Massachusetts Is Among the Most Expensive States and Ranks Near the Bottom for Tax Competitiveness. Here’s What That Means for a Retiree on Social Security. (finance.yahoo.com)
How Bots Took Over Our Lives - During the 2016 election, much of the country was introduced to the concept of internet bots for the first time. Now, just a decade later, it feels like they’re everywhere. (www.newyorker.com)
The Myth of the Food Desert - Policymakers have assumed that people with good options wouldn’t make bad choices. What if access was never the real problem? (www.newyorker.com)
Exit Memo - Following a review, I have decided to dissolve our relationship. This decision reflects a strategic realignment of my emotional resources and should not be interpreted as a comment on your over-all market value. (www.newyorker.com)
A Woman Lost Two Partners to Guns—Then the N.R.A. Came to Collect - The majority of suicides in the U.S. involve guns, and eighty per cent of those are done by white men, a pattern that the gun-rights organization has spent decades denying. (www.newyorker.com)
“Tick Check,” by Michael Dickman - “A living freckle / That knows your name and knows / That it is spring and feels a kind of imaginary privacy.” (www.newyorker.com)
What Would It Mean to See a New Color? - Olo can be described as the “greenest green,” though it can never be captured by a camera. But its development tells us a lot about our color vision. (www.newyorker.com)
Fab Morvan Takes Back His Voice - Decades after Milli Vanilli’s lip-synching scandal, the singer is still reclaiming his legacy—with a documentary, an EP, and an almost-performance at Trump’s state fair. (www.newyorker.com)
Take Me Out to the Brainball Game - Hundreds of neurosurgeons gathered in Central Park for inter-hospital softball. Who took home the skull-shaped trophy? (www.newyorker.com)
Get Yer Statue of Liberty Here! - The Hamptons Fine Art Fair recently exhibited a ten-foot Lady Liberty. Noble, solemn, and—wait, how much? (www.newyorker.com)
John Leguizamo Is a Noble Fellow - The “Ice Age” actor steals Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” as a loyal swineherd to Matt Damon’s Odysseus. Back in New York, he bought the director a two-thousand-year-old thank-you gift. (www.newyorker.com)
Johnny Knoxville, America’s God of Mischief - What moves the star of “Jackass” to risk his life for our entertainment? A very serious investigation. (www.newyorker.com)
How Netanyahu’s Top General Became His Strongest Challenger - Gadi Eisenkot, whose view of war is shaped by the loss of his son, is, in manner and character, the anti-Bibi. (www.newyorker.com)
Which Way Should the Democratic Party Go Now? - It’s been a tumultuous primary season, but is this the Democrats’ Tea Party moment? Or is something more pragmatic emerging? (www.newyorker.com)
Restaurant Review: Somssi - Somssi, from a veteran of the restaurant group behind Atomix, knows how to reel you in without trying too hard. (www.newyorker.com)
“Padam Padam” Separates the Party People from the Homebodies - Kylie Minogue’s 2023 hit belongs to a category of solid, danceable pop music that barely penetrates the eardrums of self-professed thirtysomething old folks. (www.newyorker.com)
Gregg Araki Thinks It’s Good to Get Your Heart Broken - The director of “I Want Your Sex” discusses whether Gen Z is having enough of it, casting Charli XCX and Johnny Knoxville, and the importance of “weird, scary, confusing experiences.” (www.newyorker.com)
The Rise of the “Scenario,” a Trendy Way of Forecasting our Dystopian Future - In “Biological War,” Annie Jacobsen imagines society collapsing from a man-made plague—part of a wave of such prophecies. But what do we miss when we try to predict the future? (www.newyorker.com)