Maraú Península: Inside the High-Stakes Fight to Control the Narrative on Ukraine

In today’s newsletter:
• How Black feminists defined abortion rights
• The mischievous humor of Hito Steyerl’s art
• Fanhood and faith in “We Need to Talk About Cosby”

Inside the High-Stakes Fight to Control the Narrative on Ukraine

As Putin searches for a false pretense to invade Ukraine, the Biden Administration has moved to release what it knows of Russia’s war plans.

Al Drago / Bloomberg / Getty

By now, more than a hundred and fifty thousand Russian soldiers have amassed near Ukraine’s borders. The decision by the Biden Administration, along with other states—the United Kingdom most of all—to release what they know of these war plans is rather unprecedented. The current U.S. strategy to quickly declassify and publicly relay intelligence about Russian intentions and deployments may not prevent a war, but it has certainly complicated and raised the costs of one. The most important measure is ultimately utilitarian: Does the U.S. strategy have a chance to affect Putin’s decision-making?

—Joshua Yaffa and Adam Entous, from “Inside the High-Stakes Fight to Control the Narrative on Ukraine”

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An illustration of a book with leggings that are running.

From the News Desk

A Black member of the Third World Women’s Alliance stands holding a sign that reads “We represent Black and third world women, the most exploited and oppressed in the human race” at the Women’s Strike for Equality in 1970.

Essay

How Black Feminists Defined Abortion Rights

As liberation movements bloomed, they offered a vision of reproductive justice that was about equality, not just “choice.”

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Illustration of a caduceus with the snakes hissing at eachother.

Annals of Medicine

The Fight Within the American Medical Association

A long-standing battle over single-payer health care highlights a profession’s political transformation.

By Clifford Marks

An illustration of a book with a knife sliced through the spine, with fallen paper shavings.

Editor’s Pick

Persons of Interest

Hito Steyerl’s Digital Visions

Her savage, mischievous works about surveillance, automation, digital platforms, and the art market have made her one of the most revered figures in the mercurial world of contemporary art.

By Merve Emre

An illustration of three books on a windowsill with an eye and a cloud appearing through the window.

Culture Dept.

Portrait of Bill Cosby sitting on a couch on stage. There is a shadow over his face.

On Television

A Crisis of Fanhood and Faith in “We Need to Talk About Cosby”

W. Kamau Bell’s Showtime series seems motivated by a feeling of guilt that we all inadvertently provided an alibi for a bully who actually despised us.

By Doreen St. Félix

Illustration of pearl necklace in an instagram post.

Rabbit Holes

Everyone Can Be Liz Taylor on Jewelry Instagram

The social-media platform turns out to be the perfect showcase for reinventing old family heirlooms.

By Alexandra Lange

Illustration for the play "The Merchant of Venice".

The Theatre

Broken Contracts in “The Merchant of Venice” and “Wolf Play”

Arin Arbus’s revisionist interpretation of the Shakespeare play and Hansol Jung’s new work at SoHo Rep both fixate on legal and theatrical fictions.

By Vinson Cunningham

Olympics Junior

Faster, Higher . . . Younger

Forget the Olympics; the real action was at the Armory track, in Washington Heights, where grade-schoolers representing countries all over the world competed for the title of world’s fastest kid.

By Dan Greene

Cover Story

In an interview about “Spring Ahead,” his cover for this week’s issue, the artist Christoph Niemann talks with the art editor, Françoise Mouly, about the impact of the seasons on his work, and the distinct challenge of dressing small children in a New York apartment: “You stand in a narrow hallway, wrestling them, one at a time, into all eight tight layers of clothing. . . . And, by the time you’re done, one of them needs to go to the bathroom, and you have to start all over again!”

An illustration of a crossword puzzle wrapped around the arms of a person.

Fun & Games Dept.

A top hat with long legs on a beige background.

Name Drop

Play Today’s Quiz

Can you guess the notable person in six clues or fewer?

By Liz Maynes-Aminzade

Person looking at their cat lying on their window bed.

Daily Shouts

Coping Strategies for When Your Pet Seems Under the Weather

Tactics include self-limiting your Google doom searches, engaging in close observation, soliciting a free tarot reading, and more.

By Teresa Burns Parkhurst

Robots and appliances are having a party beneath a banner that reads “Happy 2-22-2222.”

Daily Cartoon

Tuesday, February 22nd

By Ed Himelblau

P.S. Edward Gorey was born on this day in 1925. The writer, artist, and cat lover was famous for his works of sinister, whimsical brevity. When asked about his book tastes, he would sometimes mention mixed feelings about certain literary heavyweights. On Thomas Mann: “I dutifully read ‘The Magic Mountain’ and felt as if I had t.b. for a year afterward.” As for Henry James: “Those endless sentences. I always pick up Henry James and I think, Oooh! This is wonderful! And then I will hear a little sound. And it’s the plug being pulled. . . . And the whole thing is going down the drain like the bathwater.”