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 S69What to See in the New York Film Festival's First Week   The New York Film Festival begins Friday. As I noted last year, the festival's main slate is increasingly given over to movies by major Hollywood figures. (This year's opening night brings Todd Haynes's "May December," starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.) So, for now, I'll concentrate on films by independent and international filmmakers who don't yet have instant name recognition for most viewers but whose work deserves (and needs) the serious attention that a festival showcase brings. (One of the best films on display, "All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt," the first feature by Raven Jackson, premièred at Sundance this year; I wrote about it then and will reënthuse about it closer to its November 3rd theatrical release.)Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's latest film, "Evil Does Not Exist" (Oct. 5, Oct. 7, and Oct. 11), is both a great film in itself and a retrospective illumination of the filmmaker's previous masterworksâ"Happy Hour," from 2015, and "Drive My Car," which won the Oscar for Best International Feature in 2022. In the new film, Hamaguchi boldly stands cinematic dramaturgy on its head, starting the film with an extended sequence of images that don't tell much of a story and keep the audience guessing. The opening scene occurs in a snowy forest, where the camera seems to plunge from treetops toward the ground. Yet it gradually becomes clear that the forest is being viewed from the groundâthe camera looks upward fixedly while in relentless forward motion, in a way that no walker ever could. There is a walker, though: a girl is making her way through the woods, eventually accompanied by the sound of a power saw. The scene that follows could be considered absolutely pointless or absolutely sublime, a dichotomy that turns out to be at the moral core of the movie. A man with a power saw is cutting long logs into shorter pieces. Then he stands each piece on its end, atop the smoothed surface of a wide tree stump, splits it with an ax, and moves on to the next piece. This is all in one long take, at the end of which the man has a neat pile of firewood. He steps back, lights a cigarette, and takes a contemplative break.
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S2Killers of the Flower Moon to The Exorcist: Believer: 10 of the best films to watch in October  Eugenio Derbez, who played the inspirational music teacher in Coda, is another inspirational teacher in Radical, a fact-based drama directed by Christopher Zalla. Derbez plays Sergio, who is hired to teach sixth grade in a poor Mexican border town, mainly because no one else wants the job. His pupils are resigned to lives of poverty and gang violence, but Sergio encourages them to follow their dreams. A Spanish-language answer to Dead Poets Society and To Sir, With Love? "Yes, the professor-shaking-up-students shtick has been done on-screen many times before," says Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. "But two factors make Radical feel, well, radical: the story being driven by the unique culture of Mexico, and the kids, all exceptional actors, being so devastatingly young... Zalla teaches a lesson on how to deliver an affirming, emotional gut punch."Two of Ireland's finest young screen actors, Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal, co-star in Foe, a brooding science-fiction drama directed by Garth Davis (Lion) and adapted from the novel by Iain Reid (I'm Thinking of Ending Things). Ronan and Mescal play Hen and Junior, a couple living in a remote American farmhouse, a few decades into the future. The Earth is dying, but a mysterious stranger (Aaron Pierre) tells them that the Government is developing a plan to colonise space. Junior has been selected to help, but that means leaving Hen behind for several years. David Canfield at Vanity Fair calls the film "a twisty, heated chamber drama overflowing with explosive emotions... an unpredictable, tragic journey, sprinkled with glimmers of hope and punctuated by a reveal that ought to compel a rewatch."
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S3Feinstein's death raises the question: How are vacant Senate seats filled?  There’s an empty seat in the U.S. Senate now that California’s longtime and senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, has died.And, following the Sept. 22, 2023, federal indictment on bribery and other charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, numerous people, including some prominent Democratic lawmakers, have called for Menendez to resign. Even Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who would appoint a replacement for Menendez, has said the senator should step down.
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S4Nigeria at 63: four reasons for persistent disunity six decades on  At 63 the story of Nigeria can be anything from the “celebration of greatness to an act of barbaric cruelty”. These are the words of Nigerian writer Dipo Faloyin in his book Africa Is Not a Country.Nigeria attained its independence from Britain on 1 October 1960. Nearly half a century earlier, in 1914, the British amalgamated the Northern and Southern British protectorates into the Nigerian Federation. For many — including the Nigerian independence leader Chief Obafémi Awólòwò, in his book Path to Nigerian Freedom – the country that emerged from this amalgamation was “a mere geographical expression”.
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S6The Quiet Revolution of the Sabbath  Here is a story I wasn’t sure my sister would ever let me tell. I come from a churchgoing family, but one Sunday my sister did not go to worship, even though the rest of us did. She wasn’t sick. In fact, she was the opposite of sick: recently confirmed, she had simply decided to exercise one of the rights she understood to be hers through confirmation, namely staying home for no reason other than that she wanted to do so. I must have found this shocking—not only her decision but the willingness of our parents to abide—though I can’t really summon a memory of how I felt before worship because of what happened after.Back then, the sanctuary of our little country church was divided from the fellowship hall by a single doorway. Pitched high on the left and low on the right, the door is uneven, a fact I’ve loved ever since someone told me an apocryphal story about Christ the carpenter helping his father, Joseph, correct a crooked doorframe. I looked at that door every week during worship. For a long time, it was right behind the pulpit, so I would watch it during the entire sermon, waiting expectantly for a similar miracle, for the right corner to rise to meet the left or for the left to fall to meet the right. Whenever I walked through, I dragged my fingers up and down its slanted frame; eventually, I was tall enough to touch its crooked corners.
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S7Lucinda Rosenfeld Reads Annie Ernaux  Lucinda Rosenfeld joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Returns,” by Annie Ernaux, translated from the French by Treisman, which was published in The New Yorker in 2022. Rosenfeld is the author of five novels, including “I’m So Happy for You” and “Class.”Personal History by David Sedaris: after thirty years together, sleeping is the new having sex.
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S840 Years Ago, Christopher Walken Led a Wild Sci-Fi Thriller With a Tragic Reputation  It’s unlikely even the most gifted psychic could have foreseen the problems 1983 telepathic sci-fi Brainstorm would endure during its turbulent route to the big screen. MGM ran into financial difficulties and pulled the plug on the almost-complete project, with only a last-minute deal with insurance company Lloyd’s of London saving it from gathering dust on shelves. Filmmaker Douglas Trumbull was apparently too preoccupied with the film’s special effects to guide his talented cast: rumor has it leading man Christopher Walken regularly took over the director’s chair. And then there was the tragic and mysterious death of Natalie Wood.Brainstorm was intended to be Wood’s comeback. The three-time Academy Award nominee had struggled to parlay her 1960s success into the following decade, with her only movies, Peeper and Meteor, both flopping. Instead, Brainstorm became her posthumous swansong when, during a production break vacation with husband Robert Wagner and co-star Walken, she was found drowned near Santa Catalina Island. Her sister Lana was used as a stand-in for the film’s few remaining shots.
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S9'Ahsoka' is Completely Squandering Star Wars' Most Important Villain  Hey, have you heard about Thrawn? He’s coming back! He’s going to be a threat to the entire galaxy! The New Republic needs to take him seriously! It’s Thrawn, you guys! Thrawn!The New Republic’s stuffy politicians may be sick of hearing General Hera tell them all about what a danger Thrawn is, but that’s nothing compared to the Star Wars fans who’ve been hearing it since 1991, when Timothy Zahn’s first Thrawn novel was published. Thrawn has haunted the periphery of the Star Wars canon for 32 years, popping up in novels, cartoons, and video games to offer a far greater threat than the typical Imperial officer, who can barely put his hat on without getting a squad of stormtroopers shot dead.
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S10These 7 Instant Cameras Are Way More Fun Than Shooting With an iPhone  Instant cameras are extremely popular these days. They’re fun to shoot with and the washed-out and lo-fi prints you get are one of a kind compared to photos taken with a phone.Fujifilm and Polaroid pretty much dominate the instant camera market, which isn’t surprising considering their storied pasts producing film and analog cameras.
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S1140 Years Later, 'Ahsoka' Finally Redeems Star Wars' Most Infamous Mistake  Ezra Bridger is a new man, and not just because he’s in live-action now. After years of exile in the Peridea galaxy, he’s picked up some new threads, a beard, and even a new language. But one of the biggest additions to his character fundamentally changes a part of Star Wars history, and cements a part of canon that was previously only a fan in-joke. Forty years ago, in Return of the Jedi, Luke fought off a bunch of Jabba’s lackeys on the crime lord’s sand barge. When one henchman in particular lunges for him, Luke kicks him off the barge. There’s only one problem: his leg never makes contact. Luke kicks the air, but the goon falls off the barge anyway.
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S12Is My Cat Bored or Tired? Here's What Animal Boredom Actually Looks Like  When humans are bored, we might scroll our phones or go down an internet rabbit hole. But how do you know if your pet is bored? Cats and dogs sleep 15 to 20 hours every day normally; how can you tell the difference between sleeping a healthy amount and sleeping out of boredom (another favorite human pastime)?Two veterinarians describe what animal boredom might look like, what happens if it goes unaddressed, and how to keep our favorite critters happy and curious.
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S13S1440 Common Mistakes You Don't Realize Make Your Home Look Dated  Updating your home doesn’t necessarily require a full-blown renovation. Small changes here and there can make a world of difference to upgrade a room both visually and practically. With that in mind, I’ve found a cheap fix for some of the most common mistakes you probably don’t realize make your home look dated. From new cabinet hardware that’ll spruce up your kitchen to easy-to-use chalk-style paint to breathe new life into an old piece of furniture, these tried and true reviewer favorites are the perfect way to upgrade your home on a budget.
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S1550 Things Skyrocketing in Sales on Amazon That Are Smart as Hell & Have Near-Perfect Reviews  Sometimes a product comes along that makes you gasp, “I need this.” Lucky for you, I found a slew of those products that are all skyrocketing in popularity on Amazon. Some will save you space, others will save you time, and the rest are just cheap and clever. From a blind spot mirror for your car to a cup holder for your rolling suitcase, you’ll want to grab these items before they sell out. Reviewers have given them near-perfect ratings and you will too, so keep on scrolling for these smart as hell and convenient AF products that you need — now.
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S162023's Most Intriguing Sci-Fi Movie Botches Its Terrific Source Material  It’s the dead of night. A desolate cottage surrounded by dead trees and barren farmland is suddenly lit up by eerie green car headlights. Junior (Paul Mescal) wakes from the couch to look out the window at this unexpected visitor. He’s joined by his wife Henrietta (Saoirse Ronan), who fidgets as they decide what to do. They argue and eventually open the door to the visitor (Aaron Pierre), who introduces himself as Terrance, a representative of an aerospace corporation called OuterMore who wants to send Junior up to space as part of an initiative to test whether humans can survive on colonies. The Earth is dying, and the last hope for humanity may be in the stars.But that’s not what Foe, Garth Davis’ stilted adaptation of the chilling sci-fi thriller by Iain Reid, is about. Foe is about what happens when Junior is sent to space. In the two years that Junior is gone, Outermore is prepared to leave Hen with an AI duplicate of him to keep her company. Though Junior is outraged at the idea, the two of them eventually relent.
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S175 Years Later, Adventure Time Reveals a Shocking Dystopian Twist  In Fionna and Cake Episode 7, we finally learn a bit more about the mysterious duo Beth and Shermy.The Land of Ooo is a lot of things. It’s the post-apocalyptic husk of the planet Earth we know today. It’s a magical world full of talking candy and friendly vampires. And, of course, it’s the setting of Adventure Time. But one thing Ooo typically isn’t is a dystopia. Until now.
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S18The Quest to Colonize Mars Is Uncovering New Mysteries About Human Psychology  A niche research community plays out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another planet.In January 2023, Tara Sweeney’s plane landed on Thwaites Glacier, a 74,000-square-mile mass of frozen water in West Antarctica. She arrived with an international research team to study the glacier’s geology and ice fabric and how its ice melt might contribute to sea level rise. But while near Earth’s southernmost point, Sweeney kept thinking about the moon.
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S19S20Exploit the Product Life Cycle  Most alert and thoughtful senior marketing executives are by now familiar with the concept of the product life cycle. Even a handful of uniquely cosmopolitan and up-to-date corporate presidents have familiarized themselves with this tantalizing concept. Yet a recent survey I took of such executives found none who used the concept in any strategic way whatever, and pitifully few who used it in any kind of tactical way. It has remained—as have so many fascinating theories in economics, physics, and sex—a remarkably durable but almost totally unemployed and seemingly unemployable piece of professional baggage whose presence in the rhetoric of professional discussions adds a much-coveted but apparently unattainable legitimacy to the idea that marketing management is somehow a profession. There is, furthermore, a persistent feeling that the life cycle concept adds luster and believability to the insistent claim in certain circles that marketing is close to being some sort of science.1The concept of the product life cycle is today at about the stage that the Copernican view of the universe was 300 years ago: A lot of people knew about it, but hardly anybody seemed to use it in any effective or productive way.
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S21Taupo: The super volcano under New Zealand's largest lake  Located in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, the town of Taupo sits sublimely in the shadow of the snow-capped peaks of Tongariro National Park. Fittingly, this 40,000-person lakeside town has recently become one of New Zealand's most popular tourist destinations, as hikers, trout fishers, water sports enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies have started descending upon it.The namesake of this tidy town is the Singapore-sized lake that kisses its western border. Stretching 623sq km wide and 160m deep with several magma chambers submerged at its base, Lake Taupo isn't only Australasia’s largest lake; it's also an incredibly active geothermal hotspot. Every summer, tourists flock to bathe in its bubbling hot springs and sail through its emerald-green waters. Yet, the lake is the crater of a giant super volcano, and within its depths lies the unsettling history of this picturesque marvel.
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S22Why Do We Forget So Many of Our Dreams?  We only remember a fraction of our dreams, and even those slip away if we don’t try to remember them—here’s whyIf you’ve ever awoken from a vivid dream only to find that you can’t remember the details by the end of breakfast, you’re not alone. People forget most of the dreams they have—though it is possible to train yourself to remember more of them.
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S235 Ways to Work Remotely (and Effectively) for the Long Haul  Covid-19 made remote work a reality for a lot of people, but for me, it was business as usual. I haven’t worked in a physical office in a long time. In fact, for several years, I’ve worked from anywhere but a physical office. Across three continents and a few employers (including myself), I’ve dragged my workplace with me, and along the way I’ve managed to stay on top of things despite the many distractions that have popped up to challenge my productivity. Here are just a few things I do to stay organized and make remote work a workable option for me.There’s an old saying that beds should be used for just two things. Work is not one of those things. Your sleeping space should be a sanctuary, a place of relaxing and unwinding, and if you’re spending your days propped up against pillows with your laptop, you’re not relaxing. In fact, you’re teaching yourself that the bed is a busy and possibly stressful space.
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S24'The Creator' Review: It's AI That Wants to Save Humanity  robots have been depicted in movies for more than a century, but the anxieties about artificial intelligence that they used to convey are no longer theoretical. There’s a bill in US Congress right now to stop AI from gaining control of nuclear weapons, and roughly a dozen militaries around the world are investigating the possibilities of autonomous weaponry. That’s why watching The Creator, a movie set roughly 40 years from now, feels surreal, jarring, and oddly welcome. From Metropolis to Terminator, sci-fi has taught us to fear the AI revolt. This one opts to wonder what would happen if AI got so empathetic to humanity it wanted to save people from themselves.In writer-director Gareth Edwards’ latest, war has laid waste to both humans and robots. In an attempt to eradicate AI, both sides see and feel the toll of war. Enter Alphie, an android savior and weapon that looks like a little girl. Human reactions to Alphie’s appearance (early on, she comes under the care of pseudo-father-figure Joshua, played by John David Washington) evoke author and futurist David Brin’s warning of a “robot empathy crisis,” which predicts that as droids become more humanlike in appearance and mannerism, people will begin to defend their rights.
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S25Lego Is a Company Haunted by Its Own Plastic %20copy.jpg) Lego has built an empire out of plastic. It was always thus. The bricks weren’t originally made from wood, or metal, or some other material. Ever since the company’s founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen, bought Denmark’s first plastic-injection molding machine in 1946, Lego pieces have been derived from oil, a fossil fuel.The fiddly little parts that the company churns out—many billions every year—are today mostly made from acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, or ABS. This material doesn’t biodegrade, nor is it easily recycled. If a smiling mini figure gets into the environment, it will likely very slowly break down into highly polluting microplastics.
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S26A revelation about trees is messing with climate calculations  Every year between September and December, Lubna Dada makes clouds. Dada, an atmospheric scientist, convenes with dozens of her colleagues to run experiments in a 7,000-gallon stainless steel chamber at CERN in Switzerland. “It's like science camp,” says Dada, who studies how natural emissions react with ozone to create aerosols that affect the climate.
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S27The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs  The author, whose biography of Steve Jobs was an instant best seller after the Apple CEO’s death in October 2011, sets out here to correct what he perceives as an undue fixation by many commentators on the rough edges of Jobs’s personality. That personality was integral to his way of doing business, Isaacson writes, but the real lessons from Steve Jobs come from what he actually accomplished. He built the world’s most valuable company, and along the way he helped to transform a number of industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. In this essay Isaacson describes the 14 imperatives behind Jobs’s approach: focus; simplify; take responsibility end to end; when behind, leapfrog; put products before profits; don’t be a slave to focus groups; bend reality; impute; push for perfection; know both the big picture and the details; tolerate only “A” players; engage face-to-face; combine the humanities with the sciences; and “stay hungry, stay foolish.”
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S28S29How Brand Building and Performance Marketing Can Work Together  To achieve performance- accountable brand building and brand-accountable performance marketing, firms must create metrics that measure the effects of both types of investments on a single North Star metric: brand equity. That is then linked to specific financial outcomes—such as revenue, shareholder value, and return on investment—and deployed as a key performance indicator for both brand building and performance marketing.
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S30What Does "Stakeholder Capitalism" Mean to You?  Business leaders are being urged to adopt a multistakeholder approach to governance in place of the shareholder-centered approach that has guided their work for several decades. But through hundreds of interviews with directors, executives, investors, governance professionals, and academics over the years, the author has found wide differences in how those leaders understand stakeholder capitalism. That lack of clarity can put boards and executives on a collision course with one another when decisions requiring difficult trade-offs among stakeholders’ interests arise. It also creates expectations among stakeholders that if unfulfilled will fuel cynicism, alienation, and distrust.
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S31Case Study: When the CEO Dies, What Comes First: His Company or His Family?  Shortly after the sudden death of her beloved husband, Priya Gowda learns that the company he built from a small dairy farm into a major Indian conglomerate is in deep financial trouble. Unbeknownst to her and his investors, her husband had taken on a lot of short-term, high-interest loans, and the company is struggling to make its payments. As sole heir to his majority stake in Splendid Ice Cream, Priya is now its de facto CEO. Her creditors advise her to sell or liquidate the company, but Priya is determined to preserve her husband’s legacy. Her daughters, however, worried that the business is taking too high a toll on her, beg her to let it go. Should she give in to them or keep trying to save Splendid? Expert commentators weigh in.
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S32The Leadership Odyssey  A paradox of business is that while leaders often employ a hands-on, directive style to rise to the top, once they arrive, they’re supposed to empower and enable their teams. Suddenly, they’re expected to demonstrate “people skills.” And many find it challenging to adapt to that reality.
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S33Innovation Doesn't Have to Be Disruptive  For the past 20 years “disruption” has been a battle cry in business. Not surprisingly, many have come to see it as a near-synonym for innovation. But the obsession with disruption obscures an important truth: Market-creating innovation isn’t always disruptive. Disruption may be what people talk about. It’s certainly important, and it’s all around us. But, as the authors of the best-selling book Blue Ocean Strategy argue, it’s only one end of the innovation spectrum. On the other end is what they call nondisruptive creation, through which new industries, new jobs, and profitable growth are created without social harm. Nondisruptive creation reveals an immense potential to establish new markets where none existed before and, in doing so, to foster economic growth without a loss of jobs or damage to other industries, enabling business and society to thrive together.
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S34How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward  According to an analysis led by Ranjay Gulati, during the recessions of 1980, 1990, and 2000, 17% of the 4,700 public companies studied fared very badly: They went bankrupt, went private, or were acquired. But just as striking, 9% of the companies flourished, outperforming competitors by at least 10% in sales and profits growth.
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S35Maya Feller's Rastafarian ital stew  In Jamaica, there's nothing more comforting than a bowl of ital. The popular island stew eaten by the Rastafarian community is a medley of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, all simmered in coconut milk.Rastafarians are practitioners of Rastafari, a religion founded in Jamaica in the 1930s. It is also classified as a social movement to oppose systems of oppression by the country's then-dominant British colonial rule. Historically, as Rastafarians continued to challenge Jamaica's colonial society by expressing themselves through their African roots, they wore their hair in dreadlocks, which represented a connection to Africa and a sense of pride in African physical characteristics. They smoked marijuana because they believed its use was directed in biblical passages, and they played reggae music as a voice of the oppressed.
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S36The incomparable Bombay sandwich  If there is one thing people in India never tire of debating, it is whether Mumbai or Delhi is the better city. More accurately, the argument centres around which metropolis has the better food. Delhi often comes up tops with its incredible range of street eats, but Mumbai trumps any competition when it comes to the sandwich.The sandwich may have come to India through the British, but the people of Mumbai (as Bombay is now called) have added their own fillings and spices to make it their own.
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S37S38S39From pests to pollutants, keeping schools healthy and clean is no simple task  Parents send their children to school to learn, and they don’t want to worry about whether the air is clean, whether there are insect problems or whether the school’s cleaning supplies could cause an asthma attack.I’m an extension specialist focused on pest management. I’m working with a cross-disciplinary team to improve compliance with environmental health standards, and we’ve found that schools across the nation need updates in order to meet minimum code requirements.
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S40Sci-fi books are rare in school even though they help kids better understand science  Scientists and engineers have reported that their childhood encounters with science fiction framed their thinking about the sciences. Thinking critically about science and technology is an important part of education in STEM – or science, technology, engineering and mathematics.Of the 59 elementary teachers and librarians whom I surveyed, almost a quarter of them identified themselves as science fiction fans, and nearly all of them expressed that science fiction is just as valuable as any other genre. Nevertheless, most of them indicated that while they recommend science fiction books to individual readers, they do not choose science fiction for activities or group readings.
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S41The fight for 2% - how residuals became a sticking point for striking actors  Streaming disrupted the entire entertainment industry, upending the DVD-purchasing, film-renting, moviegoing model of decades past.That shift has also changed how actors get paid. And some of the gains actors made through prior labor struggles – particularly through residuals, which are a small percentage of shared earnings from film or television – have vanished.
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S42S43S44US Supreme Court refuses to hear Alabama's request to keep separate and unequal political districts  For the second time in three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed Alabama’s attempts to advance its legislature’s congressional maps that federal courts have ruled harm Black voters.The court had first rejected the maps in its stunning June 8, 2023, decision that upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in an act of defiance, Alabama lawmakers resubmitted maps that didn’t include what the court had urged them to do – create a second political district in which Black voters could reasonably be expected to choose a candidate of their choice.
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S45S46S47Soccer kiss scandal exposes how structural sexism in Spain can be a laughing matter  Amid expressions of outrage and disgust over a nonconsensual kiss between the male head of Spanish soccer and a Women’s World Cup-winning player, there was also laughter.Luis Rubiales, the now ex-president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and former vice-president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), was forced to resign from those leadership positions as a result of the forced kiss on Aug. 20, 2023, which took place in front of a packed stadium in Australia and a global audience. He is also under investigation by prosecutors in Spain for sexual assault and coercion.
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S48South Africa has one of the strongest navies in Africa: its strengths and weaknesses  The deaths of three members of the South African Navy (SA Navy) on 20 September 2023, when a freak wave swept them off the deck of the submarine SAS Manthatisi, has put the spotlight on the organisation and its work. André Wessels is a military historian; his latest book is A Century of South African Naval History: The South African Navy and its Predecessors 1922-2022. The Conversation Africa asked him for insights.The South African Navy has always been one of the strongest naval forces in sub-Saharan Africa.
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S49How the age of mammals could end  Throughout the past 500 million years, our planet has experienced a total of five mass extinctions. One of these – the Permo-Triassic mass extinction event – led to the demise of roughly 90% of Earth’s species. Most of these events have coincided with the formation of a supercontinent, where Earth’s tectonic plates slowly come together and combine.
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S50Three rules for adding weight to your backpack that will boost the benefits of exercise  Walking is a great exercise for keeping your physical and mental health in check. But if you’re looking to give your daily walks a boost, you might want to give “rucking” a try.Rucking is a military term used to describe a march or hike with weight. This is commonly done using a weighted rucksack or vest. It’s an extremely versatile exercise, meaning it can be done almost anywhere. You can also adjust the length of your walk, the amount of weight you carry and even where you walk (such as on level ground or hiking trails) depending on your fitness level.
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S51Labour set to win Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection - but only a thumping majority will herald big Scottish gains next year  More than three years after the COVID law-breaking that cost the SNP’s Margaret Ferrier her job as MP, voters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be summoned to the polls on October 5 for a byelection to choose her successor. Why is Labour’s Michael Shanks very widely expected to win? And what would a Labour gain here mean?The first thing to say is that this is one of Scotland’s friendlier seats for Labour. Since the independence referendum in 2014, the party has been frozen out of 52 of Scotland’s 59 constituencies, including many of its former strongholds in Glasgow and the central belt. Rutherglen is one of the few seats that it has won in that period – albeit just once and very narrowly, during the SNP’s dip in 2017. Clearly the party can win there, given a little bit of national tailwind.
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S52Supreme Court justices' ideologies don't always fit 'liberal' and 'conservative' labels  When the Supreme Court is in the news for overturning a long-standing precedent or violating standard judicial ethics, the news is often accompanied by the description of one or more justices as liberal or conservative. You’d think it would be easy to tell the difference between the two, but judicial scholars will tell you it’s more difficult than you might think. There’s more to the story than who appointed those justices and the labels given in the media.
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S53Can Biden bounce back as the US presidential race turns nastier?  Antagonism between the two expected candidates for US president in 2024 is ramping up as the political battleground turns increasingly nasty. US president Joe Biden suggested that Donald Trump and his allies pose a threat to democracy, “our institutions, to our constitution itself”, in a recent speech honouring former Republican senator John McCain.
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S54Suella Braverman is wrong about the UN refugee convention being 'not fit for purpose' - here's why  The UK’s home secretary, Suella Braverman – the minister responsible for setting immigration policy – has said the United Nation’s refugee convention is not “fit for our modern age” and should be renegotiated.The refugee convention (formally, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees) was established by the UN to protect the millions of people displaced in Europe after the second world war. It was expanded beyond Europe with its 1967 protocol, which applied the convention’s protections to all refugees around the world.
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S55How to challenge toxic behaviour and help someone being bullied or harassed at work  The average person will spend more than 3,500 days at work, so toxic behaviour in the workplace can have a big impact on your wellbeing. Whether it’s the sexual assault of a theatre nurse by a senior surgeon, harassment at Westminster, or the allegations against Russell Brand (which he denies), workplace scandals arising from unacceptable behaviour are happening on an all too regular basis.
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S56Consciousness: why a leading theory has been branded 'pseudoscience'  Immediately, several other figures in the field responded by critiquing the letter as poorly reasoned and disproportionate. Both sides are motivated by a concern for the long-term health and respectability of consciousness science. One side (including the letter signatories) is worrying that the association of consciousness science with what they perceive to be a pseudoscientific theory will undermine the credibility of the field.
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S57Nagorno-Karabakh: the world should have seen this crisis coming -- and it's not over yet  As a result of the Azerbaijani attack on the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19 and the forced exodus that followed it, this region will soon be empty of Armenians – for the first time in more than two millennia. This was a tragedy that could have been avoided. The New York Times recently wrote about what’s now happening in Nagorno-Karabakh that “almost no one saw it coming”. Nothing could be more wrong. Armenians, as well as those who have followed the conflict, have warned for a long time that this was coming.
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S58Ukraine war: Russian shelling is taking a deadly toll on urban bats  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has given rise to a humanitarian crisis. More than 6.2 million people have fled Ukraine as a result of heavy shelling and fighting, and an additional 5.1 million people have been internally displaced. In 2022, shelling may have led directly to the killing of approximately 7,000 noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) – a species common throughout Europe. Nearly 3,000 more bats then became trapped inside damaged buildings, where many subsequently died. More trapped bats were found in Kharkiv in 2022 than in the preceding four years combined.
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S59Coffy: how Blaxploitation star Pam Grier helped lead the way for strong resilient women in film  When Pam Grier’s breakthrough movie Coffy was released in 1973, American International Pictures was clearly confident that her eponymous character was a supercharged heroine who would excite filmgoers.“She’s the ‘GODMOTHER’ of them all!”, exclaimed the poster, linking the African-American Coffy to Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone in The Godfather (released the previous year). More enthusiastically still, the poster also called her “The Baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad That Ever Hit Town!”
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S60Aziz Pahad: the unassuming South African diplomat who skilfully mediated crises in Africa, and beyond  Aziz Goolam Pahad, who has died at the age of 82, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, politician and deputy minister of foreign affairs in the post-1994 government. Together with a small group of foreign policy analysts, I worked with Aziz over the span of 30 years, shaping the post-apartheid South African government’s approach to international relations and its foreign policy. We spent countless hours debating foreign affairs and the numerous crises and challenges government had to face as a relative “newcomer” in continental African and global affairs.
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S61Michael Gambon: an unshowy actor of enormous range and charm  Sir Michael Gambon, who died on September 28 at the age of 82, was a hugely versatile actor who enjoyed numerous and varied roles in film and television throughout the course of his long career. Gambon was also a titan of the theatre. His major theatrical roles include Shakespeare’s Othello, King Lear and Falstaff, and Brecht’s Galileo, together with starring roles in works by the finest contemporary playwrights of his era: Beckett, Pinter, Churchill, Hare, Gray and Ayckbourn.
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S62Self-driving buses that go wherever you want? How the UK is trying to revolutionise public transport  Futurology is littered with predictions that failed to materialise, not least in the field of transport technology. In Edwardian times, when public transport was largely powered by horse or steam, a number of new concepts emerged which were hailed as the “future of public transport”.In 1910, the Brennan Monorail was a gyroscopically stabilised, diesel-powered monorail train that ran on a circular test track at the White City in London. One of the early passengers on this 50-person prototype was then-home secretary Winston Churchill, who insisted on driving the train himself. The new technology reportedly “proved as interesting to the statesman as a new toy would to a child” – and Churchill is said to have told its Irish-Australian creator Louis Brennan: “Sir, your invention promises to revolutionise the railway systems of the world.”
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S63S64Every science lab should have an artist on the team - here's why  Despite their importance in education and society, science and art are often seen as distinct fields, which, in my opinion, stifles beneficial connections. I want to foster these connections by helping to make sense of scientists’ work for a wider audience through my own work as an artist. I have seen the enormous potential that exists when scientists and artists work together. Like advanced imaging specialists, I am fascinated by light, colour, lasers, technology and science. When I discovered the Wellcome Trust’s Sci-Art scheme in 1998, its ethos – to foster connections that produce art directly inspired by science – encouraged me to seek out life scientists to collaborate with, because the methods we employ to create images are connected.
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S65Jellyfish: our complex relationship with the oceans' anti-heroes  Ding! The courier hands me an unassuming brown box with “live animals” plastered on the side. I begin carefully unboxing. The cardboard exterior gives way to a white polystyrene clamshell, cloistering a pearly sphere-shaped, water-filled bag. Lightly pulsing, I spot them: three cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris). Each the size of a 50-pence coin. Cannonball jellyfish are an unusual pet choice. Whether stinging beachgoers, clogging power station intake pipes, or outcompeting more popular ocean wildlife, jellyfish are often labelled nuisances.
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S66Olivia Rodrigo, the Voice of Generation Z; Plus, Stephen Kotkin on Ending the War in Ukraine  The pop singer and songwriter Olivia Rodrigo’s rise to fame was meteoric. She talks with David Remnick about her models for songwriting, dealing with social media as a young celebrity, and how it feels to be branded the voice of Generation Z. Plus, the Russia scholar Stephen Kotkin says that, realistically, Ukraine must come to accept the loss of some Russia-held territory in exchange for security guarantees. But the U.S. must do more to threaten Vladimir Putin’s hold on power.The pop artist’s rise to fame was meteoric. She talks about her models for songwriting, dealing with social media as a young celebrity, and getting out from the shadow of Disney.
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S67The Powerful New York Law That Finally Brought Trump to Book  After a New York court ruled that Donald Trump had persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, the former President called Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who issued the ruling, “deranged,” and accused New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, whose office brought the case, of being a racist.Given that the judgment could bar Trump from doing business in New York and force him to cede control of some of his prized business assets in the state—including Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street—it’s not surprising that he’s enraged. But at least some of his fury should be directed at a fellow-Republican who died more than thirty-five years ago and is now best known for a convention center named after him: Jacob Javits.
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S68Remembering Dianne Feinstein, and Biden Clashes with the Hard Right  The Washington Roundtable: Dianne Feinstein, who was the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, died on Thursday, at the age of ninety. The New Yorker staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos remember the Democrat from San Francisco, who leaves a legacy as an advocate for gun control and against the torture of detainees after 9/11. She fought to enable the release of the sixty-seven-hundred-page report of the C.I.A.’s interrogation program, though she worried about the effect on national security of criticizing the program, Mayer recalls on this week’s episode. “But she went with it on her own instincts,” says Mayer, “and then commissioned a study that laid out the guts of that program in a way that was incredible.”Also this week, President Biden, speaking at Arizona State University, called MAGA Republicans “a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions” and to the “character of our nation.” “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a President feel the need to say in the course of a speech, ‘I stand for the peaceful transfer of power,’ ” Osnos says. “But that’s actually what’s required at the moment.”
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S70The Worrying Democratic Erosions in South Korea  Americans may not know much about the South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, but some will have noticed that he’s not a bad singer. In April, when Joe and Jill Biden hosted Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon-hee, for a state dinner in Washington, D.C., Yoon ingratiated himself, East Asian-style, by performing a nostalgic ballad. During a round of musical performances, he brought a microphone to his lips, at Biden’s invitation, and launched into an a-cappella version of one of his favorite tunes, “American Pie,” by Don McLean: “A long, long time ago, I can still remember / How that music used to make me smile.” Biden beamed and pumped his fists. Yoon looked the part of jovial statesman and ultimate U.S. ally.South Korea is widely seen as an American-made democracy that, along with Japan, supports U.S. efforts to counter China in East Asia—and around the world. This trilateral unity was exhibited publicly, in August, when Biden met with Yoon and Fumio Kishida, the Prime Minister of Japan, at Camp David. But, since taking office last year, after being elected by a margin of less than one per cent, Yoon, a career prosecutor with no previous experience in politics, has started to scrape away protections for women, the right to associate and organize, and, most strikingly, freedom of the press.
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