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CNN —A famed Russian conductor allowed climate protesters who disrupted a performance at a classical music festival in Switzerland to address the crowd, despite grumbling from some members of the audience. Following their brief intervention the two activists then left the stage, according to a press release from Renovate Switzerland. Renovate Switzerland later thanked Jurowski for his support in a post on X, and festival director Michael Haefliger also released a statement on social media. “We very much regret that yesterday’s concert was unexpectedly interrupted by two climate activists from Renovate Switzerland. Climate protesters are increasingly targeting high-profile events in order to raise awareness of environmental issues.

Persons: Vladimir Jurowski, “, Jurowski, ” Jurowski, ”, Anthony, I’ll, Michael Haefliger, Coco Gauff, Karolína, Gauff, couldn’t “, I’m Organizations: CNN, Bavarian State Opera, Bavarian, Opera Locations: Russian, Switzerland, Lucerne

☆ The US has pumped so much groundwater that it's literally splitting the ground open across the American Southwest
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-11 | by ( Maiya Focht | Sebastian Cahill | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The United States has been pumping so much groundwater it's splitting the ground open. Brian Conway/AZGSBut humans are pumping groundwater faster than Earth can naturally replenish it. A giant fissure in the Mojave Desert in California from groundwater pumping near Lucerne Lake. And four out of every 10 sites hit "all-time lows" in the past decade as American groundwater pumping outpaces water replenishment, per the Times. As a result, the severity of excessive groundwater pumping nationwide is not as easy to recognize and may help explain why regulation on pumping is so limited.

Persons: Brian Conway, Joseph Cook, Cook, Brian Gootee, Joesph Cook, it's, Warigia Bowman, RJ Sangosti Organizations: Service, Arizona Geological Survey, New York Times, Times, University of Tulsa, Queens, MediaNews, Denver, Getty, National Audubon Society Locations: States, Wall, Silicon, Arizona , Utah, California, Arizona, Lucerne Lake, Sulphur Hills, AZGS Arizona, Basin , Arizona, Colorado, Eads , Colorado, Picacho Basin

☆ Burned by the European heat, travelers are seeking new destinations this summer
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Monica Pitrelli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

'Scandi summer' trendInterest in visiting the Mediterranean dropped by 10% from June to November this year, according to data published by the European Travel Commission. watch nowA "Scandi summer" trend is evident among summer home renters too, according to Expedia Group. Shifts in SpainSpain is the most popular travel destination in the European Travel Commission's poll of more than 6,000 European travelers. A spring poll of more than 6,000 European travelers showed the No. 1 reason for choosing a travel destination was "pleasant weather conditions," according to the European Travel Commission.

Persons: Tom Marchant, Marchant, Evia, Will Vassilopoulos, Cynthia Nerangis, Peter Tomlinson, Tomlinson, InsureMyTrip, hasn't Organizations: CNBC, European Travel Commission, Expedia Group, Expedia, Costa de Cantabria, Afp, Getty, National Parks, Swiss, Istock, Travelers, LemonLime, CNBC Travel Locations: Europe, London, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Scandinavia, Swedish, Skane, Blekinge, Edinburgh, Scotland, Riga, Latvia, Tallinn, Estonia, Smaland, Tenerife, Rimini, Spain Spain, Costa Blanca, Costa Brava, Mallorca, Costa Verde, Costa de, Basque, Greece, Rhodes, Corfu, Lofoten, Croatian, Canada, U.S, Slovenia, Italy, Puglia, Sicily, North Africa, Austrian, Lucerne, Solden, Switzerland, Morocco, Marrakech, France, Athens, Crete

☆ Passenger uses AirTag to track the bike his airline lost
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-28 | by ( Julia Buckley | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

“I keep doing these epic bike trips [abroad] and with each one I think it’s probably the last I’m going to do. Inside he put an AirTag – Apple’s luggage tracker – which he’d bought a year earlier, after hearing other cyclists rave about them. Each day, he updated his location on the British Airways website, and each day, his bike failed to arrive – or move from Heathrow, according to the AirTag. The Twitter campaignSherry repeatedly tweeted a photo of his bike and its location to the airline. “And I had no problems with luggage.”So what was the key to reuniting Sherry with his bike?

Persons: Barry Sherry, Sherry, “, I’m, ”, it’s, he’d, He’d, –, wasn’t, “ I’ve, didn’t, Sherry wasn’t, Paul Ellis, “ I’d, Ben, “ didn’t, who’d, couriered, Fränk, Andy Schleck, who’ve, I’d Organizations: CNN, de France, American Airlines –, British Airways, Washington DC, Heathrow, Getty Images British Airways, American Airlines, Heathrow Airport, “ AA, Tour de France, Dulles, Virgin, Heathrow Twitter Locations: Virginia, Europe, Swiss, Luxembourg, Finland, Switzerland, Washington, London, Zurich, AFP, Heathrow, Lake Lucerne, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Finnair

☆ To the Conductor Claudio Abbado, the Orchestra Was a Collective
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( David Allen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Achieving that ideal was no simple task with orchestras of long traditions and routines, though Abbado remade the Philharmonic in his image, and lastingly so. Striving to fulfill that promise led him not only to embrace the energy of youth orchestras, but also to support and found ensembles of like mind: the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Mozart. The most extravagant was the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, a coterie of colleagues and admirers with whom he gave critically sanctified summer performances from 2003 until just before his death. The breadth is extraordinary — what other conductor was as adept as Abbado in Rossini as well as in Webern and Ligeti? — yet it still excludes records he made for EMI, RCA and Sony, as well as most of his vaunted Mahler from Lucerne.

Persons: Abbado, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Schell, “, ”, Karajan, Orchestra Mozart, Rossini, Webern, Ligeti, Mahler Organizations: Berlin Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Philips, Universal Music Group, EMI, RCA, Sony Locations: Lucerne

☆ Barbie owes her existence to a 1950s German comic strip
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-03 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Barbie likely wouldn't exist if Mattel's founder hadn't stumbled across Bild Lilli, a plastic doll based on a comic strip. The first Barbie doll, from 1959, had Lilli's red lips, high blonde ponytail, and winged eyeliner. But these dolls had flat chests, big bellies, and squatty legs – they were built like overweight six- or eight-year-olds," Handler wrote. The newspaper began making Lilli dolls in 1955 because of the comic's popularity and to market the newspaper. "Here were the breasts, the small waist, the long, tapered legs I had enthusiastically described for the designers all those years ago," Handler wrote.

Persons: Barbie, hadn't, Ruth Handler, —, Ruth Handler —, Mattel —, Barbara, Handler, Lilli, SSPL, Axel Springer publication's, Reinhard Beuthein, Robin Gerber, Ruth, Gerber, Elliot, Frederic Neema, Mattel, Lobel, Greiner, Louis Marx, Marx, Fiona Hanson, Hausser Organizations: Bild Lilli, Service, Mattel, Getty Images, Hausser, Getty, Greiner, Hausser's Locations: Europe, Lucerne, Swiss, Los Angeles, Lilli, New York

☆ UBS CEO Ermotti: Credit Suisse no longer seeing outflows, situation has stabilized
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

UBS appointed Sergio P. Ermotti as its group Chief Executive Officer following its agreement to acquire Credit Suisse. UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti said on Friday that the situation at Credit Suisse has stabilized and he did not think outflows at the embattled bank were continuing. Addressing the Swiss Media Forum in Lucerne, Ermotti also said he hoped there would be an investigation into Credit Suisse's Group downfall, which prompted his bank's takeover of its Swiss rival as part of a rescue orchestrated by the Swiss authorities. He said UBS was on track to close the transaction within three months from its March 19 announcement.

☆ Victor LaValle’s Latest Mixes Horror With a History of the West
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Chanelle Benz | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

LONE WOMEN, by Victor LaValleVictor LaValle’s enthralling fifth novel, “Lone Women,” opens like a true western, with a scene of dark, bloody upheaval and a hint of vengeance. When we meet Adelaide Henry, the grown daughter of Black farmers, she is in a daze, dumping gasoline all over her family’s farmhouse. We don’t know why she’s doing what she’s doing, what happened to her family or, most important, what else she has or hasn’t done. Adelaide will soon escape to the harsh beauty of Montana as one of the “lone” women acquiring a homestead of 320 acres from the federal government. If she can survive three years there, cultivating the land and making it habitable, the land will become hers.

☆ I asked ChatGPT to help me plan a vacation. Here’s what happened next
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Monica Pitrelli | Chris Dwyer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

So the idea that artificial intelligence chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Bing, can research travel destinations and create itineraries is intriguing. I went to the developer's website, clicked on the word "ChatGPT," registered for an account — and started chatting. "All of the places I recommended have great online reviews," ChatGPT replied, providing ratings from Tripadvisor, Booking.com and Google for each hotel. But ChatGPT couldn't show photographs of the hotels or help book them — although it did provide ample instructions on how to do both. Every city I asked ChatGPT about resulted in the bot praising the local food scene.

[1/5] People take pictures of an an electric-powered Microlino 2.0 car of Swiss manufacturer Microlino AG in Zurich, Switzerland November 21, 2022. Oliver and Merlin Ouboter have launched a new version of the micro car, modelled on BMW's (BMWG.DE) Isetta bubble car, this time with four wheels, not three. "Because it's smaller than a conventional car it consumes less material to make it, and it has a smaller battery which means it uses less electricity," his brother Merlin added. "So the ecological footprint is about a third of a conventional electric car." Microlino is the latest example of that," said Daniel Geissmann at the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne.

☆ Swiss National Bank ready for further steps to combat inflation, chairman says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LUCERNE, Switzerland, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The Swiss National Bank is ready to take further steps to fight inflation despite price rises in Switzerland being relatively modest compared to international peers, SNB Chairman Thomas Jordan said on Friday. The SNB responded on Thursday by hiking its policy rate to 0.5%, ending a near 8-year era of negative interest rates. It is considerably above the range the SNB equates with price stability, namely between 0% and 2% over the medium term." The central bank could raise rates again to combat inflation and ensure price stability, which Jordan saw as the SNB's biggest priority. "Ensuring price stability is a challenge and demands the full attention of the SNB," Jordan said.

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