Latest news with #InColdBlood
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The first rule of ICE Club? Don't talk about ICE Club. And treat all migrants as criminals.
A bird sits on a security fence at the Chase County Detention Facility in 2021. (Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector) Jails are hard places made necessary by people like Ernest Hoefgen. Few are likely to remember Hoefgen now, but back in September 1943 the 31-year-old escaped from the city jail at Cottonwood Falls. He'd been picked up for assault, according to newspaper accounts, and was using an alias. In reality, Hoefgen was an escapee from the Texas state prison at Huntsville, where he had been serving a life sentence for murder. Stick with me, because this is not a story about a murder that took place eight decades ago, but about due process in America in 2025. I've been thinking a lot lately about the Constitutional guarantee of due process, which means everyone should have access to fair and adequate legal proceedings when the government threatens to deprive us of life, liberty or property. This is regardless of what Kristi Noem, director of Homeland Security, may say it and habeas corpus are. Our thinking about courts and jails and their role in American society has been shaped by Hoefgen and other criminals like him. The reason 'In Cold Blood' stays with us, apart from Truman Capote's writing, is that it's a story of a farm family in western Kansas who were murdered in a sensational way. It leaves us asking, why? Movies, books and television also tend to blur our thinking about who is a criminal and who is not. If you're in jail — or a detention center, as they're likely called now — you must be a criminal, right? Well, no. There are plenty of people being processed in our jails right now who have committed no crime but who have violated relatively minor civil codes, comparable to getting a ticket from the city for the height of your grass. But unlike policing lawn care, there's a gold rush related to immigration enforcement. There's a billion-dollar detention industry hungry to fill beds with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, and civil liberties are being eroded in the process. ICE doesn't like to talk about how much it pays facilities, or to have any of its contractors talk about how much they make per day for each detainee. Apparently, the first rule of ICE club is don't talk about ICE club. But let's talk first about how jails are supposed to function. In 1938, Hoefgen killed carpenter George Richet with a hatchet from Richet's own toolbox. Hoefgen and a teenage girlfriend, Sylvia Phipps, were hitchhiking near Wichita Falls when the carpenter gave them a lift, according to the Associated Press. Hoefgen later told investigators he didn't know why he killed Richet, who still had $8 in cash when his body was found by railway workers. The case remained unsolved for two years. Both Hoefgen and Phipps were later picked up on forgery charges at Scottsbluff, Nebraska, found guilty, and sentenced to prison. In 1940, Phipps told the matron at the women's reformatory she wanted to talk to investigators because she had witnessed the killing of Richet in Texas. When questioned, Hoefgen confessed. We know all this about Hoefgen because of due process. The evidence against him was carefully detailed in court filings, he had advice from lawyers, and his court proceedings were open to the public and the press. Hoefgen was sent to Huntsville to serve his life sentence, but he escaped — twice. After the second escape, he ran back to his home state of Kansas, where he married a local girl named Pauline and got into trouble at Cottonwood Falls. After escaping from the city jail, he stole another car and picked up a hitchhiker, 18-year-old Kansas State University student Bruce Smoll. When Smoll became suspicious, according to a United Press story, Hoefgen shot him to death. Rabbit hunters found the body a month later in a cornfield near Peabody, about 40 miles southwest of Cottonwood Falls. Based on a hunch from Smoll's father that Hoefgen may have been involved in his son's death, and tips from Pauline's parents, investigators found Hoefgen living in Denver and returned him to Marion County, where he was charged with Smoll's murder. Hoefgen's story is full of odd details that, if you put them in a movie, would shatter the audience's suspension of disbelief. When he and Phipps were in the county jail at Gering, Nebraska, awaiting trial on the forgery charges, they allegedly hatched a ridiculous jailbreak plot by hiding notes to one another in bananas and tomatoes. My interest in Hoefgen is because his last murderous jail escape began in Cottonwood Falls. The Chase County Detention Center at Cottonwood Falls has received attention lately as being the last and largest ICE-contracted jail facility in Kansas. The 148-bed facility was built to turn a profit for this central Kansas county of 2,500, and it has been mostly full since the mass deportations began under the Trump administration. Back in 2021 and again earlier this month, I wrote about my discomfort with a picturesque Kansas county profiting from the misery of ICE detentions. Four years ago, the rate paid per day of inmate detention was $62. Curious about how much Chase County is now receiving to house detainees, I filed a Kansas Open Records Act request for the facility contract. I was told to take a hike. 'Due to being a federal contracted agency,' Sheriff Jacob Welsh wrote in an email, 'there are contract restrictions which I am not allowed to disclose any information about the contract.' Requests, he said, were to be sent directly to ICE. Welsh did not respond to a request to cite the KORA exemption he felt applied in the situation or to provide the language in the federal contract that forbade him from discussing the contract. I did contact ICE for the contract but received an automated out-of-office reply from spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe. The email said she would respond when she returned 'Monday, May 21.' As of Friday, I had not received a response from O'Keefe or any other ICE representative. Max Kautsch, a First Amendment lawyer at Lawrence, told me that Welsh's responses showed a lack of concern for open records and state law. 'The sheriff's response violates the Kansas Open Records Act,' Kautsch said, 'because he does not 'cite the specific provision of law' authorizing denial of the request,' which he must do under Kansas law. There are legitimate exemptions to KORA that allow the use of federal law to deny requests, such as how public universities can deny some requests for student information under Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. 'If the sheriff insists on denying the request based on guidance he's received from the federal government, he must come clear to the public and cite that authority, as KORA requires,' Kautsch said. 'He also would need to explain why he is unable to produce even a redacted version of the requested records.' Welsh's response raises concerns about open government. 'These circumstances suggest, at a minimum, that the sheriff is indifferent to open records laws, attention to detail, or both,' Kautsch said. 'That conclusion is bolstered by the fact that the inmate information portal on the sheriff's website says access to records held by the Chase County Jail is purportedly governed by the 'Kentucky Open Records Act.' Their office is in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. If the sheriff's office can't be bothered to properly identity its own state law on its own website, perhaps it is to be expected that it wouldn't know how to respond to a KORA request, either.' Why Kentucky? I don't know. Perhaps the template for the inmate portal was borrowed from the Muhlenberg County Detention Center. To get a better understanding of what ICE detainees at Chase County and elsewhere go through, I contacted Kansas City, Missouri, immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford. For years, Sharma-Crawford told me, Chase County was the only immigration detention facility for most of Kansas and Missouri. There are now more counties being contracted, he said, especially in Missouri. In Kansas, for-profit CoreCivic is attempting to repurpose a shuttered prison in Leavenworth for ICE detention, but it has faced legal challenges and has not yet opened. The issue with the current wave of detainments, Sharma-Crawford said, is the speed at which deportations are being carried out and the difficulty in tracking cases through the system. Migrants are typically given a handful of documents upon their arrest containing the specifics against them. Without access to those papers, it's difficult for an immigration attorney to evaluate a case, he said, or to track a migrant's case online. In many instances, he said, jails meant to house criminal detainees are unprepared to deal with civil immigration cases. He commended Chase County on being willing to fax immigration documents to attorneys, while allowing the detainees to keep the originals, and to facilitate attorney-client phone calls. 'I'd take 12 Chase Counties compared to other facilities,' Sharma-Crawford said. Access to legal counsel is an important Sixth Amendment right, he said, and this is especially important when deportation may now occur three weeks or less from the time of arrest. 'If you're from Mexico, you have to move quickly,' he advised. 'If you don't know what your status is, you should talk to an immigration attorney.' He also suggested having important documents, like birth certificates, at the ready, and being prepared to seek a second legal opinion when necessary. Sharma-Crawford said the immigration system was broken and that things were building to a chaotic crescendo. The administration's goal, he said, is to artificially clog the system and then claim it is impractical to give every detainee a hearing. But as late Justice Antonin Scalia said, due process applies to everyone. It's something average Americans should take to heart, no matter where they were born. It's something that is being lost among the current rhetoric about crime and immigration. The vast majority of ICE detainees, he said, are held on civil charges. 'I don't defend people against criminal charges,' Sharma-Crawford said. If we don't protect the due process rights of migrants now, he said, we might be denying due process for everyday civil infractions tomorrow, such as allowing your grass to grow too high. 'At some point, this leads to abbreviated trials' and other erosions of due process, he said. The prospect of CoreCivic opening a thousand-bed facility at Leavenworth terrifies him. The previous prison operated by CoreCivic in Leavenworth was described as a 'hell hole' of abuse and mismanagement. The city of Leavenworth sued to stop the facility from being reopened as an ICE detention facility, but on Thursday a federal judge dismissed the case. While Chase County did not provide answers to my questions about how lucrative its ICE contract was, a 2024 report by the American Immigration Council provides some clues. It estimated the average daily rate for detention to be $237 per person, with single adults spending an average of 55 days in detention. The rate for Chase County, of course, might differ. But with nobody willing to talk, who knows? Communities such as Cottonwood Falls and Leavenworth must weigh the price of monetizing ICE detainment in the age of Trump against the fundamental American values of fairness and compassion. Leavenworth wouldn't directly share in the per-day rate as Chase County does, but there is the lure of jobs and economic development. It is a devil's bargain, a Faustian pact, the civic equivalent of 30 pieces of silver. Back in 1943, Hoefgen pleaded guilty in Marion County District Court to the murder of K-State student Smoll. He was sentenced to death. Hoefgen was hanged shortly after 1 a.m. Friday, March 10, 1944, on a newly constructed gallows in a warehouse at the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing. His last meal had been fried chicken. He declined requests to speak to reporters and showed little emotion as he was led up the 13 fated steps, an eyewitness from the Associated Press reported. Hoefgen was the first person to be executed by Kansas since 1870. The death penalty is currently legal in Kansas, but it hasn't been used since 1965. The most notorious murderers executed at the Lansing gallows were 'In Cold Blood' killers Dick Hickok and Perry Smith. While it's easy to see the story of Hoefgen as that of a criminal who got what he deserved, it's also a saga of Constitutional due process. He was repeatedly brought before the courts in the downward spiral of his life, afforded lawyers, treated humanely and even given fruit while in custody. Whether you agree with capital punishment or not, there was no abbreviation of justice. County jails were typically places where criminal defendants were sent to await their trials or where those convicted of misdemeanor crimes served sentences of a year or less. They were not places for defendants in civil cases. Criminal cases can result in punishment that includes jail time, while civil cases typically involve settling disputes. The migrants now being rushed through the deportation pipeline deserve the full protection of due process. If we deny them legal representation and access to courts by accelerating their cases through a broken system, we are betraying core American values. We risk turning justice into an unthinking machine run by idealogues and fueled by the monetization of detainment. It is either due process for all, or due process for none. Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
Express Tribune
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Cold blood, warm attachments
The human psyche has always been an interesting subject, one that allows us to question what we are supposed to understand about ourselves. While reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood might leave one in shock and disgust at the human psyche, but perhaps what is even more shocking is Capote's thought process while he was writing this novel and his connection to the murderers. The book in itself was a 'grand literary experiment' but a closer analysis allows us to explore the various themes in this book such as Capote's views, the book's themes, its structure, and the portrayal of characters. In his 1968 interview about his book, Capote confesses he knew the murderers 'better than they knew themselves' and that he wanted 'the film to be shot in the Clutter home.' This depicts Capote's connection with the two killers because of his interactions with them and his emotional attachment with Perry which was truly fascinating, because it makes me realise that Capote wrote the novel as an omniscient narrator, but was never really objective while writing. It was only after watching the interview, did I come to the realisation that Capote might have been an unreliable narrator. While he did follow a traditional journalistic style when it came to reporting the facts of the case and offered deep insights into the characters' lives, the fact that he interviewed the killers and was somehow associated with them depicts that he himself might have been emotionally or mentally troubled. This was quite interesting because I wasn't just interested in psycho-analysing Dick and Perry, I was also interested in psycho-analysing Capote because I started to notice that maybe he's presenting certain personal qualities — like having a traumatic childhood or being emotionally sensitive — through Perry's character and other themes in the novel. Reading this book felt like following a thriller movie that follows a typical storyline where you start off with the perfect American family and the American dream, how that is suddenly shattered, and then you have the entire investigation process. As someone who loves to watch psychological thrillers, this was a great piece of nonfiction for me because it is something that I enjoyed reading (while ignoring the chilling fact that Capote is closely attached to the killers) and it followed a proper structure that evokes emotions in the readers. The book is structured in such a way that it builds suspense as you read through it and this is done through the use of dramatic irony (the fact that the readers know that the Clutters are about to die), the pacing of the book (alternating facts and extended scenes in the first two chapters), and the use of descriptive words and imagery. Before I elaborate upon this, just the fact that Capote does not directly begin with the killer's plan and rather paints this cozy image of the Clutters, allows the readers to empathise with the family and portrays them as people rather than mere victims of a crime. Moreover, as a reader you are already familiar with the tragic inevitability right from the beginning because Capote uses phrases such as 'unaware that it would be his last,' and the title of his first chapter is literally 'The Last To See Them Alive'. This creates a constant atmosphere of tension and suspense where you are waiting for the tragic event to unfold. Capote's writing style was something that appealed to me because he incorporates various forms of descriptive and creative imagery in his pieces. Right from the beginning of the novel, he uses words such as 'aimless,' 'haphazard,' 'stark,' 'falling-apart post office' and the 'depot with peeling sulphur-coloured paint' and 'flaking' to describe various elements of the town. This parallelism between nature and the setting with the events in the book, has been a great technique when it comes to writing. While reading this piece, I instantly remembered Shakespeare's Macbeth and how nature started to revolt against Macbeth when he was going to commit the murders with the winds howling and the weather changing to something terrible. This idea of nature somehow responding to one's criminal activities is fascinating and reflected in Capote's description of the town. Capote does begin the novel with words such as "the hard-blue skies,' and 'desert-clear air,' which later contrasts with the physical description of the town. Additionally, the physical decay of the town also mirrors the moral decay that is going to happen as the story proceeds and this depicts the idea of how nature or the setting closely follows the events that happen in a literary piece. The book focuses on certain themes such as the American dream (appearance vs reality), trauma, relationship dynamics, murder, and justice which are depicted through the characters and their interactions with each other. Analysing the idea of the American dream as presented in the book, the readers are introduced to this perfect American family and it seems like the family they introduce in American movies as we can tell by Capote's description, 'whereupon Nancy had behaved like one; curtsying in her hoop-skirted costume, she had asked if she might drive into Garden City. The State Theatre was having a special, eleven-thirty, Friday-the-thirteenth "Spook Show," and all her friends were going. In other circumstances Mr Clutter would have refused. His laws were laws, and one of them was: Nancy and Kenyon too must be home by ten on week nights, by twelve on Saturdays. But weakened by the genial events of the evening, he had consented' (Capote 8). As a reader, one can tell that the Clutter's life deeply contrasts with Dick and Perry's past and present life. It could be said that Capote is trying to shed light upon a systematic issue regarding class differences in America and might be criticising the concept of the American dream. While America is the 'land of opportunity and freedom' and the American dream stands for equality, that is not the reality as depicted through Dick and Perry's lives. Belonging to low income households and suffering from different traumas, Capote depicts how negative experiences and lack of opportunities shape a person's future in America and questions the credibility of the American dream. Moreover, Capote presents Dick and Perry's relationship as a complicated one and the progression of their relationship throughout the book was interesting to analyse. As readers, we are aware that Perry has had a rough past and seems to be a bit more emotional than Dick as observed through his actions and his constant anxiety after committing the murders. In comparison, Dick is presented as a macho man who does not appear to exhibit any emotion and often looks down upon Perry by referring to him using nicknames such as 'baby' and 'sugar'. While reading their interactions and noticing Dick's use of these nicknames towards a grown man, it constantly felt like Dick was more dominant and assertive and would be condescending towards Perry. And throughout all of this, it seemed as if Perry simply ignored or accepted Dick's attitude towards him because he might have been slightly attached to Perry. However, we also observe Dick's blatant disregard for Perry when he claims that Perry was the one who committed the killings. As a reader, I sympathised with Perry at that moment. Additionally, there were other instances in the book where I realised that I did sympathise with Perry and was channeling all of my anger at Dick because maybe Capote presented the characters in this way. It led me to question whether Capote did this on purpose and did try to paint a less evil version of Perry. This book was a very different kind of read. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, John Hersey's Hiroshima, and other pieces of non-fiction that I enjoyed reading as much as this, because they don't incorporate that element of suspense and thrill that Capote manages to create. While these other texts focus on different themes and ideas, Capote's blending of traditional journalism with creative writing and nonfiction makes this novel interesting and something that one enjoys reading. Syeda Fizza Jafri is a media student and freelance writer. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Yahoo
‘In Cold Blood' killers hanged on gallows like these added to Kansas prison tour
When the Lansing Historical Society and Museum began offering tours of the decommissioned Kansas State Penitentiary last year, the historic prison was missing an important piece that could help drive home the haunting history of the facility. The gallows, where 15 penitentiary inmates were executed by hanging, were no longer there. That changed on Friday when the historical society unveiled a replica of the original gallows within the confines of the former prison. Unable to secure the return of the original historic structure, the Society's board voted unanimously to build a reproduction, which is now a feature of the prison tours. This reproduction will allow visitors to experience a key element of the prison's past. 'The gallows, it's a somber reminder of a part of our past,' said Debra Bates-Lamborn, president of the Lansing Historical Society and Museum. 'This is something that we grew up with, knowing they were there. And if we were to ignore that and not present it because of issues with capital punishment and whatnot, we'd be remiss,' she added. 'We chose to bring another piece of our penitentiary history, even though it's a replica, back on display.' Years after the brutal 1959 Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kansas, the convicted killers Richard 'Dick' Hickock and Perry Smith swung on the gallows until death on April 14, 1965 at the Kansas State Penitentiary. While their execution marked a significant moment in the highly publicized 'In Cold Blood' case, they were not the last to be executed at the prison. Just months later, in June 1965, convicted killers George York and James Latham were also executed there, making them the final individuals to face capital punishment at the Lansing facility. Bates-Lamborn said the original gallows were built in 1944. They were transferred to the Kansas State Historical Society in the 1980's and are now part of the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, where they sit disassembled in the basement. Because of a Kansas law in the 1860s that outlawed public hangings, Bates-Lamborn explained that the gallows were situated inside the warehouse, away from the view of other prisoners. On March 10, 1944, prison Warden Robert Hudspeth oversaw the first execution by hanging of Ernest Hoefgen, 31, a confessed murderer in the shooting death of Bruce Small, 18, a Kansas State College student. Dressed in a white prison suit with a #2 on it, representing his cell's number, Hoefgen's hanging was the first state-supervised execution in Kansas since 1870. The original Kansas State Penitentiary, also known as the Lansing Correctional Facility, closed in 2020 after a new, modern facility was opened on the same grounds. Managed by the Lansing Historical Society, the prison tours have been popular. 'The tours have been doing great, we had about 1,200 people go through since March,' said Bates-Lamborn. 'And we've had schools come through, criminal justice classes, eager to learn the history, the true crime of this place.' The reproduction of the gallows is certain to evoke strong emotions for visitors. Tom Young, a member of the Lansing Historical Society, led the team of Paul Lamborn, John Craig, and Randy Elliott, who quickly built the replica over a couple of days. Young explained that he went to Topeka, to learn more about the original gallows stored there. 'The state architect or whoever disassembled it, made blueprints of it when they moved it to the museum,' Young said. 'So, they gave me those and we worked off of those plans.' On the size and dimensions, Young said 'I didn't have to guess because the guy gave us measurements, all the specs were already done for us.' The replica now stands stark against the backdrop of the prison walls. The timber and the distinct design spoke of finality. Young described the dimensions, 'The platform is eight feet off the ground,' he said. 'And then the main hanging beam that goes diagonally across the trapdoor ended up being about 16-feet, nine inches.' The trapdoor, he noted, measuring 37x41 inches was made intentionally 'not operable.' Young mentioned that his grandfather, Frank Young, a prison employee who was in charge of the machine shop, helped produce the trap door for the original gallows. 'I kind of feel turnkey, you know, knowing that he had something to do with the original one back in 1944 and then I basically made a reproduction.' Young found the replica straightforward to build. 'I am happy how it turned out.' He added that a noose was securely fastened with 'about five screws' to prevent anyone from trying to remove it. Young said Friday he hopes to create a more accurate noose from a thicker rope. Under bright blue skies, visitors toured the reproduction gallows near Building No. 2, also known as death row, which stands approximately 200 feet from the original gallows' warehouse location. 'It absolutely evoked emotions when I turned the corner to see it,' said Todd Thompson, Leavenworth County Attorney, who viewed the gallows on Friday. 'It's really haunting because you see it within the facility and you see those that actually were hanged,' he said. ' And it just makes you think about what has happened here, that this isn't just, a fun tour, but something that you can take with you and hopefully instill to people like what it's like to violate crime and what the repercussions of that is.' The tour guides will be trained to discuss this history with sensitivity, Bates-Lamborn explained. A metal sign is at the bottom of the 13 steps with a profile picture of the 15 men who were hanged. Their names and the dates that they were executed are on the sign. Bates-Lamborn emphasized the human element of the gallows. 'People are very interested in hearing the stories,' she said. 'Not being able to tell the story of these 15 men is one thing, but being able to tell the story of these 15 men who were executed here is another.' 'We grew up in the shadow of the penitentiary... it's such a large part of our community's history,' said Bates-Lamborn. 'The gallows are not something that we're wanting to sensationalize, but people want to see what it looked like,' she said. 'And because we couldn't produce it, we came up with this idea.' More than just a structure of wood and rope, the gallows serve as a powerful symbol of history that will not be forgotten. Tours of the prison are conducted on Friday, Saturday and Sundays through the end of October. Some of the men who were executed on the original Kansas State Penitentiary gallows: Perry Smith and Richard Hickock (1965): Convicted for the Clutter family murders ('In Cold Blood'). Lowell Lee Andrews (1962): Executed for murdering his parents and sister. Ernest Hoefgen (1944) Clark B. Knox (1944) Fred Brady (1944) George Ronald York (1965) James Douglas Latham (1965)
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The New Yorker, a US institution, celebrates 100 years of goings on
The New Yorker magazine, a staple of American literary and cultural life defined by its distinctive covers, long-form journalism, witty cartoons and particular grammar, is celebrating 100 years on newsstands. To mark the publication's centenary milestone, four commemorative issues are being released, while its namesake city will host seven exhibitions ahead of a Netflix documentary on the title known for its artistic cover creations. Despite its storied history, the New Yorker often puts a mirror up to current events. Three founding fathers were shown on a recent cover design being marched out of office, carrying their effects in cardboard boxes in a satirical commentary on US President Donald Trump's assault on the status quo. Francoise Mouly, the magazine's artistic director, said the New Yorker was not immune from the crisis plaguing the media. "But I'm stubborn and I see the future with a lot of confidence and hope," she said. Mouly has been one of the conductors of the New Yorker orchestra since 1993, selecting the cover that week after week lends the magazine its unique identity. "There are some printed products that will never be replaced by digital -- children's books, comics, and the New Yorker," she told AFP at a recent exhibition showcasing the magazine's art, held at New York's Alliance Francaise cultural center. One example of cover art on display depicts a rush-hour subway scene in which all the passengers are animals, while another by Mouly's husband Art Spiegelman shows a Black woman kissing a Hasidic man. That 1993 design, which followed clashes between the two communities in a Brooklyn neighborhood, stirred controversy at the time and remains one of the title's most discussed covers. With more than 5,000 editions over the past century, the magazine has published literary greats like Truman Capote's 1965 "In Cold Blood", while also giving James Baldwin space to write about race relations. - 'Incredibly successful' - Ernest Hemingway, Susan Sontag and JD Salinger are among the authors to have graced the pages of the magazine which combines current affairs, analysis, fiction, reviews, criticism, poetry, and of course its legendary cartoons. Published weekly, the magazine has reported global scoops like the fullest account of the US atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, with the entirety of the August 31, 1946 edition given over to John Hersey's article. In 1961 Hannah Arendt covered the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in the reporting of which she coined the phrase "the banality of evil." In recent years the magazine won a Pulitzer Prize for Ronan Farrow's reporting of predatory film mogul Harvey Weinstein, fuelling the "MeToo" movement. "These were all remarkable, long-form stories that really changed the course of American history, not just American journalism," said Julie Golia, curator of an exhibition on the magazine at The New York Public Library. Founded on February 21, 1925, the New Yorker did not always have such lofty ambitions. At the height of the Jazz Age, amid post-war and pre-depression euphoria, husband and wife founders Harold Ross and Jane Grant set out to create "a magazine of wit and cosmopolitanism, an urbane magazine, but not one that took itself too seriously." One hundred years on, it boasts 1.3 million subscribers, most of whom subscribe in both print and digital formats. It is a jewel in the crown of media group Conde Nast, which also publishes Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ, having bought the New Yorker in 1985. Despite its highbrow image, the magazine has adapted to the digital age emphasizing subscriptions over advertising, editor-in-chief since 1998 David Remnick said in a recent radio interview. "The New Yorker is much more than those pages that people get in the mail," said Golia. "It's a website, it's podcasts, it's a festival, and it's a brand (and) as a brand, it's incredibly successful." arb-gw/mlm
The Independent
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
John Mulaney jokes that only 2 SNL hosts have ‘committed murder' – here's who he was likely referring to
John Mulaney stunned the audience during his Saturday Night Live opening monologue when he said that two out of the 894 people who have hosted the sketch show in the past five decades have committed murder. The comedian performed at an anniversary event for the US sketch show, which has spent the weekend celebrating its 50th birthday with a series of ceremonies featuring many famous faces. During an opening monologue with Steve Martin, Mulaney said there have been 894 hosts across the show's five-decade history, but 'it amazes me that only two of them have committed murder'. Each week, the show sees a well-known star take over hosting duties, which involves delivering an opening monologue and appearing in multiple sketches. Mulaney did not elaborate on the two hosts he was referring to, but it is believed he was referring to OJ Simpson and Robert Blake, who hosted in 1978 and 1982, respectively. NFL star Simpson was the subject of one of the most high-profile murder trials in American history, over the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1994. He was charged with both murders in 1994 but acquitted the following year. He was later found liable in the wrongful death of Goldman and battery of both Brown and Goldman in a civil lawsuit, and was ordered to pay $33.5m in damages. Simpson died in 2024 aged 76. Actor Robert Blake, best known for starring in the 1967 film In Cold Blood, was charged but acquitted in the shooting of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. Though he was found not guilty at trial, he was found liable of wrongful death in a civil lawsuit and he was ordered to pay $30m in damages. Blake died in 2023 aged 89. Elsewhere at the 50th anniversary celebrations for the sketch show, Ryan Reynolds shocked fans with a joke about the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni drama. Reynolds and Lively's appearance at the special was their first public showing amid the ongoing It Ends With Us scandal, which has seen both Lively and the film's director and co-star Baldoni file respective lawsuits against each other. In December, Lively sued Baldoni for sexual harassment and causing her 'severe emotional distress'. Meanwhile, Baldoni, who was subsequently dropped by his agency after the allegations emerged, denied all claims and sued Lively and Reynolds for $400m (£321m) for attempting to 'destroy' his reputation and career. SNL encouraged Reynolds, who previously hinted at a difficult time in his first social media post since Lively's lawsuit, to reference the scandal in a small moment involving Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. When the stars spotted Lively and Reynolds in the crowd, they said: 'Ryan! How's it going?' to which Reynolds, who stood up, replied: 'Great! Why, what have you heard?'
