   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S69Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings   Few organizations provide strong guidance or training for managers on meeting individually with their employees, but the author’s research shows that managers who don’t hold these meetings frequently enough or who manage them poorly risk leaving their team members disconnected, both functionally and emotionally. When the meetings are done well, they can make a team’s day-to-day activities more efficient and better, build trust and psychological safety, and improve employees’ experience, motivation, and engagement at work. The author has found that although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to one-on-ones, they are most successful when the meeting is dominated by topics of importance to the direct report rather than issues that are top of mind for the manager. Managers should focus on making sure the meetings take place, creating space for genuine conversation, asking good questions, offering support, and helping team members get what they need to thrive in both their short-term performance and their long-term growth.
Continued here
|
| ? |
 |
S1How the Pandemic Changed Marketing Channels  The pandemic undoubtedly changed how marketers approach channel strategy, and there is no single route to success. With more channels than ever, marketers need to map which channels add clear value and forget the rest. It can be tempting to enter a channel because your competitors are there. But with limited customer time and attention, marketers must strategically determine in which channels they can have the greatest impact. The authors look at five post-pandemic channel strategies gleaned from The CMO Survey and offer analysis on how marketers can operationalize these trends.
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
S2Using AI to Build Stronger Connections with Customers  As companies learn to use generative AI to create value, there’s a risk that they take the wrong approach when applying the technology to the customer experience. In fact, research shows AI can help boost customer satisfaction when it’s used to offer customers more personalized solutions or to help human employees provide better service than they would without the technological assist. Some examples of companies experiencing early success with this are in the financial services industry.
Continued here
|
S3What did Stonehenge sound like?  Through the doors of a university building, down a concrete hallway and inside a foam-covered room stands a shin-high replica of one of the most mysterious monuments ever built: Stonehenge. These miniature standing stones aren't on public display, although they might help give the million annual visitors who come to the real site a better understanding of the imposing, lichen-covered stone structure built roughly 5,000 years ago. Instead, this scale model is at the centre of ongoing research into Stonehenge's acoustical properties, and what its sound might tell us about its purpose.
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
S4Did Australia's boomerangs pave the way for flight?  The aircraft is one of the most significant developments of modern society, enabling people, goods and ideas to fly around the world far more efficiently than ever before. The first successful piloted flight took off in 1903 in North Carolina, but a 10,000-year-old hunting tool likely developed by Aboriginal Australians may have held the key to its lift-off. As early aviators discovered, the secret to flight is balancing the flow of air. Therefore, an aircraft's wings, tail or propeller blades are often shaped in a specially designed, curved manner called an aerofoil that lifts the plane up and allows it to drag or turn to the side as it moves through the air.
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
S515 Great Deals From Samsung's Discover Fall Sale Event  if you've been eyeing Samsung's latest devices but simply can't stomach the prices, you're in luck. The company is currently holding its Discover fall sales event, with discounts on smartphones, tablets, TVs, and more through September 17. While some of these discounts exist on Samsung's own site, we've also included additional deals through retailers like Amazon and Best Buy—all of which you can find below. Updated September 16: We've added the QN800C 8K TV, Odyssey G4 gaming monitor, Odyssey G7 gaming monitor, Galaxy Buds 2 earbuds, and 970 Evo Plus M.2 SSD.
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
S6A Global Surge in Cholera Outbreaks May Be Fueled by Climate Change  In early 2022, nearly 200,000 Malawians were displaced after two tropical storms struck the southeastern part of Africa barely a month apart. Sixty-four people died. Amid an already heavy rainy season, the storms Ana and Gombe caused tremendous devastation to homes, crops, and infrastructure across southern Malawi.“That March, we started to see cholera, which is usually endemic in Malawi, becoming an outbreak,” said Gerrit Maritz, a deputy representative for health programs in Malawi for the United Nations Children’s Fund. Cholera typically affects the country during the rainy season, from December to March, during which time it remains contained around Lake Malawi in the south and results in about 100 deaths each year.
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
S7The Best Projectors (and 2 Great Screens)  If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDThere's nothing like watching your favorite films in a dark room on a massive screen. For that authentic movie theater experience at home, you’ll need a projector (and a popcorn maker).
Continued here
|
| ? |
|
S8The psychology behind why identical twins inspire fascination--and fear  The twins in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining were never supposed to be identical. In Stephen King’s 1977 book, the Grady sisters are just sisters, eight and 10, and “cute as a button,” at least until spirits and isolation turned their father murderous (you know, just a regular Thursday at the Overlook Hotel). Soon after the book’s rise to the bestseller lists, Kubrick began production on the film, and auditioned numerous young actors to play the sisters. But when identical twins Lisa and Louise Burns waltzed in, they won the part. One of cinema’s greatest auteurs decided there was just something scarier about twins, the twins themselves told the Daily Mail in an interview.The Burns twins’ turn as the Grady sisters is an iconic moment in a film full of them: “Come play with us, Danny.” Whether he considered it or not, Kubrick was playing with a stereotype that goes back centuries and continues to be a staple of the horror genre today. But what is it about identical twins that make them a subject of both fascination, fear, and oh so many stereotypes? Maybe a better question is what is it about the rest of us that makes this the case?
Continued here
|
S9Study: The Indo-European language family was born south of Caucasus  Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is a language that gave rise to many others. About 46% of humans, well over three billion people, are native speakers of an Indo-European language. But where did PIE first arise, and who spoke it: pastoralists from the Pontic steppe straddling eastern Europe and west Asia or agrarians from Anatolia in Turkey? The answer to that question has been eluding anthropologists for ages. And now, researchers in the journal Science suggest a third place: the Lesser Caucasus, primarily found in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and parts of eastern Turkey and southern Georgia. PIE is both the deadest and most alive of languages. The last speaker died thousands of years ago, and if it was ever written down, we don’t know about it. The only evidence of PIE’s existence are the traces it left in the languages that descended from it.
Continued here
|
S10At least 5 people have been cured of HIV. Is the AIDS pandemic ending?  This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here.Being diagnosed with AIDS used to be a death sentence — in the US, more than half of those diagnosed with the disease between 1981 and 1992 died within 2 years.
Continued here
|
S11S12The Undoing of a Great American Band  Sly and the Family Stone suggested new possibilities in music and life—until it all fell apart.Is there a way to look at Sly Stone—a musical genius and, for a couple of years, an avatar of spiritual freedom—that isn’t dualistic, split-brained, one thing in opposition to another? That isn’t about light versus darkness, up versus down, Logos versus Chaos, good drugs versus bad drugs, having it all versus losing it all, and on and on? “Without contraries is no progression,” William Blake said, but still—I find myself groping for another plane of understanding. I want to see him as the angels do. We might need to evolve a little bit to get a handle on this man.
Continued here
|
S13The Mysterious Return of a Soviet Statue in Russia  A monument to Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Bolsheviks’ feared secret police, has been quietly rehabilitated. Why?The thunder of war in Ukraine drowns out a lot of other news from Russia. A few days ago, however, the Russian foreign intelligence service quietly did something rather odd. Sergei Naryshkin, the director of the Sluzhba Vneshnei Razvedki, or SVR (the Russian version of the CIA), unveiled a statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police.
Continued here
|
S14Ukraine Isn't the Reason the U.S. Is Unprepared for War  A lack of defense production has created an alarming gap between America’s strategy and its capabilities.Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States has provided Kyiv with more than $43 billion worth of security assistance. Opponents of aid to Ukraine have argued that the United States is drawing down inventories of systems and ammunition that are already in short supply for its own forces, and which would be needed in any high-intensity conflict.
Continued here
|
S15Nobody Should Care About a Woman's 'Body Count'  Popular internet personalities are peddling repressive, misogynistic ideas to their young male fans.Ever since Elon Musk’s lackeys began fiddling with the algorithms of X (formerly Twitter), I have noticed a distinct shift in the content that is pushed onto users. My “For you” tab is now a nest of tradwives, shoplifting videos, and that guy who has strong opinions on trouser creases. It is also home to the kind of old-fashioned misogyny that I once thought was on the decline.
Continued here
|
S16The Biden Impeachment Is Benghazi All Over Again  Both inquiries are based far more on vibes and political machinations than they are on hard evidence.Once upon a time, presidential impeachment was a rare event. But with four of the five inquiries in U.S. history coming in the past 25 years, people seeking to understand and explain the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, launched Tuesday, have looked to the 2019 impeachment of President Donald Trump as an analogy. Both center on allegations of using elected office for personal gain, and both have been divided sharply along partisan lines.
Continued here
|
S17Scientists Have Spent 40 Years Trying to Understand Salt  We’ve all heard of the five tastes our tongues can detect: sweet, sour, bitter, savory-umami, and salty. But the real number is actually six, because we have two separate salt-taste systems. One of them detects the attractive, relatively low levels of salt that make potato chips taste delicious. The other registers high levels of salt—enough to make overly salted food taste offensive.Exactly how our taste buds sense the two kinds of saltiness is a mystery that’s taken some 40 years of scientific inquiry to unravel, and researchers haven’t deciphered all of the details yet. In fact, the more they look at salt sensation, the weirder it gets.
Continued here
|
S18How Siblings Shape Who We Are  This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.For those of us who have siblings, these relationships will likely be the longest of our life. That fact is a basic statistical one, but it’s also an emotional one. These are human beings who will see us at many more stages of growth than most others will: the awkward braces years, the sullen teenage years, and whatever happens after that.
Continued here
|
S19The Republicans Threatening to Shut Down the Government  House GOP infighting reached new heights this week as Trump-aligned House Republicans threatened to shut down the government.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opened an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden based on no evidence this week in an effort to appease his far-right party members. But the move doesn’t appear to have satisfied them. If their demands aren’t met, they plan to challenge McCarthy’s speakership and vote against funding the government. With no agreement in sight, McCarthy dared his detractors to bring a vote to oust him from his leadership post.
Continued here
|
S20Neuromarketing: What You Need to Know  The field of neuromarketing, sometimes known as consumer neuroscience, studies the brain to predict and potentially even manipulate consumer behavior and decision making. Over the past five years several groundbreaking studies have demonstrated its potential to create value for marketers. But those interested in using its tools must still determine whether that’s worth the investment and how to do it well.“Neuromarketing” loosely refers to the measurement of physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers’ motivations, preferences, and decisions. Its most common methods are brain scanning, which measures neural activity, and physiological tracking, which measures eye movement and other proxies for that activity.This article explores some of the research into those methods and discusses their benefits and drawbacks.
Continued here
|
S21Understanding Leadership  The would-be analyst of leadership usually studies popularity, power, showmanship, or wisdom in long-range planning. But none of these qualities is the essence of leadership. Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants—a human and social achievement that stems from the leader’s understanding of his or her fellow workers and the relationship of their individual goals to the group’s aim.
Continued here
|
S22Employees Are Losing Patience with Change Initiatives  In 2022, the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes — such as a restructure to achieve efficiencies, a culture transformation to unlock new ways of working, or the replacement of a legacy tech system — up from two in 2016. While more change is coming, the workforce has hit a wall: A Gartner survey revealed that employees’ willingness to support enterprise change collapsed to just 43% in 2022, compared to 74% in 2016. Navigating the pandemic asked a lot of employees — and while they delivered, it came at a cost. Relentless sprinting means many employees are running on fumes. To create more sustainable change efforts, leaders must prioritize change initiatives, showing employees where to invest their energies. They also must manage change fatigue by building in periods of proactive rest, involving employees in change plans, and challenging managers to help build team resilience.
Continued here
|
S23Are businesses ready for another wave of Covid-19 cases?  As students return to school and employers call their workers back to offices, Covid-19 cases are once again rising globally. Two new variants of note – BA.2.86 (Pirola) and EG.5 (Eris) – have already shown up around the world, including in the US and UK.Even as we head into cool-weather months, experts aren't yet predicting new lockdowns. Still, the rise in cases reopens the question: what happens if we're once again faced with an overwhelming global health crisis?
Continued here
|
S24Sancocho: A Panamanian chicken and vegetable soup  Sancocho may be ubiquitous across Latin America, but no two recipes are the same. That's because the primary ingredients of this hearty soup – meat, vegetables and tubers – are as broad and as varied as Latin America itself.Perhaps that's why the name of the dish is so generic; sancocho is derived from the Spanish verb sancochar, meaning to cook in liquid. Nevertheless, when you look at the different countries where the dish is made, you'll find sancocho recipes vary based on regional ingredients, seasoned to comfort local palates.
Continued here
|
S25Hip-hop's rise to the top of fashion  In February it was announced that Pharrell Williams would be the new men's creative director of Louis Vuitton – a role that became vacant after the unexpected death of the US fashion designer Virgil Abloh in November 2021. Four months later, the revered musician and producer showcased his first collection at Paris Fashion Week. It included vibrant faux-fur jackets, the brand's logo in bright colours across garments, and various camouflage pieces created by modifying Louis Vuitton's signature Damier print. While this is not Williams's first foray into the fashion world – he has collaborated with Louis Vuitton twice before, and with Chanel, Moncler and Adidas Originals – his role at Vuitton is his most significant fashion moment yet. And, with it, Pharrell joins a line of famous black musicians who have dived head-first into the fashion industry, including Rihanna with the luxury brand Fenty and the lingerie brand Savage X Fenty; Kanye West with Yeezy; Beyonce with Ivy Park; and Tyler the Creator's Golf le Fleur. Williams also continues a 50-year-long tradition of hip hop significantly influencing the fashion world.
Continued here
|
S26Hear stunning music recorded inside Mississippi's infamous Parchman prison  "Oh listen you men, I don't mean no harm / Oh listen you men, I don't mean no harm / If you wanna do good, you better stay off ol' Parchman farm." – Bukka White, Parchman Farm BluesOn the morning of 5 February 2023, Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan arrived at the gates of the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm. He had come to record the prison's most gifted singers at a specially convened chapel service, and had taken two flights and driven a further three hours to get there. Yet Brennan had no idea who or what he was about to hear.
Continued here
|
S27How grisly thriller Dead Man's Shoes captured British small-town violence  With its seething menace and bleak realism, punctuated by the occasional dose of the surreal, Shane Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes (2004) is a uniquely British story of small-town cruelty and revenge. Made on a shoestring budget with a cast of actors who would later go on to major work in Hollywood, the film, now just shy of 20 years old, has long been difficult to see, and is mercifully receiving a restoration and UK theatrical re-release today.Meadows' film is narratively straightforward: it stars Paddy Considine as Richard, a soldier returning to his small Derbyshire town after seven years' absence, who wants to confront the sleazy thugs that viciously bullied his learning-disabled brother Anthony, played by Toby Kebbell.
Continued here
|
S28S29Anxiety can often be a drag on creativity, upending the trope of the tortured artist  In the U.S., anxiety disorders affect about one-third of the population. So it’s no surprise that a good number of artists and writers also suffer from anxiety and depression.But whereas some critics see Vincent Van Gogh’s striking paintings and Sylvia Plath’s confessional poetry as the direct result of their psychosis and depression, I tend to be less romantic about this subject. I see their brilliant output as having happened in spite of – rather than because of – their mental anguish.
Continued here
|
S30S31S32Ransom or realism? A closer look at Biden's prisoner swap deal with Iran  The Biden administration’s agreement with Iran for a planned swap of prisoners could be seen as a simple business transaction to free five Iranians from imprisonment in the U.S. and five Americans, some with dual citizenship, from detention in Iran. But the agreement has broader implications for U.S.-Iranian relations, the future of Iran’s nuclear program and for the tense relationship between Iran and Israel, which is largely defined by the status of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Continued here
|
S33Alzheimer's disease is partly genetic -  Steven T. DeKosky consults for Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics and Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals; is the Editor for Dementia for Up-To-Date, a point of care electronic textbook of medicine and is Associate Editor of Neurotherapeutics-The Journal of the American Society for Experimental Therapeutics (ASENT); chairs Drug Monitoring Safety Boards for Biogen, Prevail Pharmaceuticals, and Vaccinex Pharmaceuticals; and chairs Scientific Advisory Boards for Acumen Pharmaceuticals and Cognition Therapeutics.Diseases that run in families usually have genetic causes. Some are genetic mutations that directly cause the disease if inherited. Others are risk genes that affect the body in a way that increases the chance someone will develop the disease. In Alzheimer’s disease, genetic mutations in any of three specific genes can cause the disease, and other risk genes either increase or decrease the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
Continued here
|
S34US autoworkers launch historic strike: 3 questions answered  The United Auto Workers union, or UAW, has told workers at three factories to go on strike after failing to agree on new contracts with each of Detroit’s major automakers. The contracts expired at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2023. By midnight, the union posted a strike declaration on its website. The strike will force General Motors, Ford and Stellantis – the global company that builds Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and Dodge vehicles in North America – to halt some of their operations. “Tonight for the first time in our history we will strike all three of the Big Three at once,” UAW President Shawn Fain announced about two hours before the negotiation deadline passed without a contract. The union is seeking higher pay, better benefits and assurances that large numbers of its members will work in the automakers’ growing number of electric-vehicle factories.
Continued here
|
S35S36An X-Files expert on the show's enduring appeal - 30 years on  On September 10 1993 the pilot episode of The X-Files aired. Thirty years later to the day, I was at a convention centre in Minneapolis with 500 other fans and the show’s creator, Chris Carter, celebrating its legacy. Ostensibly a show about aliens, The X-Files swiftly became part of the cultural lexicon and remains there to this day. In part its success was down to the chemistry of its two leads – David Duchovny, who played FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson, who played FBI Special Agent Dana Scully. After all, it was the X-Files fandom that invented the term “shipping” (rooting for characters to get together romantically).
Continued here
|
S37Scotland's legal go-ahead for safer drug consumption rooms is a gamechanger  On the basis of the information I have been provided, I would be prepared to publish a prosecution policy that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute drug users for simple possession offences committed within a pilot safer drugs consumption facility.Scotland’s most senior law officer, the Lord Advocate, has released a statement that would enable NHS Glasgow and Clyde to open a safer drug consumption facility (SDCF) in the city.
Continued here
|
S38S39Libya floods: why cash is the best way to help get humanitarian aid to people affected by disasters  The heavy rainfall that hit Libya during Storm Daniel caused two dams and four bridges to collapse in the coastal city of Derna, submerging most of the city in floodwater and claiming thousands of lives. As you watch the disturbing scenes of this disaster on the news, you might wonder about the best way to help. Sending that blanket in the closet you have never used or those painkillers in the cabinet you overbought last time you had a headache might seem helpful.
Continued here
|
S40Surgery is facing its #MeToo moment - here's what needs to be done now  Harrowing accounts of female doctors being sexually harassed, assaulted and even raped by their colleagues, highlight an urgent issue that must be addressed.The study, published in the British Journal of Surgery, revealed that an astounding 63% of female surgeons have been sexually harassed, while 30% have been sexually assaulted by colleagues in the past five years. Even more disturbingly, 11% reported forced physical contact tied to career progression opportunities.
Continued here
|
S41How weather 'blocks' have triggered more extreme heatwaves and floods across Europe  On several occasions this summer, Europe’s weather seemed to get itself stuck, leading to prolonged heatwaves and floods. In the UK, a long hot and dry spell throughout May and June gave way to a similarly persistent cool and wet period. In September, Europe saw widespread flooding in southern Europe while the UK basked in its longest ever September heatwave. These were all the result of “blocked” weather patterns.
Continued here
|
S42S43Russian and North Korea artillery deal paves the way for dangerous cyberwar alliance  Russia is currently firing some 14 million shells a year in Ukraine. They are only manufacturing 2 million. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are firing around 2.5 million shells a year, but are also struggling to source them.A deal between North Korea and Russia for artillery rounds, which the respective leaders have said they are “actively advancing”, is a simple solution to Russia’s problem. But it is a deal that is fraught with dangers for global stability.
Continued here
|
S44Libya flood disaster: scale of the catastrophe must bring the two warring factions together  A century ago, the coastal city of Derna was well known for picture-perfect beaches, palm trees and whitewashed villas mainly inhabited by Libya’s Italian colonial occupiers. Today, in the aftermath of Storm Daniel, which brought 400mm of rain to the region, overwhelming two dams and sweeping millions of tons of water across the city, much of Derna has been flooded. Entire suburbs are reported to have been washed into the sea by the tsunami-like wave that barrelled down the normally dry river Wadi Dern through the heart of the city.The death toll from the catastrophe is estimated at more than 11,000 with another 10,000 missing and feared dead. Countless more people – perhaps one-third of Derna’s inhabitants, have been left homeless.
Continued here
|
S45How pubs could get drinkers to swallow a peak-time price rise  You may be used to paying more for a plane ticket or a train journey during peak times. But now a major British hospitality company has announced a similar approach to how much it costs to drink beer. Stonegate Group, which owns chains including the Slug & Lettuce, has announced plans to increase drinks prices by 20p when their pubs are at their busiest.
Continued here
|
S46Bidenomics: why it's more likely to win the 2024 election than many people think  Joe Biden has come out fighting against perceptions that he is handling the US economy badly. During an address in Maryland, the president contrasted Bidenomics with Trumpian “MAGAnomics” that would involve tax-cutting and spending reductions. He decried trickle-down policies that had, “shipped jobs overseas, hollowed out communities and produced soaring deficits”. Changing voters’ minds about the economy is one of Biden’s biggest challenges ahead of the 2024 election. Recent polling data suggested 63% of Americans are negative on the US economy, while 45% said their financial situation had deteriorated in the last two years.
Continued here
|
S47Sustainable use of natural resources: lessons from Pantanal communities  Rafael Chiaravalloti received support from the Science without Borders Programme, funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).“How can we use nature in a sustainable way?” That is a question I, together with colleagues from different parts of the world, have sought to answer for a decade. We are dedicated to studying issues related to the sustainable use of natural resources.
Continued here
|
S48NASA report finds no evidence that UFOs are extraterrestrial  NASA’s independent study team released its highly anticipated report on UFOs on Sept. 14, 2023. In part to move beyond the stigma often attached to UFOs, where military pilots fear ridicule or job sanctions if they report them, UFOs are now characterized by the U.S. government as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.
Continued here
|
S49Libya dam collapse: engineering expert raises questions about management  Dams are usually built to withstand heavy rainfall or drought. The design and construction of a dam takes into consideration all possible effects. All factors, including the type of building materials, the design of the foundation and the stability of a dam, as well as expected floods and earthquakes and even military action, are taken into consideration when planning a dam.Aside from how the dam is constructed, there should be safety provisions in place. For instance, in cases of storms, the engineers should release the water to ensure that a dam’s maximum carrying capacity is not exceeded.
Continued here
|
S50Why So Many Migrants Are Coming to New York  Last week, Mayor Eric Adams told a roomful of people that the recent influx of migrants “will destroy New York City.” More than a hundred and ten thousand have arrived in the city in recent months, and more than half are currently staying at shelters and other emergency sites. Although some of the most high-profile arrivals have been sent on buses by Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, as part of a Republican plan to shift the burden of migrant crossings onto blue states, nearly ninety per cent of the migrants who have come to New York since last spring have arrived in other ways. Meanwhile, Adams has denounced the Biden Administration for not providing enough resources for the city to resolve what he describes as a dire crisis. (According to Adams, it will cost twelve billion dollars to house the migrants over the next three years.)I recently spoke by phone with Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, and an expert on how immigration policies at the federal, state, and local levels intersect. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why so many migrants have chosen to come to New York City specifically, why the Biden Administration cannot necessarily fulfill the Mayor’s requests, and how congressional inaction on immigration policy has exacerbated the problems that immigration hawks say they care about most.
Continued here
|
S51A.I. and the Next Generation of Drone Warfare  On August 28th, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, announced what she called the Replicator initiative—an all-hands-on-deck effort to modernize the American arsenal by adding fleets of artificially intelligent, unmanned, relatively cheap weapons and equipment. She described these machines as “attritable,” meaning that they can suffer attrition without compromising a mission. Imagine a swarm of hundreds or even thousands of unmanned aerial drones, communicating with each other as they collect intelligence on enemy-troop movements, and you will begin to understand the Deputy Secretary’s vision for Replicator. Even if a sizable number of the drones were shot down, the information they’d gathered would have already been recorded and sent back to human operators on the ground.In one sense, Hicks’s announcement, during an address titled “The Urgency to Innovate” at a meeting of National Defense Industrial Association, did not signal a wholly new approach. Five years ago, for example, the National Defense Strategy was already calling for major investments in artificial intelligence, noting that “we cannot expect success fighting tomorrow’s conflicts with yesterday’s weapons or equipment.” Since then, the D.O.D. has spent billions of dollars on artificial intelligence; last year alone, it allocated close to nine hundred million dollars to support nearly seven hundred A.I. projects. Still, as Hicks pointed out, many such technologies ended up cratering in the so-called valley of death—never getting adopted, even when they’d demonstrated success in the lab or the field. Her audience included numerous military contractors, whom she called on to “out-innovate our competitors.”
Continued here
|
S52Jennifer Egan on a Solution for Homelessness  About 1.4 million people in the United States end up in homeless shelters every year, with many thousands more living on the street. You could fill the city of San Diego with the unhoused. But there are proven solutions. For the chronically homeless, a key strategy is supportive housing—providing a stable apartment along with services like psychiatric and medical care on-site. The New Yorker contributor Jennifer Egan spent the past year following several individuals as they transitioned into a new supportive-housing building in Brooklyn. “Is it easy to bring people with these kinds of difficult histories into one place in the span of eight months? No,” she tells David Remnick. “Does it work? From what I have seen, the answer is yes.” Plus, the staff writer Jia Tolentino talks to Naomi Klein about her new book, “Doppelganger,” which spins a simple case of mistaken identity into a metaphor for the fragility of our society. And Joe Garcia, an inmate serving time for murder in California, reads from his recent New Yorker essay, “Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison.”Egan spent a year chronicling a new supportive-housing building in New York. This kind of facility works to end homelessness. What would be needed to scale it up nationwide?
Continued here
|
S53Lessons in Conquering Child Poverty  In January, it will be sixty years since Lyndon Johnson, in his first State of the Union address, announced an “unconditional war on poverty.” Johnson’s goal was to eliminate acute economic need among Americans of all ages, but he would go on to emphasize the negative effects of child poverty, including restricted access to “the skills demanded by a complex society” and a “mounting sense of despair which drains initiative and ambition and energy.”Research carried out in the past half century has supported Johnson’s point. People who grow up in poverty tend to have fewer academic qualifications, higher dropout rates, lower incomes, and more physical and mental health problems. Some individuals, of course, emerge from a background of childhood deprivation and lead highly successful lives. But, in general, as was the case in Johnson’s day, poverty is associated with human misery and a closure of “the gates of opportunity.”
Continued here
|
S54What to Stream: Sam Peckinpah's Obscure Mini-Masterpiece  Modern-day Westernsâthat is, films that use the genre's tropes and traditions but are set in the presentâhave a noble history. Classics include Edgar G. Ulmer's "The Naked Dawn," Allan Dwan's "The River's Edge," Michael Cimino's "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot," and Clint Eastwood's "Bronco Billy." And the past decade has brought David Lowery's "Ain't Them Bodies Saints," Chloé Zhao's "The Rider," and, of course, Jordan Peele's "Nope." Add one to this list: "The Losers," a 1963 film directed and co-written by Sam Peckinpah, one of the masters of the Western, famous for films such as "The Wild Bunch" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." Yet "The Losers" is barely known and comes from an unlikely source: it was made for television, as part of "The Dick Powell Show," an anthology series of dramas and comedies, which ran for two seasons, from 1961 to 1963; a trove of the show's episodes are streaming on YouTube. (Thanks to the consummate cinephile Howard Salen, long of Video Room, for the heads-up.) This kind of show had become popular in the mid-fifties, a way of bringing the allure of Hollywood (with the names of stars in the title) to the small screen, and a way for Hollywood actors and directors to keep busy at a time when the movie business, under the onslaught of television, was in a downturn. (The most prominent of these shows was "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," which ran for ten years.)Powell, who rose to stardom in film musicals of the thirties and transitioned to being a film-noir headliner in the mid-forties, launched his own production company in the fifties. Whereas another series of the time, "The Barbara Stanwyck Show," featured its eponymous star in every single episode, Powell acted in only a handful of episodes of "The Dick Powell Show." Mostly he hosted them, delivering an introduction to the camera. (After his death, in January, 1963, other stars took his place; "The Losers" is hosted by Robert Mitchum). Each episode runs nearly fifty minutes, and the transitions planned for its commercial punctuations are evident. Most of the episodes were directed by television specialists, but some were by noteworthy Hollywood figures of tough and relatively low-budget movies (one by Samuel Fuller, one by Joseph H. Lewis), and one was done by a young Hollywood director on his way upâBlake Edwards, who'd also started in TV but had already made a successful leap to features.
Continued here
|
S55The Futility of the Never Trump Billionaires  When the Republican Presidential-primary season began this spring, one element seemed different than in past cycles: the Party’s donors—its billionaires and multimillionaires and assorted invisible hands—were lining up against the front-runner, Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis’s super PAC, Never Back Down, raised an eye-popping hundred and thirty million dollars before the Florida governor’s campaign was two months old. Leaders from the Club for Growth, the influential small-government lobby, launched a PAC devoted to moving the Party’s voters past Trump. “The last three elections show he’s lost,” the group’s president, the former congressman David McIntosh, said. Americans for Prosperity Action, the super PAC affiliated with the Koch network, announced that it was committing seventy million dollars to stopping Trump from becoming President again, twenty-five million of which was pledged directly by Koch Industries. Of all the anti-Trump commitments, this one was perhaps the most striking: for a generation, the G.O.P. almost definitionally could not be said to be for something if Charles Koch was against it.But, as the campaign has moved from the heightened anticipation of the early summer to the grinding Iowa-New Hampshire circuit of the fall, the impact of all these pledges of money has, to put it charitably, been faint. On the trail, you will sometimes hear rumors of Stop Trump activity—one operative affiliated with a rival campaign told me that his canvassers in Iowa had come across Americans for Prosperity’s anti-Trump literature left at voters’ doors. Even the more visible efforts have been a little timid. During the first Republican debate, the Koch-affiliated super PAC paid for a thirty-second ad in which a woman in a cardigan and jeans stands on a white soundstage and speaks directly to the camera: “I’m just so tired of it all. The drama and chaos of Donald Trump. It’s all about him, and not about us. His obsession with 2020, revenge, and now all of the indictments. It’s exhausting.” She concludes, “To beat Joe Biden, we have to move on from Donald Trump.”
Continued here
|
S56S57You Need to Watch the Most Intricate Time-Travel Show on Netflix ASAP  A Time Called You is so much more than its time traveling premise — for better and worse.South Korean dramas — particularly the romantic ones — love to play with time travel. It’s been a staple of the industry for decades, from the classic film Il Mare to the hilarious Familiar Wife. As delightful as these past attempts have been, there are only so many ways to create a time loop. It’d be easy to assume that the time-tripping subgenre is finally running out of ideas — but Netflix’s latest K-drama, A Time Called You, is proof that there’s still endless content to mine.
Continued here
|
S58Michael Jai White Did Magic Tricks With 'Dark Knight' Co-Star Heath Ledger  The action-icon star of Spawn, Black Dynamite, and Outlaw Johnny Black reveals his secret obsession: magic.With five simple words, Heath Ledger’s Joker made movie history and launched a million memes (and one very comprehensive oral history). But behind the scenes on The Dark Knight, doing magic tricks was just another day in the life for Ledger and his fellow actor, Michael Jai White, a self-taught magician who performs tricks both on and off the set.
Continued here
|
S59How Kenneth Branagh Brought the Agatha Christie Whodunit Back to Life  The hottest name in Hollywood right now is Agatha Christie. It might seem strange considering the famous murder-mystery novelist passed away almost 50 years ago, but in the last few years, we’ve seen a deluge of adaptations and Christie-inspired whodunits. You wouldn’t be wrong to claim that the bestselling novelist’s name is more relevant than ever, but according to Agatha Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard, it never went out of fashion.“At the end of the day, people like great stories,” Prichard tells Inverse. “And these are great stories.”
Continued here
|
S602023 Is Redefining the Assassin Thriller, Thanks to 2 Legendary Directors  Are you in need of a hired killer? We know a guy who knows a guy… or two. They’re David Fincher and Richard Linklater, who just premiered their latest work at Venice Film Festival, and they’re both about hitmen. The Killer and Hit Man may not be imaginatively titled, but they are equally shrewd about where the assassin-for-hire archetype sits in our collective psyches. More interestingly, they reveal everything about the contrasting visions between two American filmmakers who, a few decades ago, helped define an explosively creative era in Hollywood.Neither director went to film school, opting to learn the ropes in ways that counter the previous generation of Spielberg, Scorsese, et al. Both filmmakers witnessed firsthand the stagnation of creative voices in the ‘80s and sought to break free from them in their studio and independent work that followed, and their resistance to conform continues until today. Not content with repeating the steps of their forefathers, The Killer and Hit Man take the pop culture understanding of what a hitman is, acknowledge how contrived it is, and explore the severe emotional consequences of making that fantasy your life.
Continued here
|
S6130 Years Later, the Worst Final Fantasy Game Is a Baffling Relic of Another Age  Since its first entry in 1987, Final Fantasy has been one of the most popular, beloved series in all of gaming. Telling tales of high adventure as heroes fight to overcome darkness, Final Fantasy games are known for their moving stories, memorable characters, and vast reinvention between titles.Outside of the mainline series, Final Fantasy has also gotten a number of spinoffs that stretch the identity of the series even further. They explore different stories and use vastly different mechanics from major Final Fantasy releases. This month sees the anniversary of one of the best, most inventive among Final Fantasy spinoffs, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
Continued here
|
S62'Honkai: Star Rail' PS5 Port Release Date and Pre-Order Bonuses  HoYoverse took a gamble when it developed a PlayStation port for the first time with its Breath of the Wild-inspired action RPG, Genshin Impact. After seeing the game’s soaring success on console, the company decided to also develop a PlayStation port for its latest turn-based hit, Honkai: Star Rail. After watching everybody else have fun exploring Honkai Star Rail’s universe alongside the Astral Express Crew, PlayStation fans finally have some concrete news about when they can join in on the fun thanks to the September 2023 State of Play.The new character Luka will be coming to the game soon and will be available on PlayStation.
Continued here
|
S63'Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn' Continues the Story of 2021's Best RPG  The September 2023 State of Play was a great showcase for RPG fans, especially those looking forward to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and its twisting timeline. But one welcome surprise was the return of Tales of Arise, 2021’s best RPG, which announced that it would be releasing an expansion before the end of the year. Beyond the Dawn looks to add a hefty amount of new content for fans of the base game. Here is everything you need to know about Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn and how it will continue the story of Alphen and Shionne.
Continued here
|
S64Bose's New Headphones Bring Spatial Audio to Everything  We don’t know how it stacks up to Apple’s spatial audio, but it works with any content..There’s a new spatial audio option on the market and this time you won’t need Atmos to take advantage. Bose updated its QuietComfort lineup of headphones with three options: the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, and the QuietComfort Headphones. Two of those options introduce Bose’s Ultra branding, which earns the name thanks to a new Immersive Audio feature.
Continued here
|
S65The iPhone 15's Spatial Video Just Made Apple's Vision Pro a Lot More Compelling  Cutting-edge tech has a way of creeping up on you. One second it’s in the lab and the next it's in the code of every company that can fit the word “ChatGPT” into a press release. For Apple, that quiet tech revolution is coming in a few ways. The first, is in the form of a $3,500 “spatial computer” called the Vision Pro. The second, at least by my estimation, just arrived with the announcement of the iPhone 15.
Continued here
|
S6650 Absolutely Genius Things on Amazon With Insanely High Reviews  There are plenty of things that have gone viral for being genius, clever, or the best thing ever — and yet, when you check them out, you’re... less than impressed. Well, not with this list of clever Amazon finds.From a spinning tie rack that saves you space to a fancy set of glasses with matching glass straws, these 50 things aren’t only absolutely genius, but they have insanely high reviews that you can trust. And, with reviews like these, you’re sure to be impressed.
Continued here
|
S6715 Years Ago, a Visionary Director made a Shocking Dystopian Sci-Fi Movie That Was Ahead of Its Time  River water no longer belongs to the residents of Santa Ana del Rio, a small town in the Oaxaca region of southern Mexico. Instead, a U.S. company owns rights to the precious liquid and ships it north for American consumption. Local farmers must buy back their own water at a premium, while security forces wielding military weapons murder any “burglars” on sight.That’s the initial setup for the not-so-far-fetched first feature by visionary director Alex Rivera. Sleep Dealer explores the extraction of resources and labor from the Global South, mixing real-life issues with science-fiction technology. Fifteen years after this independent film’s release in 2008, the sociopolitical issues it cleverly addresses have only grown more urgent.
Continued here
|
S68How to ease the seemingly endless pain of prolonged grief | Aeon Essays  is a science journalist from Bolzano, Italy. He covers the environment, technology and psychology for newspapers and magazines in Europe and the UK. He is also the author of Science Journalism: An Introduction (2017) and Telling Science Stories (2020).On a January evening in 1992, I was sitting in our kitchen, reading a comic book. My older sister Claudia went out to run an errand at a nearby minimart, just before it closed. Her keys jingled as she said goodbye and pulled the door shut. Her footsteps rushed down the stairs. A minute later, I heard her slam the garage door after she had pulled out her bicycle. Moments later, I heard a loud thud from down the street. I also thought I heard a muffled scream. I was 10. I couldn’t connect the dots.
Continued here
|
S70The Very Real Dangers of Executive Coaching  Over the past 15 years, it has become more and more popular to hire coaches for promising executives. Although some of these coaches hail from the world of psychology, a greater share are former athletes, lawyers, business academics, and consultants. No doubt these people help executives improve their performance in many areas. But I want to tell a different story. I believe that in an alarming number of situations, executive coaches who lack rigorous psychological training do more harm than good. By dint of their backgrounds and biases, they downplay or simply ignore deep-seated psychological problems they don’t understand. Even more concerning, when an executive’s problems stem from undetected or ignored psychological difficulties, coaching can actually make a bad situation worse. In my view, the solution most often lies in addressing unconscious conflict when the symptoms plaguing an executive are stubborn or severe.
Continued here
|
 |
TradeBriefs Publications are read by over 10,00,000 Industry Executives About Us | Advertise Privacy Policy Unsubscribe (one-click) You are receiving this mail because of your subscription with TradeBriefs.
Our mailing address is GF 25/39, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi 110008, India |
