   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S58George Santos Declares Jim Jordan's Identity Not Worth Stealing   WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)âIn the latest setback to Rep. Jim Jordan's bid to be Speaker of the House, Rep. George Santos has declared the Ohio congressman's identity "not worth stealing."Minutes after Jordan lost the first round of voting for Speaker, Santos took to the floor of the House and told his colleagues, "I would be embarrassed to use any credit card with Jim Jordan's name on it."
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S2How to Tap the Full Potential of Telemedicine  Telemedicine visits in the United States have fallen sharply since April 2020, but the end of the pandemic should not spell the end of telemedicine. It can play a valuable role in the delivery of health care. The key to tapping its potential is to bring many elements of the clinic to the patient. An array of new technologies and services is making that possible.
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S3Everything Starts with Trust  Trust is the basis for almost everything we do. It’s the foundation on which our laws and contracts are built. It’s the reason we’re willing to exchange our hard-earned paychecks for goods and services, to pledge our lives to another person in marriage, and to cast a ballot for someone who will represent our interests. It’s also the input that makes it possible for leaders to create the conditions for employees to fully realize their own capacity and power.
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S4How Brands Can Sell to Environmentally Conscious Nonconsumers  New research into how consumer attitudes about climate change affect their behavior and purchasing habits find that the largest segment is “Conscious Non-consumers” — that is, people who have changed their behavior to help the environment, but are not purchasing environmentally friendly products. For companies selling these products, reaching this segment of consumers can be a source of profits and impact. The research finds specific barriers that prevent this group from making sustainable purchases — and corresponding strategies to help overcome those barriers.
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S5What Leaders Really Do  Leadership is different from management, but not for the reasons most people think. Leadership isn’t mystical and mysterious. It has nothing to do with having “charisma” or other exotic personality traits. It is not the province of a chosen few. Nor is leadership necessarily better than management or a replacement for it. Rather, leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic activities. Both are necessary for success in today’s business environment. Management is about coping with complexity. Its practices and procedures are largely a response to the emergence of large, complex organizations in the twentieth century. Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change. Part of the reason it has become so important in recent years is that the business world has become more competitive and more volatile. More change always demands more leadership. Most U.S. corporations today are over-managed and under-led. They need to develop their capacity to exercise leadership. Successful corporations don’t wait for leaders to come along. They actively seek out people with leadership potential and expose them to career experiences designed to develop that potential. Indeed, with careful selection, nurturing, and encouragement, dozens of people can play important leadership roles in a business organization. But while improving their ability to lead, companies should remember that strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is sometimes actually worse, than the reverse. The real challenge is to combine strong leadership and strong management and use each to balance the other.
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S6How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight  Top-level managers know that conflict over issues is natural and even necessary. Management teams that challenge one another’s thinking develop a more complete understanding of their choices, create a richer range of options, and make better decisions. But the challenge–familiar to anyone who has ever been part of a management team–is to keep constructive conflict over issues from degenerating into interpersonal conflict. From their research on the interplay of conflict, politics, and speed in the decision-making process of management teams, the authors have distilled a set of six tactics characteristic of high-performing teams:
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S7Webinar: Upgrading Culture for Growth and Transformation  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.To succeed with culture change, leaders must quickly link improved soft skills with real progress on tough challenges. In this webinar, you’ll learn practical steps to build lasting success.
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S8 What Health Care Leaders Need to Know to Fight the Nursing Shortage: Nurses Speak  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.As a wave of burned-out nurses leaves the profession, a nursing shortage looms. In this video, learn what nurses and experts say about how leaders can improve working conditions and job satisfaction.
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S9 Explore How Nurses Rate Their Employers  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.For the Nursing Satisfaction Index, we analyzed the free text of 150,000 Glassdoor reviews written by U.S. nurses. The index shows how nurses evaluated the employee experience at 200 of the largest U.S. health care employers, from the beginning of the pandemic through June 2023.
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S10 The Real Issues Driving the Nursing Crisis  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our analysis of nurses’ employer reviews reveals the true source of burnout and why nurses are leaving the field. Here’s how health care leaders can improve nurse job satisfaction to fight a looming nursing shortage.
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S11Business in Russia: Why some firms haven't left  When the first airstrikes fell on Ukraine in February 2022, corporate executives with operations or holdings in Russia were forced to pick a side. This decision had significant implications. Russia remains a major business market, with a population of 145 million; its 2022 GDP was a staggering $2.24tn (£1.81tn), right behind France. Fleeing companies would leave a lot of revenue on the table.Yet amid a gruelling war, with tens of thousands of civilian casualties and widespread international condemnation of Russia, companies risked severe reputational damage by staying put. Plus, a mix of international pressure, sanctions and risks of Russian government interference offered strong reasons for companies to leave when the conflict began.
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S12How every workplace became 'toxic'  At nearly every company, there's an employee who thinks their workplace is 'toxic'. The term has become a catch-all to describe all sorts of work issues: major problems, such as unethical, abusive, discriminatory and even illegal behaviours; but also everyday issues, like cultures of long hours and burnout, or simple grievances with standard workplace policies.Recent high profile reports of workplace toxicity have underscored the murky, imprecise definition of the word.
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S13The Simple Art of Rice: Seafood paella with lime  When James Beard award-winning chef JJ Johnson owner of the fast-casual restaurant Fieldtrip in Harlem, New York, was growing up, he had Sunday night dinners at his grandmother Bebe's house. Bebe loved to make paella for this weekly gathering, and Johnson loved to eat it. "For me, paella was just part of the culture," Johnson said.In his new cookbook, The Simple Art of Rice (published this September), Johnson includes a recipe for paella inspired by the one Bebe used to make. This is one of dozens of recipes in the book that dive deep into rice around the world. "You can use so many different rice dishes to learn about culture and people," Johnson said.
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S14From Zadie Smith to Anne Enright: 25 of the best books of the year so far  In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith examines 19th-Century colonialism, with several interwoven plots that take place over half a century. At the centre of the story is a real-life trial of a man claiming to be Sir Roger Tichborne, thought to have died at sea, and heir to a huge fortune. The trial is seen through the eyes of Eliza Touchet, with interludes depicting the life of Andrew Bogle, an older formerly enslaved man who is acting as a witness in the trial. It is an "exuberant" novel, says The Observer, and bears the author's usual trademarks: "the boisterous narrative intelligence; the ear for dialogue; the chronic absence of boring sentences". There is also a lightness of touch: "Every few pages I was struck by how light the novel feels, despite its length and epic themes. The short chapters glide tellingly between decades and scenes." The Conversation describes The Fraud as "a stunning, well-studied examination of Victorian colonial England," adding that "Smith is expertly able to interweave moments of levity and humour into a book that deals with some heaviness… Historical fiction suits her". (LB)US author and doctor Mason, who published his first book, The Piano Tuner (2002) while still at medical school, is now an acclaimed writer of historical fiction. His sixth novel – which explores four centuries of history through a house and its inhabitants on a small patch of New England land – has received rapturous reviews for its virtuosity and form-bending experimentation. "Daniel Mason's latest novel is one of those rare books that truly deserves the description 'spellbinding'", writes The Observer, while The New York Times calls it "eccentric and exhilarating". (RL)
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S15What the Celebration tour reveals about 'my spirit guide' Madonna  She's the biggest-selling female recording artist of all time, a woman who's made an indelible mark on our culture, and contributed to lasting social change. But, for a long time, Madonna sustained public interest by refusing to look back on her career, insisting on maintaining a focus on present and future projects. Now – finally – she's ready to celebrate her cultural legacy. And, perhaps most importantly, to show her vulnerability.- The most influential hip-hop tracks- The best pop star of her generation?- The riot that ‘killed’ disco
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S16S17#UsToo: How antisemitism and Islamophobia make reporting sexual misconduct and abuse of power harder for Jewish and Muslim women  October 2023 marks the anniversary of #MeToo: six years since actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet calling for women to speak out about experiences of abuse went viral and helped launch a global movement. Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from film sets and office buildings to college campuses and religious communities.These women face added challenges when they break the silence around sexual misconduct and abuse of power, as I document in my book “#UsToo.” Many Jewish and Muslim women of color navigate three kinds of oppression simultaneously: sexism, racism and antisemitism or Islamophobia.
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S18S19What is a virtual power plant? An energy expert explains  After nearly two decades of stagnation, U.S. electricity demand is surging, driven by growing numbers of electric cars, data centers and air conditioners in a warming climate. But traditional power plants that generate electricity from coal, natural gas or nuclear energy are retiring faster than new ones are being built in this country. Most new supply is coming from wind and solar farms, whose output varies with the weather.That’s left power companies seeking new ways to balance supply and demand. One option they’re turning to is virtual power plants.
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S20Poland votes for change after nearly a decade spent sliding towards autocracy - but tricky coalition talks lie ahead for Donald Tusk  People were seen queuing in long lines outside polling stations in what appears to have been an election with record-breaking turnout (74.31%) in Poland. Now it seems the right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) is on the way out of government. Although PiS came away with the highest percentage of votes (35.38%), a coalition of opposition parties looks more likely to end up in power.The Civic Coalition (KO), an alliance of centre-right parties led by former European Council president Donald Tusk, has secured 157 seats in parliament. This itself is shy of the 231 needed to form a majority but combining with Third Way, a centrist alliance which took 65 seats, and the New Left, which took 26 seats, a government is possible.
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S21Babe Ruth, patron saint of the home run, turned the ball field into a church - and lived his own Catholic faith in the spotlight  “I’ve tried ‘em all, I really have,” Susan Sarandon’s character Annie Savoy says in the movie “Bull Durham.” But “the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.”If your beliefs look anything like Annie’s, then you surely know that October is the equivalent of the Jewish High Holy Days, Christianity’s Holy Week and the Muslim month of Ramadan rolled into one, because you are eating and breathing the MLB playoffs and World Series.
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S22Sexual harassment victims in Nigerian universities are being blamed - cyberspace study  Sexual harassment encompasses a wide range of inappropriate behaviour, from ogling, touching and commenting about body parts, to sexual proposition, coercion, assault and rape. In other words, it is any form of unsolicited and unwanted sexual attention. Within the academic environment, there is another dimension too. It is any form of physical or verbal behaviour that may tie academic progress to sexual favours. Either staff or students could be victims. It violates the victim’s dignity, especially in situations where it creates an environment of humiliation, degradation or hostility.
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S23S24Gaza conflict: how children's lives are affected on every level  Children living in Gaza have never known anything but overcrowding, shortages, conflict and danger. It’s been 18 years since the then Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, moved all Israel’s settlers and military personnel out of the Gaza Strip. The country’s official narrative then became that they were no longer an occupying force.
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S25The book that haunts me - seven experts on the scariest thing they've ever read  A truly scary story never really leaves you. It lurks in long evening shadows, calls out through mysterious bumps in the night and blows down your neck whenever you feel a sudden shiver. With Halloween approaching, we asked six of our academic experts to tell us about the scariest book they’ve ever read. From haunted houses to murderous beasts and villainous vampires, these are the spooky reads that have stayed with them long after they turned the final page. Lady Macbeth says it’s “The eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil.” She’s right. I bought A Dictionary of Monsters and Mysterious Beasts at a school book fair when I was seven. I was intrigued by the glowering goblin on the cover (who looked like my science teacher) and the jacket’s promise of creatures “fair and foul, fascinating and frightening” (another Macbeth allusion, not that I knew it).
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S26Elon Musk is an 'engineer' but Bill Gates is a 'leader' - new research shows founder personality can dictate startup success  From Elon Musk’s supreme confidence to Jeff Bezos’ ability to make smart decisions under pressure, some of the most successful entrepreneurs are known for their distinctive personalities. But these traits aren’t just interesting side notes to these founders’ stories: confidence and calmness, along with other qualities such as a love of adventure, can have a big impact on startup success.A startup is typically counted as a “success” if it’s acquired by another company or goes public (that is, its shares become available to trade on a stock exchange). And common investor wisdom attributes this to either supply side (novel products) or demand side (market interest or “hot sectors”) factors.
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S27How animal traits have shaped the journey of species across the globe  The devastating tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 set off a series of events which have long fascinated scientists like me. It was so powerful that it caused 5 million tonnes of debris to wash into the Pacific – 1.5 million tonnes remained afloat and started drifting with the currents. One year later, and half a world away, debris began washing ashore on the west coast of North America. More than 280 Japanese coastal species such as mussels, barnacles and even some species of fish, had hitched a ride on the debris and made an incredible journey across the ocean. These species were still alive and had the potential to establish new populations.
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S28Only 1% of chemical compounds have been discovered - here's how we search for others that could change the world  The universe is flooded with billions of chemicals, each a tiny pinprick of potential. And we’ve only identified 1% of them. Scientists believe undiscovered chemical compounds could help remove greenhouse gases, or trigger a medical breakthrough much like penicillin did. But let’s just get this out there first: it’s not that chemists aren’t curious. Since Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev invented the periodic table of elements in 1869, which is basically a chemist’s box of Lego, scientists have been discovering the chemicals that helped define the modern world. We needed nuclear fusion (firing atoms at each other at the speed of light) to make the last handful of elements. Element 117, tennessine, was synthesised in 2010 in this way.
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S29Why heating your home this winter may be even harder than last year  Domestic energy prices more than doubled during 2022 compared with the year before. This meant that the number of UK households in fuel poverty who could not afford to heat their homes to a safe level rose from 4.5 million to 7.3 million.The UK government attempted to alleviate the impact of rocketing bills with a package of support measures. This included capping the unit cost of electricity and gas, a £400 rebate to all households using mains gas for heating and £200 for those using alternative fuels, and a further £650 “cost of living payment” to claimants of means-tested benefits.
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S30Foe review: a Frankenstein tale of the not-so-distant future  Science fiction is never really about the future. The best sci-fi makes use of an imagined future world to provide a critical distance from our current time; to ask questions about what we are doing rather than where we are going. Director Garth Davis’ Foe, adapted from the novel by Iain Reid, is sci-fi for a future that has already happened. Filmed in Australia, where the existing landscape does a good job of standing in for the aftermath of the climate apocalypse, Foe is a forceful meditation on relationships, technological determinism and the power of advanced capitalism to, literally, construct identities.
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S31Is someone using your pictures to catfish? Your rights when it comes to fake profiles and social media stalking  If you’ve ever used a dating app, you’ve probably experienced the disappointment of meeting someone who doesn’t look quite like their photos. You may have even been a victim of catfishing, where someone creates a fake identity to deceive or scam others online. But what if someone uses your photos to catfish someone else?Setting up a social media account or dating profile is as easy as entering a name and email address. Platforms do very little to verify users’ identities, making it easy for someone to scam you, harass you – or pretend to be you.
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S32S33Hamas and Hezbollah: how they are different and why they might cooperate against Israel  As Israel prepares for a massive military operation against Hamas in Gaza, risks of an escalating regional conflict loom large. The most critical additional threat to Israel is from Hezbollah, the militant group and political party based across Israel’s northern border in Lebanon.Hamas and Hezbollah are both backed by Iran and see weakening Israel as their primary raison d’etre. However, the two groups are not the same. Their differences will likely influence their actions – and Israel’s – in the days and weeks to come.
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S34NZ election 2023: Labour out, National in - either way, neoliberalism wins again  For an election ostensibly fought over a “cost-of-living crisis”, there was a strong unspoken consensus between the two major parties: most people’s living standards needed to reduce to thwart inflation. Regardless of the election result, a form of austerity was always going to win.Both National and Labour essentially agreed with the Reserve Bank hiking interest rates to bring down inflation – a crude market discipline likely to cause redundancies, suppress wages, and increase debt and inequality.
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S35We fact-checked residential school denialists and debunked their 'mass grave hoax' theory  Recently a politician from a village in Prince Edward Island displayed an offensive sign on his property in which he proclaimed there is a “mass grave hoax” regarding the former Indian Residential Schools in Canada. Although many have called for him to resign, he is just one of many people who subscribe to this false theory.A hoax is an act intended to trick people into believing something that isn’t true. Commentary that a “hoax” exists began circulating in 2021 around the time of public announcements from First Nations across the country that — through the use of ground penetrating radar and other means — the remains of Indigenous children are suspected to be in unmarked graves at or near some former residential schools.
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S36S37S38S39The smarter the magpie, the better they can handle our noisy cities  Cities are hard for wildlife. Many animal species avoid the cars, buildings, smog and fragmented habitats of urban environments. Then there’s the noise pollution, a serious issue for humans and animals alike, according to the World Health Organization. Human-made (anthropogenic) noise can be very bad for animals. Busy cities can make it harder for animals to reproduce, communicate and behave naturally.
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S40The Voice campaign showed Labor's strategy for countering right-wing populism is in disarray  On election night, a triumphant Anthony Albanese declared Labor was committed to the Uluru statement from the Heart “in full”, thereby including establishing an Indigenous Voice. Albanese had partly won the election by pledging to bring Australians together to build a better, more equal Australia. In doing so, he managed to sidestep Scott Morrison’s right-wing populist arguments that the Liberals would protect the Australian people, “us” against “them”: namely, elitist Labor big government and the minority groups Labor would support.
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S41NASA's Psyche asteroid mission: a 3.6 billion kilometre 'journey to the centre of the Earth'  Psyche was the Greek goddess of the soul, born a mere mortal and later married to Eros, the God of love. Who knows why the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis gave her name to a celestial object he observed one night in 1852?Psyche was only the 16th “asteroid” ever discovered: inhabitants of the Solar System that were neither the familiar planets nor the occasional visitors known as comets. Today we know the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter contains millions of space rocks, ranging in size from the dwarf planet Ceres down to tiny pebbles and grains of dust.
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S42S43'I'm not going to be cured'. How breast cancer awareness and support sidelines people with metastatic disease  There have been incredible advances in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in recent years. And stories about celebrities who have “beaten” breast cancer continue to be a source of inspiration for many people. However, this emphasis on fighting, beating and surviving cancer shuts out the voices of those who will not survive. That is, the many people diagnosed with incurable, life-limiting metastatic breast cancer, which kills nine Australians every day or nearly 3,300 people a year. Yet an estimated 10,000 Australians are living with the diagnosis.
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S44How women in Israel and Palestine are pushing for peace -- together  On Oct. 4, 2023, just days before the Hamas attacks on Israel and the retaliatory Israeli aerial bombardment and siege on Gaza, thousands of Israeli and Palestinian feminist peace activists gathered in Jerusalem and near the Dead Sea. Representing Israeli-based Women Wage Peace and Palestinian-based Women of the Sun, this feminist peace coalition called on political leaders to negotiate an end to the bloodshed and resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
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S45Beyond the paycheck: The key to building a thriving workplace goes beyond salaries  Today’s news is filled with stories highlighting salary figures, from sky-high CEO compensation packages to boards trying to hide CEO pay increases during periods of austerity, to governments interfering with collective bargaining over wage increases and unions securing pay hikes.Some provinces, including Ontario, Alberta and Nova Scotia, are also mandated to release annual sunshine lists of public sector workers who earn above $100,000 — all of which might suggest that higher pay equates to more productive, healthy and safe workplaces. But is this a correct assumption? What if the opposite is true?
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S46Have we reached the end of nature? Our relationship with the environment is in crisis  Recently, I encountered the thought-provoking expression “God is dead, Marx is dead and I don’t feel so well myself.” I wonder if it is now the time to update this by adding “Nature is dead”? Has Nature, framed as being separate to humanity, lost its relevance? Does humanity’s exceptionalist mindset, as famed biologist E.O. Wilson suggests, leave us “contemptuous towards lower forms of life”?
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S47Drought in the Amazon: Understanding the causes and the need for an immediate action plan to save the biome  Pesquisador Vinculado ao Programa de Pós-graduação em Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Amazonas (UFAM) The drought plaguing the Amazon is a worrying portrait of the climate challenges facing the world. The combination of the El Niño phenomenon and anthropogenic climate change has played a significant role in accentuating this extreme weather event. The Amazon region, known for its lush rainforest and flowing rivers, is facing a critical situation due to a lack of rainfall and rising temperatures.
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S48Beyond COVID vaccines: what else could mRNA technology do for our health?  Many people first became familiar with the term “mRNA” when Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID vaccines were rolled out. In the simplest terms, mRNA, which stands for messenger ribonucleic acid, is a type of genetic material that gives cells in our bodies instructions to make specific proteins.More recently the 2023 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman from the University of Pennsylvania for their discoveries in mRNA biology.
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S49S50S51S52S53A new bill would bring Victoria's strangulation laws in line with other states - but consent complicates matters  In October 2011, Victorian woman Joy Rowley was strangled to death by her intimate partner. It was not the first time he had strangled her. Over the eight-month period leading up to her death she had called the police multiple times to report strangulation attacks. In the inquest that followed, the coroner highlighted an incident months before she died that involved strangulation and a knife. Police did not lay charges against the offender James Mulhall until several months after that incident. Rowley’s family and others have tirelessly campaigned since for the introduction of a strangulation offence.
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S54Politics with Michelle Grattan: Kim Beazley on Albanese's US trip, Biden in the Middle East, and the Voice's defeat  The Prime Minister heads to Washington next week for a state visit. Talks between Anthony Albanese and President Joe Biden will canvass progress on implementing the AUKUS agreement, Ukraine, China and the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, and of course the Middle East crisis. Biden will have just returned from his visit to Israel and will brief the PM on the situation, which has worsened by the day.In this podcast, Kim Beazley, defence minister during the Hawke government, former Labor leader, and former Australian ambassador to the US, joins The Conversation to talk about the Albanese visit and the international situation.
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S55A Journalist Exposes the Philippines' Extralegal Killings  Over the years, I've had the honor of reading and publishing reporters who are as resilient as they are intelligent: Katherine Boo, Jon Lee AndersonâI won't go on because the list is as long as it is distinguished. It is a cliché to compare such writers to George Orwell or, more lately, with justice, Martha Gellhorn. But, if the shoe fits . . . Recently, a Filipina reporter named Patricia Evangelista came by the office, for an interview for The New Yorker Radio Hour.Our topic was her new book, "Some People Need Killing," about the reign of Rodrigo Duterte. It is hardly written with Orwellian cool, but it stands next to "Homage to Catalonia." Evangelista's title comes from a vigilante, whose offhand comment to her exemplified the bloodiness of the Duterte Presidency and its extralegal drug wars. Evangelista covered the killings, which left thousands dead, for the independent news platform Rappler. The site was co-founded by the journalist Maria Ressa, who, along with Dmitry Muratov, won the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago.
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S56Biden's Middle East Burden  Earlier today, I left a funeral for a family of five: Livnat and Aviv Kutz and their teen-age children, Rotem, Yonatan, and Yiftach. They are five among the fourteen hundred Israelis slaughtered on October 7th when Hamas fighters swept through the towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip. When rescue teams finally came upon their bodies, clustered on a bed, they saw that Aviv Kutz had draped his arms around his wife and kids, a final embrace.The Kutz family was buried together in a tight row of graves. Their names were read out one after another, the coffins lowered slowly by thick rope into the ground. It took a very long time for five graves to be filled with earth. One of the children's grandfathers chanted the mourner's Kaddish as hundreds of people shook with grief. All over the country, in recent days, it has been like this, funeral after funeral, with more to come.
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S57How Jane McAlevey Transformed the Labor Movement  This past January, Jane McAlevey spent a week in Connecticut leading an organizing blitz. In union parlance, a blitz is a quick, concentrated organizing effort, designed to engage as many workers as possible in a short period of time. The campaign’s goals were ambitious—to bring some twenty-five thousand home health-care workers into a fight not just against their bosses but against the broader social and economic problems weighing on them, including issues such as a lack of affordable housing, insufficient public transportation, and the need for debt relief. For seven days, McAlevey and about two hundred other organizers went door to door, talking to thousands of people—mostly Black and brown women employed by nursing homes, group homes, and home health-care companies. McAlevey and her team told them, “This is a new program to bring power all of you have, but often aren’t aware of, to the table.”For McAlevey, one of the nation’s preëminent labor organizers and strategists, the project presented a chance to revisit a strategy that she had advanced twenty-some years ago in Stamford, Connecticut, known as the “whole worker” method. In the nineties, a lack of affordable housing in Stamford—located in one of the wealthiest counties in the country—overshadowed nearly every other issue on workers’ minds. This was not a problem that could be solved by unions alone, but unions, if strategically harnessed, had the horsepower to fight it. McAlevey began organizing workers in four different sectors—janitors, cabdrivers, city clerks, and nursing-home aides—and determined that they could exert influence through the city’s churches. (“Note to labor,” McAlevey wrote about this campaign, years later. “Workers relate more to their faith than to their job, and fear God more than they fear the boss.”) Soon the city’s most powerful preachers were hosting bargaining sessions in church basements. By the time the campaign finished, more than four thousand workers had their first union and new contracts to boot. Their efforts also saved multiple public-housing projects from demolition, won fifteen million dollars for the units’ improvements, and secured new ordinances that mandated affordable-housing levels going forward.
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S59The Symbiotic, Democracy-Eroding Relationship Between Donald Trump and Jim Jordan  On Tuesday, Donald Trump was back in New York to attend his civil trial on charges of business fraud, and, as usual, he stopped directly outside the courtroom to attack the prosecutor, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James; and the judge, Arthur F. Engoron. “They are the frauds,” Trump said, repeating his false allegation that James and Engoron personally valued his Mar-a-Lago estate at eighteen million dollars. (In fact, a Palm Beach property appraiser valued the property at between $18 million and $27.6 million.) Trump has denied all wrongdoing.The former President’s latest rant came a day after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan—who is overseeing his federal trial in Washington, D.C., on charges relating to his failed effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election—imposed a partial gag order on him, saying that he is not allowed “to launch a pretrial smear campaign against participating government staff, their families, and foreseeable witnesses.” In recent months, Trump has repeatedly referred to the special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the case’s prosecution, as “deranged.” He has also attacked Mike Pence, his former Vice-President, and the retired general Mark Milley, who was formerly the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—both of whom may well be called to testify about what they saw in the period after the 2020 Presidential election.
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S60How Social Media Abdicated Responsibility for the News  In February of last year, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the horror of war filtered out into the world through user-generated videos on TikTok. Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines and civilians sheltering in their homes posted videos showing advancing tanks, bombed-out apartment blocks, and rations packages being delivered to troops. Both the volume and the intimacy of the footage seemed unprecedented; the conflict was quickly dubbed the “first TikTok war.” Ten days ago, the eruption of violence between Hamas and Israel became the second major war of that new era of social media. But social media has changed to a surprising degree in the intervening year and a half. Across the major platforms, our feeds are less reliable sources of authentic crowdsourced news than they ever were—which wasn’t much to begin with—because of decisions made by the platforms themselves.X, formerly known as Twitter, has, under the ownership of Elon Musk, dismantled its content-moderation staff, throttled the reach of news publications, and allowed any user to buy blue-check verification, turning what was once considered a badge of trustworthiness on the platform into a signal of support for Musk’s regime. Meta’s Facebook has minimized the number of news articles appearing in users’ feeds, following years of controversy over the company’s role in spreading misinformation. And TikTok, under increased scrutiny in the United States for its parent company’s relationship with the Chinese government, is distancing itself from news content. A little over a decade ago, social media was heralded as a tool of transparency on a global scale for its ability to distribute on-the-ground documentation during the uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring. Now the same platforms appear to be making conflicts hazier rather than clearer. In the days since Hamas’s attacks, we’ve seen with fresh urgency the perils of relying on our feeds for news updates.
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S61Why Are We So Bad at Getting Better?  Four and a half years ago, in the heat of an N.B.A. playoff game against the Houston Rockets, Kevin Durant, the superstar forward of the Golden State Warriors, dodged a defender, dribbled once, and sank a two-point jump shot. When he turned to run upcourt, however, he bounced off his right foot and felt something tear. He managed to hop to mid-court, clutching his leg, but then doubled over in pain. After Durant limped out of the game, an MRI showed that he had ripped the muscle fibres in his calf; a prior injury, along with a sharp increase in playing time, probably placed him at increased risk. For the next few weeks, as the Warriors advanced to the N.B.A. Finals, Durant tried to recover. But when his teammates found themselves down three games to one, facing elimination, some of them reportedly complained about his absence.Durant decided to return for Game Five against the Toronto Raptors. Fifteen minutes into the game, he dribbled across half-court, crossed over between his legs, and stopped abruptly, letting the ball roll away. This time, he limped to the sideline, fell to the ground, and grabbed his right leg with a resigned look on his face. He left the arena in a gray walking boot, crutches under both armpits, with a ruptured Achilles tendon.
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S626 Crucial Plot Points to Remember Before You Play 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'  Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is already shaping up to be one of the biggest games of 2023, continuing the epic story from Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. This time, Miles and Peter team up to take down Venom, whose arrival throws their lives and the entirety of New York City into turmoil.The latest game in the series is set less than a year after Spider-Man: Miles Morales and builds on the events of the past two games. Even though more than five years have passed since the release of Spider-Man, it helps to have that game’s story fresh in mind when you’re going into the sequel.
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S63You Need to Watch the Best Genre-Blending Superhero Movie of 2023 on Prime ASAP  The 2020s are the decade of derivation. It feels like everything has already been done, remixed, subverted, or homaged, but that doesn’t mean new movies can’t still be original. A new crop of filmmakers have even found clever ways to wink to the past without copying the textbook: Everything Everywhere All At Once is the classic example of “exploitation” done right.Now, Polite Society is the latest to wear its influences on its sleeve. It’s a film that pulls from a true melting pot of influences, from Jane Austen novels to ’90s girl power flicks like Bend It Like Beckham. But it is first and foremost a tale of two sisters, and that’s its secret weapon.
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S6410 Years Ago, a Legendary Indie Adventure Redefined Video Games  Are video games art? This question was never more annoying than in the aftermath of Roger Ebert’s provocative arguments to the contrary, after which many petulant responses helped make his point. Ebert claimed the fundamental limitations of the medium work against it: all games require at least some player agency, while films and novels have total authorial control.It’s an idiosyncratic argument that relies on one’s personal interpretation of what art is, but you can see his point: you don’t need years of ingrained skill and knowledge to watch a good movie. An outraged internet demanded Ebert sit down and put a dozen hours into Shadow of the Colossus, but how do you appreciate its artistry if you don’t have the requisite background to get past the first boss? There’s nothing emotionally moving about a “Game Over” screen.
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S65With an 8K Display, BMW's Pricey i7 EV Is a Tech Lover's Paradise  With oodles of power and a luxurious poise, plus jaw-dropping 8K theater screen, the i7 is a showcase for what's possible on four wheels. The in-seat massager is doing its thing to my things; the 1,965-watt, 39-speaker Bowers & Wilkins sound system is playing some ambient tunes with a lovely tone; and, was I not trying to be productive, I could summon a 31-inch, ultra-widescreen 8K display down from the ceiling upon which I could be watching any number of things through the integrated Amazon Fire TV functionality.
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S66The Best Netflix Thriller of the Year Reveals a Controversial New Trend  Mike Flanagan is a man of transformation. His original work for Netflix, Midnight Mass, became an instant hit, but he really shines when he’s given some source material to work with, be it a Stephen King novel or an old horror classic. Now, in his more recent works, Flanagan has developed a new way to adapt the classics. The experiment pays off in his last Netflix series, which derives from classic literature without being derivative. Flanagan’s Netflix run began with The Haunting of Hill House, based on Shirley Jackson’s novel, but he tried something new with the second Haunting series, The Haunting of Bly Manor. While the title comes from Henry James’ influential novella The Turn of the Screw, the story was a sprawling epic that took notes from a variety of James’ novels.
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S67These 'Ring of Fire' Solar Eclipse Photos Got Us Like "Woah"  These fabulous photos of the past weekend’s annular solar eclipse are (almost) as incredible as the thing itself. The dazzling annular solar eclipse of 2023 appeared to eager spectators across the Americas on Saturday, and (luckily for us) professional photographers had fingers poised on the shutter-release, ready to snap fantastic photos of the incredible solar event.
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S68S69People Are Already Getting Weird With Mixed Reality on the Quest 3  It’s only been a week since the release of the Meta Quest 3 headset, but people are already getting weird. Meta’s third-gen VR headset makes mixed reality a big feature, and at $500, the Quest 3 is also one of the more accessible headsets out there — given that, people are obviously excited to experiment with lots of different XR applications.
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S70Marvel Book Reveals the One Avengers Actor Who Will Never Return  With the multiverse growing in prominence, Marvel’s Cinematic Universe is getting that much bigger. The MCU has already pulled in cameos from every corner of the Marvel world, and as the Multiverse Saga creeps toward its conclusion with Avengers: Secret Wars, nothing seems to be off the table. If Anson Mount can reprise his Inhumans role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, anything’s possible, right?Well... not exactly. According to Joanna Robinson — whose new book, MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, recently hit shelves — there’s one actor Marvel executive Kevin Feige has severed ties with for good.
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