This past Valentine’s Day, 71-year-old Brad Reese, proud grandson of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups inventor H. B. Reese, posted a scathing open letter to the manager of corporate brand and editorial at Hershey, accusing the company of unforgivably altering many Reese’s products by replacing real chocolate with compound chocolate — basically using vegetable oils instead of cocoa butter to lower costs and replacing real peanut butter with “peanut-butter-style crèmes.” “And Reese wasn’t alone in feeling like everything was getting worse,” writes Rachel Handler. “Everyone in my life I spoke to agreed that something was amiss, that Reese’s — and commercial chocolate in general — didn’t taste the way it used to.” Handler would spend the next several months tumbling down a chocolate vortex, encountering dozens of eccentric characters, all disagreeing about the fundamental question of what chocolate even is and who it should be for. “I learned that — not to sound like a LinkedIn guy — what’s going on with chocolate is a parable for the modern world. That at this particularly bleak end stage of capitalism, everything we once treasured has or will lose its essential essence and MrBeast will always be involved somehow.” For our cover story, Handler takes a deep dive into the molten belly of the chocolate world. Read it in full: nymag.visitlink.me/vKKky_

“I was constantly saying, ‘Why don’t we, as a couple, walk away from the show?’ And he consistently wanted to stay,” ‘Love Is Blind’ star Michaella Giorgio talks about ex-fiancé Rob Feeley. vulture.com/article/love-is-…

“Horror Movie Night” on DWTS is packed with the stuff of nightmares: sentient dolls, killer clowns, multiple 4 paddles courtesy of guest judge Shirley Ballas, and a double elimination. vulture.com/article/dancing-…

Jennifer Lawrence was not prepared for the fervor with which the ‘Summer I Turned Pretty’ fans defended their beloved Conrad Fisher. thecut.com/article/jennifer-…

A year after a report that questioned Amy Griffin’s memoir ‘The Tell,’ the billionaire has been accused of accosting Billy Bush at a celebrity wedding and threatening the children of Katie Rosman, a journalist who co-authored the report. thecut.com/article/amy-griff…

Outrage over Obama’s Cheesecake Factory joke is the dumbest culture-war fight I’ve ever seen, Sarah Jones writes. nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

Could the blue wave elect a Democratic senator in deep red South Carolina? A new high-quality Times-Siena poll shows Democrat Annie Andrews and Republican Darline Graham dead even, despite Trump’s rescue effort. nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

While confirming Woody Harrelson’s return to the franchise, Jennifer Lawrence said reprising her role as Katniss a decade after the original trilogy has been ‘so emotional.’ vulture.com/article/j-laws-r…

Hulu’s new reality series ‘The Mob’ is less a competition than it is a sustained bit of theater, and it works best when everyone plays along. vulture.com/article/the-mob-…

While on the stand in his rape trial in Britain, Russell Brand revealed that he could not get a single person to testify on his behalf. vulture.com/article/russell-…

A surge in Arab-Israeli voting has given a future government the option to sideline the country’s most extreme parties, Celeste Marcus writes. nymag.com/intelligencer/arti…

To celebrate the release of Sarah J. Maas’s sixth ‘A Court of Thrones and Roses’ novel, fans gathered at the Bell House in Brooklyn to celebrate with the Ripped Bodice. thecut.com/article/a-court-o…

Val Chmerkovskiy returned to ‘Dancing With the Stars’ this week after his suspension, and Carrie Ann Inaba assured fans that there was no beef between them. thecut.com/article/carrie-an…

‘New York’ Magazine’s restaurant critic Matthew Schneier reviews Good Time Country Buffet. It is quite simply the city’s hottest hot bar, translating a $26.99 all-you-can-eat format into a buzzy downtown cafeteria. grubstreet.com/article/good-…

Of the four House Republicans who pushed the Epstein vote over the line, Lauren Boebert is the last one standing ahead of the 2026 midterms. Now, she is fighting for her political life in a closer-than-expected reelection campaign under a cloud of controversies related to her personal life. First, her 21-year-old son was arrested in August on charges of sexual exploitation of a child. Then last month, a recurring critic, David Wheeler, accused Boebert in a House Ethics Committee complaint of having sexual relationships with male and female staffers. The allegation of multiple same-sex affairs only amplified the scandal. Boebert denied the claims, which also include allegations of hush-money payments, and in her interview with @JakeLahut, she swiped at the coverage. “Screw the media,” Boebert said. ‘“I don’t know if this was lazy or intentional, but this was announced by a man who has attacked me and my family for six years, who has been fact-checked by CNN, who has labeled photos of me that weren’t photos of me, who has said just horrendous things about me.” Caught between the wariness of Trumpworld and the gleeful animosity of Democrats, Boebert finds herself in a tough spot. It doesn’t help that she has a party-girl persona, bolstered by such incidents as her being kicked out of a regional-theater performance of ‘Beetlejuice’ in 2023 after aggressively fondling her date. A former Boebert staffer, who acknowledged she’s “kind of an adventure sometimes,” pointed to the congresswoman’s past behavior as a reason why Wheeler’s filing got outsize attention. “I think it’s complete bullshit,” the former staffer said. “But also, she hasn’t really put herself in a place to get the benefit of the doubt on stuff like this.” Read Lahut’s full report on Boebert’s last stand: nymag.visitlink.me/UG9Bjb

‘A Court of Splintered Harmony’ may be a setup in order to later pull out the rug from under Sarah J. Maas’s readers, but she fails to make this installment an individually satisfying story. vulture.com/article/a-court-…

Of the four House Republicans who pushed the Epstein vote over the line, Lauren Boebert is the last one standing ahead of the 2026 midterms. President Donald Trump threatened to pull his endorsement of Boebert in a Truth Social post earlier this year, after she campaigned with Massie, but he didn’t follow through. “I don’t even know if the president wrote that,” Boebert tells @JakeLahut. Who did, Natalie Harp? “No, no. Natalie is a doll. Lots of people suggest lots of things,” she said. Read more: nymag.visitlink.me/TwcKNK

Nobody has ever been in a position to book themselves as the Super Bowl headliner, so there’s a lot to think about now that Jay-Z has done it, writes critic Craig Jenkins. vulture.com/article/jay-z-su…

Join ‘The Gilded Age Club,’ a newsletter where ‘New York’ writers and editors obsess over HBO’s campy 19th-century drama, for subscribers only. vulture.com/article/gilded-a…

An etiquette guide for these economically and sexually trying times so you can get it on without pissing anyone off. thecut.com/article/how-to-ha…