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 S69'Agatha: Darkhold Diaries' Title Change Borrows the Best Part of 'Wandavision'   The constant title changes of the upcoming series is apparently intentional — and very on brand for Agatha herself.Agatha Harkness is the queen of Marvel plot twists. From her first announcement as Wanda’s “nosy neighbor” in WandaVision, Marvel fans were speculating as to what her true nature could be, and in Episode 7 we finally learned her true identity as the mastermind behind the chaos in Wanda’s idyllic life. Her character was so popular that a spinoff was quickly announced, but its path to production has been rocky.
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S2 The Potency of Shortcuts in Decision-Making  Our summer special report helps leaders gain a comprehensive view of risks, learn how to overcome market disrupters, and manage the analytical tools that provide predictive insight for decision-making.Our summer special report helps leaders gain a comprehensive view of risks, learn how to overcome market disrupters, and manage the analytical tools that provide predictive insight for decision-making.How do CEOs make good decisions? At a time when senior leaders have access to more data and sophisticated analytics tools than ever before, the central challenge of making good decisions about hiring, product development, and resource allocation is increasingly not a lack of information. Rather, it is knowing how much information is enough, and how to use it.
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S3The Gen Zers leading a new pro-union push  Labour unions in the United States have seen a major decline since the 1980s. According to Bureau of Labour Statistics data, more than 20% of workers belonged to a union in 1983 (the first year such data was available). In 2022, that number had fallen by half.The decline, which many experts attribute to employer-friendly policy change, an increase in right-to-work laws that weaken employees' organising and collective bargaining power and a trend towards outsourcing, has left the United States with one of the lowest union densities among major economies.
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S4Are employers hiring or firing this autumn?  September is traditionally the time when the leaves turn brown, workers return refreshed from summer vacations and firms ramp up their hiring. The job market is generally slow during summer, and active in the autumn: as the weather cools, recruitment heats up. "There's typically seasonality to hiring, with companies focusing on the fall as the period to build their labour forces," explains Selcuk Eren, senior economist at global economic think-tank The Conference Board, based in New York. "In the US, Labor Day is normally followed by a cross-sector spike in hiring."
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S5Mie Bakso: Rice noodle soup with meatballs  On a 2010 state visit to Indonesia, former US president Barack Obama delivered an unforgettable comment during his dinner speech: "Bakso, nasi goreng... semuanya enak!", or "Meatball soup, fried rice... it's all delicious!"A staple in the country where Obama spent four years of his childhood, Indonesia's mie bakso is a warm, hearty bowl of meatball noodle soup. Between his several testaments to the dish's exceptional flavour and candid shots of the politician enjoying the dish at restaurants like the Grand Garden Café in Bogor, Indonesia, mie bakso has become known as one of Obama's favourite soups.
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S6Emmentaler: Switzerland's king of cheeses  Switzerland is a nation of cheese. With a population of just under nine million, it produces 207,000 tons a year – and of the more than 450 kinds of cheese produced, there's one that's known as the "king of cheese", a food so famous it has become synonymous with the country itself. That cheese, of course, is Emmentaler – or "Swiss cheese", as it's known in North America.It's hard not to overstate Emmentaler's ubiquity. Along with Swiss army knives, cuckoo clocks and cowbells, the cheese with holes is one of Switzerland's most immediately recognisable symbols. Souvenir shops sell Emmentaler-shaped key rings and Emmentaler-inspired socks. For six years, the speed suits of the Swiss ski team looked like Emmentaler, earning international attention at the 1994 Olympic Games. The cheese's international fame even starts in childhood: from the The Very Hungry Caterpillar book to the cartoon Peppa Pig, when there's cheese, it is yellow with holes.
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S7Priscilla review: Sofia Coppola has directed a 'sympathetic tribute' to Elvis's wife  A year on from Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic, here's the same story again from the perspective of Elvis's wife. Adapted from Priscilla Presley's memoir, Elvis and Me, it's written and directed by Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette), a specialist in capturing the ennui of wealthy people in luxurious surroundings. Her approach could hardly be in starker contrast with Luhrmann's. Priscilla is a subdued domestic drama, all soft lighting and soft voices, with no more than a glimpse of Elvis's concerts or a note of his records – and, mercifully, no sign at all of Tom Hanks's Colonel Tom Parker.More like this:- Mulligan has 'never been better'- 'Daringly outrageous and hilarious'- Ferrari is 'stuck in the slow lane'
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S8Venice Film Festival: The controversial directors stirring debate  Among the many big-name premieres at the Venice Film Festival this year are Roman Polanski's satirical farce, The Palace, Luc Besson's dark supervillain drama, Dogman, and Woody Allen's French-language thriller, Coup de Chance, which screened on Monday. They're just the sort of headline-grabbing, cineaste-tempting offerings you might expect from one of the world's most prestigious film festivals, but they have something else in common: all three directors have been accused of sexual assault. This raises the question of whether their films should be in Venice at all. Is the festival signalling its approval of the men by giving them so much publicity? And are journalists who write about them doing the same? Some critics told BBC Culture that they had refused to review any of the three films. At the premiere of Allen's film on Monday, scuffles broke out as protestors shouted "no rape culture" before being led away.- David Fincher's latest film is 'a dud'- Bradley Cooper's Bernstein biopic is a hit- Is Hollywood self-destructing?
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S9Hit Man review: Linklater's latest is full of 'humanity and charm'  If you're looking for a laidback, heartwarming comedy that happens to be about deceit, corruption and murder, then Hit Man is the film for you. Directed and co-written by Richard Linklater, the maker of Boyhood, School of Rock and the Before trilogy, it may be too relaxed and slight to match his finest work, and it may not win any prizes at the Venice Film Festival, where it had its premiere this week. But this delightful New Orleans crime yarn has all of Linklater's customary humanity and charm, as well as a quality that is scarce in cinemas today: it's genuinely fun.More like this: - A dark fairy tale about Elvis's wife - Daringly outrageous and hilarious - 'Mulligan has never been better’
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S10London is a major reason for the UK's inequality problem. Unfortunately, City leaders don't want to talk about it  In recent years, there has been growing evidence that the UK economy is in poor shape. While the latest economic figures suggest it performed better as the COVID pandemic receded than was previously reported, the performance of sectors such as manufacturing, construction and agriculture has been revised downwards, leading some experts to warn of a greater risk of a recession to come.Alongside these economic challenges, the UK faces many societal issues – including rising levels of inequality, with the country’s Gini coefficient projected to reach a record high of 40.8% in 2027-28. In 2022, the richest fifth of the UK population had an income more than 12 times that of the poorest fifth.
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S11How video games like 'Starfield' are creating a new generation of classical music fans  The game, which will be released on Sept. 6, 2023, allows players to build their own character and spacecraft, travel to any one of a thousand or more planets and follow multiple story arcs.The soundtrack is equally epic, with audio director Mark Lampert describing the game’s music as a “companion to the player,” with a “sense of scale” that “had to be totally readjusted,” in a recent interview about Starfield’s sound design.
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S12S13Climate change is destroying reefs, but the effects are more than ecological - coral's been woven into culture and spirituality for centuries  Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Aug. 30, 2023, bringing surging seas and winds over 100 mph. Meanwhile, another climate emergency has been unfolding along Florida’s coast this summer: a marine heat wave bleaching corals throughout the world’s third-largest barrier reef.Similarly, ocean temperatures in many parts of the Atlantic and Pacific are at record highs, with reefs from Colombia to Australia showing signs of stress in recent years. Scientists warn that the world may be witnessing the start of a global coral-bleaching event, which would be the fourth on record – and while corals can survive bleaching, they won’t if the waters stay warm for too long.
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S14S15S16Paper ballots are good, but accurately hand-counting them all is next to impossible  Among people, mostly Republicans, who remain the most suspicious of the 2020 presidential election results, there’s something of a movement to return to the days when election ballots in the United States were counted by hand. One 67,000-person county in Georgia recently required a hand count of all ballots, for instance. But they, and others seeking similar changes around the country, are likely to find themselves disappointed – either by failure to mandate hand-counting or by how election results are handled if they succeed.Requiring hand-counting of all ballots would take elections back many decades to practices that were common in the mid-1800s. In that era, political parties produced a variety of paper “tickets” that were counted at polling places on election night. When states started taking responsibility for producing ballots in the late 19th century, automated machines began to be used for both casting and tabulating votes.
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S17The US broke global trade rules to try to fix climate change - to finish the job, it has to fix the trade system  The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, is now expected to prompt a trillion dollars in government spending to fight climate change and trillions more in private investment. But the law and Biden’s broader “buy American” agenda include measures that discriminate against imports.One year in, these policies, such as the law’s electric vehicle subsidies, appear to be succeeding at growing domestic clean energy industries – consider the US$100 billion in newly announced battery supply chain investments. But we believe the law also clearly violates international trade rules.
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S18Congress needs to pass 12 funding bills in 11 days to avert a shutdown - here's why that isn't likely  U.S. senators and representatives returning from their summer vacations will need to shake off their suntans in quick time and get down to business.So will they pull it off? And what will happen if they don’t? As an expert of public policy and former deputy director of the Congressional Budget Office, I feel that the challenge this year is the greatest faced since the enactment of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which made significant reforms in the process. This is due to the magnitude of the differences not only between the two parties but also between the House and Senate. A worse-case scenario could see a government shutdown for several weeks, or even a couple of months – and that could have a significant negative impact on the economy.
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S19What is geospatial intelligence? A geographer explains the powerful melding of maps and data  With record-breaking temperatures across the South, smoke from Canadian wildfires across the North, historic flooding in the Northeast and a powerful hurricane in the Southeast, the summer of 2023 has presented a range of threats to the safety of the majority of Americans. The good news, through all of this: Geospatial intelligence has offered valuable insights to help governments and organizations protect communities.Geospatial intelligence is the collection and integration of data from a network of technologies, including satellites, mobile sensors, ground-control stations and aerial images. The data is used to produce real-time maps and simulations to help identify when, where and to what extent a threat is likely to emerge. Government officials, individuals or both can use this information to make informed decisions.
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S20S21Experts alone can't handle AI - social scientists explain why the public needs a seat at the table  Are democratic societies ready for a future in which AI algorithmically assigns limited supplies of respirators or hospital beds during pandemics? Or one in which AI fuels an arms race between disinformation creation and detection? Or sways court decisions with amicus briefs written to mimic the rhetorical and argumentative styles of Supreme Court justices?Broad public engagement, or the lack of it, has been a long-running challenge in assimilating emerging technologies, and is key to tackling the challenges they bring.
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S22S23Vulva health conditions: it's time to shatter the silence  I didn’t know I had a vulva until I was diagnosed with lichen sclerosus and stage three vulval cancer.These are the words of Clare Baumhauer, co-founder of Vulval Cancer Awareness UK. She spoke of her anger at how, despite numerous doctor appointments, her cancer was not spotted until it was at an advanced stage. Baumhauer had had symptoms since the age of five, feeling burning pain “like razor blades” when going to the toilet. Despite undergoing 58 rounds of radiotherapy in 2016- 2017, Baumhauer experienced a recurrence in 2023 and had to have further surgery.
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S24How to recover from childbirth - an expert guide  After all the physical changes during pregnancy and following childbirth, many women are left wondering how to get active again and where to begin. Of course, activity after childbirth is an individual journey with multiple things to consider – and one of the first considerations may not be what you expect: your pelvic floor.Your pelvic floor muscles sit at the base of the pelvis. The muscles form a hammock-like structure that supports the bladder, womb and bottom. As many as one in three women experience unwanted bladder leaks or vaginal prolapse in their lifetime and many of these symptoms can start during pregnancy or following childbirth. This is because this small muscle group takes the weight of the baby for nine months and may be stretched during vaginal delivery.
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S25Five ways to take control of your menstrual cycle and improve your sports performance  Menstruation is often seen as a negative experience, with symptoms that can be disruptive to daily life. Participation in sport and physical activity is particularly affected, with 78% of teenage girls reporting they avoid exercise while on their period. Elite athletes have also reported their performance is negatively affected by their period. So, how do we reduce or manage period-related symptoms? The first step is understanding our menstrual cycle.
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S26S27Ghana's colonial past and assessment use means education prioritises passing exams over what students actually learn - this must change  Formal education in the Gold Coast, now Ghana, was introduced during the 15th century when Europeans came to its shores to trade. Education was only accessible to children of women married to western traders, and it focused on teaching them how to read and write. The primary aim was to create an educated class to support and run colonial activities. By 1882, Britain was established as the colonial power in the region. Educational opportunities were limited, and educational assessments served as the gatekeeper to education. They focused on academic knowledge and English proficiency. Results were used to select students for higher education and white-collar jobs.
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S28France in Africa: why Macron's policies increased distrust and anger  French west Africa has experienced five coups in the past three years. Underpinning most of these coups is hostility towards France, a former colonial authority. Mohamed Bazoum of Niger’s downfall in July 2023 comes after coups in Mali in August 2020, Chad in April 2021, Burkina Faso in September 2022 and Gabon in September 2023.The perpetrators of these coups have, among their justifications, mentioned the overbearing influence of France and its president, Emmanuel Macron, in their affairs. The influence of France in military affairs and maintenance of dominance in business has been a key cog of the Macron agenda. Unlike other former colonial powers, France still has military bases in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Gabon.
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S29S30S31Wegovy was inspired by Gila monster venom - here are some other drugs with surprising origins  Many of the drugs we use today started their journey from bench to bedside in a computer. But this is certainly not the case for all drugs. Indeed, many have exotic origins, including the blockbuster drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, which were inspired by the venom of the Gila monster.Scientists found that a hormone in the Gila monster’s venom called exendin-4 could be used to treat type 2 diabetes. Exendin-4 is similar to a hormone found in humans called GLP-1, which is released after eating and is important for controlling blood sugar levels in humans.
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S32The Conservatives have seized on cars as a political wedge - it's a bet on public turning against climate action  “Talking about freedom, sat in Margaret Thatcher’s old Rover” read the UK prime minister’s tweet in July 2023. Earlier that day in an interview with The Telegraph newspaper, Rishi Sunak had declared that the Conservative Party he leads are “on the side of motorists”, and he spent the days after attacking the opposition Labour Party for its supposed “anti-motorist” stance.This is not the first time politicians have used cars to sell themselves to voters. In the UK, the most obvious parallel is with the 1997 general election, when both Labour and the Conservatives fought over “Mondeo man”, the archetype of a lower-middle-class and mostly male voter who both parties deemed important in swaying the outcome of elections.
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S33Women's Health Matters: spotlight on birth and early motherhood  We’re about halfway through our Women’s Health Matters series now and have covered everything from period stigma to the orgasm gap. We’ve also featured some standout pieces like this article on what’s it like to be an an egg donor and this one on how biological differences between men and women alter immune responses – and affect women’s health.
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S34Voices of Black youth remind adults in schools to listen -- and act to empower them  The idea of inviting students into classroom conversations that teach them to define and express their concerns, ideas and opinions takes inspiration from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The right to be heard is the general principle, and Article 12 of the UNCRC provides for children’s involvement in decision-making that affects their lives. It includes the right for children to express their views.
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S35S36Friends with benefits - what a sex and relationship therapist wants you to know  There are many kinds of sexual situations people can get into – everything from committed monogamous relationships to a one-night stand. But friends with benefits (FWB) situations are often still seen as controversial, perhaps because of the potential for heartbreak. Typically, FWB arrangements involve two people engaging in casual sexual activities without the expectations and constraints often associated with romantic partnerships. Unlike a fling or a hook up there is often an understanding that the situation is indefinite and that the friendship may resume or continue even if the physical relationship ends.
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S37Universities and their students are vulnerable to money laundering - new research  Money laundering jeopardises the security of UK citizens and the integrity of its economy. Money launderers often target financial institutions, but they are also increasingly targeting lesser regulated or unregulated sectors, such as universities. The government’s anti-money laundering laws and regulations focus on preventing the crime by requiring organisations to submit suspicious activity reports to the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) Financial Intelligence Unit. These are reports of financial transactions that may be linked to money laundering.
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S38S39UN invasive species report reveals scale of threat to nature and people - and how to manage it  More than 3,500 invasive alien species are seriously compromising human wellbeing and causing irreversible damage to ecosystems, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). While some alien species actually benefit humans, the UN organisation estimates 10% threaten nature and people.Alien species are plants, animals or other organisms that are introduced to new regions by human activities. A subset of them, known as invasive alien species, can make native species go extinct, spread diseases such as malaria, Zika and West Nile fever, and damage food crops.
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S40Who will win the 2023 Rugby World Cup? This algorithm uses 10,000 simulations to rank the contenders  Despite New Zealand’s record loss to South Africa in August, All Blacks fans can take heart from statistical modelling that has them as favourites to win the 2023 Rugby World Cup (RWC).According to Rugby Vision, a well-tested algorithm I developed to predict outcomes for major rugby competitions, New Zealand has a 33.5% chance of winning their fourth RWC title. The next most likely champions are South Africa (26.2%), followed by France (20.6%) and Ireland (11.9%).
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S41Krishna Janmashtami: Celebrating the birthday of a beloved Hindu god, renowned for his compassion and his wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita  Many Hindus around the world will celebrate Krishna Janmashtami, the birthday of the Hindu god Krishna, on Sept. 6. The birth celebrations occur on the eighth day after the full moon in the month of Bhadrapada, or during August-September; in some parts of southern India the celebrations are held during the fifth lunar month of Shravana, which is in July-August. In Sanskrit, Krishna means “dark” or “black,” and like the deity Vishnu with whom he is associated, Krishna is often depicted as dark-skinned. He is identified as the eighth avatar, or incarnation, of the deity Vishnu in many texts, while other sources identify Krishna as the highest divine being. He is especially loved for his divine attributes of compassion, protection and friendship.
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S42How much period blood is 'normal'? And which sanitary product holds the most blood?  Heavy menstrual bleeding or heavy periods affect up to a quarter of women and people who menstruate, and can impact quality of life. Women who have had heavy periods for a long time often consider this normal, or something to be simply put up with. Diagnosing heavy periods has traditionally been based on the nature of bleeding. Women might describe bleeding through clothing, having to change pads and tampons every two hours or sooner, or passing clots larger than a 50 cent coin. Doctors consider a woman to have heavy periods if she regularly loses more than 80 millilitres of blood during one menstrual period. That’s four Australian tablespoons’ worth. Women diagnosed with heavy bleeding should follow up with their doctor to establish the cause of their bleeding and guide treatment.
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S43'No woman in the usual sense': Ilse Koch, the 'Bitch of Buchenwald', was a Holocaust war criminal -  In her indictment, the prosecutor described Ilse Koch as “a sexy-looking depraved woman who beat prisoners, reported them for beatings, and trafficked human skin”. Ilse’s husband, Karl Koch, had been commandant of Buchenwald, one of the first and largest concentration camps within Germany’s 1937 borders, from August 1937 to October 1941. He would then briefly serve as a commander of Majdanek, another notorious concentration camp.
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S44S45S46Mixed-use solar and agricultural land is the silver bullet Alberta's Conservatives have wished for  The Alberta government recently announced a much-maligned seven-month pause on renewable (including solar) energy development in the province. While the exact reasons are up for debate, one specific factor has been the desire to investigate ways to make renewable energy, particularly solar, more integrated within the province over the long term. Specifically, there is a real concern among some in the party and the general public that industrial solar will displace farming and raise food prices as well as create end-of-life problems with potentially abandoned equipment.
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S47S48New research may point the way towards frost-free heat pumps  A chilly winter morning, the car windshield shrouded in a thick layer of frost. Who has not experienced the frustration of scraping ice or waiting for the defroster to work? It is a daily winter struggle, but what if this frost issue extends far beyond your car, into your very home? Welcome to the hidden battle with frost in our energy systems.Frost forms when humid air comes into contact with freezing cold surfaces. The colder the surface and the more humid the air is, the more likely frost will form on the surface.
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S49S50The Conversation launches in Brazil  In a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Alan Sunderland, a former editorial director at the ABC, put his finger on the ethical crisis facing the media: “In 2023, you can’t talk about the problems of the world without talking about polarisation, disinformation and conflict. The media, far from being seen as a solution to those problems, is generally recognised as being part of them.”Everyone paying any attention knows he’s right. According to the latest Reuters Digital New report trust in news is falling and active avoidance of the news media remains high. When Q&A presenter Stan Grant recently quit the ABC he said he feared that by working in the media he was becoming part of the problem. (He’s since signed up to lead a project at Monash University aimed at furthering constructive journalism.)
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S51Botox and fillers to come under greater scrutiny by the medical regulator. Will it be too little too late?  The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) has announced it will expand its “crackdown” on the cosmetic surgery industry. As the agency responsible for registering, accrediting and disciplining health practitioners, AHPRA is well placed to reshape conduct in what sociologists once called the appearance industry. It plans to develop stricter guidelines for non-surgical cosmetic procedures – especially advertising practices, consent procedures and pre-procedure suitability screening.
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S52S53S54Australia's least wanted - 8 alien species and diseases we must keep out of our island home  Jaana Dielenberg is based at The University of Melbourne and works for the Biodiversity Council. She is a member of Invertebrates Australia and the Ecological Society of Australia. She previously worked for the now ended Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program. She thanks James Trezise for his contribution to this article. This week’s landmark report on the impact of invasive alien species revealed costs to the global economy exceeded US$423 billion (A$654 billion) a year in 2019. Costs have at least quadrupled every decade since 1970 and that trend is set to continue.
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S55We're in a per capita recession as Chalmers says GDP 'steady in the face of pressure'  Australia’s economy grew a mere 0.4% in the June quarter according to figures released by the Bureau of Statistics today, a performance Treasurer Jim Chalmers describes as “steady in the face of unrelenting pressure”.The lacklustre growth follows growth of 0.4% the previous quarter, and is a step down from the growth of 0.7% in the quarters that preceded it, presenting a stark reminder of the economic challenges caused by rising interest rates as the Reserve Bank attempts to reign in inflation.
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S56S57Word from The Hill: Danielle Wood to head Productivity Commission, Alan Joyce bows to public anger, PM jets off again  As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss the latest national accounts and Jim Chalmers’ announcement that Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood will take over as head of the Productivity Commission. The appointment came as a surprise, after Chris Barrett, chosen for the position only recently, decided he had a better offer – he will become head of the Victorian Treasury.
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S58S59A Sunset Toast to Jimmy Buffett  When I heard on Saturday that Jimmy Buffett had died, I wrote a condolence e-mail to his longtime friend Thomas McGuane, the novelist. McGuane, who is married to Buffett’s sister Laurie, was the go-between when I was trying to get Buffett to talk to me last year, when I was reporting a story about Latitude Margaritaville, the retirement community, or communities, really, that are, notionally, a manifestation of the beachy/breezy/boozy ethos expressed in his songs. Buffett had got rich and even more famous by converting his body of work into a life-style brand. That success, the freedom it gave him to say no, and maybe some lingering if unacknowledged misgivings over the relationship of his attainments in business to his songwriting made him squirrelly about interviews, or this one anyway. McGuane, who referred to Buffett as Bubba, put in a word. Bubba and I Zoomed. He was delightful.McGuane, in his reply on Sunday, wrote that he’d just returned from Telluride, where he’d helped introduce a new documentary about Buffett and their friends, and their lives as artists and fishermen in Key West a half century ago. It is called “All That Is Sacred” and is directed by Scott Ballew. (The film has yet to find a distributor.) Buffett was supposed to have been in Telluride, too, but, alas, he lay dying, at his home in Sag Harbor, on Long Island. Of the people featured in the film—among them Jim Harrison, Richard Brautigan, Russell Chatham—McGuane was now the lone survivor. “There were two of us left at the Friday showing, and by Saturday I was it,” he wrote.
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S60What a Musical Life Leaves Behind  What do we lose when we lose a pianist? The question is on my mind today, the anniversary of the death of the German pianist and conductor Lars Vogt, who succumbed to esophageal cancer on September 5, 2022, just three days shy of his fifty-second birthday. Vogt was a musician of rigorous but unshowy virtuosity and distinctive intelligence, but also, and above all, a profound humanism and a deep moral and emotional imagination. He was renowned as a chamber musician and accompanist and also celebrated as a soloist. (Only a dozen of his fifty-odd recordings were solo albums.) Though he played everything from Bach to Schoenberg and beyond, he was most closely linked to the music at the very heart of the Romantic piano repertoire, particularly the agonies and the ecstasies of Johannes Brahms.“With him I always felt a very close connection,” Vogt said of Brahms in an unforgettable final interview, with the pianist Zsolt Bognár, on an episode of the excellent series “Living the Classical Life.” There is a “slight melancholy that basically is always there” in Brahms, he continued. “Even if he writes very joyful music, you know, then it’s in spite of the melancholy, but that’s the thing that from childhood was always very close to me, the dark harmonies that he often chooses.”
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S61Who Owns This Country?  By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.© 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices
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S62"Swift Justice" Looks Inside a Sharia Courtroom  In August, 2021, when tens of thousands of government officials, interpreters, and Westernized élites fled Afghanistan following the Taliban's capture of Kabul, they were joined by nearly the entire foreign press corps. The Times evacuated not only its reporters but also its translators, cooks, and drivers. Amid one of the biggest international news events in two decades, many bureaus stood empty. Gone were the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the major networks. Victor Blue, a photographer who was in-country on assignment, was asked to flee with his colleaguesâand declined. He was one of a handful of reporters who stayed behind, and he spent months travelling the country, exploring the dark corners of Taliban rule.Much of the press saw U.S. troops as defending a pro-Western populace against a deeply unpopular Taliban insurgency. But Blue quickly realized that, in the insurgent heartlands, which lie in rural areas, the story was much more nuanced. To begin with, U.S.-occupied Afghanistan had been a divided realm; Afghans living in areas of relative calm tended to oppose the Taliban, but those living in war-racked regions often saw the Taliban as a better alternative to the corrupt U.S.-backed government. The Western media missed this story. Part of the reason was that the war-torn countryside had been difficultâthough not impossibleâfor foreign reporters to access, so the scale of the crimes committed by U.S. forces and their allies went undocumented. This violence turned many rural Pashtun communities against the Americans; in some villages, nearly every adult had been involved, directly or indirectly, in the insurgency.
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S6310 Years Ago, Vin Diesel Made a Refreshingly Gonzo Sci-Fi Thriller  It’s easy to forget that Vin Diesel’s entire life’s work wasn’t always making Fast & Furious movies. In the early aughts, Diesel gambled his fortunes on making an epic Dune-ish sci-fi franchise, teaming up with writer and director David Twohy to make two movies featuring the improbably compelling space badass Richard B. Riddick. At a time when Diesel was too good to do more than cameo in Tokyo Drift, he was doing his damnest to make Riddick’s world into the biggest thing ever.Sadly, the collected Chronicles of Richard never really grabbed the public’s imagination, and so by 2013, nine years after The Chronicles of Riddick hit theaters, Diesel and Twohy attempted a soft reboot. The result was a movie that’s much more fun to watch than it has any right to be. Released on September 6, 2013, Riddick may be the worst of the three Riddick movies, but watching it today feels like a breath of fresh-ish air.
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S64You Need to Play the Most Cathartic Indie on Xbox Game Pass ASAP  Video games aren’t usually the first place most people look for emotional release. Plenty of games offer emotional depth, of course, but those often come after bouts of challenging gameplay or hours of narrative buildup. When you’ve had a bad day or work or gotten broken up with, it’s much easier to just sink into your couch and put on a movie to cry to.The first game from Nomada Studio, Gris, breaks that mold. This short, not particularly challenging platformer won’t interrupt your catharsis with any major difficulty spikes, so you can focus on its story of overcoming trauma.
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S654 Years Ago, a Trippy Sci-Fi Adventure Changed Video Game Storytelling Forever  Remedy Entertainment stepped into the spotlight with Max Payne in 2001. The gritty action game brought The Matrix’s bullet-time into games and put lots of eyes on the developer. In 2010, Alan Wake gained Remedy a whole new crop of fans thanks to its moody atmosphere and intriguing thriller plot. A much more sedate experience than Max Payne, Alan Wake prized tension and survival-horror elements rather than slick action.Then in 2019, Remedy found a way to merge the immaculate tone of Alan Wake with the wild action of Max Payne, and stuff it all into one ordinary-seeming office building. The result, Control, brought Remedy to a whole new stratum of success and set up one of the most exciting video game crossovers ever.
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S66New 'Ahsoka' Episode 4 Clip Shows the Action Finally Heating Up  The Disney+ series' unusual release schedule means Episode 4 will arrive sooner than you think.It may have just started, but Ahsoka is almost halfway over. While the first three episodes set up the treacherous mission Ahsoka and Sabine have ahead of them, we’re now firmly in the second act of the series, and the action will definitely heat up as they get into the meat of their quest.
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S67Marvel's Most Anticipated Show Has Been Delayed -- But Fans Should be Happy  Ironheart is the latest casualty of Marvel’s new Disney+ strategy, but both fans and the brand could benefit. As Hollywood writers and actors (and, possibly, visual effects workers) strike against the industry’s biggest heavyweights, all eyes are on Disney. The company has been at the center of disputes concerning sustainable pay and the rising prevalence of AI, but the dual strike is just one of the things that’s forced Disney to reevaluate its omnipresence.
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S68'Starfield' Just Solved One of Game Pass's Biggest Problems  Gamers worldwide have been waiting years to get their hands on Starfield, which finally releases on September 6. But Starfield's Premium Edition presented a solution for those who couldn’t wait: early access to the game. While Game Pass subscribers will be able to play Starfield on release day, Bethesda’s offering a Premium Edition Upgrade to give even Game Pass subscribers early access. The cunning pln may just have solved one of the biggest perceived problems of the subscription service — sales.
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S702023's Twistiest Time-Travel Movie is Sci-Fi Romance at Its Boldest  Famed philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” It’s a depressing, sobering concept that, when one thinks about it too long, may just lie in some real truths.In Bertrand Bonello’s latest film The Beast, this adage is played out over a lengthy science fiction odyssey that spans across timelines and connections, proving that love, hope, and fear are all intertwined within us. It’s the deepest and most human tragedy of the self, and one that is often unavoidable.
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