Tag: text message
A Hard-Won Victory That Ukraine Stands to Lose
In a trench war, depth matters, and on a hilltop outside Orikhiv, 35 miles southeast of Zaporizhzhia, the Russians were dug in more than six feet deep. They’d fashioned a sunken city, a maze of crossed trails extending nearly a mile and commanding an unobstructed view five miles in all directions.
From that hilltop, known to the Ukrainian military as Position X, the Russians controlled the vital road south. If the Russians were to push forward, to take Orikhiv and
What Mitt Romney Saw in the Senate
For most of his life, Mitt Romney has nursed a morbid fascination with his own death, suspecting that it might assert itself one day suddenly and violently.
He controls what he can, of course. He wears his seat belt, and diligently applies sunscreen, and stays away from secondhand smoke. For decades, he’s followed his doctor’s recipe for longevity with monastic dedication—the lean meats, the low-dose aspirin, the daily 30-minute sessions on the stationary bike, heartbeat at 140 or
Lara Logan’s Break With Reality
The footage is shown before she takes the stage: Lara Logan in a headscarf, addressing the camera from the streets of Mogadishu. Logan ducking for cover as bullets crack overhead in Afghanistan. Logan interrogating a trophy hunter in Texas. Logan walking with Christine Lagarde, Justin Trudeau, Mark Wahlberg, Jane Goodall.
It is a tour through Logan’s past life as a
My Escape From the Taliban
The text message came a little before 5 p.m. It was August 26, 2021. Eleven days earlier, the Taliban had overthrown the Afghan government. My friend—a German writer and academic—had been trying to help my family flee the country. Now she told me she had gotten my two younger sisters and me on the list for a flight to Frankfurt, a last-minute evacuation negotiated by the German government and a nonprofit group.
“What about my mom?” I asked. She