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S63The NBA In-Season Tournament is a play for viewer attention -- will it succeed over time?   The National Basketball Association’s inaugural In-Season Tournament wraps up this weekend. The tournament kicked off on Nov. 3 and will culminate in a championship game between the Indiana Pacers and Los Angeles Lakers on Dec. 9.The tournament is something NBA commissioner Adam Silver has reportedly wanted to implement for years for a variety of reasons. One obvious potential benefit of the tournament is to generate revenue, as the Women’s National Basketball Association has already done with its own tournament, the Commissioner’s Cup.
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S51S60How the Christmas pudding, with ingredients taken from the colonies, became an iconic British food  As an American living in Britain in the 1990s, my first exposure to Christmas pudding was something of a shock. I had expected figs or plums, as in the “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” carol, but there were none. Neither did it resemble the cold custard-style dessert that Americans typically call pudding.Instead, I was greeted with a boiled mass of suet – a raw, hard animal fat this is often replaced with a vegetarian alternative – as well as flour and dried fruits that is often soaked in alcohol and set alight.
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S54How to protect yourself from cyber-scammers over the festive period  The festive season is a time for joy, family and festive cheer. However, it’s also a prime target for cybercriminals. As online shopping ramps up, so does the risk of falling prey to cyber-attacks. That’s why it’s crucial to be extra vigilant about your cybersecurity during this time. Here are some essential tips to safeguard yourself and your data during the festive period:
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S47How 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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S52Why 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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S69"May December" Probes the Dark Assumptions Behind a Tabloid Scandal  Not long into "May December," the slinky new Netflix movie directed by Todd Haynes and written by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, you start to get a bad feeling. The melodramatic piano music has put you on edge, as have the visible damp of the Savannah air and the oak trees dripping with moss. A family is hosting a party at their sprawling waterfront house. Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore), a striking strawberry-blond matriarch in middle age, frosts a cake. Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), a handsome, athletic man, maybe thirtysomething and Asian in appearance, tends an enormous barbecue. Teen-agers, also Asian-looking, run around with their friends. Amid this reverie, a stranger arrives. Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) has come on business: she will be playing Gracie in a film, and intends to embed with the family.We soon learn that Gracie and Joe are married, and that their twins are about to graduate from high school. There's an obvious age difference between the coupleâa quarter century, in fact. This is a big deal only because of when they got together: Joe was in seventh grade. Elizabeth's goal is to elevate this scandal into art and, in turn, elevate her middling "TV famous" career.
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S10S57The disagreement between two climate scientists that will decide our future  Getting to net zero emissions by mid-century is conventionally understood as humanity’s best hope for keeping Earth’s surface temperature (already 1.2°C above its pre-industrial level) from increasing well beyond 1.5°C – potentially reaching a point at which it could cause widespread societal breakdown. James Hansen of Columbia University in the US published a paper with colleagues in November which claims temperatures are set to rise further and faster than the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In his view, the 1.5°C target is dead.
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S50Baldurs 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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S48Does 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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S35Seven 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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S62S59This hand-painted film is a 'must see' - what you should watch this week  The mark of a good film, for me, is the way I feel when it’s over. If I jump up to brush off the popcorn and pull on my coat, it’s forgettable fare. If I’m still glued to my seat as the final credits roll, it will probably stick with me for quite some time.Such was the case with Loving Vincent in 2017, a beautiful film about the life and death of Vincent van Gogh. The story, about a man attempting to deliver the artist’s final letter and, in the process, unravelling the mystery around his death, wasn’t what hooked me.
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S12Taupo: 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 New Zealand'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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S61Viva Guadalupe! Beyond Mexico, the Indigenous Virgin Mary is a powerful symbol of love and inclusion for millions of Latinos in the US  Dec. 12 is a special day for millions of Catholics around the world, especially those of Mexican descent. Known as el Dia de la Virgen Guadalupe, it is a popular feast day that celebrates the Virgin of Guadalupe: a brown-skinned, Indigenous vision of Mary that Catholics believe appeared to a peasant in 1531.The story of Guadalupe’s appearances is recounted in a text called the Nican Mopohua, which means “Here It Is Told” in Nahuatl, an Aztec language. The Nican Mopohua describes Jesus’ mother appearing multiple times to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an Indigenous convert to Catholicism, about a decade after the Spanish had conquered Aztec Mexico. After her fourth and final apparition to Diego, Catholics believe that her image imprinted onto his cactus-fiber robe, known as a “tilma.”
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S13Message sticks: Australia's ancient unwritten language  The continent of Australia is home to more than 250 spoken Indigenous languages and 800 dialects. Yet, one of its linguistic cornerstones wasn't spoken, but carved.Known as message sticks, these flat, rounded and oblong pieces of wood were etched with ornate images on both sides that conveyed important messages and held the stories of the continent's Aboriginal people – considered the world's oldest continuous living culture. Message sticks are believed to be thousands of years old and were typically carried by messengers over long distances to reinforce oral histories or deliver news between Aboriginal nations or language groups.
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S38Kenya 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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S40S14Did Australia's boomerangs pave the way for flight?  The aircraft is one of the most significant developments of modern society, enabling people, goods and ideas to fly around the world far more efficiently than ever before. The first successful piloted flight took off in 1903 in North Carolina, but a 10,000-year-old hunting tool likely developed by Aboriginal Australians may have held the key to its lift-off. As early aviators discovered, the secret to flight is balancing the flow of air. Therefore, an aircraft's wings, tail or propeller blades are often shaped in a specially designed, curved manner called an aerofoil that lifts the plane up and allows it to drag or turn to the side as it moves through the air.
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S55From the Paris agreement to COP28, how oil and gas giants try to influence the global climate agenda  There is “no science” behind demands to phase out fossil fuels, according to the current COP president. This level of cynicism at the top of the annual climate summit makes it less surprising that the conference has also been used as an oil trading venue.A record number of fossil fuel lobbyists gained access to the conference this year. So it seems to presage a bright future for fossil fuels, when it should be a venue to discuss how to stop using them.
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S21How exposure to language in the womb shapes the brain  In the 1950s, Noam Chomsky proposed his theory of universal grammar, which argued that language acquisition is biologically determined and that children have an innate ability to acquire language. The idea revolutionized the field of linguistics and changed the way psychologists view language development.Universal grammar challenged the prevailing view that language development is due solely to environmental factors, instead proposing that newborns are equipped with brain circuits that contain information about the structure of language. We still know very little about the neurological basis of how newborns so easily acquire language.
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S49Napoleon: 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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S53S58Frozen methane under the seabed is thawing as oceans warm - and things are worse than we thought  Buried beneath the oceans surrounding continents is a naturally occurring frozen form of methane and water. Sometimes dubbed “fire-ice” as you can literally set light to it, marine methane hydrate can melt as the climate warms, uncontrollably releasing methane – a potent greenhouse gas – into the ocean and possibly the atmosphere. Releasing it from the seabed could cause the oceans to become more acidic and the climate to warm further. This is a dangerous set of circumstances.
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S42Conservatives' '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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S46S56S26'We Only Need Some Metal Things'  In the summer of 1940, when Great Britain was fighting Nazi Germany alone, Winston Churchill asked to borrow a few dozen aging American destroyers to defend the English coast from imminent invasion. Churchill wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Mr. President, with great respect, I must tell you that in the long history of the world, this is a thing to do now.”Today Ukraine is fighting Russia alone. American aid—never timely or sufficient, but enough to help keep Ukraine alive and Russian invaders at bay—is about to run out. U.S. shipments will stop in the next few weeks. Without American artillery, ammunition, missile systems, tanks, armored vehicles, humanitarian aid, or funds for reconstruction, Ukraine will be left to face the Russian onslaught with diminishing odds of survival. The Biden administration has asked Congress to vote for another $61 billion in aid for Ukraine. So far, Republicans are refusing. Members plan to leave D.C. for the holidays on December 15. This is a thing for them to do now.
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S11S39Humiliation 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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S37S68Liz Cheney: Trump Should Go to Jail if Convicted  Liz Cheney has been Republican royalty, and a conservative stalwart in Washington. But after protesting Donald Trump’s election lies, and voting for his impeachment after January 6th, she found herself in exile from the G.O.P. Cheney is contemplating a Presidential campaign on a third-party line. As she promotes her new book, “Oath and Honor,” she is raising the alarm that Americans across the political spectrum have become “numb” to the threat of a would-be dictator. “People really understood that what he had done [on January 6th] was unacceptable, not to mention unconstitutional and illegal,” she tells David Remnick. “That recognition quickly dwindled.” Plus, the country songwriter Brandy Clark talks with Emily Nussbaum about her Grammy-nominated self-titled album, and explains how she came to embrace the “dirtier” aesthetic of “Americana”: “I’ve heard it called country music for Democrats,” she jokes.Once a top Republican, Cheney is calling out her former colleagues in Congress—including Speaker Mike Johnson—for “enabling” a would-be dictator.
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S65Inquest into Soleiman Faqiri's death at an Ontario 'super jail' reignites calls for reform  Imagine your family member is experiencing a mental health crisis, but instead of being treated at a mental health facility, they are locked inside a notorious provincial jail. You go to help by bringing their medication and medical records but are turned away again and again. Days later, a knock at the door brings the devastating news that your loved one is dead.The Faqiri family has been living this nightmare for the last seven years. They had come to Canada as refugees from Afghanistan in the early 1990s hoping for a better life.
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