Today's Liberal News

Television Is Better Without Video Games

“Fudge,” I remember saying, only I didn’t say fudge, I said fuck, a word for adults. I was playing The Last of Us, a narrative video game for adults about a zombie apocalypse, and I had just died for what seemed like the thousandth time in the first room with a “clicker,” the game lore’s name for a medium-difficulty enemy.

SNL Is Excelling in One Particular Way

The defining quality of Saturday Night Live throughout its staggering 48 years on the air has been its live factor. Where other sketch or variety shows have had the benefit of post-production—namely planning and polish—SNL’s spirit has most often emerged under the pressure of live television.

The Narcissism of the Angry Young Men

Some years ago, I got a call from an analyst at the National Counterterrorism Center. After yet another gruesome mass shooting (this time, it was Dylann Roof’s attack on a Bible-study group at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine and wounded one), I had written an article about the young men who perpetrate such crimes.

Poem Beginning With a Sentence From My Last Will & Testament

                       
                       Lucy, when I die,
I want you to scatter one-third of my ashes among the sand dunes
                       of Virginia Beach.
Here I’ve come every summer for three and a half decades.

Labs Are Scooping Up Animals Killed by Wind Turbines

This article was originally published by Undark Magazine.“This is one of the least smelly carcasses,” says Todd Katzner, peering over his lab manager’s shoulder as she slices a bit of flesh from a dead pigeon lying on a steel lab table. Many of the specimens that arrive at this facility in Boise, Idaho, are long dead, and the bodies smell, he says, like “nothing that you can easily describe, other than yuck.”A wildlife biologist with the U.S.

Memphis BLM Activist: Tyre Nichols’ Killing Is Part of Police Brutality Crisis Facing Black Residents

Amid nationwide protests, prosecutors have charged five former Memphis police officers with murder in the death of Tyre Nichols, who died January 10 of kidney failure and cardiac arrest after a vicious beating three days earlier during a traffic stop. Memphis and other cities across the U.S. are expecting mass protests against police violence over the weekend, with body-camera footage of the deadly traffic stop set to be released Friday evening.

Biden Proposes Renters Bill of Rights as Landlords Make Record Profits; Housing Advocates Want More

A new Biden administration plan announced Wednesday aims to make rent more affordable and protect tenants’ rights. This comes as rental costs in the United States rose nearly 25% between 2019 and 2022. It also comes as investors bought nearly a quarter of all single-family homes sold in 2021, making home ownership increasingly impossible for people forced to spend much of their money on ever-increasing rent.

Why Memphis Is Different

As multiple video recordings of the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis were released to the public on Friday night, the nation prepared for the reaction. Peaceful protests can easily turn into violent ones, especially in a country that is rightly outraged about the ongoing police brutality against Black men. It has become a familiar call and response: Police misconduct leads to more harm in or for the communities that were targeted by the misconduct in the first place.

The Luxury Dilemma

Behind vine-covered walls on a modest hill overlooking Sunset Boulevard sits the decidedly immodest Chateau Marmont. The hotel was inspired by a French Gothic castle and, at 93, it is easily the oldest thing in Los Angeles that’s still considered sexy.As a born-and-raised New Yorker without a driver’s license, I found the hotel the perfect place to park myself for a day of meetings in the era before Ubers and WeWorks and Soho Houses.

Why Americans Love Coffee So Much

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.Coffee is one of the great loves of my life, and I’m not alone. The majority of my fellow Americans love coffee too, so much so that they refuse most alternatives—including yerba mate, an energizing option that happens to be South America’s most consumed beverage.

Technology Makes Us More Human

Updated on January 28, 2023, at 7:51 p.m. ETChatGPT, a new AI system that sounds so human in conversations that it could host its own podcast, is a test of temperament. Reading between its instantly generated, flawlessly grammatical lines, people see wildly different visions of the future.For some, ChatGPT promises to revolutionize the way we search for information, draft articles, write software code, and create business plans.