New York Magazine

How did it come to be a socially acceptable fact of New York life that enjoying something popular involves waiting for over an hour? There have long been serpentine lines in New York City for the sorts of experiences you can't get anywhere else: Broadway tickets, skyscraper observation decks, Cronuts. This summer's lines, though, can seem borderline ludicrous: three to a street, blocks long, often for the types of things you can get almost anywhere in the city, like bagels, pizza, and pastries. They emerged slowly over the past few years and then, like a flood, a cumulative effect of TikTok constantly showing all of us what we are missing out on in our very own boroughs. The temptation is almost too strong — why not take the train 15 minutes to figure out if that slice of pizza is as good as everyone on your “For You” page is telling you it is? “It’s herd mentality,” one young woman, nearly rolling her eyes at herself for joining the hype, told Brock Colyar at Myka, a froyo chain. Now, especially along the Brooklyn waterfront and much of downtown, people wait for an ever-diversifying assortment of viral sweet treats, all the while petting each other's dogs, gossiping, minding their toddlers, checking Slack, and scrolling their remaining time in line away. Naturally, some New Yorkers are getting persnickety about the situation. As the haters’ thinking goes: waiting in line is lemming-like tourist behavior, what you do pissily at Disney World. (At least there you can pay for a fast pass.) Others champion the line people. “I don’t like when people make fun of the people who stand around in long lines,” the downtown writer known as Sotce recently wrote on her Substack. “Some people read Substack, some people wait in a line. Some people have vintage denim and read books by dead people. And really we all die.” For our latest cover story, Brock Colyar tackles the city's overwhelming line culture — talking to the people who revile the lines, the people who revere them, and the business owners who get hate mail over them even as their livelihoods depend on them. Read it, while you inevitably wait in line yourself: nymag.visitlink.me/YOVOIg

Charlie continues to burn bridges with the rest of the cast, revealing an even darker side in the process. vulture.com/article/next-g…

The rumor in the league was that Malik Beasley was broke. Despite making $15.5 million the season before, Beasley was allegedly racking up millions in debts: to his agent, to a company that offers bridge loans to athletes, even to his barber. On December 29, the night he scored 15 points in a win over Cleveland, he told former pro Ed Davis he didn’t even have the cash to pay him a small debt. Davis, a journeyman forward who bounced from the league the year before, had several loans out to Beasley. But he had an idea of how to recoup. The resulting alleged Beasley gambling plot is the third inside-job scandal in the NBA since mobile sports gambling was made widely available in America. The other two scandals, involving Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier, are connected by the same alleged bettors named in the indictments. The Beasley case appears, at least from the outside, to be unrelated. But in all three, there have been figures like Rob Gorodetsky — hard-on-their-luck career gamblers who, through connections in Vegas, have found themselves in scandals involving NBA players allegedly willing to risk their reputations for a fraction of their salary as they racked up debts off the court. For Gorodetsky, it’s the latest flash of notoriety in a crash-and-burn career as a brash gambler and attention-getter who went from making national headlines for sports-betting boasts to serving time in prison on fraud charges, only to resurface now in the latest high-profile case to ensnare the league. Read more from Matt Stieb on the figure behind the Beasley betting scandal: nymag.visitlink.me/OQUluk

The split within the cast between Janet and Danny and Nia runs so deep that the only hope for resolution is a shake-up. vulture.com/article/the-va…

Each new Christopher Nolan film tends to be a big, newsworthy moviegoing event. Now we have ‘The Odyssey,’ perhaps the director’s biggest, most ambitious picture. Which means it’s time to update our ranking of Nolan’s oeuvre. Yes, this is something of a dangerous endeavor. Before you go any further, know this: Nolan is an exceptional filmmaker who has made many great movies. As a result, any ranking of his films is bound to wind up with at least a couple of amazing titles near the bottom; that’s the kind of problem most directors wish they could have. Our film critic Bilge Ebiri takes a look back over Nolan's career and ranks all 13 of his films: nymag.visitlink.me/DQAJfb

It’s now very clear that Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran is not going to be some temporary military adventure or a “watch and learn” demonstration of American power but a dubious exercise with no clear purpose and no definitive end in sight, writes political columnist Ed Kilgore. As the war drags on, a serious escalation is on the table and gasoline prices are spiking once again. So it seems inevitable that the conflict will affect the midterm elections, at least on the margins. And as the polls show, that’s bad news for Republicans. “To be clear, the war has never had anything like majority support,” writes Kilgore. “Usually, in the wake of the onset of hostilities, particularly if they seem to be going well for the United States (as they tend to at first), there’s a spike of rally-round-the-flag sentiment. Not this time.” Looking at Silver Bulletin’s polling averages on support for this war, it peaked at 40.5 percent on March 15. It’s now at 33.8 percent with disapproval at a near high of 58.3 percent. Up until now, Republican (and especially MAGA Republican) support for the war has kept it from becoming a complete public-opinion debacle. But that could be changing too. Kilgore breaks down new data that suggests support for the war in Trump’s base has begun to flag: nymag.visitlink.me/W8bp2V

Alix Earle and Lando Norris are rumored to have gone on dates and are ‘talking’ but not yet at the official ‘dating stage.’ thecut.com/article/alix-e…

“I got a message that all parents dread: I’d have to pick up my child from day care. Adi, my younger son, wasn’t sick or injured, but an inspector from the city was on-site and wouldn’t leave until all the children were gone,” writes Atossa Araxia Abrahamian. “Through the crying and chaos, I heard the inspector, a woman contracted by the Office of Children and Family Services, say something about the day care’s license. There was a problem with it, but it wasn’t clear what it was or how long it would take to resolve.” The trouble, Abrahamian and her fellow day care parents learned, had started as a real-estate matter. The day care’s owner, Amia, had announced the day care would open two new locations a few blocks away. There was a hitch. Before she was allowed to open the new sites, Amia had had to apply for brand-new day-care licenses. It was a byzantine process which could take up to 90 days if nothing goes wrong. And by move-in day, Amia’s licenses had yet to arrive. “The next day, three people showed up at our doorstep: Remy and Chloe, two 3-year-old girls from Adi’s classroom, and a 28-year-old caregiver, Iris,” writes Abrahamian. In the weeks that followed, ad hoc nursery schools formed across Brooklyn to accommodate the two dozen displaced children. “They were organized geographically so parents wouldn’t have to travel far for drop-offs; some would later disband or move when neighbors complained or families had had enough. Meanwhile, ours grew from four to five, five to six, then, at its peak, seven children under the age of 4 playing, eating, sleeping, and screaming in the kitchen, the living room, and the basement.” Revisit Abrahamian’s 2024 piece about how her home became an accidental day care: nymag.visitlink.me/emPPrB

Derrick and Kevin Boseman are asking that Taylor Simone Ledward be removed as adminstrator of Chadwick Boseman’s estate. They claim she has yet to pay out Chadwick’s parents’ share. vulture.com/article/chadwi…

KJ Apa and Dylan Sprouse recounted the time Cole Sprouse gave Apa a ‘wake-up punch’ about his drug use. vulture.com/article/why-co…

As market actors, AI companies are all doing something pretty similar, to similar ends, with similar needs: building models at great expense and trying to market them to users and sell them to customers, writes tech columnist John Herrman. There’s a lot of uncertainty about where their collective project is going, of course, but on a basic level, they’re all trying to get access to the same resources to climb the same curve, and to turn their models into something they can charge for. As political actors, though, they’re drifting in different directions. In the last two years, some of them have publicly aligned with the Trump administration, while others steered away. Recently, and more intentionally, they’ve been asserting themselves as political donors and lobbyists. This spending, which has been ramping up in recent months, suggests that the people running AI firms actually want considerably different things from the political system. It also suggests that some of their own employees think they’re crazy. “From within the AI world, the gulf between the political projects of the different labs feels enormous,” writes Herrman. “Soon enough, though, these differences could easily be overwhelmed: by the trajectory of the technology itself or by a public that doesn’t want to hear from any of them.” Read his full column: nymag.visitlink.me/OP2Wa-

Amy Adams can’t think about her role in ‘Sharp Objects’ for too long, or it will wreck her day. ‘It lives in my body in a devastating way,’ she said. vulture.com/article/amy-ad…

Water isn’t the only thing evaporating from the Great Salt Lake. Love has also vanished into thin air. ‘RHOSLC’ stars Angie K. and Whitney Rose are reportedly separating from their husbands. vulture.com/article/rhoslc…

This story was featured in One Great Story, our reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly: nymag.visitlink.me/SuPz1N

A string of safety violations, including alleged abuse at Columbus Circle, has flattened Bright Horizons reputation. Experts say that the chain’s business model may be the root of the dysfunction. It’s also the reason some families feel stuck there. thecut.com/article/bright…

A major project of Black American literature has been illustrating the richness of Black experiences. Stories of outlaws have been crucial to drawing out the fullness and intricacy of that picture. In the early 20th century, W.E.B. Du Bois’s sociological studies gave way to the modernism of the Harlem Renaissance, where writers like Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison crafted narratives of Black characters living out of stride with the respectable designs of political leaders. Prominent crime writers of the 1970s continued this exploration, as did writers of literary fiction like Toni Morrison and Toni Cade Bambara. Nettie Jones and Walter Mosley turned their attention toward transgressors in the 1980s and 1990s, as did the self-published scriveners of “street lit” and “urban fiction” in the aughts. Colson Whitehead’s ‘The Harlem Trilogy,’ and in particular, his final novel in the series, ‘Cool Machine,’ seem like the latest tribute to this kind of off-the-beaten-path selfwork done by people given short shrift in official histories and books that prioritize the fast and forward arrow of upward mobility, writes Niela Orr. “In place of standardized hardboiled crime fiction, with its emphasis on formula and procedure, ‘Cool Machine’ is a sophisticated meditation on Black masculinity, aging, and unsanctioned political resistance.” Read Orr’s full review of Whitehead’s latest novel: nymag.visitlink.me/O8aq90

WNBA star Sophie Cunningham tried to shut down speculation about her politics in a new ESPN interview, clarifying that she’s ‘very much in the middle,’ but she does want to ‘protect women’s sports’ from ‘biological men.’ thecut.com/article/sophie…

“I have a minimum requirement of a swimsuit: I don’t want to think about it. Once you put it on, it should stay where you left it,” writes Sarah Blakley-Cartwright. “This sounds like a low bar until you’ve experienced the opposite: the decorative and fragile bandeaus, triangle bras, and string bikinis that give way after a single dive, conceding to gravity.” Blakley-Cartwright tried many suits — but then she found it. Read more about the suit that accepts that its wearer might not just turn a page but lift a 40-pound child, climb ladders at the water park and hurtle down the 70-foot free-fall slide: nymag.visitlink.me/gc3RcA

Polls show even MAGA has soured on Trump’s Iran war. The conflict has always been unpopular, and as it drags on, public opinion is looking more and more dismal for the president. nymag.com/intelligencer/…

President Trump has had a problem in his second term: His social-media app, Truth Social, allows high-frequency traders on Wall Street to cash in when he makes announcements that move markets. But Truth Social, which makes a pittance in ad revenue, isn’t benefiting financially from Trump’s volatile missives on tariffs or the war in Iran. Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, seems to have found a solution. The ‘Financial Times’ reported that the company has been in talks with traders and investors for a new kind of first-look deal. These financial institutions would pay up to $100,000 per month to see Trump’s posts before the public. Fractions of a second matter for high-frequency traders, who can make more money if they get there first, and hedge funds would essentially be forced into paying the fee. “If you’re behind on that news, you’ll get crushed,” one hedge-fund executive told the ‘FT.’ Do not sob for the hedgies. Not only can Wall Street firms afford a six-figure monthly sub but early access could net them hundreds of thousands on major trades using the information, per CNBC. Would it be the best move for a president who has been accused of using his station to enrich himself and his family to the tune of billions? Perhaps not. Would it be the best move for the majority owner of Truth Social? Absolutely. Read more: nymag.visitlink.me/0Q6g43

‘The Odyssey’s’ Samantha Morton says she played Circe like she had met and loved Odysseus before: ‘I was inventing all sorts of magical pasts for us.’ vulture.com/article/samant…

‘Love Island USA’ season seven breakouts Nic Vansteenberghe and Olandria Carthen have broken up. The confirmation comes one year after they left the villa. vulture.com/article/nic-va…