Dave Lee

The Atlantic on the "romantasy" genre and its appeal. (Can't say I'm among its fans.)

Do your heroes weep? Do they swoon with lust? Are they really confused by their new magical powers? Then you’re already a fan of romantasy. For those still waiting to discover romantasy: It’s fantasy, with strong female protagonists and fewer boring bits—the long treks over major landforms in hard weather. Sex is plentiful, but sex is not the genre’s defining feature. You can go chapters before encountering a reference to someone’s toned body. Far more significant are feelings and friendships between the heroes: enchanted beings with relatable self-esteem issues who don’t just seek and fight but also yearn and banter as they face down enemies who aren’t only evil, but super bitchy too. Then the heroes cry and have orgasms (sometimes they orgasm first and cry after).

Those Books of Smut and Wondertheatlantic.comHow Sarah J. Maas became the queen of romantasy

The New York Times on how mathematicians feel about ChatGPT's math breakthroughs.

Not all of them were quite so remarkable. But Martin Bridson, a mathematician at Oxford and the president of the Clay Mathematics Institute, which established the coveted Millennium Prize Problems, called OpenAI’s release “breathtaking.”

“Until very recently, it would have been impossible to imagine that the frontiers of mathematics could move so far in one day,” Dr. Bridson said.

‘Breathtaking,’ ‘Devastating’: Mathematics Reels After New OpenAI Releasenytimes.comHundreds of new A.I.-generated findings moved the frontiers of higher math in a single day — dispelling any doubt that the field is forever changed.

The Atlantic on how New York governor Kathy Hochul has turned her reputation on its head.

“In conversation, Hochul sometimes speaks so softly that she can be hard to hear. But in a series of interviews this summer, she was eager to tout her success as the product of a deliberate strategy to ratchet down what she described as an ego-driven culture of confrontation in New York politics—one that pitted Democrats against one another as well as against Trump. “I didn’t need to go to war,” Hochul told me. She could, she said, generate more media coverage by first creating conflict and then beating down her opponents. But she’s chosen a different approach. “I win, but I don’t have to destroy people in the process,” she said. “Not always.”

Nonetheless, Hochul said she has taken careful note of the many former critics who have returned to her fold: “There’s a long line of people asking for forgiveness.”

Kathy Hochul’s Improbable Turnaroundtheatlantic.comThe governor of New York would like some respect.

Jonathan, you fascinating old bastard.

So why has Jonathan lived so long? An analysis of cheek scrapings has found that he is unusually blessed with good genes — not just genes that encode for good health, but genes that resist the wear and tear.

Jonathan bears dozens of genetic variants that help him combat aging by curbing inflammation, regulating insulin, and warding off cancer. But also, his genes are uncommonly good at repairing themselves, according to the research, which was published in Science Advances.

Jonathan, a 192-Year-Old Giant Tortoise, Holds Insights for Aging Welle360.yale.edu

Trump's war in Iran is costing the UK billions.

Higher borrowing costs and rising inflation are likely to have cut Healey’s fiscal room for manoeuvre from the £23.6bn forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility in March to about £12bn, according to the estimates.

Government figures say the purpose of the headroom is to act as a “contingency fund” to be drawn down in extraordinary circumstances such as the Middle East war.

Iran war blows near-£12bn hole in Britain’s public financesft.comFT estimates show inflation and soaring borrowing costs have slashed chancellor John Healey’s headroom in half

Ex-CIA man pleads guilty to concocting a fake secret program to steal "over $190 million," some of it in the form of gold bars. The Hollywood script writes itself.

Over the course of 2025, Rush used his position to fabricate a so-called special access program, which are surveillance or intelligence-gathering operations so sensitive that only a few people are read into them. Special access programs, or SAPs, require special clearance that not even the most cleared individuals in government are granted access to. According to The Washington Post, Rush constructed the compartmentalized program under the guise of a fake “continuity of government” plan, aimed at keeping the government functioning in the event of a war, natural disaster, or some other destructive catastrophe. As part of the scheme, Rush used the program and fake government contract to trick an unnamed defense contractor into buying large amounts of gold that Rush then pocketed.

CIA officer admits to creating fake top secret government program to steal over $190 million, including gold bars | TechCrunchtechcrunch.comCIA officer David Rush, who worked on highly sensitive intelligence programs, reached a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors after he was caught siphoning money and gold with a fake government contract.

How the judge thought an AI-generated video of a manslaughter victim was an acceptable thing to bring into a courtroom I'll never know. A spectacular lack of judgment all around. 404 Media:

Wales told 404 Media that her intent with the video was to sway the judge. “Isn’t that what you want human connection to be?” she said. “Do you ever come out of a movie and say: ‘Well, that was too emotional. That was too powerful. Human connection is powerful, and trying to convey that to somebody that's never known another person, this person on the earth, to convey their lifetime of 37 years down to a two-hour sentencing event is hard to do, and I think that victims and victims' families should be afforded every opportunity.”

Her AI-Generated Video Swayed the Judge. The Court Said it Carried 'Undue Emotional Weight'404media.co‘Chris’ sentiment does not change,’ said the sister who created an AI avatar of her slain brother Christopher Pelkey to speak in court.

ProPublica gathers the data on US citizens caught up in the ICE dragnet:

The Trump administration says none of this is happening.

“DHS is NOT arresting U.S. citizens by mistake.” “There are no ‘indiscriminate’ stops.” Allegations of “racial profiling are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE.” “The pattern is NOT of law enforcement using force.” “ICE does not zip tie or restrain children.”

But that is precisely what is happening, and at a far larger scale than previously reported.

We know because we have once again done what the government hasn’t:

We have tallied and cataloged every case we can find of an immigration agent holding a citizen during the current administration.

More Than 500 U.S. Citizens Have Been Detained, Including Handcuffed or Held at Gunpoint, in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown — ProPublicaprojects.propublica.orgThe government doesn’t track how often immigration officers detain U.S. citizens. So ProPublica did. We’ve found more than 500 Americans who were held against their will during this Trump administration.

ProPublica:

It began as a casual question — and a flicker of curiosity — uttered during a meeting of ProPublica journalists who this year are reporting on publicly funded private schools. We were discussing how, in many states, basically anyone can open a private school wherever they want. No experience, no training, no curriculum required.

One of our editors jumped in and asked: What if ProPublica tried to establish a private school?

We were intrigued. We are longtime education reporters, not educators. Would that matter? Where, if anywhere, do states draw the line on who is fit to run a school — and in some cases, collect public money to fund their ventures?

We decided that testing the thesis that anyone can open a school would be valuable to our ongoing reporting, particularly at a time when we have found that private schools are growing rapidly across the country — in barns, farms, co-working spaces, people’s homes and parks. These new schools are fueled by taxpayer-funded vouchers and other programs, and our reporting has revealed states have little interest in monitoring them.

We had some inspiration to draw from: In 2015, comedian John Oliver founded a tax-exempt church to show how easy it was for televangelists to avoid paying taxes while soliciting millions of dollars.

How ProPublica Reporters Became Private School Owners in 24 Hourspropublica.orgThe reporting experiment demonstrates how easy it can be to open private schools that might then access public money. No credentials or background checks required.

A terrific lede starts off this excellent New Yorker piece on the shifting demographics of “toys.”

We might call it the Great Regression. This summer, the toy industry hit a milestone: reportedly, adult-only households accounted for the majority of toy sales in the U.S., suggesting that childless grownups are rapidly becoming the main consumer base for action figures, trading cards, plushies, and other products traditionally designed for kids. Even still, when I recently visited the F.A.O. Schwarz flagship, in Rockefeller Center, I found it mildly uncomfortable to be a grown man alone in a toy store, despite my being a member of the statistically appropriate demographic. Thankfully, I was there to meet someone: Sharon Price John, a toy-industry veteran, who helped popularize the increasingly prescient term “kid-ulting” during her time as the president and C.E.O. of Build-A-Bear. We had plans to, well, build a bear.

Why Adults Are Playing with Toysnewyorker.comAfter decades of depending on customers who had to beg their parents for pocket money—and who would eventually grow up—the toy industry has found a savior in “kid-ults.”