The New York Times: The Secret Reason Bosses Want Everyone Back in the Office, Every Day of the Week
Researchers at the Wharton School spent six years finding that the only personality trait that consistently predicts a leader’s objection to remote and hybrid work isn’t distrust of employees or a love of being around people — it’s narcissism. Ordering everyone back to the office full time turns out to be a power-and-status move by ego-driven bosses asserting their authority.
Wired: These Are the 12 Ikea Products the Company’s Design Chief Personally Owns
Wired asked IKEA’s design manager Johan Ejdemo which of the company’s products fill his own home. The list doesn’t include the famous Billy bookcase — his all-time favourite is the white 1999 PS metal cabinet — and a love of small imperfections runs through it: chips, paint spots and a mis-painted bowl that, he reckons, only make the pieces nicer.
The New York Times: Flight of the Conchords and the Perils of Reunions
New Zealand’s musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords — Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement — are performing together again for the first time in almost a decade, recently selling out a show in Los Angeles. They say they’d make the long-rumoured movie if they had the time and the right idea, but they talk about it with a Gen-X indifference that suggests it may never happen.
LSM: This day in history: in 1941 Nazi Germany attacks the Soviet Union
In its “This day in history” series, Eduards Liniņš looks back at 22 June 1941, when the largest military operation in history — Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union — began and reached Latvia within days. The wholly unprepared Red Army retreated chaotically, the Germans took Riga by 1 July, and Latvian national resistance groups formed — yet the new occupier was merely different from, not better than, the previous one.
LSM: City walls united the wealthy and their servants alike: a look at medieval towns in Latvia
On the Latvian Radio programme “The Known in the Unknown”, historian Mārīte Jakovļeva describes the medieval towns of present-day Latvia, which from the 13th century — together with incomers from German-speaking lands — became a new kind of settlement built around trade and crafts. Inside the walls met different social strata: full-citizen burghers, council members and servants, all united by the security the walls offered, their own self-government, seals and even coins minted in Riga.
Financial Times: God makes a footballing comeback
Columnist Simon Kuper writes that this is the most overtly religious World Cup in memory — Muslim prayer postures, communal prayer circles and evangelical Christianity on the pitch — reflecting the comeback of religion in the public sphere. Where Catholicism once dominated football, it is now joined by Islam and evangelical Christianity, which sometimes sparks political conflict with Europe’s far right.
Meduza analysed thousands of geolocations and concludes that since mid-May Ukraine’s armed forces have been running a long-range campaign against the Russian army’s “middle rear” in the occupied territories — fuel trucks and supply convoys tens of kilometres behind the front, including on the highway to Crimea. The median depth of the strikes has grown from a few kilometres to several dozen, largely thanks to Hornet drones.
Al Jazeera: ‘Daily cuts… infections’: India’s e-waste workers face toxic health risks
An Al Jazeera report from Delhi’s Mustafabad district shows India’s informal e-waste workers, who dismantle devices and burn plastic to extract copper without gloves or masks — suffering cuts, burns and infections and inhaling toxic fumes for about $8 a 12-hour day. Although India has laws on the books, the informal sector handles nearly 95% of the waste, and workers’ families are exposed to the same risks.
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