WeWork wants you to know it loves the planet. The co-working company has banned meat and disposable cups from its US locations, pledged to donate $30 a month for each fruit water dispenser in its New York officers to charity, and committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2023.
For almost 1400 years, Muslim pilgrims have boarded boats, saddled up camels, or set off on foot for Mecca. Today, they’re making the same journey, but an embrace of technology is making their visit faster, safer, and more efficient than ever.
If Oprah Winfrey could persuade the entire US to read Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, she said on-air in 2000, she would be ready to retire. “I feel like I would have done my job,” she said. “If you don’t like this book, then I don’t have nothing else to say to you. You will like this book. OK? I love this book.”
For the first time since 2008, the Chinese yuan has slipped past 7 to the dollar—an important psychological threshold.
In the wake of Boris Johnson being declared the UK’s prime minister, Donald Trump said, wonderingly: “They’re saying Britain Trump. They call him Britain Trump and people are saying that’s a good thing. They like me over there. That’s what they wanted. That’s what they need.”
On Boeing’s earnings call with analysts yesterday, David Strauss from Barclays asked a question that dredged up the issue plaguing the plane-maker ever since the March Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed everyone on board, grounding the 737 MAX indefinitely.
The world of philanthropy is vast and contains many off shoots and tendrils. It’s hard to keep up with it all, but here are some general resources to help you follow the major trends shaping the world of giving.
Americans love to give. A centuries-old philanthropical urge is going nowhere, with individual donations peaking in 2017 at over $420 billion. A slight dip in 2018 has been attributed to a change to the tax code, which made it more difficult for US donors to deduct their charitable donations.
If you work in computer science, or recently graduated from an elite university, or read Vox’s Future Perfect section, or find yourself drawn to certain “highly rational” corners of the internet, there’s a good chance you’ve already come across effective altruism.
If you visited a major British arts institution in the last 30 years, your trip was almost certainly subsidized by the corporation responsible for the third-largest contribution to climate change of any company in history.
When David Miliband was appointed chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, one of the largest global charities handling the refugee crisis, it came as a shock to some fellow politicians in his native Britain, who had no doubt expected him to continue a two-decade long trajectory in national politics. Miliband had spent most of his career up to that point as part of the UK Labour party, variously serving as foreign secretary; Tony Blair’s head of policy; and environment secretary, where he made tackling climate change a particular priority. In 2013, he made a much-publicized bid for leadership—but was beaten for the job by his brother, Ed. Following this surprise defeat, Miliband left both British politics and the UK, and moved to New York to head the NGO.
For a couple of weeks in late 2018, procrastinators the world over tried their hand at a new kind of electronic time-wasting: virtual mega-philanthropy, via a viral choose-your-own-adventure strategy game. Made by designer Kris Ligman, the game kicks off with a chilling proclamation: “When you wake up this morning from unsettling dreams, you find yourself changed in your bed into a monstrous vermin. You are Jeff Bezos.”
The ink is barely dry on Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos’ divorce papers, filed Friday in King County, Washington. After more than 25 years of marriage, and around six months of separation, the two are legally split.
It’s hot. Actually, it’s too hot. Your shirt sticks to your back, your tummy sticks to your shirt. You’ve had something to drink—perhaps a watery Asian lager—and fanned yourself with a folded-up newspaper. You’ve tipped your chair in the direction of the wall-mounted fan. You’ve done literally everything in your power, and still, you’re much too hot.
Of all the birds, the rooster has long held a special esteem with the French. During the French Revolution, the animal was a symbol of vigilance; now, its traits—unabashed, proud, possessing a fighting spirit—serve as a down-and-dirty counterpart to serene Marianne, symbol of the Republic. It appears on monuments, French sporting uniforms, and even the logo of the French cinema company Pathé.
In most English-speaking countries, the train dining car is endangered and arguably extinct. Once the very bastion of luxury travel—delicious food, served against a backdrop of the rushing countryside—these formerly great institutions are mostly replaced by sad sandwich stalls or beleaguered train employees pushing trolleys of potato chips, chocolate bars, and insipid cups of tea and coffee. In 1997, the UK had 250. Now, you can count the British examples on one hand.
Even as many-legged mini-beasts go, oak processionary caterpillars are exceptionally nasty.
The world’s largest oil-producing nations have a few words for a five-foot-nothing Swedish schoolgirl: back off.
There is probably no more efficient way to see the sights of Paris than from the top of a tourist bus.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has an unusual message for its customers: Maybe don’t take that flight.
Google could face prosecution from the New Zealand government after it broke local name suppression laws last year when it revealed the name of a suspect in a prominent local murder to thousands of New Zealanders via email.
That return flight you took from New York to London probably seemed inconsequential, in the grand scheme of things. Six or seven hours each way, a few hundred dollars (maybe you paid in miles?), a few days of jet lag. A small price to pay to cross an ocean, see the sights, and then head back home again.
The once-fringe fantasy of a return to the gold standard is creeping back into the mainstream.
Sajid Javid is one of the five remaining candidates for the UK’s next prime minister. Britain’s first ethnic minority home secretary, Javid came to politics in 2010 after a glittering 20-year career in banking, which saw him working in Singapore and New York; becoming a VP at Chase Manhattan at the age of 25; and running Deutsche Bank’s global credit arm in Asia.
