Sam Sacks

i’m sorry to learn the great Portuguese novelist António Lobo Antunes has died. what an amazing body of work he has left

Florence ICE detainee dead after untreated tooth infection, official says An ICE detainee, who had been at a Florence detention center for four months, died Monday following an untreated tooth infection.

An ICE detainee in Arizona has died of a TOOTH INFECTION after it went untreated for weeks, a local official says. He was a Haitian asylum seeker imprisoned in Florence, Arizona. @emilybregel.bsky.social reports.
tucson.com/news/local/b...

Gemini Said They Could Only Be Together if He Killed Himself. Soon, He Was Dead. A new lawsuit alleges Google’s chatbot sent a Florida man on missions to find an android body it could inhabit. When that failed, it set a suicide countdown clock for him.

A new lawsuit alleges Google’s chatbot sent a Florida man on missions to find an android body it could inhabit. When that failed, it set a suicide countdown clock for him. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/gemi...

'UNIMAGINABLE CRUELTY': Judge Gary Brown, a Trump appointeee from NY, thrashes DHS' treatment of a man who came to the US at 9 as an abuse/neglect victim, has no criminal record and became a college grad.

"The laws of decency condemn such villainy." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

End Child Detention Letter with signatures Feb 26 2026

Citing reporting by @propublica.org and others, nearly 4,000 doctors, nurses and health professionals sent a letter to DHS Sec Kristi Noem calling for the immediate release of all children currently in immigration detention. Full letter: tinyurl.com/yz2amueb 1/

Fiction: ‘Mule Boy’ by Andrew Krivak Plus Urszula Honek’s “White Nights” and Julio Llamazares’s “Wolf Moon.”

Two superb novels of privation for the next WSJ Fiction Chronicle: Andrew Krivak's 'Mule Boy,' a moving monologic tale about the survivor of a mine cave-in; and Julio Llamazares's 'Wolf Moon,' a gripping pursuit novel from 1985 about Republican Army outlaws (gift link) www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

West valley sushi shop owner released from ICE detention after eight months A federal judge has granted Kelly Yu temporary freedom after she filed a habius corpus petition.

"Her release follows months of advocacy from community members and political leaders of both parties.

Yu has operated her two West Valley restaurants for years, building a reputation for greeting customers with humor and kindness. She has no criminal record."

www.12news.com/article/news...

Columbia President with NEW details:

5 DHS agents entered a residency with no warrant.

They said they were police looking for a missing kid.
Security camera even captures them showing pictures of the "kid."

A campus officer asked for a warrant & their boss.

They ignored him & took the student.

Fiction: ‘Mule Boy’ by Andrew Krivak Plus Urszula Honek’s “White Nights” and Julio Llamazares’s “Wolf Moon.”

Two superb novels of privation for the next WSJ Fiction Chronicle: Andrew Krivak's 'Mule Boy,' a moving monologic tale about the survivor of a mine cave-in; and Julio Llamazares's 'Wolf Moon,' a gripping pursuit novel from 1985 about Republican Army outlaws (gift link) www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

10 hour study with me at Columbia showing lunch

Her in the library

DHS illegally arrested me please help Text against image of her knees

Columbia student detained today is a day-in-the-life influencer with 100K followers. Her stories right now go from her studying for a Genetics exam in a nicely edited "ten hour study with me at Columbia" video, to a photo of her knees with the caption "dhs illegally arrested me please help"

This is gross but my kids called that vile fluid you have to drink before a colonoscopy ‘Dad Juice’

Your Daily Muskrat:

Feb. 26, 1855. Directly off Clamshell Hill, within four rods of it, where the water is three or four feet deep, I see where the musquash dived and brought up clams before the last freezing.

Ann Godoff, a Top Editor and Publisher of Best Sellers, Dies at 76 Considered an “author’s publisher” at Random House and then Penguin, she cultivated the careers of dozens of celebrated novelists and nonfiction writers.

Breaking News: Ann Godoff, an editor and publisher who helped cultivate best-selling authors at Random House and Penguin, has died at 76.

I admit to never have tried Trevor outside of his short stories. Those novels seems to be of such a specific flavor that I have never been tempted enough. But I ought to give one a go.

Amazingly, I actually know who this is--critics have picked out this line as being exemplary of the author's understatement

Blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol dies in Buffalo. A nearly blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol miles from his home dies in Buffalo after having been missing for nearly a week.

Here's a story about his death www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/25/b...

Christ, Sally, I Used to Think Your Coffee Was Only So-So On "The Last Samurai" by Helen DeWitt, and "Ubik" by Philip K. Dick

Well this one was a real bear. Two remarkable and complex novels are featured in my new EXCLUSIVE TO PAID SUBSCRIBERS Reading Project post. Subscribe to read my take on Helen DeWitt's THE LAST SAMURAI and Philip K. Dick's UBIK.

billryan64.substack.com/p/christ-sal...

Spinosaur Tales by David Hone & Mark Witton — Open Letters Review All the details about an odd-looking favorite dinosaur

In Open Letters Review, Steve Donoghue reviews a work of paleobiology trying to reclaim the honor of the mighty Spinosaurus, the therapod that in 'Jurassic Park III' had the audacity to defeat a T-Rex openlettersreview.com/posts/spinos...

City of Blights Visiting Paris with Balzac – Michael Robbins

Good fun following Michael Robbins's "Balzac pilgrimage" through Paris in the new Bookforum, a journey inspired by his love of 'Lost Illusions,' "the best novel ever written." (There's an opening paragraph grabber for you.) www.bookforum.com/print/3203/c...

Absurd Harvest On 'Zone Rouge' by Michael Jerome Plunkett

"The dirt [of war] is everywhere, and it is forever." Very glad to read Theo Lipsky's incisive review of "Zone Rouge," Michael Jerome Plunkett's novel about the uninhabitable blast area of Verdun www.metropolitanreview.org/p/absurd-har...

Our Monstrous Ideas • EQUATOR In these two essays, newly translated for Equator, the Italian writer articulates a powerful moral vision of what it means to belong, and to whom we owe our compassion

"We cannot even imagine a happy world in which winners might not be hateful. Only in those who lose do we feel we might recognise fellow human beings." From one of a pair of powerful Natalia Ginzburg essays (newly translated by Gini Alhadeff) in Equator. www.equator.org/articles/our...

Family Life at Clinton Street | Brick The wooden Chinese junk, with its carved crew, used to sit on a small table in Grandfather’s bedroom, before his death. It had been a gift from his friend Burlingame when they were both young.

"When Grandmother wanted to upset Mother, she would chew her food for a long time and not swallow it. Sometimes she would spit it into a spoon." Glimpses of a childhood, by Lydia Davis, in Brick Magazine brickmag.com/family-life-...

They Fought for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan. In America, They’re Living in Fear.

Deep dive on Afghan Zero Unit members, CIA paramilitary veterans, living in the US under threat of deportation. @wesleymorgan.bsky.social and Matthieu Aikins. Pics via Victor J. Blue, long time visual chronicler of Afghanistan and its people in war. 🎁 link www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/m...

Take Five, by Djang San (张思安) from the album Hutong Jazz - 胡同爵士

djangsan.bandcamp.com/track/take-f...

Only if he ends up executed

Training for New ICE Agents Is ‘Deficient’ and ‘Broken,’ Whistle-Blower Says The former official will appear with congressional Democrats, who also released documents indicating significant reductions in instructional hours for recruits.

An ICE official who resigned this month from his job instructing new recruits plans to speak out on Monday as a whistle-blower, describing what he says is a “deficient, defective and broken” training program with a pared-back curriculum as the Trump administration races to expand the agency.

Some exciting news! I'm working with a bunch of talented editors, illustrators, and writers to put together Golden Goal, a one-off print magazine about the 2026 World Cup. If you're interested in supporting us, we're currently doing a small fundraiser www.kickstarter.com/projects/mag...

Fiction: ‘I Give You My Silence’ by Mario Vargas Llosa Plus Rahul Bhattacharya’s “Railsong” and Mohammed Hanif’s “Rebel English Academy.”

I loved Mario Vargas Llosa's final novel "I Give You My Silence," translated by Adrian Nathan West. It's wry and self-deprecating and sheepishly funny and also sincerely idealistic--the work of a writer who stayed young to the end. Gift link: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

ICE detained a Minnesota teen, labeled him an ‘unaccompanied minor,’ and lost him The Trump administration is apprehending and designating immigrant kids as “unaccompanied,” even as their parents in the U.S. search for them.

ICE agents grabbed a 16-year-old asylum seeker--which they aren't supposed to do

They kept him from his parents -which they aren't supposed to do

They shipped him out of state, to a Christian ministry, which they aren't supposed to do.

Then they *lost* him.

www.startribune.com/how-ice-labe...

star-studded BCC!