In Brigitte Bardot’s death, I see the passing of a generation: the Frenchwomen who tried to find a path to autonomy in the 1950s and ’60s. One of the last things Ms. Bardot did was write a book, published this year in French, an abecedarium titled “Mon BBcédaire.” The book, a not very chic compendium of thoughts scrawled in her own handwriting, received a tepid reaction from the French press, which was mostly disappointed by her portrayal of France. (“F is for … France, dear country of my youth! She has grown dull, sad, submissive, ailing — damaged, ravaged, banal, vulgar.”)
Young Brigitte Bardot, the actress, was a vessel for the imagination. Her sun-drenched, instinctual sexuality onscreen thrilled France, and then the whole world. She seemed to be without artifice, feral and physical. Men projected onto her, but she could not be possessed. She was the very idea of postwar Frenchwomen: provocative, apparently in control. They liked men, and were convinced that they could manipulate them to their whims.
As a girl, Ms. Bardot left her strict, bourgeois, Catholic industrialist family for the life of a bohemian; at 39, she gave up being a film actress and retreated from the public’s adulation (and later foreclosed any potential return to it). She pursued animal liberation with intensity. “Animals saved me,” she once said. “Without them, I would have committed suicide.”
As her life progressed, Ms. Bardot provoked in new, often bigoted ways. She tarnished her legacy with her frequent racist, Islamophobic, homophobic, and anti-trans comments and by mocking the #MeToo movement. I grew up around strong Frenchwomen of Ms. Bardot’s type, beautiful and independent, yes, but often cutting and cruel. They said horrendous, retrograde things with a mischievous twinkle in their eye.
I admit I loved those women, even as I strongly disagreed with their beliefs. They were not sweet; they were formidable. My grandmother lived alone on a houseboat on the Seine after divorcing my grandfather in the early 1970s. She gave me advice about men: “You must keep them like a pretty puppy on a leash, nice to show off but never to be taken seriously.” And to my surprise, she was completely accepting when I told her I dated women. She told me that she, too, had been in love with a woman once — a famous tennis player who drove a racecar, owned a pet cheetah, and looked a bit like my grandfather. She would never date a woman again, she said. It was far too painful.
Brigitte Bard
t died on Sunday. Let her memorialize herself in her own words.
Reading them, I laugh, often despite myself.
A comme ABANDON (A IS FOR ABANDON)
Absolute distress.
D comme Désir (D is for desire)
An erotic compulsion for another, which can go as far as murder!
E comme Enfer (E is for hell)
It exists on Earth.
F comme Fumer (F is for smoking)
It’s marvelous! It’s forbidden! Everything that does us good is forbidden. I’m sick of it!
I love smoking, I’ve always smoked, and I always will. I like to defy the forbidden; it is my passion!
G comme Grossesse (G is for pregnancy)
A degrading punishment imposed on women’s bodies after they have given themselves to the love of a man … it transforms the lover into a disfigured progenitor who no longer inspires mad desire. It is the beginning of the deterioration of a couple’s relationship.
H comme Hepburn, Audrey (H is for Audrey Hepburn)
Mythical actress from the ’50s, very chic and proper, a model for all American girls. Full of charm and jewelry but with zero sex appeal.
That last part, at least, was not Ms. Bardot’s problem. Nor my grandmother’s. My grandmother is still alive, at 95, and I love her still. These women, of a passing generation, expected nothing from anyone, and gave little grace in return. I wish they had known how to be gentler — with the world, and with themselves.
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Brigitte Bardot in 1962. Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The holiday season is often painted as an idyllic vision of rest, conjuring images of warm beverages and bountiful time with loved ones. But many people have trouble unwinding at this time of year. Why do the December holidays offer the promise of respite but never seem to deliver? And is more restorative rest possible during this busy season?
I am a psychologist who studies how rest supports learning, creativity, and well-being. Sleep is often the first thing that many people associate with rest, but humans also require restorative downtime when awake. These active rest periods include physical, social, and creative experiences that can occur throughout the day – not just while mindlessly scrolling on the couch.
When holiday stresses begin to snowball, rest periods replenish depleted psychological resources, reduce stress, and promote well-being. But reaping the full benefits of rest and leisure requires more than a slow morning or a mug of hot cocoa. It’s also about intentionally scheduling active recovery periods that energize us and leave us feeling restored.
That’s because good rest needs to be anticipated, planned, and refined.
Holiday stress
The winter holiday season can take a toll on well-being. Financial stress increases, and daily routines are disrupted. Add the stress of travel, plus a dash of challenging family dynamics, and it’s not surprising that emotional well-being declines during the holiday season.
Quality rest and leisure periods can buffer these stressors, promoting recovery and well-being. They also can help reduce psychological strain and prolong positive emotions as people return to work.
Effective rest comes in many forms, from going outdoors for a walk to socializing, listening to music or engaging in creative hobbies. These activities may feel like distractions, but they serve important mental health functions.
For instance, research finds that walking in nature results in diminished activation in the area of the brain associated with sadness and ruminating thoughts. Walks in nature are also associated with reduced anxiety and stress.
Other studies have shown that activities such as playing the piano or doing calligraphy significantly lower cortisol, a stress hormone. In fact, some of the most promising interventions for depression involve participation in pleasant leisure activities.
Not all idle time is restorative
So why does it feel so hard to get good rest during the holidays?
One of the most robust findings from psychologists and researchers who study leisure is that the effectiveness of rest periods depends on how satisfying they feel to the individual. This might sound obvious, but people often spend their free time doing things that are not satisfying.
For example, a famous 2002 study of how people spent their time found that the most popular form of leisure was watching television. But participants also rated TV time as their least enjoyable activity. Those who watched more than four hours of TV a day rated it as even less enjoyable than those who watched less than two hours a day.
A few years ago, my colleagues and I collected data from college students and found that students reported turning to mindless distractions, such as social media, at the end of the day, but that it usually did not leave them feeling reenergized or restored. Although this study was specifically about college students, when I presented the findings to the larger research team, one of my collaborators said, “It really makes you think about yourself, doesn’t it?” There were silent nods around the room.
Planning for good rest
To combat the pitfall of poor rest cycles, science suggests planning for active rest and pleasant activities, and carrying through with those plans. A large body of research shows that designing, scheduling, and engaging in enjoyable activities is effective at lowering symptoms of depressionand anxiety.
Twelve years ago, when my daughter was born, my parents were there in the hospital room with me to welcome her. My mother cut the cord, and my father announced, “It’s a girl!” The three of us exclaimed over her incredible size — over 9 pounds — and off-the-charts length — 23 astounding inches. It was everything I’d been dreaming of since I’d first set out to become a single mother by choice.
But not too far away, waiting patiently by the phone for news, was another person, my sometimes-live-in girlfriend, Sarah.
She wasn’t at the birth because I hadn’t invited her to be. In fact, I had expressly told her that she was not invited. I didn’t even want her waiting at home for us. I had embarked on my path toward motherhood on my own, and I was determined to see it through that way, even if the solitude of the journey had become something I had to enforce.
My girlfriend and I had first dated in college, and had spent those years of our early 20s madly in love. But our relationship had ended when she broke my heart by refusing to come with me when I headed off to the West Coast for graduate school. We’d stayed in touch for a while, and then she’d stopped answering my calls. I cried into my whiskey and referred to her among my new friends as “the one who got away.”
I spent the next seven years in and out of disastrous relationships with men who were mostly all wrong for me, commitment-phobic bad boys who couldn’t have been further from wanting what I did: a child. I was approaching 30 and desperate to settle down and start a family. One day, I asked my mother why it was taking so long to find someone who wanted to make a life with me.
“Maybe you’re not someone who’s meant to have just one great love. Maybe your great loves will be many,” she said. This from a woman who’d been married to the same man for nearly 40 years.
But if this was true, I reasoned, then why not have a child on my own right now? I could always fall in love at 50, but I couldn’t have a baby at that age. The more time I spent making the case to everyone around me, the more attached I became to the vision of myself as a single mother by choice. Why would anyone do this with a partner, I thought, when it’s so much less complicated to do it on your own?
So I asked an old ex-boyfriend — smart, attractive, and completely off the rails — if he’d be the donor. He breezily said yes, and I began to make plans to draw up paperwork with a lawyer. And that’s when Sarah stepped back into my life.
First she sent me an email on New Year’s Eve, wishing me an early happy birthday and asking if we could talk on the phone sometime. I was furious. Who did she think she was to show up in my life now, crashing my pre-baby bliss and being a downer on both New Year’s and my birthday? I said sure, she could call me — but she better have a good reason for it.
I wasn’t going to let another relationship head off my dreams of starting a family.
As it turned out, she did: She had cut off contact all those years before because she hadn’t been able to get over our romance. And that’s why she was back in touch now. We still lived on opposite sides of the country, and neither of us had jobs we were ready to walk away from, but how could I say no to the most romantic proposal of my life? She wanted me back.
After that, we spent hours on the phone each day, relearning each other with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. We knew that we belonged together, but “together” was a complicated prospect. At first, she seemed understanding about my continued determination to become a single mother by choice. I made it clear that any relationship with her wasn’t going to change that for me, and she said she wouldn’t mind dating a pregnant lady. In these conversations, we chose to ignore the obvious fact that pregnancy only lasts nine months.
As the weeks passed, she began to ask for me to postpone the paperwork, to wait until our relationship had had more time so that we could embark on this journey of parenthood together, as partners, and without the conspicuous intrusion of my ex-boyfriend’s sperm. But I felt I’d waited long enough. I wasn’t going to let another relationship head off my dreams of starting a family.
Not surprisingly, like so many things having to do with getting pregnant, this was entirely out of my control. Days before Sarah’s first visit to spend a weekend with me at my place in San Francisco, I went to the emergency room for a burst appendix. I had surgery and was officially out of commission for several weeks as I recovered.
By that time, I’d accepted a one-year teaching position in Pennsylvania, only an eight-hour drive from her home in Boston, and I decided it was no longer convenient to use the West Coast ex-boyfriend’s sperm. I spent the next few months moving cross-country, researching clinics, picking an anonymous donor, and downing prenatal vitamins. Then I gave myself a shot of hormones and drove my Subaru to the insemination. I was doing this on my own, just like I’d promised myself.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend and I had come a long way on our path back to partnership. And, up until the morning sickness kicked in, I continued to give her every indication that we were walking it together. Then came months of physical and emotional agony, our lives moving forward against the backdrop of my severe nausea and vomiting, with a propulsion that felt out of my control. I took a permanent job in a small college town in Alabama. She found a new job in Atlanta and followed me south. We bought the house that I lived in mostly without her, and she rented an apartment in the city for herself. My family was thousands of miles away, and I knew no one in my new hometown. On weekends, she’d drive the two hours from Atlanta to buy my groceries and listen from the other room while I threw up. I couldn’t have gotten through it alone, but at the time, alone was exactly what I wanted to be.
While she was doing everything she could to make our dreams come true, I had turned inward. I stopped talking about our future together and started thinking about my own. My all-day, eight-month morning sickness was exacerbated by smell and touch, and I couldn’t stand for her to be near me. The only person I could imagine sharing a space with was the baby, and my tunnel vision of life as a single mom narrowed again.
But though my vision for the future felt like it was gaining new focus, everyone around me seemed to grow more confused. Sarah’s parents called with well-wishes and inquiries about baby gifts, which I accepted with a mixture of scorn and appreciation. Not surprisingly, my new co-workers didn’t understand the situation either, clearly longing to turn our story into one of a happy, little queer nuclear family — something I vehemently objected to, even as Sarah rubbed my swollen feet. It’s a stretch to say that anyone was convinced by the explanation I gave — we’re dating, and I’m having a baby on my own — but I stuck to it. At the baby shower my new friends threw for me, I gleefully unwrapped a baby book and declared, “I hope this one doesn’t have a family tree in it because our family tree only has one side!” My girlfriend sat an armchair away.
A prominent New York dance company on Monday said it was canceling its performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in protest of the center’s being renamed to include President Trump.
The decision by Doug Varone and Dancers is the latest by artists who have canceled appearances at one of the nation’s pre-eminent arts centers this month. An earlier set of withdrawals and resignations took place in February after the president pushed out members of the board of directors and replaced them with his supporters.
On Monday, the Kennedy Center’s website also said that two scheduled New Year’s Eve performances by the Cookers, a jazz ensemble, had been canceled. The center had previously promoted the performances as an “all-star jazz septet that will ignite the Terrace Theater stage with fire and soul.”
The reason for those cancellations was not immediately clear. They came after the jazz musician Chuck Redd canceled his annual free Christmas Eve concert at the center.
Doug Varone and Dancers said it was withdrawing from a two-night stand in April that had been intended to celebrate the company’s 40th anniversary. Varone, the head of the company, said it would lose $40,000 by pulling out.
“It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating,” he said in an email.
The artists who have protested in recent weeks include Kristy Lee, a folk singer from Alabama, who announced she was pulling out from a free concert on Jan. 14. “I won’t lie to you, canceling shows hurts,” she said in a social media post. “This is how I keep the lights on. But losing my integrity would cost me more than any paycheck.”
The center has responded aggressively to some of the cancellations. Richard Grenell, the chairman of the center, threatened a $1 million lawsuit against Mr. Redd after he canceled the Christmas Eve concert.
The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday about the artist withdrawals. In his letter to Mr. Redd, Mr. Grenell said, “Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance.”
The cancellations underscore the difficulties that Mr. Grenell and Mr. Trump have faced in trying to remake the center in the president’s name. Those who canceled performances or resigned advisory roles in February included the Pulitzer winner Rhiannon Giddens, the so
prano Renée Fleming and the singer-songwriter Ben Folds.
The president recently hosted the Kennedy Center Honors, which featured a roster of handpicked artists including Gloria Gaynor and Sylvester Stallone, and was televised on CBS last week.
Doug Varone and Dancers were scheduled to appear at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater on April 24 and April 25. Mr. Varone said the group had agreed to appear to honor two of the center’s top dance administrators — Jane Raleigh and Alicia Adams — both of whom have since left the institution.
“We can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution,” he said.
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The head of Doug Varone and Dancers called the decision to cancel two performances at the Kennedy Center “financially devastating but morally exhilarating. ”Credit…Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Deep down in the Arctic Ocean, life becomes bizarre. One might suppose that at its greatest depths, the icy, dark water would be inhospitable to much, but a new discovery reminds us that that is far from the case.
Off the coast of Greenland, the deep seafloor is littered with towering mounds made of crystallized methane and other gases. Known as the Freya hydrate mounds, these structures act like a “frozen reef,” a haven for creatures that have evolved to live in environments unlike any other on Earth.
In a new paper published in Nature Communications, scientists document the deepest ever found of these mounds, at 3,640 meters—or some 2.26 miles—below the surface. The discovery was made as part of the Ocean Census Arctic Deep–EXTREME24 expedition to explore and research the Arctic environment and document ocean life using tools such as underwater robots.
Incredibly, the mounds, which are also known as gas hydrate cold seeps, release methane gas flares some 3,300 meters up into the water—the tallest such flares ever recorded. Over time, the mounds collapse and reform, a dynamic process that the researchers say gives insights into the Arctic’s various ecosystems.
“These are not static deposits,” Giuliana Panieri, a study co-author and a professor at the Arctic University of Norway, said in a statement about the new research. “They are living geological features, responding to tectonics, deep heat flow, and environmental change.”
Gathered at the mounds are chemosynthetic creatures—life that has evolved to depend not on sun-powered photosynthesis for food but on chemical reactions instead. Some of the creatures seen at the Freya mounds are also found at hydrothermal vents, or fissures in the seafloor through which hot, chemical-laden water erupts, the researchers said, suggesting these ecosystems may be more intertwined than previously thought.
“The links that we have found between life at this seep and hydrothermal vents in the Arctic indicate that these island-like habitats on the ocean floor will need to be protected from any future impacts of deep-sea mining in the region,” said Jon Copley, a study co-author and a professor at the University of Southampton in England, in the same statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was in no hurry for peace, and if it did not want to resolve their conflict peacefully, Moscow would accomplish all its goals by force.
Putin’s remarks on Saturday, carried by state news agency TASS, followed a vast Russian drone and missile attack that prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to say Russia was demonstrating its wish to continue the war while Kyiv wanted peace.
Zelenskiy is to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday to seek a resolution to the war Putin launched nearly four years ago with a full-scale invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Putin’s remarks.
Russian commanders told Putin during an inspection visit that Moscow’s forces had captured the towns of Myrnohrad, Rodynske and Artemivka in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, as well as Huliaipole and Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Kremlin said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s military rejected Russia’s assertions about Huliaipole and Myrnohrad as false statements. The situation in both places remains “difficult”, but “defensive operations” by Ukrainian troops are ongoing, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a statement on social media.
The Southern Command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Telegram that “fierce fighting” continued in Huliaipole. “However, a substantial part of Huliaipole continues to be held by the Defence Forces of Ukraine.”
Verifying battlefield claims is difficult as access on both sides is restricted, information is tightly controlled, and front lines shift quickly, with media relying on satellite and geolocated footage that can be partial or delayed.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends his annual end-of-year press conference and phone-in in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 19, 2025. Alexander Kazakov | Via Reuters
From the rubble and the ruin, the torture and the terror, the dust and the debris, something is stirring in the Middle East, a spirit that says no to endless cycles of violence and values a future for the region’s children above past feuds.
This sentiment is tenuous, contested, and vulnerable. But with more than a half-million killed in Syria’s 13-year civil war and 70,000 Palestinians killed in the two-year Gaza war, alongside close to 2,000 Israelis, exhaustion is widespread. Shun retribution, murmur the war-weary, and think again.
“There is no other solution but finding a solution,” said Hassan Smadi, 48, a hospital worker in the battered southern Syrian town of Busra. He lost a younger brother, killed in the relentless bombing by Bashar al-Assad, the dictator ousted last year; his family fled to Jordan. “We are tired of war and bored of war, and want only to live peacefully.”
A sign close to where Mr. Smadi stood, installed recently by the local authorities outside a remarkably preserved Roman amphitheater, says, “On this earth, there exists that which deserves life,” a line from the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
If there is a refrain heard across war-shattered Syria, where even the gray-green wilting trees look shellshocked, it is, “We just want to live.”
If there is an ambition in Saudi Arabia, it is to become a major power representing a modern Islam, open and technologically advanced, far from any aggressive Pan-Arab ideology.
If there is a buzzword among the Sunni Gulf monarchies, once driven to paroxysms of fear and rage by the Shiite mullahs of Iran, it is “pragmatism.”
Still, the region remains combustible. The United States responded to the killing of two U.S. soldiers and an American interpreter this month by hitting the Islamic State in Syria with punishing airstrikes that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called “a declaration of vengeance.”
The strikes came soon after the Trump administration said in its National Security Strategy that the region was “emerging as a place of partnership, friendship and investment,” adding that the days when “the Middle East dominated American foreign policy” were “thankfully over.”
Such optimism, based in large part on the Gaza peace agreement signed in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, on Oct. 13, looks overblown, much like President Trump’s claim that day that it took 3,000 years to reach a breakthrough of this kind.
Not everything has been solved overnight by a presidential signature.
In Syria, sectarianism competes with a desire for unity, and violence flares. War festers in Yemen. In Iran, the regime is weak, but its determination to destroy the state of Israel is undimmed. Israeli settlers claw land away from Palestinians in the West Bank, backed by an extreme right-wing Israeli government.
Already, the Gaza accord looks frayed. Israel and Hamas skirmish for advantage. Everything about the peace plan’s next phase — the planned international stabilization force, disarming Hamas, an Israeli withdrawal, and the role of the Palestinian Authority — appears contentious.
Sequencing, or what concessions from which side come first, is the new battleground.
Even so, very few want a return to war. During repeated visits over several months across the region, hope alternated with horror. What was perhaps most striking was a quiet resolve among many people to side with promise over despair and destruction.
“The Gaza war violated the basic Israeli principle of fighting short wars,” said Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli author and historian. “There is complete exhaustion in Israel; the military is exhausted, and there’s been entirely too much reserve duty. These factors weigh against renewed fighting.”
Weight-loss pills that harness the same mechanism as the wildly popular drugs Wegovy and Ozempic are coming to the U.S.
On Monday, Novo Nordisk announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its oral glucagonlike peptide 1 (GLP-1) medication for weight loss and obesity in adults.
It’s a milestone for the industry, which has struggled to make effective pill versions of the weight-loss injections for years. Most people are more comfortable taking a pill than regularly injecting themselves, says Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist at the University of Toronto, who previously consulted for Novo Nordisk. “It’s just good to have more options for people,” he says. At the same time, the pills could greatly improve access to the medication by lowering costs—the injections can cost hundreds of dollars per month out of pocket.
“Pills are also easier to transport and produce,” says Rozalina McCoy, an endocrinologist and internist at the University of Maryland, adding that she hopes the new FDA approval will increase access to the drugs.
Prior to that approval, Novo Nordisk, which also makes the injectable semaglutide drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, had seen promising results from its trials of the weight-loss pill, which will also be sold under the brand name Wegovy. In the company’s latest phase 3 clinical trial, the highest dose of the pill resulted in a 16.6 percent weight loss at 64 weeks compared with a 2.7 percent loss among those who took a placebo. For comparison, trials of 2.4 milligrams of Wegovy injections showed up to 17.4 percent weight reduction. (The injection and pill were not compared in a head-to-head trial.)
GLP-1 drugs have transformed the weight-loss industry and revolutionized the treatment of metabolic disease. But until now, they have largely been available in the U.S. only as injections. Novo Nordisk’s pill for type 2 diabetes, Rybelsus, was approved by the FDA in 2019. But oral versions of these drugs haven’t taken off in the same way as the injectables, despite even early data showing weight loss and health benefits to be relatively comparable.
The Wegovy pill, taken once a day, works similarly to the weekly injections—mimicking the activity of a gut hormone that slows down the speed at which people’s stomach empties and that makes them feel fuller. People who take the pills tend to eat less overall. The side effects are pretty similar to those of injections of the drug, and they can include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.
The pills must also be taken on an empty stomach to work effectively.
“Nothing else can be taken by mouth for at least 30 minutes to allow the medication to be absorbed into the bloodstream,” says John Buse, an endocrinologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is a consultant and investigator for Novo Nordisk. “If patients take the medication with other medications, food or even more water or coffee, the effectiveness is dramatically reduced.”
The pill will be available in U.S. pharmacies and select telehealth providers in early January, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson told Scientific American. The starting dose of 1.5 mg is anticipated to cost $149 per month out of pocket but could be lower, depending on a person’s insurance.
Importantly, Novo Nordisk’s latest clinical trial success was based on the maximum daily dose of 25 mg, McCoy says. Unlike the injectables, which enter the bloodstream directly, the pills are broken down in the stomach, which means “the oral doses have to be much, much higher” than the Wegovy injections, which cap at 2.4 mg, McCoy explains.
“I expect that the effective doses of oral Wegovy will be much more expensive than the advertised $149, unfortunately. But I would love to see this medication be more affordable,” she says.
A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk told Scientific American that prices for higher doses will be shared in the new year. “We believe this is the most affordable self-pay price to date for a GLP-1 for weight loss,” the spokesperson said.
Other companies are working on their own weight-loss pills: Eli Lilly, which makes Zepbound, is developing a GLP-1 pill, orforglipron, for weight loss and type 2 diabetes, with FDA approval anticipated for March 2026. More pill options—combined with other effective versions of these drugs in the pipeline—will open up the market and hopefully drive prices down, Drucker says.
“I think we’re going to go in the next like 12 to 18 months from these two main [injection] options from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to half a dozen options in this class of medicines,” Drucker says. “That’s only going to be good for people. They’ll have more choice.”
On December 3, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater opened its 2025–26 holiday season at New York City Center with a gala that marked a turning point for the company. The five-week engagement—running through January 4—signals the first full season under Artistic Director Alicia Graf Mack, and a moment where the heralded repertory leans into what audiences expect from Ailey, while expanding its vision for the next generation.
Graf Mack, the 46-year-old mother of two, stepped into her current position with a certain level of familiarity. She danced with the company for years, an experience that informed her approach as an artistic director. In respecting her predecessors, she feels that this endeavor is a responsibility, not simply her duty.
“I am fully aware of what this role carries,” she says. “I worked under Judith Jamison, who was my idol from the time I was little. I saw how she led. I also worked under Robert Battle and saw how he did things. I don’t take any of that lightly. But in order to do the work that needs to be done, I can’t stay frozen in the magnitude of it. I have to stay grounded. I have to be guided by what I know good dance to be, and how to create an environment where dancers can thrive.”
Among the season’s highlights is “Revelations,” which was performed with live music for six shows during opening weekend and the gala. The season also features Jamison’s “A Case of You” in a new production, alongside company premieres and five world premieres by choreographers Maija García, Fredrick Earl Mosley, Matthew Neenan, Jamar Roberts, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in collaboration with Samantha Figgins and Chalvar Monteiro.
Alongside Matthew Rushing, Graf Mack was able to program this season with a bit more leeway than in previous years, something that really intrigued her. “I’m interested in what audiences can feel when dancers are given time,” she says. “We had an extended rehearsal period this year, which isn’t always possible for Ailey. Being in the studio with the dancers—teaching, coaching, watching how they move together—that matters. I think people will notice a shift in energy. It feels fresh in the room.”
Ironically, Graf Mack’s path to leadership was an unlikely one. She grew up knowing she wanted to dance, but running an institution? That was another story. When performing full-time became unsustainable, she turned toward education, earning a master’s degree in nonprofit management and teaching at several universities before landing at Juilliard, where she eventually became dean and director of dance.
“That’s where I really learned what [this job] requires,” she says. “It’s not a title. It’s how you show up every day. How you listen. How you lift people. How you manage the artistic alongside the administrative. Dance companies today need leaders who understand both. You can’t separate creative vision from fundraising, from marketing, from long-term sustainability. They all feed each other.”
As Artistic Director of Ailey, Graf Mack remains interested in how the company can expand its reach without losing its identity. Technology, partnerships, and new platforms are part of that conversation, but always in service of the work. “Alvin Ailey leaned into humanity,” she says. “That’s the through line. The world has changed since his time. The way we reach people has changed. But the responsibility stays the same. We’re here to move people. To tell stories others can’t tell. To be brave.”
During my interview with Alicia, the most moving moments were when she reflected on her relationship with the late Judith Jaminson—her predecessor, and her north star. As a young girl, Graf Mack had Jamison’s image on her wall and later worked under her guidance. Their connection deepened over time, shifting from director to mentor, confidant, and friend.
“She studied everything,” she says of Jamison. “How you speak. How you carry yourself. How you prepare a room. She was meticulous and warm and funny and stylish. She didn’t rush anything. After she retired, she stayed present in my life. She checked in. She showed up. She believed in me.” Graf Mack now occupies Jamison’s former office. Much of the furniture remains, and so does the feeling. “I sit at Mr. Ailey’s desk,” she explains. “That wasn’t negotiable. I’m aware of where I am every day. I don’t feel pressure. I feel gratitude.”
The years of practice, education, and previous roles within Graf Mack’s career culminated with the opening night gala, which took place earlier this month. The evening honored board chair Daria L. Wallach, featured performances from Samara Joy and violinist Melissa White, along with boasting a guest list that included notable figures such as Jasmine Guy, Phylicia Rashad, Lorraine Toussaint, and Sunny Hostin, among others. As glamorous a position as the Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater may be, for Graf Mack, the goal remains simple.
“I want people to leave the theater feeling lighter,” she explains. “Ailey has always done that. You come in carrying whatever the day gave you. You leave feeling like you can face it. That’s the work.”
It has been a gruesome year for those who see Donald Trump’s kakistocracy clearly. He returned to office newly emboldened, surrounded by obsequious tech barons, seemingly in command of not just the country but also the zeitgeist. Since then, it’s been a parade of nightmares — armed men in balaclavas on the streets, migrants sent to a torture prison in El Salvador, corruption on a scale undreamed of by even the gaudiest third-world dictators and the shocking capitulation by many leaders in business, law, media and academia. Trying to wrap one’s mind around the scale of civic destruction wrought in just 11 months stretches the limits of the imagination, like conceptualizing light-years or black holes.
And yet, as 2025 limps toward its end, there are reasons to be hopeful.
That’s because of millions of people throughout the country who have refused to surrender to this administration’s bullying. When Trump began his second term, conventional wisdom held that the resistance was moribund. If that was ever true, it’s certainly not anymore. This year has seen some of the largest street protests in American history. Amanda Litman, a founder of Run for Something, a group that trains young progressives to seek local office, told me that since the 2024 election, it has seen more sign-ups than in all of Trump’s first four years. Just this month, the Republican-dominated legislature in Indiana, urged on by voters, rebelled against MAGA efforts to intimidate them and refused to redraw their congressional maps to eliminate Democratic-leaning districts.
While Trump “has been able to do extraordinary damage that will have generational effects, he has not successfully consolidated power,” said Leah Greenberg, a founder of the resistance group Indivisible. “That has been staved off, and it has been staved off not, frankly, due to the efforts of pretty much anyone in elite institutions or political leadership but due to the efforts of regular people declining to go along with fascism.”
In retrospect, it’s possible to see several pivot points. One of the first was a Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April. Elon Musk, then still running rampant at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, declared the contest critical and poured more than $20 million into the race. Voters turned out in droves, and the Musk-backed conservative candidate lost by more than 10 points. Humiliated, Musk began to withdraw from electoral politics, at one point breaking with Trump. The tight bond between the world’s richest man and the most powerful one was eroded.
In June, Trump’s military parade, meant as a display of dominance, was a flop, and simultaneous No Kings protests all over the country were huge and energetic. A few months later, Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a tragedy that the administration sought to exploit to silence its opponents. When the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a distasteful comment on ABC that seemed to blame the right for Kirk’s killing, Disney, the network’s parent company, gave in to pressure to take Kimmel off the air. It was a perilous moment for free speech; suddenly, America was becoming the kind of country in which regime critics are forced off television. But then came a wave of cancellations of Disney+ and the Disney-owned Hulu service, as well as a celebrity boycott, and Disney gave Kimmel his show back.
Trump has thoroughly corrupted the Justice Department, but its selective prosecutions of his foes have been thwarted by judges and, more strikingly, by grand juries. Two grand juries refused to indict Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, whom the administration has accused of mortgage fraud, with no credible evidence. After Sean Dunn, a Justice Department paralegal, tossed a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer during a protest in Washington, the administration sent a team of agents in riot gear to arrest him. But grand jurors refused to indict him on a felony charge. Dunn was eventually charged with a misdemeanor, only to be acquitted by a jury. Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News personality whom Trump made U.S. attorney in Washington, tried three times to secure a federal indictment for assault against a protester who struggled while being pushed against a wall by an immigration agent. Three times, grand juries refused.
Granted, all these grand juries were in liberal jurisdictions, but their rejections of prosecutors’ claims are still striking, since indictments are usually notoriously easy to secure. “I think you’re seeing reinvigorated grand jury processes,” said Ian Bassin, a founder of the legal and advocacy group Protect Democracy. “Nobody actually knows what’s going on in those grand juries, but the outcome of them seems to suggest that people are actually holding the government’s feet to the fire and being unwilling to simply be a rubber stamp.”
Trump ends the year weak and unpopular, his coalition dispirited and riven by infighting. Democrats dominated in the November elections. During Joe Biden’s administration, far-right victories in school board races were an early indication of the cultural backlash that would carry Trump to office. Now, however, Democrats are flipping school board seats nationwide.
Much of the credit for the reinvigoration of the resistance belongs to Trump himself. Had he focused his deportation campaign on criminals or refrained from injuring the economy with haphazard tariffs while mocking concerns about affordability, he would probably have remained a more formidable figure. He’s still a supremely dangerous one, especially as he comes to feel increasingly cornered and aggrieved. After all, by the time you read this, we could well be at war with Venezuela, though no one in the administration has bothered to articulate a plausible rationale for the escalating conflict.But it’s become, over the past year, easier to imagine the moment when his mystique finally evaporates, when few want to defend him anymore or admit that they ever did. “I think it’s going to be a rocky period, but I no longer think that Trump is going to pull an Orban and fundamentally consolidate authoritarian control of this country the way that it looked like he was going to do in March or April,” said Bassin, referring to Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary. If Bassin is right, it will be because a critical mass of Americans refused to be either cowed or complicit.
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Brigitte Bardot in 1962. Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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Photo Credit: Chad Salvador
James' World 2 