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Wednesday is the hardest day to be chipper, isn’t it? But hey, at least we’ve got some (sort of) positive climate news this morning. Didn’t think we’d see that anytime soon. Read about that, as well as about the rainbow hair trend you probably shouldn’t try at home, the next James Bond action star and the unlikeliest Richard Nixon relic. But first, OZY’s Hump Day Playlist is here, because you can’t listen to Folklore every single morning (ha, false, I can and I will). |
| | Fiona Zublin, Senior Editor |  |
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|  | | 1. Green With EnvyChinese President Xi Jinping announced that the country — the world’s biggest polluter — will go carbon neutral by 2060in a video address to the U.N. General Assembly, even as President Donald Trump used his speech to target Beijing on its emissions. Pot calling the kettle carbon black? Meanwhile, Formula-E electric car racing has become the first carbon neutral motorsport. And Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — under whose watch the Amazon and the country’s wetlands are burning — claimed his government’s the victim of an environmental smear. |
| 2. Isn’t It Ironic?Facebook is threatening to pull out of Europe entirely if the European Union enforces its ban on transferring user data to America. Oh no! How will I find out what my racist former neighbor is mad about without Facebook? Remember, this is happening as the U.S. insists TikTok keep its U.S. data in America. Meanwhile, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have reached a deal with boycotting advertisers in the U.S. to set hate speech standards. Would you miss Facebook if it left your country? Vote on Twitter (yes we get the irony). |
| | 4. Crypto Crackdown?Nigeria and South Africa are preparing regulations for a booming cryptocurrency market that has reached record levels in Africa during the pandemic. But while some cryptocurrency exchanges are welcoming proposed safeguards, others worry they could kill innovation. | Sharing is great, but if Steve Jenne of Sullivan, Illinois, offers you a half-eaten sandwich, you might want to think twice. |
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| | Jenne has kept the frozen remnants of a sandwich Richard Nixon bit into 60 years ago. He has also collected unfinished food from other celebrities, including Johnny Carson. Is a Trump Big Mac next? |
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|  | | In a special four-part podcast series, Exchanges: The Battle for Our Screens, Goldman Sachs experts analyze how the pandemic has shifted our lives digitally and what we can expect from the future of entertainment, work and social media. |
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| Not to make everyone in locked-down countries jealous, but I actually got to go to the movies for the first time recently, and man was it discombobulating and distressing — because Tenet, the movie I watched, is not very good. Still, there are some great action stars on the horizon. |
|  | | | 2. Dali BenssalahYou know about Daniel Craig. Now meet the 26-year-old Franco-Algerian actor who’ll face off against Craig in the next Bond film, No Time to Die.And lest you doubt his action-movie chops, remember this: He was the French champion of Muay Thai boxing by the time he was 19 years old. |
| 3. John David WashingtonHis star-making role in the otherwise stupid and confusing Christopher Nolan movie Tenet as Protagonist (yes, that’s the actual character name and yes, I’m still mad about how dumb that is) is cemented with breathtaking fight scenes and just the right amount of faux philosophical bravado. Doesn’t hurt that he’s superstar Denzel Washington’s son. Who’s your all time favorite action star? | Unlike me, you don’t have to go to a theater to enjoy the arts. |
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| | You could always attend the Sphinx Organization’s virtual gala. For nearly 25 years, the Detroit-based social justice organization has empowered young voices in the world of classical music. Get tickets for the Oct. 15 event, featuring world-class performances. | We’re in the middle of a recession, and there’s nothing more important than learning to manage your money. These cool apps are the future of finance education. |
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| | 1. MipangoBefore you can stock the stock, you have to talk the talk. Tanzanian app Mipango has a leg up when it comes to getting African consumers onto its AI-powered platform: It’s available in Swahili. The company, which launched this summer, helps people set budgets and track spending — two things they say more than half of Tanzanians don’t currently do. The next step will be expanding across East Africa. |
| 2. TikTokThough a growing number of U.S. states are requiring high school students to take personal finance courses, 1 in 5 still don’t understand the basic concepts. So they’re turning to TikTok, following experts like Humphrey Yang and Delyanne the Money Coach to learn about the stock market and credit scores in 15-second bites. |
| 3. AlfiPeru’s Alfi app is the Duolingo of finance education, gamifying money concepts for a millennial market. The company has already won a nationwide contest for startups, partnered with a credit union in Chile and struck a deal with Mexico’s government to promote financial education for tens of millions of people. | As President Trump tries to pack the U.S. Supreme Court (possibly followed by a Democratic plan to pack it even further the other way),take a look at the company America keeps in its controversial and partisan judicial appointments. |
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|  | | | 2. Polish PrescriptWhy worry about rushed replacements? The right-wing Law and Justice Party of Poland is even more innovative when it comes to loading the top court in its favor. It’s battling the European Union and several jurists within Poland over a controversial law aimed at retiring judges early and allowing the president to extend the tenure of his favorites. Law and justice indeed. |
| 3. Coup to the RescueThere’s nothing like a coup attempt to justify a crackdown. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faced resistance to efforts at judicial changes in mid-2016. After a failed coup against him in July that year, though, Turkey purged more than 4,000 judges and lawyers on charges of links to reformist Muslim leader Fethullah Gulen, blamed for the attempt to overthrow the Erdoğan regime. | I feel like I missed out on the chance to dye my hair a crazy color during lockdown. Maybe next pandemic I will — just kidding. Anyway, whether you’re out in the world or not, here are some 2020 hair trends to try before the year ends or a meteor hits us. |
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|  | | 1. E-Girl HairMarked by bright ‘90s colors, this is a dye trend that’s not impossible to do at home — try the high contrast streaks, if you dare. |
| 2. Rainbow BangsFor this one, maybe wait until you can get to a professional stylist. But the brightly colored fringe will at the very least make your Instagram a cheerful place to be as we all sink further into the mass global depression that is 2020. |
| 3. Top KnotYes, this is easier for all those guys who haven’t had a haircut in six months, but it’s also a stylish, kind of Beckham-y look: You can go with a standard flippy man bun or get really dramatic with a faded undercut (or hell, shave designs into it). |
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