In the early 1960s, a serial killer dubbed the Boston Strangler had that city and its environs wrapped in a knot of fear. Thirteen women had been raped and murdered in the area over a period of several years, and the police couldn’t catch the culprit. The populace breathed easier when a convicted rapist named Albert DeSalvo confessed to the crimes. But Loretta McLaughlin, a reporter at a …
Read more
Salman Rushdie is back at his desk, savoring the acclaim for his most recent work and bending to the next—his account of the attack that nearly killed him last summer on a stage in Chautauqua, N.Y.
“If it’s a book, it’s not going to be a particularly long book,” he tells TIME. “Might be a couple hundred pages, so I’m hoping that I could do it in a…
Read more
When Walt Disney first released the cartoon short film Steamboat Willie in November 1928, it was groundbreaking. It was one of the cartoons to use synchronized sound, and would go on to become one of the most critically acclaimed and popular cartoon films in the world.
But perhaps most famously, the cartoon introduced the world to the characters of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Micke…
Read more
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the Biden Administration’s unprecedented response, guaranteeing deposits and backstopping regional banks, has catalyzed an important and necessary national conversation over what went wrong, and what can be done to prevent future crises. But amidst a rush to point fingers, SVB’s fall has set off a frenzy of mythmaking, ranging from tired ideol…
Read more
The collapse of FTX, the world’s second largest crypto-exchange, raises major questions about the viability of cryptocurrency and the state of America’s financial regulatory system. While the debate on whether FTX’s collapse means crypto should be more regulated or kept further out of the regulatory safety net rages, we must ensure that those who might have broken the law at F…
Read more
The U.S. government announced that all customers of the failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) will have access to their funds on Monday morning, including deposits worth more than the $250,000 limit for Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance.
“This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing acces…
Read more
As watchmakers from around the world gather in late March in Geneva for one of the industry’s biggest events—the Watches and Wonders fair—Switzerland-based Oris will announce a luxury diver’s watch with a swirly blue and green dial. There’s nothing remarkable in that, except that the dial of the Oris X Bracenet (2,350 Swiss francs, or $2,508) is made of upcycled gh…
Read more
Immediately after Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a gunman on July 8, a rumor quickly spread on Japanese social media. It falsely claimed that the suspect was a “Zainichi Korean.” The term generally applies to descendants of Korean people who emigrated to Japan between 1910 and 1945—a period when Japan occupied Korea. They are the most targeted minority in Japan and suffer from…
Read more
In the St. Louis area, a local boat dealer will raise prices by 10% in the coming year—on top of a 10% raise this past year. A dairy farmer in the Cleveland area whose distributors were routinely out of supplies also raised its prices, while restaurant food across the Boston region is getting pricier thanks to increased delivery and labor costs.
The Covid-19 Delta variant put a damp…
Read more
Grab the popcorn and a pumpkin spice latte, it’s time for this year’s fall movie preview. Just like the leaves, the movies also begin to change as summer turns to fall. Fewer blockbusters make room for smaller films that are vying for Oscars attention helmed by big-named directors including Peter Farrelly, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ruben Östlund, and Park Chan-wook. The most antic…
Read more