People Update

This Week

The standout moment belonged to Paige Bueckers: she took a scary hit to the back of the head in a Sunday collision with Nneka Ogwumike, sat out Monday's overtime loss to the Liberty as a precaution, and was confirmed concussion-free — all just days after being named WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week.

Updates

Jerry Saltz — Artist

A July 19 Fantastic Man profile captured Saltz's punishing art-critic routine — over a thousand exhibitions a year — and teased a forthcoming book surveying the art world of the past two decades.

John Grisham — Author

No major updates this week. He remains between releases, with the international thriller "The French Illusion" due September 29 and a classics box set arriving August 18.

Michael Lewis — Author

No major updates this week. His podcast "Against the Rules" recently revisited "The Big Short" for its 15th anniversary with Michael Burry as a guest, and his next book, "Blockers," is set for an October 6 release.

Frederik Backman — Author

No major updates this week. Backman remains focused on his live speaking tour, including a recent Chautauqua Institution lecture on "Art and Artists Against the Odds."

Sally Rooney — Author

No major updates this week. She continues to draw attention for authorizing a Hebrew translation of "Intermezzo" through a boycott-compliant Israeli publisher, and for signing a declaration supporting Palestine Action.

Lee Child — Author

No major updates this week. The next Reacher novel, "Chain Reaction" — co-written with brother Andrew Child — arrives October 20 and brings back Susan Turner for the first time since "Never Go Back."

Mark Bowden — Author

No major updates this week for the "Black Hawk Down" author. Note: most 2026 "Mark Bowden" headlines actually concern a different person — a body-language keynote speaker of the same name.

Chuck Klosterman — Author

No major updates this week. His podcast run for the book "Football" (stops on The Book Review, The Bulwark, Bullseye, and House of Strauss) wrapped up earlier this year; he continues co-hosting "Music Exists" with Chris Ryan.

Tana French — Author

No major updates this week. Her Cal Hooper trilogy closer, "The Keeper," released this spring, remains a Times bestseller.

Ben Mezrich — Author

No major updates this week. His chess-scandal book "Checkmate," on the Niemann–Carlsen cheating controversy, is out now, and he's booked on America's Book Club for July 26.

Malcolm Gladwell — Author

Gladwell's eight-part Obama collaboration podcast, "Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise," finished its wide rollout with episodes releasing through July 16, just inside this week's window.

Colm Tóibín — Author

No major updates this week. He continues touring behind his first story collection in over a decade, "The News from Dublin."

Thomas Friedman — Author

No major updates dated this week. His most recent Times columns (through early July) focused on Trump, Iran, and AI's geopolitical "turning point."

Paige Bueckers — Basketball

See This Week above: a scary Sunday collision, a precautionary sit-out Monday, and a cleared concussion protocol, coming right after a Western Conference Player of the Week honor. Her availability for Wednesday's game and Saturday's All-Star Game was unresolved as of this writing.

Robert Sapolsky — Biologist / Author

No major updates this week. Earlier this year he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Patrick Collison — CEO

No major updates this week. He's continued talking up 2026 as an inflection point for AI — calling it potentially "the first quarter of the singularity" — and Stripe's AI-driven hiring plans.

Magnus Carlsen — Chess Player

No tournaments this week. His most recent win was the TePe Sigeman event in May, following the FIDE Freestyle World Championship earlier this year.

Tyler Cowen — Economist / Podcaster

No major updates precisely this week. His latest "Conversations with Tyler" featured Nobel co-laureate Joel Mokyr (July 8); new episodes air every other Wednesday.

Arnold Kling — Economist / Writer

No major updates this week. He continues his regular link roundups on Substack, most recently on public choice and audit politicization.

Pope Leo — Leader

Pope Leo is midway through a two-week summer break at Castel Gandolfo, following a video address to an interfaith gathering in Philadelphia (where he received the 2026 Liberty Medal) and a visit to Lampedusa condemning the treatment of migrants.

Gretchen McCulloch — Linguist / Author

No major updates this week. She recently marked "Lingthusiasm's" 100th episode and continues ASL study and LingComm grant mentoring.

David Crystal — Linguist / Author

No major updates this week.

Max Tegmark — Physicist / AI Safety Researcher

No major updates precisely this week. He shared the Future of Life Institute's Summer 2026 AI Safety Index on July 7.

Nate Silver — Podcaster

No major updates this week. His podcast "Risky Business" with Maria Konnikova wrapped its run July 1 with a look back at 2025/2026 predictions; he separately discussed the 2026 midterms on the "All-In" podcast.

Ethan Mollick — Professor / AI Researcher

A July 14 Forbes piece ("Ethan Mollick Sees Dusk Settling") captured his latest argument that AI is shifting from chatbots to autonomous agents needing human management, not constant prompting; his new book "Co-Existence: The Next Phase of AI" is due October 20.

Scott Galloway — Professor / Podcaster

No specific news dated this week. "The Prof G Pod" continues its daily cadence with co-hosts Ed Elson and Jessica Tarlov.

Montana Fouts — Softball Player

A July 18 Deseret News feature detailed how faith reignited Fouts's love of the game; she leads the AUSL with 53 strikeouts and a 2.56 ERA for the No. 1 Utah Talons and was named to the 2026 USA Softball national team pool.

Jay Wright — Basketball Coach

Wright was named to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame's 2026 class (announced July 13), with induction set for October 22 in Kansas City.

This Week

Paige Bueckers turned in the standout stretch of the week: a 5-0 run for the Dallas Wings capped by a season-high 34 points in front of a record 20,996 fans at Montreal's Bell Centre, earning her first career WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week honor.

Updates

Jerry Saltz — Artist

Profiled in a July 14 Fantastic Man feature on his three-decade run as New York Magazine's star art critic, attending more than a thousand shows a year and prizing candor and self-deprecation over "intellectual pageantry."

John Grisham — Author

Doubleday confirmed his next thriller, "The French Illusion," a globe-trotting espionage novel about a Paris honeymoon that turns into a kidnapping nightmare, arriving September 29 — his first stab at the spy genre.

Michael Lewis — Author

No major updates this week.

Frederik Backman — Author

No new book on the schedule, but "My Friends" keeps rolling — over 465,000 Goodreads shelvings in 2026 alone — even as Backman has suggested in interviews it may be his last novel.

Sally Rooney — Author

No major updates this week.

Lee Child — Author

The next Jack Reacher novel, "Chain Reaction" (with Andrew Child), is set for an October 20 release, sending Reacher into a case tangled up with the Pentagon and a remote Colorado town.

Mark Bowden — Author

No major updates this week.

Chuck Klosterman — Author

Still riding the success of "Football" and "Rock*"; his prediction that WNBA star Sophie Cunningham could become U.S. Vice President by 2050 kept making the rounds on Bill Simmons' show.

Tana French — Author

"The Keeper," the closing volume of her Cal Hooper trilogy, remains a bestseller and was named a Best Book of the Year (So Far) by both the Times and the Financial Times.

Ben Mezrich — Author

His new book "Checkmate," on the Magnus Carlsen–Hans Niemann chess-cheating scandal, is headed to film with Nathan Fielder, Emma Stone, and Dave McCary producing; Mezrich is booked on C-SPAN's America's Book Club this month.

Malcolm Gladwell — Author

Announced a new book, "The American Way of Killing," tied to an October 9 talk in Morristown on America's gun-violence crisis (tickets went on sale July 13); his eight-part podcast series with the Obamas' Higher Ground, "Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise," wraps its run July 16.

Colm Tóibín — Author

No major updates this week; his story collection "The News from Dublin" continues to draw reviews and reading-group attention.

Thomas Friedman — Author

Published a July 8 NYT column, "Trump is fleecing us," and joined Walter Isaacson on Amanpour & Co. on July 10 to discuss the rapidly shifting world order.

Paige Bueckers — Basketball

Named WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week (July 14) after averaging 23.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 7.4 assists across a five-game Wings win streak, including a season-high 34-point game in Montreal.

Robert Sapolsky — Biologist / Author

Elected to the National Academy of Sciences this year; continues making the media rounds — most recently with BBC Science Focus — discussing free will and determinism.

Patrick Collison — CEO

Forbes now pegs his net worth at $17.5 billion; he has reaffirmed plans for aggressive AI-driven hiring at Stripe as the company's valuation sits near $159 billion.

Magnus Carlsen — Chess Player

Dropped 18 rating points in the July FIDE update but remains world No. 1 and the only 2800+ player, marking 15 unbroken years at the top; R. Praggnanandhaa won Norway Chess 2026, one of the events that shook up July's ratings.

Tyler Cowen — Economist / Podcaster

Wrote "The Fertility Crash Will Make the World a Small Town" (July 6) on falling birth rates hollowing out cities, and posted July 14 on Marginal Revolution about how AI will make custom-built religions easier to create.

Arnold Kling — Economist / Writer

Kept up his near-daily "In My Tribe" Substack, most recently a Public Choice Links roundup touching on audit capacity being repurposed rather than cut.

Pope Leo — Leader

Marked July 4 with a visit to the migrant-crisis frontline on Lampedusa, urging Americans to welcome immigrants with "compassion and generosity"; released his July prayer intention "for respect for human life" and began his summer break at Castel Gandolfo.

Gretchen McCulloch — Linguist / Author

No major updates this week; her podcast Lingthusiasm recently passed its 100th episode.

David Crystal — Linguist / Author

No major updates this week.

Max Tegmark — Physicist / AI Safety Researcher

His Future of Life Institute released its 2026 H1 AI Safety Index on July 7 — the top-scoring company (Anthropic) managed only a C+ — with Tegmark warning that "AI companies are sprinting toward a cliff."

Nate Silver — Podcaster

Updated his midterm forecast (July 13), putting Democrats at 85–90% odds to retake the House, while flagging Maine's Senate race as an "unnecessary risk" for Democrats.

Ethan Mollick — Professor / AI Researcher

Argued (July 7) that clever prompting is losing its edge as agentic AI takes over — the new skill is managing AI "like a capable, literal executor" with clear goals and quality bars; also noted Opus 4.7 working autonomously for 14 hours on a build that would take humans weeks.

Scott Galloway — Professor / Podcaster

Prof G Pod hosted TBPN's founders on July 9 to discuss their fast-growing media business; on Pivot (July 14) he questioned the authenticity of a Mitch McConnell photo that experts and the Washington Post have since said appears genuine.

Montana Fouts — Softball Player

Set the AUSL's single-season wins record (7-1, 1.83 ERA, 42 strikeouts) pitching the Utah Talons to the league's best record.

Jay Wright — Basketball Coach

Named to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame's 2026 class; induction is set for October 22 in Kansas City.