April 13-14
- Kyiv-Moscow “semantic war”
- Italian chips blasphemy
- Heart movement smartphone tech
- … and much more.
🎲 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ
1. Where were Hamas and Israel representatives meeting for new talks on a possible ceasefire?
2. For what cause did “Klimaseniorinnen,” a group of older Swiss women, win a landmark victory at a top EU rights court?
3. Who has become the oldest male tennis player to top world rankings?
4. Why was a technician fired from Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne museum this week? He slept on 18th-century canvases / He hung one of his own paintings / He spat on an engraving by Albrecht Dürer / He called modern art “dumb” on Instagram
[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]
#️⃣ TRENDING
Nuns eating crisps instead of altar bread is the latest scandal caused by an Italian TV advert. Amica Chips, one of Italy’s top crisps brands, has been accused of blasphemy by an association of Catholic TV viewers who felt that the ad needed to be immediately suspended because it lacked religious respect. “The Christ has been reduced to a potato chip” they stated. Amica Chips’s president replied that it was deliberately exaggerated and provocative to express its “irresistible crunchiness.”
🎭 5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW
• A children’s book inspired by stories of Gazan families: For her latest children’s book, Palestinian author Deema Al Alami has collected personal accounts of Palestinian families to highlight their experiences through displacement and exile. “I want the world to know about Palestinian lives, not just their deaths,” said the writer, who chose to publish 48 Stories of Exile from Palestine in English.
• Superman's debut breaks comic record: A rare 1938 copy of Action Comics # 1, which was the first to introduce the character of Superman, has sold for a record-setting $6 million at auction to an anonymous buyer. This beat a copy of 1939’s Superman #1 that sold for $5.3 million in 2022.
• Miss France museum to open on French Riviera: The beauty pageant Miss France will get a dedicated museum in a villa in the southern seaside town of Saint-Raphaël, with an opening planned for summer 2025. Visitors will be able to discover the history of the national competition, first launched in 1920, as well as a collection of over 100 unique costumes worn by the candidates and the winners’ crowns.
• Billie Eilish announces new (sustainable) album: Billie Eilish said her highly anticipated third studio album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” will be released on May 17, with no singles in advance so that fans can hear it “all at once.” The U.S. singer also revealed a sustainability plan for the album, including vinyls and packaging made out of recycled materials, with the aim of minimizing her environmental impact.
• Australian women’s-only exhibit has to allow male visitors: A court in Australia has ruled that the Ladies Lounge at Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), has to allow men to visit the women's-only exhibit. After he was denied entry, a male visitor had filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the museum, which sought to highlight historic misogyny by banning men from this exhibit containing some of its most-acclaimed works.
💬 Culture as a weapon in Russia’s “semantic war” against Ukraine
Russia's semantic war against Ukraine aims to create a discourse and future in which Ukraine never was and never will be, using its “great Russian culture” (humanism, Dostoevsky, etc.) as an influence over the West. “The West cannot imagine a world map without Russia — and Ukraine must make sure the West cannot imagine one without it either,” writes Oleksandr Solonko in Ukrainian news website Livy Bereg, calling for Kyv and its Western allies Ukraine to take this war as seriously as the military war.
Read the full story: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine Is Also A "Semantic War" — Here's How To Fight Back
⚖️ Why states need to find new rules against totalitarian violence
Following the devastation of World War II, the international community created institutions intended to stabilize geopolitical relations. But decades later, the UN and the international criminal justice system are failing to prevent and punish brazen aggressions and killings around the world, as well as to restabilize flash points like Ukraine and the Middle East. “The world needs new rules of coexistence, based on shared values, to ensure our collective peace and progress,” writes Inés Weinberg, a judge of the Higher Court of Justice of the City of Buenos Aires, in Argentine daily Clarín.
Read the full story: Echos Of Nuremberg: The Need For Justice In Our Dark New Age Of Violence
🍽️ What will we be eating tomorrow?
Faced with the challenges of population growth and climate change, the development of new technologies such as precision fermentation or cultured meat are paving the way to an era of new food. A cultured meat ecosystem, bringing together about a hundred startups and attracting $250 million in investments in 2021, is on its way. For Miguel Ángel García Vega, writing in Spanish online media Ethic, this shift means that “we will have access to any product at any time of the year, more functional foods with added value for health will emerge and ultimately, a normal diet will help prevent cancer, obesity or hypertension.”
Read the full story: Future Of Food: Which Comes First, Artificial Eggs Or Cloned Chicken Meat?
📳💓 BRIGHT IDEA
Heart failure will be easier to detect with new smartphone technology. The technology analyzes heart movement using the built-in motion sensors of a smartphone, which can detect and record cardiac vibrations that are too quiet to be heard with a stethoscope. This method has been developed over the last 10 years by researchers at the University of Turku in Finland. Heart failure is difficult to detect and diagnose so these results are “promising and may in the future make it easier to detect heart failure,” says Cardiologist Antti Saraste, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Turku.
🐶🏅 SMILE OF THE WEEK
Roger, a dog who failed police academy because he was too friendly and playful, has become the star of Taiwan’s earthquake response. The labrador retriever was among other rescue dogs who played an important role in locating stranded people and bodies. Roger and his handlers ventured into the heavily damaged Taroko National Park and found the body of a missing 21-year-old woman. Roger’s popularity has brightened up Taiwan’s social media following the quake, with one social media user commenting: “Roger is the pride of Taiwan.”
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⏩ LOOKING AHEAD
• Donald Trump’s third attempt to delay his criminal trial on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star was denied by a New York appeals judge. The trial, for which Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts, will start on Monday.
• German Chancellor Scholz is set to arrive in Chongqing, China, on Sunday to visit a German hydrogen facility and will then travel to Shanghai to deliver a speech about the government news conference held in Berlin. On Tuesday, Scholz is expected to meet in Beijing Chinese President Xi Jingping and Premier Li Qiang to shore up economic ties with Germany's biggest trading partner.
• Indian voters will go to the polls for next week's general elections, starting on April 19. Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to secure a third term.
⁉️ WHAT THE WORLD
From Mexico’s presidential cats to a museum worker's reverse art heist, take a quick world tour of the internationally weird!
News quiz answers:
1. Gaza ceasefire talks are still going on in Cairo, Egypt. While Egyptian state media claimed "significant progress," a Hamas official denied this. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced plans for an offensive in Rafah, Gaza's last refuge for displaced Palestinians.
2. The group of elderly Swiss women, known as the “Klimaseniorinnen,” who have won a landmark victory in the European Court of Human Rights against Switzerland’s government for climate change inaction charges.
3. Serb tennis champion Novak Djokovic has become the oldest male player to top world rankings, at 36 years old and 322 days, breaking the previous record held by Swiss great Roger Federer, who retired in 2022.
4. A Munich art museum worker has been fired for displaying his own artwork in the gallery, as he had access to the gallery space outside public hours. The technician was hoping to gain recognition by hanging his paintings in the Pinakothek der Moderne museum.
✍️ Newsletter by Worldcrunch
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*Photo: Wikimedia