The New Yorker September 20, 2021

Ben Taub (“A Spy in Flight,” p. 34), a staff writer, received the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Olga Tokarczuk (Fiction, p. 60) won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her novel “The Books of Jacob,” translated, from the Polish, by Jennifer Croft, will be published in the U.S. in February. D. T. Max (“Secrets and Lies,” p. 50), a staff writer since 2010, is the author of “Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story.” Margaret Talbot (Books, p. 66) became a staff writer in 2004. Her new book, with David Talbot, is “By the Light of Burning Dreams.” Erik Agard (Puzzles & Games Dept.) co-founded the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory, a resource for aspiring puzzle-makers from underrepresented groups. Jane Mead (Poem, p. 42), who died in 2019, published six poetry collections, including “To…

THE HEAT OF THE MATTER Elizabeth Kolbert, in her piece on the I.P.C.C.’s new climate report, describes a low-emissions future—in which carbon emissions reach net zero in the next few decades and billions of tons of carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere—as “the most optimistic, though by no means the most realistic,” of the five global-warming scenarios discussed in the report (Comment, August 23rd). One might also call it “the responsible scenario,” as it is the only one that meets the Paris agreement’s commitment to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below two degrees Celsius. Scientists use scenario analysis of this kind to assess what might happen under a range of uncertainties. In the case of climate change, however, the most relevant problem at present is not a…

SEPTEMBER 15 – 21, 2021 The acclaimed English actor Cynthia Erivo has brought her stunning voice to many roles, onstage and onscreen; now she tests its full range with her début album, “Ch. 1 Vs. 1” (out Sept. 17). The project is full of soothing contemporary soul music, showing off the warmth and the depth of her tone, particularly on “Day Off” and “A Window.” On Sept. 28, Erivo expands her storytelling repertoire with the publication of her new children’s book, “Remember to Dream, Ebere.” DANCE Little Island Dance Festival Curated by the brilliant and generous tap dancer Ayodele Casel and the producer Torya Beard, this new festival on Little Island (Sept. 15-19) leans toward the percussive side of dance. Free events throughout the day, featuring the likes of the House of Xtravaganza and…

The chef Mikel de Luis—who grew up in Bilbao, Spain, and was a mentee of the many-Michelin-starred Spanish chef Martín Berasategui—was, in mid-March, 2020, ready to open Haizea, a tiny Basque- and Catalan-inflected restaurant, on a quiet street in SoHo. Luis’s plan, which also incorporated group dinners based on txokos—social cooking clubs, popular in the Basque country since the eighteen-hundreds, that traditionally comprised only men but now include women—met its match when the pandemic forced restaurants to close. In May, 2020, Luis, eager to start cooking, began offering takeout and delivery; after restrictions lifted, a month later, he built a terrace and invited some influencers in the hope of spreading the word that Haizea was, finally, open for in-person (outdoor) dining. For those walking up Sullivan Street in a pandemic daze,…

When President Joe Biden spoke, last month, about the need to end “forever wars,” he said, “I’m now the fourth American President to preside over war in Afghanistan—two Democrats and two Republicans. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth President.” But Biden is still presiding over a remnant of the war on terror, which might be called the forever trial. This is the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—the alleged mastermind of the attacks of September 11, 2001—and four other defendants, which reconvened at Guantánamo Bay last week for the first time since the pandemic began, and which has, for years, been a spectacular exercise in futility. K.S.M., as he’s known, and his co-defendants were apprehended more than eighteen years ago; the current proceedings against them formally opened…

Sitting in his Ford pickup last month, in the sagebrush-covered hills of eastern Oregon, Al Crouch heard his two-way radio beep. Eleven times. “Please stand by for a smoke report,” a voice crackled. “We got our first of the day,” Crouch said, pulling out. The dispatcher had indicated that the report came from I-84, near mile marker three hundred and twenty-two. Crouch, who is tall with a bushy mustache, is a wildland-fire investigator for the Vale District Bureau of Land Management, which covers roughly five million acres. He spent more than two decades fighting fire on the ground, trying to get in front of the flames. Now he moves in the opposite direction, toward a fire’s source, which can be a range of things. In his office is a box full…