March 9-10
- A Palestinian woman’s harrowing account of life in Israeli detention
- Chilean beer & Star Wars ads
- The Nutcracker, Cuban style
- … and much more.
🎲 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ
1. Which island nation has declared a state of emergency following a mass jailbreak and explosion of violence?
2. The EU slapped Apple with an almost $2 billion fine for its anti-competition tactics in what digital service?
3. Singapore paid millions to which singer to exclusively perform there and nowhere else in Southeast Asia?
4. The Netherlands is topping the list for producing and importing the most: Bicycles / Clogs / Cheese / Tulips
[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]
#️⃣ TRENDING
Chilean beer Cerveza Cristal’s 20-year-old commercial has made a viral comeback. The campaign that originally craftily Photoshopped the beer brand directly into Star Wars scenes is now part of a trending parody of the same, where social media users are putting a new, updated spin on the humorous ads.
🎭 5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW
• Roman Polanski on trial in France for alleged defamation: Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski has gone on trial in Paris for defamation after he described British actress Charlotte Lewis's accusations of sexual assault against him as an “odious lie.” Lewis claimed in May 2010 that the director had sexually abused her during an audition at his Paris home in 1983, when she was just 16. Polanski, 90, faces several other accusations of alleged sexual assault and is still wanted in the U.S. over the rape of a 13-year-old in 1977.
• Japanese master Riken Yamamoto wins top architecture prize: Japan’s Riken Yamamoto has been awarded the 2024 Pritzker Prize for his five-decade career and his commitment to fostering community in his designs. The 78-year-old architect is the ninth Japanese laureate of an award often dubbed the “Nobel of architecture.”
• The Nutcracker, Cuban version: Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta has announced a revised version of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker with his Cuba-based company Acosta Danza, weaving traditional Cuban rhythms and dances together with classical ballet. “I want to make it snow in Havana,” said the choreographer, who’s been the artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet in the UK since 2020.
• Posthumous García Márquez novel is released: En agosto nos vemos (Until August), the final book by Gabriel García Márquez written in 2004, was released in Spanish on March 6 on the Nobel prize-winning Colombian author’s birthday. Before his death in 2014, García Márquez had said the manuscript should be “destroyed.” But his sons said “the book was much better than we remembered” when rereading it, adding that they suspected that “just as Gabo lost the ability to write” and read, he had lost the “ability to judge” his own writings in the final years of his life. Some critics are outraged over the release.
• Korean musical Marie Curie heads to London: The Korean musical Marie Curie, which chronicles the life of the groundbreaking Polish-French scientist, will open on London's West End in June. This marks the first time a Korean musical will be staged for a long-term performance in the prestigious theater district.
💬 A harrowing first-hand account of a Palestinian woman detained in Israel
Many international rights groups have documented the widespread violations against the population of Gaza since the war began on Oct. 7 following Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel. These include reports from male and female detainees on a “very broad range of ill-treatment” from the Israeli soldiers while in detention. Arabic-language independent digital media Daraj features the firsthand account of a 31-year-old Gaza woman, who was detained by Israeli soldiers for more than a month without any clear reason while fleeing Israel's bombardment. “Soldiers insulted us, pointed lasers at us and asked ‘who should we shoot first?’,” the woman, who calls herself R.R., recounts.
Read the full story: Beaten, Stripped Naked, Laughed At: A Palestinian Woman's Horror In Israeli Detention
📚 The European publishing houses trying to emancipate from U.S. domination
Many international authors are available in other languages only after they are translated for the U.S. market. While this allows for wider circulation of work, it still determines the fate of many foreign authors, while sometimes losing their idiosyncrasies. In Italian daily La Stampa, Vincenzo Latronico reports on publishing houses in Europe, which are trying a different approach, such as Europa Editions, “marked by the idea that literature in translation can be much more than a small, highly refined niche.”
Read the full story: Lost In (English) Translation: The Problem With U.S. Domination Of Foreign Book Markets
♨️ The ultra-premium French kitchen range selling like hot cakes
From Brad Pitt to Céline Dion and Michelin-starred chefs, the high-end cooking ranges manufactured by La Cornue have seduced celebrities around the world. Handcrafted in the company’s workshops in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, north of Paris, some personalized and high-end models can cost up to 500,000 euros ($536,000). Still, Le Cornue has never been so successful, with sales jumping by 125% in 2023, reports Nathalie Villard for French business daily Les Echos.
Read the full story: La Cornue, How A French Kitchen Range Became The Hot New Luxury Must-Have
⚖️ BRIGHT IDEA
Aged only 17, France’s Thibault de Percin invented the moltimeter, a revolutionary scale converting moles to grams. The scale, which is reportedly capable of measuring the moles of an atom, has the potential to assist chemists in understanding proportions and chemical reactions for which the calculation of moles is needed.
🐛 SMILE OF THE WEEK
Jesse Myer, a social media content moderator and die hard fan of sci-fi classic Dune, has taken the internet by (sand)storm when he rode a homemade sandworm at a theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to celebrate the release of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. The 30-year-old spent a whole weekend crafting the worm, using a bedsheet that he spray-painted and mounted on his Onewheel Pint.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
⏩ LOOKING AHEAD
• Portugal will hold a snap general election on Sunday that is expected to result in a hung parliament and see a surge by the hard-right Islamophobic nationalist party Chega. On Friday, Russians will begin casting their ballots in the presidential election, which will be held over three days. Vladimir Putin, now in his fourth term — already Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet leader Joseph Stalin — is sure to win again, securing his position until at least 2030.
• The Muslim holy month of Ramadan will begin on Monday or Tuesday, depending on the sighting of the new moon. This year, Ramadan comes as the latest Israel-Hamas war has killed thousands of Palestinians, left much of Gaza in ruins and created a humanitarian catastrophe, with many Palestinians there, especially in the devastated northern region, scrambling for food to survive.
• After a tumultuous movie year marked by the writers’ and actors’ strikes, Hollywood is gathering for the 96th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday. Viewers from around the world are expected to tune in to see the Barbenheimer showdown, Ryan Gosling perform “I’m Just Ken,” and Jimmy Kimmel host for the fourth time.
👓 WORLDCRUNCH MAGAZINE
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News quiz answers:
1. Haiti’s government declared a state of emergency until April 3 in the capital region due to gang violence that has forced thousands of people to flee their homes and businesses and schools to shutter. The surge in violence began last weekend as thousands of inmates escaped prisons.
2. The European Union has slapped Apple with a hefty €1.8 billion fine ($1.95 billion), after an inquiry found the U.S. tech giant had broken the bloc’s competition laws by restricting music streaming services.
3. Singapore is facing criticism from neighboring countries for securing an exclusive deal with Taylor Swift, paying millions to ensure that the city-state is her only performance location in the region.
4. With 3.1 kilograms of cheese imported per person each year in a small country of 17 million and 38 varieties produced there, the Netherlands has been named the “cheesiest nation” in the world.
✍️ Newsletter by Worldcrunch
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