A few examples of “Global Village Coffeehouse” design. | Consumer Aesthetics Research InstituteMelina Bee is the internet’s historical microaesthetics whisperer. There is a mural at the bagel shop in my hometown that haunted me as a child. It is massive and square, composed of blob-like humanoid shapes in shades of rust and orange with tiny faceless heads, all of them inhaling swirls of piping-hot java. I remember thinking that it was sort of threatening, but what I did not realize at the time was that it was part of a much larger and slightly insidious graphic design trend with an on-the-nose name: Global Village Coffeehouse. It was TikTok where I learned this, thanks to a video by a woman who goes by the moniker Melina Bee and who has made dozens of videos explaining similarly niche gr

A protester with a sign reading “Prosecute Killer Cops, No Justice, No Peace, Defund the Police” protests in downtown Los Angeles on June 5. | Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesChloe Cockburn’s job is finding and funding the highest-impact groups working on criminal justice. Here are her top picks. One of the most common questions I have heard friends ask in the 18 months since the George Floyd protests against police violence is: “How can I help?” While the question of what being a good member or ally of movements for racial justice means is vast and beyond the scope of this short article, I think it’s possible to say a bit about a narrower question: Where should a person who worries about the trajectory of criminal justice in America donate money? Chloe Cockburn has thought

EL SOBRANTE, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 28: (Left) Theresa Parker hugs Brian Boyle (Right) in the Parker family’s backyard in El Sobrante, Calif., on Thursday, October 28, 2021. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Contra Costa County assists the Parkers with food distribution. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group) According to its most recent annual report, the organization in 2019-20 provided an estimated 50,000 hot meals in its dining room, gave away tons of groceries, treated 670 uninsured patients for free at the medical clinic it opened a decade ago, donated four cars to families, helped about 1,800 people with housing in the form of rent subsidies, and equipped 24 people with job-search skills through its nearly six-month training program that includes part-time work.  Sometimes the care

Temperatures in Shap, Cumbria plummeted to an icy -8.7C (Picture: Reuters)Parts of the UK have had the coldest night of autumn so far, with temperatures plummeting to below zero. The Met Office said Shap in Cumbria recorded the lowest, at -8.7C (16.34F). Bridlington in East Yorkshire, meanwhile, recorded high levels of rainfall, with 14.6mm overnight on Sunday. Brits saw a mix of weather yesterday, with contrasts of sunshine, rain, sleet and snow. Met Office spokesman Oli Claydon said the second coldest night of the season had been on Saturday. ‘The previous low was -6.4C which was recorded in Shap in Cumbria on the 28th. Over last night we recorded -8.7C (16.34F), also in Shap.’ However, the freeze will be replaced by a ‘warming trend’ today, followed by another dip in t

Periodically, California experiences an uptick in crime — or at least an increase in public consciousness and concern about crime — and it becomes a political issue. During the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, as crime rates and public fears were peaking, Republicans made big election gains by accusing Democratic rivals of being soft on crime. Republicans George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson rode the issue into the governorship, Republicans made substantial gains in the Legislature and it contributed greatly to three liberal Supreme Court justices being ousted by voters. The era also saw a spate of lock-‘em-up sentencing laws, such as “three strikes and you’re out,” that packed the prisons with tens of thousands of additional felons. By and by, as crime rates declined and the state’s politics

By Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters Thousands of students at California State University may lose out on affordable housing because the Cal State system misread the fine print of a new state student housing program. The error — uncovered by CalMatters and acknowledged by Cal State officials — is straightforward but costly. In filling out paperwork required to get its portion of the $2 billion Gov. Gavin Newsom set aside for student housing, Cal State incorrectly assumed that it could use that money — and only that money — to build dorms and apartments for low-income students. In reality, state rules allow Cal State to combine this limited pot of state money with outside funds, such as dollars from bonds the university regularly issues. Using a mix of funds allows a campus to either build larg

TSB is closing more banks next year (Picture: Shutterstock)TSB will shut 70 banks across the UK next year as more customers switch to online. There will be just 220 branches left by the end of June 2022, compared to 290 today. The closures mean TSB will have 150 fewer roles, but the bank says the workers affected will be offered alternative jobs. TSB began scaling back its branch network two years ago, but the shift to digital banking has accelerated during the pandemic. Nine in 10 transactions are now done online, while 90% of mortgage appointments at the bank are video calls. There is ‘no prospect of branch transactions returning to pre-Covid levels’, TSB said. It added there is a Post Office or a free-to-use cash point within a mile of every branch due to close. TSB

Imaan Hammam, New York, 2016(©François Nars/Rizzoli)Renowned photographer, beauty mogul, and French makeup legend François Nars “has never sought to hide the imperfections and oddities that give faces their personality, but rather to accentuate them in dramatic and surprising ways,” as Interview magazine puts it. It was Nars’ work with famed lensmen including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Paolo Roversi, Bruce Weber, Helmut Newton, Steven Klein, and Steven Meisel, which first led him to get behind the lens. “Many times Meisel would invite me to look into the camera, and that helped me when I began photographing our [beauty] campaigns,” as he told Vogue. Now with several books to his credit, Nars has collaborated with famed publishing house Rizzoli on a long-awaited, limited edition,