For actor Michael Stuhlbarg, who has played many real-life characters in his long career–including Apple’s Andy Hertzfeld in Steve Jobs and Arnold Rothstein in Boardwalk Empire–embodying a person who is not only still alive but extremely in the news was a unique experience. Under normal circumstances, Stuhlbarg embraces any opportunity to meet the person he’s about to portray on stage or screen. But in this case, meeting Richard Sackler wasn’t going to be an option: his lawyers went so far as to send Stuhlbarg’s attorneys a letter before filming began last year.

The star of the hit HBO series on power, privilege, and what's next for Shiv Roy in everyone's favorite one-percent family feud.

The wife of WeWork’s founder Adam Neumann carved out her own little space as a New Age exec—and the company’s downfall isn’t slowing her.

When I read the news last week that Bill and Melinda Gates were divorcing after 27 years of marriage, my first reaction was empathy. The pandemic has been hard on all couples, I thought, even the ones who happened to have been quarantining in a 66,000-square-foot compound with 18.75 bathrooms called Xanadu 2.0. Melinda told The New York Times in October 2020 that being stuck working from home with her husband, after years of frenetic traveling, “was a piece that I think we hadn’t really individually prepared for quite as much.” This was somewhat relatable. No matter the size of your home, there is such a thing as too much togetherness.

But then there were questions. Foremost among them: Why now?

Judge Barrett demonstrates her utter lack of courtesy and consideration by needlessly exposing various people—her own family among them—to a deadly virus at a party.

The coronavirus crisis could have been abated by a president with a modicum of competence. Here’s what I learned about politics, power, and the human spirit when my husband almost died of COVID-19.

Publicly identifying oneself as an aroused woman is having a moment. Call it the hornissance. 

Journalist and podcast host Leon Neyfakh has spent much of the last few years unpacking the last half century’s worth of American political scandal—starting in 2017 with Slate’s Slow Burn and since last year with Fiasco on the subscription-based network Luminary. During that time he’s observed that there seems to be a strange kismet unleashed each time one of his series drops. It’s almost as if the podcast itself is conjuring invisible historical forces, as past disgraces and present realities coincide with astonishing specificity.

“Blood Ties” is the latest in a growing wave of fictional podcasts featuring top-tier talent and compelling, ripped-from-the-headlines narratives, arriving at a time when podcasting advertising revenues are poised to exceed $1 billion for the first time by 2021.