NEW YORK TIMES: The demise of the proposal came amid a last-minute push to tie up loose ends before the close of the session, which is scheduled to conclude on Thursday. All legislative seats are on the ballot in the elections this year, and Republican senators have pointedly refused to take up several issues that are avidly sought by Democrats in the Assembly but that might upset conservatives, including the marijuana bill and a measure to raise the state’s minimum wage. Mr. Cuomo unveiled his marijuana proposal two weeks ago, promoting it as a way to end the high […]

  ESQUIRE: Justin Timberlake and I are standing in our underwear in his hotel suite. He’s wearing white boxers and a wifebeater. I’m wearing plaid boxers and back hair. We met maybe two minutes ago. “I can’t believe how quickly you got my pants off,” I say. “It’s a gift,” he says. Timberlake’s open suitcase sits next to the window in the bedroom. He is a fastidious packer. In the other room, a buffet has been laid out, with platters of fruit, big cookies, and cans of pop. He’s eaten only cookies, and yet he has a very flat stomach. […]

DAILY NEWS: Last Thursday City Council vote to put off the Actual Value Initiative property tax fix for another year came as no great surprise. But that lack of surprise is testament to how complicated the fix for a broken tax system has become, and with every new data point and economic analysis on AVI that was released, it got even more so. Within a matter of weeks, the estimated aggregate value of the city’s properties dropped by $40 billion, which drove up the necessary millage rate to a point where early expectations of AVI — that many homeowners would […]

INQUIRER: Monday’s watch has become a warning: Wednesday and Thursday should see record-challenging heat. Call it an I-95 corridor scorcher, with temperatures expected in the upper 90s from Richmond, Va., to Boston, which could see 101 on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. Philadelphia’s forecast high of 97 Wednesday is just 1 degree shy of the record, set in 1931, and Thursday’s expected 99 would tie the mark set in 1923. MORE

BY BRANDON LAFVING In case you hadn’t guessed already, the title of Neil LaBute’s Reasons to be Pretty is a slight misnomer. It’s meant to be ironical and stuff.  A more accurate title would be: It sucks to be ugly, and beautiful people suck too. It is what happened when Murphy (the proverbial Law-writer), immigrated to the States and wrote a Broadway show.  In Philadelphia Theater Company’s production, the curtain opens on blatant proof. The irate Genevieve Perrier (Steph) has just been informed that her own boyfriend drunkenly described her face as “plain.” Incredulous, she wants him to say it […]

FRESH AIR Eighty years ago, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created the iconic comic book character Superman, but it took several years of rejections before they finally sold him to Detective Comics Inc. in 1938. The distinctive superhero made his first appearance in the comics in June 1938 — and since then has appeared in radio dramas, TV shows, video games, newspaper comics and countless films. How has the Man of Steel evolved over the past eight decades — and what has made him so popular? Those were the questions that intrigued biographer Larry Tye, whose book Superman tells the […]

Conor Oberst  @ The Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall November 18th. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM. PREVIOUSLY: The biggest cliche about Bright Eyes — aka 24-year-old 34-year-old indie-pop pinup boy Conor Oberst — is that he’s emerged as the latest “new Dylan,” a Mr. Tambourine Man for the O.C. Nation. Like all cliches, this one’s been worn meaningless by overuse. And yet, like any good cliche it’s essentially true. Heck, Oberst already got props from the last “new Dylan” who amounted to anything: Bruce Springsteen. Like Dylan in his prime, Oberst writes long, elliptical narratives–weaving word-clotted threads of […]

WARNING: There is full-frontal nudity of actor Shia LaBeouf in this video. If you or your boss/co-workers are frightened or disgusted or shocked or offended by the human anatomy you should seek professional help might want to skip this one or save it for the privacy of your own home. Sigur Rós are delighted to reveal the third film in their Mystery Film Experiment series, which has seen a dozen filmmakers receiving the same modest budget to create whatever comes into their head when listening to songs from the band’s new U.S. and UK top 10 album Valtari. The third film sees acclaimed director Alma […]

  BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER If the Dallas Cowboys are America’s team, then the Beach Boys — who are marking 50 years of fun, fun, fun with a new album and a tour that brought them to the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden on Saturday — are America’s band. Granted, they have been more or less a movable oldies jukebox for the last 30 years, at least, but that does not diminish the deathlessness of their songbook or erase the fact that they have provided the aspirational soundtrack for American life, the grand illusion of an eternal summer […]

  It would look just like this. RELATED: We are very pleased to announce our upcoming collaboration with one of our favorite bands, Bon Iver. Designed by Justin Vernon and using our trademark Ramos silhouette, the Keep + Bon Iver shoefeatures herringbone accents, a black fishbone detail across the toe, and a canvas upper custom dyed to a perfect pale salmon. Rooted in a shared love of animals, Keep + Bon Iver proudly support the Best Friends Animal Society, an animal advocacy group which operates the nation’s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals. As many of our fans know, […]