Why the ‘Wokest’ Candidates Are the Weakest

December 28, 2019
If the fantasy that Democrats are all zealots were reality, the primary campaign would have turned out quite differently.Dec. 6, 2019Beto O'Rourke attends the 2020 Presidential Gun Safety Forum in Las Vegas in October.Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York TimesDemocrats are too “woke” for their own good, or so goes the argument.“Today’s progressivism is more…

Kamala Harris, Impeachment, Titan: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

December 28, 2019
Here’s what you need to know at the end of the day.Dec. 3, 2019(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.) Good evening. Here’s the latest.ImageCredit...Al Drago for The New York Times1. The once-cordial relationship between President Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France quickly turned cold at a celebration of NATO’s 70th…

Overlooked No More: Bessie Coleman, Pioneering African-American Aviatrix

December 26, 2019
In 1921 Coleman became the first black woman in the United States to earn a pilot’s license, then barnstormed around the country thrilling audiences and inspiring later generations.Bessie Coleman in 1923. She learned how to fly in France after no pilot in the United States would give her lessons.Credit...George Rinhart/Corbis, via Getty ImagesDec. 11, 2019Overlooked…

The Death of the Black Utopia

December 26, 2019
New York City embraced willful amnesia when landscapers working at the western edge of Central Park unearthed two coffins in August of 1871. An engraved plate on a richly appointed rosewood coffin identified the deceased as Margaret McIntay, buried two decades earlier at the age of “sixteen years, three months and fourteen days.” A more…

Bill Cosby’s Publicist Hits Back at Eddie Murphy After SNL Jab, Calls Him a ‘Hollywood Slave’

December 26, 2019
Bill Cosby‘s spokesperson released a lengthy statement criticizing comedian Eddie Murphy, calling him a “Hollywood slave” after mocking the imprisoned Cosby on Saturday Night Live during his opening monologue. In this past weekend’s highly anticipated episode, Murphy — who launched his career on the show, and hosted for the first time in 35 years —…

These 28 Women Broke Major Barriers to Become ‘Firsts’ in 2019

December 26, 2019
In a year marked by division, women everywhere pushed the world forward—and many made history, shattering long-standing glass ceilings to become “firsts” in their fields. From Zuzana Caputova, the first woman to become president of Slovakia, to Indonesian speed climber Aries Susanti Rahayu, the first woman to climb 15 meters in under 7 seconds, to…

Read Trump’s Letter to Pelosi Protesting Impeachment

December 23, 2019
published a story headlined, “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.” Less than three months after my inauguration, Representative Maxine Waters stated, “I'm going to fight every day until he's impeached.” House Democrats introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our…

‘I Have a Ph.D. in Not Having Money’

December 23, 2019
Medical school is expensive for everyone. But for low-income students, the hidden costs can be prohibitive.David Velasquez, a third-year medical student at Harvard University, said he had $4.80 left in his bank account after signing up for the MCAT test prep.Credit...Kayana Szymczak for The New York TimesPublished Nov. 25, 2019Updated Nov. 26, 2019David Velasquez learned…

Curtis Flowers Released on Bond After Supreme Court Overturns Death Penalty Conviction for Racial Bias

December 23, 2019
(LOUISVILLE, Miss.) — A Mississippi man whose murder conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court for racial bias was released from custody Monday for the first time in 22 years. Curtis Flowers walked out of the regional jail in the central town of Louisville hours after a judge set his bond at $250,000. A…

He Attended the March on Washington in 1963. Now He’ll Return to the Scene in Virtual Reality With His Great-Grandson

December 23, 2019
When the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom came to Washington, D.C., in 1963, it provided the setting for what would become Martin Luther King Jr.’s most iconic speech: “I Have a Dream.” But he was far from the only person there. In addition to a full program of speakers and singers, the day…

Letter to the Editor: Historians Critique The 1619 Project, and We Respond – The New York Times

December 22, 2019
Five historians wrote to us with their reservations. Our editor in chief replies.Published Dec. 20, 2019Updated Dec. 21, 2019The letter below will be published in the Dec. 29 issue of The New York Times Magazine. RE: The 1619 ProjectWe write as historians to express our strong reservations about important aspects of The 1619 Project. The…

Stuck in the Middle

December 21, 2019
TiesMy daughters and I defy easy labeling. It has taken me a lifetime to realize that we don’t have to declare a single racial identity.Credit...Lucy JonesI gaped at my daughter one morning a few years ago as she tried to creep, unnoticed, out the front door to her bus stop. She was 13 at the…

TIME Studios to Launch Groundbreaking Experiential Project The March at the DuSable Museum in Chicago, February 2020

December 21, 2019
(New York, NY, December 18, 2019) — TIME’s Emmy-award winning division TIME Studios will debut its groundbreaking immersive project The March as an experiential exhibit on February 28, 2020 at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, IL, the first independent African American history museum in the country. The March brings the 1963…

Thanks, Mom and Dad

December 18, 2019
In the season of gratitude, several successful people reflect on what they most appreciate learning from their parents.Debra Weiner is interviewing 100 newsmakers, thought leaders and other people who’ve made an outsize difference about the most valuable thing their parents taught them. Following are excerpts from a few of those stories, edited and condensed.The Joy…

Low-Dose Aspirin May Not Reduce Heart Risks for Black Americans, Study Finds

December 18, 2019
It’s fairly established medical science that people who have had heart attacks can take regular low doses of aspirin to significantly lower their risk of having another heart attack, or other heart problems including stroke. But it is still an open question whether or not people who haven’t had a heart event, but are at…

The December Democratic Debate Is Back on After Labor Dispute. Here’s What to Know

December 18, 2019
After days of tense negotiations, it seems the December Democratic debate will go ahead as scheduled. The last Democratic presidential primary debate of 2019 — and the last before the debates move to early voting states — will air live from the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles on Thursday at 8 p.m on PBS.…

Ruth Carter and Cynthia Erivo on Clothes, Culture and Self-Expression

December 17, 2019
Admiration SocietyTwo creative people in two different fields in one wide-ranging conversation.Ruth Carter (left) and Cynthia Erivo shot at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles Hotel at Beverly Hills on Oct. 27, 2019.Credit...Joe LeavenworthPublished Dec. 10, 2019Updated Dec. 11, 2019“This has been a long time coming!” said Ruth Carter, 59, in her Academy Award acceptance…

I Oversaw Executions. We Cannot Resume the Federal Death Penalty.

December 17, 2019
Opinion|I Oversaw Executions. We Cannot Resume the Federal Death Penalty.The system has too many flaws for the Trump administration to carry out the executions it has scheduled for Monday.By Jim PetroMr. Petro is a former Ohio attorney general. Dec. 4, 2019The Department of Justice is seeking to carry out the first federal executions in 16…

Cory Booker Jokes Biden ‘Might Have Been High’ When He Made Marijuana Comments – The New York Times

December 16, 2019
Politics|Cory Booker Jokes Biden ‘Might Have Been High’ When He Made Marijuana CommentsAt the Democratic debate, the New Jersey senator sparred with the former vice president over legalizing marijuana. Senator Cory Booker on screen during the Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta.Credit...Demetrius Freeman for The New York TimesNov. 20, 2019Senator Cory Booker, in an attempt to…

Richard G. Hatcher, Ex-Mayor of Gary, Ind., and Champion of Urban and Black Issues, Dies at 86 – The New York Times

December 16, 2019
Mr. Hatcher was one of the first two black people elected in 1967 as mayor of a large American city.Mayor Richard G. Hatcher of Gary, Ind., center, in 1979.Credit...Associated PressPublished Dec. 14, 2019Updated Dec. 15, 2019, 11:02 a.m. ETRichard G. Hatcher, one of the nation’s first big-city black mayors who in two decades leading Gary,…

Trump Has a Gift for Tearing Us Apart

December 15, 2019
There are a lot of different ways to build walls.By Thomas B. EdsallMr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality.Dec. 11, 2019Supporters at a Trump rally in Dallas in October.Credit...Jonathan Ernst/ReutersDonald Trump has done everything within his power to activate racial and ethnic animosity in this country. His main…

Inside The World of Interiors, Condé Nast’s Secret Weapon

December 15, 2019
The gold-standard shelter magazine runs on a brass-tacks budget and refuses to kowtow to the internet.Lord of the light box: Rupert Thomas, the editor in chief of The World of Interiors, at the magazine’s office in London.Credit...Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesPublished Dec. 4, 2019Updated Dec. 5, 2019LONDON — To be a magazine reader…

Mass Opioid Abuse Is ‘Destabilizing’ World’s Poorest Nations

December 15, 2019
(KAPURTHALA, India) — Reports rolled in with escalating urgency — pills seized by the truckload, pills swallowed by schoolchildren, pills in the pockets of dead terrorists. These pills, the world has been told, are safer than the OxyContins, the Vicodins, the fentanyls that have wreaked so much devastation. But now they are the root of…

11 New Books We Recommend This Week

December 14, 2019
Editors’ ChoiceReligiously speaking, I’m something of a Christian mutt — the grandson of a Congregational minister, I was raised Presbyterian and educated at an Episcopal high school before converting to Catholicism almost a decade ago. (Before I did, I told a Jesuit friend that I had doubts. “Who doesn’t?” he said.) So the spiritually minded…

9 New Books We Recommend This Week

December 14, 2019
Editors’ ChoiceThere’s a funny moment in Kevin Wilson’s new novel, “Nothing to See Here” — it’s one of two novels we recommend this week — in which a 10-year-old girl tells her new caretaker that she loves reading but had nothing good to choose from at her grandparents’ house, where she and her twin brother…

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley Says South Carolinians Saw the Confederate Flag as ‘Service’ Before Dylan Roof ‘Hijacked’ It

December 13, 2019
Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley told conservative commentator Glenn Beck Friday that white supremacist Dylan Roof “hijacked” the Confederate flag, which she said South Carolinians saw as representing “service and sacrifice and heritage.” Haley was speaking about the 2015 mass shooting at a church in Charleston, S.C., in which Roof murdered…

House Passes Bill to Restore Key Parts of Voting Rights Act

December 13, 2019
(WASHINGTON) — The Democratic-controlled House approved a bill Friday that would restore key sections of the Voting Rights Act that once required officials in all or parts of 15 mostly Southern states to receive federal approval before making changes to the voting process. The bill would amend the 1965 law to impose new obligations on…

Black Leader in South Bend Endorses Joe Biden Over Pete Buttigieg – The New York Times

December 12, 2019
Politics|Black Leader in South Bend Endorses Joe Biden Over Pete ButtigiegEmphasizing the country’s need for experienced leadership, Oliver Davis, a longtime council member in the city, has been a frequent critic of Mr. Buttigieg.Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., has struggled to receive support from black voters.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesSOUTH BEND,…

‘Broke’ Chronicles a City Out of Cash and Awash in Desperation

December 10, 2019
NonfictionAn abandoned home on Detroit’s east side, 2017.Credit...Erin Kirkland for The New York TimesWhen you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.BROKE Hardship and Resilience in a City of Broken Promises By Jodie Adams KirshnerDetroit does not have the luxury of solving one problem at a time. It has…

At Howard University, Homecoming Is a Pilgrimage

December 10, 2019
Surfacing“Coming to Howard for the first time was seeing the beauty of blackness,” one alumnus said.Written by Bianca LadipoPhotographs by Andre WagnerImageThere’s no limit to how many people can join the celebration — the campus gates never close during the weekend.Credit...Andre D. Wagner for The New York Times“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Ashley…