French schools' ban on abayas and headscarves is supposedly about secularism - but it sends a powerful message about who 'belongs' in French culture

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French schools' ban on abayas and headscarves is supposedly about secularism - but it sends a powerful message about who 'belongs' in French culture     France’s decision to ban public school students from wearing the abaya – a long dress or robe popular among women in certain Muslim cultures – and the male equivalent, the qamis, has faced criticism since Aug. 27, 2023, when the country’s education minister announced the new rule.Yet polls suggest that more than 80% of the French population supports the ban, as does the country’s highest court: The Conseil d'État has upheld the challenged ban twice – most recently on Sept. 25, 2023. Continued here

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From pests to pollutants, keeping schools healthy and clean is no simple task     Parents send their children to school to learn, and they don’t want to worry about whether the air is clean, whether there are insect problems or whether the school’s cleaning supplies could cause an asthma attack.I’m an extension specialist focused on pest management. I’m working with a cross-disciplinary team to improve compliance with environmental health standards, and we’ve found that schools across the nation need updates in order to meet minimum code requirements. Continued here

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Leaning Toward Light: A Posy of Poems Celebrating the Joys and Consolations of the Garden     “Gardening is like poetry in that it is gratuitous, and also that it cannot be done on will alone,” the poet and passionate gardener May Sarton wrote as she contemplated the parallels b… Continued here

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How Brand Building and Performance Marketing Can Work Together     To achieve performance- accountable brand building and brand-accountable performance marketing, firms must create metrics that measure the effects of both types of investments on a single North Star metric: brand equity. That is then linked to specific financial outcomes—such as revenue, shareholder value, and return on investment—and deployed as a key performance indicator for both brand building and performance marketing. Continued here

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Maya Feller's Rastafarian ital stew     In Jamaica, there's nothing more comforting than a bowl of ital. The popular island stew eaten by the Rastafarian community is a medley of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, all simmered in coconut milk.Rastafarians are practitioners of Rastafari, a religion founded in Jamaica in the 1930s. It is also classified as a social movement to oppose systems of oppression by the country's then-dominant British colonial rule. Historically, as Rastafarians continued to challenge Jamaica's colonial society by expressing themselves through their African roots, they wore their hair in dreadlocks, which represented a connection to Africa and a sense of pride in African physical characteristics. They smoked marijuana because they believed its use was directed in biblical passages, and they played reggae music as a voice of the oppressed. Continued here

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The fight for 2% - how residuals became a sticking point for striking actors     Streaming disrupted the entire entertainment industry, upending the DVD-purchasing, film-renting, moviegoing model of decades past.That shift has also changed how actors get paid. And some of the gains actors made through prior labor struggles – particularly through residuals, which are a small percentage of shared earnings from film or television – have vanished. Continued here

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Innovation Doesn't Have to Be Disruptive     For the past 20 years “disruption” has been a battle cry in business. Not surprisingly, many have come to see it as a near-synonym for innovation. But the obsession with disruption obscures an important truth: Market-creating innovation isn’t always disruptive. Disruption may be what people talk about. It’s certainly important, and it’s all around us. But, as the authors of the best-selling book Blue Ocean Strategy argue, it’s only one end of the innovation spectrum. On the other end is what they call nondisruptive creation, through which new industries, new jobs, and profitable growth are created without social harm. Nondisruptive creation reveals an immense potential to establish new markets where none existed before and, in doing so, to foster economic growth without a loss of jobs or damage to other industries, enabling business and society to thrive together. Continued here

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Case Study: When the CEO Dies, What Comes First: His Company or His Family?     Shortly after the sudden death of her beloved husband, Priya Gowda learns that the company he built from a small dairy farm into a major Indian conglomerate is in deep financial trouble. Unbeknownst to her and his investors, her husband had taken on a lot of short-term, high-interest loans, and the company is struggling to make its payments. As sole heir to his majority stake in Splendid Ice Cream, Priya is now its de facto CEO. Her creditors advise her to sell or liquidate the company, but Priya is determined to preserve her husband’s legacy. Her daughters, however, worried that the business is taking too high a toll on her, beg her to let it go. Should she give in to them or keep trying to save Splendid? Expert commentators weigh in. Continued here

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Books 3 has revealed thousands of pirated Australian books. In the age of AI, is copyright law still fit for purpose?     Thousands of Australian books have been found on a pirated dataset of ebooks, known as Books3, used to train generative AI. Richard Flanagan, Helen Garner, Tim Winton and Tim Flannery are among the leading local authors affected – along, of course, with writers from around the world. A search tool published by the Atlantic makes it possible for authors to find out whether their books are among the nearly 200,000 in the Books3 dataset. Continued here

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The Leadership Odyssey     A paradox of business is that while leaders often employ a hands-on, directive style to rise to the top, once they arrive, they’re supposed to empower and enable their teams. Suddenly, they’re expected to demonstrate “people skills.” And many find it challenging to adapt to that reality. Continued here

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The Supreme Court Cases That Could Redefine the Internet     In the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, both Facebook and Twitter decided to suspend lame-duck President Donald Trump from their platforms. He had encouraged violence, the sites reasoned; the megaphone was taken away, albeit temporarily. To many Americans horrified by the attack, the decisions were a relief. But for some conservatives, it marked an escalation in a different kind of assault: It was, to them, a clear sign of Big Tech’s anti-conservative bias.That same year, Florida and Texas passed bills to restrict social-media platforms’ ability to take down certain kinds of content. (Each is described in this congressional briefing.) In particular, they intend to make political “deplatforming” illegal, a move that would have ostensibly prevented the removal of Trump from Facebook and Twitter. The constitutionality of these laws has since been challenged in lawsuits—the tech platforms maintain that they have a First Amendment right to moderate content posted by their users. As the separate cases wound their way through the court system, federal judges (all of whom were nominated by Republican presidents) were divided on the laws’ legality. And now they’re going to the Supreme Court. Continued here

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How the U.S. Ended Up on the Brink of Government Shutdown     The American government on the brink of shutdown: With the federal government about to run out of money, we explore how the country got to this point, who will be affected, and how U.S. support for Ukraine has become a divisive political issue. Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic and moderator, Jeffrey Goldberg, this week to discuss these issues and more: Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic; Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times; Leigh Ann Caldwell, an anchor at Washington Post Live and a co-author of the Early 202; and Asma Khalid, a White House correspondent at NPR and a co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast. Continued here

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How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward     According to an analysis led by Ranjay Gulati, during the recessions of 1980, 1990, and 2000, 17% of the 4,700 public companies studied fared very badly: They went bankrupt, went private, or were acquired. But just as striking, 9% of the companies flourished, outperforming competitors by at least 10% in sales and profits growth. Continued here

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Sci-fi books are rare in school even though they help kids better understand science     Scientists and engineers have reported that their childhood encounters with science fiction framed their thinking about the sciences. Thinking critically about science and technology is an important part of education in STEM – or science, technology, engineering and mathematics.Of the 59 elementary teachers and librarians whom I surveyed, almost a quarter of them identified themselves as science fiction fans, and nearly all of them expressed that science fiction is just as valuable as any other genre. Nevertheless, most of them indicated that while they recommend science fiction books to individual readers, they do not choose science fiction for activities or group readings. Continued here

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The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs     The author, whose biography of Steve Jobs was an instant best seller after the Apple CEO’s death in October 2011, sets out here to correct what he perceives as an undue fixation by many commentators on the rough edges of Jobs’s personality. That personality was integral to his way of doing business, Isaacson writes, but the real lessons from Steve Jobs come from what he actually accomplished. He built the world’s most valuable company, and along the way he helped to transform a number of industries: personal computing, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, retail stores, and digital publishing. In this essay Isaacson describes the 14 imperatives behind Jobs’s approach: focus; simplify; take responsibility end to end; when behind, leapfrog; put products before profits; don’t be a slave to focus groups; bend reality; impute; push for perfection; know both the big picture and the details; tolerate only “A” players; engage face-to-face; combine the humanities with the sciences; and “stay hungry, stay foolish.” Continued here

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Why Do We Forget So Many of Our Dreams?     We only remember a fraction of our dreams, and even those slip away if we don’t try to remember them—here’s whyIf you’ve ever awoken from a vivid dream only to find that you can’t remember the details by the end of breakfast, you’re not alone. People forget most of the dreams they have—though it is possible to train yourself to remember more of them. Continued here

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Low Stakes, High Drama     Some of our writers’ most entertaining—and controversial—opinions on everyday mattersThis is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Continued here

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Ursula K. Le Guin on Change, Menopause as Rebirth, and the Civilizational Value of Elders     “Into the space ship, Granny.” Continued here

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Lego Is a Company Haunted by Its Own Plastic     Lego has built an empire out of plastic. It was always thus. The bricks weren’t originally made from wood, or metal, or some other material. Ever since the company’s founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen, bought Denmark’s first plastic-injection molding machine in 1946, Lego pieces have been derived from oil, a fossil fuel.The fiddly little parts that the company churns out—many billions every year—are today mostly made from acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, or ABS. This material doesn’t biodegrade, nor is it easily recycled. If a smiling mini figure gets into the environment, it will likely very slowly break down into highly polluting microplastics. Continued here

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The incomparable Bombay sandwich     If there is one thing people in India never tire of debating, it is whether Mumbai or Delhi is the better city. More accurately, the argument centres around which metropolis has the better food. Delhi often comes up tops with its incredible range of street eats, but Mumbai trumps any competition when it comes to the sandwich.The sandwich may have come to India through the British, but the people of Mumbai (as Bombay is now called) have added their own fillings and spices to make it their own. Continued here

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US Supreme Court refuses to hear Alabama's request to keep separate and unequal political districts     For the second time in three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed Alabama’s attempts to advance its legislature’s congressional maps that federal courts have ruled harm Black voters.The court had first rejected the maps in its stunning June 8, 2023, decision that upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in an act of defiance, Alabama lawmakers resubmitted maps that didn’t include what the court had urged them to do – create a second political district in which Black voters could reasonably be expected to choose a candidate of their choice. Continued here

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What Does "Stakeholder Capitalism" Mean to You?     Business leaders are being urged to adopt a multistakeholder approach to governance in place of the shareholder-centered approach that has guided their work for several decades. But through hundreds of interviews with directors, executives, investors, governance professionals, and academics over the years, the author has found wide differences in how those leaders understand stakeholder capitalism. That lack of clarity can put boards and executives on a collision course with one another when decisions requiring difficult trade-offs among stakeholders’ interests arise. It also creates expectations among stakeholders that if unfulfilled will fuel cynicism, alienation, and distrust. Continued here

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India Found Evidence of A Surprise Element on the Moon Necessary to Establish a Base     The data from Chandrayaan-3’s rover showed the lunar soil contains an unexpected surprise — sulfur.In an exciting milestone for lunar scientists around the globe, India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down 375 miles (600 km) from the south pole of the Moon on Aug. 23, 2023. Continued here

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A revelation about trees is messing with climate calculations     Every year between September and December, Lubna Dada makes clouds. Dada, an atmospheric scientist, convenes with dozens of her colleagues to run experiments in a 7,000-gallon stainless steel chamber at CERN in Switzerland. “It's like science camp,” says Dada, who studies how natural emissions react with ozone to create aerosols that affect the climate. Continued here

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2023's Most Intriguing Sci-Fi Movie Botches Its Terrific Source Material     It’s the dead of night. A desolate cottage surrounded by dead trees and barren farmland is suddenly lit up by eerie green car headlights. Junior (Paul Mescal) wakes from the couch to look out the window at this unexpected visitor. He’s joined by his wife Henrietta (Saoirse Ronan), who fidgets as they decide what to do. They argue and eventually open the door to the visitor (Aaron Pierre), who introduces himself as Terrance, a representative of an aerospace corporation called OuterMore who wants to send Junior up to space as part of an initiative to test whether humans can survive on colonies. The Earth is dying, and the last hope for humanity may be in the stars.But that’s not what Foe, Garth Davis’ stilted adaptation of the chilling sci-fi thriller by Iain Reid, is about. Foe is about what happens when Junior is sent to space. In the two years that Junior is gone, Outermore is prepared to leave Hen with an AI duplicate of him to keep her company. Though Junior is outraged at the idea, the two of them eventually relent. Continued here

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Is psychology good for anything?     After all, many published studies fail to replicate, and influential researchers have admitted to wrongdoing, from engaging in questionable research practices to committing outright fraud. Just this summer, allegations of data tampering have thrown into question numerous studies about (ironically) honesty by high-profile psychologists Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino. Has discarding these findings affected our understanding of human psychology in any meaningful way?According to a recent piece by Adam Mastroianni, who is now a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School, the answer may be: meh, not really. Continued here

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Lessons for today from the overlooked stories of Black teachers during the segregated civil rights era     Staff K-12 Initiatives, Office of the Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign As one of the handful of Black teachers in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era of racially segregated public schools, she faced a daunting challenge in providing a first-class education to students considered second-class citizens. Continued here

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The 'Barbie' and 'Star Wars' universes are entertaining, but they also unexpectedly can help people understand why revolutions happen     Barbie dolls and “Star Wars” movies and toys have entertained generations of American children – in many cases, well into adulthood. But these brands’ influence stretches beyond a penchant for hot pink and lightsaber battles. In particular, both the “Barbie” movie, released in July 2023, and a “Star Wars” franchise television series called “Andor” offer important lessons about revolutions. Continued here

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Nigeria at 63: four reasons for persistent disunity six decades on     At 63 the story of Nigeria can be anything from the “celebration of greatness to an act of barbaric cruelty”. These are the words of Nigerian writer Dipo Faloyin in his book Africa Is Not a Country.Nigeria attained its independence from Britain on 1 October 1960. Nearly half a century earlier, in 1914, the British amalgamated the Northern and Southern British protectorates into the Nigerian Federation. For many — including the Nigerian independence leader Chief Obafémi Awólòwò, in his book Path to Nigerian Freedom – the country that emerged from this amalgamation was “a mere geographical expression”. Continued here

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Exploit the Product Life Cycle     Most alert and thoughtful senior marketing executives are by now familiar with the concept of the product life cycle. Even a handful of uniquely cosmopolitan and up-to-date corporate presidents have familiarized themselves with this tantalizing concept. Yet a recent survey I took of such executives found none who used the concept in any strategic way whatever, and pitifully few who used it in any kind of tactical way. It has remained—as have so many fascinating theories in economics, physics, and sex—a remarkably durable but almost totally unemployed and seemingly unemployable piece of professional baggage whose presence in the rhetoric of professional discussions adds a much-coveted but apparently unattainable legitimacy to the idea that marketing management is somehow a profession. There is, furthermore, a persistent feeling that the life cycle concept adds luster and believability to the insistent claim in certain circles that marketing is close to being some sort of science.1The concept of the product life cycle is today at about the stage that the Copernican view of the universe was 300 years ago: A lot of people knew about it, but hardly anybody seemed to use it in any effective or productive way. Continued here

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5 Ways to Work Remotely (and Effectively) for the Long Haul     Covid-19 made remote work a reality for a lot of people, but for me, it was business as usual. I haven’t worked in a physical office in a long time. In fact, for several years, I’ve worked from anywhere but a physical office. Across three continents and a few employers (including myself), I’ve dragged my workplace with me, and along the way I’ve managed to stay on top of things despite the many distractions that have popped up to challenge my productivity. Here are just a few things I do to stay organized and make remote work a workable option for me.There’s an old saying that beds should be used for just two things. Work is not one of those things. Your sleeping space should be a sanctuary, a place of relaxing and unwinding, and if you’re spending your days propped up against pillows with your laptop, you’re not relaxing. In fact, you’re teaching yourself that the bed is a busy and possibly stressful space. Continued here

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Killers of the Flower Moon to The Exorcist: Believer: 10 of the best films to watch in October     Eugenio Derbez, who played the inspirational music teacher in Coda, is another inspirational teacher in Radical, a fact-based drama directed by Christopher Zalla. Derbez plays Sergio, who is hired to teach sixth grade in a poor Mexican border town, mainly because no one else wants the job. His pupils are resigned to lives of poverty and gang violence, but Sergio encourages them to follow their dreams. A Spanish-language answer to Dead Poets Society and To Sir, With Love? "Yes, the professor-shaking-up-students shtick has been done on-screen many times before," says Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post. "But two factors make Radical feel, well, radical: the story being driven by the unique culture of Mexico, and the kids, all exceptional actors, being so devastatingly young... Zalla teaches a lesson on how to deliver an affirming, emotional gut punch."Two of Ireland's finest young screen actors, Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal, co-star in Foe, a brooding science-fiction drama directed by Garth Davis (Lion) and adapted from the novel by Iain Reid (I'm Thinking of Ending Things). Ronan and Mescal play Hen and Junior, a couple living in a remote American farmhouse, a few decades into the future. The Earth is dying, but a mysterious stranger (Aaron Pierre) tells them that the Government is developing a plan to colonise space. Junior has been selected to help, but that means leaving Hen behind for several years. David Canfield at Vanity Fair calls the film "a twisty, heated chamber drama overflowing with explosive emotions... an unpredictable, tragic journey, sprinkled with glimmers of hope and punctuated by a reveal that ought to compel a rewatch." Continued here

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A Satanic Rebellion     The last time Lucien Greaves got into this much trouble over a photograph, he had his genitals out.In July 2013, Greaves gained nationwide media attention for resting his scrotum on the gravestone of the Reverend Fred Phelps’s mother—a stunt designed to protest the homophobia of the Westboro Baptist Church, an ultra-conservative group that was then regularly featured on the news. Greaves was trading offense for offense. Phelps’s church had a habit of protesting soldiers’ funerals with placards telling gay people that they were going to hell. So Greaves claimed to have performed a “Pink Mass” that turned the mother of Westboro’s patriarch gay in the afterlife. Continued here

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AI disinformation is a threat to elections - learning to spot Russian, Chinese and Iranian meddling in other countries can help the US prepare for 2024     Elections around the world are facing an evolving threat from foreign actors, one that involves artificial intelligence.Countries trying to influence each other’s elections entered a new era in 2016, when the Russians launched a series of social media disinformation campaigns targeting the U.S. presidential election. Over the next seven years, a number of countries – most prominently China and Iran – used social media to influence foreign elections, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. There’s no reason to expect 2023 and 2024 to be any different. Continued here

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Trade unions and the new economy: 3 African case studies show how workers are recasting their power in the digital age     University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.From US car factories to public sector workers in Nigeria and South Africa, strikes by trade unions continue unabated among the established sectors of the working class. In Detroit in the US, workers are resisting contract employment. In Nigeria they are angry over the rising cost of living and in South Africa, municipal workers are striking for better wages. Continued here

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Sleep apnea is surprisingly deadly. One in five adults has it     A pernicious scourge strikes an estimated one in five American adults as they sleep, and most are unaware of it: sleep apnea.Sleep apnea is a condition in which your breathing frequently stops and restarts during sleep, simultaneously depriving the body of vital oxygen and forcing you to repeatedly and unknowingly wake up, often preventing adequate rest. Its most common form, called obstructive sleep apnea, is caused when the muscles supporting the throat and nose relax to such a degree that they entirely block your airway. Continued here

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Kevin McCarthy Finally Defies the Right     The speaker made a last-minute reversal to avert a government shutdown. It could cost him his job.For weeks, Speaker Kevin McCarthy seemed to face an impossible choice as he haggled over spending bills with his party’s most hard-line members: He could keep the government open, or he could keep his job. At every turn, McCarthy’s behavior suggested that he favored the latter option. He continued accepting the demands of far-right Republicans to deepen spending cuts and dig in against the Democrats, making a shutdown at tonight’s midnight deadline all but a certainty. Continued here

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The Quest to Colonize Mars Is Uncovering New Mysteries About Human Psychology     A niche research community plays out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another planet.In January 2023, Tara Sweeney’s plane landed on Thwaites Glacier, a 74,000-square-mile mass of frozen water in West Antarctica. She arrived with an international research team to study the glacier’s geology and ice fabric and how its ice melt might contribute to sea level rise. But while near Earth’s southernmost point, Sweeney kept thinking about the moon. Continued here

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5 Years Later, Adventure Time Reveals a Shocking Dystopian Twist     In Fionna and Cake Episode 7, we finally learn a bit more about the mysterious duo Beth and Shermy.The Land of Ooo is a lot of things. It’s the post-apocalyptic husk of the planet Earth we know today. It’s a magical world full of talking candy and friendly vampires. And, of course, it’s the setting of Adventure Time. But one thing Ooo typically isn’t is a dystopia. Until now. Continued here

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Humans Can No Longer Ignore the Threat of Fungi     Back at the turn of the 21st century, valley fever was an obscure fungal disease in the United States, with fewer than 3,000 reported cases a year, mostly in California and Arizona. Two decades later, cases of valley fever have exploded, increasing roughly sevenfold by 2019.And valley fever isn’t alone. Fungal diseases in general are appearing in places they have never been seen before, and previously harmless or mildly harmful fungi are becoming more dangerous for people. One likely reason for this worsening fungal situation, scientists say, is climate change. Shifts in temperature and rainfall patterns are expanding where disease-causing fungi occur; climate-triggered calamities can help fungi disperse and reach more people; and warmer temperatures create opportunities for fungi to evolve into more dangerous agents of disease. Continued here