Research on the environmental impact of socialist countries challenges the belief that they caused extreme ecological damage. While the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 reinforced this perception, recent studies suggest that socialist states' environmental record resembled that of capitalist nations. Ecosocialist thinkers are reassessing non-capitalist environmental efforts, and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro's book examines examples from socialist states as models for future ecosocialism. It compares the environmental performance of socialism and capitalism, finding that capitalist countries had worse instances of environmental destruction. While acknowledging some negative impacts, particularly during the Stalinist period, the research challenges the notion of communist ecocide and highlights the Soviet Union's role in creating ecological consciousness. However, caution is necessary in fully embracing a positive view of the Soviet Union's environmental legacy.

https://monthlyreview.org/2022/09/01/a-new-environmental-history-of-socialist-states/

In the winter of 1965, writer Gay Talese arrived in Los Angeles with an assignment from Esquire to profile Frank Sinatra. The legendary singer was approaching fifty, under the weather, out of sorts, and unwilling to be interviewed. So Talese remained in L.A., hoping Sinatra might recover and reconsider, and he began talking to many of the people around Sinatra—his friends, his associates, his family, his countless hangers-on—and observing the man himself wherever he could. The result, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," ran in April 1966 and became one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published, a pioneering example of what came to be called New Journalism—a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storytelling that had previously been reserved for fiction. The piece conjures a deeply rich portrait of one of the era's most guarded figures and tells a larger story about entertainment, celebrity, and America itself.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-a-cold-gay-talese/