Charles Bethea
The New Yorker
Atlanta, GA, United States
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Past articles by Charles:
The Most Belligerent Flack on Capitol Hill
Nick Dyer, the deputy chief of staff to Marjorie Taylor Greene, has built a career as a political aide out of what one observer calls “pure, non-strategic contempt.” → Read More
Jimmy Carter’s Rock-and-Roll Legacy
The former President has a surprisingly long list of musician friends, some of whom, in the past days and weeks, have been reflecting on the time they’ve had with him. → Read More
Why Some Florida Schools Are Removing Books from Their Libraries
Charles Bethea on the removal of books from some public-school classrooms and libraries in Florida as a result of recent actions by Governor Ron DeSantis and others. → Read More
Rats in the Rat-Control Agency!
The E.P.A., which is tasked with helping to control rodent populations, has been unable to move back into its Atlanta regional office, owing to a pesky infestation of rodents. → Read More
Roy Moore Was Banned from the Mall but Won His Defamation Suit
A jury in Alabama awarded the former Senate candidate more than eight million dollars. A lawyer for the defense says that the case reflects a worrying trend. → Read More
Surviving Hurricane Ian in a Fort Myers Apartment Complex
Charles Bethea writes about a group of neighbors in Fort Myers, Florida, who faced high winds, rising waters, and careening yachts during Hurricane Ian. Photography by Bryan Thomas. → Read More
The Mystery of the Headless Goats in the Chattahoochee
Hundreds of decapitated goat carcasses have turned up in the river that runs through metro Atlanta. Are they evidence of animal sacrifice? Drug smuggling? Both? → Read More
What Happened to “America’s Stonehenge”?
A mysterious stone monument in Georgia, which had been denounced as “Satanic” by a right-wing gubernatorial candidate, was blown up in July. An investigation is under way. → Read More
The New Fight Over an Old Forest in Atlanta
Charles Bethea writes about the efforts of a group of conservationists who hope to prevent the Atlanta Police Department from building a training facility—which would include a mock city and firing range—in the South River Forest, one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces. → Read More
The Controversial Legal Strategy Behind the Indictment of Young Thug
The RICO Act, which was designed to go after the Mafia, is now used to target supposed members of predominantly Black street gangs. Critics say the law is being stretched very thin. → Read More
Were the Film-Set Heists in Atlanta an Inside Job?
According to one tally, three million dollars’ worth of equipment was stolen during the past eighteen months, in forty-five separate incidents. “Somewhere, there’s a mole,” a studio owner said. → Read More
Madison Cawthorn and Mark Meadows: Congressional Racers
Congress is known for moving slowly, but not so for Cawthorn and Meadows, whose need for speed has landed them in trouble with the law—though they’ve sometimes avoided the worst legal consequences. → Read More
Why Did Mark Meadows Register to Vote at an Address Where He Did Not Reside?
Charles Bethea investigates why Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, claimed to live in a mobile home in North Carolina on his 2020 voter-registration form. → Read More
Teeing Up with QAnon
What would Groucho say? Would you rather belong to a club that had the proprietor of a porn shop as a member? Or Marjorie Taylor Greene? → Read More
Nightmare of the Windowless Dorm Room
Charlie Munger, a Warren Buffett crony, donated two hundred million dollars to a university for a gigantic new dorm. The catch: no windows. How did guinea pigs in a similar Munger housing experiment fare? → Read More
Bounty Hunting for Brian Laundrie in a Land of Look-Alikes
Amateur sleuths speculated that the fugitive is on the run on the Appalachian Trail—bad news for the archetypical long-distance hiker: skinny, pale, bald, and bearded. → Read More
Wrongful Conviction, the Game!
Two exonerated convicts visit the escape room run by Cobb County, in Georgia, which was conceived as a prison-break scenario, with visitors playing the role of innocent inmates. Can they get out in time? → Read More
Charles Bethea
Charles Bethea has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2008 and became a staff writer in 2018. He has published dozens of Talk of the Town pieces, often on political subjects, including the creator of barackobama@gmail.com, the gymnastics career of Roy Moore, and a sculptor obsessed with Donald Trump. In addition to politics, Bethea covers local media and the American South. He received a… → Read More
Stacey Abrams Courts the Republican Suspense-Novel-Reader Vote
Among the fans of Abrams’s new political thriller, “While Justice Sleeps,” are self-described conservatives, who size up the Democratic voting-rights activist as both a Marxist and a budding John Grisham. → Read More
Why Did the Police Shoot Matthew Zadok Williams?
Outside Atlanta, a mother and five sisters look for answers. → Read More