For a few merciful moments during last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, viewers were offered a rare distraction from the fact that the nation is barreling toward a chaotic election. When Issa Rae, the evening’s host, stepped onto the stage for her opening monologue, I breathed a sigh of relief—in no small part because that meant the “Dueling Town Halls” cold open was over.

Tim LahanWhat will it be, the thing that finally makes me write to an advice columnist?A quandary of the heart? An out-of-control kink? A high-stakes issue involving wedding invitations? Deeply schooled as I am in the lore of the problem page, I still don’t know which of the standard cries for help I’ll end up emitting.Because they’re all standard—that’s the point. The problems are the same, now and forever. The same dilemmas, the same misunderstandings.

Texas is an enormous place—the second-largest state in the U.S., and larger than the entire country of France. About 29 million people live there, mostly in metropolitan areas in the eastern half of the state, around Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. From the streets of El Paso to the hills of East Texas, here are a few glimpses of the landscape of Texas, and some of the wildlife and people calling it home.

It sounded like thunder; it felt like heaven.This is what I remember of Sundays at the Superdome in New Orleans after the Saints scored a touchdown. An endless sea of black and gold. Fleur-de-lis paraphernalia that glistened under the stadium lights. More than 60,000 people on their feet, stomping, screaming, and singing; awash in one another’s delirium.

Anatomy of an American FailureIn September, Ed Yong reported on how the virus won.Yong’s report hits all of the crucial points with the exception of the president’s self-centered, myopic focus on his reelection, which hampered America’s response from day one.