Author: Reporter

Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. But despite its age, the vitality and fleet-footed movement of Kurosawa’s epic is still breathtaking. To watch it again is to be swept along, all over again, by its flowing action and breadth of vision. Just as swiftly as Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura), the noble samurai leader of the seven, sprints this way and that in the climactic battle, “Seven Samurai” moves — man, does it move. It flies through rice fields and down wooded pathways. Kurosawa’s camera does not anticipate where the action is running so much...

The meteoric rise of a group of right-wing pseudonymous influencers who act as alternative information sources has been more recent. It has coincided with a decline in public trust in government and media through the 2020 presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic. The reposts and expressions of shock from public figures followed quickly after a user on the social platform X who uses a pseudonym claimed that a government website had revealed “skyrocketing” rates of voters registering without a photo ID in three states this year. Two of them were crucial to the presidential contest. “Extremely concerning,” X owner...

Every Monday evening, the Andrew and Walter Young Family YMCA basement becomes a sanctuary for men who, local leaders say, have too often been denied one. The Black Man Lab, which for nearly a decade has sought weekly to create a “safe, sacred and healing space” for Black men in metropolitan Atlanta, regularly gathers more than 100 men to pray, meditate and talk through challenges and triumphs they are facing and learn from peers and elders. “It’s almost a communion,” said Carttrell Coleman, a visual artist from South Fulton, Georgia, who has attended the weekly meetings for seven years....

In the days following President Joe Biden exit from the presidential race and endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters jumped to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes. “Brats for Harris.” “We need a Kamalanomenon.” “Gen Z feels the Kamalove.” The tags reflect a stark shift in tone for a generation that has voiced feeling left behind by the Democratic party. Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on the issues most important...