The Globalist Podcast (May 24, 2024): China has launched two days of military drills around Taiwan as “punishment” following the territory’s inauguration of its new president.
Then: a “commitment for peace” between South Sudan’s government and rebel forces, and the EU signs off on a new bill legislating artificial intelligence. Plus: television news, a report from Lisbon by Design and this week’s ‘What We Learned’.
The Week In Art Podcast (May 24, 2024): As the Louvre’s director admits that the Paris museum wants to move its most famous painting away from the crowded gallery in which it is currently displayed, we ask the Leonardo specialist Martin Kemp: does the museum have a Mona Lisa problem?
We also talk about the painting’s continuing allure and the ongoing efforts to explain its mysteries. In London, remarkably, Judy Chicago has just opened her first major multidisciplinary survey in a British public gallery, at the Serpentine North. We talk to her about the show. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Christian Schad’s Self-Portrait with Model (1927). The painting features in Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Hans-Peter Wipplinger, the director of the museum and co-curator of the show, tells us more.
Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine North, London, until 1 September.
Splendour and Misery: New Objectivity in Germany, Leopold Museum, Vienna, until 29 September.
The Pentagon predicted that a stream of humanitarian aid would be arriving in Gaza via the floating pier, but little relief has reached the besieged strip, officials acknowledged this week.
The case concerned a constitutional puzzle: how to distinguish the roles of race and partisanship in drawing voting maps when Black voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats.
The Black and Latino families of Section 14, who made up much of the labor force of Palm Springs, are asking for reparations for what they say was a racially motivated attack.
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A cell-by-cell look at neuropsychiatric diseases
DNA sequences are connected to genes and functions in the developing and adult brain
DNA study implicates medieval warfare and colonial trade
Economies must adapt to baby busts instead
As birth rates plunge, many politicians want to pour money into policies that might lead women to have more babies. Donald Trump has vowed to dish out bonuses if he returns to the White House. In France, where the state already spends 3.5-4% of gdp on family policies each year, Emmanuel Macron wants to “demographically rearm” his country. South Korea is contemplating handouts worth a staggering $70,000 for each baby. Yet all these attempts are likely to fail, because they are built on a misapprehension.
Governments’ concern is understandable. Fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere and the rich world faces a severe shortage of babies. At prevailing birth rates, the average woman in a high-income country today will have just 1.6 children over her lifetime. Every rich country except Israel has a fertility rate beneath the replacement level of 2.1, at which a population is stable without immigration. The decline over the past decade has been faster than demographers expected.
The death of the president changes the power dynamic
A new generation of AI chips is on the way
The rainbow nation needs an alternative to decline under the ANC
Rishi Sunak’s election call makes no sense, but is good news
The Globalist (May 23, 2024): The latest from George Parker as the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, sets the date for a general election.
Also in the programme: Nina dos Santos discusses Emmanuel Macron’s visit to New Caledonia following violence in the French territory. Plus: business news with Rachel Pupazzoni and we speak to Julie Finch of Hay Festival as the hallowed literary gathering begins.
The moves, while largely symbolic, were welcomed by Palestinians and denounced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called them “a prize for terrorism.”
How the United States backed kidnapping, torture and murder in Afghanistan.
Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer who was married to Sergey Brin, a Google founder, led a rarefied and sometimes turbulent life in Silicon Valley, according to a Times examination.
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A gel made from a milk protein reduces alcohol levels in the blood of intoxicated mice.
Combining a brain organoid with a blood-vessel organoid yields a system similar to a protective mesh in the brain.
Climate change and deforestation have increased the frequency of blazes in the humid forests of West and Central Africa.
The Globalist (May 22, 2024): We assess why Israel shut down the Associated Press Gaza live video feed. Then: why the Finnish government has proposed emergency legislation to prevent any further migrants from entering the country via the border with Russia.
Plus: we discuss the latest World Economic Forum Travel & Tourism Development Index, look at Dakar’s independent art scene and speak to this year’s Booker Prize winner.
Times Literary Supplement (May 22, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Other Europe’ – Defining a Continent; An English Country Garden; The church of Peter Ackroyd and Zombie apocalypse…
Boomers Daily 