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Rae Huang supporters say Nithya Raman is compromised. Raman’s base calls Huang a spoiler. Looming over it all: reality TV star Spencer Pratt.

The post The Los Angeles Left Is at War With Itself Over the Mayor’s Race appeared first on The Intercept.

Writers have problems. Writers win prizes. Writers play ping-pong, think other writers are their friends. Writers write baseball novels. Writers write war novels. Writers write about the South.

Writers make music. Writers draw. Writers take pictures of their desks. Writers should stop. When writers start a band together, nobody is happy.

Writers teach. Writers collect watches. Writers deliver mail for a year, write about delivering it. Writers have babies. Writers have agents. Writers are bald.

Writers move upstate, start literary journals. There aren’t enough journals to ignore on tables. Writers make more.

Writers can’t sell their second book. Writers can’t sell their first book. Writers quit jobs to concentrate on writing. Writers quit social media. Writers reactivate, announce new novel. Writers get mad at sexism, tell men to stop writing. Male writers ignore.

Writers go off antidepressants. Writers try to explain writing to therapists. Therapists also write. Everybody writes. Writers may be bus drivers, cab drivers, may not even be born yet. Friends say their kids write, send screenshots as proof.

Detainees told a visiting member of Congress that the attacks were “retribution for the ongoing hunger strike.”

The post ICE Pepper-Sprayed, Beat Detainees for Protesting “Horrific Conditions” in Delaney Hall Jail appeared first on The Intercept.

Last week, Rafia Zakaria won the 2026 National Magazine Award in the category of Columns and Essays. The winning piece, “Water Pressure,” was published in Issue 150 of The Believer and is available to read in full on their website. It follows Zakaria’s father on his search for clean water in Karachi, Pakistan, where the mounting climate crisis has crept into all aspects of daily life. Zakaria discussed the prize and the celebrated essay with The Believer’s managing editor, Ginger Greene.

THE BELIEVER: You won a National Magazine Award last night in New York for your essay, “Water Pressure.” What did it feel like to see this piece recognized in that way?

“This here banger should grab your attention.”

“This semi-banger should alert your attention before the second track really grabs your attention.”

“Slowwwwwww fade in.”

“Honestly, this is the only track worth listening to, but it’s the pre-digital age, and we just forced you to buy a whole album.”

“This is not the single you heard on the radio. We didn’t like that one as much, so we made it the ninth track, and we think you’ll be pleased to find we’re actually better than just the one radio hit.”

“One of our musicians is warming up.”

“How about a little HORN SECTION / CHOIR SECTION / ROBOT VOICE / ATMOSPHERIC NOISE before we get started?”

“These first five seconds will change history forever.”

“Look at us, adjusting the volume for you. Too loud? Too bad.”

Texas’s response to school shootings was as predictable as it was doomed to produce only more violence in schools — violence by cops.

The post After Uvalde, Texas Stuffed Schools Full of Cops. They Brutalized Students. appeared first on The Intercept.

Faced with the pain of grief, it’s tempting to reach for words of comfort, but Yiyun Li showed me how little they offer

- by Pia Rios

Read on Psyche

Mozart’s genius lay in writing music of such power that he could draw his audience into morally wrenching predicaments

- by Dorian Bandy

Read on Aeon

From Utah to Georgia, communities are demanding data center moratoriums as concerns move from local zoning fights into national politics.

The post The Race to Build AI Data Centers — Before the People Can Protest appeared first on The Intercept.

After widespread outrage, the University of Sydney has backed down on its threat to discipline two students over a poster for a Palestine protest used on campus.

The post Protest campaign forces Sydney Uni to drop disciplinary threats over Palestine poster first appeared on Solidarity Online.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss urging Democrats to vote against the presumptive Maine Senate nominee exposes the limits of party unity.

The post Graham Platner Is Forcing Centrist Dems to Reckon With “Vote Blue No Matter Who” appeared first on The Intercept.

KNOPF: This is a very funny, very moving book about the deepest kind of friendship. It unfolds over many decades, and the novel took shape over decades for you, too. When did you begin thinking about these characters?

DAVE EGGERS: I’ve been thinking about Cricket and Olympia for about twenty years, and was writing random passages about them much of that period. Sometimes a certain book takes an especially long time to gestate and make its correct form known, and this was one of those books.

Your life is a mess, an absolute Level 10 disaster. You’ve lost your job, and there might be pending charges after you borrowed your employer’s Hermes silk dress and Prada pumps. You’ve got no place to live after your thirteenth-floor walk-up Hell’s Kitchen sublet has decided you aren’t worth the trouble after you miss rent for the third time. But that’s beside the point. This is the perfect opportunity to change your life. So you book a trip to Tuscany even though you only have $38.62 in your bank account. It’s cool, you’re gonna Klarna it. When else are you gonna have the opportunity to go to Italy and live your best soft-girl life?

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Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

New public disclosures reveal a web of right-wing businesses being paid by Israel through Brad Parscale.

The post Ex-Trump Campaign Chief Funneled Millions of Israeli Government Money to His Longtime Allies’ Companies appeared first on The Intercept.