As you might imagine, a steady stream of cars to review comes and goes from my parking spot. Some weeks, they stand out, like the bright green Aston Martin, the murdered-out Bentley, or the VW ID. Buzz you can read about soon; these cars usually spark conversations with neighbors, particularly those who don't know why there's a different vehicle in that spot each week.

At other times, the vehicles are more anonymous, and I'm not sure this ADX sparked any community discussions. Compact crossovers are a popular breed and blend into the background—particularly when they're painted an unobtrusive shade.

Which is not to say the ADX is not handsome; the Urban Gray Pearl paint looked good even in the near-constant rain (which explains the Acura-supplied images rather than my own) that coincided with our time with the tester. And from the driver's seat, the view down the hood, along those creases, is a lot more interesting than most comparable crossovers, considering the ADX's $35,000 starting price.

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• I tried four different brands of buttery spread from the grocery store to see which I liked best.
• I didn't think Smart Balance or Earth Balance were very spreadable or particularly impressive.
• Country Crock was my favorite spread, and it was easy to work with.

I grew up on "buttery spreads," butter alternatives typically made with some blend of vegetable oils. We put them on everything from bread and mashed potatoes to corn on the cob.

As I've grown up, I've started using real butter for its rich flavor and creamy texture. I keep some in a covered dish on the counter for a spreadable option and some in the fridge for whenever I need it chilled.

I figured all buttery spreads tasted the same, but I decided to revisit my childhood and try four different brands to see if there are any standouts worth keeping in my fridge.

Since each container retails for just over $3 at Walmart, I didn't factor price into my review.

Country Crock had the lowest percentage of vegetable oil.

I bought a 15-ounce tub of Country Crock, which is the brand we always kept in the house when I was a kid.

The label emphasized that it was churned in Kansas and contains "farm-grown ingredients." It also had the lowest amount of vegetable oil of the brands I tried, at 40%.

Its oil blend consists of soybean, palm-kernel, and palm oils.

It was incredibly easy to spread, but needed a little more salt for flavor.

I noticed right away that Country Crock's butter alternative was easy to spread, even when chilled.

The texture was smooth, and it didn't tear the soft bread at all when I spread it.

I tasted it both plain and on the bread. Although it tasted similar to butter, I think it could've used some more salt for a better flavor — it was a little bit bland. 

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter has an AHA seal of approval.

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter's spread has an American Heart Association certification label because it's made with soybean oil (an unsaturated fat) and has about 70% less saturated fat than regular butter.

Aside from the AHA certification, the label also noted that it's rich in omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and contains 45% vegetable oil (a blend of soybean, palm, and palm-kernel oils).

I could believe this wasn't butter, but the flavor was still good.

The texture of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter was very smooth and almost as easy to spread as Country Crock.

As for the flavor, this didn't have me fooled into thinking I was eating real butter. But it wasn't bad by any means.

It definitely had an earthy, vegetable-oil taste, but it wasn't bland, and it thankfully didn't have an oily texture.

Earth Balance had the highest percentage of vegetable oils.

Earth Balance's spread was highly distinguishable from the others.

The label also noted it's non-GMO, dairy-free, gluten-free, and vegan. It contains 78% vegetable oils, the highest of any I tried, including a blend of palm, canola, soybean, flax, and olive oils.

After opening the tub, I noticed right away that this spread was the darkest in color and looked more solid than the other products.

The Earth Balance spread didn't have a lot of flavor, and it was incredibly challenging to spread.

I found it really difficult to spread Earth Balance, maybe because of the high vegetable-oil content.

Although some of the other spreads were smooth and spreadable even when chilled, this remained pretty solid even after it came to room temperature.

The flavor was fine. It had both a slight buttery taste and an earthiness from all of the oils, but overall it was pretty bland.

Still, as the only vegan product I tried (some of the other spreads contain vitamin D that can be sourced from lanolin, which can come from sheep wool), it's a decent alternative to real butter.

Smart Balance notes health benefits on the label.

Similar to Earth Balance, Smart Balance has a high percentage of vegetable oils at 64%. Its blend includes canola, palm, and olive oils.

The label says that the product contains 400 milligrams of omega-3 ALA per serving.

This product was really difficult to spread.

It wasn't dark beige like Earth Balance, but Smart Balance's butter alternative was similarly difficult to spread.

When I tried putting it on bread, it started tearing up the piece. It also came out of the container in solid chunks.

It softened up somewhat as it came to room temperature, and the label at least warned that it would be "firm out of refrigeration." But I think the perk of a buttery spread is that it can be used right out of the chilled container, unlike waiting for real butter to soften. 

In terms of flavor, Smart Balance had a great butter-like taste at first. But then, as it melted in my mouth, it left an aftertaste I didn't love.

Country Crock was my favorite, but I still plan to stick to traditional butter.

Of the four buttery spreads I tried, Country Crock was my favorite.

It was the easiest to spread — which is the whole point, in my opinion. It wasn't the most flavorful, but none of the spreads were really rich in flavor.

I thought the flavor of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter was pretty good, but it wasn't quite as easy to spread. I'd probably skip Smart Balance and Earth Balance because of their higher cost and more solid texture.

All in all, I still plan to stick to using traditional butter. But I'd buy Country Crock again if I needed a quick, convenient butter-like spread.

This story was originally published on January 4, 2023, and most recently updated on June 3, 2025.

Imagine playing Fortnite, but instead of fighting other players, all you want to do is break into houses to look for caches of slurp juice. Yes, the storm is closing in on you, and there's a bunch of enemies waiting to kill you, but all you want to do is take a walking tour of Tilted Towers. Then when the match is over, instead of queueing again, you start reading the in-game lore for Peely and Sabrina Carpenter. You can count your number of player kills on one hand meanwhile your number of deaths is in the hundreds. You've never achieved a victory royale, but you've never had more fun.

That's how I play Elden Ring Nightreign.

Nightreign is FromSoftware's first Elden Ring spinoff, and it's unlike any Souls game that the developer has done before. Nightreign has the conceit of so many battle royale games - multiplayer combat focused on acquiring resources across a large map that slowly shrinks over time - wrapped in the narrative, visual aesthetics, and combat of Elden Ring. Instead of the Tarnished, you are a Nightfarer. Instead of the expansive Lands Between, you are sent to Limveld, an island with an ever-shifting landscape. And instead of becoming the Elden Lord, your goal is …

Read the full story at The Verge.

I initially felt bad for the Medeo T9 City e-bike that Gazelle sent me for review. Not through any fault of its own but because I had just recently ridden Gazelle's Eclipse C380+, an all-inclusive beast that retailed for roughly 2.5 times the price of the Medeo T9 City. Would the lower-priced bike, with different versions of some of the same hardware, suffer compared to its beefier brethren?

Short answer: not really. The Medeo T9 City isn't trying to dominate the road; it just wants to get you where you're going. It has the same kind of automatic electric assist level shifting, just packed into a smaller handlebar display instead of a center console. It has chain and gear cogs instead of the Eclipse's belt drive and stepless shifting, an external battery instead of an inline, and a 250-watt Bosch Active Line motor instead of a 350-watt Performance Line Speed.

I think the Medeo T9 City likely makes for a good first or second e-bike, or perhaps a nice upgrade if you're prioritizing comfort and transport. Given its hill-smoothing motor, wide range of sizes, stable ride feel, and the backing of known bike brands, you could do much worse than a Gazelle with a Bosch motor.

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As we often like to remind people, beware buying any car in its first model year. It takes a little while for any OEM to find its feet with a new model, and now there's half-baked software that can need frequent updating to worry about in addition to any mechanical woes. I bring this up because various bugs meant that an electric car we were supposed to review had to be repeatedly postponed, as it was away being fixed, and as a result our week with the 2025 Volvo V60 Cross Country turned into two. And what a pleasant two weeks they were.

The Volvo station wagon is not in its first production year. Any criticism of its onboard electronics would focus more on the fact that they are now increasingly vintage, but that also means the bugs have mostly been squashed by now. Sadly, Volvo killed off the regular V60 station wagon earlier this year, but you can still buy the Cross Country version, which starts at $51,495, including the delivery charge.

As the name probably implies, the V60 Cross Country has some adaptations for unpaved roads: it rides a little higher and on softer suspension, and there's protective cladding here and there that gives this wagon a bit of a bold stance.

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In the modern era, cars keep getting bigger and bigger between generations. Or at least, they're certainly not getting smaller. That's especially true in America, where bigger is always better and the vehicles in the current crop of "compact" crossovers are now nearly as large as full-size SUVs from a decade ago. Don’t ask about curb weights, either, as more powerful drivetrains, including widespread adoption of hybrid-electric components, add significant mass, as highlighted by the new BMW M5 "sport sedan." 

Within that fray, however, the new Volkswagen Tiguan stands apart. VW purposefully refined the third-gen Tiguan to cater better to American consumer needs, which meant dropping the third row to create more interior volume for the front and rear seats. The wheelbase still measures the same length at 109.9 inches (2,791 mm), but shorter overhangs mean the overall length actually shrinks by nearly two inches. Yet more efficient packaging on the inside also results in a marginal passenger volume increase of about two percent.

To help keep pricing attractive at below $30,000 to start, VW also decided to skip out on a hybrid variant, but the new EA888evo5 2.0 L turbocharged-four nonetheless delivers more power and improved fuel economy. And all of the above actually contributes to the Tiguan losing weight while evolving from the second to third generation, shaving about 160 lbs (72.5 kg), depending on trim.

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For a kid with an obsession, it's impossible to think about anything else. When I was really into skateboarding, every piece of architecture was filled with a potential for tricks that I could never actually pull off. When I was on a quest to complete Super Mario Bros. 3 on my own, any piece of paper became a sketch of a new level.

For eight-year-old Julián in the new game Despelote, that obsession is soccer, and it becomes the backdrop for a sweet, and short, slice-of-life drama about passion and memory.

Despelote is set in Quito in 2001, just as Ecuador is on the verge of qualifying for the men's World Cup for the first time in its history. The story follows Julián through the qualifying stages, as he goes about his life - or tries to, at least. There's a lot going on at the time, as the country is still dealing with the effects of an economic crisis. Soccer becomes something of a relief valve, a hopeful story to follow during difficult times.

The game plays out from a first-person perspective and takes place across several days, during each of which Ecuador has an important match. The scenes are small but surprisingly open, often forcing young Julián - and also the player - …

Read the full story at The Verge.