April 20-21
- Neo-colonial breakup
- Child-free pub uproar
- Rare diving penguins footage
- … and much more.
🎲 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ
1. The EU is expanding sanctions on Iran, after its unprecedented attack on Israel, to target what production specifically?
2. Which Gulf country received the equivalent of a year’s worth of rain in just a few hours, leading to flash floods?
3. Who has overtaken Apple as the world’s top smartphone provider?
4. The proposed design for a train station in China was mocked online for resembling: Winnie the Pooh / the Chinese character for “Fail” / a worm from Dune / a sanitary pad
[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]
#️⃣ TRENDING
Social media users are up in arms over a sign outside of The Lower Red Lion pub in St. Albans, north of London, encouraging customers to bring their dogs in but leave their children at home. Tweets commenting on the sign ranged from “Why are we banning parents from public spaces!!! Your dog doesn’t want to go to the pub!!!” to “theres 500000000 other areas they can go to that allow their obnoxious children in.”
🎭 5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW
• Artists refuse to open Israeli pavilion at Venice Biennale: The curators and artists of the Israeli national pavilion have decided not to open until “a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached” in Gaza. The Venice Biennale is one of the largest and most prominent global events in the art world. Israel’s presence at the Biennale has been widely criticized including in an open letter signed by more than 23,000 artists and creatives.
• Salman Rushdie recounts near-fatal attack in new memoir: The Indian-born author has released his new memoir, titled Knife, in which he explores the knife attack he survived on Aug. 12, 2022 and which left him blind in one eye. Rushdie sees writing about the incident as a necessary step in confronting the truth and reclaiming his narrative, as a “knife that cuts through the truth.” The attacker, Hadi Matar, awaits trial.
• Milan’s La Scala names new director: The prestigious opera house announced on Tuesday that Fortunato Ortombina, director of Venice’s Teatro La Fenice, will succeed Dominique Meyer, a Frenchman who has held the role since 2020. Italy’s culture minister welcomed the appointment of an Italian director after three foreign ones. Indeed, the change in leadership comes as Prime Minister Giorgia Melon’s hard-right government has made it clear that it favors homegrown talent over foreigners at major cultural posts.
• And the best-selling contemporary artists are… Japan’s Yayoi Kusama was reportedly the top-selling contemporary artist last year, with her works collecting a total of $80.9 million at auction. Kusama surpassed British artist David Hockney, the previous year’s highest-grossing artist, whose sales totalled $50.3 million. The HAT 100 report also shows the increase in female representation in the contemporary art market. The number of female artists featured in auctions over the past five years has risen by 179%, demonstrating positive steps in the move for more gender equality in the arts.
• Boston museum returns 14th-century Buddhist relics to Korea: The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston agreed in February to donate the remains of Buddhist monks from the 14th-century Goryeo Dynasty to the Jogye Order, the largest Buddhist sect in Korea. This ends more than a decade of repatriation efforts by the Korean government and the Buddhist circle. The remains have been in the Boston museum for 85 years and are believed to have been illegally taken from Korea during the Japanese colonial period.
🇫🇷🇸🇳 France and Senegal: It’s (always been, and always will be) complicated
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Senegal’s new president, built his campaign on the promise of a “break-up” with former colonial power France. His recent election paves the way for a period of deep uncertainty between Paris and Dakar, amidst the spread of an “anti-French sentiment” in West Africa. Meanwhile, France is the leading investor in Senegal and its top trading partner. For Pierre Favennec, writing in French business daily Les Echos, “it will be up to the new Senegalese leader to rebalance this economic partnership.”
Read the full story: France-Senegal: Witness To A Neo-Colonial Breakup?
✝️ Pope Francis, man of the cloth — emphasis on “man”
In a book-length interview published earlier this month, Pope Francis revealed background information about the two most recent elections of popes, sparking questions and negative reactions, with some wondering why the pontiff was breaking the obligation of official secrecy. Does the 87-year-old Jorge Mario Bergoglio sense that his reign is winding down? For Franco Garelli, writing in Italian daily La Stampa, “the best explanation may be that this is simply Bergoglio’s human and combative nature,” and that “what we ultimately have before us is not just a pope, but a man who is a pope.”
Read the full story: The True Revolution Of Pope Francis Is That He's Just A Man
🌯 Everything you always wanted to know about kebabs
There are a few food names that every tourist knows before arriving in Turkey, and one of them is shish kebab. Similar ways of cooking meat exist throughout the world, with differing methods in the East and the West, but Turkey's classic recipe is what makes culinary expert Oğul Türkkan remember his childhood. “You don’t grill shish kebab for one. It’s a delight to prepare the skewers and grill them together alongside family and friends during the holidays,” Türkkan writes in Istanbul-based independent weekly newspaper Oksijen.
Read the full story: Shish Kebab: Back To The Source Of Turkey's Best-Known Culinary Export
🤖🧠 BRIGHT IDEA
Developed by French company Robeauté, “Dot” is a medical mini robot capable of traveling to the center of the brain to perform biopsies or treat brain tumors. The robot measures 1.8 millimeters in diameter and 10 mm in length, and can bypass obstacles and reach areas inaccessible to traditional surgical instruments. Robeauté won the Medi'nov 2024 Innovation Award for Dot, and the company plans to start human clinical trials in 2026 and has been working closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
🐧 SMILE OF THE WEEK
In impressive yet comical footage, hundreds of six-month-old emperor penguin chicks were seen diving off a 50-foot cliff in Antarctica. Typically, penguin chicks take shorter jumps of one or two feet, but this group ventured to the edge of the cliff, likely in search of food. Filmed recently by a National Geographic team via drone, the penguins’ polar plunge into the Weddell Sea marked the first time such a maiden plunge was caught on camer
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⏩ LOOKING AHEAD
• The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote Saturday on long-delayed legislation concerning funding for Ukraine and Israel. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson set the aid package vote for this weekend, which outlines $95 billion total in aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific region. Republican lawmakers are seeking to also pass U.S.-Mexico border enforcement funding in the package.
• North Macedonia’s double, general and presidential elections are set to kick off on April 24. The right-wing nationalist VMRO DPMNE party is predicted to win over the Social Democrats, who have held power since 2017. Coincidentally, Kosovo’s local elections will take place on April 21 — an election that comes just days after the Council of Europe voted in favor of Kosovo’s entry into the organization.
• Today marks 4/20, a celebratory day for cannabis-enjoyers. The holiday is known as a day to rally for legalization and appreciation of weed and assorted pot-based products, with celebrations scheduled in the U.S. and Canada, but also in Amsterdam. The Dutch city hosts one of the largest 4/20 events at the famous Vondelpark, bringing in thousands of “marijuana tourists,” despite banning public cannabis-smoking in May 2023.
⁉️ WHAT THE WORLD
From baby octopi to a ballerinas’ record, take a quick world tour of the internationally weird!
News quiz answers:
1. The new EU sanctions, agreed upon during an emergency summit in Brussels late Wednesday in retaliation to Tehran's unprecedented attack on Israel, will target Iranian manufacturers of drones and missiles.
2. The United Arab Emirates was soaked by over a year’s worth of rain in just a few hours, with record-breaking rainfall killing at least one and disrupting transports across the country.
3. Samsung has overtaken Apple as the world’s top selling smartphone, securing 20.8% of the market share for the first quarter of 2024. The market study found that global smartphone shipments increased 7.8% to 289.4 million units during January-March, with the South Korean giant selling 60.1 million units.
4. The new proposed design of the North Nanjing train station in China has caught the internet’s attention for its resemblance to a sanitary pad, instead of the intended plum blossoms.
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*Photo: Yayoi Kusama/IG