The New Yorker

For all the rousing joy of the political transition, our democracy remains deeply imperilled, @wrightr writes. https://t.co/zKGYur6T3I

First detected in the south of England in late September, the new COVID-19 variant is between 30 and 50 per cent more transmissible than previous forms, scientists estimate. Its rise has been startling. https://t.co/QzuZlny0OI

Beckett’s classic, updated for the pandemic age. https://t.co/7rSkl4oGn8

“I do not recall any case where this huge amount of criminal-infrastructure data was gathered,” said one of the German officers charged with analyzing the contents of the dark-Web host CyberBunker servers. https://t.co/7oZ64pXSwf

“He knew he had to keep the team together for Georgia,” a former Trump Administration official close to McConnell’s circle told @JaneMayerNYer. “For him, being Majority Leader was the whole ballgame.” https://t.co/Kbkdsy8Bdp

“Were they happy? Yes, of course. They were at least as happy as everybody else.” A short story by Allegra Goodman. https://t.co/mdwSve0J8F

As tuberculosis shaped modernism, so COVID-19 and our collective experience of staying inside for months on end will influence architecture’s near future. https://t.co/wGfGAxT6j0

Most of the English-speaking world finds the diaeresis inessential. Even Fowler, of Fowler’s “Modern English Usage,” says that the diaeresis “is in English an obsolescent symbol.” But here, at The New Yorker, it persists. https://t.co/yLJ9zn30pe

Former Senate staffer to ⁦@JaneMayerNYer:⁩ “You need to marry the 40% that’s the Trump base w the 10% that’s the establishment. McConnell is like a cartoon character striding aside a crack that’s getting wider as the two plates drift farther apart.” https://t.co/BBmdDJWQ12

Andrew Yang ran for President as a nobody. Now he is running for mayor as a celebrity—but his entry into the race has been bumpy, @EricLach writes. https://t.co/CXQqXV5KyH

Documenting and debunking fake stories of military service has become easier as more of our lives have moved online. @rachmonroe on military imposters and the people who track them down. https://t.co/xwc5Bq5j1o

“My parents remain poor and undocumented,” Karla Cornejo Villavicencio writes. “I cannot protect them with prizes or grades. My father sobbed when I handed him my diploma, but it was not the piece of paper that would make it all better.” https://t.co/zPed4jRfsE

“I’m afraid they’re going to put me in jail, but that’s where Paul wrote some of his greatest chapters of the Bible,” the defamation lawyer L. Lin Wood told @charlesbethea after former President Donald Trump got on the plane to Mar-A-Lago. https://t.co/LLO4a2SO1d

“They locked him up in Thought Prison, by taking away his Twitter. He tried going on Pinterest, but they banned him there, too.” https://t.co/Aj5tJJ5F9U

“But the fact is Trump lost, and his coup failed. And that opened an escape hatch for Mitch.” But “the McConnell wing was ready to embrace Trump’s usurping of democracy—if Trump could pull it off.” https://t.co/2sBRRUz7Gq

If the individuals behind CyberBunker are found guilty, a powerful precedent will have been created; the trial may determine what a state deems to be an unacceptable threshold of criminality for sites hosting illicit material. https://t.co/wpKzg4d9Qr

NEW from @JaneMayerNYer: "Faced with a choice between truth and self-interest, McConnell opted for the latter. 'He knew he had to keep the team together for Georgia,' a former Trump Administration official close to McConnell’s circle told me." https://t.co/o8Pyrhlz1S

In October, @mashagessen asked the anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny whether he would return to Russia after being poisoned. “Of course I’m going back,” he said. “If I don’t, that will be the ideal outcome for them.” https://t.co/MtqbmwfDLq