A viral essay about the ethical pitfalls of choosing the best burger in America ran into some ethical pitfalls of its own. Photograph by Jason Quigley The promise of an extraordinary hamburger can lead a person to do extraordinary things. Culinary literature—from cookbooks to magazine spreads to…

Michael Cohen’s statements contradict much of what Donald Trump and others have said publicly and, in some cases, under oath. Photograph by Drew Angerer / Getty Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty , once again, to a crime implicating both him and his former boss, President Trump. He confessed to an…

Getty Images/Ringer illustration Art may largely be a matter of taste, but one conclusion is close to inarguable: 1998 was the best year ever for video games , producing an unparalleled lineup of revolutionary releases that left indelible legacies and spawned series and subcultures that persist…

Personnel from the U.S. Army and the People's Liberation Army attend a closing ceremony of a "Disaster Management Exchange" near Nanjing, China, on November 17, 2018. Aly Song / Reuters America’s decline relative to a rising China has sparked interest among academics about power shifts in the…

NO1 NO1 Noah understands the career-altering power of social media: The 22-year-old singer, songwriter, lyricist, and producer was initially discovered when people began sharing and re-sharing his work on Twitter and Instagram. But as he hurtles toward mainstream success, he still has to pay the…

20th-Century Fox/Ringer illustration Steve McQueen’s Widows opens with a kiss. But not just any kiss. Veronica (Viola Davis) and Henry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) are lying next to each other, full-on making out, tongues fiercely intertwined. For some, it might be an off-putting way to start a movie, but…

How Canada Discovered Its Visual Identity Mark Byrnes Nov 16, 2018 A documentary by Vancouver-based graphic designer Greg Durrell explores the surprisingly rich history behind the nation’s postwar design culture. Change swept through Canada in the 1960s: Immigration policy was liberalized, a…

Mike Eagle recently travelled to Louisville, Kentucky, on two days notice. He had agreed to fight an antagonistic wrestler named Shiloh Jonze, who'd spent weeks prodding at Eagle in hammed-up YouTube freestyles and cringeworthy call-out tweets. Eagle is a committed wrestling fan with a podcast to…

Patrick and SpongeBob in “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Credit Nickelodeon Stephen Hillenburg, a former marine biologist who became an animator and went on to create “SpongeBob SquarePants,” has died at 57. Read the Times’s full obituary here . This explainer was originally published in May when…

Bernardo Bertolucci leaves a cinematic legacy of great films, including “The Conformist” and “The Last Emperor,” which won nine Oscars including Best Picture and Director. However, his biggest hit would be inconceivable today. “ Last Tango in Paris ,” the X-rated drama starring Marlon Brando and…

Uma Thurman and Matt Dillon in “The House That Jack Built.” A director’s cut is reaching theaters Wednesday; the official release is Dec. 14. Credit Christian Geisnaes/Zentropa When it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the director Lars von Trier’s new film, “The House That Jack Built,”…

Prosecutors from the special counsel’s office have said that Paul Manafort breached his plea agreement by lying to them after he agreed to cooperate with their inquiry. Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press WASHINGTON — A lawyer for Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign…

Without a doubt, even from the vantage of today, 2016 will go down as one of the saddest sack years in recent history. A reality show billionaire was elected president. Prince and Bowie died. And, on a perhaps far lesser but also important plane of societal loss, Apple ditched the 3.5 mm headphone…

Getty Images/Ringer illustration In 2018, it’s no longer surprising to see auteurs transition to the small screen. Television is an increasingly inviting medium that promises plenty of A-list actors, creative leeway, and significant resources for the right projects. (After all, this is a time when…

Spend 47 days in the art world with Seen . Jerry Saltz, New York ’s art critic, as Salvador Dalí, based on a photograph by Philippe Halsman. Photo: Marvin Orellana Art is for anyone. It’s just not for everyone. I know this viscerally, as a would-be artist who burned out. I wrote about that last year…

In the 90s, my mum dated this guy who was big into mathematics. Around this time, I can remember her crouched over a tape recorder in her bedroom, with a microphone in one hand, in absolute hysterics. She’d put Abba’s “I Have A Dream” on cassette, and was re-recording her voice saying “angles” every…

China Stringer Network / Reuters Back in October, American politicians asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reconsider Huawei's involvement in his country's 5G plans. Turns out Canada isn't the only US ally the government has warned against using the Chinese tech giant's products.…

In addition to his long career as a magician, he also appeared in films such as 'Magnolia' (1999) as the narrator, 'Tomorrow Never Dies' (1997) as a cyber terrorist and 'Boogie Nights' (1997). Ricky Jay, one of the most compelling figures in magic, died Saturday in Los Angeles of natural causes, The…

Walt Disney Pictures/Ringer illustration You haven’t known true fear until you’ve heard your child say the word YouTube . Let alone squeal it with delight. “ YOUTUBE !” my youngest blurted out after catching a glimpse of the familiar taboo red logo during the new blockbuster Disney movie Ralph…

BREAKING Bernardo Bertolucci’s early work reflected the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s and ’70s. Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian filmmaker whose sensual and visually stylistic movies ranged from intense chamber dramas to panoramic historical epics, died on Monday at his home in Rome. He was 77.…

There is a horror story out there. Man is feeling overwhelmed, begins compiling a to-do list. Three bullets turn into ten — ten bullets turn into twenty. Moments later, he finds himself in hand-to-hand combat with a to-do list so long and so vast it resembles the spiraling tentacles of a giant…

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and John Schoettler, Vice President Global Real Estate and Facilities for Amazon, at last week's announcement. (Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo) A parable: A man walks into a bar, and orders a drink. “That’ll be ten dollars,” says the bartender. The…

Participant Media/Ringer illustration The poster says it all. The image advertising Peter Farrelly’s Green Book , depicting Viggo Mortensen behind the wheel of a luxury vehicle and Mahershala Ali sitting regally in the back, is almost shameless in its manipulation. It’s a comforting vision for the…

Paul Manafort, President Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, arriving at federal court in Washington in June. Credit Erin Schaff for The New York Times WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, repeatedly lied to federal investigators in breach of a plea agreement he…

Russia Attacks Ukrainian Ships and International Law A provocation that could tighten Russia’s illegal hold on Crimea. The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section. Ukrainians who want the country to…

Subscribe » touchstones Nirvana’s “Nevermind” The 1991 album that gave rise to a rock genre and captured the spirit of a new generation. Text by Hua Hsu Supported by Tiffany & Co. “Touchstones” is an ongoing digital series in which New Yorker writers guide us through their favorite works of art. I n…

Photo by: Shutterstock Let me tell you something you already know: Your housekeeper spies on you. We work alone. We get bored. What do you expect? I worked for a company cleaning houses for two years. It was flexible. It paid well enough. I didn't think of it as a career, or identify with it; it was…

A&E/Ringer illustration “The people were so outraged,” James Carville tells a cameraperson in The Clinton Affair , the new three-night A&E documentary series retracing the events leading up to Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment. Two decades later, Clinton’s former lead strategist can’t talk about the…

Robert Mueller’s office has remained seemingly impervious to leaks.Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP R obert Swan Mueller III wears a $35 Casio watch with the face on the inside of his left wrist, in the style of an infantryman trying to avoid giving away his position with a glint of sunshine off the…

As a company, Netflix is terrifying. They account for an alarmingly large amount of all traffic on the internet and foster a dystopian corporate culture that sounds like an IRL version of 1984 . Meanwhile, between its crappy algorithm and surplus of crappy original content that clogs up your Netflix…

As plenty of Amazon employees have attested, working inside one of the company’s fulfillment centers can be grueling. Rick T. Wilking/Getty Images Last year, shoppers spent $7.9 billion on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. An additional $6.59 billion was dropped on Cyber Monday. This year, Black…

Ringer illustration The arrival of Steve McQueen’s Widows has our alarms going off. It’s time to run down a list of the best heist movies since the 1995 release of Michael Mann’s Heat. Why Heat? Because there are heist movies before Heat, and heist movies after Heat. Below , you’ll find winking…

An ATM in Sandviken, Sweden, north of Stockholm. A fifth of Swedes, in a country of 10 million people, do not use automated teller machines any more. Credit Loulou d'Aki for The New York Times Cash is disappearing in the country faster than anyone thought it would. Now, officials are trying to slow…

Supported by Joel Hodgson, left, and Jonah Ray recently completed a 30th anniversary tour for “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” which returns to Netflix on Thursday. Credit Whitten Sabbatini for The New York Times A schlub and some robots riffing on bad movies didn’t necessarily sound like a recipe…

Ringer illustration This year, Slide 101 of Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report has a simple message: “Making Ends Meet = Difficult.” The bad news continues on the next slide, which states that household debt is at its highest level ever, and it’s rising. People are saving less (3 percent of…

Film theorist Laura Mulvey coined the term " male gaze " to describe the "masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer": in a paper for the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender , Southwestern Law School professor John…

Showtime/Ringer illustration If future media historians were to pinpoint the exact moment when the formal distinctions between movies and television finally collapsed, this past weekend would be an entirely credible candidate. On Friday, Netflix released The Ballad of Buster Scruggs , a six-part…

Netflix/Ringer illustration Men, women, and children race into a burning forest hauling pails of water. A revolution rages in the streets and spills into genteel society. A woman storms into the ocean. Hail pellets fall from the sky and are collected like marbles. A pregnant woman is furiously…

Dark stores rising: As big-box retailers shutter, many companies have found a way to turn vacant properties into lower taxes on open stores nearby. Madison McVeigh/CityLab Laura Bliss 10:29 AM ET Big-box retailers nationwide are slashing their property taxes through a legal loophole known as "dark…

CALLING THE SHOPS Rick Caruso, pictured here in his Pacific Palisades property, has created a Southern California archetype with projects such as The Grove, which blend outdoor spaces, destination activities and retail. “We have a formula for how we don’t overprogram it,” he says. Photo: Carlos…