New York Magazine September 22-October 5, 2025

1 For New York’s latest cover story, Allison P. Davis profiled the once and future pop star Lizzo (“Fish Out of Water,” September 8–21) as she prepares for a comeback under the shadow of lawsuits related to her workplace environment. On Jezebel, Audra Heinrichs wrote, “Nowhere in the story does Lizzo take responsibility for the allegations, nor does she express regret for how her behavior might’ve possibly just landed poorly among those who once worked for her. What has she learned over the last year? Well, not to trust people.” Fishy1 concurred: “Nope. This is just crisis management.” Commenter Crookede felt “this profile really beautifully lays out her complexity and the challenge of being a pop star who doesn’t fit any mold. She’s immensely talented and basically became the mascot…

“LIKE WATCHING Rome burn,” one news anchor said as Donald Trump’s attack on the media industry entered a new phase. The president has never done well with criticism, constantly going after news organizations and private companies and individuals perceived to be insufficiently supportive or ingratiating. “This is the environment that we’re all operating in, and we’ve known this for a while, where, whether it’s legitimate or not, you have the government as an actor trying to control and shape coverage through a combination of means, one of which is threats,” the news anchor said. But lately those threats feel less empty: The assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has given the administration further opportunity to use its power to influence the media industry and its output—“consequence culture,” as they are…

WHAT’S THAT JANGLE you hear around town? It’s a chaotic cacophony of Labubu figurines, lip glosses, carabiners, water bottles, Pokémon cards, raccoon tails, rabbit feet, dice, tiny Eiffel Towers, Beanie Babies, and, of course, keys, all of them dangling from Prada purses, L.L.Bean backpacks, and Baggu totes. Bag-charm self-expression has hit a peak. Where once we might have wondered what was in our fellow subway riders’ carryalls, now the contents hang out in public view, grinning up at us in the form of emoji plushies and framed photos of boyfriends and K-pop stars. Fashion Week attendees carried designer bags adorned with … miniature designer bags. Elementary-school kids went back to class hauling backpacks heavy with Touchland hand sanitizers in Jibbitzadorned carrying cases made by Crocs and lip balms strapped into…

IN THE ELEVATOR of the uptown gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan, which is cramped with staff, an art handler issues a sheepish but firm warning to the art dealer Mary Boone: “There’s a Warhol behind you.” He motions everyone to move gingerly to protect the painting. British New Wave plays from a speaker in the corner, intended to transport visitors to the era of the retrospective opening here in just 48 hours: “Downtown/Uptown,” a show about the spark of the New York art scene in the ’80s, with pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ross Bleckner, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Koons, Warhol—plenty of Warhol—and more across two floors of Lévy Gorvy Dayan’s Beaux-Arts townhouse. “I seldom did installations that have so many works,” Boone says. “It’s so full. It’s over…

ELECTION DAY IS rapidly approaching, and Andrew Cuomo is losing. But the Cuomo camp still has a long-shot plan to defeat Democrat Zohran Mamdani in November. It requires several things to come together: The field must shrink, then shrink further. Then deep-pocketed donors must make a last-minute pivot to Cuomo, who will use their money to peel off part of the Democratic voter base from the front-runner. “I am not going to blow smoke. It is a narrow path,” said Cornell Belcher, a pollster for Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns who recently joined Cuomo’s campaign. “But I haven’t worked for a candidate in the past decade who didn’t have a narrow path to victory.” The polls, to be sure, are bad, showing Cuomo trailing Mamdani by an average of…

ON THE MORNING of May 7, before making his way to Capitol Hill to testify in front of Congress, Cameron Hamilton, then the acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, packed up his office. He assumed his boss, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, would fire him once she got wind of what he planned on telling lawmakers. It turned out he was right about getting fired but wrong about who would deliver the blow. Hamilton is a former Navy SEAL with a close-cropped beard and perfect posture. He is a MAGA true believer who served in the State Department during Donald Trump’s first administration and ran for Congress in Virginia with the backing of the conservative Freedom Caucus super-PAC in 2024. He lost his primary, but after…