Street artist Bisk has creatively turned piles of rubbish accumulating in the streets of Paris into monsters.
April 1-2
- Nashville shooting fake news
- Reporting from the trenches of Ukraine
- Quebec’s whale-friendly fishing
- … and much more.
🎲 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ
What do you remember from the news this week?
1. Moscow's FSB security service arrested a reporter from which major U.S. publication?
2. Where did King Charles III go on his first overseas trip as monarch?
3. What country woke up in two different time zones amid a clock change dispute?
4. Amsterdam led an ad campaign aimed to keep away…: Noisy ducks / Rowdy Brits / Garish clothes / Smelly fish
[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]
#️⃣ TRENDING
A fake tweet from a Twitter Blue verified account raised fears online after the shooting in Nashville Monday that killed six people, including three children. The tweet shows an apparent screenshot of another tweet sent out by Nashville’s WSMV-TV station, attributing a quote to the father of one of the children who was killed Monday.
The quote is fake, and WSMV never sent out the tweet. The fake quote claims the parent of a victim said they would “fight with every fiber of my being” to end “trans evil.” The tweet was viewed over 130,000 times before it was removed.
🎭 5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW
• In memoriam: This week the culture world has mourned the deaths of prominent Ethiopian composer and nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, a.k.a. “the piano queen,” who died at 99; British TV presenter and comedian Paul O'Grady; American art patron Emily Fisher Landau, who had started one of United States’ premier collections of contemporary art, and British lyricist Keith Reid, the songwriter behind Procol Harum’s famed “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
• Agatha Christie's novels edited to remove potentially offensive language: Several novels by the “Queen of Crime,” Agatha Christie, have been revised to remove references to gender and race that could be considered offensive, in new editions published by HarperCollins. These are the latest classic works, after Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming’s books, to undergo such changes.
• Paris rubbish strikes inspire French street artist: National strikes in France caused by President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension reform have impacted public services, including garbage collection in Paris. Street artist Bisk has found a way to make the best of the piles of rubbish accumulating in the streets by turning them into monsters with graffitied eyes, polystyrene or wooden smiles or a repurposed red slide for a tongue.
• BLACKPINK Jisoo's 1st solo single hits record preorders: South Korean singer and actress Jisoo, a member of girl band BLACKPINK, has set a new record for a K-pop female soloist by selling more than 1.24 million pre-ordered copies of her first single.
• Priyanka Chopra on why she left Bollywood: Indian actress Priyanka Chopra has revealed for the first time in an interview that she left Bollywood to pursue a career in the U.S. because she felt she was “pushed into a corner” and had “a beef” with people in the Indian film industry, which meant she was no longer getting cast for roles.
🇺🇦 Live from the trenches of Avdiivka
Journalists from Ukrainska Pravda report directly from the trenches near Avdiivka, one of the oldest settlements in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, where troops are facing near-constant Russian fire.
Read the full story: From The Trenches Of Avdiivka, Ukraine's Hell On Earth
🇪🇺 Who are the captains of migrant trafficking boats?
Since 2015, Europe's strategy to stop irregular migration has focused on arresting so-called smugglers. But those steering the vessels are usually desperate migrants themselves, forced to take the helm. “Criminalizing the boat driver means not knowing the migration phenomenon in its complexity” writes Annalisa Camilli for Italian daily Internazionale.
Read the full story: Why The "Captains" Of Migrant Trafficking Boats Are Often The First Victims
✈️ 🇦🇷 The time has come to buy a plane ticket as a gift
The innovative airline based in Argentina is offering plane tickets that can be given as a gift, or even sold, in what it says is a first anywhere in the world. Argentine media Clarín, explains the new phenomenon behind transferable airline tickets.
Read the full story: Low-Cost Carrier Flybondi Creates First-Ever Transferable Airline Tickets
🐋 BRIGHT IDEA
Getting stuck in fishing gear is one of the main threats to the survival of Atlantic wales. A Quebec invention could now reduce this risk of mortality. Quebec University and the Merinov applied research center, specializing in the field of fishing, have developed a “weak link” system that causes the cable attached to the snow crabs fishermen’s crates to break if a whale gets entangled.
“What is innovative with this technology is that these weak links can withstand high tensions when fishermen raise their traps, but when the whale puts tension on the rope when it is stuck, the India has welcomed its first newborn cheetahs, almost 70 years after the big cats were declared extinct in India, back in 1952. The birth of the four cubs, which took place at Kuno National Park wildlife sanctuary, was hailed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, who called it “wonderful news” on Twitter.,” explains Jérôme Laurent, industrial researcher at Merinov.
🐯🐯🐯🐯 SMILE OF THE WEEK
India has welcomed its first newborn cheetahs, almost 70 years after the big cats were declared extinct in India, back in 1952. The birth of the four cubs, which took place at Kuno National Park wildlife sanctuary, was hailed by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, who called it “wonderful news” on Twitter.
⏩ LOOKING AHEAD
• Following his indictment by a New York grand jury in connection with an alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday.
• French unions have called for an eleventh day of national strikes on Thursday to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension reform.
• NASA will announce on Monday the names of the four astronauts who will take part in Artemis II — the first Moon mission in more than 50 years.
News quiz answers:
1. In an escalation of Russia's diplomatic feud with the United States, Moscow's FSB security service said it had arrested an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, on suspicion of spying.
2. King Charles III traveled to Germany this week for his first foreign trip as Britain’s monarch, after his visit to France was canceled due to the ongoing and widespread protests against pension reform.
3. Lebanon woke up in two time zones amid a dispute between political and religious authorities over a decision to delay the clock change by a month.
4. Amsterdam’s City Council has warned rowdy British “sex and drug” tourists to “stay away,” through a digital discouragement campaign targeting men aged 18 to 35 in the UK.
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Photo: Marcel Delaville
