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CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!

S22
Jensen Huang made Nvidia a $3 trillion juggernaut. But the path to success was filled with 'despair' and 'torture'    

Nvidia has been holding a clinic in shattering expectations. The company’s market cap has increased 160% in the past six months, up to $3.10 trillion, as the rush to cash in on A.I. has launched the chip maker into position as the third most valuable company in the world, trailing only Apple ($3.30 trillion) and Microsoft ($3.25 trillion). “It’s incredibly hard to start a company; it’s incredibly hard to start a business,” Huang said at the conference. “The depth of despair, the suffering, the torture—balanced by the great joy of doing something the world has never done before—is beyond words can describe. So unless you believe you’re going to make a real contribution to society it’s going to be incredibly hard to start that journey.”

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S1
Modi, Macron bilateral emphasises furthering India-France defence cooperation; focus on indigenous mfg | Business Insider India    

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to further intensify strategic defence cooperation with an increased focus on 'Make in India' when both leaders met on the sidelines of the G7 Summit held in Italy on Friday.

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S2
UK election: How can the next government get climate goals on track?    

The UK’s journey to net zero has stalled – whoever wins the 4 July election will need to get it moving again, but many climate scientists are frustrated with what the main parties are offering

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S3
Einstein's theory was wrong about black holes made out of light    

The theory of relativity predicts black holes should be able to form from light alone, but incorporating quantum effects makes it impossible

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S4
Extending Support and Providing Assurance Can Help Those With Depression     

For some people, depression might be a “single episode,” meaning they go through a period of depression, but it doesn’t happen to them again. Other people have recurrent episodes in which they have to cope with depression at different times in their lives. Depression can also be chronic and something a person has to manage throughout their life.Noonan says it's important to follow through when a person is trying to help a loved one. If, for example, a person offers to make the loved one an appointment with a primary care physician to get a referral or start a discussion about the symptoms, then they need to follow through. Make the appointment as promised, drive them and wait outside, help them organize referrals, or pick up prescriptions.

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S5
When does old age begin? Science says later than you might think    

Though aging is often portrayed as a problem to fix, it’s more modifiable than you might think. According to the latest science, there’s no clear biological tipping point marking the transition from midlife to late life, says Eric Verdin, president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California.“There's an incredible amount of variability between different people,” says Verdin, who favors using someone’s biological age—which is how old your cells and tissues are—rather than their chronological age, which is the number of years you've been alive. (Read how inflammation impacts aging.)

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S6
Putin Proposes Cease-Fire in Ukraine With Extensive Territorial Conditions    

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Friday to order an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine and begin peace negotiations if Kyiv and its Western allies agree to a series of conditions. These include Ukraine withdrawing all of its troops from the four Russian-occupied territories of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia; the West lifting all sanctions imposed on Moscow; and Kyiv dropping its NATO membership bid.Moscow does not control all of the territory in these four regions, meaning that a Ukrainian surrender on these conditions would give Russia more land than it currently occupies. Combined with the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in February 2014, this would be a loss of more than one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

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S7
Is Europe's Turn to the Right Here to Stay?    

Right-wing populists did well in the EU Parliament elections. Now France’s president is testing the public’s appetite for being governed by them.

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S8
Colorado board decides a pricey Novartis medicine is unaffordable    

The Colorado Prescription Drug Affordability Board voted Friday to grant the designation to Cosentyx, which is used to treat conditions such as plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The vote means the board will decide in a follow-up meeting whether to pursue an upper payment limit for the drug, which an affordability review found cost an average of roughly $47,000 per patient in 2022.In reaching its decision, the board noted that 26% of insurance carriers who submitted information to a state claims database reported Cosentyx was one of the top 15 prescription drugs that led to increased premiums. Yet two years ago, Cosentyx was used by 1,128 residents compared to all of the available alternatives in the same class of medicines.

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S9
Biden administration to recalculate Medicare Advantage quality ratings and bonuses    

Recent court decisions required the Biden administration to make these changes to insurers’ star ratings, many of which came in lower than companies had expected and cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses. While many companies will regain lost bonuses, no insurers will have to forfeit money from the new calculations, government officials said. The government also is reopening the process for Medicare Advantage insurers to submit their 2025 plans to account for these changes.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier about the government’s pending action. Top officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the federal agency that oversees Medicare Advantage plans — formally laid out the plans in detail Thursday night in a memo that was sent to insurance companies.

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S10
Huge Blobs of Seaweed Are Choking the Caribbean's Iconic White Sand Beaches    

Massive blobs of sargassum seaweed are taking over Caribbean beaches. The seaweed explosion is fueled by pollution washing into the ocean from rivers in the Americas and Africa

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S11
Behold! Fresh Eye Candy (and Science) from the Euclid Space Telescope    

The latest images from Euclid, a European mission studying dark matter and dark energy, are spectacularly beautiful—and scientifically promising

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S12
Paul Scheer Picks the Very Best of the Very Worst Movies    

© 2024 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices

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S13
For Hamas, Everything Is Going According to Plan    

The leaders of both Israel and Hamas seem content for the war in Gaza to grind on into the indefinite future. Such is the upshot of their ambiguous, but essentially negative, responses to President Joe Biden’s peace proposal, which is now fully backed by the United Nations Security Council. And the reasons are obvious.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have concluded that the best way to stay out of prison on corruption charges is to stay in office, and the best way to do that is to keep the war going. Hamas, meanwhile, believes that it is winning. On October 13, I wrote in these pages that Hamas had set a trap for Israel. The trap has sprung; Israel is fully enmeshed in it, with no evident way out, and Hamas is getting exactly what it hoped for.

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S14
You Have Every Reason to Avoid Breathing Wildfire Smoke    

Summertime in North America is becoming smoke season. Last summer, when a haze from catastrophic Canadian wildfires hung over the continent—turning Montreal, where I lived at the time, an unearthly gray and my home city of New York a putrid orange—plenty of people seemed untroubled by this reality. Relatively few people wore masks; infamously, an outdoor yoga class continued on a skyscraper terrace in Manhattan. Research has long shown that exposure to the tiny particles that make up wildfire smoke is a major health hazard; it kills thousands of people prematurely each year and is linked to a range of maladies. Yet the message—that smoke is a legitimate health emergency—seems not to be getting through.Now, in mid-June, the smoke is creeping back. Ninety-four fires are currently burning in Canada, of which seven are uncontrolled. Last month, officials in Minnesota and Wisconsin issued air-quality warnings when smoke drifted south. The West is expecting an intense fire season. And smoke travels far beyond burn sites: Research from UC Davis published this month found that 99 percent of North America was covered by smoke at some point from 2019 to 2021, and that almost every lake on the continent spent at least 10 days a year under such haze.

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S15
As Google Targets AI Search Ads, It Could Learn a Lot From Bing    

For years Paula Thompson, vice president of client strategy at the US digital ad agency Optimal, has been helping Plunge sell baths to soak in chilling water by buying ads on Google search and Microsoft Bing. The ads appear atop results for searches such as “ice bath” and invite users to “Buy our cold plunge today” or “Experience the cold plunge difference.”But as Microsoft put an AI spin on its search engine, the tub maker’s ads on Bing now invite users to “learn about the benefits of cold plunging” or “learn about the exclusive benefits of Plunge,” according to Thompson. They direct to informational material, not the purchase pages that were mainly pushed before.

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S16
5 Traps to Avoid as You Gain Power as a Leader    

As you transition to a leadership role, your relationship to power changes: You gain more of it, and people start acting differently around you due to your authority. How can you avoid the hidden traps of gaining power, which shapes you in ways you may not realize? The authors outline five key traps leaders can fall into — the savior trap, the complacency trap, the avoidance trap, the friend trap, and the stress trap — and offer ways to counteract each.

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S17
Learning to Delegate as a First-Time Manager    

Learning how to delegate well is a skill every first-time manager needs to learn from the very start. Many people are promoted into management for doing their previous job well. But once you’re promoted into a leadership role, you must accept that you can’t do everything on your own — nor should you. Though it may seem counterintuitive, the more senior you become in an organization, the less you’ll be involved in doing the day-to-day work. You’ll need to have a sense of what’s happening without directly contributing to every project. To do that, you first have to change your mindset from “doing” to “managing,” even though it might feel uncomfortable. If you resist this change, you’ll likely end up overwhelmed and (unintentionally) holding onto opportunities that could be given to your team.

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S18
Didn't Get Your Employee Retention Credit? Sue the IRS!    

The agency stopped processing new ERC claims last September, citing rampant fraud. In April, the IRS clawed back hundreds of millions worth of ERCs that were erroneously claimed. Still, tax advisory firms and businesses alike have started turning to the courts to force the IRS's hand, although they have yet to triumph, as litigation tends to move slowly. Such is the case for Jonathan Cardella, who runs Strike Tax, a tax advisory firm in Boise, Idaho. Cardella's firm--which initially focused on advising businesses on how to tap into R&D tax credits--saw interest spike from businesses wanting to pursue the employee retention tax credit. Within a year, he says, ERCs went from a small portion of the business to a majority of it. 

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S19
Wells Fargo Fires Employees 'Faking Work'--Raising Questions About Remote Work and Quiet Vacationing    

According to a Bloomberg report, the company fired them after looking into suspicions "they were faking work." The bank's filings on the matter with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority stated the workers with its wealth management unit were "discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work."It's unclear whether those caught with their noses elsewhere than to the grindstone were working at home when caught phoning--or rather, faux-typing--their duties in. But that's the conclusion many observers are coming to, given the determination with which return-to-work mandates were imposed by some employers over the last year--and resisted with equal energy by fans of less rigid home and hybrid arrangements. 

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S20
Yoox Net-a-Porter exits China to focus on more profitable markets    

Luxury ecommerce platform’s decision comes at a time of weaker economic momentum in the mainland

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S21
Bank of America says Broadcom could be the next trillion-dollar company--but rival Nvidia would still be 3 times larger    

Broadcom, an American semiconductor manufacturer, announced a 10-to-1 stock split and better-than-expected earnings in its second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. In the report, Broadcom also projected $51 billion in sales for the 2024 fiscal year, slightly higher than anticipated. Shares soared that day in after-hours trading and were going for about $1,740 around 3 p.m. ET on Friday—about 16% higher than their Wednesday opening price near $1,500.In a note to investors on Thursday, Bank of America boosted its target price for Broadcom shares to $2,000 and raised its 2025 fiscal year sales forecast to $59.9 billion, which would be a 16% year-over-year gain. BofA cited semiconductor sales and its acquisition of software firm VMWare last year.

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S23
These Are The Billionaires Supporting Trump's Campaign    

Harold Hamm: The Continental Resources founder and longtime Trump friend—who donated to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' primary bids—was among the attendees at the now-infamous April Mar-A-Lago dinner with oil executives where Trump reportedly pitched industry-friendly policies while soliciting a $1 billion donation, and in May, Hamm co-hosted a Houston fundraiser for Trump, Reuters reported. (We estimate Hamm is worth $18.5 billion)Timothy Mellon: A longtime Republican mega-donor and top contributor to Trump's 2020 campaign, Mellon is the most prolific donor of the 2024 election cycle, USA Today reported, citing OpenSecrets data that shows Mellon donated $25 million each to super PACs backing both Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (We estimate the Mellon family is worth $14.1 billion)

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S24
Billionaire Groupon Founder Eric Lefkofsky's Health Tech Company Goes Public--His Fourth IPO    

Shares of the company were priced on the Nasdaq on Thursday at $37 per share and started trading on Friday, giving Tempus a market capitalization of $6.1 billion, lower than Tempus' last private valuation of $8.5 billion from a 2022 funding round. Lefkofsky, who is founder and CEO, holds an estimated 33% stake in the company, worth $2 billion. That makes Lefkofsky's net worth approximately $3.9 billion. Tempus is his first company to go public since the IPO of discount-deal e-commerce company Groupon in 2011, a listing that made him a billionaire.Lefkofsky founded Tempus in 2015, after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and he was "just perplexed at how little data had permeated her care," he told Forbes in 2019. The firm, which has 2,300 employees, started as an oncology-focused company—sequencing, for example, cancer patients' tumor samples and analyzing them with machine-learning-trained models to help determine a more accurate diagnosis and personalized treatment—and has gradually expanded to other disease areas: neuropsychiatry, radiology and cardiology. Its customers include more than 2,000 healthcare providers who send their patients' samples for testing and 19 of the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, which license Tempus' massive troves of data for use in drug discovery. Tempus lost $214 million on $532 million in 2023 revenue; major expenses include the cost of running genetic tests, spending on research and development, and purchasing and training data. Its long-term goal, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission about the public offering, is to use artificial intelligence to analyze healthcare data and further personalize care to "all major disease areas globally."

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S25
One of Blizzard's Most Divisive Classes Influenced 'Diablo 4's' New Update    

For the first time in over a decade, Blizzard is adding an entirely new class to a mainline Diablo game. And according to Diablo’s franchise manager, this new playable archetype wouldn’t have been possible if the series mobile game, Diablo Immortal, didn’t prove players were ready for such a bold expansion on the existing lore.The Spiritborn are the biggest addition included in Diablo 4’s upcoming paid expansion, Vessel Of Hatred. While Blizzard hasn’t revealed much about this mysterious new class, we do know that the Spiritborn are warriors who seem native to the Nahantu region, the setting of the upcoming DLC set to drop later this fall. Blizzard will give a full breakdown of this new class during a Diablo livestream on July 18.

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S26
Real-Time Strategy Games Are On the Cusp of a Massive Comeback    

This year’s Summer Game Fest had tons of announcements, but amidst all the flashy reveals, I noticed an interesting trend. Real-time strategy games are on the verge of a massive renaissance. I was able to go hands-on with three different RTS games, and to my surprise, each brings a wildly unique approach to revitalizing the genre. Stormgate carries on the legacy of Starcraft with a dynamic asymmetric approach, Battle Aces tries to make RTS approachable to everyone, and Age of Mythology: Retold revitalizes one of the most important games of the genre. I had extensive hands-on with all three titles, and left feeling more excited for the future of RTS games than I have in over a decade. If you’re a strategy fan there’s a lot on the horizon, and if you’re not, well, maybe it’s about time you give RTS a serious try. There’s never been a better time. Here’s how each game is pushing the genre into a comeback.

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S27
50 Years Ago, the Most Underrated Conspiracy Thriller of the '70s Accidentally Predicted the Future    

"Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe it's everybody else's problem that they don't get along with you?"We live in a time of rampant misinformation and political paranoia, an era in which ludicrous conspiracy theories are allowed to take root in the minds of millions. Modern society has been driven to this point by numerous forces, including rampant, social media-driven disinformation campaigns and corruption scandals that have shaken voters' confidence in their political representatives.

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S28
'Metaphor: Refantazio' Already Feels Primed to Be Another Cult Classic From The Developer Behind Persona    

The release of Persona 5 in 2016 was a pivotal moment for Atlus, catapulting a niche RPG series about high schoolers into the mainstream. Persona has become a veritable phenomenon, and at the same time, Atlus has become a household name. I know comparing things to Persona 5 can be a tired practice at this point, but its influence on Metaphor: Refantazio is clear to see, from the striking art style to the combat. Even with that Persona foundation, Metaphor feels like something fresh and new, Atlus using its expertise to create an expansive new world begging to be explored. This has the potential to be a cult classic, just waiting to be unleashed. At Summer Game Fest, we were able to play through a three-part demo of Metaphor: part story, part battles, and the final one a mix of social elements and a boss battle. It’s practically impossible to get a read on a 100-hour RPG story with just a little snippet, but Metaphor’s setup is undoubtedly compelling. The game’s fantasy world is supposed to be a “mirror” of the contemporary world, one wracked by strife and tension between the eight different races. After the current king is assassinated, something called the Royal Magic is activated, meaning anyone can become the next king by gaining enough support from the people. You’re one of those hopeful candidates.

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S29
Boeing's Starliner Will Attempt A First-Of-Its-Kind Landing For A U.S. Capsule    

Two astronauts will break from American spaceflight tradition next week, when their capsule drops down onto land, instead of splashing at sea.As early as next Tuesday, the Boeing Starliner will undock from the International Space Station (ISS) with two astronauts inside. Instead of landing in the ocean, as their fellow NASA Commercial Crew Program partner, SpaceX, has been successfully doing with its Crew Dragon at least twice each year since 2020, Starliner will become the first and only American orbital crew capsule to touch down on land.

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S30
Rotatable Scroll Wheels Are the Best New Phone Trend in a Decade    

The time has come for phones to get weird again. Nothing kicked off the return of fun-designed gadgets with eye-catching transparent aesthetics and an LED “Glyph” system with the Phone 1, then the Phone 2 and Phone 2a, and now more phone makers are daring to break the unibody glass slab status quo.The latest phone trend that I am 100 percent here for: scroll wheels. Yes, honest to god, tactile discs you can rotate around and around and around.

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S31
How to Beat Mohg in 'Elden Ring' and Access the Game's New DLC    

A full breakdown and guide to defeating Mohg in Elden Ring so you can start the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.Mohg is one of the more well-hidden bosses in Elden Ring, tucked away in the Mohgwyn Palace. The majority of players missed this boss while playing, but the race is now on to defeat him since doing so is a prerequisite for accessing the game’s upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree expansion.

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S32
This Humanoid Robot is Trying to Give Every Car Tesla-Like Self-Driving    

Autonomous software like Full Self Driving may end up being great for Telsa drivers, but what about everyone else?A research paper out of Japan showed off an autonomous driving project that puts a humanoid robot in front of the steering wheel, driving a car that is decidedly not equipped with Tesla’s FSD Beta or any other self-driving software for that matter.

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S33
This Upcoming Nintendo Switch Game Makes Platforming Feel Fresh Again    

PlayStation’s Astro Bot recently made a splash at the State of Play showcase, but it isn’t the only promising platformer to be revealed in the past few weeks. Buried amongst the avalanche of announcements from Summer Game Fest was the reveal of Nikoderiko: The Magical World, an upcoming platformer that looks like an homage to some of the best games in the genre with a charm all its own.Nikoderiko is being published by Knights Peak, a new division of My.Games, which focuses on PC and console releases, rather than the company’s usual mobile games. A showcase from Knights Peak revealed that Casper Van Dien (Johnny Rico in the Starship Troopers movie) will be joining the cast of the Starship Troopers: Extermination FPS and indie Soulslike Mandragora is also joining the label, but Nikoderiko was the announcement that really caught my eye.

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S34
The Weirdest Fantasy Epic of the Year Puts a Unique Spin on a Classic Story    

Death looks a little different in Tuesday. Instead of the standard appearance of a cloaked, skeletal man, this Grim Reaper takes the form of a parrot, albeit one that’s grungy, filthy, and looks like he’s halfway dead too. Grudgingly, Death (voiced by Arinzé Kene) makes his way from one victim to the next, called to each person by their dying words. Those words never stop, echoing in Death’s head like constant white noise, until one day, Death arrives to kill Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), a terminally ill teenager whose lungs are about to give out. Realizing that she’s staring Death right in the face, Tuesday suddenly interrupts his creeping approach with a joke about a car full of penguins. Death laughs, and the voices stop. And thus begins the odd, lovely, and enchantingly strange directorial debut from Daina O. Pusić.Tuesday walks a fine line between moving and mawkish, a thoughtful and high-concept portrait of a mother’s grief that also sometimes manages to be a little too cute. But thanks to a wholly dedicated performance from Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tuesday manages to transcend its slightly thin premise.

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S35
From Urine (Yes, Urine) to Helium: The Most Common and Bizarre Leaks During Space Travel    

Hours after Starliner launched, teams detected helium leaks on several of the spacecraft’s thrusters. The Boeing Starliner will return to Earth no earlier than June 22, a four-day delay from its previous target date. Helium leaks, discovered once Starliner was in space, may be part of the reason for the delay.

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S36
8 Weird But Useful Model Y and Model 3 Accessories You Need to Know    

Take one look at the Model 3 and Model Y subreddits and you’ll find no shortage of requests asking for the must-have accessories for their Tesla-made EV. The go-to answer remains the same: screen protector and floor mats.Despite those boring answers, there’s a whole world — from desks to fridges — of more interesting accessories, including products from third parties and Tesla itself. Here are eight surprisingly handy accessories that we found to level up your Model 3 or Model Y.

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S37
49 Years Later, the Oldest Sci-Fi Show Just Brought Back A Daunting Forgotten Villain    

There are a lot of strange, strange creatures in the universe of Doctor Who. But the finale of the newly rebooted Season 1 will find the 15th Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) battling an enemy that he previously faced back when he was rocking a head full of curls and an infinitely long scarf.At the end of Doctor Who Season 1, Episode 7, “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” the shocking new villain might leave more contemporary fans scratching their heads. Turns out the much-teased “One Who Waits” is an ancient god that the Doctor has vanquished before. Here’s why the Big Bad of this episode requires a bit of time travel back to 1975, and the epic 4th Doctor adventure, “The Pyramids of Mars.”

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S38
65 of the Cleverest, Most Genius Things Most Added to Amazon Wish Lists    

Sure, you know the products that have been lingering on your wish list. But do you ever wonder what’s at the top of other shoppers’ wish lists? Well, you’re in luck. We’ve sifted through Amazon’s list of “most-wished-for” items to bring you the 65 cleverest, most genius things that shoppers are pining for. They run the gamut, from clever car accessories to things that make your home more fun and more functional. And the best part is, these wish lists picks are only a few clicks away from becoming a reality. You don’t need to bring in a contractor or an electrician to upgrade your lighting. These easy-to-use wireless LED lights can be attached to most surfaces with the included mounting tape or screws. They have a dimmable design, with multiple color choices and a remote control that makes them convenient to customize. And they’re a seamless way to add more light where you need it, whether it’s under kitchen cabinets, along stairs, or even in closet.

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S39
5 Years Later, Marvel's Darkest Spinoff is Still its Most Mature Show    

For the past two decades, superhero cinema has been shaped by the rise of gritty reboots. The Dark Knight earned praise for its sophisticated action and grounded tone, contrasting with the cartoonish Batman of the 1990s. Five years later, Man of Steel faced criticism for introducing grit where it didn’t belong. Since then, superhero fans have been trapped in a circular argument about which adaptations should or shouldn’t be “dark,” overlapping with debates over what qualifies as adult storytelling.Is violence and misery inherently mature? Is optimism inherently childish? Should we take Batman more seriously than Iron Man because he cracks fewer jokes? These talking points get more tedious with every cycle, especially since they ignore the fact that most superhero movies, gritty or not, are formulaic PG-13 blockbusters aimed at a broad mainstream audience. Back in the mid-2010s, this trend extended to family-friendly TV spinoffs like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But with Daredevil and Jessica Jones, Marvel’s Netflix franchise decided to do something different and genuinely adult.

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S40
The Most Divisive Star Wars Show Ever Has One Major Problem    

In The Acolyte Episode 3, “Destiny,” one question is specifically raised: Are the Jedi good or what? This proactive debate is at the center of the entire show, unpacking the nitty-gritty of what we thought we knew about the Jedi for the past several decades. Just in case you’re confused, Episode 3 makes this dichotomy painfully obvious when Mae screams, “The Jedi are evil!” at young Osha, who counters with the powerful rejoinder, “The Jedi are good!” This attempt to discuss the ethics of the Jedi is interesting, even if it’s clumsy.This central conversation is obviously compelling, but it also could be the Achilles’ heel of the series. While various trolls pathetically try to dunk on The Acolyte for racist and sexist reasons, diversity is not the show’s problem. Those elements should, of course, be celebrated. But, from a purely structural standpoint, it feels like The Acolyte is trying to do a lot at the same time. The series introduces the High Republic in live action, teases a mysterious Sith villain, tells the story of Mae’s exacting bloody revenge, and drops breadcrumbs for a meandering mystery, which began years in the past. It’s a lot to juggle, and the balls are falling.

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S41
Why Do Dogs Have Whiskers? A Veterinarian Reveals the Forgotten Reason    

Cats aren’t the only pets with long, luxurious whiskers. Well, maybe dog whiskers aren’t as lithe, but these fur babies still share this trait. But why do dogs have whiskers anyway?Whiskers are specialized hairs that work as touch receptors, according to Brian Collins, a veterinarian at the Cornell Riney Canine Health Center. “When their whiskers brush up against things, that sends a signal that there's something there,” Collins tells Inverse. That sense of touch helps them get around, especially because their eyesight close up isn’t sharp.

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S42
70 Years Ago, a Wild American Sci-Fi Thriller Beat Godzilla to the Punch    

When it comes to the parade of giant cinematic monsters introduced in the 1950s, the one with the longest (and most profitable) legacy is Godzilla. Working as both sheer spectacle and horrific nuclear metaphor, the “King of the Monsters” went on to have a ludicrously successful film career. However, it wasn’t the first big creature to stomp across our screens, nor was it the first one to harness potent atomic allegory. Seventy years ago, and a few months before Godzilla’s Japanese premiere, Them! gave us an underrated genre classic, albeit with a very American point of view.By 1954, Hollywood’s monster mash was in full swing. A 1952 re-release of the original King Kong had been a hit, and was swiftly followed in 1953 by The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. In that film, the gigantic “Rhedosaurus” is awakened by a bomb test and eventually killed by radiation poisoning, turning atomic weaponry into both a nasty alarm clock and a devastating defensive countermeasure. Both films would inspire Godzilla, while America would double down on nuclear beasts in the form of super-sized ants with Them!

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S43
Steam Just Released a Demo for the Chillest Puzzle Game of the Year    

Just because video games tend to keep you inside doesn’t mean they can’t help you feel just a little closer to nature. More and more games lately are embracing an ecological message, and a new contender for one of the best is now available on Steam. Developer Bitmap Galaxy’s Preserve isn’t due out in full until later this year, but you can try it out with a new demo during Steam Next Fest.Preserve’s hex grid probably looks a little familiar to board game players, and even more so to fans of the 2022 puzzle game Dorfromantik. In fact, Preserve looks almost identical to Dorfromantik at first, opening with just a few empty hexes floating in the void, but once you start filling that space up, the differences are immediately apparent. Where Dorfromantik was all about building up tiny towns by placing houses and railroads, Preserve is about creating a home for wildlife.

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S44
'Doctor Who' Just Brought Back Its Weirdest Time Travel Tech, 52 Years Later    

Although Doctor Who primarily concerns the adventures of the Doctor zipping through time and space in his quirky TARDIS — a box that allows travel through Time And Relative Dimension In Space — there are, in fact other forms of time travel within the canon of the Whoniverse. And oddly, some of the most paradoxical timey-wimey adventures in all of Doctor Who occur when the characters are not using the TARDIS. In the days of the 10th, 11th, and 12th Doctor, the most common alternative to the TARDIS was a wrist device known as a vortex manipulator, commonly described as “cheap and nasty time travel” and used by everyone from Captain Jack Harkness to Missy. But hiding in plain sight is another Who time travel method, one which makes a sneaky comeback in the penultimate new Season 1 episode “The Legend of Ruby Sunday.” In order to see into the past, back to 2004, the Doctor asks UNIT to use a “time window,” which ends up causing all sorts of problems. But what is a time window? Here’s the cheap and nasty history of this alt-time travel tech.

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S45
No One You Love Is Ever Dead: Hemingway on the Most Devastating of Losses and the Meaning of Life    

“We must live it, now, a day at a time and be very careful not to hurt each other.”

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S46
The Beach and the Soul: Anne Morrow Lindbergh on the Benedictions of the Sea    

“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient… Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, …

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S47
Poop has been an easy target for microbiome research, but voyages into the small intestine shed new light on ways to improve gut health    

Likened by some scientists to another human organ, your microbiome is collectively the tens of trillions of microorganisms that live in interconnected populations on and in your body. They serve as miniature sentinels that help protect your body’s surfaces from pathogenic invaders. In the upper intestine, distinct microbial populations also aid in digestion, metabolism and even immunity.I am a gastroenterologist who has spent the past 20 years studying the microbiome’s role in health and disease. Advances in technology are helping scientists investigate the small intestine microbiome and the promise it holds for better understanding and treating many diseases.

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S48
Has Reform really overtaken the Tories in the polls? And does that mean it could beat them on July 4?    

A YouGov poll has put Reform UK ahead of the Conservatives for the first time. After a terrible few weeks of election campaigning, the Tories are on 18% while Reform has edged ahead to 19%. The same poll gave Labour 37% and the Liberal Democrats 14%. This news makes a great headline, but it actually means the Conservatives and Reform are essentially neck-and-neck in the polls. This is because all surveys are subject to errors, which are commonly plus or minus 3% in a typical poll.

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S49
Research nation: Birmingham hosts BISA 2024    

“So, this is your first time in the UK and you’ve come to Birmingham? Poor you,” went the conversation on the train. Earwigging from down the carriage, I winced, and I have no connection to the vast conurbation that is often proudly referred to by inhabitants as England’s “second city”. But what I’d heard was not an atypical reaction from British people when considering “Brum”, a city often harshly regarded as uneasy on the eye. The West Midlands (as you might guess, neighbour to the East Midlands I visited a couple of weeks ago) is however, a vast and diverse region, home to almost three million people and a wider metropolitan population of more than four million. The response from the visitor, in the UK from Sweden, was rather more positive than the resident Englishman might have expected. She’d had a great few days, and despite the (predictably) inconsistent early summer weather was already thinking of a return to these shores.

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S50
There's frustratingly little discussion of our music and nighttime industries in this election    

So far the UK 2024 elections have been dominated by discussions on migration and fiscal responsibility. As a result, the space dedicated to arts, culture and music has felt relatively minuscule.But there are important issues to be addressed in these industries, especially in the face of city councils slashing their culture and heritage budgets – such as Birmingham in February. This has been likened to creating a “cultural wasteland” and causing “cultural deprivation”.

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