Maraú Península: Sarah McBride Wasn’t Looking for a Fight on Trans Rights

In today’s newsletter, David Remnick interviews Sarah McBride, and then:

• What you can do with an election VW bus
• The art of college football’s “cupcake game”
• Making booze from thin air

An illustrated portrait of Sarah McBride.

Sarah McBride Wasn’t Looking for a Fight on Trans Rights

The first transgender person elected to Congress discusses how to respond to a bathroom bill and transphobic attacks from other House members, including Speaker Mike Johnson.

With David Remnick

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

Editor’s Pick

The Lede

What You Can Do with an Electric Volkswagen Bus

I took the new VW ID. Buzz for a drive down memory lane. Things got bumpy.

By Jill Lepore

Louisa Thomas

The Strange Science of Scheduling a College-Football Season

Georgia’s quarterback Carson Beck running for a short gain against the Massachusetts Minutemen in Athens, Georgia, on November 23rd.

“Cupcake games” are a critical part of the sport’s ecosystem—but why? Louisa Thomas explores why some programs pay big for easy wins, and others are happy to take the money. Read the column »

The Sporting Scene publishes every Sunday.

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Culture Dept.

This Week in Fiction

David Szalay on the Inarticulacy of Experience

The author discusses his story “Plaster.”

By Dennis Zhou

A hand holding a cigarette in an abstract, geometrical environment.

Fiction

“Plaster”

The things that left him feeling that nothing would ever be the same again—they just aren’t important here.

By David Szalay

Gregory Constantine & Stafford Sheehan holding a box.

Dept. of Fractionating

How to Make Fuel (or Booze) from Thin Air

Air Company, a startup that has used water and carbon dioxide to make vodka and to power automobiles, taste-tests its product and discusses getting Elon Musk’s business.

By Adam Iscoe

A top hat with long legs on a beige background.

Name Drop: Can you guess the identity of a notable person—contemporary or historical—in six clues? Play our trivia game »

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

Fun & Games Dept.

A man turning his palm to a woman in bed with him.

Shouts & Murmurs

Protest or Principle: Withholding Sex from My Wife

I vow to go without sex to prove that I am in support of what my wife is in support of, politically, and also in terms of not wanting to have sex with me that much.

By John Kenney

P.S. Happy December! To get in a wintery mood, revisit David Sedaris’s recollection of being locked out of his home with his siblings during a snow storm, after his mother had had enough. “It happened, surely,” Sedaris writes. “Selfish mothers wanted the house to themselves and their children were discovered years later, frozen like mastodons in blocks of ice.” 🥶