The Free Press

Welcome back to Ancient Wisdom, our weekly series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. This week, we brought back the literary critic Joseph Epstein, 88, for a return engagement to explain why his reading habits have changed as he’s gotten older.

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One often hears about those books people would like to have along if marooned alone on a desert island. The selection, at least among my fellow graybeards, doesn’t often contain many surprises: Homer, Dante, Michel de Montaigne, Dickens, Tolstoy, Proust, and a few other standbys are usually mentioned. Old age is a kind of desert island of its own. In old age one figures to have lost some friends and family to death and seen others of them lapse into ill health, perhaps even dementia. If one has arrived at old age with enough money to retire, reading, for some of us, becomes one’s main activity. That certainly includes me.

“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries,” Immanuel Kant wrote. And so in a sense it is, but with the obvious qualification that it is a one-way conversation, the book speaking to you, not you to it. Kant himself of course had one of those finest minds, which may have limited his reading. I don’t, which makes my own prospects for reading material nearly endless.

But reading what? Or better, reading how? My sense is that one reads differently in old age than when younger. For one thing, some writers who once seemed vital, central, indispensable, no longer seem so. For another, with one’s time before departing the planet limited, one tends to have less patience. Then, too, after a lifetime of living, one’s experience has widened; and with any luck it has also deepened, and so one has a different perspective on the things one reads or has read, often holding them to a higher standard.

Hello and welcome back. Bari this week asked Olly Wiseman to edit a story a little more before it runs, and he just stood up and screamed “I stand with ‘60’ ” and threw a fire extinguisher out the window. Pretty wild. For anyone who wants to sign the team letter wishing Bar a happy new year, I just added my name!

→ The Quality Learing Center: The big bizarre news in our dear country, and what much of this newsletter will be devoted to, is that the entire Minnesota economy is built on scams. A young independent YouTuber named Nick Shirley went knocking on “day care” centers door to door but weirdly found that the places were closed or otherwise devoid of children. We need more information but it definitely appeared he was finding scams, a bevy of scams. At one point, he went to a building with apparently more than a dozen supposed healthcare companies all located in the same building—and he was ushered out. He posted the 42-minute video investigation last week, and it went enormously viral, with some 134 million views on X alone.

Days after Nick Shirley’s video came out, two things happened. On the one hand, a bunch of kids were brought to the center Shirley found empty, to prove that it was, in fact, actively in use, so the press could cover it as a totally normal day care. Around the same time, a state agency claimed that that location had already shut down, so the press could cover it as a problem that has been long solved, silly gooses. The agency then said the center had “decided to remain open.” So it’s not a problem—but if it were, it’s been solved. One Minneapolis day care has now claimed that an unknown criminal broke in this week and stole paperwork documenting enrollment and employee information. I, for one, hate when that happens to my day care that’s being investigated.

Here was Minnesota lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan showing solidarity with the Somali community amid the probe.

I’m 40 and married with three kids ages 2, 4, and 6, and I’m not in love with my husband of eight years anymore. Or I should say that, sometimes, I get periods of grace where I fall in love with him again for a few days or weeks. But often, at least half the time, I’m just going through the motions when I say, “I love you,” or kiss him, or agree to have sex. I try and try. I really do. We’ve done couples therapy, I make lists of the things I’m grateful for about him, and I try to be loving and gracious even when I don’t feel loving and gracious. How long do I try? I don’t want to wreck my kids’ lives or his life or our financial future. Do I raise the kids to young adults and then reevaluate? Do I leave sooner so he/we have another chance at love? Is this just what long-term monogamy feels like? Any words of wisdom for me?

Sincerely,

Eleanor

Eleanor,

Allow me to dispense with a lie at the get-go—a lie you’ve been told all your life, starting in grade school by a well-meaning teacher: “There are no stupid questions.” Eleanor, there are stupid questions. Really, truly there are. All adults know it.

A question is stupid when answering it only leads us further from anything true, meaningful, or useful. When having an “answer” is unambiguously worse than not having one.

A paramedic who asks, “What’s this patient’s astrological sign?” before starting treatment is asking a stupid question because it’s not remotely germane. It lacks any salience at a critical moment. It leads him away from the truth.

I’m not insulting the question you have put to me, which is vital. I’m referring to the question you keep putting to yourself.

Over the past few days, you’ve likely seen the videos of massive crowds of protesters flooding the streets of Tehran. There’s a striking image of a man sitting motionless in the middle of a Tehran highway. Videos of people in the crowds chanting: “Death to the dictator” and “Long live the king.” It feels like a turning point that’s been long overdue.

A few weeks ago, I sat down with someone who has firsthand experience of the tyranny perpetrated by the the Islamic Republic of Iran—and who also happens to be one of the most famous Persians of the 20th century.

Her story is one of millions shaped by this regime. But it is also singular.

Googoosh was Iran’s first child star, performing in Tehran’s cabarets at the age of just 3. As the country modernized, her fame exploded. She sang for the Persian royal family, met heads of state, and headlined international music festivals alongside artists like Ray Charles, Tina Turner, and Elton John.

To all our Free Press readers, a very Happy New Year! The Front Page will be back on Monday, but don’t worry: We’ve got plenty of delights for you to read while you nurse your sore heads. This week we rounded up our favorite Free Press stories of 2025, shared our New Year’s resolutions, and made our predictions for 2026. And today, we’re publishing the latest personal essay by Larissa Phillips, who recalls a dark and stormy night, 30 years ago, when she put her fate in the hands of strangers. Scroll down to read it. Oh, and this afternoon, you’ll get the next installment of Tough Love—in which Abigail Shrier writes to a woman who’s wondering if she can fall back in love with her husband. Buckle up! —The Editors

My grandmother, who lived on a tiny island 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, always had an extra bed available. If the house was full, she opened the foldout cots in the back of her rambling workshop. “There’s always room for one more,” she would say, pulling out sheets and blankets within seconds of getting a phone call from her church or the chamber of commerce, alerting her to stranded tourists who had missed the last boat or some other lost souls. In the morning, the accidental guests would sit at her tiny kitchen table for coffee, Jiffy baked muffins, and a whole lot of stories.

My grandmother probably considered this part of her Christian service, but the concept of welcoming those in need into your home is older than Christ. The Greeks called it xenia: the sacred duty to host a stranger. Without inns or hotels to host the traveler who’d wandered off course or suffered some misfortune—and with so many dangers afoot—this practice was a civilizational necessity thousands of years ago. Thank goodness we’ve passed those dangerous times. By now, with motels along every highway and smartphones and credit cards in everyone’s pocket, we’re safer than ever.

But we’re also more alone. This might seem contradictory, but back when cars broke down more often, when we got lost because we didn’t have the right map, or stranded because we forgot to check the weather—and maybe we just weren’t as smart as we are now about avoiding danger—the need to rely on strangers actually made the world a smaller, friendlier place. I know because of something that happened to me, on a dark and stormy night, 30 years ago.

Donald Trump has granted clemency to over 1,600 people during his second term. Now, one of his former impeachment lawyers is following that same “pardon playbook,” a system that has rewarded allies of the president and been driven by a desire for political retribution.

The lawyer, David Schoen, is representing Michael Sessa and Vic Orena, who were convicted in 1992 and then sentenced to life in prison for their involvement in the Mafia. Schoen requested pardons or commuted sentences for the two inmates in a letter to Trump on December 24, a copy of which was obtained by The Free Press.

Schoen zeroed in on the fact that the prosecutor in the cases against Sessa and Orena was Andrew Weissmann—a foe of Trump’s who led Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller’s special counsel team that investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Free Press has had a busy year. As we prepare to ring in the new year, we’re proud of all our hard work, a little tired, and—above all else—grateful to you, the reader, for making all of this possible. To round out 2025, we want to round up some of what we think were our best stories of the last 12 months.

Here are some of the stories that helped us see through the fog, separated right from wrong, challenged our views, made us laugh, or made us cry. In short, they’re stories we think are worth revisiting—or reading for the first time, if you missed them when they were published. And if you’re not a paid subscriber to The Free Press, please consider upgrading today to support more journalism like this in 2026.

Subscribe now

Happy New Year!

As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week Jonathan looks at how an early American plan to conquer Canada met disaster. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors

For all the talk of President Donald Trump breaking with traditions in foreign policy, he has returned the United States to one of its oldest policies when it comes to relations with its neighbor to the north. Long before the 47th president mused about making Canada the 51st state, leaders of the American Revolution entertained the hope that Canada would join them as the 14th colony—and, in the event of independence, the 14th state. Two hundred fifty years ago this week, those hopes suffered a serious setback at the Battle of Quebec.

With our America at 250 coverage this month having focused on religious liberty, it’s fitting to finish December with the story of the failed attempt at union between the largely Protestant 13 colonies and the mostly Catholic population above them in Canada. When General George Washington dispatched a thousand troops to Quebec in September 1775, he gave their commander—the courageous and cantankerous Colonel Benedict Arnold—strict instructions for winning the hearts and minds of the Canadian people. “I also give it in Charge to you to avoid all Disrespect or Contempt of the Religion of the Country,” Washington wrote. “While we are Contending for our own Liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the Rights of Conscience in others.” As the end of the year approached at his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Washington eagerly awaited good tidings from Canada.

This past year wasn’t easy—but it was certainly eventful. Donald Trump returned to the White House, issued a record number of executive orders, deployed the National Guard to American cities—like Los Angeles and D.C.—imposed sweeping tariffs on all our trading partners, gutted the government with DOGE, and unleashed a massive crackdown on immigration.

But that was only the beginning.

The administration also reached a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas—and all the living hostages came home from Gaza. Israel and the United States struck Iran’s nuclear sites. We got the first American pope. And I haven’t even started listing the pop-culture moments, like the Sydney Sweeney jeans ad, the Travis Kelce–Taylor Swift engagement, or when Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Katy Perry went to space. There was truly so much, and if I kept going we’d be here all day.

But this, after all, is a prediction episode. So what will 2026 bring?

It’s Wednesday, December 31. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Will Zohran Mamdani keep New York’s top antisemitism official? Is “Marty Supreme” a victim of its own success? Eli Lake on how Seymour Hersh lost his investigative mojo. And much more.

(And George Clooney, if you’re reading this, bonjour! You’re welcome to come check out the Free Press newsroom, too. The coffee machine broke, so bring your own. Or if you’d prefer to host, we’d love to do our next off-site in Lake Como!)

On to the stories, starting with predictions, resolutions, and New Year’s Eve parties.

We’ve spent a lot of this week looking in the rearview mirror. We’ve waved goodbye to 2025 by admitting what we got wrong, acknowledging what we learned, paying tribute to the heroes of the year, and revisiting some of its lighter moments.

Today, we’re shifting our gaze to the road ahead and asking: What will 2026 bring?

Yes, it’s the annual Honestly predictions podcast. Bari and I are in the hosts’ chairs today, and we call up friends of the pod and experts in their fields to get a sense of what’s coming down the pike on the big questions.

Questions like: Will the war in Ukraine come to an end? (We asked Niall Ferguson about that.) And: Will Donald Trump be as busy in his second year back as his first? (We got Sarah Isgur on the line for that one.) And: Have we passed peak big pant? (Leandra Medine Cohen answers that one and yes, like I said, we hit all the hot-button questions today.) We also have our very own Suzy Weiss on culture, our favorite linguist, John McWhorter, on the words of 2025 and 2026, and Dr. Mark Hyman on how to get healthier starting January 1.

So please, tune in, and buckle up for a whistle-stop tour through everything you need to know ahead of the new year. It’s the perfect thing to listen to as you mix the punch ahead of tonight’s festivities.

One person who takes New Year’s Eve celebrations very seriously is Free Press senior editor Peter Savodnik. He’s expecting 22 for dinner at Casa Savodnik tonight. (I guess my invitation got lost in the post, Peter?) His wife will be serving beef stew. His daughter will be giving a violin concert. Peter will be . . . it’s not clear. Anyway, he has strong opinions about the how and the why of ringing in the new year. The formula includes champagne, laughter—and a good argument. Read all about it here:

And finally, have you set your resolutions yet? If you still need some inspiration, we asked our newsroom what they’ll be doing differently in 2026.

From the Free Press family to yours, Happy New Year.

—Oliver Wiseman

• Tatiana Schlossberg, an environmental journalist and a granddaughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, died on Tuesday. In November, Schlossberg wrote an essay in The New Yorker announcing her terminal cancer diagnosis, acute myeloid leukemia, which she had been battling since May 2024. She was 35.

• Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen’s port city of Mukalla on Tuesday after a weapons shipment from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) arrived for separatist forces. Saudi state-run press announced the strikes, saying the weapons shipment to the UAE-backed forces “threatens peace and stability.” The UAE later announced it would remove its remaining military presence from the country.

• Meta has agreed to buy artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Manus for more than $2 billion, acquiring a fast-growing Singapore-based company known for its AI research tools and agent technology. The deal strengthens Meta’s push to compete in AI assistants, with Manus to be integrated into Meta’s products and its China operations discontinued.

• Cases of the flu are spiking across the country, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday. The CDC estimates there have been 7.5 million cases of the flu, resulting in 81,000 hospitalizations and 3,100 deaths. Over 30 states are experiencing “high” or “very high” levels of flu cases. New York recorded a record amount of flu cases during the week ending December 20.

• OpenAI is paying its employees more than any other major tech start-up in history prior to the company filing for an initial public offering. OpenAI’s approximately 4,000 employees received an average of $1.5 million in stock compensation, more than seven times what Google offered in 2003, a year before the company went public.

• Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is expected to appoint Kamar Samuels, a veteran leader in the city’s public education system, as his schools chancellor, before his inauguration tomorrow. Samuels is a local superintendent in upper Manhattan with a past of championing desegregation and has indicated a desire to replace the city’s gifted and talented programs.

• The U.S. stock market is closing out the year at a near-record high, with the S&P 500 up 17 percent and NASDAQ up 21 percent, respectively, marking the end of an impressive yearlong rally that began after tremors hit the market in the wake of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs in April.