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☆ Designer Clothes at Deep Discounts? Fashion Insiders Divulge Their Shopping Secrets
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Aria Darcella | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

STYLE CONNIVERS The fashion pros from ‘Absolutely Fabulous.’ Photo: BBC ArchiveYOU NEEDN’T take out a second mortgage to dress as well as a real-estate magnate. With the rise of luxury consignment platforms like the RealReal and Fashionphile; outlet websites such as the Outnet and Saks Off 5th; and easy access to once-exclusive sample sales via Instagram tips and sites like 260 Sample Sale, nabbing designer clothes at deep discounts has never been easier. But, while thrifty, those are the sort of hacks that style insiders consider bush league. Yes, stylists and even designers hunt for low prices just like the rest of us—but their tricks far outrank ours.

Organizations: Saks

☆ My Wife Lives in a Nursing Home. Can I Take a Lover?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Kwame Anthony Appiah | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There has been no love or intimacy for the past 10 years. My wife will never leave the nursing home. Am I wrong to seek love, intimacy and companionship with another woman? (This also relates to whether you can afford a divorce: An uncontested one needn’t be very costly.) You say there has been no love between you for the past decade; is this also her perspective?

Persons: —

☆ Why Are the Language Police Obsessed With Vice Presidents?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Paul Mcadory | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

A vice president makes countless public appearances that will be mostly ignored unless something humiliating happens — something that serves to make him or her look like the hapless lightweight who symbolizes an entire administration’s ineptitude. Bush’s young vice president, Dan Quayle, is remembered for misspelling “potato” on camera. Biden’s time in the office actually helped burnish a goofy charm; he was seen not just as folksy or avuncular but, in some corners, paradoxically cool. This is the woman seen, in some clips, singing “Wheels on the Bus” at a campaign vehicle and then cackling with laughter, or gushing about Venn diagrams. One Twitter user racked up likes by positing that her meandering sentences resemble the dense philosophy of Friedrich Hegel.

Persons: —, Harris’s, Harris, George H.W, Bush’s, Dan Quayle, Joe Biden’s, Barack Obama, Mike Pence, Donald Trump, abasing lackey, Al Gore, George W, Bush, Dick Cheney, jean, Brandon, Biden, Friedrich Hegel Organizations: Central Locations: V.P.s

☆ UBS kitchen sink has protection from further leaks
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

UBS (UBSG.S) late on Tuesday released a regulatory filing showing what the bank’s accounts may look like after its roughly $4 billion acquisition of Credit Suisse (CSGN.S). For starters, the filing is peppered with caveats, including that UBS still hasn’t managed to complete detailed valuations of the assets. At roughly 2% of Credit Suisse’s overall loans and financial assets, the haircuts do seem rather modest. The filing’s risk factors note that UBS might inherit future court cases that could stem from the cancellation of Credit Suisse’s Additional Tier 1 bonds, for example. Ermotti might not have performed a total kitchen sink, but his investors needn’t be too concerned.

☆ AI Is Now Cooking, but It Shouldn’t Be Overdone
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Mustafa Suleyman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

We needn’t brace for the bubble to pop or fear an uptick in popular disillusionment with the technology. AI has only recently exploded into public view. When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, few people outside industry had heard of large language models, let alone used one. “In 20 years following the internet space,” wrote a UBS analyst, “we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app.” Venture capitalists poured more than $40 billion into AI enterprises. Chipmaker Nvidia saw a huge spike in its share price, briefly taking it to a trillion-dollar market capitalization, and Meta announced its plan to spend $33 billion on its “build-out of AI capacity.”

Persons: Sam Altman, Christina Montgomery, Gary Marcus, Mark Kelly, OpenAI, ” Organizations: IBM, Getty, UBS, ” Venture, Nvidia, Meta

☆ From diversity to accessibility, can technology change the way we think about beauty for the better?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Flo Cornall | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —When Bold Glamour launched on TikTok earlier this year, it started a storm on social media. Some on social media were impressed by the technology, but many expressed concern about the way filters can promote unrealistic beauty standards. While there is growing unease about the way technology is impacting our ideas of beauty, some believe it can also change our attitudes to beauty for the better. Social media and filtersDigital filters and augmented reality (AR) have become an intrinsic part of how people represent themselves online. “Thanks to social media we’ve been able to access a multi-diverse pool of representation of what beauty looks like,” she said.

☆ ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ Review: Periods and Question Marks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Lisa Kennedy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It is 1970 and the almost-12-year-old Margaret Simon returns from summer camp to boxes strewn about her family’s jammed New York City apartment. Because she and her parents are moving to New Jersey, her grandmother blurts out before her folks can ease their only child into the news. And so begins the yearlong adventure at the heart of this pitch-perfect adaptation of the author Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie portray Margaret’s youthful parents, Barbara and Herb. Kathy Bates is Margaret’s paternal grandmother, Sylvia, of the aforementioned blurt.

☆ You can make your Mercedes EV go faster for $60 a month
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Peter Valdes-Dapena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle owners in North America who want a little more power and speed can now buy 60 horsepower for just $60 a month or, on other models, 80 horsepower for $90 a month. Various automakers have touted the potential for recurring revenue from subscription features like this. The power-unleashing software upgrades are available through the Mercedes Me online store in the vehicles. The availability of downloadable upgrades and features allows Mercedes customers to continuously customize their vehicles to fit changing needs and preferences, Mercedes said in an announcement. Mercedes never wants customers to press a button and get an annoying “Subscribe for use” pop-up on the center screen.

☆ Opinion: What happens when you knock on a door
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Richard Galant | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +18 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. In Kansas City, Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old White homeowner shot Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who rang his doorbell. And, “with Trump as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, Fox has resumed coverage of him which often veers into the free-advertisement category. Neither Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced his candidacy last week, nor Marianne Williamson represents a serious threat, Axelrod noted. “The calendar reads 2023,” wrote the Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan, “but it feels like 2016 all over again.

☆ They dated as teenagers. 40 years later, she decided to go on vacation with him
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Francesca Street | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

“Our hallways in this school, they were outside, and so there’s this beam of sunlight shining down on her,” recalls Bo. “I’d say, ‘Come to my window and I’ll talk to you through the window,’” recalls Beverly. The former flames, now both 60, received invites to their 40th high school reunion, taking place at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock. A high school reunionBo and Beverly reunited at a high school reunion and got to know one another on a subsequent sailing vacation. It was “literally a shack of driftwood and washed up lumber slapped together haphazardly on a remote beach,” recalls Bo.

☆ World leaders are lining up to meet Xi Jinping. Should the US be worried?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Simone Mccarthy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Hong Kong CNN —Xi Jinping has had a busy couple of weeks. “(Chinese leaders) believe it’s time now for China to make its strategic plans,” said Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. Beijing has watched uneasily as the war in Ukraine has driven the US and its European allies closer. When French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Beijing last week, Xi drew comparisons between China and France: both “major countries with a tradition of independence,” Xi said, and “firm advocates for a multi-polar world” – or a world without a dominant superpower. But how Beijing navigates these initiatives, observers say, comes down to a bottom line that’s integrally related to Xi’s global ambitions and world view.

☆ A Psychedelics Pioneer Takes the Ultimate Trip
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( David Marchese | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +15 min

Mamadi Doumbouya for The New York Times Talk A Psychedelics Pioneer Takes the Ultimate TripAs the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, Dr. Roland Griffiths has been a pioneer in investigating the ways in which psychedelics can help treat depression, addiction and, in patients with a life-threatening cancer diagnosis, psychological distress. He has also looked at how the use of psychedelics can produce transformative and long-lasting feelings of human interconnectedness and unity. “So I believe that in principle we shouldn’t need this Stage 4 cancer diagnosis to awaken. Is your perspective maybe one that a 40-year-old, say, with a terminal cancer diagnosis would be able to inhabit so profoundly? If I had a regret, it’s that I didn’t wake up as much as I have without a cancer diagnosis.

☆ Jamie Dimon throws Staley off fortress battlements
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Neil Unmack | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Suing former employees – in this case using an archaic-sounding doctrine that brands Staley a “faithless servant” – isn't a great look, but the bank led by Jamie Dimon has more reasons than most to defend itself. His $400 billion firm is being pursued for unspecified damages by a woman who argues that it knew of Epstein’s sex trafficking venture, and is also being sued by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The bank has delivered a more than 400% total return to shareholders since Dimon took over in 2006, while talking up its “fortress” balance sheet. If JPMorgan loses either of the lawsuits in which it is a defendant, it wants Staley to share in the damages. Current or future employees might worry they too could find themselves branded a faithless servant for failing to disclose moral missteps, or having clients who fall from grace.

☆ Jamie Dimon throws Jes Staley off the battlements
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Neil Unmack | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Suing former employees – in this case using an archaic-sounding doctrine that brands Staley a “faithless servant” – isn't a great look, but the bank led by Jamie Dimon has more reasons than most to defend itself. His $400 billion firm is being pursued for unspecified damages by a woman who argues that it knew of Epstein’s sex trafficking venture, and is also being sued by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands. If JPMorgan loses either of the lawsuits in which it is a defendant, it wants Staley to share in the damages. Current or future employees might worry they too could find themselves branded a faithless servant for failing to disclose moral missteps, or having clients who fall from grace. CONTEXT NEWSJPMorgan on March 8 filed a complaint against former executive James “Jes” Staley, for not disclosing his relations with former client and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

☆ ‘True Lies’ Review: A Counterintelligence Couple Comes Back
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

The old James Cameron / Arnold Schwarzenegger collaboration “True Lies” has needed a reboot since, oh, about the time it was released. Its premise was close to preposterous: A long-married woman wouldn’t know her husband was a globe-trotting, veteran counterterrorism agent? Linguistics professor, yoga enthusiast and mother of two Helen Tasker (Ms. Gonzaga) has been married to Harry Tasker (Mr. Howey) for 17 years. Yet she has no idea that all his business travel for that job in “computer sales” really involves him and his cohort saving the world. This doesn’t earn her a lot of our respect, but the show wisely dispenses with the whole façade in the first episode: Helen becomes an agent, too.

☆ Finally! Savings Rates Could Soon Beat Inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Why savings rates could rise in 2023Fortunately, many experts predict the situation will reverse, with inflation on a downward trend even as the Fed continues nudging up interest rates. Since the most generous banks have increased their rates in tandem with the Fed, they would likely increase savings rates as well. Bottenfield doesn’t see savings account interest rates surpassing the rate of inflation before 2024. “The difference between an online savings account and the average brick and mortar account is huge right now,” says Tumin. If you think interest rates will fall, you can lock in mid-4% rates long-term with a five-year CD.

☆ Want Big-Skirt Energy? How to Master the Statement Look
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Fiorella Valdesolo | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

A drenching is always amusing, but it’s her tutu that makes that scene indelible. The show’s costume designer, Patricia Field, was insistent on the garment, saying in an interview, “Whatever she’s wearing has to be completely original to last in time.”That iconic look embodies “big-skirt energy,” a mood dominating the resort and spring 2023 collections. A skirt needn’t literally be big to possess BSE. But whether maxi or midi, spangled or satin, printed or plain, it must project outsize attitude. And women are gravitating to that, reports Marc Rofsky, a buying director at e-commerce site Moda Operandi, who’s seen year-over-year, double-digit growth in skirts between October and January 2023.

☆ How Much Should Your Clothes Cost?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Todd Plummer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WITH INFLATION at record highs and a possible recession looming, shoppers are scrutinizing clothing price-tags hard right now. Few will welcome what they’re about to see, said Margaret Bishop, a supply-chain expert who teaches at three top fashion schools in New York. “The cost of raw materials, labor and transport, and logistics have all risen…and I don’t see how we could avoid higher retail prices in 2023,” she said. If you want quiet, well-made items that will last—and you don’t require a hyped brand name or luxury logo, both of which hike up prices—how much should you expect to shell out? Here, we do the math for four wardrobe staples.

☆ A Cozy Long Weekend in Dublin, a Truly Walkable City
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Matthew Kronsberg | Photographs Al Higgins For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

IF LOS ANGELES FEELS like it was designed for the driver, and New York City for the subway passenger, Dublin, one could say, was made for the pedestrian. It remains true today; few places better suit a weekend of wandering. That a historian can be a local celebrity testifies to the degree to which the past remains present here. Dublin is an ideal place to indulge, since you’ll be sure to walk it off. DAY 1 | SATURDAY8:30 a.m.: Arrive at Dublin Airport, just over 6 miles north of the city center.

☆ 'Hostages' review: An HBO docuseries covers the Iran Hostage Crisis from all angles, including then to now
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Review Brian Lowry | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —“Hostages” tells several major stories in one, from the history of US intervention in the Middle East to the Iranian hostage crisis’ impact on presidential politics to that period’s influence on media, launching “Nightline” as a byproduct. The result is a highly resonant trip down bad-memory lane, highlighting how those ripples remain evident 40-plus years later. “History will say that we made Reagan president of the United States,” says Ebrahim Asgharzadeh, one of the student leaders. “Hostages” airs September 28 and 29 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO, which, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros.

☆ BMW reveals its new $120,000 electric flagship
▼ + stars: | 2022-04-20 | by ( Peter Valdes-Dapena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —Electric vehicles, with their need for lots of expensive batteries, have often trended towards luxury. Electric cars from Porsche, Mercedes, and Audi have all hit the market in recent years. The i7 is the electric version of a new generation of the BMW 7 Series flagship unveiled on Wednesday. While those other luxury brands’ electric vehicles are based on dedicated EV chassis with little relationship to their gas-powered models, BMW emphasizes adaptable engineering as its edge. Both of those iconic British brands are owned by BMW, and plan to sell only electric vehicles by 2030.

Persons: Mercedes EQS, Oliver Zipse, Mercedes, Zipse, ”, Oscar, Hans Zimmer BMW Organizations: CNN —, Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Benz, BMW BMW, General Motors, ”, i7, Royce

☆ BMW i7 electric car revealed
▼ + stars: | 2022-04-20 | by ( Peter Valdes-Dapena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Electric cars from Porsche, Mercedes, and Audi have all hit the market in recent years. BMW has come out with its own electric cars like the iX and i4 and now the new i7, a battery-powered take on the brand’s new most expensive sedan. The i7 is the electric version of a new generation of the BMW 7 Series flagship unveiled on Wednesday. While those other luxury brands’ electric vehicles are based on dedicated EV chassis with little relationship to their gas-powered models, BMW emphasizes adaptable engineering as its edge. Both of those iconic British brands are owned by BMW, and plan to sell only electric vehicles by 2030.

☆ Qatar day trip: Zekreet Peninsula beckons with desert, art
▼ + stars: | 2018-02-28 | by ( Barry Neild | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —Out in the hot, shimmering desert sands of western Qatar, something alien, colossal and very weird looms over the horizon. The steel plates, located across a kilometer of desert on Qatar’s Zekreet Peninsula, are the work of Richard Serra, an American artist known for creating imposing metalwork sculptures. While hardly overrun, “East-West/West-East” has become a place of occasional pilgrimage for locals, tourists and art devotees alike, adding to a roster of Qatar desert activities that includes dune bashing, Bedouin camps and camel treks. While there’s plenty to take in at “East-West/West-East,” the artwork isn’t the only attraction the Zekreet Peninsula has to offer. Somewhat more mysterious – in appearance at least – are the “desert mushrooms” of Qatar, another few kilometers along the peninsula.

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