Issue Contents: |  | HELL AND HIGH WATER Faced with the greatest natural disaster in modern American history, Washington fumbled and failed. Just days after Hurricane Katrina submerged the city, photographer Jonas Karlsson and reporter Ron Beinner captured New Orleans’s suffering, as well as its heroes. A year later, VanityFair.com remembers.
IN KATRINA'S WAKE Donna Brazile, a Louisiana native who managed Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, takes a personal look back at the events and aftermath of the deluge that forever changed the landscape of the Big Easy.
HOW NEW ORLEANS DROWNED In an excerpt from The Great Deluge, historian Douglas Brinkley follows the key players through the fateful first week after Katrina to show that, thanks to meltdowns, infighting, and miscalculations, the Big Easy never had a chance.
FATHERS AND SONS In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Paris-based journalist Tom Sancton returned to New Orleans to inspect his family home. His son, Julian, a V.F. staffer, reflects on what it means to miss New Orleans, something his father and grandfather had been doing for decades before the storm. Read Tom Sancton. Read Julian Sancton.
THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS PAUL FRANK His quirky creations embellish edgy clothes that have attracted trendsetters like Jack White and Maddox Jolie. But now, as Paul Frank and his erstwhile partners trade allegations of disrespect and disengagement in a battle for millions of dollars, the question arises: who is Paul Frank—the man or the company?
ENDOWMENTS OF AN HEIRESS Last March, heiress and socialite Casey Johnson found out from the New York Post’s “Page Six” that the man she thought was her boyfriend had had a relationship with her aunt. The September Vanity Fair covers the ensuing feud within the Johnson & Johnson family, and Casey, a close friend of Paris and Nicky Hilton’s, poses for V.F.’s Jonathan Becker.
ARRIVING IN STYLE She emerged on the small screen as 7th Heaven’s farm-fresh preacher’s daughter. She worked her way through the perspiration-drenched worlds of action and horror movies. Now, with a role in The Illusionist, it’s fair to say that Jessica Biel est arrivée. And Norman Jean Roy’s photographs capture the beauty of it all. View the outtakes.
KATE THE GREAT There's only one Kate, and VF.com has her. In this behind-the-scenes video, filmed during the cover shoot for Vanity Fair's September issue, iconic Kate Moss does her best Marlene Dietrich for photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, Michael Bronner reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up. Read the article.
MARGOLICK ON THE MIDDLE EAST As hostilities mount in Tel Aviv and Gaza, V.F.'s Chris Bateman talks with David Margolick about the new generation of leaders in Israel and Palestine, and what it’s like to cover and take part in the Middle East drama while having a direct emotional stake in it.
DISSING AND DISHING WITH PEREZ HILTON The pseudonymous troublemaker behind the wildly popular Hollywood-gossip Web site PerezHilton.com spends lots of time online. Jessica Flint finds out where.
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