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S2A festive Filipino bread for the holidays   If you've stumbled upon a panaderia (neighborhood bakery) in the Philippines, chances are you have seen freshly baked pan de regla, the soft Filipino bread roll filled with a custard-like pudding that ranges in colour from bright pink to dark red. The so-called "pink bread" appears different from its cousins pandesal (Filipino bread roll) and pan de coco (coconut bread), with its vibrant-coloured filling. No other favourites from the panaderia look like this, which screams for attention and piques your interest.Pan de regla literally translates to "menstrual bread" for its distinct filling, but there are 14 different names given to it in different parts of the country. Depending on who you talk to and where they are from, pan de regla may have a Filipino name, such as ligaya (happiness) and lahi (race of a people), while in some regions, the bread has an English name, such as "everlasting" and "lipstick".
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S3The 18 best TV shows of 2023  Just when it seemed there wasn't room for one more post-apocalyptic drama or video-game adaptation, The Last of Us came along. The story involves terrifying mushroom-headed zombies, but they are the least of the reasons for the show's impact. The series brings deep humanity and emotion to its tense survival story, centred on the relationship between Joel (Pedro Pascal), a bereaved father, and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), the orphaned girl he reluctantly agrees to take cross-country to safety. As they travel west across what was once the US, the changing landscape and characters they encounter add range and variety. An episode starring Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett whose relationship endures over the decades after the apocalypse is already one of the year's most poignant. A meeting with Joel's lost brother is satisfying yet fraught with loss by the end. Pascal has achieved a well-deserved mainstream breakout with the role, as he grounds the genre elements with a powerful, realistic performance, earning him an Emmy nomination. The Last of Us speaks eloquently to people who never knew it was a video game in the first place. (CJ)Sometimes a concept for a show is just so inspired, there's simply no way it can fail. Such is the case with this murder-of-the-week series from Knives Out creator Rian Johnson, which came about in the first place following of a casual dinner conversation between him and star Natasha Lyonne about their love of detective shows. One of Hollywood's most inimitable stars, Lyonne is an absolute dream here as the insouciant Charlie, a cocktail waitress on the run who finds herself travelling around the US, inadvertently getting involved in murder cases that could do with her mental acuity and unique ability to detect when someone's lying. She is, in her scrappy, wisecracking energy, a female Columbo; and as with that classic series, we see the murder at the beginning of each episode – so that it's not a whodunnit, but a howdunnit. And there is something singularly soothing about watching Lyonne put the pieces of the puzzle together, before hitting the road once more. True episodic TV of the old school, it is one of the year's simplest and purest pleasures. (HM)
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S4John Lennon: 'If we got in the studio together and turned each other on again, then it would be worth it'  Beatle John Lennon met Mark Chapman – the man who was to kill him – twice on the day he died, 8 December 1980.The first time was at around 5pm. Having finished a radio interview in their apartment in the Dakota building in New York to promote their new album, Double Fantasy, the musician and his artist wife Yoko Ono headed out on to the street. Mark Chapman approached Lennon to ask if he could sign a copy of the new LP. The album was later used as evidence in Chapman's trial, and reportedly went on to sell in a private auction for $1.5m in 2020.
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S5Israel's AI can produce 100 bombing targets a day in Gaza. Is this the future of war?  Last week, reports emerged that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are using an artificial intelligence (AI) system called Habsora (Hebrew for “The Gospel”) to select targets in the war on Hamas in Gaza. The system has reportedly been used to find more targets for bombing, to link locations to Hamas operatives, and to estimate likely numbers of civilian deaths in advance.Militaries use remote and autonomous systems as “force multipliers” to increase the impact of their troops and protect their soldiers’ lives. AI systems can make soldiers more efficient, and are likely to enhance the speed and lethality of warfare – even as humans become less visible on the battlefield, instead gathering intelligence and targeting from afar.
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S6Seven tips for ethical shopping this Christmas  Laura Spence is affiliated with the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation and Kellogg College, University of Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. As you walk into a shop or go online to hunt for Christmas gifts, it can feel pretty daunting. Who needs what, how much will it cost, will they like it? But also very important: am I making a good choice in where I am shopping?
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S7Erotic Vagrancy: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor biography revels in scandal and excess of Hollywood glamour couple  Roger Lewis’s biographies are always rich, wayward, engrossing, idiosyncratic and above all obsessive, which seems entirely fitting for evoking the particular qualities of his latest subject – the celebrity couple to end them all, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.Lewis’s substantial new book, Erotic Vagrancy: Everything About Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, takes its title from a phrase used in a papal condemnation of the couple when their affair began during the making of 20th Century Fox’s epic 1963 film Cleopatra in Rome. This served to emphasise the atmosphere of notoriety that surrounded Taylor and Burton’s relationship throughout its 20-year duration.
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S9Kenya at 60: the shameful truth about British colonial abuse and how it was covered up  It is fairly well known that the lives of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans were affected by terrible acts of violence under the British colonial administration. The British government and King Charles have acknowledged it, and some victims of violence have taken the British government to court for these crimes. Less-known is how much the British imperialist government tried to cover up these violations.
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S10Humiliation and violence in Kenya's colonial days - when old men were called 'boy' and Africans were publicly beaten  When King Charles visited Kenya in November 2023, many Kenyans renewed their demands for an official apology for atrocities committed by the British government during the colonial era. The widespread human rights abuses during the Mau Mau rebellion are the best-known of these atrocities. Yet we should not forget more mundane, everyday acts of domination.I am a social historian who has studied race, violence, colonialism and white settlement in Kenya. From the start of colonialism in 1895 to the drawing down of the Union Jack on 12 December 1963, black Kenyans were constantly subjected to violence and humiliation at the hands of colonial officials, settlers and missionaries alike.
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S11S12S13Conservatives' 'anti-woke' alternative to Disney has finally arrived  As fanfare blares, female sprinters at the starting line suspiciously eye a man in a wig. A hulking, goateed wrestler slams a woman half his size to the mat. An ominous voice-over intones that women’s sports are being “trans-formed.”No, this isn’t the beginning of a classic cross-dressing comedy. It’s the trailer for “Lady Ballers,” a new right-wing movie that farcically depicts cisgendered men claiming to be women in order to dominate women’s sports.
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S14S15AI can teach math teachers how to improve student skills  When middle school math teachers completed an online professional development program that uses artificial intelligence to improve their math knowledge and teaching skills, their students’ math performance improved.My colleagues and I developed this online professional development program, which relies on a virtual facilitator that can – among other things – present problems to the teacher around teaching math and provide feedback on the teacher’s answers.
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S16S17S18How Benjamin Zephaniah became the face of British Rastafari  The sudden and untimely passing of Benjamin Zephaniah at age 65 has rightly brought reflection on his legacy as a poet and as a writer, the two fields in which he made monumental contributions. Zephaniah’s warmth, his accessibility –- and his lyrical genius – made him a household name and a national treasure. Hear him, in 2018, on BBC Radio 3, waxing lyrical about his favourite Shakespearean moments. “In Caribbean and African folklore,” he says, “there’s a character called Anansi who’s a spider and a bit of trickster, and it’s very much like Puck.”
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S19Does exercise really do nothing for longevity, as a Finnish twins study suggests?  Surveys on lifestyle and longevity consistently find that people who do more exercise live longer. So it is surprising to see a report from the Finnish Twins Cohort Study that there is little direct effect of “leisure time physical activity” on lifespan. What makes this study different from others – and is it right?Human behaviour and biology are complex and interact with wider society and the environment. How much exercise a person gets could be linked to their genetics, diet, disabilities, education, wealth, or just whether they have enough leisure time and a safe green space. Each of these factors could also be linked to lifespan in different ways.
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S20Napoleon: ignore the griping over historical details, Ridley Scott's film is a meditation on the madness of power  While Ridley Scott’s Napoleon has been causing consternation among some historians, they are overlooking the fact that the historical record does actually support the film’s narrative in terms of one man taking power and shaping a new order during times of revolution and chaos.Set against the bloody backdrop of the French revolution (1789-1799), Empress Josephine – a beautifully judged performance by Vanessa Kirby – who narrowly escaped Robespierre’s guillotine, loves Napoleon for his power and image.
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S21Baldurs Gate 3 wins game of the year at 2023's Game Awards -  I’m looking over the shoulder of my friend, Iulia, as she boots up her PC. “You’re going to lose your mind,” she grins. Iulia and I share a love of fantasy worlds, hot monsters and video games, and she’s invited me over to her flat to show me something “really special”.Iulia admits, with a mixture of guilt and pride, that she’s already spent over 100 hours exploring the first act of a new game. She clicks through the opening, rhapsodising about the beauty of the environments, the intricacy of the turn-based combat and the glory of something or someone called “Astarion”.
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S22S23Why Venezuela is threatening to annex Guyana's oil-rich province of Essequibo  The US air force has taken the unusual step of holding joint drills with Guyana as the United Nations scheduled an emergency meeting of the security council to discuss Venezuela’s threat to annex more than two-thirds of the oil-rich South American country.Guyanese president, Irfaan Ali, appealed to Washington and to the UN after the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, announced that he had taken steps to formalise the incorporation of Essequibo – an oil-rich 160,000sq km region of neighbouring Guyana – as part of Venezuela.
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