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YouTube in Africa offers a new kind of news - The Economist (No paywall)
 Salam madior fall has been a pioneer more than once. In 1999, while studying in America, he and a friend founded Seneweb, one of the first websites devoted to news from Senegal, his home. By 2002 Seneweb was the most visited news site in Francophone Africa. In the late 2000s, media firms there still focused on satellite television. Mr Fall thought that setting up “a fully-fledged tv channel would be going backwards”. So in 2012 he started putting news videos on YouTube. Today, Seneweb’s headquarters in Dakar has more than 100 employees, plans to expand across West Africa, and has correspondents as far afield as Europe and America.
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WorkAfter a Big Week for Democrats, One Good Day for TrumpHe seemed almost chipper (at least more chipper than the night before, when he called into Fox News with his initial meandering reviews of Ms. Harris’s big speech). He talked about how the restaurant’s owner had started as a dishwasher and worked his way up, and joked with him about how he must have lots of cash now. The owner compared Mr. Trump to Ronald Reagan. “Thank you, Javier,” said Mr. Trump, looking touched. Work
WorkWorkWhy Harris's Barrier-Breaking Bid Feels Nothing Like Hillary Clinton's“This is a time where the rights of women are fundamentally under attack as it relates to abortion, I.V.F., when and how to have a family,” said Senator Laphonza Butler, Democrat of California and a close Harris ally. “It’s not about minimizing the importance of race or gender. It is about appreciating that in this moment in the history of our country, this election is bigger than anybody’s race or gender.” WorkWorkFrom In the Dark: What Happened That Day in Haditha? - The New Yorker (No paywall)This program is drawn from a new season of the award-winning investigative podcast In the Dark. On a November day in 2005, in the city of Haditha, Iraq, something terrible happened. “Depending on whose story you believed, the killings were a war crime, a murder,” the lead reporter Madeleine Baran says. “Or they were a legitimate combat action and the victims were collateral damage. Or the killings were a tragic mistake, unintentional—sad, but not criminal. Basically, the only thing that everyone could agree on was that twenty-four people had died, and it was Marines who’d killed them.” Season 3 of In the Dark looks at what happened that day in Haditha, and why no one was held accountable for the killings. Baran and her team travelled to twenty-one states and three continents over the course of four years to report on a story that the world had largely forgotten. Episode 1 airs this week on The New Yorker Radio Hour, and you can listen to the rest of the series wherever you get your podcasts. Work5 Moments That Make or Break a CEO-Board Chair Relationship - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)What distinguishes an effective CEO-board chair relationship? According to a Spencer Stuart survey of nearly 200 directors and 30 CEOs of S&P 500 companies, trust is the most critical factor. Chairs and CEOs build trust over time by being vulnerable, open, and transparent about their expectations and challenges — particularly in five moments: 1) when negotiating CEO compensation; 2) during the annual CEO evaluation; 3) when giving feedback from executive sessions of the board; 4) when boards consider their own composition and succession; and 5) in moments of adversity. WorkYou Might Think More Police Surveillance Means More Safety. There Are Several Problems With That.Across the United States, cities are spending a larger share of the money at their disposal buying and deploying surveillance technology. From cameras to A.I.–enhanced microphones, and from automated license plate readers to drones and robots, cities are responding to cries for more safety with security theater. This might lead to a few extra arrests, but it does little to create sustainable safety. Forcing residents in neighborhoods with higher crime rates to live under constant, all-seeing digital scrutiny will neither make people safer from the systematic harms they face, including police violence, nor patch up their rocky relationship with the police who are sworn to protect and serve them. WorkAfter Kennedy's Endorsement of Trump, the Two Signal a New AllianceStill, Mr. Trump and his allies on Friday relished the fact that the former president had won the backing of a member of America’s most storied Democratic family, albeit one who has had many of his relatives denounce him and his endorsement of Mr. Trump. Of all the outlandish political news stories of the summer, mused Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, which helped organize the rally, “maybe most remarkable of all: A Kennedy has endorsed a Republican.” WorkTrump's Carefully Scripted Week Kept Veering Off ScriptHe openly rejected advice from allies to limit his personal attacks on Ms. Harris and other Democrats during a speech on Wednesday in North Carolina. He called the nation’s first Black vice president “lazy” during a stop in Arizona on Thursday afternoon and, that night, rambled during a 10-minute phone call with Fox News. The anchors ultimately cut him off and ended the interview, but Mr. Trump picked up where he had left off by quickly phoning into Newsmax. WorkWork WorkAlain Delon to be buried in grounds of his estate in 'strictest privacy'Identified with French cinema's resurgence in the 1960s, Delon starred in a string of classic films such as Plein Soleil, Le Samouraï and Rocco and His Brothers. Once a familiar face in Douchy, he had not been seen in the village for several years after he suffered a stroke in 2019 and was diagnosed with a slow-developing lymphoma in 2022. WorkRegulators are focusing on real AI risks over theoretical ones. Good - The Economist (No paywall)“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” HAL 9000, the murderous computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey” is one of many examples in science fiction of an artificial intelligence (AI) that outwits its human creators with deadly consequences. Recent progress in AI, notably the release of ChatGPT, has pushed the question of “existential risk” up the international agenda. In March 2023 a host of tech luminaries, including Elon Musk, called for a pause of at least six months in the development of AI over safety concerns. At an AI-safety summit in Britain last autumn, politicians and boffins discussed how best to regulate this potentially dangerous technology. 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From the Editor's Desk
Charted: The U.S. National Debt Reaches $35 Trillion Since January, the U.S. debt pile has expanded by $1 trillion alone, moving the debt-to-GDP ratio to 98%. By 2032, the International Monetary Fund projects that this ratio could surpass 140% under current policies. Despite the looming threat to U.S. fiscal sustainability, neither Republican or Democratic parties show political incentive to address the rapid pace of borrowing.
As a result, the cost of servicing government debt is surging. In 2024, interest costs on the national debt are forecast to reach 17% of federal spending, making it the fastest growing expense overall. These interest costs are expected to escalate further as higher interest rates drive up the cost of new borrowing.
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WorkHow Companies Can Take a Global Approach to AI Ethics - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)
 Many efforts to build an AI ethics program miss an important fact: ethics differ from one cultural context to the next. Ideas about right and wrong in one culture may not translate to a fundamentally different context, and even when there is alignment, there may well be important differences in the ethical reasoning at work — cultural norms, religious tradition, etc. — that need to be taken into account. Because AI and related data regulations are rarely uniform across geographies, compliance can be difficult. To address this problem, companies need to develop a contextual global AI ethics model that prioritizes collaboration with local teams and stakeholders and devolves decision-making authority to those local teams. This is particularly necessary if their operations span several geographies. Work
WorkOpenAI co-founder John Schulman says he will leave and join rival Anthropic
Last week, Altman said on X that OpenAI \"has been working with the US AI Safety Institute on an agreement where we would provide early access to our next foundation model so that we can work together to push forward the science of AI evaluations.\" Altman said OpenAI is still committed to keeping 20% of its computing resources for safety initiatives. WorkHow to reduce the risk of developing dementia - The Economist (No paywall)
Some of the best strategies for reducing the chances of developing dementia are, to put it kindly, impracticable: don’t grow old; don’t be a woman; choose your parents carefully. But although old age remains by far the biggest risk factor, women are more at risk than men and some genetic inheritances make dementia more likely or even almost inevitable, the latest research suggests that as many as 45% of cases of dementia are preventable—or at least that their onset can be delayed. WorkWorkHow the Google Antitrust Ruling May Influence Tech Competition
The influence of the Microsoft antitrust case was, in fact, apparent in the Google decision. In Judge Mehta’s 277-page judgment, Microsoft appeared on 104 pages, both as an aspiring rival to Google and as a legal precedent. Google has said it will appeal the ruling. WorkWork WorkBangladesh's prime minister just fled the country in a helicopter. Why?
The movement that ultimately toppled her started with students frustrated at their lack of job prospects and snowballed to include ordinary Bangladeshis facing increasingly tough economic conditions. But the jubilant scenes in the capital Dhaka come at great cost; around 300 people have been killed since the protests started in June, and the country’s future remains uncertain as a military-backed caretaker government steps in. WorkWhat happens when everyone decides they need a gun?
It’s a Saturday morning on the South Side of Chicago, and the heat is rising in the classroom as firearms instructor Mike Brown leads students through gun-handling drills. They hold the model guns aloft until he yells, “Chest!,” which is their cue to draw the weapons back to their bodies. He drills them over and over, so pointing the gun feels like pure instinct, a reflex each time they hear him shout, “Threat!” WorkColorado wants to bring back the wolverine. There's just one problem.
When Hugh Jackman agreed to play the mutant superhero Wolverine in the X-Men franchise, he didn’t know that wolverines were real. He thought he was playing a wolf. At a loss for how to mimic a wild canine, he watched a documentary on wolves to better understand how they moved and acted, arriving on set with a “funny” gait. He recalled the ridicule of his director Bryan Singer in an interview with Page Six in 2017: “He said, ‘You know you’re not a wolf, right? ... Go to the zoo, dude.’ I literally didn’t know [wolverines] existed.” WorkThe crucial first step in preparing for a climate disaster
When your phone makes that discordant shrill noise and a disaster alert pops up, do you know what to do? Do you have a go bag? Do you have a place to crash for a few days? Do you have a way to get there? What about your kids or your pets? And if your home’s roof gets ripped off while you’re away, do you have enough cash to fix it? Have you thought about moving entirely? WorkWork WorkWork WorkHow these trickster caterpillars outwit and outlast other insects - Photography (No paywall)
Before they transform into moths and butterflies, caterpillars must outwit, outplay, outlast. Sam Jaffe’s images of the tubular creatures show just how: through mimicry, defensive adaptations, and partnerships with plants. The naturalist-photographer has been enamored with the insects since age four. “I used to bring them into my parents’ house,” he says. “They’d find them crawling up the walls.” While working at Harvard University, Jaffe began taking pictures of native caterpillars during his free time, then displaying the results at local galleries. The exhibitions sparked so much interest that he launched an educational nonprofit, the Caterpillar Lab, in 2013, to open our eyes to these masters of metamorphosis and inspire their protection. WorkWorkTrump and His Allies Seize on Market Downturn to Attack Harris
By lunchtime, it was official party messaging: The Republican National Committee hyped the “Great Kamala Crash of 2024,” and the Trump campaign had produced and circulated on social media a video tying the vice president to Monday’s dip in the markets. By the afternoon, the Trump forces had turned “KamalaCrash” into a “trending” subject on X. WorkWorkThames, Yorkshire and Northumbrian Water face
WorkWorkWorkplace Loneliness Is an Epidemic. Here's How to Change That - Inc.com (No paywall)
For the first 30 minutes of the two-hour meeting, these coworkers reveal hopes and anxieties--what they worry about, what they're grateful for, what they're feeling. Even at a company focused on connecting people, forging real relationships in the workplace takes effort, Hinge CEO Justin McLeod told an audience at the South by Southwest conference earlier this year. He was co-presenting at the event with Ann Shoket, whose initiative to combat workplace loneliness is called "10 Minutes to Togetherness." WorkWhen a Team Member Speaks Up -- and It Doesn't Go Well - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)
Speaking up — and being heard — in organizations is critical, but failed attempts to speak up happen often at work and can lead people to silence themselves and others in the long run. Instead, leaders and team members should frame such situations as opportunities to learn. But this isn’t easy; it can be difficult to recognize such moments as learning opportunities; it can be difficult to move beyond counterproductive emotions like shame and blame,;and we tend to be too busy and focused on the short term to learn. The authors’ research and experience have shown that the antidote starts with all team members, including the leader, explicitly framing such interactions as experiments from which everyone expects to learn; preparing for them; paying attention to them; implementing certain process tools; and thinking more long-term about learning. WorkWorkVirginia man threatened to set Kamala Harris on fire, FBI says
According to court records reviewed by Newsweek, Frank Carillo of Winchester, Virginia, was charged with making threats against the vice president of the United States after investigators found that he had made several threatening statements on microblogging platform GETTR. Carillo had his first court appearance in the Western District of Virginia on Monday, where a judge ruled that the defendant be detained pending a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday. WorkAI Lawsuits From Music Labels Pose Fair-Use Questions - Inc.com (No paywall)
Country musician Tift Merritt's most popular song on Spotify, "Traveling Alone," is a ballad with lyrics evoking solitude and the open road. Prompted by Reuters to make "an Americana song in the style of Tift Merritt," the artificial intelligence music website Udio instantly generated "Holy Grounds," a ballad with lyrics about "driving old backroads" while "watching the fields and skies shift and sway." WorkWorkHarris Nears Her Big V.P. Reveal After Fierce Lobbying From Democrats
Some of the candidates even tried to cozy up to influential friends of Ms. Harris’s, hoping that it might make their way back to the vice president — or at least to one of the people in the tight group of confidants advising her. Two presumed favorites, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, have been checking in with Democratic members of Congress by phone in recent days. Work'It was the one great mistake in my life': The letter from Einstein that ushered in the age of the atomic bomb
In July 1955, the name that signed off the seminal 1939 letter to Roosevelt would feature posthumously in the title of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, an emotively worded resolution against nuclear war initiated by philosopher Bertrand Russell and endorsed by Einstein just a week before his death. \"We appeal, as human beings, to human beings,\" reads part of the text. \"Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you do so, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.\" WorkStocks Rebound After a Day of Wild Selling Worldwide
The sharp jolt to stock markets started last week in Japan, where worries about the state of the U.S. economy were compounded by concerns about the effects a rapidly strengthening yen would have on corporate profits. WorkWorkWorkRising methane emissions from wetlands may undermine climate targets - New Scientist (No paywall)
After years of taking a back seat to carbon dioxide, methane has seen a surge of attention as a potent greenhouse gas that must be reduced to meet climate targets. It is responsible for nearly a third of global warming so far. But just as many countries are starting to take steps to reduce methane emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture, climate change is causing methane emissions from wetlands and other hard-to-control natural sources to rise. WorkWhen Your Boss Suddenly Reduces Your Scope - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)
All careers have highs and lows, and scope reductions can be particularly challenging. You may feel like immediately handing in your resignation or retreating and disengaging. It’s natural, but neither response is helpful. Your manager and coworkers are watching how you respond, making it even more critical to approach this difficult situation with composure and pragmatism. In this article, the author offers six strategies to help you bounce back and productively move forward. WorkMargaret Hodge's lessons from east London on countering the far right - The Economist (No paywall)
WHEN LABOUR swept back into power in last month’s British general election, I felt elated. But I also grew worried about the potential implications of the results for mainstream politics. The numbers that emerged on the night of July 4th reminded me of what happened in Barking from 2001 to 2010, when we lived through the alarming rise of the British National Party (BNP). The far-right, anti-immigrant riots that have erupted in English towns and cities in recent days make it even more important to learn the lessons we can from the east London constituency I represented for 30 years. WorkWorkWorkHow tennis uniquely benefits your body--compared to other sports - Science (No paywall)
"Tennis demonstrates the power, grace, intellect, wit, balance, speed, joy, sorrow, and sheer determination of human beings," says Brian Hainline, a neurologist, president of the United States Tennis Association, and former chief medical officer of the NCAA. WorkWorld's Five Leading Chipmakers Have Now Promised U.S. Investment
Only about 10 percent of the world’s semiconductors are manufactured in the United States, down from about 37 percent in 1990. Reversing the nation’s declining share of global chip manufacturing has been a major priority for President Biden and a key component of his economic policy agenda. WorkWorkSouthern California Fire Destroys Homes and Forces Evacuations
That fire alone has burned more acres than all of the fires in California did last year combined, according to Cal Fire. This year, more than 778,000 acres have burned statewide, compared with roughly 325,000 acres in all of 2023, and the peak of the fire season has not yet arrived. WorkHarris Officially Secures Democratic Party's Nomination for President
Ms. Harris first ran for president in 2019, while in her third year as a senator from California. In a crowded field of Democrats, she struggled to find her message, tangled with staff members and dropped out before voting began. Now Ms. Harris is setting out to prove she can lead a party desperate to block Mr. Trump’s attempt to return to office. |
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