President Trump announced Saturday he approved new fuel economy standards that eliminate an electric vehicle (EV) mandate introduced under the Biden administration. The 2024 EV mandate aimed to facilitate the transition from gas-powered to EVs by setting new pollution standards for automakers' vehicle fleets, which were intentionally difficult to meet without introducing new electric or...
Former Kennedy Center employees accused the iconic performing arts venue's leadership in a letter to Congress of halting planned waterproofing repairs earlier this year. In the Thursday letter, David Seide, an attorney representing the whistleblowers, shared internal documents which he said challenged the Kennedy Center board's claims that these leaks constituted the venue's immediate closure. ...
On this, the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon resigning the presidency, forgive some reflections of a personal rather than third-party nature. In the past two days and indeed for the past half-century, all sorts of people will put forth all sorts of takes about whether the resignation was a tonic for American politics (“it showed […]
The Olympics are supposed to be the ultimate showcase of human athletic achievement. But in 2024, they’ve become something else: a welter of apps, streams, and time-shifted events that leaves even dedicated sports fans scratching their heads. Navigating the maze of NBC‘s Peacock app, with its various tiles for “Primetime in Paris,” “Late Night,” and […]
Two years ago, I cast my ballot for the 10 greatest films ever made in the last installment of the celebrated Sight and Sound magazine poll. To my credit, I did not vote for Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, the tedious feminist tract that displaced both Citizen Kane and Vertigo. Yet I […]
The new disaster film Twisters has been described as a “stand-alone sequel” by its producers. Meaning, I guess, that it is not a sequel to 1996’s cult classic Twister in the sense that its events do not continue from those in the previous film, nor is it a “reboot” that rehashes the same events. Rather, […]
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) may have been a social studies teacher, but he would have failed Constitutional Law 101, especially the part about the First Amendment. “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy,” Walz said on MSNBC in December 2022, which would be news to the […]
The pages of history fetishize great figures, but what we call “greatness” is often the correction of generational dereliction, when a few people, touched by genius or blessed with high character, heal the rifts in a society caused by the many. Leo Tolstoy best captured this common view of Abraham Lincoln in particular, calling him […]
Psychologists and researchers say an optimistic outlook can lead to better physical and mental health. For instance, optimism is associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that optimists tend to have better coping mechanisms and are more resilient to stress compared to […]
It has been 18 years since elite gymnastics adopted its open-ended scoring system, an adaptation introduced not a moment too soon, as it would be rather boring to watch Simone Biles score repeated perfect 10s over nine years of international competitions across little more than a decade. At her third consecutive Olympic Summer Games, Biles […]
City Comptroller Brad Lander's audit of the Adams administration's contracts with DocGo suggests the city should recover over $11 million of nearly $14 million...
Gov. Walz signed the "trans refuge" bill, turning Minnesota into a legal sanctuary for children seeking "gender affirming care" like puberty blockers, cross sex...
