with … The show’s first Chinese-American cast member talks resisting conversion therapy, playing politicians and quitting Twitter. He wants to be your sledgehammer: Bowen Yang at the Wrecking Club in Manhattan. Credit... Celeste Sloman for The New York Times Bowen Yang went wild and crazy when he…

Inside the loathed company that defies every rule of branding—and logic Rob Walker Jan 22 · 13 min read L ast month, Spirit Airlines unveiled a new and improved cabin design . Naturally, a carrier touting its revamped passenger experience hopes for media attention — but maybe not from The Daily…

Last week, with the end of the UK’s 47-year membership of the club of European nations just days away, I looked back at some newspaper cuttings from my time as a Brussels correspondent. A picture of worried-looking farmers eyeing up their cattle at a market in Banbury stared out alongside banner…

‘There is no single pre-EU UK nation to return to.’Illustration: Dom McKenzie/The Observer W e know what the week running up to the glorious day of Brexit is supposed to be like. A few nights before the original chosen date of 29 March 2019 , Boris Johnson was “in conversation” with his old boss at…

Photos by Lorenzo Pesce Morning in Gardone Riviera is a riot of tidy perfection. Songbirds coo contentedly. Wild sun ricochets off the postcard lake. Spiffy wooden boats dawdle under a cloudless sky. The air tastes delicious.Riccardo Camanini sits on the terrace of his lakeside restaurant, Lido 84,…

WILLIAM GIBSON NOTICES THINGS others miss. While his science fiction novels are often described as prescient, what defines Gibson’s body of work is the extraordinary refinement of his focus on the present . When everyone is talking about the features of the latest Silicon Valley gadget, he might…

The Lakers star charted a path as an athlete and in retirement that others in the league, including the new face of the Lakers franchise, LeBron James, have looked to as an example. Players and attendees honored the memory of Lakers player Kobe Bryant on Sunday night before the game between the…

Credit... Adam Ferriss Skip to contentSkip to site index A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or something,” a backer says. Credit... Adam Ferriss Leer en español Until recently, Hoan Ton-That’s…

The Lakers retired Kobe Bryant’s jerseys — Nos. 8 and 24 — during a ceremony on Dec. 18, 2017. Bryant, who died with his daughter Gianna in a helicopter crash on Sunday, was an unquestioned basketball great, but a rape accusation early in his career changed how many perceived him. The Lakers retired…

After the rapper’s sudden death in 2018, the producer did his best to “get out of the way” of recordings that represented a bracing left turn for a still-evolving artist. Mac Miller died before he completed “Circles.” His collaborator, the producer Jon Brion, picked up what was meant to be the…

Getty Images/Ringer illustration “Nine times out of 10 I get it wrong / That’s why I wrote this song, told myself to hold on / I can feel my fingers slippin’ in a motherfuckin’ instant I’ll be gone.” That’s how Mac Miller began the somber final verse of “Small Worlds,” the first single from his…

It’s now possible for seniors and other people with limited balance to use scooters to get around Oakland. “There will be 45 scooters available” with adjustable seats, as pictured above, explained E.V. Ellington, manager for Lime for the Bay Area, during a launch event at Oakland City Hall Wednesday…

Boeing's cursed 737 Maxes are no longer in production. The aircraft started falling out of the sky last spring, after which one nation after another banned them from taking off or landing at their airports; it emerged that pilots had long known of deficiencies in the 737 Max's control software,…

Sony/Ringer illustration It’s been nearly two decades since we last saw Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett tearing up Miami in a Bad Boys movie—so long that we sort of forgot how much we missed them. Friday’s release of Bad Boys for Life certainly jogged our collective memory, as Will Smith and Martin…

Skip Navigation Keep Me Logged In Finance Published Wed, Jan 15 20209:46 AM EST Updated Wed, Jan 15 20207:13 PM EST Wilfred Frost @WilfredFrost Hugh Son @hugh_son Key Points Goldman Sachs sold its entire stake in ride-hailing giant Uber in the fourth quarter, according to a person with direct…

Paper Cutter The prestigious academic physics journal Physical Review Letters published a paper this week about cutting-edge laser tech — and, if bloggers are to be believed, it could have juicy ramifications. The paper itself is dry and technical, but the prominent tech blog Ars Technica ‘s…

Writing in Wired , Zeynep Tufekci ( previously ) echoes something I've been saying for years : that the use of Digital Rights Management technologies, along with other systems of control like Terms of Service, are effectively ending the right of individuals to own private property (in the sense of…

Michael Che, the head writer of Saturday Night Live and host of Weekend Update, can’t stop talking about me. It began last June, when SNL launched a website to take open writer submissions. The submission agreement included the same type of standard language you’ll find in any writing submission,…

AN Op-Ed From the Future We Should Have Bought the DVDs It’s 2022. I don’t know if I’ll ever own a house, but I can own my favorite television shows in their entirety. Ms. Walsingham is a writer. Credit... John Karborn Editors’ note: This is part of the Op-Eds From the Future series, in which…

S onrisa Andersen’s childhood home was a mess. Her parents split when she was eight years old and she moved to Colorado Springs with her mother. Then she realised she was living with a hoarder. It might have been grief over the lost marriage that caused it, or maybe it was a habit that had grown…

Sony/Ringer illustration If you have even the slightest interest in seeing Bad Boys for Life , the long-threatened third installment in a cheerfully violent 25-year-old buddy-cop franchise best summarized as Grand Theft Auto: Looney Toons , I implore you to go see this movie right now . Tonight. It…

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by kokoroyuki/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Read the rest of Slate’s coverage of the end of the decade. Don Draper once stood at a chalkboard in front of skeptical early-1960s Lucky Strike tobacco executives and sold them on a historically inaccurate slogan , “Lucky…

1 of 3 | A screenshot from a surveillance video on Reflectacles’ website shows how the company’s sunglasses are designed to reflect the infrared light used... (Reflectacles) More Cory Doctorow’s sunglasses are seemingly ordinary. But they are far from it when seen on security footage, where his face…

Jay Mumford, better known by his moniker, J-Zone, is a work in progress. He’s worn many hats throughout his career—from rapper, to producer and beat-maker, to DJ, to drummer—and each role, despite the occasional setback, has been creative and fruitful. But his biggest shift came in 2011, when he…

What defines a “Bad Boys” movie? It’s been 17 years since the last sequel came out, but some of the key elements are still easy to pin down: You need Will Smith as flashy Detective Sergeant Michael “Mike” Lowery, and Martin Lawrence as his slightly more sedate platonic life partner Detective…

Meghan and Harry visit Canada House in London on January 7. Daniel Leal Olivas/Getty Images This story is part of a group of stories called Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, flew in the face of royal tradition on January 8, announcing they will formally step back from…

Ringer illustration Months of galas, grumbling, and predictions later, they’re finally here: The nominations for the 92nd Academy Awards were announced Monday morning by John Cho and Issa Rae, who were up before dawn Pacific time to stoke our rage (“congratulations to these men”) and fuel our…

Games Valve says it has halted trading of some in-game items in multiplayer shooter @alexhern Last modified on Wed 30 Oct 2019 18.26 GMT Shares 48 48 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has previously faced criticism for enabling gambling by children.Photograph: Valve The gaming firm Valve has halted…

The Atlantic / Getty Presidential-campaign season is officially, officially , upon us now, which means it’s time to confront the weird and insidious ways in which technology is warping politics. One of the biggest threats on the horizon: Artificial personas are coming, and they’re poised to take…

The Oscar Noms For "Joker" Prove Self-Victimization Can Pay Off Joker ’s commercial success — and now its critical success — makes the filmmakers’ persecution complex even more absurd. Niko Tavernise / © Warner Bros. / courtesy Everett Collection Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips on the set…

By Elizabeth Winkler Jan. 10, 2020 12:11 pm ET “Ernie was the first thing I ever saw that was funny,” says the comedian and “Saturday Night Live” veteran John Mulaney as he digs into a breakfast of Honey Nut Cheerios. “The only other variety show to work as well as ‘SNL’ is ‘Sesame Street.’ It’s…

Fashion is gay as hell. From Yves Saint Laurent to Karl Lagerfeld to Cristobal Balenciaga , the greatest designers in history have either been queer men, or women who exude so much B.D.E . (Donatella, Miuccia, Coco -- we’re looking at you) that they’re without question considered legendary gay icons…

Advertisement Pocket Worthy · Stories to fuel your mind. A once-virtuous cycle is breaking down. What now? Good as new? Photographer: Adam Minter/Bloomberg . For decades, the donation bin has offered consumers in rich countries a guilt-free way to unload their old clothing. In a virtuous and…

Last week, Dicey Dungeons creator Terry Cavanagh celebrated the 10th anniversary of an earlier game, VVVVVV , by releasing its source code to the public . In layman’s terms, this means that the average person can now look at how the game is built, because every line of code can be perused. This…

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Museum A A holy site where any casual viewer of Jeopardy! can appreciate the profound weight of the program’s 36-year history. A dissertation-level study on how the show’s nightly trivia affected the ambient knowledge of the American mind. An exacting catalog of the…

Getty Images/Ringer illustration The Jeopardy! gods are just. They heard our cries for order , our need to replace the horrors of subjective reasoning with cold, hard, quantitative certainty. Who is the greatest Jeopardy! contestant of all time? Well, the answer to that question won’t just be…

Photo by Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal Media, LLC via Getty Images Behold: Ricky Gervais. Hosting the Golden Globes Sunday night for the fifth and (he repeatedly insisted) last time. Sneering through yet another monologue. Winding up for a joke about how The Irishman was too long. Here we go. Let’s…

Photo from Reuters/Tyrone Siu . The secret to achieving excellence is disarmingly simple. You might not like it, though. Asked about how to help creative types excel, Entertainment executive Barry Diller, the chairman of IAC, recently told Fast Company , “Put them to work … It’s process. It’s one…

Last year Tom Scharpling—the star of The Best Show , the director of some of the best music videos of recent note, and a TV writer/producer who has worked on shows including Monk and HBO ’s Divorce —produced one of his greatest works yet. It’s a spec script for Grown Ups 3 , the final film in the…

Rian Johnson’s star-studded whodunnit has succeeded by exceeding people’s expectations for what they’ll find at the movie theater. Claire Folger / Lionsgate Ana de Armas in Knives Out . At my local theater in Montana, the New Year’s Day matinee of Knives Out started at 4:30. I assumed we could leave…