiday season, I’m unsure what to do. My mom is guilting me about my boyfriend not spending the holidays with us, but he doesn’t feel comfortable around my sister.I would love your thoughts on how to deal with this situation without making it worse, while also protecting myself and my partner from unwanted hatred from my sister.Dear Reader,Feeling caught between family loyalty and your relationship with your boyfriend is a challenging position to navigate, especially during the holidays. You’re being pulled between your mother’s desire for family harmony, your sister’s emotional demands, and your boyfriend’s legitimate need for respect. This kind of triangulation is exhausting and can lead to resentment on all sides. The key is to stop trying to be the mediator and focus on transparency with all parties—and then directly communicate what kinds of requests you’re willing (or not) to meet.To help you figure out the limits you’d like to set, you’ll need to consider the family dynamics underlying the recent tension. What stands out in your letter is how quickly a series of relatively minor incidents escalated into a profound family rift. You say that this conflict “started last winter” with the real-estate investment, but such intense reactions rarely emerge out of nowhere. The vehemence of your sister’s response to an investment you and your boyfriend made suggests that she struggles with unspoken feelings, possibly around sibling envy or competition or perceived abandonment as you spend time with your boyfriend. Sometimes it’s safer to get angry indirectly—in other words, to direct your anger at someone adjacent to the person you’re actually angry with. Your sister appears to be channeling her feelings toward you into conflicts with your boyfriend, perhaps because at this point in her life, she sees your happiness while she feels unimportant, invisible, or overshadowed.I see this too in her reaction to the pregnancy announcement: She felt that you were stealing her thunder. Of course, for someone who has experienced the pain of two miscarriages, controlling the narrative around a successful pregnancy might feel like one of the few aspects she owns on an otherwise uncertain journey. Even so, your boyfriend didn’t intend for others to hear his question, and you took immediate steps to contain the information—so the fact that your sister hasn’t realized that her reaction was disproportionate to the harm and has made no attempts to apologize for her outburst indicates that deeper sibling wounds are at play.[Read: Couples therapy, but for siblings]Meanwhile, your mom is playing an unhelpful role by asking you to make things right despite the way you’ve been treated. Sometimes well-meaning parents try to alleviate sibling tension by encouraging one sibling to take what they see as the smoothest path to ending disharmony without holding the other sibling responsible for her part in creating it. The thinking goes: It’s easier to pressure the more reasonable and adaptable party to accommodate the difficult one than to address the underlying problematic behavior. Your mother might believe she’s promoting family harmony, but in reality, she’s enabling your sister’s behavior while unfairly burdening you with the responsibility for maintaining family relationships.Your boyfriend, for his part, is entering this family system as an outsider. But if your relationship with him continues to grow, he will become part of your family—and these early patterns of interaction could set the tone for years to come. Your boyfriend’s desire to avoid the holiday gatherings is understandable, but it’s worth considering the long-term implications of this decision. Complete avoidance, while providing temporary reprieve from conflict, might inadvertently cement a rift with your family and make future reconciliation more difficult.With this context in mind, let’s consider what you might do.First, with regard to your sister, I encourage you to shift your perspective from “protecting myself and my partner from unwanted hatred” to “understanding and potentially healing a wounded relationship.” This doesn’t mean enduring abuse; instead, it’s about getting to the core of what’s causing it with the hopes of eliminating it. Being “cordial when around family” and blocking communications might reduce immediate stress, but something else needs real attention. Neither you nor your sister has created space for the difficult but necessary conversation about what’s really going on here. Your sister hasn’t apologized or explained her intense reactions, and you haven’t had the opportunity to express how her behavior has affected you and your relationship with your boyfriend. This pattern of avoidance—managing surface interactions while letting the underlying tensions simmer—can lead to exactly what you’re seeing: Each new incident becomes charged with the accumulated weight of unresolved feelings. Until both you and your sister are willing to have an honest, potentially uncomfortable conversation about your relationship, these cycles of conflict will likely continue to escalate.[Read: What if you just skipped the holidays?]Consider writing your sister an email that acknowledges her feelings without accepting blame for perceived wrongs. You might say something like “I miss our relationship, and I know that you’ve been feeling hurt. I’m sorry that recent events have created such distance between us. I’m truly thrilled about your pregnancy, and I think these times of transition present an opportunity to bring people closer. I’m hoping we can find a way forward by having a conversation that feels safe and respectful for both of us, with the goal of understanding what’s bothering each of us.”If she’s willing to do this, you can start the conversation by expressing your genuine interest in repairing the relationship: “I’ve been surprised by what’s been happening between us. I want to understand more about what’s upsetting you in our relationship, and I hope you’ll try to understand how I’ve been feeling too, so we can clear the air and communicate more calmly and openly in the future.”To your mother, you might say: “Mom, I understand you want everyone together for the holidays, but right now that would create more tension than joy. I know you’d like me to fix this, but this is about something going on between me and my sister—not my boyfriend, not you—so the most helpful thing you can do is to let both of your daughters try to work this out as the adults that we are, no matter what choice gets made this holiday season and no matter what our relationship looks like going forward.”You can then talk to your boyfriend about how he envisions his relationship with your family, and what steps he feels comfortable taking now to work toward that vision. Perhaps he would feel comfortable attending part of the holiday gathering for a limited time, or participating in some family events but not others. Often, small, manageable steps toward engagement are more sustainable than either total avoidance or forced togetherness, and taking these steps would demonstrate a willingness to engage with the family while still maintaining healthy boundaries that work for him. Remind him that your goal is to support his decisions about maintaining his own limits while ensuring that your relationship with him doesn’t become collateral damage in this family conflict.Remember that you can’t control anyone’s behavior, but you can control your response to it. If your sister isn’t willing to engage respectfully, you can leave the door open: “I care about you, but I won’t accept hostile messages about me or my boyfriend. I’m happy to have a calm conversation about our relationship when you’re ready.” If your mom continues to guilt-trip you about your boyfriend, you can say, “I know it’s hard to see your daughters not getting along, but I’m done discussing this. Please don’t bring this up again.”By having these conversations directly with each party, you release yourself of the burden of being assigned to single-handedly fix a complicated family dynamic and allow yourself to focus on a more reachable and healthy goal: making clear, thoughtful decisions that are in the best interest of your relationship with both your family and your boyfriend, even if they disappoint some people in the short term.Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental-health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

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TBD

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When you see a movie or read a book that you can’t get out of your head, there’s nothing better than sharing that experience with other people. But in a fractured media landscape — with countless new releases a year and a significant portion of the entire history of human culture at our fingertips — it can be hard to find someone else obsessed with the same thing you are. We asked our newsroom: What captured your attention this year? We’ve pulled together our colleagues’ obsessions, from buzzy new movies and music, to older TV shows and books that feel as relevant as ever. We’ve rounded up the best stuff on our radars during a long, jam-packed year. Here’s everything we couldn’t stop thinking about. Lost Lost, the 2000s mystery drama serial, always seemed like a fool’s errand to me. I knew it was long-winded, sometimes unsettling, and would probably exhaust me with its circularity. When I saw it was on streaming, I tuned in out of curiosity, thinking an episode or two would be an amusing way to spend a weeknight. But I haven’t grown tired of it yet. In fact, I haven’t been so gripped by a television show in a while; one evening has turned into months of obsessive viewing. Watching the castaway characters navigate the unknown, despite its violence and ridiculousness, has been a soothing reprieve from the casual chaos of my own everyday life. On Lost, nothing makes sense, but everything kind of turns out okay even when it doesn’t (unless it really doesn’t? I’m just starting season five, don’t tell me!). (Streaming on Netflix.) —Melinda Fakuade, culture editor The Double Netflix promptly snapped up the hit Chinese drama The Double for a week-by-week release before it was even done with its original run this spring. I know because I was glued to every episode as they released on Chinese streaming platform IQIYI, which I woke up early to stream before work. This fun, fierce palace revenge drama stars the fabulous Wu Jinyan, who broke through in 2018 with the wildly popular, Vox-approved Story of Yanxi Palace. After a murder attempt at the hands of her husband, Wu Jinyan’s character adopts the identity of a friend who suffered a similarly tragic betrayal. The mysterious “Jiang Li” returns to court to enact revenge not just for herself but for her friend, piquing the interest of the incredibly suave Duke Su (newcomer Wang Xingyue in a charming, star-making turn). The Double is pulpy, addictive binge material, with a delightful slow-burn romance between the two leads. It’s also firmly feminist, forever dangling the possibility of sympathy toward its nice-guy husband turned villain, then yanking it back and redoubling its critique of toxic masculinity. (Streaming on Netflix.) —Aja Romano, senior culture writer All things Top Dawg Entertainment If VH1 still did its Best Year Ever television specials, my vote would be for Top Dawg Entertainment. The rap label has been absolutely dominating the music conversation and the charts this year. From ScHoolboy Q’s Blue Lips to Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal, the label’s signees have garnered plenty of critical acclaim. And no one can deny their marquee artist Kendrick Lamar’s influence and commercial success this year. He arguably took down hip-hop’s golden boy with diss track after diss track, topped it all off with a surprise album, and announced a stadium tour for this coming summer with his label-mate SZA. They’ll even be playing next year’s Super Bowl halftime show. Top Dawg, indeed. (Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q, Doechii, and SZA are all streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.) —Jonquilyn Hill, host of Explain It To Me Castaway Diva A teenager runs away from an abusive home to pursue her dream of becoming a pop star in Seoul but ends up stranded on an island for over a decade before being found — and then fights ageism in the music industry to become a star anyway. Castaway Diva provides lots of glorious musical numbers and soap opera-esque side plots. The premise is totally wild, but lead actor Park Eun-bin (of Extraordinary Attorney Woo) is a joy to watch, making it easy for viewers to suspend their disbelief while rooting for her character, Mok-ha. As K-dramas do, it smacks you with some serious childhood trauma up front, and it doesn’t shy away from gut-wrenching moments; at one point I realized I was crying at every episode! But amid all the pain, the show tilts toward optimism and hope, which is something I needed in 2024, and maybe you do, too. (Streaming on Netflix.)—Kim Eggleston, copy editor Everything Laurie Colwin wrote This year, I wanted an escape from the now, which manifested as reading many books — fiction and nonfiction alike — about an older, though not terribly distant, New York City. A big part of this was making my way through Laurie Colwin’s bibliography. Colwin’s career spanned from the mid-70s to the early ’90s; she experienced a mini-revival a few years ago when her novels and collections of short stories and essays were reissued. I got lost in what’s been referred to as her sneakily deep “romcomedies of manners” and her utterly delightful version of the city I’ve lived in and loved for so long. Start with Family Happiness, and go from there. (Available on Bookshop.org.) —Julia Rubin, senior editorial director, culture and features Hard Truths Mike Leigh’s film Hard Truths is maybe the most radical (and funniest) depiction of female and working-class rage I’ve seen in a long time. It’s like if Nightbitch didn’t try to convince you that motherhood is an innately satisfying experience at the end. Leigh boldly commits to the grouchiness of its lead, played by an excellent Marianne Jean-Baptiste, granting her enough dimension that she never feels like a cartoon. He doesn’t offer an easy answer as to why she can’t enjoy life, or at least pretend to, like her even-keeled relatives. While we’re often fed stories of women overcoming things and finding themselves, it’s surprisingly moving to watch a woman live in her miserable truth. (Now playing in select theaters.) —Kyndall Cunningham, culture writer The God of the Woods by Liz Moore Approximately 300 pages into The God of the Woods, a propulsive literary mystery centered on a teenager who goes missing from her summer camp, I texted the friend who had recommended it in all-caps: “NOVELS ARE SO GOOD, MAN.” Liz Moore’s latest had successfully reminded me that one of the greatest pleasures of a truly well-done piece of long-form textual fiction is that it can feel like magic, in the literal, I-have-had-a-spell-cast-upon-me type of way. Moore demonstrates a mastery of conjuring whole worlds and lives inside your head, and then shifting the perspective just slightly to let you see what was always there but hidden from view. The power and misery of wealth, the awe and darkness of the forest, the strictures and potential of being a woman, the anxiety and thrill of growing up and coming into your own; I don’t want to give anything away, I just want you to read it, and text your friends. (Available on Bookshop.org.) —Meredith Haggerty, senior culture editor Only Connect As Connections became the hottest new puzzle on the New York Times game app, I soaked myself in luxurious superiority, for I knew a secret. Connections is nothing but a flimsy simulacrum of the cult British quiz show Only Connect, a game so fiendishly complicated that it makes New York Times’s Connections look as easy as Strands (iykyk). To work out the average Only Connect category, you have to possess an esoteric combination of knowledge of advanced high mathematics, the topography of South American mountain ranges, and snooker balls, not to mention a high tolerance for truly terrible puns. Watching the contestants make their way through the categories each week under the ironical eye of host Victoria Corin is like watching Olympic athletes attempting death-defying feats — only instead of winning international fame and medals, victors walk away with nothing more than a warm congratulations from Corin. This show is as absurdly, smugly difficult as Jeopardy! on Mensa mode, and I love it with my whole heart. (Available on BBC Two in the UK, and some episodes are on YouTube.) —Constance Grady, senior correspondent Brat It was late July when Jake Tapper inquired, “Is the idea that we’re all kind of brat?” live on a CNN panel. That was just after Kamala HQ went neon green, and well after a million memes threatened overexposure. But Brat has staying power. It didn’t hurt that Charli xcx later dropped a remix album that adds even bigger beats and deeper meaning to already pitch-perfect source material. She didn’t have the biggest tour, and she certainly didn’t have the most streams, but I bet Brat is the album we’ll still be talking about in 10 years, because behind the sunglasses and the club classics is a vulnerable ode to stumbling through life while falling in love “again and again.”(Streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.) —Sean Rameswaram, host of Today, Explained “Bull Believer” by Wednesday In November 2023, I Shazam’d a song I heard playing on the speakers of my local coffee shop. A year and many streams later, I still find myself obsessed with this 2022 alt-rock single. “Bull Believer” by Wednesday is moody and gritty, soft and hard, full of distorted guitar and a vibe I can only describe as a little delirious. And at 8 minutes and 30 seconds, it feels like a journey with a beginning, middle, and an absolutely explosive and wailing end. The song has stuck to me because it’s unabashedly full of rage and despair — emotions that we tend to avoid, even at a time when there’s a lot of reasons to feel them. We all need an outlet for these feelings, and if you’re searching for a raw musical catharsis, this is just the thing. (Streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.) —Sam Delgado, Future Perfect fellow Sami Blood A look into the lives of the Sámi, the Indigenous peoples in Scandinavia, Sami Blood follows a 14-year-old girl struggling with an identity crisis as she faces Sweden’s racist attitudes toward native people. The movie stuck with me because of how little I knew about the Sámi going into it, and still how familiar the story was. It helped me better understand the universality of anti-Indigenous racism in the West and the similar oppressive tactics deployed in country after country, from discriminatory boarding schools to segregation to plain-old mocking and shaming. It’s also a really well-made and compelling film, with powerful characters that are hard to forget. (Streaming on Peacock.) —Abdallah Fayyad, policy correspondent Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Special I first saw Rachel Bloom perform “Death, Let Me Do My Special” live back in 2023. I loved it then, but something about watching the show again when it was released on Netflix this October gave me new appreciation for its jokes and themes. It’s tempting to wish for an escape to a time before Covid – as Bloom tries desperately to do over and over again in the show, only to be pulled back to the present by her grief. But something about the way she decides to disarm Death with a few jokes before confronting him head-on feels really cathartic, like a good cry or a big laugh. Fair warning: It’s highly likely you’ll do a fair amount of both as you watch. (Streaming on Netflix.) —Carla Javier, supervising producer, Explain It to Me Hacks There are few shows I love more these days than Hacks. It’s hilarious, heartwarming, fresh. I love that it focuses on the intergenerational relationship between two women, and once you get hooked on Hannah Einbinder, you can go watch her also great comedy special on HBO. I can’t wait for season four. (Streaming on Max.) —Rachel Cohen, policy correspondent My Brilliant Friend — The Story of the Lost Daughter The final season of this Italian series, like the three seasons before it, is a marvel on every level. Based on the novels by Elena Ferrante, this whole series is stunning; the filmmaking, acting, storytelling, all of it is extraordinary. At the center are two complicated, angry, unpredictable women who are so marvelously depicted you’ll feel like you know them. Plus, you’ll learn a lot about 20th-century Italian politics, and this season features some spectacular ’80s fashions. (Streaming on Max.) —Ellen Ioanes, reporter Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman America’s pantheon of sad cowboy poet crooners — a list that includes Bill Callahan, David Berman, Stephin Merritt — got a new member this year. And somehow, he’s only 25. MJ Lenderman announced himself as one of the greats with an album in September, Manning Fireworks, a collection of catchy, heart-achingly good songs with sometimes poignant, often tragicomic lyrics. I listened to “Wristwatch” and “You don’t know the shape I’m in” an embarrassing number of times already. (Streaming on Apple Music and Spotify.) —Marin Cogan, senior correspondent Rebel Ridge Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier is a pro at luring opposing parties into cage matches — one will escape and the other won’t. In Saulnier’s suffocatingly tense Green Room, that entrapment is literal; it’s legal in this year’s Netflix thriller Rebel Ridge. The film opens with Terry, a Black ex-marine played with simmering intensity by Aaron Pierre, pedaling into a small Alabama town with a backpack full of cash to post bail for a wayward cousin. He’s sent flying off his bicycle by a cop, part of the predictably crooked department that stymies Terry’s attempts to work within the town’s labyrinthine legal system. What choice does he have but to respond like John Rambo’s harassed veteran before him? The police chief (a terrifically tyrannical Don Johnson) and Terry’s verbal sparring escalates into a brutally elegant showdown, concluding a film as taut and satisfying as the First Blood it echoes. (Streaming on Netflix.) —Caity PenzeyMoog, senior copy editor Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte If you’ve ever felt angry or lonely or resentful or like the world’s hugest loser, take solace in the world of Rejection, where everyone is constantly getting fucked (except, of course, when they can’t). Incels, porn addicts, Twitter freaks, hustle bros, and desperate romantics populate Tony Tulathimutte’s sad, hilarious world in this short story collection where all the characters connect in the cringiest ways possible. Reading this book made me want to physically crawl out of my skin (complimentary). Consider it a refreshingly bleak antidote to the upcoming deluge of try-hard New Year’s resolution content. (Available on Bookshop.org.) —Rebecca Jennings, senior correspondent Shōgun My husband and I traveled to Japan in February, and afterward immersed ourselves in Shōgun. I found it to be not only culturally competent but also a faithful depiction of James Clavell’s 1975 novel. (I’m actually re-reading that now because I can’t get enough of this story!) After so much crappy TV for so long, FX’s remake was refreshing, with excellent acting and casting, pacing, and dialogue. It all hit. (Streaming on Hulu.) —Paige Vega, climate editor Movies of Hollywood’s pre-Code era In 1930, sound films became widespread in Hollywood; in 1934, Hollywood studios agreed to heavily censor their films under the Hays Code. The brief window in between is the Pre-Code Talkies Era, a rich and inventive period in which the idea of just what a movie could and should be was in flux. Unfolding during the Great Depression, movies got far bolder in what they dared to say and show, defying what we think of as Old Hollywood’s clichés. My favorites of the period include classy auteur films (Trouble in Paradise, Shanghai Express), fun trashy romps (Baby Face, Night Nurse), social critiques (Heroes for Sale, Wild Boys of the Road), and dazzling extravaganzas (42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933). If you’re interested in challenging your preconceptions for what “old movies” are like, this is the era to look at. (A list for your perusal here.) —Andrew Prokop, senior correspondent Messy Star by chokecherry I miss being a teenager just before streaming services were a thing, when that visceral, desperate pull to scavenge for illegal downloads formed my identity. With their debut EP Messy Star, Bay Area-grown band chokecherry gives me that feeling again. Their siren-esque vocals, fearlessly heavy guitars, and pop-grunge hypnosis are exactly what our inner teens need. Especially in the deflated liminal space between the election and the next administration, where it feels like all efforts to scream and fight for change amount to nothing, we need women riling up mosh pits. Chokecherry is going to take over the world. (Streaming on Apple Music and Spotify.) —Celia Ford, Future Perfect fellow Industry Few things captured my attention this year more than Industry. Living under the shadow of Succession for its first two seasons, HBO’s hot business-drama delivered a landslide season three. The copious sex, drugs, and wealth hooked me, but it was the exploration of nepotism, aristocracy, and relationships that kept me coming back. Each character is deeply flawed and equally cunning. I am still trying to understand the individual jobs within the firm, and the esoteric language they speak may require homework. But hate to watch, love to hate watch: you simply must watch Industry. (Streaming on Max) —Claire White, senior manager of network development Star Wars: Andor Andor came out in 2022 but I rewatched it this year with joy and awe. I think a lot of people who would love this show have stayed away because it’s Star Wars, even though it also never really caught on with Star Wars fans because it’s not really Star Wars. You could barely call it sci-fi; it’s basically a show about how political movements form and how one’s politics can change, from the director of Michael Clayton. Fine, if that still sounds bad to you, I get it. (Streaming on Disney+.) —Adam Freelander, supervising story editor, video “Caravan” by Van Marrison with The Band I found myself retreating into the music of the past this year, particularly live instrumental performances — and none transfixed me the way Van the Man’s appearance with The Band during Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary The Last Waltz did. Writer Nick Hornby once described Morrison’s live performances of “Caravan” like this: “In the long, vamped passage right before the climax Morrison’s band seems to isolate a moment somewhere between life and its aftermath, a big, baroque entrance hall of a place where you can stop and think about everything that has gone before.” He was referring to the showstopper on Morrison’s own live album, It’s Too Late To Stop Now, but I think it applies just as aptly to his rendition with The Band, a fusion of their Celtic and Ozark blues. Something about the connectivity and immediacy of these old live performances resonates with me in our disconnected age. I crave it. (Streaming on Spotify.) —Dylan Scott, senior correspondent 1000-lb Sisters I am not a complicated woman: I enjoy television that is charming and makes me laugh. Amy and Tammy Slaton of TLC’s 1000-lb Sisters check both of those boxes. Earlier this year, a friend introduced me to the show, which chronicles the sisters’ incredible weight loss journeys. But Amy and Tammy are more than their struggles. Frankly, they’re hilarious. Viewers are invited into their small Kentucky hometown and are eventually introduced to their three older siblings, who join Amy and Tammy in transforming their health. This season, the show’s sixth, Amy gets adventurous with cooking, adding white chocolate to her alfredo sauce; Tammy experiments with fashion and burlesque dancing. In a culture where reality TV seems less and less “real,” Amy, Tammy, and their entire family feel like a relic from the genre’s glory days: They’re loud, they fart on-camera, and they’re not at all concerned with personal branding. (Streaming on Max and TLC GO.) —Allie Volpe, senior reporter Dropout Dropout is a comedy channel offering a wide mix of content — some D&D/roleplaying stuff, but also a lot of Whose Line Is It Anyway-style improv. I got into their stuff this year after seeing some clips on TikTok and enjoyed the rapport between the recurring comedians. There are episodes where the players improvise a whole musical based on a few wacky prompts, and it’s pretty jaw-dropping to watch people so witty and quick on their feet. The channel is also a lesson on how smaller media companies can survive the era of Big Streaming. It charges $6 per month for a big collection of high-quality, regularly updated content, and as far as I know, the business is thriving. (Available on YouTube.) —Whizy Kim, senior reporter My Old Ass I went into the theater thinking My Old Ass would be a lighthearted, quirky comedy. I left determined to double down on my gratitude for the most important people in my life. Actors Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella do a fantastic job of invoking a bittersweet nostalgia while reminding us just how precious the present moment is. (Available on Amazon Prime.) —Lauren Katz, senior newsroom project manager The Later Daters The world fell in love with The Golden Bachelor, and rightfully so — watching seasoned singles find their mate was the feel-good content we didn’t know we needed, especially for those of us who might feel already disillusioned by the dating pool in our 20s and 30s. Later Daters is another take on dating for golden singles, but with, in my opinion, more nuance, heart, and personality than The Golden Bachelor. It employs more of a polished docuseries tone, chronicling the lives of several older men and women looking for love the second (or third or fourth!) time around. Michelle Obama is a producer on this show, which makes sense; it presents a poignant mix of humor and heartfelt charm that made it hard for me to turn off. (Streaming on Netflix.) —Elizabeth Price, director of grants & foundation development The joys of Pinterest In a world full of cursed algorithms, my tried-and-true social platform is Pinterest. For the past 11 years, I’ve built my homepage brick by brick. From the board “cool pools” of — you guessed it — cool pools I created in high school, to a board of dinner recipes I share with my partner so we can take the guesswork out of what to make for dinner, Pinterest is both the perfect place to ignite inspiration and a hilarious time capsule. Whatever the opposite of doomscrolling is, I’ve found it on this social platform. (Located at Pinterest.com.) —Gabby Fernandez, associate director of audience Evan Baggs Live @ Watergate Berlin This year, when Spotify Wrapped came out, my listening minutes were a fraction of previous years; I had moved to the long-forgotten SoundCloud, where my playlists have been replaced with roving DJ mixes. What I like so much about the DJ mix format is that they remind me of the mixtapes and CDs of my youth. My most-streamed mix was made in 2011 by New York/Berlin DJ and producer Evan Baggs. The synthesizers are sparse, the bass lines are minimal, the drums are somehow loose and sturdy at once, while the energy shifts from melancholic to serious to hypnotic to playful in the span of an hour. Even though it’s a decade old, it remains a great introduction to, for lack of a better phrase, what the modern “underground” house music scene has to offer. (Streaming on SoundCloud.) —Kenny Torella, Future Perfect staff writer Immortal John Triptych games Attempts to describe Joe Richardson’s indie video games often invoke Monty Python. One look at them, and it’s easy to see why: The three games included in his Immortal John Triptych — the last of which, The Death of the Reprobate, he released on Steam in November — are intricate pastiches of Renaissance art and classical music, but they are also wildly irreverent and very funny. Nothing in these point-and-click worlds is sacred, even if their soundtracks are, and Richardson’s bonkers collages make magnificent backdrops for solving satisfyingly complex puzzles. Fans of stunning visuals (did you ever imagine you’d see a masterwork move?) and self-aware humor will find each of these a high-low delight to the end. (Available on Steam.) —Keren Landman, senior health reporter All of Us Strangers (2023) This British fantasy movie set in the peripheries of London tells a story of modern loneliness that has haunted me since the frigid January night I went to see it in theaters. Andrew Scott, playing a gay screenwriter entering early middle age, channels angst in a tenor that will resonate with anyone who has ever confronted the fear of dying alone. And yet, this movie offers so much hope. It set me on an existential spiral for the following days that culminated with a reinvigorated appreciation and special gratitude for chosen family. Think of it this way: This movie can be a tear-wrenching, cathartic experience, a comforting companion to get you through at least one cold winter night.-(Streaming on Hulu.) —Christian Paz, senior politics reporter Robert Caro’s LBJ biographies I know I am not the first person to say, “Hey, did you know that Robert Caro is really good at what he does?” But Robert Caro is really, really good at what he does. I did not come into his four-part series on Lyndon B. Johnson with any interest in the subject matter. I didn’t even come into it with a particular interest in biographies. But these books read like novels and made me care deeply about LBJ and his myriad machinations. Each book is full of mini-dramas with clear stakes that all layer together to create a full and fascinating picture of how power works in politics. I found myself rooting for LBJ sometimes, rooting against him at other times, and thoroughly disgusted with him much of the time (Justice for Lady Bird!), but I was never, never bored. (Available on Bookshop.org.) —Byrd Pinkerton, senior producer

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