In The News

Lorie Konish February 15, 2020
Life expectancy is higher worldwide, and governments and individuals respond by hiking the retirement age. “Fueled by changes in lifestyles, working practices, diet and medical advances, people living today can expect to live up to 30 to 40 years longer when compared with people at the beginning of the 20th century,” notes the Aegon Retirement Readiness Survey. A majority of US workers plan to...
Kayleigh Donaldson February 10, 2020
Global audiences embrace stories with global themes. The film Parasite won four Academy Awards, including best picture. The satire explores equality in South Korea: A struggling family with few qualifications connive their way into working for a wealthy family clueless about their own self-worth. The son is tutor, daughter is art therapist, father as chauffer and mother as housekeeper. Kayleigh...
Shayera Dark February 6, 2020
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order extending travel restrictions for citizens of six countries including Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania. Previous orders restricted travel for Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen as well as Chad, North Korea and Venezuela. Nigerians express concern about blocks on family members, and current visa holders...
Avie Schneider and Shannon Bond January 22, 2020
The United Nations has urged a probe after an investigation pointed to a 2018 WhatsApp message, sent by an account of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince to the CEO of Amazon that when opened allowed exposed contents of the phone. The target, Jeff Bezos, commissioned the investigation and report, reviewed by UN human rights experts. “The forensic analysis assessed that the intrusion likely was...
Alasdair Sandford January 21, 2020
The House of Commons approved the EU Withdrawal Bill without change, but the House of Lords approved three changes. The first would give EU citizens an automatic right to stay in the UK after Brexit rather than expecting them to apply. The upper chamber also approved issuing physical documents to EU citizens as proof of their right to stay post-Brexit. The government supports a digital system and...
Tim Harford January 20, 2020
There is a long history of companies embracing and spurring social progress, intentionally or not. Tim Harford recounts the history of the sewing machine. A workshop owner rented out space to would-be inventors in 1850 and asked Isaac Merritt Singer, a reported womanizer with three families who did not know about one another, for assistance with a failed sewing machine. Singer spotted problems...
Hilary Osborne and Bibi van der Zee January 20, 2020
The human population tripled since 1950 and the global trade in farm animals has more than quadrupled. “Every year nearly 2 billion farm animals are loaded on to trucks or ships and sent to new countries in journeys that can take days and sometimes weeks,” reports the Guardian. “Every day, at least 5 million animals are in transit.” The animals are grown and fattened in areas that can support...