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On a recent day, just west of Kabul — where the city's sooty sky gives way to fresher air — Abdul Sadiq coaches four young members of the Afghan National Cycling Federation. They're working on their riding technique while dodging the free-form traffic.

"The road is very narrow, make sure you don't get into an accident, as you can see the cars are coming," the former competitive cyclist tells them, amid zooming vehicles and honking horns.

They're at Qargha Lake, whose aquamarine waters sit below a snow-sprinkled mountain backdrop of 13,000-foot peaks. It was here in 2012 Taliban insurgents attacked a resort killing 18 Afghans.

But this day is all about riding: The cyclists wear long sleeve jerseys and full-length tights — and draw hoots, honks and open mouth stares when they pedal past.

These aren't ordinary riders: They're members of Afghanistan's only women's cycling team. And in this deeply conservative country where women have long been confined to the shadows, and they face more dangerous obstacles that just the chaotic roads.

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Al Feldstein, the man who turned Mad magazine into a must-read for teens of the Baby Boomer generation, has died at his home near Livingston, Montana. He was 88.

Feldstein, who died Tuesday, was editor of Mad for nearly 30 years until the mid-80s, taking the magazine to a mass audience with its blend of political and cultural satire tuned to adolescent sensibilities.

Among other things, he turned the freckle-faced, gap-toothed and jug-eared Alfred E. Neuman character, with the "What, Me Worry?" catchphrase, into a staple of the magazine.

The Associated Press writes:

"Neuman's character was used to skewer any and all, from Santa Claus to Darth Vader, and more recently in editorial cartoonists' parodies of President George W. Bush, notably a cover image The Nation that ran soon after Bush's election in 2000 and was captioned 'Worry.'

"Feldstein also helped assemble "a team of artists and writers, including Dave Berg, Don Martin and Frank Jacobs, who turned out such enduring features as 'Spy vs. Spy' and 'Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.' Fans of the magazine ranged from the poet-musician Patti Smith and activist Tom Hayden to movie critic Roger Ebert, who said Mad helped inspire him to write about film."

They found Fidencio Rodriguez, 46, making tostilocos in a stall he's had for 25 years near the port of entry where pedestrians and cars line up to cross. "I like working here, I have my own schedule and it's good work," he tells NPR. He's from Quertaro state, and says the tostilocos craze took off in 2011.

But Southern food expert John T. Edge puts the snack's birth date back further. It probably began popping up in Tijuana about 10 years ago as a cheap, fun filler at soccer games and along the town's Avenida Revolucin after the bars closed, he says. Now the unique flavor profile is attracting the attention of everyone from high-end American chefs to Taco Bell.

As Edge sees it, tostilocos is quintessential border food.

"It's almost like a Mexican reclamation effort," Edge tells The Splendid Table. "It's like if American companies took tortilla chips and packaged them and sold them to everyone, that would be Tostitos. Then Mexican-Americans and Mexicans from Tijuana are reclaiming Tostitos chips for Mexico by adding all these things to them and creating a new product."

There's a great movie to be found in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but it's not about super-heroes, super-villains, or impending urban calamities. It's a deeply felt and hugely winning romantic tragi-comedy about a pair of recent high school grads who are perfect for each other in every way, but just can't ever seem to get their timing right.

As Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone don't just have chemistry on-screen. They've got a rare Hepburn-and-Tracy-esque naturalism that flits from awkwardness to ease to unquestioned devotion in the space of a few shared glances. They don't just have spark, they have a buzzing, crackling electricity with power enough to light the New York City skyline.

It's a pity, then — both for Peter and Gwen, and for the movie — that they keep getting interrupted by Electro (Jamie Foxx), a buzzing, crackling, energy-sucking villain with enough power to darken the New York City skyline. Not to mention Harry Osborn/Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), who also shows up to cross these lovers' stars some more, and Rhino (an utterly wasted Paul Giamatti), who appears as an afterthought. Because what superhero movie doesn't benefit from an extra villain or three? (Answer: very few.)

That Garfield and Stone are the best parts of the movie should come as no surprise: they were the anchor that saved director Marc Webb's 2012 Spidey franchise reset from complete irrelevance as well. But while they're perhaps even more of a pleasure to watch onscreen this time around, the rest of the film gets bogged down in too many villains, too many origin stories, and too many minutes of running time.

It's those origins that are particularly maddening, since one of the pleasures of getting past the first installment of any superhero franchise is being able to dispense with the now-familiar expository notes of the hero's creation. But The Amazing Spider-Man 2 spends inordinate amounts of time setting up its villains (and even backtracks into the past to reveal even more details of Spider-Man's origin), only to dispatch them speedily in an overstuffed third act, as if Webb suddenly realized he'd set up too much story to resolve even in two and a half hours.

As a result, the movie never seems to care much about the conflict between Peter and his foes. Ostensibly, the big set piece is the fight with Electro, a former electrical engineer, stereotypically nerdy and meek, who is trying to turn off the lights to the city and finally get people to pay attention to him. (All of which could have been avoided if only his co-workers had just bought the poor guy a birthday cake – he's basically Office Space's Milton, except he's looking to take down more than just his office building.)

But Electro is a one-dimensional big bad, and is really only here to help facilitate Harry's transition to the Green Goblin. And the Goblin's brief appearance is really only there to set up the climax of the Peter and Gwen story – and to set up the next film. Rhino is even more of a throwaway, a device to help Spidey get his groove back after Webb tries to replicate much of the plot of Sam Raimi's 2004 Spider-Man 2 in the space of a short montage.

There's something admirable in what seems to be Webb's intent here, to make a costumed crusader flick that's more about the people than the spectacle. The small moments, the physical comedy, Spidey's constant wisecracking; these things are all charming, but they're counterbalanced by stock summer blockbuster elements that Webb never seems interested in. What we get is a glimpse of how good Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone might be in a snappy, witty, old-fashioned romantic comedy — if only all those pesky scientifically engineered mutants would stop intruding.