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☆ 19 Unique Gifts for Women Who Have Everything
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: +10 min

“There’s something a little decadent about wearing a matching cashmere set when you’re traveling by plane, for example,” Deyette notes. Note: The earrings can also be purchased as singles if you or your recipient like to mix and match. Constructed of 100% Australian sheepskin upper and footbed, they feel incredibly luxe and confer the benefit of breathable, moisture-wicking materials. “I love lighting this candle when I take a bath or just want to relax with a good book,” she says. It comes with a 72-ounce pitcher and an ice-crushing blade, as well as two single-serve blender cups for beverages on the go.

☆ Webb telescope takes striking image of planet Uranus
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Taylor Nicioli | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a new stunning image of ice giant Uranus, with almost all its faint dusty rings on display. Uranus has 13 known rings, with 11 of them visible in the new Webb image. A November Hubble image of Uranus (left) captured the planet's bright polar cap, while the recent Webb image displayed more detail, with a subtle enhanced brightness at the cap's center. With the exact mechanism behind the haze unknown, scientists are studying the polar cap using telescope images such as this new Webb image. In this new Webb image, similar to other recent images by the Hubble Space Telescope, storm clouds can be seen at the edge of the polar cap.

☆ How to Build a Final Four Team—Without the Fancy Facilities
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-01 | by ( Laine Higgins | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

HOUSTON—Florida Atlantic is playing in the Final Four on Saturday not because of its resources or its rich basketball history, but despite its lack of those things. The university in Boca Raton, Fla., didn’t exist before 1964. It started a basketball team in 1988 and didn’t join Division I until 1993. Coach Dusty May agreed to take over in 2018 without ever seeing the basketball facilities—and panicked slightly when he did. On Thursday, he stopped just short of characterizing his impulse decision to accept the FAU job as “buyer’s remorse.”

☆ The high-speed train in Saudi Arabia that connects Mecca and Medina
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Lilit Marcus | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia CNN —In the distant past, Muslim pilgrims came to the holy city of Mecca on foot. Haramain means “two sanctuaries” in Arabic, named for the holy cities of Mecca and Medina that sit on the line’s opposite ends. Business class passengers on the train can watch seat-back TVs. Even on a short journey like the one from Jeddah to KAEC, business class passengers are entitled to a full meal service. When it comes to high-speed railway, it seems as though the Haramain line is only the beginning in Saudi Arabia.

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☆ Dusty painting hidden behind door turns out to be Brueghel 'masterpiece'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Yiming Woo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] A man looks at the painting "Le paiement de la dime" (The Payment of the Yearly Dues) by the artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1636) before its auction at Drouot auction house in Paris, France, March 27, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo FuentesPARIS, March 27 (Reuters) - A rediscovered painting of Flemish 17th-century painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger, for years hidden in a family house, will be presented for auction in Paris on Tuesday and is expected to fetch 600,000 ($647,340.00) to 800,000 euros. "I found this painting [in the house], behind a door in the television room," de Lussac told Reuters, calling it one of the biggest surprises in his career. Brueghel the Younger, whose father Brueghel the Elder died when he was only five, didn't use one of his father's compositions for this painting as he usually did but did revisit the popular theme of the village lawyer. ($1 = 0.9269 euros)Reporting by Yiming Woo, writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout, editing by Christina FincherOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

While Xiaomi remained focused on selling mobile phones under 10,000 rupees ($120), Indian consumers were willing to pay up for better looking models with richer features. According to Counterpoint, the market share of the sub-$120 phones in India fell to 26% in 2022 from 41% two years ago. And premium phones - priced above 30,000 ($360) - saw their share double to 11% in the same period. Xiaomi and Samsung both count India as a key growth market, with smartphones their top selling electronic device. And premium phones accounted for only 0%-1% of Xiaomi's total India phone shipments in the last two years, when Samsung's higher-end phones more than doubled their share to 13%, Counterpoint data showed.

☆ Some cash in on land boom near Indonesia's new capital, others despondent
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Stefanno Sulaiman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/3] Trucks are seen near a palm oil plantation at a village located near Indonesia's projected new capital, known as Nusantara National Capital, in Sepaku, East Kalimantan province, Indonesia, March 8 2023. Headman Rizki Maulana Perwira Atmadja, 38, said land prices around his village - 10 km (6 miles) from where a presidential palace is being built - had jumped four-fold. Land prices in places near a water reservoir had risen over 16-fold, said Junaidin, the village chief of Tengin Baru, a settlement of around 4,000 people within Nusantara's development zone. He said large property companies had not sought to acquire land banks in Nusantara due to the moratorium on permits. However, the Nusantara authority said land speculation should not affect development plans as compensation for land would be measured fairly by an independent party.

☆ Image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals a rare star preparing to explode and die in a supernova
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Jessica Orwig | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured a star getting ready to die in stunning detail. The image shows a rare Wolf-Rayet star, expelling its outer layers in the phase before a supernova. A Wolf-Rayet star is "among the most luminous, most massive, and most briefly-detectable stars known," according to NASA. Webb helps investigate a dusty cosmic mysteryThat cosmic dust is of great interest to astronomers. An artist's conception of the James Webb Space Telescope.

Life has become solitary confinement.” Some women went into hiding, fearing retribution after the Taliban seized power. When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, women were among the most profoundly affected. A Wrenching Change Afifa, 47, wishes more Afghan men would fight for women’s rights KABUL, Afghanistan — Walk around the capital, Kabul, and it often feels as if women have been airbrushed out of the city. When the Taliban seized power, girls’ schools remained open in a kind of limbo — neither officially sanctioned nor forbidden — for months. Zubaida, 20, teaches high school girls in secret “Regimes come and go all the time in Afghanistan.

Arslan, her husband and their three children survived for five days trapped under the rubble of their five-storey apartment building. I have no fears now that my family is beside me," Havva said as she sat beside a wooden picnic table after a family breakfast. On the night the quake hit, the parents and the three children rushed to hold each other when the violent shaking struck. As walls collapsed around them, the floor beneath gave way and the Arslan family fell one floor down, with the four floors above crashing down around them seconds later. "'My name is Fatmagul Arslan', I shouted.

Thousands of other Islamic State fighters are in detention facilities guarded by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, America's key ally in the country. American officials say that Islamic State could still regenerate into a major threat. Four U.S. troops were wounded during a helicopter raid last month when an Islamic State leader triggered an explosion. U.S. Army Major General Matthew McFarlane, who commands the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, described attacks against U.S. forces as a "distraction from our main mission." McFarlane cited progress against Islamic State, including through the reduction in the numbers of internally displaced people at refugee camps -- a pool of vulnerable people who could be recruited by Islamic State.

☆ Fleeing drought, Somalis face malnutrition and cholera in Kenya
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Ayenat Mersie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

In a ward for severely malnourished children, Ismael said her baby's condition had not improved since arriving at Dadaab. Severe malnourishment had made the baby's head swell with liquid - a common effect of malnutrition in children. In the past two years, the drought has displaced one million Somalis and about 100,000 have fled to Kenya, according to the United Nations. In the past year, 32 children have died of malnutrition in the section of the camp run by the IRC, Ngao said. "This was the worst drought I have ever seen," he said.

☆ Use this simple math principle to make better decisions—it's hiding in plain sight, says bestselling author
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Natasha Piñon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The British mathematician, professor and bestselling author writes and speaks about how simple bits of math can benefit people's day-to-day lives. "The math you learn in school is so, so different to what the subject actually is," Fry says. "You leave school with the impression that math is this subject that belongs in dusty textbooks, over there in the nerd corner." The Fermi problemThe Fermi problem might sound familiar, because it's become popular in job interviews. Ahead of the Manhattan Project's first nuclear test, Fermi grabbed a piece of paper and tore it into pieces.

☆ Is This Painting a Raphael or Not? A Fortune Rides on the Answer
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Kelly Crow | Photographs Evan Jenkins For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Anthony Ayers had a hunch that he’d found a masterpiece. While vacationing in the English countryside in 1995, Mr. Ayers spotted a dusty, wood-panel painting tucked behind an armoire in an antique shop. It depicts Mary holding an infant Jesus in her lap as her older cousin Elizabeth and a toddler John the Baptist look on lovingly; the backdrop features an oak tree with a goldfinch, an ancient symbol foreshadowing the Crucifixion. The shopkeeper suggested that the painting could be from the Renaissance.

[1/2] Rescuers and medics carry 8-year-old boy Arda Gul from the debris of a collapsed building following an earthquake in Elbistan, Kahramanmaras province, Turkey February 7, 2023. "His mother and sister are still under the rubble," a neighbour, Mustafa Bahcivan, said. He said he had returned to sift through rubble in the hope of finding intact phones that he might be able to sell. Up the street, four members of a family climbed another mound of rubble, trying to salvage belongings. A telecommunications engineer who had toured damage in the area said Elbistan was particularly hard hit.

☆ After quake, Syrian schools silent as teachers, students perish
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-12 | by ( Khalil Ashawi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Some of those children and teachers would not be coming back, Suleiman said. For years, schools would regularly shut because of fighting, mortar fire by rebel groups or air strikes by the Syrian government or Russia. The earthquake destroyed more than 115 schools in Syria and damaged hundreds more, according to a United Nations update published Saturday. Suleiman has been trying to track down some of the nursery children from whose families he has not heard. "I went around to buildings where I know some of the students live - and 90% of them were destroyed.

☆ Nonalcoholic Beer Ad in Super Bowl Spotlights ‘Dry Economy’
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Megan Graham | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Heineken USA plans to run a 30-second Super Bowl ad for its Heineken 0.0 nonalcoholic beer, enlisting actor Paul Rudd as Marvel’s Ant-Man to make the pitch. Sales volume in low- and no-alcohol was $2.5 billion, while the overall U.S. alcohol market totaled $188.3 billion. Ad spending to promote nonalcoholic beer on national television, by comparison, totaled $9.7 million in January, up from $1.4 million in January 2019. Boisson Inc., a retailer of nonalcoholic beer, wine and spirits with 10 stores in New York and California, said it is increasing its marketing spending. SipSteady co-hosted a Dry Vibes event in January in Kansas City that included tastings of nonalcoholic beverages.

☆ Burt Bacharach, legendary composer of pop songs, dies at 94
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

Bacharach was both an innovator and throwback, and his career seemed to run parallel to the rock era. He was an eight-time Grammy winner, a prize-winning Broadway composer for "Promises, Promises" and a three-time Oscar winner. Fellow songwriter Sammy Cahn liked to joke that the smiling, wavy-haired Bacharach was the first composer he ever knew who didn't look like a dentist. Bacharach was essentially a pop composer, but his songs became hits for country artists (Marty Robbins), rhythm and blues performers (Chuck Jackson), soul (Franklin, Luther Vandross) and synth-pop (Naked Eyes). He's everybody's composer ... Burt Bacharach!"

☆ U.S. composer Burt Bacharach dies at age 94
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Bill Trott | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Bacharach and David had 30 Top-40 hits in the '60s alone. I'd hear his melodies and I'd hear lyrics. I'd hear rhymes, I'd hear thoughts and I'd hear it almost immediately." Bacharach and David scored the Neil Simon Broadway musical "Promises, Promises," which won them two Tonys and a Grammy. While star performers made his songs hits, Bacharach said he also enjoyed performing himself and making a personal connection with smaller audiences.

[1/6] Pope Francis greets people during the Holy Mass at John Garang Mausoleum, during his apostolic journey, in Juba, South Sudan, February 5, 2023. Two years after independence, South Sudan plunged into a civil war that killed 400,000 people. "I want peace to come to South Sudan. Jesilen Gaba, 42, a widow with four children, said: "The fact that the three Churches united for the sake of South Sudan, this is the turning point for peace. South Sudan has some of the largest crude oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa but a U.N. report in 2021 said the country's leaders had diverted "staggering amounts of money and other wealth" from public coffers and resources.

☆ Belgian arms trader tangles with minister over tanks for Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Andrew Gray | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

REUTERS/Yves HermanTOURNAI, Belgium, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Freddy Versluys does not like to be called an arms dealer. Tanks sold for 10-15,000 euros each are being offered for sale at 500,000 euros, despite not being operational, she has said. That would mean a unit price of 40,000 euros for 50 tanks, or some 60,600 euros for 33. The Leopard 1 is the predecessor of the Leopard 2 tanks that Germany, Poland, Finland and other countries agreed last month to send to Ukraine. He worked as an engineer in the Belgian military before going into business.

☆ Fraud Economy: How Current Economic Trends Lead to More Corporate Scams
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Linette Lopez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Get ready for what will feel like an inescapable wave of corporate fraud. And as interest rates have risen, the stock market has fallen off — which makes it harder to get dollars by whipping up new investors or offering stock. Despite Scheck's assertion that the risk of a wave of corporate fraud has heightened, he didn't want to speak in historical analogies. There be icebergsOf course, there's also fraud that goes undetected in times of easy money — companies where the very act of existing means stretching the truth. Kreuger had managed to hide that he had stretched the company's finances beyond solvency by raising money on the US stock market while it was raging.

☆ Great Fraud Reckoning Will Expose Scam Companies, Cause Stock Market Chaos
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Linette Lopez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Get ready for what will feel like an inescapable wave of corporate fraud. And as interest rates have risen, the stock market has fallen off — which makes it harder to get dollars by whipping up new investors or offering stock. Despite Scheck's assertion that the risk of a wave of corporate fraud has heightened, he didn't want to speak in historical analogies. Kreuger had managed to hide that he had stretched the company's finances beyond solvency by raising money on the US stock market while it was raging. That may have been enough when the stock market was on a heater and investors were winning, but it's not enough when the stock market is falling, the economy is slowing, and everyone from regulators to lawmakers to kids on TikTok want answers.

☆ Adani’s buy now, pay later fundraise could sting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Una Galani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

HONG KONG, Jan 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Gautam Adani is on a mission to win public acceptance for his eponymous group. The first stage of a $2.4 billion stock sale by his flagship Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS) entity has won over anchor investors, including the well-regarded Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. They are picking up roughly $734 million of stock in India’s largest follow-on issue of new shares by a private sector company. But those of other Adani group companies including Adani Transmission (ADAI.NS) and some U.S. dollar bonds at Adani Green Energy (ADNA.NS) and Adani Ports (APSE.NS) sold off sharply. For Adani investors, buy now, pay later could take on an awkward new meaning.

☆ Salesforce dimmed the lights of its Chicago office tower logo after residents complained they were too bright
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Salesforce dimmed the brightness of a logo on its new Chicago office building at the request of an alderman. Salesforce is scheduled to move into the 500,000-square-foot office space in Chicago this year. In early January, Salesforce — which is set to move into a nearly 60-story office space in Chicago later this year— crowned its Midwest headquarters with a bright fluorescent logo. According to Block Club Chicago's report, Brendan Reilly, alderman of Chicago's 42nd Ward, asked Salesforce to tone down the brightness. The adjustment took effect on Wednesday, with Salesforce also consenting to turning off the lights at 11pm every night, Reilly's office told Block Club Chicago.

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