August 20, 2023 – Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, Emma Nelson, Juliet Linely and Florian Egli discuss the weekend’s hottest topics. Plus: check-ins with our correspondents in London, Helsinki and Copenhagen.
August 20, 2023 – Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, Emma Nelson, Juliet Linely and Florian Egli discuss the weekend’s hottest topics. Plus: check-ins with our correspondents in London, Helsinki and Copenhagen.

A 35-unit, senior-living complex in Lahaina may have been one of the first major buildings to burn down, and at least two residents are among the dead.

Fox News leaned on the former president privately and publicly to join the debate. But all the while he was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming.
Pakyi and Tamandua are the final known isolated members of the Piripkura people. They are posing a tricky challenge for Brazil.
The rare search of a newsroom has uncorked a debate in Marion, Kan.: What is a newspaper’s role, anyway?
Prowalk Tours (August 19, 2023) – Camogli is a fishing village at the foot of the Monte di Portofino (Portofino Mountain) in the heart of the Italian Riviera. Located about a 2.5-hour drive from Milan and a short distance away from Genoa, Hemmed in by the steep slopes of the Monte di Portofino and the bright blue Ligurian Sea,
Video timeline: 0:00 Drone intro and Map 1:27 Camogli Beach 5:01 Seaside promenade 6:45 Pastel Colored Houses 18:59 Il Giorgio 26:41 Piazza Cristoforo Colombo 27:12 Marina 30:53 Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta 33:05 Castle della Dragonara 39:27 Via al Molo 58:16 Porticciolo di Camogli 1:08:09 Via Piero Schiaffino 1:13:01 Piazza Cristoforo Colombo 1:19:24 Seaside promenade
World Economic Forum (August 19, 2023) – This week’s top stories of the week include:
0:15 Beijing’s heaviest rain in 140 years – Downpours have caused severe flooding across the city, destroying roads, infrastructure, and businesses. More than 20 people are known to have died. 1.5 million people have been evacuated from Beijing and the surrounding Hebei province. The floodwaters could take a month to recede.
1:41 This racing car is made from eWaste – It’s made from discarded phones, disposable vapes and old circuit boards. It’s called the Recover-E Car. It’s life-size and fully driveable . It was designed by British artist Liam Hopkins in collaboration with motorsports team Envision Racing to highlight the growing problem of e-waste.
3:30 These crops are suffering the most from change – Experts rank the food supply crisis as one of the world’s top 5 currently manifesting risks. This German farmer has started planting lavender. It’s best suited to the sandy soils and sunshine of the Mediterranean but climate change is bringing these conditions to southern Germany. The lavender is used in cosmetics and perfumes. Matthias Tafelmeier planted his first lavender crop in 2019 after what he says was a decade of declining soil quality. Farmers in the region are also trying other crops more suited to warmer climates such as chickpeas and kidney beans.
5:16 Cutting edge tech helps paralysed man feel again – Keith Thomas was paralysed from the chest down in a diving accident in 2020. But thanks to a historic trial, he’s recovering sensation in his arms and hands, letting him feel his sister’s handshake.
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The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
the Luxury Travel Expert (August 19, 2023) – A tour of Zakynthos, a Greek island in the Ionian Sea and a well-known summer resort. The harbor city of Zakynthos is the capital and major hub, centered around waterfront Solomos Square. Highlights include Navagio Beach (by boat + view point) – Spotting turtles – Coastal caves – Boat trip to the island’s north & south coast – Bays & fjords on the east coast – Beach clubs on the west coast.
Video timeline: 0:00 Intro 0:52 Boat trip to Zakynthos’ north coast 3:00 Blue Caves 10:41 Shipwreck Beach (Navagio Beach) 14:56 Swimming in the sea 19:32 Navagio Beach viewpoint 23:17 Fjords of Zakynthos’ west coast 27:54 Tsilivi Beach 28:53 Seacret Beach Club 32:53 Boat trip to Zakynthos’ south coast 34:43 Turtle island & turtle spotting 40:13 Kalonisi islet 43:50 Sunset
Monocle on Saturday, August 19, 2023: A look at the week’s news and culture, with Georgina Godwin.
Also, Charles Hecker flicks through the morning’s papers and Monocle’s Washington correspondent, Christopher Cermak, examines the conspiracy theories perpetuated by Donald Trump media supporters.

BARRON’S MAGAZINE – AUGUST 21, 2023 ISSUE:
Five experts discuss the opportunities and risks around artificial intelligence—and the companies most likely to lead the way.
A new study finds that a typical couple would lose $17,400 in benefits in the first year the trust runs dry.
Moderna and BioNTech are no longer minting money from Covid vaccines. But both have strong drug pipelines and plenty of cash.
The Singapore-based company is already worth more than GM or Ford.

Ukraine and Russia have lost a staggering number of troops as Kyiv’s counteroffensive drags on. A lack of rapid medical care has added to the toll.

While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the communique issued by three leaders, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
Donald J. Trump is the target of four separate criminal indictments, but the prosecutions could drag on for months or even years.
The women play Spain on Sunday, hoping to end a nearly six-decade national wait for a World Cup win — a reminder of the travails of the Three Lions, the country’s long-suffering men’s team.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW – August 20, 2023: The issue features “never before told” narrative histories including a tale of the female botanists who surveyed the Grand Canyon in 1938, a recent biography of the 19th-century “abortionist of Fifth Avenue” and the book on this week’s cover: Prudence Peiffer’s “The Slip,” which brings into focus a thriving artistic community that existed at the southernmost tip of Manhattan in the 1950s and ’60s.

In Melissa Sevigny’s “Brave the Wild River,” we meet the two scientists who explored unknown terrain — and broke barriers.
BRAVE THE WILD RIVER: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon, by Melissa L. Sevigny
Let’s start this story on a sun-blistered evening in August 1938. A small band of adventurers had just concluded a 43-day journey from Utah to Nevada — although perhaps “journey” is too tame a description for a trip that had required weeks of small wooden boats tumbling down more than 600 miles of rock-strewn rivers. The goal was twofold. First, to simply survive. And then, to chart the plants building homes along the serrated walls of the Grand Canyon.
Prudence Peiffer’s “The Slip” is a group biography of six visual artists and the work they created on the edge of Manhattan in the 1950s and ’60s.
Smithsonian Magazine (September/October Issue) – Journey to Spain’s last Moorish Kingdom – From the magical Alhambra to desert backcountry and hidden coastal glories…welcome to Andalusia; Saving the world’s most coveted Chocolate; Mead – it’s not just for Vikings, and more…
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Genetic analysis shows that Ötzi was descended from farmers who migrated from an area that is now part of Turkey
Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old mummy found murdered high in the Alps with an arrow in his back, is a prehistoric celebrity who attracts 300,000 visitors a year to his custom cooling chamber in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. Years of studies have revealed much about the Iceman, from his last meal—dried ibex and deer meat with einkorn wheat—to the distant Tuscan origins of his copper ax. But while the wizened mummy is extraordinarily well preserved for its age, it gives little impression of how Ötzi would have appeared in life. Now, a detailed genetic study has revealed much more about what the Iceman looked like—and traces the Copper Age corpse’s ancestral lineage back to Anatolia, an area that is now the Asian portion of Turkey.
Scientists have newly sequenced Ötzi’s genome a decade after an earlier effort, using modern techniques and comparative data to produce a much higher-quality result than ever before. The study published Wednesday in Cell Genomics reveals that Ötzi had dark eyes and skin pigmentation darker than that commonly seen among modern inhabitants of Greece or Sicily, though he’s previously been depicted with lighter skin more akin to that of Europeans living in the Alps today. And contrary to most artists’ interpretations, it also appears that he suffered from an age-old affliction still troublesome today—he was going bald.