All products featured on Architectural Digest are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.Featured in this articleBest Overall Sateen SheetsBoll & Branch Signature Hemmed Sheet SetRead moreFor a Romantic DrapeEttitude CleanBamboo Sheet Set Read moreThe Affordable PickGood Sleep Bedding Egyptian Cotton Sateen SheetsRead moreShow more3 / 8A close cousin to percale and silk, the best sateen sheets offer a happy medium of refinement and softness, all in one durability, and an easy-to-clean fabric.Sateen is known for having a polished appearance because of its lustrous sheen and wrinkle-resistant material. This comes from a tight satin weave that leaves a shiny look without compromising a smooth hand feel. While you can find this bedding in elevated spaces like this vibrant West Village town house thanks to embroidered touches and traditional prints, they’re surprisingly versatile and come in many forms. Here, our editors dive into their favorites for their bedrooms. Since you can find many in higher thread counts though (which we dive into more below), these are durable enough for any room in the house—as seen in this family-friendly getaway.Inside this ArticleBest Overall Sateen Sheets1/8Boll & Branch Signature Hemmed Sheet SetBoll & Branch caught commerce director Rachel Fletcher’s attention when she was browsing for new sheets for a few reasons. One: The brand makes organic and fair trade sheets: Two: She loves a sateen weave, and the retailer mentioned that this set was their bestseller and she wanted to see what the hype was about. “Boll & Branch claims that these cotton sateen sheets are buttery soft, and I definitely agree,” Fletcher says. “That extra-soft feel paired with the lovely, cooling properties make them feel like the luxury sheets that they are.” Along with an earthy color palette (Fletcher has her set in mineral) and thoughtful hem detailing, this set stood out to be our top pick. These do have a higher price point, but as some of the plushest sheets she’s slept on, Fletcher thinks they’re worth it.Specs:Material: 100% organic cottonThread count: N/ASizes: Twin, Twin XL, Full, Queen, King, King With Std. Cases, California King, Split KingColors: 18 colors; 8 printsUpsides & DownsidesUpsidesSustainable materialBreathableOrganic colorwaysDownsidesExpensiveFor a Romantic DrapePhoto: Yelena Moroz AlpertPhoto: Yelena Moroz Alpert2/8Ettitude CleanBamboo Sheet Set “These sheets are buttery—pun intended,” says senior commerce editor Nashia Baker, who has the set in the butter yellow hue and loves the fabric’s delicate yet durable feel. Contributor Yelena Moroz Alpert also has this set and says that the cooling lyocell fabric set takes the bamboo sheets category up a notch. “Somehow they feel substantial but incredibly light and smooth,” she says of this splurge-worthy set. “The site says that the silky-soft sateen weave is comparable to 1,000 thread count cotton—and I believe it. I’ve never touched a baby alpaca, but I imagine that it’s as soft as these sheets.”Specs:Material: 100% CleanBamboo lyocellThread count: 1,000 thread countSizes: Twin, Twin XL, Full, Queen, King, California KingColors: 8Upsides & DownsidesUpsidesPearly appearanceLightweightUltra softDownsidesPriceyThe Affordable Pick3/8Good Sleep Bedding Egyptian Cotton Sateen SheetsDon’t overlook the best Amazon sheets for high-end sateen bedding. Contributor Erika Owen says these are a great option: “After a single night, they became my favorite set, and a few more nights and a wash only locked in this opinion.” She says they’re sumptuous, cool, and durable—and their quality (think texture, weight, and comfort) hasn’t changed after many rounds through the washer and dryer. “I would buy these as a gift for my best friend, if that tells you anything about how much I recommend these,” says Owen. “There’s nothing better than feeling really good as you hit the hay—who doesn’t want a luxury bed situation—and I felt that way every time I dug into these silky sheets. Let it also be known that I’m no stranger to night sweats and these kept me cool every single night.” The finishing touches are the deep pockets and sturdy elastic on the fitted sheet to fit a grand mattress.Specs:Material: 100% Egyptian cottonThread count: 1,000 thread countSizes: Twin, Twin XL, Full, Queen, King, California King, Split KingColors: 13Upsides & DownsidesUpsidesHigher thread countCoolingSturdy after several washesDownsidesSome shoppers found the fabric weightyA Vibrant Print4/8Rifle Paper Co. Peacock Sateen Bed Sheet SetThese are some of the softest bed sheets out there, just take it from Alpert. Not only are they comfortable to sink into night after night thanks to the plush 300 thread count, but they also veer away from traditional patterns and solid colorways. “I was originally drawn to the peacock print because it is just so whimsical and livens up my guest bedroom,” Alpert says. “But these are also buttery soft. Maybe too soft—my guests never want to leave.” If it wasn’t for the true-to-Rifle print, she would mistake these for hotel sheets because of their supple feel.Specs:Material: 100% combed cotton sateenThread count: 300 thread countSizes: Twin, Full, Queen, KingColors: 3Upsides & DownsidesUpsidesUnique patternsSuppleAiry materialDownsidesNot as ideal for minimalistsClassic Core Set5/8Brooklinen Luxe Sateen Core Sheet SetIf you want sheets with unparalleled quality, durability, and softness that gets better with every wash, multiple AD staff members say you can’t go wrong with these Brooklinen sheets. Fletcher shares that this sateen set is “super classic, smooth, and has a crisp feel.” Sleepers with sensitive skin will also be happy to know that they’re “not at all scratchy or harsh on my skin, like some of the less expensive options I’ve tried in the past,” Fletcher adds.Specs:Material: 100% long-staple cottonThread count: 480 thread countSizes: Twin, Twin XL, Full, Queen, King, California KingColors: 22Upsides & DownsidesUpsidesStructured fabric like a press shirtWrinkle-free designAffordableDownsidesLimited-edition colors sell out fastMore AD-Approved Sateen Sheets6/8Hill House Home Fitted Sheet“For a $100 top sheet and $125 fitted sheet, I truly didn’t know what to expect from a brand as new to the decor game as Hill House Home, but was delightfully surprised at the quality and attention to detail that was put into making these products,” contributor Katarina Kovac says of these Hill House Home sheets.“I wanted something that was crisp yet elevated, and the colored trim in the Savile Sheets was my answer.” Since she’s had her fair share of sheets that have a sandpaper-like texture, she paid close attention to how well these felt after the first wash. To her delight, these “felt soft, velvety, and breathable against my skin, leaving me truly struggling to get out of bed in the morning.”Specs:Material: 100% brushed cotton sateenThread count: N/ASizes: Twin, Full, Queen, King, California KingColors: 6Upsides & DownsidesUpsidesTraditional printsLushSmooth feelThoughtful trimDownsidesFlat sheet, fitted sheet, and pillowcases are sold separately7/8Homebird Sateen Fitted Sheets (Set of 3)Fletcher loves an ethically made, slippery sateen weave, and it took just one night of sleep to be sold on this Homebird set. “They’re very high quality and everything you want in a sateen sheet: incredibly soft to the touch and slightly silky, with a sturdiness to them that you can tell is the result of a high thread count,” she says. “They fit my bed perfectly and also have the most useful feature that, in my opinion, every set of sheets ever made should have: a long-side and short-side label.”Specs:Material: 100% GOTS-certified, long-staple organic cottonThread count: 300 thread countSizes: Full, Queen, KingColors: 7Upsides & DownsidesUpsidesSilky smoothHelpful labels to make the bedDeep pocketsDownsidesOnly available in muted tones

It's less than a month away! Apple TV+ has unveiled the trailer for Foundation Season 3. Based on Isaac Asimov’s epic, seminal sci-fi stories and starring Jared Harris, Lee Pace, and Lou Llobell, the upcoming season will debut globally with one episode on July 11 on Apple TV+, followed by episodes every Friday through September 12. Season 3, which is set 152 years after the events of Season 2, continues the epic chronicle of a band of exiles on their journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.  We get to see more of how prescient, and important, Hari Seldon’s theories of psychohistory become. Newcomers to the franchise include Cherry Jones, Brandon P. Bell, Synnøve Karlsen, Cody Fern, Tómas Lemarquis, Alexander Siddig, Troy Kotsur, and Pilou Asbæk. Returning cast includes Laura Birn, Cassian Bilton, Terrence Mann, and Rowena King. Under overall VFX supervisor Chris MacLean, VFX studios include Crafty Apes, Framestore, Outpost VFX, Rodeo FX, SSVFX, and Trend VFX. Foundation is produced for Apple by Skydance Television. David S. Goyer executive produces alongside Bill Bost, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Matt Thunell, Robyn Asimov, David Kob, Christopher J. Byrne, Leigh Dana Jackson, Jane Espenson and Roxann Dawson. Foundation Seasons 1 and 2 are streaming globally on Apple TV+. Check out the trailer now: Source: Apple TV+ Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologist—L'Wren brings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions.

To this day, Jaws remains the best example of Steven Spielberg‘s genius as a filmmaker. He somehow took a middling pulp novel about a killer shark and turned it into a thrilling adventure about masculinity and economic desperation. And to the surprise of no one, the massive success of Jaws spawned a lot of knockoffs, a glut of movies about animals terrorizing communities. None of these reach the majesty of Jaws, of course. But here’s the thing—none of them had to be Jaws. Sure, it’s nice that Spielberg’s film has impeccably designed set pieces and compelling characters, but that’s not the main reason people go to animal attack movies. We really just want to watch people get attacked. And eaten. With such standards duly lowered, let’s take a look at the best animal attack movies that came out in the past half-century since Jaws first scared us out of the water. Of course this list doesn’t cover every movie inspired by Jaws ( for example Godzilla Minus One, which devotes its middle act to a wonderful Jaws riff), and some can argue that these movies were less inspired by Jaws than other nature revolts features, such as Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds. But every one of these flicks owes a debt to Jaws, either in inspiration or simply getting people interested in movies about animals eating people. Those warning aside, lets make like drunken revelers on Amity Island and dive right in! 20. Sharknado (2013) Sharknado almost doesn’t belong on this list because it’s less a movie and more of a meme, a precursor to Vines and TikTok trends. Yes, many fantastic movies have been made off of an incredibly high concept and a painfully low budget. Heck, that approach made Roger Corman’s career. But Sharknado‘s high concept—a tornado sweeps over the ocean and launches ravenous sharks into the mainland—comes with a self-satisfied smirk. Somehow, Sharknado managed to capture the imagination of the public, making it popular enough to launch five sequels. At the time, viewers defended it as a so bad it’s good-style movie like The Room. But today Sharknado‘s obvious attempts to be wacky are just bad, making the franchise one more embarrassing trend, ready to be forgotten. 19. Orca (1977) For a long time, Orca had a reputation for being the most obvious Jaws ripoff, and with good reason—Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, who would go on to support Flash Gordon, Manhunter, and truly launch David Lynch‘s career with Blue Velvet, wanted his own version of the Spielberg hit. On paper he had all the right ingredients, including a great cast with Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling, and another oceanic threat, this time a killer whale. Orca boasts some impressive underwater cinematography, something that even Jaws largely lacks. But that’s the one thing Orca does better than Jaws. Everything else—character-building, suspense and scare scenes, basic plotting and storytelling—is done in such a haphazard manner that Orca plays more like an early mockbuster from the Asylum production company (makers of Sharknado) than it does a product from a future Hollywood player. 18. Tentacles (1977) Another Italian cheapie riding off the success of Jaws, Tentacles at least manages to be fun in its ineptitude. A giant octopus feature, Tentacles is directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, a man whose greatest claim to fame is that he annoyed first-time director James Cameron so much on Piranha II: The Spawning that he activated the future legend’s infamous refusal to compromise with studios and producers. Tentacles somehow has a pretty impressive cast, including John Huston, Shelly Winters, and Henry Fonda all picking up paychecks. None of them really do any hard work in Tentacles, but there’s something fun about watching these greats shake the the octopus limbs that are supposed to be attacking them, as if they’re in an Ed Wood picture. 17. Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) Spielberg famously couldn’t get his mechanical shark to work, a happy accident that he overcame with incredibly tense scenes that merely suggested the monster’s presence. For his arachnids on the forgotten movie Kingdom of the Spiders, director John “Bud” Cardos has an even more formative tool to make up for the lack of effects magic: William Shatner. Shatner plays Rack Hansen, a veterinarian who discovers that the overuse of pesticides has killed off smaller insects and forced the tarantula population to seek larger prey, including humans. These types of ecological messages are common among creature features of the late ’70s, and they usually clang with hollow self-righteousness. But in Kingdom of the Spiders, Shatner delivers his lines with such blown out conviction that we enjoy his bluster, even if we don’t quite buy it. 16. The Meg (2018) The idea of Jason Statham fighting a giant prehistoric shark is an idea so awesome, it’s shocking that his character from Spy didn’t already pitch it. And The Meg certainly does deliver when Statham’s character does commit to battle with the creature in the movie’s climax. The problem is that moment of absurd heroism comes only after a lot of long sappy nonsense. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! It’s hard to figure out who is to blame for The Meg‘s failure. Director Jon Turteltaub hails from well-remembered Disney classics Cool Runnings and National Treasure. But too often he forgets how to pace an adventure film and gives into his most saccharine instincts here. One of the many Chinese/Hollywood co-produced blockbusters of the 2010s, The Meg also suffers from trying to innocuously please too wide an audience. Whatever the source, The Meg only fleetingly delivers on the promise of big time peril, wasting too much time on thin character beats. 15. Lake Placid (1999) I know already some people reading this are taking exception to Lake Placid‘s low ranking, complaining that this list isn’t showing enough respect to what they consider a zippy, irreverent take on a creature feature, one written by Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley and co-starring Betty White. To those people, I can only say, “Please rewatch Lake Placid and then consider its ranking.” Lake Placid certainly has its fun moments, helped along by White as a kindly grandmother who keeps feeding a giant croc, Bill Pullman as a dumbfounded simple sheriff, and Oliver Platt as a rich adventurer. Their various one-liners are a pleasure to remember. But within the context of a movie stuffed with late ’90s irony, the constant snark gets tiresome, sapping out all the fun of a killer crocodile film. 14. Open Water (2003) Like Sharknado, Open Water had its fans for a few years but has fallen in most moviegoers’ esteem. Unlike Sharknado, Open Water is a real movie, just one that can’t sustain its premise for its entire runtime. Writer and director Chris Kentis draws inspiration from a real-life story about a husband and wife who were accidentally abandoned in the middle of the ocean by their scuba excursion group. The same thing happens to the movie’s Susan Watkins (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel Travis (Daniel Kintner), who respond to their predicament by airing out their relationship grievances, even as sharks start to surround them. Kentis commits to the reality of the couple’s bleak situation, which sets Open Water apart from the thrill-a-minute movies that mostly make up this list. But even with some shocking set pieces, Open Water feels too much like being stuck in car with a couple who hates each other and not enough like a shark attack thriller. 13. Eaten Alive (1976) Spielberg’s artful execution of Jaws led many of the filmmakers who followed to attempt some semblance of character development and prestige, even if done without enthusiasm (see: Orca). Not so with Tobe Hooper, who followed up the genre-defining The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with Eaten Alive. Then again, Hooper draws just as much from Psycho as he does Jaws. Neville Brand plays Judd, the proprietor of a sleazy hotel on the bayou where slimy yokels do horrible things to one another. Amity Island, this is not. But when one of the visitors annoy Judd, he feeds them to the pet croc kept in the back. Eaten Alive is a nasty bit of work, but like most of Hooper’s oeuvre, it’s a lot of fun. 12. Prophecy (1979) Directed by John Frankenheimer of The Manchurian Candidate and Grand Prix fame, Prophecy is easily the best of the more high-minded animal attack movies that followed Jaws. This landlocked film, written by David Seltzer, stars Robert Foxworth as Dr. Robert Verne, a veterinarian hired by the EPA to investigate bear attacks against loggers on a mountain in Maine. Along with his wife Maggie (Talia Shire), Verne finds himself thrown into a conflict between the mining company and the local Indigenous population who resist them. Prophecy drips with an American hippy mentality that reads as pretty conservative today (“your body, your choice” one of Maggie’s friends tells her… to urge her against getting an abortion), making its depictions of Native people, including the leader played by Italian American actor Armand Assante, pretty embarrassing. But there is a mutant bear on the loose and Frankenheimer knows how to stage an exciting sequence, which makes Prophecy a worthwhile watch. 11. Piranha 3D (2010) Piranha 3D begins with a denim-wearing fisherman named Matt, played by Richard Dreyfuss no less, falling into the water and immediately getting devoured by the titular flesh-eaters. This weird nod to Matt Hooper and Jaws instead of Joe Dante’s Piranha, the movie Piranha 3D is supposed to be remaking, is just one of the many oddities at play yhere. Screenwriters Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg have some of the wacky energy and social satire of the original film, but director Alexandre Aja, a veteran of the French Extreme movement, includes so much nastiness in Piranha 3D that we’re not sure if we want to laugh or throw up. Still, there’s no denying the power of Piranha 3D‘s set pieces, including a shocking sequence in which the titular beasties attack an MTV/Girls Gone Wild Spring Break party and chaos ensues. Furthermore, Piranha 3D benefits from a strong cast, which includes Elizabeth Shue, Adam Scott, and Ving Rhames. 10. Anaconda (1997) With its many scenes involving an animal attacking a ragtag group on a boat, Anaconda clearly owes a debt to Jaws. However, with its corny characters and shoddy late ’90s CGI, Anaconda feels today less like a Jaws knockoff and more like a forerunner to Sharknado and the boom of lazy Syfy and Redbox horror movies that followed. Whatever its influences and legacy, there’s no denying that Anaconda is, itself, a pretty fun movie. Giant snakes make for good movie monsters, and the special effects have become dated in a way that feels charming. Moreover, Anaconda boasts a enjoyably unlikely cast, including Eric Stoltz as a scientist, Owen Wilson and Ice Cube as members of a documentary crew, and Jon Voight as what might be the most unhinged character of his career, second only to his crossbow enthusiast from Megalopolis. 9. The Shallows (2016) The Shallows isn’t the highest-ranking shark attack movie on this list but it’s definitely the most frightening shark attack thriller since Jaws. That’s high praise, indeed, but The Shallows benefits from a lean and mean premise and clear direction by Jaume Collet-Serra, who has made some solid modern thrillers. The Shallows focuses almost entirely on med student Nancy Adams (Blake Lively), who gets caught far from shore after the tide comes in and is hunted by a shark. A lot of the pleasure of The Shallows comes from seeing how Collet-Serra and screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski avoid the problems that plague many of the movies on this list. Adams is an incredibly competent character, and we pull for her even after the mistake that leaves her stranded. Moreover, The Shallows perfectly balances thrill sequences with character moments, making for one of the more well-rounded creature features of the past decade. 8. Razorback (1984) Jaws, of course, has a fantastic opening scene, a thrilling sequence in which the shark kills a drunken skinny dipper. Of the movies on this list, only Razorback comes close to matching the original’s power, and it does so because director Russell Mulcahy, who would make Highlander next, goes for glossy absurdity. In the Razorback‘s first three minutes, a hulking wild boar smashes through the rural home of an elderly man in the Australian outback, carrying away his young grandson. Over the sounds of a synth score, the old man stumbles away from his now-burning house, screaming up into the sky. Sadly, the rest of Razorback cannot top that moment. Mulcahy directs the picture with lots of glossy style, while retaining the grit of the Australian New Wave movement. But budget restrictions keep the titular beast from really looking as cool as one would hope, and the movie’s loud, crazy tone can’t rely on Jaws-like power of suggestion. 7. Crawl (2019) Alexandre Aja’s second movie on this list earns its high rank precisely because it does away with the tonal inconsistencies that plagued Piranha 3D and leans into what the French filmmaker does so well: slicked down and mean horror. Set in the middle of a Florida hurricane, Crawl stars Kaya Scodelario as competitive swimmer Haley and always-welcome character actor Barry Pepper as her father Dave, who get trapped in a flooding basement that’s menaced by alligators. Yet as grimy as Crawl can get, Aja also executes the strong character work in the script by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen. Dave and Haley are real people, not just gator-bait, making their peril feel all the more real, and their triumphs all the sweeter. 6. Piranha (1978) Piranha is the only entry on this list to get a seal of approval from Stephen Spielberg himself, who not only praised the movie, even as Universal Pictures planned to sue the production, but also got director Joe Dante to later helm Gremlins. It’s not hard to see why Piranha charmed Spielberg, a man who loves wacky comedy. Dante’s Looney Tunes approach is on full display in some of the movie’s best set pieces. But Piranha is special because it also comes from legendary screenwriter John Sayles, who infuses the story with social satire and cynicism that somehow blends with Dante’s approach. The result is a film about piranha developed by the U.S. military to kill the Vietnamese getting unleashed into an American river and making their way to a children’s summer camp, a horrifying idea that Dante turns into good clean fun. 5. Slugs (1988) If we’re talking about well-made movies, then Slugs belongs way below any of the movies on this list, somewhere around the killer earthworm picture Squirm. But if we’re thinking about pure enjoyable spectacle, it’s hard to top Slugs, a movie about, yes, flesh-eating slugs. Yes, it’s very funny to think about people getting terrorized by creatures that are famous for moving very, very slowly. But Spanish director Juan Piquer Simón, perhaps best known for his equally bugnuts giallo Pieces (1982), pays as little attention to realism as he does to good taste. Slugs is filled with insane and ghastly sequences of killer slugs ending up in unlikely places, swarming the floor of someone’s bedroom or inside a fancy restaurant, and then devouring people, one methodical bite at a time. 4. Deep Blue Sea (1999) When it comes to goofy ’90s CGI action, it’s hard to top Deep Blue Sea, directed by Renny Harlin and featuring sharks with genetically enhanced brains. Deep Blue Sea doesn’t have a strong sense of pacing, it lacks any sort of believable character development, and the effects looked terrible even in 1999. But it’s also the only movie on this list that features LL Cool J as a cool chef who recites a violent version of the 23rd Psalm and almost gets cooked alive in an oven by a genius-level shark. It’s scenes like the oven sequence that makes Deep Blue Sea such a delight, despite its many, many flaws. The movie tries to do the most at every turn, whether that’s clearly reediting the movie in postproduction so that LL Cool J’s chef becomes a central character, stealing the spotlight form intended star Saffron Burrows, or a ridiculous Samuel L. Jackson monologue with a delightfully unexpected climax. 3. Alligator (1980) In many ways, Alligator feels like screenwriter John Sayles’ rejoinder to Piranha. If Joe Dante sanded down Piranha‘s sharp edges with his goofy humor, then Alligator is so filled with mean-spiritedness that no director could dilute it. Not that Lewis Teague, a solid action helmer who we’ll talk about again shortly, would do that. Alligator transports the old adage about gators in the sewers from New York to Chicago where the titular beast, the subject of experiments to increase its size, begins preying on the innocent. And on the not so innocent. Alligator shows no respect for the good or the bad, and the film is filled with scenes of people getting devoured, whether it’s a young boy who becomes a snack during a birthday party prank or an elderly mafioso who tries to abandon his family during the gator’s rampage. 2. Grizzly (1976) Grizzly stands as the greatest of the movies obviously ripping off Jaws precisely because it understands its limitations. It takes what it can from Spielberg’s masterpiece, including the general premise of an animal hunting in a tourist location, and ignores what it can’t pull off, namely three-dimensional characters. This clear-eyed understanding of everyone’s abilities makes Grizzly a lean, mean, and satisfying thriller. Directed by blaxploitation vet William Girdler and written by Harvey Flaxman and David Sheldon, Grizzly stars ’70s low-budget king Christopher George as a park ranger investigating unusually vicious bear attacks on campers. That’s not the richest concept in the world, but Girdler and co. execute their ideas with such precision, and George plays his character with just the right amount of machismo, that Grizzly manages to deliver on everything you want from an animal attack. 1. Cujo (1983) To some modern readers, it might seem absurd to put Cujo on a list of Jaws knockoffs. After all, Stephen King is a franchise unto himself and he certainly doesn’t need another movie’s success to get a greenlight for any of his projects. But you have to remember that Cujo came out in 1983 and was just the third of his works to get adapted theatrically, which makes its Jaws connection more valid. After all, the main section of the film—in which mom (Dee Wallace) and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro) are trapped in their car and menaced by the titular St. Bernard—replicates the isolation on Quint’s fishing vessel, the Orca, better than any other film on this list. However, it’s not just director Lewis Teague’s ability to create tension that puts Cujo at the top. Writers Don Carlos Dunaway and Lauren Currier key into the complicated familial dynamics of King’s story, giving the characters surprising depth. It’s no wonder that Spielberg would cast Wallace as another overwhelmed mom for E.T. The Extraterrestrial the very next year, proving that he still has a soft spot for animal attack movies—even if none of them came close to matching the power of Jaws.

This edition of the Venice Biennale includes 65 national pavilions, 11 collateral events, and over 750 participants in the international exhibition curated by Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti. Entitled Intelligens: Natural Artificial Collective, its stated aim is to make Venice a ‘living laboratory’. But Ratti’s exhibition in the Arsenale has been hit by mixed reviews. The AJ’s Rob Wilson described it as ‘a bit of a confusing mess’, while other media outlets have called the robot-heavy exhibit of future-facing building-focused solutions to the climate crisis a ‘tech-bro fever dream’ and a ‘mind-boggling rollercoaster’ to mention a few. It is a distinct shift away from the biennale of two years ago twhen Ghanaian-Scottish architect Lesley Lokko curated the main exhibitions, including 89 participants – of which more than half were from Africa or the African diaspora – in a convincing reset of the architectural conversation.Advertisement This year’s National Pavilions and collateral exhibits, by contrast, have tackled the largest themes in architecture and the world right now in a less constrained way than the main exhibitions. The exhibits are radical and work as a useful gauge for understanding what’s important in each country: decarbonisation, climate resilience, the reconstruction of Gaza, and an issue more prevalent in politics closer to home: gender wars. What's not to miss in the Giardini? British Pavilion (photography: Chris Lane) UK Pavilion The British Pavilion this year, which won a special mention from the Venetian jury, is housing a show by a British-Kenyan collab titled GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair. In it, the curators explore the links between colonialism, the built environment and geological extraction. Focusing on the Rift Valley, which runs from east Africa to the Middle East, including Palestine, the exhibition was curated by the Nairobi-based studio cave_bureau, UK-based curator, writer and Farrell Centre director Owen Hopkins and Queen Mary University professor Kathryn Yusoff. The pavilion’s façade is cloaked by a beaded veil of agricultural waste briquettes and clay and glass beads, produced in Kenya and India, echoing both Maasai practices and beads once made on Venice’s Murano, as currency for the exchange of metals, minerals and slaves. The pavilion’s six gallery spaces include multisensory installations such as the Earth Compass, a series of celestial maps connecting London and Nairobi; the Rift Room, tracing one of humans’ earliest migration routes; and the Shimoni Slave Cave, featuring a large-scale bronze cast of a valley cave historically used as a holding pen for enslaved people.Advertisement The show also includes Objects of Repair, a project by design-led research group Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), looking at how salvaged materials could help rebuild war-torn Gaza, the only exhibit anywhere in the Biennale that tackled the reconstruction of Gaza face-on – doing so impressively, both politically and sensitively. Read more here. Danish Pavilion (photography: Hampus Berndtson) Demark Pavilion A firm favourite by most this year, the Danish exhibition Build of Site, curated by Søren Pihlmann of Pihlmann Architects, transforms the pavilion, which requires renovation anyway, into both a renovation site and archive of materials. Clever, simple and very methodical, the building is being both renewed while at the same time showcasing innovative methods to reuse surplus materials uncovered during the construction process – as an alternative to using new resources to build a temporary exhibition. The renovation of the 1950s Peter Koch-designed section of the pavilion began in December 2024 and will be completed following the biennale, having been suspended for its duration. On display are archetypal elements including podiums, ramps, benches and tables – all constructed from the surplus materials unearthed during the renovation, such as wood, limestone, concrete, stone, sand, silt and clay. Belgian Pavilion (photography: Michiel De Cleene) Belgium Pavilion If you need a relaxing break from the intensity of the biennale, then the oldest national pavilion in the Giardini is the one for you. Belgium’s Building Biospheres: A New Alliance between Nature and Architecture brings ‘plant intelligence’ to the fore. Commissioned by the Flanders Architecture Institute and curated by landscape architect Bas Smets and neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso, the exhibit investigates how the natural ‘intelligence’ of plants can be used to produce an indoor climate – elevating the role of landscape design and calling for it to no longer serve as a backdrop for architecture. Inside, more than 200 plants occupy the central area beneath the skylight, becoming the pavilion’s centrepiece, with the rear space visualising ‘real-time’ data on the prototype’s climate control performance. Spanish Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Spain Pavilion One for the pure architecture lovers out there, models (32!), installations, photographs and timber structures fill the Spanish Pavilion in abundance. Neatly curated by architects Roi Salgueiro Barrio and Manuel Bouzas Barcala, Internalities shows a series of existing and research projects that have contributed to decarbonising construction in Spain. The outcome? An extensive collection of work exploring the use of very local and very specific regenerative and low-carbon construction and materials – including stone, wood and soil. The joy of this pavilion comes from the 16 beautiful timber frames constructed from wood from communal forests in Galicia. Polish Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Poland Pavilion Poland’s pavilion was like Marmite this year. Some loved its playful approach while others found it silly. Lares and Penates, taking its name from ancient Roman deities of protection, has been curated by Aleksandra Kędziorek and looks at what it means and takes to have a sense of security in architecture. Speaking to many different anxieties, it refers to the unspoken assumption of treating architecture as a safe haven against the elements, catastrophes and wars – showcasing and elevating the mundane solutions and signage derived from building, fire and health regulations. The highlight? An ornate niche decorated with tiles and stones just for … a fire extinguisher. Dutch Pavilion (photography: Cristiano Corte) Netherlands Pavilion Punchy and straight to the point, SIDELINED: A Space to Rethink Togetherness takes sports as a lens for looking at how spatial design can both reveal and disrupt the often-exclusionary dynamics of everyday environments. Within the pavilion, the exhibit looks beyond the large-scale arena of the stadium and gymnasium to investigate the more localised and intimate context of the sports bar, as well as three alternative sports – a site of both social production and identity formation – as a metaphor for uniting diverse communities. The pavilion-turned-sports bar, designed by Koos Breen and Jeannette Slütter and inspired by Asger Jorn’s three-sided sports field, is a space for fluidity and experimentation where binary oppositions, social hierarchies and cultural values are contested and reshaped – complete with jerseys and football scarfs (currently a must-have fashion item) worn by players in the alternative Anonymous Allyship aligning the walls. Read Derin Fadina’s review for the AJ here. Performance inside the Nordic Countries Pavilion (photography: Venla Helenius) Nordic Countries Pavilion Probably the most impactful national pavilion this year (and with the best tote bag by far), the Nordic Countries have presented an installation with performance work. Curated by Kaisa Karvinen, Industry Muscle: Five Scores for Architecture continues Finnish artist Teo Ala-Ruona’s work on trans embodiment and ecology by considering the trans body as a lens through which to examine modern architecture and the built environment. The three-day exhibition opening featured a two-hour performance each day with Ala-Ruona and his troupe crawling, climbing and writhing around the space, creating a bodily dialogue with the installations and pavilion building itself, which was designed by celebrated Modernist architect Sverre Fehn. The American pavilion next door, loudly (country music!) turns its back on what’s going on in its own country by just celebrating the apathetical porch, making the Nordic Countries seem even more relevant in this crucial time. Read Derin Fadina’s review for the AJ here. German Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Germany Pavilion An exhibit certainly grabbing the issue of climate change by its neck is the German contribution, Stresstest. Curated by Nicola Borgmann, Elisabeth Endres, Gabriele G Kiefer and Daniele Santucci, the pavilion has turned climate change into a literal physical and psychological experience for visitors by creating contrasting ‘stress’ and ‘de-stress’ rooms. In the dark stress room, a large metal sculpture creates a cramped and hot space using heating mats hung from the ceiling and powered by PVs. Opposite is a calmer space demonstrating strategies that could be used to reduce the heat of cities, and between the two spaces is a film focusing on the impacts of cities becoming hotter. If this doesn’t highlight the urgency of the situation, I’m not sure what will. Best bits of the Arsenale outside the main exhibitions Bahrain Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) Bahrain Pavilion Overall winner of this year’s Golden Lion for best national participation, Bahrain’s pavilion in the historic Artiglierie of the Arsenale is a proposal for living and working through heat conditions. Heatwave, curated by architect Andrea Faraguna, reimagines public space design by exploring passive cooling strategies rooted in the Arab country’s climate, as well as cultural context. A geothermal well and solar chimney are connected through a thermo-hygrometric axis that links underground conditions with the air outside. The inhabitable space that hosts visitors is thus compressed and defined by its earth-covered floor and suspended ceiling, and is surrounded by memorable sandbags, highlighting its scalability for particularly hot construction sites in the Gulf where a huge amount of construction is taking place. In the Arsenale’s exhibition space, where excavation wasn’t feasible, this system has been adapted into mechanical ventilation, bringing in air from the canal side and channelling it through ductwork to create a microclimate. Slovenian Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) Slovenia Pavilion The AJ’s Rob Wilson’s top pavilion tip this year provides an enjoyable take on the theme of the main exhibition, highlighting how the tacit knowledge and on-site techniques and skills of construction workers and craftspeople are still the key constituent in architectural production despite all the heat and light about robotics, prefabrication, artificial intelligence and 3D printing. Master Builders, curated by Ana Kosi and Ognen Arsov and organised by the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) in Ljubljana, presents a series of ‘totems’ –accumulative sculpture-like structures that are formed of conglomerations of differently worked materials, finishes and building elements. These are stacked up into crazy tower forms, which showcase various on-site construction skills and techniques, their construction documented in accompanying films. Uzbekistan Pavilion (photography: Luca Capuano) Uzbekistan Pavilion Uzbekistan’s contribution explores the Soviet era solar furnace and Modernist legacy. Architecture studio GRACE, led by curators Ekaterina Golovatyuk and Giacomo Cantoni have curated A Matter of Radiance. The focus is the Sun Institute of Material Science – originally known as the Sun Heliocomplex – an incredible large-scale scientific structure built in 1987 on a natural, seismic-free foundation near Tashkent and one of only two that study material behaviour under extreme temperatures. The exhibition examines the solar oven’s site’s historical and contemporary significance while reflecting on its scientific legacy and influence moving beyond just national borders. Applied Arts Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) V&A Applied Arts Pavilion Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is having a moment. The US-based practice, in collaboration with V&A chief curator Brendan Cormier, has curated On Storage, which aptly explores global storage architectures in a pavilion that strongly links to the V&A’s recent opening of Storehouse, its new (and free) collections archive in east London. Featured is a six-channel (and screen) film entitled Boxed: The Mild Boredom of Order, directed by the practice itself and following a toothbrush, as a metaphor for an everyday consumer product, on its journey through different forms of storage across the globe – from warehouse to distribution centre to baggage handlers down to the compact space of a suitcase. Also on display are large-format photographs of V&A East Storehouse, DS+R’s original architectural model and sketchbook and behind-the-scenes photography of Storehouse at work, taken by emerging east London-based photographers. Canal Café (photography: Marco Zorzanello) Canal café Golden Lion for the best participation in the actual exhibition went to Canal Café, an intervention designed by V&A East Storehouse’s architect DS+R with Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky and Davide Oldani. Serving up canal-water espresso, the installation is a demonstration of how Venice itself can be a laboratory to understand how to live on the water in a time of water scarcity. The structure, located on the edge of the Arsenale’s building complex, draws water from its lagoon before filtering it onsite via a hybrid of natural and artificial methods, including a mini wetland with grasses. The project was recognised for its persistence, having started almost 20 years ago, just showing how water scarcity, contamination and flooding are still major concerns both globally and, more locally, in the tourist-heavy city of Venice. And what else? Holy See Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) The Holy See Much like the Danish Pavilion, the Pavilion of the Holy See is also taking on an approach of renewal this year. Over the next six months, Opera Aperta will breathe new life into the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex in the Castello district of Venice. Founded as a hospice for pilgrims in 1171, the building later became the oldest hospital and was converted into school in the 18th century. In 2001, the City of Venice allocated it for cultural use and for the next four years it will be managed by the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See to oversee its restoration. Curated by architect, curator and researcher Marina Otero Verzier and artistic director of Fondaco Italia, Giovanna Zabotti, the complex has been turned into a constant ‘living laboratory’ of collective repair – and received a special mention in the biennale awards. The restoration works, open from Tuesday to Friday, are being carried out by local artisans and specialised restorers with expertise in recovering stone, marble, terracotta, mural and canvas painting, stucco, wood and metal artworks. The beauty, however, lies in the photogenic fabrics, lit by a warm yellow glow, hanging from the walls within, gently wrapping the building’s surfaces, leaving openings that allow movement and offer glimpses of the ongoing restoration. Mobile scaffolding, used to support the works, also doubles up as furniture, providing space for equipment and subdividing the interior. Togo Pavilion (photography: Andrea Avezzù) Togo Pavilion The Republic of Togo has presented its first pavilion ever at the biennale this year with the project Considering Togo’s Architectural Heritage, which sits intriguingly at the back of a second-hand furniture shop. The inaugural pavilion is curated by Lomé and Berlin-based Studio NEiDA and is in Venice’s Squero Castello. Exploring Togo’s architectural narratives from the early 20th century, and key ongoing restoration efforts, it documents key examples of the west African country’s heritage, highlighting both traditional and more modern building techniques – from Nôk cave dwellings to Afro-Brazilian architecture developed by freed slaves to post-independence Modernist buildings. Some buildings showcased are in disrepair, despite most of the modern structures remaining in use today, including Hotel de la Paix and the Bourse du Travail, suggestive of a future of repair and celebration. Estonian Pavilion (photography: Joosep Kivimäe) Estonia Pavilion Another firm favourite this year is the Estonian exhibition on Riva dei Sette Martiri on the waterfront between Corso Garibaldi and the Giardini.  The Guardian’s Olly Wainwright said that outside the Giardini, it packed ‘the most powerful punch of all.’ Simple and effective, Let Me Warm You, curated by trio of architects Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva and Helena Männa, asks whether current insulation-driven renovations are merely a ‘checkbox’ to meet European energy targets or ‘a real chance’ to enhance the spatial and social quality of mass housing. The façade of the historic Venetian palazzetto in which it is housed is clad with fibre-cement insulation panels in the same process used in Estonia itself for its mass housing – a powerful visual statement showcasing a problematic disregard for the character and potential of typical habitable spaces. Inside, the ground floor is wrapped in plastic and exhibits how the dynamics between different stakeholders influence spatial solutions, including named stickers to encourage discussion among your peers. Venice Procuratie (photography: Mike Merkenschlager) SMAC (San Marco Art Centre) Timed to open to the public at the same time as the biennale, SMAC is a new permanent arts institution in Piazza San Marco, on the second floor of the Procuratie, which is owned by Generali. The exhibition space, open to the public for the first time in 500 years, comprises 16 galleries arranged along a continuous corridor stretching over 80m, recently restored by David Chipperfield Architects. Visitors can expect access through a private courtyard leading on to a monumental staircase and experience a typically sensitive Chipperfield restoration, which has revived the building’s original details: walls covered in a light grey Venetian marmorino made from crushed marble and floors of white terrazzo. During the summer, its inaugural programme features two solo exhibitions dedicated to Australian modern architect Harry Seidler and Korean landscape designer Jung Youngsun. Holcim's installation (photography: Celestia Studio) Holcim x Elemental Concrete manufacturer Holcim makes an appearance for a third time at Venice, this time partnering with Chilean Pritzker Prize-winning Alejandro Aravena’s practice Elemental – curator of the 2016 biennale – to launch a resilient housing prototype that follows on from the Norman Foster-designed Essential Homes Project. The ‘carbon-neutral’ structure incorporates Holcim’s range of low-carbon concrete ECOPact and is on display as part of the Time Space Existence exhibition organised by the European Cultural Centre in their gardens. It also applies Holcim’s ‘biochar’ technology for the first time, a concrete mix with 100 per cent recycled aggregates, in a full-scale Basic Services Unit. This follows an incremental design approach, which could entail fast and efficient construction via the provision of only essential housing components, and via self-build. The Next Earth at Palazzo Diedo (photography: Joan Porcel) The Next Earth At Palazzo Diedo’s incredible dedicated Berggruen Arts and Culture space, MIT’s department of architecture and think tank Antikythera (apparently taking its name from the first-known computer) have come together to create the exhibition The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology, which questions how philosophy and architecture must and can respond to various planet-wide crises. Antikythera’s The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI looks at the evolution of ‘planetary computation’ as an ‘accidental’ megastructure through which systems, from the molecular to atmospheric scales, become both comprehensible and composable. What is actually on display is an architectural scale video monolith and short films on AI, astronomy and artificial life, as well as selected artefacts. MIT’s Climate Work: Un/Worlding the Planet features 37 works-in-progress, each looking at material supply chains, energy expenditure, modes of practice and deep-time perspectives. Take from it what you will. The 19th International Venice Architecture Biennale remains open until Sunday, 23 November 2025.

Posted on : June 3, 2025 By Tech World Times General  Rate this post Owen Mac, the talented country and gospel singer from Northern Ireland, has made significant strides in the music industry since his debut. Born in 2003 in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, Owen’s passion for music was evident from a young age. Influenced by artists like Jimmy Buckley, Derek Ryan, Gene Watson, and Rascal Flatts, as well as his father, Owen’s musical journey has been both inspiring and successful. Early Life and Musical Beginnings Owen Mac’s love for country music was nurtured in his hometown, where he began singing at local events and church gatherings. His soulful voice and heartfelt performances quickly garnered attention, leading to opportunities to perform on larger stages and collaborate with established artists. Discography and Musical Achievements Over the years, Owen has released several albums that have resonated with fans worldwide. Some of his notable works include: “This I Promise You” “My Journey” “Heart and Soul” “Especially For You” “How Beautiful Heaven Must Be” These albums showcase Owen’s versatility and deep connection to his musical roots. His rendition of classics and original compositions have solidified his place in the country and gospel music scenes. Online Presence and YouTube Earnings Owen’s online presence, particularly on YouTube, has contributed significantly to his popularity and income. As of June 2025, his YouTube channel boasts over 80,700 subscribers and has accumulated nearly 40 million views. This platform not only allows fans to access his music easily but also serves as a revenue stream through advertising and sponsorships. starstat.yt Merchandise and Live Performances In addition to album sales and online streaming, Owen offers merchandise through his official website, including CDs and DVDs of his performances. Live performances remain a significant part of his career, with concerts and appearances across Ireland and beyond. These events not only provide income but also strengthen his connection with fans. Owen Mac Net Worth in 2025 Estimating Owen Mac’s net worth involves considering various income sources: starstat.yt YouTube Earnings: Approximately $28,000 annually from ad revenue. Album and Merchandise Sales: With multiple albums and merchandise offerings, this could contribute significantly to his income. Live Performances: Concerts and events add to his earnings, though exact figures vary. Considering these factors, Owen Mac’s net worth in 2025 is estimated to be in the range of $85,000 to $100,000. FAQs: Q: What is Owen Mac’s primary genre of music? A: Owen specializes in country and gospel music, often blending traditional and contemporary styles.Q: Where can I purchase Owen Mac’s music and merchandise? A: His official website, owenmacmusic.co.uk, offers a range of albums and merchandise.Q: Does Owen Mac perform live concerts? A: Yes, Owen regularly performs at various venues and events. Details about upcoming performances are typically available on his official website and social media channels.Q: How did Owen Mac gain popularity? A: Owen’s unique voice and heartfelt performances, combined with his online presence, particularly on YouTube, have played significant roles in his rise to fame.Tech World TimesTech World Times (TWT), a global collective focusing on the latest tech news and trends in blockchain, Fintech, Development & Testing, AI and Startups. If you are looking for the guest post then contact at techworldtimes@gmail.com

Limited-time offer: Get more than 30% off a Vox Membership. Join today to support independent journalism. Federal civil servants are supposed to enjoy robust protections against being fired or demoted for political reasons. But President Donald Trump has effectively stripped them of these protections by neutralizing the federal agencies that implement these safeguards.An agency known as the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) hears civil servants’ claims that a “government employer discriminated against them, retaliated against them for whistleblowing, violated protections for veterans, or otherwise subjected them to an unlawful adverse employment action or prohibited personnel practice,” as a federal appeals court explained in an opinion on Tuesday. But the three-member board currently lacks the quorum it needs to operate because Trump fired two of the members.Trump also fired Hampton Dellinger, who until recently served as the special counsel of the United States, a role that investigates alleged violations of federal civil service protections and brings related cases to the MSPB. Trump recently nominated Paul Ingrassia, a far-right podcaster and recent law school graduate to replace Dellinger.The upshot of these firings is that no one in the government is able to enforce laws and regulations protecting civil servants. As Dellinger noted in an interview, the morning before a federal appeals court determined that Trump could fire him, he’d “been able to get 6,000 newly hired federal employees back on the job,” and was working to get “all probationary employees put back on the job [after] their unlawful firing” by the Department of Government Efficiency and other Trump administration efforts to cull the federal workforce. These and other efforts to reinstate illegally fired federal workers are on hold, and may not resume until Trump leaves office.Which brings us to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s decision in National Association of Immigration Judges v. Owen, which proposes an innovative solution to this problem.As the Owen opinion notes, the Supreme Court has held that the MSPB process is the only process a federal worker can use if they believe they’ve been fired in violation of federal civil service laws. So if that process is shut down, the worker is out of luck.But the Fourth Circuit’s Owen opinion argues that this “conclusion can only be true…when the statute functions as Congress intended.” That is, if the MSPB and the special counsel are unable to “fulfill their roles prescribed by” federal law, then the courts should pick up the slack and start hearing cases brought by illegally fired civil servants.For procedural reasons, the Fourth Circuit’s decision will not take effect right away — the court sent the case back down to a trial judge to “conduct a factual inquiry” into whether the MSPB continues to function. And, even after that inquiry is complete, the Trump administration is likely to appeal the Fourth Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court if it wants to keep civil service protections on ice.If the justices agree with the circuit court, however, that will close a legal loophole that has left federal civil servants unprotected by laws that are still very much on the books. And it will cure a problem that the Supreme Court bears much of the blame for creating.The “unitary executive,” or why the Supreme Court is to blame for the loss of civil service protectionsFederal law provides that Dellinger could “be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,” and members of the MSPB enjoy similar protections against being fired. Trump’s decision to fire these officials was illegal under these laws.But a federal appeals court nonetheless permitted Trump to fire Dellinger, and the Supreme Court recently backed Trump’s decision to fire the MSPB members as well. The reason is a legal theory known as the “unitary executive,” which is popular among Republican legal scholars, and especially among the six Republicans that control the Supreme Court.If you want to know all the details of this theory, I can point you to three different explainers I’ve written on the unitary executive. The short explanation is that the unitary executive theory claims that the president must have the power to fire top political appointees charged with executing federal laws – including officials who execute laws protecting civil servants from illegal firings.But the Supreme Court has never claimed that the unitary executive permits the president to fire any federal worker regardless of whether Congress has protected them or not. In a seminal opinion laying out the unitary executive theory, for example, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the president must have the power to remove “principal officers” — high-ranking officials like Dellinger who must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Under Scalia’s approach, lower-ranking government workers may still be given some protection.The Fourth Circuit cannot override the Supreme Court’s decision to embrace the unitary executive theory. But the Owen opinion essentially tries to police the line drawn by Scalia. The Supreme Court has given Trump the power to fire some high-ranking officials, but he shouldn’t be able to use that power as a back door to eliminate job protections for all civil servants.The Fourth Circuit suggests that the federal law which simultaneously gave the MSPB exclusive authority over civil service disputes, while also protecting MSPB members from being fired for political reasons, must be read as a package. Congress, this argument goes, would not have agreed to shunt all civil service disputes to the MSPB if it had known that the Supreme Court would strip the MSPB of its independence. And so, if the MSPB loses its independence, it must also lose its exclusive authority over civil service disputes — and federal courts must regain the power to hear those cases.It remains to be seen whether this argument persuades a Republican Supreme Court — all three of the Fourth Circuit judges who decided the Owen case are Democrats, and two are Biden appointees. But the Fourth Circuit’s reasoning closely resembles the kind of inquiry that courts frequently engage in when a federal law is struck down.When a court declares a provision of federal law unconstitutional, it often needs to ask whether other parts of the law should fall along with the unconstitutional provision, an inquiry known as “severability.” Often, this severability analysis asks which hypothetical law Congress would have enacted if it had known that the one provision is invalid.The Fourth Circuit’s decision in Owen is essentially a severability opinion. It takes as a given the Supreme Court’s conclusion that laws protecting Dellinger and the MSPB members from being fired are unconstitutional, then asks which law Congress would have enacted if it had known that it could not protect MSPB members from political reprisal. The Fourth Circuit’s conclusion is that, if Congress had known that MSPB members cannot be politically independent, then it would not have given them exclusive authority over civil service disputes.If the Supreme Court permits Trump to neutralize the MSPB, that would fundamentally change how the government functionsThe idea that civil servants should be hired based on merit and insulated from political pressure is hardly new. The first law protecting civil servants, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which President Chester A. Arthur signed into law in 1883.Laws like the Pendleton Act do more than protect civil servants who, say, resist pressure to deny government services to the president’s enemies. They also make it possible for top government officials to actually do their jobs.Before the Pendleton Act, federal jobs were typically awarded as patronage — so when a Democratic administration took office, the Republicans who occupied most federal jobs would be fired and replaced by Democrats. This was obviously quite disruptive, and it made it difficult for the government to hire highly specialized workers. Why would someone go to the trouble of earning an economics degree and becoming an expert on federal monetary policy, if they knew that their job in the Treasury Department would disappear the minute their party lost an election?Meanwhile, the task of filling all of these patronage jobs overwhelmed new presidents. As Candice Millard wrote in a 2011 biography of President James A. Garfield, the last president elected before the Pendleton Act, when Garfield took office, a line of job seekers began to form outside the White House “before he even sat down to breakfast.” By the time Garfield had eaten, this line “snaked down the front walk, out the gate, and onto Pennsylvania Avenue.” Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled job seeker, a fact that likely helped build political support for the Pendleton Act.By neutralizing the MSPB, Trump is effectively undoing nearly 150 years worth of civil service reforms, and returning the federal government to a much more primitive state. At the very least, the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Owen is likely to force the Supreme Court to ask if it really wants a century and a half of work to unravel.See More:

Brooklinen is one of our favorite brands for quality bedding designed to last. Making it in our lists for pillows, duvets, and even robes, the best Brooklinen sheets are also staples in many of our editors’ bedrooms for this very reason. Founded in 2014 by a pair of millennials with a passion for high-end textiles on a tight budget , this retailer made a splash on the market by offering direct-to-consumer bedding that merged thoughtfully designed linens at affordable price points—complete with 200-plus thread counts for ultimate durability and Oeko-Tex-certified backing to ensure the fabrics are free of harsh chemicals. While they also became well-known for the ubiquity of their subway ads, they caught our eye at AD Shopping for delivering breathability and sturdy sheets in modern colorways that made a bedroom feel anything but stuffy.That being said: the brand’s catalog is big, so if you know you want Brooklinen sheets but don’t know where to start, we’ve assembled a list of our tried-and-true favorites. Available in sizes ranging from twin XL to California king, we note our go-to percale, sateen, and linen sets in this lineup.Brooklinen Luxe Sateen Core Sheet SetBrooklinen’s Luxe Core Sheet Set is beloved by multiple AD staffers—commerce director Rachel Fletcher says this sateen set is “super classic, smooth, and has a crisp feel,” and contributor Erika Owen loves “the deep design of the fitted sheet pocket” and how easy it is to get it over her mattress and mattress topper. Owen also says it has great temperature regulation. As a self-proclaimed hot sleeper, she says the fabric maintains an even sleep temperature, including during a New York City heat wave. This set of sheets also comes in 21 colorways to bring your inspo pics to life, but move fast, these sell out quickly. Machine wash these on cold, tumble dry low, and you’ll see no signs of fading or wear, but an increase in softness, according to Fletcher.Brooklinen Washed Linen Core Sheet SetAs for Brooklinen’s linen sheets, their original core set recently got an upgrade. Our team members have tested their first iteration for years, including contributor Madeleine Luckel. While she confessed in our best sheets roundup that they felt a “bit thin,” she said the bedding lived up to her expectations. Plus, she would recommend them to other shoppers, so long as you weren’t “picturing a superdense weave.” After debuting the washed European linen sheets this spring, our team got our hands on them and found them to be soft and lightweight. Ranking in our best-of-linen sheets story, the washed material European linen brings a softer but stronger fabric to the beloved set, meaning it wears less with wash and continues to get softer with routine care Perhaps the best part of this sheet set—aesthetically, anyway—is its many colorways: the recent collaboration with Brooklyn-based textile artist Caroline Z Hurley offers warm, neutral stripe options, a white-and-blue stripe lends itself to a nautical-inspired coastal bedding set, and chambray and moss give the linen a particularly welcoming wash, appearing earthy and grounded for year-round use. Contributor Yelena Moroz Alpert says, “There is natural texture because of slubs (teeny bumps) in the weave, but I think this adds to the softness.” “Think of your favorite linen shirt, but in the form of a sheet.” They’re extremely light, “If you hold it up, you can see through it,” Alpert adds. Our editors recommend machine washing these on cold without any other items on the first cycle to help prevent color bleeding. These should get softer and look a bit more worn with each wash, which gives linen its coveted slouchy, worn look.Brooklinen Classic Percale Core Sheet Set“The texture of these is unreal,” says contributor Yelena Alpert, who recently tested this. “It feels buttery soft like a sateen, but still crisp as percale cotton should be.” Brooklinen promises these classic percale sheets feel like sleeping in your worn-in button-down shirt—sans buttons, of course. And after thorough testing, we agree. Besides the silky-soft feel, Alpert loves these sheets for lingering at an accessible price point for high-quality cooling sheets. While this set includes a flat sheet, fitted sheet, and two pillowcases, the hard-core sheet bundle includes a duvet cover and two more pillowcases to completely flesh out your new bedding set. Percale only improves with wash, as a few turns in the washing machine help loosen its fibers to create a softer texture. Alpert adds that this percale is also durable and pilling-resistant, though you can expect a bit more of a wrinkle if you’re not on top of the dry cycle.Like the linen sheets noted above, the percale sets are available in designs by Caroline Z Hurley. Commerce writer Julia Harrison attests these are not only cooling, comfortable, and soft, but they are also “so damn cute.” In a gray-beige, blue, and coral floral print, they bring a welcome dose of whimsy to your bedding without becoming twee about it.Between their designs and fabrics, and with a focus on temperature regulation and non-toxic materials, Brooklinen hits the sweet spot for budget-friendly, sturdy sheets that’ll last for the long haul. Few AD staffers haven’t tried a pair of sheets from them and loved their new drops, colorways, and ever-improving textures. Brooklinen offers free shipping with no minimum, as well as a 365-day warranty in case you’d like to return the items. However, we stand behind them for some of the best sheets out there. “It’s sort of a no-brainer,” Harrison says. “They’re the first brand I recommend when people ask me where to start for bedding, because they’re luxurious, affordable, and come in every pattern and colorway a person could want.”

Here’s a selection of recent headlines about artificial intelligence, picked more or less at random:For some recent graduates, the AI job apocalypse may already be hereArtificial intelligence threatens to raid the water reserves of Europe’s driest regionsTop AI CEO foresees white-collar bloodbathOkay, not exactly at random — I did look for more doomy-sounding headlines. But they weren’t hard to find. That’s because numerous studies indicate that negative or fear-framed coverage of AI in mainstream media tends to outnumber positive framings. And to be clear, there are good reasons for that! From disinformation to cyberwarfare to autonomous weapons to massive job loss to the actual, flat-out end of the world (shameless plug of my book here), there are a lot of things that could go very, very wrong with AI. But as in so many other areas, the emphasis on the negative in artificial intelligence risks overshadowing what could go right — both in the future as this technology continues to develop and right now. As a corrective (and maybe just to ingratiate myself to our potential future robot overlords), here’s a roundup of one way in which AI is already making a positive difference in three important fields.ScienceWhenever anyone asks me about an unquestionably good use of AI, I point to one thing: AlphaFold. After all, how many other AI models have won their creators an actual Nobel Prize? AlphaFold, which was developed by the Google-owned AI company DeepMind, is an AI model that predicts the 3D structures of proteins based solely on their amino acid sequences. That’s important because scientists need to predict the shape of protein to better understand how it might function and how it might be used in products like drugs. That’s known as the “protein-folding problem” — and it was a problem because while human researchers could eventually figure out the structure of a protein, it would often take them years of laborious work in the lab to do so. AlphaFold, through machine-learning methods I couldn’t explain to you if I tried, can make predictions in as little as five seconds, with accuracy that is almost as good as gold-standard experimental methods. By speeding up a basic part of biomedical research, AlphaFold has already managed to meaningfully accelerate drug development in everything from Huntington’s disease to antibiotic resistance. And Google DeepMind’s decision last year to open source AlphaFold3, its most advanced model, for non-commercial academic use has greatly expanded the number of researchers who can take advantage of it.MedicineYou wouldn’t know it from watching medical dramas like The Pitt, but doctors spend a lot of time doing paperwork — two hours of it for every one hour they actually spend with a patient, by one count. Finding a way to cut down that time could free up doctors to do actual medicine and help stem the problem of burnout. That’s where AI is already making a difference. As the Wall Street Journal reported this week, health care systems across the country are employing “AI scribes” — systems that automatically capture doctor-patient discussions, update medical records, and generally automate as much as possible around the documentation of a medical interaction. In one pilot study employing AI scribes from Microsoft and a startup called Abridge, doctors cut back daily documentation time from 90 minutes to under 30 minutes. Not only do ambient-listening AI products free doctors from much of the need to make manual notes, but they can eventually connect new data from a doctor-patient interaction with existing medical records and ensure connections and insights on care don’t fall between the cracks. “I see it being able to provide insights about the patient that the human mind just can’t do in a reasonable time,” Dr. Lance Owens, regional chief medical information officer at University of Michigan Health, told the Journal.ClimateA timely warning about a natural disaster can mean the difference between life and death, especially in already vulnerable poor countries. That is why Google Flood Hub is so important.An open-access, AI-driven river-flood early warning system, Flood Hub provides seven-day flood forecasts for 700 million people in 100 countries. It works by marrying a global hydrology model that can forecast river levels even in basins that lack physical flood gauges with an inundation model that converts those predicted levels into high-resolution flood maps. This allows villagers to see exactly what roads or fields might end up underwater. Flood Hub, to my mind, is one of the clearest examples of how AI can be used for good for those who need it most. Though many rich countries like the US are included in Flood Hub, they mostly already have infrastructure in place to forecast the effects of extreme weather. (Unless, of course, we cut it all from the budget.) But many poor countries lack those capabilities. AI’s ability to drastically reduce the labor and cost of such forecasts has made it possible to extend those lifesaving capabilities to those who need it most.One more cool thing: The NGO GiveDirectly — which provides direct cash payments to the global poor — has experimented with using Flood Hub warnings to send families hundreds of dollars in cash aid days before an expected flood to help themselves prepare for the worst. As the threat of extreme weather grows, thanks to climate change and population movement, this is the kind of cutting-edge philanthropy.AI for goodEven what seems to be the best applications for AI can come with their drawbacks. The same kind of AI technology that allows AlphaFold to help speed drug development could conceivably be used one day to more rapidly design bioweapons. AI scribes in medicine raise questions about patient confidentiality and the risk of hacking. And while it’s hard to find fault in an AI system that can help warn poor people about natural disasters, the lack of access to the internet in the poorest countries can limit the value of those warnings — and there’s not much AI can do to change that.But with the headlines around AI leaning so apocalyptic, it’s easy to overlook the tangible benefits AI already delivers. Ultimately AI is a tool. A powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. And like any tool, what it will do — bad and good — will be determined by how we use it.A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!See More:

Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home. This week, Captain America: Brave New World, the Marvel superhero movie starring Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford, smashes its way onto Disney Plus after hitting video on demand in April. It’s a big week for animation, with the Oscar-nominated The Wild Robot and the Korean science fiction romance Lost in Starlight both releasing on Netflix, while DreamWorks’ adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s internationally bestselling Dog Man graphic novel series arrives on Peacock. New titles available to rent include the Chinese legal thriller The Prosecutor, and two tales of forbidden love: the Shakespearean musical Juliet & Romeo and The Grey director Joe Carnahan’s action flick Shadow Force. Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend! New on Netflix Lost in Starlight Genre: Science fiction romanceDirector: Han Ji-wonCast: Kim Tae-ri, Hong Kyung/Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Justin H. Min Set in 2050 Seoul, Netflix’s first Korean original animated film is a story of literally star-crossed lovers. An astronaut headed for Mars and a musician fall for each other and face the pain of separation. Trying to make a long-distance relationship work is especially difficult when you’re 139 million miles away from each other. A Widow’s Game Genre: Crime dramaDirector: Carlos SedesCast: Carmen Machi, Ivana Baquero, Tristán Ulloa Based on a true story, this Spanish film stars Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth) as Maje, the young widow of a man stabbed seven times and left in a parking lot in a seeming crime of passion. The investigation leads to Maje’s lovers, as the police try to figure out who’s really behind the crime. The Wild Robot Genre: Family science fictionRun time: 1h 42mDirector: Chris SandersCast: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor Based on Peter Brown’s middle-grade book, DreamWorks’ Academy Award-nominated film follows Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), a helpful robot who accidentally washes up on an island that’s only inhabited by animals. While she initially terrifies all the creatures there, she winds up befriending a fox (Pedro Pascal) who helps her raise a runty gosling (Kit Connor) and prepare him for his first migration. From our review:  From director Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon), The Wild Robot is a tenderly crafted story that pushes computer animation in a beautiful new direction — and is exactly the sort of movie that the current animation landscape so desperately needs. New on Disney Plus Captain America: Brave New World Genre: Superhero actionRun time: 1h 58mDirector: Julius OnahCast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Harrison Ford Set after the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Captain America: Brave New World sees Sam Wilson — having fully embraced his role as the new Captain America — being called on to resolve an international incident in the wake of a failed assassination attempt on newly elected President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford). With time running out and the walls closing in, will Sam be able to come out on top and rescue the world from the brink of devastation? Probably! From our review: As a Captain America movie, Brave New World is batting strongly below average. Its plot is at least mildly reminiscent of 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it’s both fair and unfair to compare the two. Unfair in that Winter Soldier is still among the best-regarded MCU movies, while BNW is running uphill from table-setting a potential new Captain America franchise, dealing with post-production rewrites and reshoots, and the general malaise of the MCU’s post-Avengers: Endgame audience. But fair in that, like Winter Soldier, BNW was also clearly designed as a grounded thriller (by the sliding scale of “grounded” in the MCU) featuring global political stakes and a superpowered conspiracy at its heart. New on Hulu The Seed of the Sacred Fig Genre: Political dramaRun time: 2h 48mDirector: Mohammad RasoulofCast: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami Writer and director Mohammad Rasoulof had to flee Iran after he was sentenced to eight years in prison ahead of the premiere of The Seed of the Sacred Fig. The Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated film is a fictional story set against the backdrop of political protests, incorporating real footage of the 2022 and 2023 unrest that followed the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini, who was fatally beaten by Iranian “morality police” under the accusation that she was wearing her hijab improperly. New on Peacock Dog Man Genre: Family comedyRun time: 1h 29mDirector: Peter HastingsCast: Peter Hastings, Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery Peter Hastings continues the Captain Underpants franchise with an adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s graphic novel series about a hero created when a police officer and his dog were stitched together into one individual after being wounded while failing to defuse a bomb. Pete Davidson plays Dog Man’s evil cat nemesis in the DreamWorks film, which uses CG animation styled to resemble craft materials. New on Starz Flight Risk Genre: ThrillerRun time: 1h 31mDirector: Mel GibsonCast: Mark Wahlberg, Topher Grace, Michelle Dockery No one is quite who they seem in Mel Gibson’s claustrophobic thriller, where a U.S. Marshal (Michelle Dockery) hires a pilot (Mark Wahlberg) to get an informant from Alaska to New York so he can testify against the crime family he worked for. As they travel across the wilderness, the group fights for control of the increasingly tense and violent flight. New on Shudder and HIDIVE Vampire Hunter D Genre: Horror animeRun time: 1h 31mDirector: Toyoo AshidaCast: Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa, Seizō Katō AMC Networks re-released a digitally remastered version of Toyoo Ashida’s classic anime film to celebrate its 40th anniversary in theaters in April, and is now offering it across both its anime and horror streaming services. Set in a far future where vampires rule the world, the action-packed film follows a mysterious vampire hunter hired to protect a woman from a vampire lord who wants her to be his next bride. New to digital Fight or Flight Genre: Action comedyRun time: 1h 42mDirector: James MadiganCast: Josh Hartnett, Katee Sackhoff, Charithra Chandran Basically Bullet Train but in the air, Fight or Flight casts Black Hawk Down and Penny Dreadful star Josh Hartnett as a disgraced Secret Service agent given the chance to clear his name by catching an elusive hacker known as the Ghost, who’s boarded a flight from Bangkok to San Francisco. Unfortunately, the plane is packed with assassins looking to kill the Ghost and anyone who gets in their way. Juliet & Romeo Genre: Musical romanceRun time: 2h 2mDirector: Timothy Scott BogartCast: Jamie Ward, Clara Rugaard, Rupert Everett West Side Story already did the decisive musical version of Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, but this adaptation plays closer to the original text while adding a soundtrack full of original pop tunes to the tale of two feuding houses of Verona. Filmed on location in Italy, Juliet & Romeo’s high-profile supporting cast includes Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter, The White Lotus) as Lord Montague and Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect) as Lady Capulet. The Prosecutor Genre: Legal thrillerRun time: 1h 57mDirector: Donnie YenCast: Donnie Yen, Cheung Chi Lam Julian, Michael Hui Ip Man’s Donnie Yen directs and stars in this Chinese legal thriller loosely based on a real 2016 drug trafficking case. Yen plays detective Fok Chi-ho, who loses faith in policing and decides the better way to ensure criminals face justice is as a public prosecutor. The Prosecutor might be mostly courtroom drama, but there’s still plenty of action, combining old-school martial arts techniques with modern film technology. Shadow Force Genre: Action thrillerRun time: 1h 43mDirector: Joe CarnahanCast: Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark StrongEight years ago, Kyrah Owens (Kerry Washington of Scandal and Little Fires Everywhere) and Isaac Sarr (Omar Sy of Lupin and Jurassic World) joined a multinational special forces group dubbed Shadow Force, but they’ve left that life behind to raise their son. Their old boss (played by Mark Strong of Shazam! and Sherlock Holmes) doesn’t accept their resignation, and is trying to hunt them down.