It all started at the television. At this World Cup I watched Norway handle Iraq, and what struck me wasn’t the tactics but the physical mismatch. The Norwegians looked bigger, taller, heavier. And a thought appeared. See, Latvian hockey figured out long ago that player size is an essential ingredient of winning. Exactly the same with Latvian basketball. […]
links: 04.07.2026
PBS News: Lured by Russia, African soldiers end up on deadly front lines of Ukraine war A PBS News segment on men from African countries whom Russia lures into its war against Ukraine with promises of jobs, hefty bonuses and citizenship. Ukrainian authorities estimate that Russia has recruited 27,000 foreign nationals from 130 countries since 2022. African soldiers […]
links: 02.07.2026
PBS News: Defying Pope Leo XIV, traditionalists go ahead with bishop consecrations in Switzerland PBS News reports that the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, in open defiance of Pope Leo XIV, consecrated four bishops without papal consent in Écône, Switzerland — an act that under church law brings automatic excommunication for both the new bishops and the […]
links: 01.07.2026
Politico: Europeans embrace EU amid growing gloom about world, survey finds A Politico piece reports on a new Eurobarometer survey: although Europeans have grown more pessimistic about the world’s future (58% view it with anxiety), faith in the European Union is high — 74% think EU membership has benefited their country, and 59% are optimistic about the EU’s […]
links: 28.06.2026
NPR: What you ate in 1776 depended on who you were NPR, marking the 250th anniversary of the United States, describes how in 1776 food was a marker of social standing: wealthy upper-class families and the country’s founders emulated European — especially French and English — cuisine and even imported food from there, while the table of the […]
links: 27.06.2026
Le Monde: In the age of AI, Chinese universities overhaul their curricula Le Monde describes how Chinese universities are overhauling their degree programmes to align with artificial intelligence, which has been made the top priority of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) — the government wants to embed the technology in as many sectors of the real economy as […]
links: 22.06.2026
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. […]
links: 21.06.2026
LSM: Turning all of Pārdaugava into one big Victory Square? An interview with researcher Skaidrīte Lasmane Skaidrīte Lasmane — an emeritus professor, philosopher and historian at the University of Latvia — discusses the history of Riga’s Victory Square (Uzvaras laukums) and the grandiose construction planned under Kārlis Ulmanis, which was deliberately turned into a nationwide volunteer effort, a […]
links: 18.06.2026
Wired: Silicon Valley’s Elite Financial Advisers Say This Era of Wealth Is Different WIRED talks to two wealth advisers serving Silicon Valley’s high-net-worth tech clients about how the new generation of tech millionaires handles its sudden fortune as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic head toward liquidity events. The very scale of wealth has shifted — the average client is […]
links: 17.06.2026
NYT: The Cloud Has Sound: The Unrelenting and Unseen Cost of A.I. Data Centers The “heartbeat” of the AI economy is a low-frequency vibration produced by the giant cooling fans and diesel generators of data centers. The US already has more than 3,000 of them; some residents living nearby, whose health and homes are being wrecked by the […]