   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S66Mike Flanagan's Final Netflix Show Looks Like a Big Departure   On Netflix, Doctor Sleep filmmaker Mike Flanagan created a portfolio of work that was simultaneously diverse and cohesive. From classic scares in the Haunting duology, religious horror in Midnight Mass, and a YA adaptation with The Midnight Club, Flanagan’s distinct style and his re-use of strong actors made his entire body of work feel like a single project.Unfortunately, Netflix’s Flanaverse is ending, but not before one last series tackles one of the greatest gothic horror writers ever... with a decidedly modern twist.
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S1The Wondrous Birds of the Himalayas and the Forgotten Victorian Woman Whose Illustrations Rewilded the Western Imagination  Each month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping The Marginalian going. For seventeen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor has made your own life more livable in the past year (or the past decade), please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference.Elizabeth Gould (July 18, 1804–August 15, 1841) found working as a governess “miserably-wretched dull.” Artistically and musically gifted, boundlessly curious about the world, she had grown up painting and collecting specimens. Now in her early twenties, she felt life must have more to offer than the lonely occupation of looking after small children with whom one “cannot communicate a single thought or feeling.” By twenty-four, Elizabeth had met and married the young taxidermist John Gould, himself a man of broader dreams — passionate about birds, he yearned to become a respected ornithologist, not a mere decorator of Victorian parlors and museums. He knew that the pathway to professional respect was a book, and he knew that it had to be accurately, consummately illustrated.
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S2Bertrand Russell on the Salve for Our Modern Helplessness and Overwhelm  Each month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping The Marginalian going. For seventeen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor has made your own life more livable in the past year (or the past decade), please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference.“To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control,” philosopher Martha Nussbaum concluded in considering how to live with our human fragility. And yet in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, when the world seems to splinter and crumble in the palm of our civilization’s hand, something deeper and more robust than blind trust is needed to keep us anchored to our own goodness — something pulsating with rational faith in the human spirit and a profound commitment to goodness.That is what Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872–February 2, 1970) explores in the out-of-print treasure New Hopes for a Changing World (public library), composed a year after he received the Nobel Prize, while humanity was still shaking off the dust and dread of its Second World War and already shuddering with the catastrophic nuclear threat of the Cold War.
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S4Generative AI Has an Intellectual Property Problem  Generative AI, which uses data lakes and question snippets to recover patterns and relationships, is becoming more prevalent in creative industries. However, the legal implications of using generative AI are still unclear, particularly in relation to copyright infringement, ownership of AI-generated works, and unlicensed content in training data. Courts are currently trying to establish how intellectual property laws should be applied to generative AI, and several cases have already been filed. To protect themselves from these risks, companies that use generative AI need to ensure that they are in compliance with the law and take steps to mitigate potential risks, such as ensuring they use training data free from unlicensed content and developing ways to show provenance of generated content.
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S5The Hours at 25: The book that changed how we see Virginia Woolf  In November 2022, the first full-size bronze statue of Virginia Woolf was unveiled in Richmond, South London, where she lived with her husband Leonard from 1915 to 1924. It features the author in repose on a bench, her legs crossed with a book closed on her lap. The monument, sculpted by Laury Dizengremel, is designed to allow the passer-by to sit by Woolf's side and engage in imagined conversation. The statue is deceptive: it appears that it is offering one an intimate moment with Woolf, relaxing with her on her bench. But how close is it really able to bring us to her? Equally, we can stand in her writing shed at Monk's House in the East Sussex village of Rodmell, where Woolf retreated from London with her husband Leonard – her room of one's own, littered with her pens and scrunched-up note paper – and still feel far from the woman herself.
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S6Red, White & Royal Blue is 'a royal disappointment'  The best romantic comedies have a specific skill: they can make us surrender our most basic ideas about what we consider to be realistic or plausible, even if they are grounded in a world we mostly recognise. That's exactly what we're asked to do in the opening minutes of Red, White & Royal Blue. The film – an adaptation of the 2019 romance novel by Casey McQuiston – stars a fictional British royal family. The US has its first female president, Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman), whose son Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez) is a handsome, energetic trouble-maker searching for his purpose in life.More like this:- 10 of the best films to watch in August- Meg 2: The Trench is 'plain awful'- The film too hot for the US censors
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S7S8AI threatens to add to the growing wave of fraud but is also helping tackle it  There were 4.5 million reported incidents of fraud in the UK in 2021/22, up 25% on the year before. It is a growing problem which costs billions of pounds every year. The COVID pandemic and the cost of living crisis have created ideal conditions for fraudsters to exploit the vulnerability and desperation of many households and businesses. And with the use of AI increasing in general, we will likely see a further increase in new types of fraud and is probably contributing to the increased frequency of fraud we are seeing today.
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S9How drugs can warp your sense of time  Imagine a world where you could control your sense of time. Where trips to the dentist flew by in a second and holidays felt like they lasted forever. Time altering pills may sound like science fiction but the time warping effects of psychoactive drugs suggest that deliberate time manipulation may be possible.Drug induced time-warps are a widely reported phenomenon by recreational drug users. My 2022 study suggested that over 75% of people who had recently used cocaine, MDMA (also known as ecstasy) and cannabis reported distortions to the passage of time during drug use. The participants said the distortions were a pleasurable aspect of drug use.
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S10'Australia is sleepwalking': a bushfire scientist explains what the Hawaii tragedy means for our flammable continent  As I hear reports of the fire tearing through the Hawaiian island of Maui, I feel utterly depressed. As a fire scientist, I know the unfolding horror – which has killed 53 people so far – is just the beginning. It’s a portent of what Australia and other countries will experience in a warmer world.For Australians, the reports inevitably bring back memories of our awful Black Summer in 2019-20. Like the Maui tragedy, those huge, uncontrollable bushfires were a terrifying glimpse of the intense fires we can expect as climate change worsens.
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S11S12S13Beyonc  A prenuptial agreement can seem like something only high-profile people like Jeff Bezos – with his US$138 billion fortune to protect – actually need.But prenups – contracts entered into before marriage that detail how assets will be divided in the case of divorce – can be a good idea for anyone going into a marriage, according to lawyers and marriage counselors. They have been in regular use since 1983, when a group of attorneys and law professors drafted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act, a set of rules regulating prenups that 28 U.S. states have since adopted.
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S14'Uncivil obedience' becomes an increasingly common form of protest in the US  When Utah legislators passed a bill requiring the review and removal of “pornographic or indecent” books in school libraries, they likely did not imagine the law would be used to justify banning the Bible.Utah’s H.B. 374, which took effect in May 2022, “prohibits certain sensitive instructional materials in public schools.” It joins a series of conservative book bans that supporters claim protect children but critics have argued unfairly target LGBTQ+ content and minority authors.
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S15Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? A nutritionist explains the science behind 'functional' foods  Apples are not high in vitamin A, nor are they beneficial for vision like carrots. They are not a great source of vitamin C and therefore don’t fight off colds as oranges do. However, apples contain various bioactive substances – natural chemicals that occur in small amounts in foods and that have biological effects in the body. These chemicals are not classified as nutrients like vitamins. Because apples contain many health-promoting bioactive substances, the fruit is considered a “functional” food.
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S16US losing Fitch's top AAA credit rating may portend future economic weakness  The formerly pristine reputation of the U.S. government’s debt lost a little more luster after another prominent rating agency demoted Uncle Sam from its AAA perch.While the downgrade is unlikely to have much of an impact in the short term, its implications about the state and size of U.S. indebtedness will likely reverberate on Capitol Hill, where stalled negotiations over the budget could mark a step toward the Biden administration’s first government shutdown.
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S17San Jose and the reemergence of the donut city  After many decades of reinvestment and repopulation, some American downtowns are now showing signs of hollowing out again. The widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work schedules has drained commercial offices and caused tenants to terminate leases. In many downtowns, office occupancy is at 50% pre-pandemic levels. Ripple effects include shrinking lunchtime crowds, slumping retail sales and a drop-off of public transit ridership. For example, New York City’s subway is at 65% of pre-pandemic ridership as of early 2023.
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S18Heritage algorithms combine the rigors of science with the infinite possibilities of art and design  The model of democracy in the 1920s is sometimes called “the melting pot” – the dissolution of different cultures into an American soup. An update for the 2020s might be “open source,” where cultural mixing, sharing and collaborating can build bridges between people rather than create divides.By combining computational thinking and cultural creative practices, our work provides an entry point for students who are disproportionately left out of STEM careers, whether by race, class or gender. Even those who feel at home with equations and abstraction can benefit from narrowing the gap between the arts and sciences.
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S19Zimbabwe heads to the polls amid high inflation, a slumping currency and a cost of living crisis  Jonathan Munemo is affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations. He was appointed as an International AffairsFellow for Tenured International Relations Scholars for the 2023-24 academic year.Zimbabwe is facing a host of pressing challenges that voters dearly want the next president to address. Persistently high inflation, elevated interest rates, and a slumping and volatile Zimbabwe dollar have combined to fuel a cost of living crisis for households and battered business activity.
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S20Grayson Perry: exploring what it is to be human with humour, irreverence and excess  Smash Hits, the new Grayson Perry retrospective at Edinburgh’s National Galleries, spans the 40-year career of the recently knighted artist. It’s an exhibition packed with scrutiny of the entanglements of self and society, as Perry casts up snippets of the institutional landscapes that formed him: family, England, the art world.Perry’s artistic journey began with evening classes in pottery. His Kinky Sex plate (1983) shares the chunkiness of his recent ceramic English Wanker (2023). This makes a satisfying contrast with the highly polished style of his vases and the intricacy of his prints and tapestries.
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S21Lion farming in South Africa: fresh evidence adds weight to fears of link with illegal bone trade  In South Africa an estimated 8,000 lions are bred and kept in captivity for commercial purposes in more than 350 facilities. This is far more than the country’s wild population, estimated at 3,500 individuals.These big cats are exploited in a variety of different ways including interactive cub “petting” tourism, “canned” trophy hunting (where the lions are hunted in small enclosures with no chance of escape), live exports, and the supply of body parts for use in traditional medicine.
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S22India was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years - here are the results  Allowing forests to regenerate on their own has been championed as a strategy for reducing planet-heating carbon in the atmosphere while also boosting biodiversity, the benefits ecosystems offer and even the fruitfulness of livelihoods. But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have skewed towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees. The reasons are obvious: planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. This is helpful if the objective is generating a lot of timber quickly or certifying carbon credits which people and firms buy to supposedly offset their emissions.
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S23Air pollution linked with global rise in antibiotic resistance  Antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to global health. In 2019, it caused over 1.27 million deaths worldwide – and it’s projected that antimicrobial resistance (which includes bacterial resistance to antibiotics) may contribute to ten million deaths per year by 2050.Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections such as urinary tract infections and pneumonia. But their misuse and overuse has contributed to the emergence of bacteria which harbour genes that enable them to withstand the killing power of antibiotics. This results in infections that are much harder to treat.
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S24Protecting boreal plant species is a critical part of reconciliation efforts  Labrador Tea, fireweed, chokecherry and raspberry are some of the boreal plants that are classified as weeds by the Canadian Weed Science Society. These plants are targeted with herbicide by logging companies across the Canadian boreal forest.However, these boreal plant species are important traditional plants for many Indigenous peoples in Canada and around the world. In addition to their use as food, these traditional native plants hold tremendous medicinal, ceremonial and material value.
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S25Canadian government's battle with big tech platforms and what it means for the future of journalism  Canada recently passed a law to address the continuing financial woes of its traditional news media, trust in which has steadily fallen to 42% in 2022. The Online News Act, known as Bill C-18, passed in June 2023 but is yet to come into force. It will require digital media companies to compensate news organisations for hosting their content on sites such as Facebook and Instagram and via search engines such as Google. In response, it is reported that Meta has begun to block news stories from its sites Facebook and Instagram. News companies are reported to have called on the country’s antitrust regulator to investigate, arguing: “Meta seeks to impair Canadian news organizations’ ability to compete effectively in the news publishing and online advertising markets.”
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S26Western firms still doing business in Russia finance the war - here's how to recoup the huge cost to taxpayers  In Russia this summer, you can still enjoy a Cornetto, but you can forget about eating a Tunnock’s tea cake or a Big Mac. This is because Cornetto’s UK-headquarted parent company, Unilever, is still operating in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, alongside many other western firms such as PepsiCo.While lots of firms, including McDonald’s and the Scottish confectionery maker Tunnock’s, have cut business ties with the country since the war started, the Kyiv School of Economics estimates western companies still operating in Russia made over US$213.9 billion (£168.2 billion) in revenues in 2022.
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S27S28Is there new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics? Our finding will help settle the question  Despite its tremendous success in predicting the existence of new particles and forces, the Standard Model of particle physics, designed over 50 years ago to explain the smallest building blocks of nature, isn’t the complete “theory of everything” physicists have been longing for.The theory has several problems. It neither describes gravity nor the unknown components that make up most of the energy density in the universe: dark matter and dark energy. Particle physicists are therefore on a treasure hunt looking for any possible deviation from “expected” behaviour that could hint at new physics.
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S29S30Accelerated evolution and automated aquaculture could help coral weather the heat  Coral on the Great Barrier Reef has regrown strongly after the big losses of 2016 and 2017, when water temperatures were significantly above the long-term average. While this is good news, it’s largely luck. The reef experienced mass bleaching in 2020 and 2022, but temperatures cooled just in time to prevent extensive coral deaths. But the reef’s luck may be about to run out. Hotter El Niño conditions are returning to the Pacific, driving warmer ocean temperatures. The past few months have seen global temperature records smashed. Already, reefs in Florida, the Caribbean and parts of the Pacific are bleaching. The looming southern summer is a significant concern.
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S31Throwing things on stage is bad concert etiquette - but it's also not a new trend  The recent spate of incidents where objects have been thrown at musicians by people who paid to see them perform has generated comment, consternation and condemnation on media both mainstream and social.One recent case involved liquid being thrown on stage during a performance by American rapper Cardi B. The singer retaliated by throwing her microphone into the crowd. Media accounts suggest the incident has resulted in a police complaint filed by someone in the audience.
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S32S33Can Australian employers stop you working from home? Here's what the law says  Zoom, the videoconferencing company whose fortunes soared with the pandemic-driven shift to working from home, has reportedly told its staff to get back to the office – for at least two days a week, if the commute is no more than 80 kilometres. It’s part of a trend of employers winding back the work-from-home flexibility that enabled most to keep operating through the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
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S34S35S36Genetically engineered bacteria can detect cancer cells in a world-first experiment  Dan Worthley owns shares in GenCirq, a synthetic biology company focussed on cancer therapeutics.This work was supported by an NHMRC ideas grant (2020555) awarded to Dan Worthley.Dan Worthley is listed as an inventor on a provisional patent application, “Detection of Cancer Mutations”, filed by the Universityof California San Diego with the US Patent and Trademark Office (Application No. 63/239,100).As medical technology advances, many diseases could be detected, prevented and cured with cells, rather than pills.
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S37What's in vapes? Toxins, heavy metals, maybe radioactive polonium  If you asked me what’s in e-cigarettes, disposable vapes or e-liquids, my short answer would be “we don’t fully know”.The huge and increasing range of products and flavours on the market, changes to ingredients when they are heated or interact with each other, and inadequate labelling make this a complicated question to answer.
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S38We need more than police checks: how parents and educators can keep childcare services safe from abuse  Last week, a former childcare centre worker was charged with more than 1,600 child abuse offences, sending shivers through the Australian community. There are about 1.4 million children using a childcare service (including centre-based care, family daycare and outside school hours care) around the country.In response to a confidential briefing about the case last year, Education Minister Jason Clare set up a review into safety practices in the childcare sector.
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S39The trauma caused by resettlement in Newfoundland and Labrador must be acknowledged  Between 1954 and 1975, 30,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians resettled from hundreds of remote communities to larger towns. The relocations were part of a plan by the provincial and federal governments to move people to areas with better economic opportunities, social amenities and improved educational facilities.Today, there are only a handful of isolated communities in Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial government continues to provide relocation assistance if at least 75 per cent of residents vote to resettle elsewhere. Residents of Gaultois, N.L., the most recent community to vote on resettlement, did not reach the 75 per cent threshold needed to relocate.
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S40S41Why old, shared dorms are better than new, private student residences  As students globally prepare for university, many contemplate where to live or prepare to move into new accommodations. Students are faced with a variety of new options, different from their parents’ dorm rooms.As universities have become more commercialized, they are entering into partnerships with developers, banks and marketing professionals that favour apartment construction, emulating units of the condo boom.
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S42How language can turn down the temperature of heated climate change discourse  Death Valley, Calif., shattered the record in July 2023 for the hottest temperature on earth. Meanwhile, July 2023 is now the hottest month in recorded history and scientists have noted heat waves are 1,000 times more likely with climate change.The effects of this heating are myriad and inter-connected. However, one underappreciated impact of global heating is its influence on language itself. Language evolves and adapts to environmental pressures in a delicate balance with its surroundings, just like any other ecological system.
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S43The Kimba nuclear waste plan bites the dust. Here's what went wrong and how to do better next time  Ian Lowe was for 12 years a member of the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council, which advises the regulator of nuclear issues. He was also a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for the South Australia Nuclear Royal Commission. The federal government has scrapped plans to build the nation’s first radioactive waste storage facility on farmland near Kimba in South Australia. Frankly, it was never going to work. The plan was doomed from the start.
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S44Maui wildfires: Extra logistical challenges hinder government's initial response when disasters strike islands  Wildfires destroyed the Hawaiian tourist town of Lahaina on Aug. 8 and 9, 2023, leaving many of its roughly 13,000 residents homeless. Fires also burned in other areas on Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island, and its Big Island. President Joe Biden issued a disaster declaration on Aug. 10, which authorizes federal aid for communities in harm’s way.The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which delivers emergency assistance after disasters, has to deal with big transportation challenges in cases like this. Initially, FEMA will be focused on bringing food, generators, cots, meals and anything else people need, and that aid will be arriving on planes and boats rather than by road.
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S45Why do I fall asleep on the sofa but am wide awake when I get to bed?  After a long day, you flop onto the sofa and find yourself dozing off while watching TV. The room is nice and warm, the sofa is comfortable, and the background noise of the TV lulls you to sleep. Then a loved one nudges you awake and reminds you to go sleep – in bed. But when you get there, you find to your frustration that you’re wide awake.
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S46Royal romances have always been fantasies of transformation. How does new-generation teen fiction reflect queer and diverse desires?  Casey McQuiston’s beloved, bestselling 2019 young adult novel, Red, White and Royal Blue, has just launched as a movie, on Amazon Prime. And fans are excited. The story follows Alex Claremont-Diaz, son of the first female American president, and his developing relationship with Henry, the Prince of Wales.As a genre, “royal romance” follows many of the regular romance conventions, but must include a member of a royal family or peerage as one of the love interests. Book blogs and Goodreads are full of suggestions for getting your Prince (or Princess) Charming fix.
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S47S48Out of the shadows: why making NZ's security threat assessment public for the first time is the right move  Today’s release of the threat assessment by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) is the final piece in a defence and security puzzle that marks a genuine shift towards more open and public discussion of these crucial policy areas.Together with July’s strategic foreign policy assessment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the national security strategy released last week, it rounds out the picture of New Zealand’s place in a fast-evolving geopolitical landscape.
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S49S50S51From handing out their own flyers, to sell-out games: how the Matildas won over a nation  Fiona Crawford has worked in and around football for more than a decade, including having previously worked for Football Federation Australia/Football Australia.As the Matildas prepare for their 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup sudden-death quarter final against France, they have become the hottest sporting property in the country. For example, formerly uninterested major media just days ago hired a helicopter to spy on one of the team’s training sessions.
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S52Zuma prison case casts doubt on South Africa's medical parole law  University of Western Cape provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.The Constitutional Court order relating to a case involving former President Jacob Zuma has illuminated some of the flaws in the law governing medical parole in South Africa. This is despite amendments in 2012 to ensure equality before the law, uphold offenders’ rights to dignity and healthcare when they suffer from serious physical health problems.
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S53"And Just Like That . . ." Has One Too Many Cosmopolitans  There are few products of the current I.P.-driven reboot era more cynicalâon paper, at leastâthan "And Just Like That . . . ," the Max series that resurrected the global icons of "Sex and the City" nearly two decades after the show ended. The first season, conceived during the pandemic, returned to the original friend group (minus Kim Cattrall), updating their problems to be more menopausal and more in tune with the social and political concerns of the present moment. In the opening scene, Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte meet for lunch at the Whitney Museum's in-house café, giddy and dressed to the nines. Lest the viewer wonder whether any of these women has been plagued by the financial turbulence that has unsettled the world in the past two decades, Charlotte is toting an Oscar de la Renta garment bag, sheathing a new dress for her teen-age daughter to wear to a piano recital. Twenty years later, the socioeconomic perches and social dynamics of these women would seem to be intact. But the show's writers loudly signal that the world around them has dramatically shifted and that the women have tried to adapt: when Carrie snaps a photo of a stranger's extravagant outfit, she posts it to her Instagram. "When I first started doing it . . . it was just for fun," she says, of the social-media platform. "But now that I'm on that podcast, it's kind of growing into a thing."From there, the first season undertakes a series of box-ticking gestures that seem designed to address criticisms of the original "Sex and the City." The main characters befriend the women of color who've suddenly waltzed into their lives; Miranda leaves her husband, Steve, for a nonbinary comedian named Che Diaz, and Charlotte grapples with the prospect of her adolescent daughter questioning her gender. Carrie Bradshaw, the show's chirpy protagonist, is now podcasting about sex and relationships rather than writing about them. (Her show is called "X, Y, and Me.") At its worst, "And Just Like That . . ." exploits viewers' nostalgia by jamming headlines and cultural touchstones of the moment into the psyches and lives of old, beloved characters. It's a collision of aesthetic and topical excess that almost feels as if it were created to provoke the most grimaces possible.
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S54S552024 Preview: Bidenomics Versus the Trump Freak Show  Joe Biden has been embracing August: a relaxed beach day in his beloved Delaware, riding bikes and taking a moonlit stroll on the sand with the First Lady; and a trip out West to the Grand Canyon for an in-person signing of an order creating a new national monument, summer casual in a baseball cap, shades, and no tie. He even gave an interview to the Weather Channel about all the crazy summer weather and climate change—“the existential threat to humanity,” as he described it—though he declined to outright declare a national emergency. (Fox News coverage—no parody—was headlined “Biden avoids Hunter Biden scandal in sit-down interview with The Weather Channel.”)The vacation vibe, though, came with an urgent political mission: revive his poll numbers before it’s too late. As the 2024 campaign begins in earnest, Biden has the lowest average approval ratings of any President since Jimmy Carter: 40.3 per cent approve, 54.8 per cent disapprove. Even Donald Trump, as hard as it is to believe, had slightly higher ratings at this point in his term. Other indicators—both economic and political—have been looking better for the President in recent months: low unemployment, easing inflation, better-than-expected performances in off-year elections, such as the win this week by abortion-rights advocates on a referendum in red Ohio. Economists and businesses began the year planning for recession; now they are talking of a “soft landing.” Past Presidents who sought reëlection under such circumstances—think Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama—tended to fare well in recent decades.
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S56Mike Pence Flies In  Follow @newyorkercartoons on Instagram and sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter for more funny stuff.By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
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S57Sarah Sze's Worlds of Wonder and Futility  Go to the Guggenheim Museum. Climb past the gift shops and walls of Gego and Picasso. Awaiting you on the top floor is the niftiest migraine you will ever experience. The artist responsible, Sarah Sze, has contributed a set of site-specific pieces that look like a single shantytown of projectors, plastic bottles, potted plants, paintings, photographs, papers, and pills, to name only a handful of the "P"s. There are thousands of other bits, many of them mass-produced tools doing any job but the one they were made for. Everything is stacked or fanned or strewn, and looks a sneeze away from collapse. Red clamps and blue tape take credit for the hard work done by secret dabs of glue, while other yips of color compete with the gray floors, and lose. Most of the installations are lit by the museum's glow, and one isn't lit at all, but for some reason I imagine the entire set in the prickly glare of a conference room.Clutter is Sze's medium. She can infuse it with any flavor and play it at any volume. Some of what happens in her work is accidentalâ"P" is also for "pedestal fans," which blow through the exhibition, rustling threads and scrapsâbut even accident is just another one of her ingredients, measured out to the milligram. A team of assistants keeps things in a permanent state of fussy disarray, dropping by thrice a week to adjust threads, refill plastic bottles to make up for evaporation, and so on. The results are less a parody than a triumph of micromanagement: much of the fun in these installations comes from seeing how thin they can stretch, how many different things and ideas and tones they can keep going at once. Images from every land and clime hint at the absurdity of an interconnected planet, as well as the glory. A little circle of rocks, matches, and other stuff reminded me both of Stonehenge and the Stonehenge replica my fifth-grade class built out of blocks and paper-towel rolls.
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S58A Once-in-a-Lifetime Summer Spectacle  This summer is expected to bring to the eastern part of the North American continent a spectacle of extraordinary rarity: the conjunction of four indictments of Donald Trump.The indictments are expected to be visible over a remarkably extensive portion of the Eastern seaboard of the United States, stretching from the southern tip of Florida all the way up to parts of New York City.
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S59'TMNT: Mutant Mayhem' Rebels Against Hollywood's Franchise Formula  One of the biggest problems with so many mainstream American blockbusters these days is that they all seem to stick to the same formula. It’s become increasingly difficult to find new franchise films that don’t cram in set pieces at the same points of their stories and don’t end with oversized climaxes that land more with a whimper than a bang. That’s why Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem feels so special.The new comedy offers a fresh, animated take on the TMNT franchise and its heroes, one that emphasizes their adolescent ages and desires. The film, which was produced and co-written by Seth Rogen and directed by Jeff Rowe, is an absolute blast. While most of them are delightfully fun and eccentrically staged, too, it’s not Mutant Mayhem’s various action sequences that make it work. That honor belongs to the stretches of the film where its characters do nothing but hang out, joke around, and commiserate about their angsty, shared loneliness.
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S605 Years Ago, Jason Statham Saved the Dumbest Sci-Fi Thriller of the Century  It takes special comic timing to deliver zingers like “Chew on this, you ugly bastard” with just the right amount of knowing ridiculousness. Arnie could do it. So could Bruce Willis. But over the past 25 years, everyone’s favorite scowling, shaven-headed Brit, Jason Statham, has asserted himself as the new king of the action hero one-liner. And The Meg, the first time his archnemesis happened to be a bloodthirsty 75-foot shark from an unexplored world beneath the Mariana Trench, gave him plenty of opportunity to flex both his comedic and real muscles.Statham had first shown off the latter as a professional diver competing in the 1990 Commonwealth Games, and as an oiled-up, leopard print-trunked dancer in the video for rave outfit The Shamen’s “Comin’ On.” His first intentionally amusing performance, though, came in his big-screen debut. In Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ opening scene, Statham’s Cockney wheeler-dealer Bacon instantly commands attention with his fast-paced, if politically incorrect, market stall patter (“I took a bag home last night and she cost a lot more than ten pounds I can tell ya”).
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S61Marvel's New X-Men Show Will Copy the Original in One Brilliant Way  X-Men is one of the strongest brands Marvel has. Even though it resides on the threshold of the MCU, it’s long cemented its place in pop culture. In the ‘90s, X-Men: The Animated Series was a smash hit, and an integral part of the childhoods of countless Marvel fans today. Marvel, clearly aware of the series’ legacy, recently announced X-Men ‘97, a new show that will bring the original’s tone to Disney+. Further details of the first episode now confirm that it carries forward an important storyline from its predecessor.
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S62'Lords of the Fallen' Is the Most Exciting Soulslike in 8 Years  Pummeling the ferocious angel with my axe only gets me so far. Although her health is tantalizingly low, she annihilates me with a devastating swipe of her sword. Dying in Lords of the Fallen doesn’t mean the end — instead, it sends you to the Umbral world to pick up where you left off, with one last chance to finish the fight. And that’s exactly what I did — I reanimate, stagger the boss, and deliver one final blow to take her down. Victory at last.
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S6310 Years Later, This Viral Indie Game Still Feels Revolutionary  The worst part of traveling is having to go through TSA or customs. It feels like an extra step in the process that mostly exists due to government bureaucracy. So, you wouldn’t expect working as an immigration inspector at a border checkpoint to be an exciting premise for a game. Yet 2013’s Papers’ Please is easily one of the most enthralling puzzle games of the past decade. By utilizing the mundanity of a government operation, it challenges players through puzzles but also in how they approach complicated moral issues. Ten years later, it remains unforgettable.
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S642023's Most Promising Vampire Thriller Wastes Its Best Idea  Perhaps the biggest hurdle for The Last Voyage of the Demeter is that it shows its hand before it even starts. Based on the seventh (and most mysterious) chapter of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, director André Øvredal’s new movie sets itself up nicely. A wrecked ship washes up on the shores of England, empty except for mutilated bodies and a captain’s log warning of a terrible evil that accompanied them. So what happened on that boat? Many horror fans have wondered, but no movie has provided an answer — until now. It’s an intriguing premise, but what follows is exactly what you expect, and little else.
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S65Marvel's Most Anticipated Team-Up Movie May Be In Trouble  Marvel’s cinematic universe has been struggling, and much of the tension rests on the shoulders of one upcoming film. Deadpool 3 is one of Marvel’s most anticipated projects, not only because it will bridge the gap between the studio and its properties at Fox, but because of the unique crossover it’s promised. The threequel could be the film that properly brings mutants, and maybe even the X-Men, into the MCU. Fans have been waiting for this for years, but that wait is getting longer.Deadpool 3 was slated for a May 2024 release, but the ongoing actors’ strike has put production on hold. Disney and Marvel were clearly confident in Deadpool’s production schedule before, having moved the film up from its previous date in late fall. But now the film is stuck in limbo, and the studio has quietly shifted its premiere to reflect that.
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S67'Baldur's Gate 3' Lawsuit Rumors Reveal Gamers Want a Big Change in the Industry  In a year full of incredible titles, Baldur’s Gate 3 is shaping up to be another masterpiece. The expansive RPG boasts more than a hundred hours of content and offers unmatched freedom in how players approach conflicts and romance. It is a high-water mark for RPGs and gaming in general. But is it so good that other companies are suing developer Larian Studios for $100 billion?
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S68What is Causing Antibiotic Resistance? Scientists May Have Just Identified An Unlikely Culprit  If nothing is done to control air pollution by 2050, deaths due to antibiotic resistance could rise by over 50 percent.If this summer taught us anything, it’s that air pollution is becoming an absolute menace. Case in point: smoke from Canadian wildfires that blanketed most of the U.S. in a murky, dystopian haze. While natural events like wildfires are seasonal blips, their worsening under climate change speaks to a trend of declining air quality and its deleterious impacts on human health.
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S69Call of Duty Is About To Bring Back Its Most Iconic Setting  As we approach Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s release, Activision has finally started revealing information about the upcoming shooter. During a recent trailer, the company offered a new look at Vladimir Makarov, who will presumably be one of the game’s leading antagonists. The trailer also showed quick snippets of Verdansk, the iconic Warzone map that started it all back in 2020. While the trailer doesn’t outright confirm how Verdansk will make its triumphant return in Modern Warfare 3, we do know it will play some kind of role in the upcoming game.
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S70Disney Is Following a Disturbing Netflix Trend  Remember when Disney+ was less than seven dollars a month? Those were the good old days, back when Disney was only just beginning to enter the streaming wars. At the time, their $6.99 subscription was a steal, one designed as a clear challenge to Netflix’s standard $12.99 plan. But that deal was short-lived, as Disney+ has since hiked their subscription prices into the double digits. A traditional ad-free tier now goes for $10.99, and while that’s still a bit better than Netflix’s new prices, it won’t be for much longer.Following a steep decline in new subscribers, Disney is raising the price of its streaming services across the board. Newly-reinstated CEO Bob Iger announced the company’s new strategy at their Q3 earnings call: the ad-free Disney+ subscription will now be priced at $13.99/month, while Hulu’s ad-free tier will be raised from $14.99 to $17.99 a month. That’s the second price hike this year, and it’s not the only update Disney is pursuing.
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