   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S66At $35, Keychron's C3 Pro Might Be the Best Affordable Mechanical Keyboard Ever   A $35 keyboard off of Amazon gives us some pause too, but the entry-level C3 Pro is coming from Keychron, a trusted industry stalwart. As Keychron’s most affordable keyboard yet, the C3 Pro is clearly designed to go up against the many cheap mechanical keyboards on Amazon, like the website’s best-selling Redragon K552 — a keyboard we found was surprisingly decent — which also sells for $35.
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S2How to Be a Purpose-Driven Leader Without Burning Out  The idea of servant leadership — putting your team’s needs ahead of your own — brought us to a more compassionate, human-centered work environment. But in today’s environment, it’s a recipe for burnout. Instead, the authors suggest a more impact-driven philosophy called “noble-purpose leadership,” that ties leaders and teammates to the pursuit of a shared goal that positively impacts constituents. In servant leadership, the message is: You’re in your role to serve others, making it tempting to focus on pleasing others and difficult to say no. In noble-purpose leadership, the message is: You’re in your role to make an impact. This requires more strategic thinking in terms of where to place your efforts. The authors offer three areas where managers can shift their lens to noble-purpose leadership.
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S3 Unleash the Unexpected for Radical Innovation  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.The accelerometer chip — a small but radical innovation — is ubiquitous in today’s digital devices. These speed and orientation sensors tell our phones whether they’re being held in portrait or landscape mode, deploy airbags in our cars, and track our forehands when we play virtual tennis. They also help sense when the earth starts to shift before earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. But while it is easy to recognize the significance of this innovation retrospectively, its true impact didn’t become apparent until many of today’s most valued applications were developed. This gradual unveiling of an innovation’s potential over time is a surprisingly common pattern — so common, in fact, that companies need to craft their innovation management systems with this phenomenon in mind.
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S4 Lego Takes Customers' Innovations Further  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.This article draws on four years of qualitative and quantitative research that the authors conducted with the Lego Group, including workshops and interviews with Lego employees and Lego Ideas customers, as well as analyses of weekly data on Lego Ideas activity from 2008 to 2019.
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S5 The Profound Influence of Small Choices in Digital Collaboration  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.The widespread shift to remote work over the past several years has made digital collaboration tools increasingly essential to employee communication and coordination. Many managers worry that a decrease in face-to-face interactions between employees could be suppressing creativity and innovation, and they are relying on software such as enterprise social media and chat tools to help knowledge workers, in particular, come together. But how do the features of these platforms affect the direction of creative collaboration, and how can managers help teams use them in ways that support the type of collaboration that will be most productive in a given case?
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S6How much it costs to attend the Burning Man festival  It's not easy – or cheap – to pop up a bustling city from empty desert ground. But that's exactly what happens at the Burning Man festival, held annually in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.Burning Man started in 1986 at a San Francisco beach with 35 people united by "the pursuit of a more creative and connected existence in the world"; this week, nearly 70,000 people are making their way out of the muddy desert after Burning Man's 37th year. The now nine-day festival has morphed into a massive brand and destination, where so-called "Burners" from around the world build a civilisation together from scratch, complete with art installations, healing camps, inspiring talks and live DJs.
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S7Next Goal Wins review: Taika Waititi hits the back of the net with this winning, hilarious football comedy  Before the credits rolled on the world premiere of his latest film, an adaptation of British documentary Next Goal Wins, New Zealand's zany director Taika Waititi told the expectant audience, "I saw the documentary a few years ago, and I thought it was a story I had to tell and twist it... Otherwise, you might as well watch the documentary".The original film, by directors Mike Brett and Steve Jamison, told the story of how the American Samoan national football team went from being the lowest-ranked football team in the world, having lost 31-0 to Australia in a World Cup qualifier, to being, well, not the most terrible and making a valiant attempt to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. Waititi takes this basic premise, embellishes parts of it, loses the World Cup qualification campaign and concentrates on the story of a coach and his transgender star player to create a witty adventure about how the bonds formed by being part of a team can help people overcome grief and adversity.
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S8Morocco earthquake: experts explain why buildings couldn't withstand the force of the 6.8 magnitude quake  As locals continue to mourn the loss of more than 2,100 people, a mammoth search and rescue effort is underway in quake-struck Morocco. The 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck at 11:11 pm on Friday night, local time, with an epicentre in the Atlas Mountains about 75km southwest of Marrakech. The quake shook the northeast African and southwest Mediterranean region, with reports of shaking felt as far away as Oran in Algeria, and Porto in Portugal, at a distance of more than 1,000km.
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S9The scent of the ancient Egyptian afterlife has been recreated - here's what it smelled like  Analysis of the oils and resins in limestone jars that held the organs of Senetnay, a noblewoman of the 18th Dynasty who lived around 1450BC, has revealed a carefully formulated mix of ingredients. Researchers have presented this as “the scent of the afterlife” in a scientific report. The smell will be revealed in an interactive exhibition at Moesgaard Museum in Denmark titled Ancient Egypt – Obsessed with Life, opening on October 13 2023.
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S10S11Quantum information science is rarely taught in high school - here's why that matters  The first time I heard about quantum information science, I was at a teacher development workshop in Canada in 2008. I already knew that quantum science was the study of the smallest objects in nature. I also knew that information science was the study of computers and the internet. What I didn’t know was that quantum information science – sometimes called QIS – was a new field of science and technology, combining physical science, math, computer science and engineering.
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S12S13Can animals give birth to twins?  Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected] any parent – welcoming a new baby to the family is exciting, but it comes with a lot of work. And when the new addition is a pair of babies – twins – parents really have their work cut out for them.
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S14How does fever help fight infections? There's more to it than even some scientists realize  When you’re sick with a fever, your doctor will likely tell you it’s a sign that your immune system is defending you against an infection. Fever typically results from immune cells at infected sites sending chemical signals to the brain to raise the set point of your body’s thermostat. So, you feel chills when the fever starts and feel hot when the fever breaks.However, if you were to ask your doctor exactly how fever protects you, don’t expect a completely satisfactory answer.
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S15Flu season started early in Australia - countries in the northern hemisphere took note  Influenza is a seasonal virus that emerges and peaks in winter, so with evenings shortening in the UK, it’s time to think about flu again.Countries in the northern hemisphere closely monitor flu trends in Australia, because this helps predict how winter flu season might play out there. Flu viruses are monitored to keep track of what’s circulating, the age groups most affected and how well the vaccines are working.
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S16Nigeria's elections were once again disputed in court, a stark reminder of a weak electoral system  Nigeria’s presidential election tribunal on 6 September affirmed President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the disputed February 2023 polls, dismissing the petitions of three political parties. The Labour Party had filed its petition on 21 March; the next day the Peoples Democratic Party and the Allied Peoples Movement followed with theirs. The Conversation Africa asked political scientist Damilola Agbalajobi about the implications of this judgment.First, never again will anyone lose an election and base an election petition on frivolities. You have to be sure of what you are saying. Petitions are not meant to be based on sentiments. The court is not a Father Christmas and judgment will be based on the evidence. Anyone going to a tribunal will have to prepare very well.
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S17How to prove you've discovered alien life - new research  In the past few decades, several phenomena have led to excited speculation in the scientific community that they might indeed be indications that there is extraterrestrial life. It will no doubt happen again. Recently, two very different examples sparked excitement. In 2017, it was the mystery interstellar object ‘Oumuamua. And in 2021, it was the possible discovery of the gas phosphine in the clouds of Venus.
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S18Why your perception of climate change threats might depend on where you live - new research  Our planet has just seen its hottest month on record, with many places on fire or flooded. Few events can be directly attributed to climate change, but the likelihood of extreme weather keeps increasing – and people are noticing. Cities are affected in different ways than rural areas. For instance, there are far fewer natural surfaces in urban areas, which creates problems with rainwater drainage, increased temperatures and decreased evaporation.
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S19Choose Irvine Welsh: new documentary explores the life of Scotland's 'urban Shakespeare'  On August 23, Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh’s beloved Edinburgh football team, Hibs, went head-to-head with Aston Villa in the Europa League. But they were also competing for attention with the world premiere of Choose Irvine Welsh, a documentary by filmmaker Ian Jefferies about the life, writing and cultural impact of the man it dubs Scotland’s “urban Shakespeare”. The latter was debuting at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the former at Easter Road in Leith. As a fellow “Hibby”, on the buildup to the night I found myself wondering: “Which of the tickets would Welsh choose?” I suspect there was little competition. (Hibs were defeated five-nil).
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S20Ukraine war: Russian-held elections seek to normalise illegal occupation and reveal reality of a long war ahead  Russia has recently held local elections, including – for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine last February – counting votes in the four territories annexed to Russia after a series of illegal and illegitimate referendums last September. The outcome of these elections – that is, another “triumph” for the Putin regime – was never in doubt. But the way in which they were conducted – with hundreds of complaints and reports of irregularities – is telling, both about the state of the illegal occupation and about Russia’s plans and expectations for the next stage of the war.
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S21Eating insects: the UK seems much more reluctant than the EU to let this industry flourish  Like it or not, there are lots of good arguments for eating insects – both in animal feeds and on human plates. You can farm them with much less land, water and feed than the likes of cows and sheep. Their greenhouse gas emissions are significantly lower, while they are also high in protein and essential minerals. Eating insects makes all the more sense at a time when the global population is still expanding and demand for meat is on the up and up. Yet particularly in the UK, the industry has been held back by regulators dragging their feet.
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S22S23How we uncovered the shared personality profile of violent extremists  Violent extremism – be it political or religious – is a persistent global problem, which has escalated considerably in the US in the last decade. Why do some people resort to violence for their cause? Research on the causes of violent extremism has often focused on social or political explanations. It has particularly investigated Islamist extremism and marginalised individuals or groups in society.
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S24Amnesty for Troubles-related crimes to become law - why many people in Northern Ireland oppose the bill  The UK government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill – which has faced near universal opposition in Northern Ireland – has passed the House of Commons. The Commons rejected the latest Lords’ amendments, paving the way for the controversial bill to receive royal assent and become law in the coming weeks. More than 1,000 killings relating to the 30-year armed conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles, are still being investigated. This bill will close down all methods of investigating Troubles-related offences, including criminal investigations, coroners’ inquests, police ombudsman investigations and civil remedies.
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S25Why is Doug Ford doubling down amid Ontario's Greenbelt scandal?  The past few weeks have witnessed an extraordinary series of events in Ontario politics. Reports tabled by the province’s auditor general and its integrity commissioner on the government’s November 2022 decision to remove 7,400 acres of land from the Greater Toronto Area’s Greenbelt have set off a political firestorm.The controversy has resulted in the resignation of Housing Minister Steve Clark and his chief of staff and angry protesters greeting Premier Doug Ford in Kitchener, Ont., when he arrived for the annual Ford Fest under heavy police escort.
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S26The 'no' campaign is dominating the messaging on the Voice referendum on TikTok - here's why  In the first week after the prime minister revealed October 14 as the Voice to Parliament referendum date, the “yes” and “no” campaigns recast their messages, resulting in unprecedented news coverage and public engagement with the debate.Using data from Meltwater, a global media monitoring company, we are looking at the messaging and media coverage of the two campaigns. In the second report in our series, we identified more than one quarter of a million media mentions of the referendum on print, radio, TV and social media in week one – up 11.5% on the week before.
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S27S28S29'It's not fair!' Kids grumble and complain for a reason, here's how to handle it  Parents have no doubt heard all the classic grumbles from children and teenagers. From “It’s not fair!” to “Not spinach again!” and our personal favourite, “Why do I have to do all the work?” All children are prone to being disgruntled and complaining in certain situations. But frequent grumbling can stretch adults’ patience and make them see their kids as ungrateful and unappreciative.
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S30How we brought mistletoes back to the trees of Melbourne - while warding off hungry possums  Until recently, mistletoes were regarded as problematic pests across Australia. They were seen as having been introduced from elsewhere, exploiting helpless trees and driving their premature demise. Around the world, arborists and plantation managers used to be trained to remove mistletoes as part of routine maintenance. They went to extraordinary lengths to rid trees of these dense parasitic clumps, using flamethrowers, high-powered rifles, even herbicide-spritzing drones.
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S31S32Why ChatGPT isn't conscious - but future AI systems might be  In June 2022, Google engineer Blake Lemoine made headlines by claiming the company’s LaMDA chatbot had achieved sentience. The software had the conversational ability of a precocious seven-year-old, Lemoine said, and we should assume it possessed a similar awareness of the world. LaMDA, later released to the public as Bard, is powered by a “large language model” (LLM) of the kind that also forms the engine of OpenAI’s ChatGPT bot. Other big tech companies are rushing to deploy similar technology.
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S33The Labour-National consensus on family support means the election won't change much for NZ's poorest households  Casual observers could be forgiven for thinking the National Party’s recently released Working for Families tax policy had been cut and pasted from the Labour Party’s own policy. The similarities are certainly striking.Both parties pledge to increase the “in-work tax credit” (IWTC) by NZ$25, to $97.50 a week from April next year. They also promise to raise the Working for Families (WFF) household income abatement threshold (above which payments start reducing at 27%) from $42,700 to $50,000 in 2026.
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S34S35Five ways to become a better ally to 2SLGBTQ+ communities  As summer Pride celebrations come to an end, a recent Ipsos poll revealed some interesting findings regarding the state of 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion in Canada. The good news is that Canadians continue to be world leaders in 2SLGBTQ+ acceptance. However, many are surprisingly less likely to put that allyship into action. The poll of 1,000 Canadians found that only 32 per cent of respondents would be willing to take direct action to support 2SLGBTQ+ rights such as donating to a campaign or attending a demonstration.
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S36The talk shows we love: Dignity-crushing machines?  Professeure à la Faculté des arts, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Talk shows are not just a form of harmless entertainment where social issues are discussed. The choices made in production and by the host can harm the guests appearing on the show, particularly regarding the humiliation techniques used.
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S37With a pharmacare bill on the horizon, Big Pharma's attack on single-payer drug coverage for Canadians needs a fact check  Health Minister Mark Holland announced in August that the federal government intends to introduce pharmacare legislation in the fall. Now the battle lines are being drawn.One of the many virtues of pharmacare — a universal drug coverage plan — is that there will be a single bargaining agent looking for lower prices from the drug companies. Australia has a single buyer and has brand-name prices that are on average 29 per cent lower than Canada’s. That difference on Canadian annual sales of $17.4 billion translates into savings of about $5 billion.
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S38NZ's vital kelp forests are in peril from ocean warming - threatening the important species that rely on them  Many seaweed species are sensitive to changes in the ocean’s acidity and coastal “darkening” – changes in colour and clarity – is forcing some to retreat to shallower waters. All these stress factors combined place these crucial habitats in peril, with consequences for all species that depend on them.New Zealand has the ninth longest coastline in the world (at about 15,000 kilometres). This is almost twice the length of Australia’s great southern reef, which has been valued at AUS$10 billion annually.
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S39S40Apple wants to know if you're happy or sad as part of its latest software update. Who will this benefit?  Although there are caveats, certain mental health studies have shown that regularly recording one’s feelings can be useful. However, given the vast amount of health data Apple already harvests from customers, why does it also want to record their subjective feelings? And how helpful might this be for users?With the latest software update, Apple’s in-built Health app will allow iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch users to record how they feel on a sliding scale from “very unpleasant” to “very pleasant”.
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S41Yes, Labor's misinformation bill could jeopardise free speech online  In January this year, the federal government proposed legislation that seeks to curb the online spread of false and misleading information. Since then, a range of experts and groups have accused the draft Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill of being vaguely worded and encouraging censorship.
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S42S43S44S45S46Briefly Noted Book Reviews  Father and Son, by Jonathan Raban (Knopf). Like Edmund Gosse’s memoir of the same name, Raban’s posthumously published final work follows an English father and son whose lives take diverging paths. Raban juxtaposes an account of his rehabilitation after a stroke that occurred in 2011, when he was sixty-eight, with his father’s experiences as an artillery officer in the Second World War. The stories never connect, reflecting the divide between the liberal, literary son, who immigrated to Seattle in 1990, and the conservative father, who became a vicar in the Church of England. The war chapters, which excerpt correspondence between Raban’s parents, are compelling, but it is Raban’s reckoning with his own frailty that carries the emotional weight of the book. “What have I lost?” he asks. “And am I fooling myself?”24/7 Politics, by Kathryn Cramer Brownell (Princeton). This near-encyclopedic exploration of the rise of cable news begins with the lead-up to the 1984 Presidential election, when cable executives and lobbyists set out to dismantle the power of network broadcasters and redirect it to themselves. Brownell, a historian, details how the opponents of network broadcasting successfully cast the industry as “elitist” and peddled cable as a democratizing force that would “empower people, politicians, and perspectives.” Her persuasive account argues that cable’s advocates were, in fact, motivated primarily by profit, and that cable television’s Sisyphean pursuit of ratings and revenue ultimately served to cultivate a toxic media—and political—environment.
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S47All the Things I Could Do if I Had Backup Singers  Listen to my theme song performed in three-part harmony instead of singing it softly to myself, like some loser who’s written her own theme song.Drive in the H.O.V. lane without getting pulled over. I’d have four human women in my Subaru Forester instead of just me and a stack of library books, an overgrown heartleaf philodendron, and a mannequin that I stole from Kohl’s.
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S48Isabel Allende's Vision of History  Isabel Allende recalls it as the day when Santiago went silent. On the morning of September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende rushed to La Moneda, the Presidential palace, after learning of an unfolding military uprising. Tanks laid siege to La Moneda, a neoclassical building from the early eighteen-hundreds, as the armed forces called on President Allende to resign. Vowing to defend the Constitution, he declared, in a radio address, that he would not step down: "Social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force." Minutes before noon, military planes bombed La Moneda, setting its north wing on fire and blanketing the rest in smoke. When troops later stormed in, they found the President's body in one of the palace's main halls, his hand resting near a rifle. By day's end, Augusto Pinochet had taken power, marking the start of his seventeen-year rule. "That distant Tuesday in 1973, my life was split in two," Isabel Allende wrote decades later. "Nothing was ever again the same: I lost my country."Salvador Allende was her father's first cousin. She believed in his visionâof transforming Chile into a freer, more equitable society, through la vÃa chilena, or the Chilean path to socialismâbut worried about whether his project would prosper, in a world riven by competing ideologies. The disdain for President Allende among conservatives was no secret; neither was the White House's opposition to him. The C.I.A., which backed those who deposed him, had tried to prevent him from taking power. But, like many others, Isabel Allende dismissed the rumors that his rule might be in question, or that democracy could be at stake. "We were proud of being different from other countries of the continent, which we scornfully referred to as 'banana republics,'Â " Allende later wrote. "No, that would never happen to us, we proclaimed."
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S49The Real Stakes of the Google Antitrust Trial  The year 1998 was a pivotal one in the history of technology: Apple’s introduction of the iMac helped set the company back on the path to success after it nearly went bankrupt earlier in the decade; Google was founded by two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; and Microsoft introduced Windows 98, an improved version of its popular computer operating system. That May, Microsoft also became the target of a historic antitrust lawsuit lodged by the Department of Justice and twenty states, accusing it of anticompetitive behavior in two domains: attempting to maintain its monopoly in computer operating systems and trying to monopolize a new market, that of Internet browsers.At the time, residential Wi-Fi connectivity was rapidly expanding across America, and, in the quaintly titled “browser wars,” Netscape Navigator, a popular browser released by Mosaic Communications Corporation in 1994, fought Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the growing class of Web-connected consumers. Microsoft, the D.O.J. alleged, had attempted to crush Netscape by making deals with Internet-service providers that prioritized Explorer access at Netscape users’ expense. The trial began that fall, and included seventy-six days of testimony that took place over more than eight months, during which a government witness alleged that a Microsoft executive had pledged to “cut off Netscape’s air supply” (which a Microsoft attorney denied). The government also showed a video deposition of Bill Gates, then the company’s C.E.O., in which he was so evasive of many of the questions posed by David Boies, the Justice Department’s lead attorney, that people in the courtroom laughed. In 2000, the judge ruled in the government’s favor and ordered that Microsoft be broken up into two companies—one producing operating systems, another producing software. (In the end, the company was never disassembled—an appeals court reversed the breakup order—but an eventual settlement required Microsoft to drastically change some of its business practices.)
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S50G.O.P. Candidates Must Pledge to Go to Prison for Trump to Qualify for Next Debate  WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In order to qualify for the next nationally televised debate, Republican Presidential candidates must sign a pledge to go to prison in place of Donald J. Trump, the Republican National Committee has confirmed.Ronna McDaniel, the R.N.C. chairperson, said that agreeing to serve hard time for Trump was the “only way” that G.O.P. candidates could prove their loyalty to the Party.
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S51Cecily Brown's Attempt to Make Impossible Art  Cecily Brown's art makes me feel like I'm trapped in a "Twilight Zone" episode, getting my ironic comeuppance. Everything I thought I loved in a paintingârich color, fleshy figuration, slithery abstraction, dense, macabre compositions à la Bruegel and Soutineâgets chucked into the meat grinder of her style and comes out harder to swallow. In her mid-career survey at the Met, "Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid," comprising some four dozen works made between 1997 and 2022, you will find enough tasty morsels to confirm that she's a formidable artist. You will also find a surprising number of images that seem muddled or distracted, as though beginning again with each brushstroke. Good abstraction has something inevitable about itâlook hard enough and you find the hidden anatomy holding things together. The longer I spend with "BFF" (2006-15), one of Brown's typically big, robust oil paintings, the more arbitrary its tendrils of red and pink feel. At a glance, it's a flashy piece of workâbut, in the best of Willem de Kooning, to name one of Brown's heroes, the first glance is only the beginning. In too many of Brown's paintings, it's the main course.Let's take a step back, though. Not all the way to Bruegelâjust to the nineties, when Brown was a young graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, in London, and English art was in the middle of a renaissance. It was a time of queasy, braying excess, the decade of Marc Quinn's frozen blood sculptures, Tracey Emin's sweat-soaked bed, and Damien Hirst's rotting cow head. What did Brown's paintings have in common with this stuff? A gamy, distinctly English odor, first of all: her breakthrough show, which opened in 1997, not long after she'd moved to New York, featured images of rabbits breeding, bleeding, or maybe both. Second, an intuition that gallerygoers love a freakshow. The Met exhibition, organized by Ian Alteveer, stresses Brown's relationship with the vanitas, still life, and memento mori genres: dour imagery of mirrors, fruits, and skulls, meant to remind the viewer that death always gets the last word. I've heard grumbles that this is too narrow a subject to do justice to Brown, though it brings out the lively ghoulishness that's one of her strengths. Buried in her abstractions, one finds dead animals, rotten teeth, and squirming bodies. These images are often creepy but never moralistic; there's a kind of sensuality in their shock value, so that what at first looks like a warning comes to feel like an invitation.
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S52The U.A.W. Strike Threat Poses a Tricky Political Challenge for Biden  With just three days until their current contract expires, nearly a hundred and fifty thousand members of the United Auto Workers (U.A.W.) union are preparing to walk out from their jobs at the Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (the parent company of Chrysler). Negotiations are ongoing, but in recent days Shawn Fain, the U.A.W. president, dismissed the companies’ initial contract offers as grossly inadequate. “If we don’t get our justice, I can guarantee you one thing—come this Thursday at midnight, there will be action,” Fain said.Recent years have seen a resurgence of labor activism, with strike threats from railway workers, UPS drivers, and other groups seeking to raise their wages and improve their employment conditions. The auto workers have asked for a four-day workweek at full pay and a forty-six-per-cent wage increase over four years, as well as cost-of-living adjustments and better retirement benefits. But their contract dispute also involves some fundamental issues about the future of the auto industry. Under programs that were introduced in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Biden Administration is providing generous financial incentives to automakers that invest in electric-vehicle (E.V.) plants. The U.A.W., whose many members work in factories that make vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, is demanding assurances that the Big Three won’t exploit the transition to E.V.s to eliminate union jobs and union contracts. It is also asking Joe Biden, who proudly calls himself “the most pro-union President in American history,” to support its cause. “I think our strike can reaffirm to him where the working-class people in this country stand,” Fain told CNBC last week. “It’s time for politicians in this country to pick a side.”
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S53Bruce Lee's "Warrior," and the Politics of Kung Fu  "Gets pretty exhausting after a while," Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) tells his lover Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng) in the latest season of "Warrior," on Max. "Surviving?" she asks.It is the late eighteen-hundreds, a period wedged in between the end of the American Civil War and the signing of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Immigration is high, and racism is rampant. Ah Sahm and Ah Toy are strolling through San Francisco's Chinatown, the only place where they can exist without trouble. This haven, along with most of San Francisco, would eventually be destroyed by the great earthquake of 1906. White architects would be hired to turn the ravaged area into a tourist destination, which is to say, an exotic fantasyâAmerican-style buildings embellished with colorful pagodas, dragon motifs, and other elements of chinoiserie. It is in the original Chinatown, where hope and devastation are twofold, that the television series, based on the writings of Bruce Lee, takes place.
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S5425 Years Ago, a Freaky Sci-Fi Thriller Confounded Viewers -- And Created a New Genre  2023 began with an unexpected hit in Skinamarink which, depending on who you ask, is either terrifying or confounding. Regardless, director Kyle Edward Ball transformed a $15,000 budget into a cool $2.1 million box office. Not bad for a movie filmed in his Edmonton childhood home.Fittingly, Skinamarink arrived a quarter-century after Cube, another indie Canadian horror, and one that put the country’s growing special effects industry on the map. In it, a cop, a math student, a doctor, an escape artist, a nihilist, and a mentally disabled man wake up in a cube-shaped room with matching jumpsuits and no memory of how they got there. There’s a door on the ceiling, on the floor, and in every wall, each leading to an identical room. But deadly traps lurk in many of them and, when attempts to work around their sensors fail to gruesome results, the team needs to rely on the young mathematician’s understanding of numbers carved into the doors to find their way out.
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S55'Dune 2's Delay Isn't the Death Knell for Fall Sci-Fi Movies You Think It Is  Warner Bros. Discovery single-handedly upturned the entire fall movie season when it decided at the end of August to push Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two to March 2024. Prior to its delay, Dune: Part Two was shaping up to be 2023’s biggest fourth-quarter movie, and there was very little around it that seemed like real competition. Its delay has, consequently, left a potentially gaping hole in this year’s fall release schedule, one that not many movies feel capable of filling (sorry, The Marvels).Just because Dune: Part Two had the potential to be the most well-made sci-fi blockbuster since, well, Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune, doesn’t mean there aren’t several other exciting sci-fi movies hitting theaters this fall and winter, though. Even without Dune: Part Two, the sci-fi lineup for the rest of this year still seems extremely promising. Indeed, from Zack Snyder’s new sci-fi blockbuster to Gareth Edwards’ ambitious Rogue One follow-up, there are a few forthcoming titles that could help ease the pain of Dune: Part Two’s delay.
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S56Xbox's Sarah Bond Is Unleashing a Generation of "Citizen Creators"  “You're really going to see game development be further democratized by the power of AI,” the company’s head of creator experience and ecosystem tells Inverse.Sarah Bond can see me. And I don't just mean that my camera is working. She flashes her gleaming Disney Princess smile and addresses me by name multiple times. We jump in at the deep end. Why do video games matter so much to nearly 3 billion people, we ponder, by which we both clearly mean, “Why do games matter so much to us?” Unlike me, Bond has actually done her homework on the subject. You’d expect as much. She is, after all, head of creator experience and ecosystem at Xbox.
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S57The 6 Best EVs From IAA Mobility 2023  To no one’s surprise, Germany’s annual IAA Mobility auto show has been all about EVs, and at the center of that thirst for electrified motoring are China’s up-and-coming EV makers. On top of of cramming cars full of cutting-edge tech, juggernauts like BYD are teasing affordable EVs that are made for European buyers and cost just a little less than their rivals’ wares.
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S58'Ahsoka' Episode 5 Will Deliver the Biggest Twist Yet  It’s no secret that Ahsoka Episode 5 is a special one. After Episode 4 ended with the shocking reveal of Ahsoka’s near-death and her reunion with Anakin in an otherworldly realm that looks awfully like the World Between Worlds, Episode 5 is gearing up to be one of the most hotly anticipated episodes of Star Wars TV ever. And its definitely getting a special treatment because of that. Here’s when Episode 5 will hit Disney+, what you can expect to happen in it, and everything else you need to know — including how you see it a little bit earlier than usual in theaters.
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S59S6025 Years Later, The Most Divisive Sci-Fi Monster Movie Is Getting a Big Upgrade  Twenty-five years ago, Roland Emmerich tried his hand at a monster movie. That movie was Godzilla, Hollywood’s first attempt to reboot the iconic, city-stomping monster for a Western audience. The 1998 film had a lot of interesting ideas in its head; unfortunately, very few of them worked. Emmerich’s film tries hard to remix the origins of its eponymous kaiju: instead of a prehistoric entity awoken by nuclear testing, Godzilla is essentially a mutated iguana. When he winds up stomping through the streets of Manhattan, it falls to a bumbling scientist (Matthew Broderick), his reluctant French companion (Jean Reno), and the less-than-helpful U.S. military to stop him.Godzilla ‘98 is every bit a product of its time. It’s a film that cribbed as much from Jurassic Park as it did from Emmerich’s own success with Independence Day — and barely recouped its efforts at the box office. But time has been kind, in a way, to the film. Hollywood has since perfected its monster movie formula, and is hard at work churning out a MonsterVerse with a more familiar kaiju at its center. It’s the stuff that cinematic universes are made of, but those yearning for simpler times can still cite Emmerich’s Godzilla as a serviceable, turn-your-brain-off adventure.
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S61The 7 Best 'Starfield' Backgrounds For New Characters  Starfield is finally here. Bethesda Game Studios’ long-awaited space RPG launched to pretty good (but not perfect) reviews and is drawing in millions of players thanks to its day-one status on Xbox Game Pass. With so many new players, and with so many ways to play the game, we’re breaking down the best backgrounds that have the skills you’ll actually use as you traverse the Settled Systems.Before we dive into the best Starfield backgrounds, here's a quick rundown of what they are and how they influence the skills you’ll develop as you play. For starters, no skills are “locked” to any particular background. Nothing is exclusive and you’re free to mix and match as you play. The biggest caveat to the Starfield skill tree is you can’t progress with points alone. Each skill has four ranks, and if you want to invest a skill point on the next rank you must first complete an assigned challenge. For example, to upgrade Persuasion you have to first complete three successful persuasion attempts.
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S62What To Expect From Tomorrow's iPhone 15, Apple Watch, and AirPods Event  Fall doesn't officially start until September 23, But in the world of consumer tech, it kicks off tomorrow when Apple announces the iPhone 15 series and new Apple Watches at its "Wonderlust" event in Cupertino, California.The annual iPhone and Apple Watch event will start at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET. Apple will be live streaming directly to its website and YouTube channel. As always, Inverse will have complete coverage and be live at the Steve Jobs Theater to bring you hands-on impressions of all the new devices.
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S63'Starfield' Aceles or Microbes? The Best Choice For the Legacy Reborn Quest  Factions questlines are some of the most ambitious in Starfield, telling stories that can potentially have some massive effects on the universe. While there are a handful of different Factions, most players will likely start with the United Colonies Vanguard, as it can be started as soon as you reach New Atlantis. During that questline, there’s a vital choice you’ll have to make in how to deal with the Terrormorphs, and to make things a little clearer, we’ll help break it down. Here’s whether you should choose Aceles or Microbes in the “A Legacy Reborn” quest in Starfield.Joining the Vanguard rewards you with a hefty amount of experience and credits, on top of an exclusive armor set.
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S64'Deadpool 3' Will Rein in the MCU's Worst Habit With a Classic Movie Method  Deadpool is diving head-first into the very franchise he’s spent so long parodying. With Deadpool 3, both Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) will make their Marvel Cinematic Universe debuts under the stewardship of director Shawn Levy, a frequent collaborator of both actors.Though the film’s production is on pause because of the actors’ strike, Levy has offered an update on how Deadpool’s character and style will shift now he’s in the MCU. Luckily for fans, the answer is not much.
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S65Here's How to Watch Apple's Big iPhone 15 Event  We’re less than 24 hours away from Apple’s “Wonderlust” event that will unveil the next generation of iPhones and Apple Watches. Apple’s iPhone reveal is always a big deal, but this year should be even bigger given an upcoming pivot away from Lightning ports to USB-C. The Apple event is going to kick off at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET and you’ll be able to tune in to the live stream directly on Apple’s website or through YouTube.
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S67S68Should I Get the New Covid Booster? 6 Important Questions Answered  Just like that, there’s an updated Covid-19 booster on its way. Today, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new version of the mRNA vaccines for people aged 12 and older. The agency also provided an emergency use authorization for infants and kids aged 6 months to 11 years. This new iteration aims to “more closely target currently circulating variants” and “provide better protection against serious consequences of Covid-19, including hospitalization and death,” according to the FDA’s press release.
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S6910 Years Ago, Cillian Murphy Copied an American TV Trend -- And Invented to New Kind of Gang Thriller  We may be in an era of female-focused blockbusters, but there’s something to be said for the stories that allow dudes to be dudes. Oppenheimer was a premiere example of this, following a number of genius men in a society that questioned them getting together and doing great science (along with the strong women who supported them.) Cillian Murphy nails the quiet masculinity of a man who knows society will always have his back, while still dealing with his own moral quandaries. But 10 years earlier, a BBC series formed the blueprint for this kind of story, and it was led by the very same man. Here’s how Peaky Blinders changed television forever when it premiered on September 12, 2013 — and combined two of the most intriguing genres ever to create an irresistible hybrid.
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S70Uncovered Debris From A Star's Catastrophic Explosion Could Finally Explain Why Stars Go Supernova  Eight years ago, an astronomical observatory located high on a hill overlooking a region famous for a popular cheese, peered into the constellation Pisces only to discover proof of a star going through a “catastrophically violent explosion” — otherwise known as a supernova. Later, with the prowess of the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers returned to the scene of the crime to study the debris left behind. They hope these leftovers will provide clues to better understand what causes stars to explode and what happens to everything nearby.
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