This Week’s Issue: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

Plus: the legal fight awaiting us after the election, the race to redesign sugar, and Miranda July’s “Kajillionaire.” View in browser | Update your preferences Onward and Upward with the Sciences The Elusive Peril of Space Junk Millions of human artifacts circle the Earth. Can we clean them up before they cause a disaster? By Raffi Khatchadourian The Political Scene The Legal Fight Awaiting Us After the Election The aftermath of November’s vote has the potential to make 2000 look like a mere skirmish. By Jeffrey Toobin Annals of Psychology The Public-Shaming Pandemic Around the world, people who accidentally spread the coronavirus must face both a dangerous illness and an onslaught of online condemnation. By D. T. Max Dept. of Nutrition The Race to Redesign Sugar Forget artificial sweeteners. Researchers are now developing new forms of real sugar, to deliver sweetness with fewer calories. But tricking our biology is no easy feat. By Nicola Twilley Comment The Tragedy of the West Coast Wildfires The disaster encapsulates a moment in which both science and the everyday rhythms of American life seem to be under assault. By Amy Davidson Sorkin Books Why We Keep Reinventing Abraham Lincoln From Honest Abe to Killer Lincoln, revisionist biographers have given us countless perspectives on the Civil War President. Is there a version that’s true to his time and attuned to ours? By Adam Gopnik On Television The Giddily Twisted Action of “The Boys” Like HBO’s “Watchmen,” this comic adaptation makes a point of deconstructing its own genre, but without a maverick savior. The show is outlandish, pessimistic, and brutally funny. By Doreen St. Félix The Current Cinema “Kajillionaire” Challenges Miranda July’s Aptitude for Whimsy Starring Evan Rachel Wood and Gina Rodriguez, July’s film radiates a transcendentalism of the humdrum. By Anthony Lane Humor from The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs S.O.S. “What operating system are you working on? Ask the gnome.” By Noah Baumbach Cartoons From The Issue Cartoons from the Issue Drawings and drollery from this week’s magazine. This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To insure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com. For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.