The Very Group’s substantial (reportedly £60 million) media budget has been up for grabs. And after a three-way competitive pitch process, the online fashion retail giant has been chosen Publicis Media’s Zenith agency.
Very Group/Zenith
It will now handle all of the group’s media planning and buying, as well as providing strategic guidance on digital execution and retail media, reported Campaign.
The pitch process focused around accelerating Very’s new ‘Let’s Make It Sparkle’ brand platform and supporting commercial growth for the company. The flamingo-inspired creative was developed alongside Very’s new creative lead, The Gate – which replaced Grey London last year.
After “an inspiring” selection process, Jessica Myers, Chief Customer Officer at The Very Group, said: “Zenith really showed they know our core customers, have the right strategy to complement and amplify our brand platform to new heights, and have the expertise to support our broader business and strategic goals.
“We had great chemistry with the team throughout and we can’t wait to get started together.”
In late May, Very Group’s results for the 39 weeks to the end of March showed it was having a tough time with revenue down 0.8% to £1.6 billion with specific fashion and sports retail sales down 5.7%. The star Very UK operation, which makes up 86% of group sales, managed a 1% revenue rise to £1.4 billion. It said this was caused by the overall difficult backdrop that meant the environment was very promotional.
Adjacent angles can be thought of as any two or more angles which meet up at a single point. In the case of a linear pair, these angles add up to 180°, but they can also equal 90°, 360° or some arbitrary angle measurement.
In this way, all linear pairs are adjacent angles, but not all adjacent angles form a linear pair.
Let’s go over some different types of adjacent angles, how they differ from a linear pair, and how they can help us find unknown angle values.
Complementary Adjacent Angles
Similarly to how supplementary angles and linear pairs make a 180° value, complementary adjacent angles are two angles that share a common vertex and a common arm, adding up to a 90° value.
You may also think of complementary angles as a single right angle split into two angles by a dividing line segment. Instead of forming a straight line, the non-common arms form a square edge.
Complementary angles can be solved in much the same way that a linear pair of angles can. Instead of subtracting our known angle value from 180° to find the other angle value, we must subtract it from 90°.
Angle AB = 73°, Complementary Pair ABC = 90°
If the complementary angles are split perfectly down the middle, two congruent angles form with values of 45° each.
Vertical Angles
Vertical angles are created by crossing two lines or rays over each other. The result is four adjacent angles that all add up to a value of 360°, or 2π radians.
Vertical angles can also be thought of as two linear pairs which are adjacent and congruent to each other. Knowing these rules, we can solve three unknown angle values using only one known angle value.
Solving Vertical Angles
There are a few ways we can go about solving vertical angles. In this example, angles AB and BC form a linear pair, but AB and AD could also be considered to form linear pairs. Since AB and CD are opposite angles, we also know them to be congruent to each other. The same goes for BC compared to AD.
Let’s once again assume that angle AB is 73°. Consequently, angle CD must have an equal value of 73°. By subtracting 73° from linear pair value of 180, we can now find the value of both BC and AD.
Tschabalala Self on heritage, identity, and what it means and looks like to be a practicing artist today.
A Black woman is seated in her finery, upright posture, paying you no mind. Or her legs are splayed, an open secret. Or she is bent over, her gaze turned towards the floor, nonchalant and carefree. Many of the artist Tschabalala Self’s paintings are character studies of these kinds. She presents us with figures that are full of action; charismatic, imbued with distinct and colourful personalities, but they do not perform for our gaze or attention. We happen upon them. They are allowed to be.
Self’s work combines paint, textiles, and discarded materials she uses to fashion her own language that can speak to and from the positions of these characters. As a Black woman artist, her work is often read politically: how the figures in her paintings relate to wider conversations or struggles around race, gender, and sexuality. But representation is but one facet of the work. Running through her art is a complex interiority that belies the stereotypes that are projected onto the figures she paints or sculpts.
Since her graduation from Yale in 2015, Self has exhibited widely in art institutions across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. In this abridged version of her long conversation with Fact, Self takes us through questions of heritage, identity, and what it means and looks like to be a practicing artist today.
This feature was originally published in Fact’s F/W 2023 issue, which is available to buy here.
Gazelle Mba: What drives you to make work in difficult or tough periods of your life?
Tschabalala Self: I’m still able to make work on those days because it’s a practice. It’s similar to other practices you have in life, from eating well, exercise, or a particular way of moving. Because it’s a practice, it’s something that I have to do all the time for my own health. Making the work is cathartic and often very healing.
GM: In another interview you stated that you strive to maintain a separation between your inner self and private life and the work. Could you talk a bit about this need for separation?
TS: I like to have a separation because I want to hold a piece of myself back for myself. Making art and making it available for a wider public are two separate things. If you’re an artist, you can and will always make art regardless of how other people engage with it. Making art is actually quite a solitary experience. When you get into exhibiting your work that’s a whole other process. I think that it is really good to leave everything on the table in the making of the artwork. But because it can be so political, (there’s many different kinds of people with many different kinds of intentions involved in the art world), I don’t think it’s always so good to leave all of yourself on the table. In terms of my personal life and my public self and how they are presented in my work, everything is more fluid and more porous. The other reason I do that, though, is because I feel even as an artist, you should be somewhat objective. I think artists are ultimately vessels of information, channeling ideas from a particular moment. I believe in a little bit of distance in making art, so that you allow yourself to be used for that purpose of transmitting those ideas. I also think it’s helpful to make work that is not so tethered to your ego but to your ideas which come from real-world influences.
Half Full, 2022Vanity, 2020
GM: It seems like in the separation you create space in your work to think about Blackness and gender as an idea untethered to your own ego or specific experiences.
TS: I would agree with the statement. This has always been my issue with some artwork that deals with identity politics, because in trying to critique the ways in which one is treated as a result of their idea of their identity there is a validation of the fact that you are distinct from other people. Again, I think objectivity is important because you can’t concede to the fact that these identities are real aspects of your entire being. They are things that are on you more and less so, inside of you, right? And in the instances where they are inside of you, you have to be able to define what that means for yourself, not just concede to whatever society is saying that means.
My work is about my identity but many hundreds, millions of other people share my Blackness, my wom- anhood. These are things that are not unique identities to me, so I can’t personally define that for millions of people. I can speak about what that identity has meant to me, and I want to speak about it from a place of my truth, not reacting to what society at large is saying that identity means. My work uses tropes and stereotypes, because those are things that I view as cultural tools or markers that I can tap into, visually or subliminally, when engaging the larger zeitgeist. I ultimately believe that whatever identity you have in society is real, as it affects your daily life, but I feel all corporeal experience is just one facet of you. There are other facets unrelated to your physical experience. I think that art has to really speak to both those aspects of people.
Two Women 3, 2021Black Hand, 2020
GM: If you could meet your younger artist self, what would you tell her?
TS: I would tell her that your art practice is going to be the most consistent thing for you in your entire life and that you should really nurture this gift as it will help you get through any and all circumstances. It’s like your genie—so treat it as such.
GM: That reminds me of this Giorgio Agamben essay where he talks about the Latin roots of the word ‘genius,’ which is where the word genie comes from—it referred to the god who becomes each man’s guardian at birth. Genius would bestow gifts on the individual, but those gifts were not intended to be hoarded, they were to be shared. This also relates to the notion of practice, which allows the gift to be made tangible or available to others. I think practice as an idea manifests in your work through the interplay between daily life and art making. Take your Bodega Run series for example, could you talk about that?
TS: I think that everyday life is fascinating, and also I’m a people watcher. I get so much information from seeing people do simple things, observing their expressions, certain ways of looking or walking or affects. Because my work is all figurative I spend quite a lot of time on that kind of stuff. Any interaction with another person can produce an idea that I want to preserve as a painting or artwork or project. The bodega is such a commonplace institution, going to the bodega is basically essentially like going to the corner store. Everyone has had an analogous experience in every city, even a small town, but the New York City bodega is quite a unique place for a number of political and socio-historical reasons. I was able to make not just one work about that experience, but an entire series about it.
Devoted 2022Friend Or, 2020
GM: A lot of critics situate your work as emerging Black urban centres like Harlem and New York at large but I also see a lot of similarities between your paintings and the work of African American folk artists like Clementine Hunter and Dean Butler. Do you see your work as being in conversation with African American folklore or being about a Black pastoral or bucolic?
TS: I definitely do. I grew up in Harlem. All of my siblings, except my oldest sibling, were born in New York. My whole identity is very much rooted in being raised in Harlem, a very Black neighbourhood, a village inside the city. It’s really shaped my perspective. But my family is not from New York. My parents grew up in New Orleans, which is a much smaller city in Louisiana. My parents’ grandparents were from Natchez, Mississippi, a rural southern city. And my dad’s family was from rural Louisiana, places called Slaughter and called Homer, which are north of New Orleans. So that’s also a big part of my identity. I still like to speak about what it means to be Black American, because I think it’s not often accepted as being an identity in America or even within Black America. My family is Black American and that’s the only thing we know. I feel like the South is really my origin. The American South is a very different place culturally and physically than the north and the cities. The migration narrative is a big aspect of Black American identity, too. I think about the South as Louisiana and Mississippi. That’s where my family really started. But having not grown up there myself, my understanding of it is always a little bit of a personal fiction, I’ve always imagined it more than knowing what it really is. Sometimes that fantasy element comes into my work.
GM: What would you like your legacy to be?
TS: Someone that was sincere and generous. So many people do not tell the truth and that does a disservice to them and to others. Half truths are not true. People don’t want to speak truthfully about their experiences. It’s really important, especially in art making to not phone it in. I also think that relates to generosity, a generosity of spirit in terms of really giving your all to your practice.
WORDS: Gazelle Mba
This feature was originally published in Fact’s F/W 2023 issue, which is available to buy here.
While Netflix seemingly led the way for other streaming networks to create compelling original programming, Hulu actually beat them all to the punch. In 2011, a year before Netflix’s Lilyhammer and two years before the arrival of House of Cards, the burgeoning streamer premiered The Morning After, a pop-culture-focused news show that ran for 800 episodes over three years, plus A Day in the Life, a docuseries from the late Oscar-winner Morgan Spurlock.
Hulu has continued to make TV history in the dozen years since, most notably in 2017, when it became the first streamer to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series with The Handmaid’s Tale. In the years since, the streamer has continued to match—and often exceed—that high bar for quality entertainment with shows like The Bear, which took home 10 Emmys in 2023, including Best Comedy Series, and is practically a lock to nab noms in every category it can compete in again this year.
While more competition has popped up since Hulu started gaining critical credibility, the network has continued to stand out for its carefully curated selection of original series and network partnerships that make it the home of FX series and more. Below are some of our favorite shows streaming on Hulu right now.
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At Witt’s End
On December 1, 1994, 19-year-old Melissa Witt drove to surprise her mother at a bowling alley in Fort Smith, Arkansas, but disappeared without a trace. Six weeks later, her naked body was found by hunters in Ozark National Forest. Now, this four-part docuseries delves into the 30-year quest to identify Melissa’s killer(s) and bring an end to her case, which local police, the FBI, family, and friends are still desperate to solve. At Witt’s End elevates the typical true-crime docudrama by drawing an intimate portrait of Witt, a beloved teen whose life was cut far too short.
Solar Opposites
Launching in 2020, this animated sci-fi comedy is about a family of aliens from the planet Shlorp who crash-land on Earth—for better or worse. The show, which debuted its fifth season on August 12, is rooted in the idea that humans are, well, weird. Which seems appropriate given this current moment in time. Yet, in between the laughs and occasional threat to humanity, it maintains a positive outlook on the world and the people who inhabit it. Which is something we could probably all use right about now.
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey
Hit-Monkey may not be Marvel’s best known character, but this action-packed animated series is helping change that. As the title indicates, the story centers around Hit-Monkey (Fred Tatasciore), a snow monkey intent on taking out the Tokyo underworld with the help of his mentor, Bryce Fowler (Jason Sudeikis). Oh, and Bryce is a ghost—and a former assassin. It’s been nearly three years since the first season debuted, so it’s worth a rewatch of season 1—then dip right into the second season, which debuted on July 15.
Futurama
Following a decade-long hiatus, Futurama—Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s animated sci-fi comedy—made a triumphant return in 2023, complete with gags about Twilight Zone and “Momazon” drone deliveries. Now is the perfect time to dive back in—or watch it all for the first time. Season 2 arrived in late July, and Hulu has confirmed that at least one more season is on its way.
We Were the Lucky Ones
In Radom, Poland, the Kurcs are a loving family who seem to have it all—until the horrors of the Holocaust invade the serenity of their everyday lives. As World War II arrives on their doorstep, the family is separated—escaping to France, Brazil, West Africa, and Russia. Some are in hiding, others in concentration camps. But they’re all focused on one goal: surviving the war and reuniting with each other.
The Bear
Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is a superstar of the fine dining world who has returned to his hometown of Chicago to save his family’s struggling sandwich shop after his brother’s death by suicide. While Carmy initially struggles to acclimate himself to being home and to his inherited kitchen’s back-to-basics style, he eventually realizes that it’s not too late to change both himself and the restaurant. Anyone who has ever worked in a busy kitchen knows the stress that comes with it, and The Bear does an excellent job of making that tension palpable—as evidenced by its slew of aforementioned Emmy Awards (with plenty more inevitably to come). While the plot sounds simple enough, much of Carmy’s previous life is a bit of a mystery, and it’s doled out in amuse-bouche-sized bits throughout the series with top-tier guest stars you may not have seen coming (fact: Jamie Lee Curtis has never been better). Season 3, which dropped in late June, takes the same approach with the backstories of the cast of characters that surround Carmy. Prepare to feast.
Queenie
Queenie Jenkins (Dionne Brown) is a Jamaican-British twentysomething whose world is thrown into an upheaval following an ugly breakup with her boyfriend. That messiness follows Queenie into the next chapter in her life, when she attempts to pick up the pieces of her failed relationship while frequently butting heads with her family and trying to reconcile her dual cultures. Candice Carty-Williams adapts her own bestselling novel to create a poignant dramedy that’s ultimately about trauma and healing.
Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown
It might not be the most uplifting watch on this list, but this docuseries is nonetheless compelling. Most people know the broad strokes of what happened on November 18, 1978 in Guyana, when more than 900 members of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple cult ended up dead. But this three-part documentary offers a new perspective—nearly 50 years after the fact—that its makers hope will get you thinking.
Black Twitter: A People’s History
In the late 2000s—back when Elon Musk was just that car-and-spaceship billionaire—Twitter was more than a social media network. It was a genuine gathering place for people to find their people, whether that was Film Twitter or Cat Twitter. For Black Twitter, it was a lot more. This three-part docuseries, based on WIRED senior writer Jason Parham’s 2021 cover story, recounts the most important moments and movements that helped solidify the Black Twitter community’s place as a cultural force in the world, from politics and beyond.
Under the Bridge
Welcome to your new true crime obsession. Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone (who just earned an Emmy nomination for her work in the show) make a formidable duo as an author and a police officer, respectively, investigating the brutal murder of a 14-year-old girl in a small town in Canada. The limited series is based on Rebecca Godfrey’s award-winning 2005 book of the same name (with Keough portraying Godfrey), and is a haunting reminder of what human beings are capable of.
Shōgun
Game of Thrones fans still lamenting the loss of one of television’s great epics have found their new favorite binge-watch in Shōgun, which is this year’s most Emmy-nominated series (with 25 nods altogether). This 10-episode series, based on James Clavell’s beloved novel (which was first adapted into a miniseries in 1980), is a brilliant and sweeping tale of political rivalry in feudal Japan where Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a powerful warrior, has a target put on his back by his political rivals in the Council of Regents. Fortunately for Toranaga, he’s got Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), a talented translator and fiercely loyal samurai, by his side. Though it was originally positioned as a one-and-done limited series, FX and Hulu have already confirmed that both seasons two and three are in the works.
Such Brave Girls
Comedian/actress Kat Sadler created and stars in this deeply messy, darkly funny story of a totally dysfunctional family—mom Deb (Sherlock’s Louise Brealey) and daughters Josie (Sadler) and Billie (Lizzie Davidson, Sadler’s real-life sister)—attempting to pick up the pieces after their husband/father leaves them. It’s cringe-comedy at its finest, and the kind that will appeal to fans of Fleabag.
Feud: Capote vs. the Swans
Tom Hollander is the latest in a long line of exceptional actors (see: Philip Seymour Hoffman) to portray Breakfast at Tiffany’s author and raconteur Truman Capote—and one of the best (which is no surprise). This sophomore season of the anthology series, partly created by Ryan Murphy, is based on Answered Prayers, a novel that Capote began but never finished. Undoubtedly due in part to the many powerful people he pissed off when Esquire published an excerpt of the book—which revealed the scandalous lives of some of America’s most powerful women (aka the Swans), who just happened to be some of Capote’s closest confidantes. Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore, and Molly Ringwald round out the impressive cast in this addictively catty series.
Abbott Elementary
Quinta Brunson created and stars in this hit series, which follows the daily lives—in and out of the classroom—of a group of teachers at what is widely considered one of the worst public schools in America. Despite a lack of funding for even basic educational necessities, and school district leaders who only care about the barest minimum standards, these educators are united by their drive to surpass expectations and encourage their students to do the same. The show, which wrapped its third season in late May, has already received a massive number of awards, including four Emmys.
Fargo
Noah Hawley’s anthology series isn’t the first attempt to adapt the Coen brothers’ Oscar-winning crime-comedy to the small screen (Edie Falco starred in a previous version, which was a more straightforward adaptation of the movie), but his approach was clearly the smarter move. Fans of the Coens in general will find lots to love about the many nods to the filmmakers’ entire filmography, with each season covering a different crime and time period. Though the seasons do share connections, each one is a total one-off, and the show might boast the most talented group of actors ever assembled: Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Bob Odenkirk, Oliver Platt, Ted Danson, Patrick Wilson, Nick Offerman, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg, Carrie Coon, Scoot McNairy, Chris Rock, Jason Schwartzman, Timothy Olyphant, and Ben Whishaw are just a few of the names who’ve found a home in Fargo. The fantastic fifth season—featuring Juno Temple, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Joe Keery—continued this tradition of exceptional acting, with all episodes streaming now.
A Murder at the End of the World
Darby Hart (Emma Corrin) is a talented hacker and armchair detective who is one of eight guests invited to spend a few days at the stunning yet remote home of a mysterious billionaire (Clive Owen). When one of the guests ends up dead, Darby must work quickly to prove that it was murder—and who did it—before the bodies start piling up. Fans of twisty true crime will appreciate this limited series, which comes from the minds of Brit Marling (who costars) and Zal Batmanglij—co-creators of the equally mind-bending The OA.
Living for the Dead
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets possessed.” That’s tarot card reader Ken’s take on this twisty reality series, which follows the paranormal adventures of a group of five queer ghost hunters. Kristen Stewart executive-produced the series, which has been described as gay Scooby-Doo but with better hair and laugh-out-loud observations, like being more terrified of the “horrific” bedspread than the clowns at Nevada’s infamous Clown Motel.
Moonlighting
While Die Hard turned Bruce Willis into one of Hollywood’s biggest action stars, he was far from producers’ first choice for the role of John McClane. That’s largely because he was seen as the funny guy from Moonlighting, the Emmy-winning ’80s dramedy that centers around the Blue Moon Detective Agency and its two often-bickering owners, David Addison (Willis) and Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd). Over the course of its five seasons, the series racked up some serious critical acclaim and wasn’t afraid to experiment with the sitcom format.
The Other Black Girl
Sinclair Daniel shines as Nella Rogers, an up-and-coming book editor—and the only Black employee at the publishing house where she works. While Nella is initially thrilled when another young woman of color, Hazel-May McCall (Ashleigh Murray), is hired as an assistant, she can’t help but notice that a series of bizarre events seems to follow. As Nella tries to suss out exactly what is going on, she uncovers some pretty damn disturbing skeletons in her employer’s closet. While horror-comedies are an increasingly popular movie genre, we don’t see them on the small screen quite as often—which, if this clever series is any indication, is a real shame.
The Full Monty
Twenty-six years after a low-budget British comedy blew up at the box office, scored an Oscar, and introduced “the Full Monty” into the popular lexicon, the Regular Joes turned strippers from Sheffield are back to face largely the same issues they were lamenting in the original feature film. Much of the main cast reassembled for this follow-up to Peter Cattaneo’s hit 1997 movie, including two-time Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson, who passed away in late December. Stripping is involved, as are other inevitables in life, including breakups, reconciliations, and death. For fans of the original movie—or the Broadway musical and stage play that followed—it’s a fun check-in with the characters who bared it all.
The Office (UK)
Years before there was Jim and Pam and Dwight and Michael, there were Tim and Dawn and Gareth and David. For lovers of cringe, it’s hard to do better than Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s workplace comedy. David Brent (Gervais) is the original boss from hell, whose office antics will have you covering your eyes and laughing out loud at the same time. Like many British series, there are just two seasons—each consisting of a mere six episodes—plus a two-part Christmas special. Don’t be surprised if you sit down to watch a single episode and binge it all in one go.
Cheers
In the 1980s, NBC was the channel to watch on Thursday nights—in large part thanks to Cheers. The bar where everybody knows your name is where the action happens in this award-winning sitcom about a former Red Sox player (Ted Danson) and the lovable employees and patrons who treat his bar like a second home. If you can look past (or, even better, embrace) the questionable ‘80s fashion and sometimes-sexist storylines that wouldn’t necessarily fly on TV today, you’ll find what is arguably one of the smartest sitcoms ever written. More than 40 years after its original premiere, the jokes still stand up and the characters are some of television’s most memorable (and beloved) for a reason.
Justified: City Primeval
Few reboots have generated as much enthusiasm as this one, in which Timothy Olyphant reprises his role as no-nonsense US marshal Raylan Givens. Fifteen years older than when we last saw him in Justified, Raylan is now living back in Miami, helping to raise his teenage daughter Willa (played here by Olyphant’s real-life daughter Vivian) and still rocking a Stetson like no other actor ever could. But life for Raylan never stays quiet for long, and this miniseries sees him making his way to Detroit and facing off against a violent criminal known as the Oklahoma Wildman (Boyd Holbrook). Guns are drawn and wise is cracked in this limited series, with all eight episodes currently available to stream (not to mention all six seasons of the original series).
Dopesick
Back in 2021, Hulu went where Netflix’s Painkiller went in 2023: to the late ’90s and early 2000s, aka the beginning of America’s opioid crisis. Danny Strong created this retelling of the lengths to which Richard Sackler (played here by the always excellent Michael Stuhlbarg) and Purdue Pharma would go to sell doctors on the powers of OxyContin—all with the promise of no addiction. Michael Keaton won an Emmy for his portrayal of a widowed doctor in Appalachia who buys into the lies, and eventually becomes a victim of them.
Reservation Dogs
Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo co-created this Peabody Award–winning series, which made history as the first mainstream TV show created by, starring, and crewed by an almost entirely Indigenous American team. It tells the story of four bored teens who are desperate to escape their lives on a reservation in Oklahoma. They decide that California is where they want to be and commit to a life of mostly petty crimes in order to save up enough money to leave. The series’ third, and final, season concluded in 2023 with a brilliant sendoff—and the whole series is available to watch now.
What We Do in the Shadows
In 2014, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi cowrote, codirected, and costarred in What We Do in the Shadows, a funny mockumentary featuring a group of vampires who share a home. This series, which premiered in 2019, moved the vampire action from New Zealand to Staten Island and brought in a whole new group of vampires—who struggle to even get up off the couch, let alone take over all of New York City (as they’ve been instructed to). In the show’s fifth season, which aired in summer 2023, Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) recovers from a supernatural hex, energy vampire Colin (Mark Proksch) runs for office, and gentleman scientist Laszlo (Matt Berry) tries to figure out the secret behind the changes Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) is experiencing. If you haven’t been watching, now is the perfect time to tune in—especially as its upcoming sixth season, which premieres on October 21, will sadly be its last.
Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi
“The gateway to another culture often happens first through food,” says Padma Lakshmi in the first season of Taste the Nation. That pretty much sums up this food show, made in the style of Parts Unknown and Bizarre Foods (both of which are also streaming on Hulu). Lakshmi makes for a compelling tour guide, and she doesn’t even need to leave the US to explore the cultures, and culinary delights, of Ukraine, Cambodia, Italy, and beyond.
The Great
Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult shine in this witty, fast-paced, comedic retelling (but not really) of Catherine the Great’s rise to power. Created by Tony McNamara, who earned Oscar nominations for his writing work on both The Favourite and Poor Things, The Great offers the same combination of lush costumes and scenery mixed with a biting commentary on the world, and a woman’s place in it. A story that rings as true today as it did in the 18th century, when Catherine the Great became empress of Russia and brought about the Age of Enlightenment, this show chips away at notions of class, propriety, and monarchical rule in a way few others do. If it’s historical accuracy you’re after, look elsewhere; the series’ creators describe it as decidedly “anti-historical” (which is part of the fun). All three seasons are available to stream.
Tiny Beautiful Things
The reason to watch this eight-part limited series can be summed up in two words: Kathryn Hahn. A comedic juggernaut, Hahn can switch from funny to dramatic in the same scene, if not the same sentence. This talent is on display in Tiny Beautiful Things, where she plays Claire, a writer who takes up an advice column and pours all the traumas of her life into responding to her readers. Based on Wild author Cheryl Strayed’s collection of “Dear Sugar” columns, the vignettes here may be a bit out of sorts, but Hahn pulls them together.
Dave
Dave Burd is a comedian and rapper who goes by the stage name Lil Dicky. In Dave, Burd plays a rapper who goes by the stage name Lil Dicky and is attempting to raise his profile and make a much bigger name for himself. If only his many neuroses didn’t keep getting in the way. While Dave could have easily turned into some mediocre experiment in meta storytelling, Burd—who co-created the series, stars in it, and has written several episodes—grapples with some surprisingly touchy topics, including mental illness. And he does it all with a level of sensitivity and honesty that you might not expect from a guy named Lil Dicky.
Great Expectations
This latest adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel isn’t so much a modern retelling—Alfonso Cuarón’s 1998 film this is not—as it is a fresh one. Starring Olivia Colman in the iconic role of Miss Havisham, this six-part series transforms the story of Pip, a young boy with dreams of an upper-class life, into a gothic tale that examines the moral compromises one must make to ascend in the world. Filled with stunning performances and a sleek look (or “try-hard edginess,” depending who you ask), it’s the perfect miniseries for fans of the novel—or viewers encountering Dickens’ classic story for the first time.
Atlanta
Donald Glover proved himself to be a quadruple threat of an actor, writer, musician, and comedian with this highly acclaimed FX series about Earnest “Earn” Marks (Glover), an aspiring music manager who is trying to help his cousin Alfred Miles, aka Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), kick off his musical career. They’re surrounded by a supportive crew of friends, including Alfred’s BFF, Darius (LaKeith Stanfield), and Van (Zazie Beetz), Earn’s close friend and the mother of his child. This makes it all sound like a fairly straightforward buddy comedy, but Atlanta is so much more. Even better: It’s weird. Glover is not afraid to experiment with storytelling, which is part of what makes the show so compelling.
Baskets
Zach Galifianakis stars alongside Zach Galifianakis as twin brothers Chip and Dale Baskets in this unexpectedly moving family comedy about an aspiring clown (Chip) who fails to graduate from a fancy clowning school in Paris and is forced to return home to Bakersfield, California, where he lives with his mother (the late Louie Anderson) and is constantly belittled by his higher-achieving brother (Dale). Between the dual role for Galifianakis and Anderson as the mom, it may sound like a cheap bit of stunt casting that can’t sustain more than an episode, let alone multiple character arcs. But if you’re a fan of absurdist comedy, Baskets truly ranks among the best of them. And Anderson, who won his first and only Emmy for his role as Costco-loving Christine, is absolutely transcendent. While it received a fair amount of critical acclaim, Baskets could rightly be considered one of the most underseen and underappreciated series in recent memory.
The Dropout
Amanda Seyfried won a much deserved Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy for her portrayal of the notorious Stanford dropout turned health care technology maven Elizabeth Holmes, who tricked some of the world’s savviest business minds into investing in her company, Theranos. While Holmes’ goal was altruistic enough—making health care more accessible to the masses via a device that could detect any number of diseases with little more than a single finger prick of blood—the technology wasn’t able to catch up. Rather than admit defeat, she kept pushing, making business deals and promises she could never fulfill.
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Taffy Brodesser-Akner created this series, based on her bestselling novel of the same name, which manages to tell a very specific story that is also universally relatable. Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg) is a recently divorced fortysomething hepatologist living in New York City. Things are looking up for Fleishman when he’s considered for a promotion and begins dipping his toe into the dating waters via an app. But then his ex-wife, Rachel (Claire Danes), disappears, leaving him with their two children. With the help of two of his best friends (played by Lizzy Caplan and Adam Brody), Fleishman realizes that it will take an honest deconstruction of his marriage to understand what happened to Rachel, and where she might be.
The Handmaid’s Tale
When Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, little did she know that its television adaptation would revolutionize the still-nascent world of original streaming content. And she may not have anticipated just how many parallels her dystopian classic would share with the real world at the time it was adapted into an award-winning television series. It’s set in an unnamed time in what is presumably the very near future, when the United States has been taken over by a fundamentalist group known as Gilead, under whose regime women are considered property and stripped of any personal rights. The most valuable women are those who are fertile, as infertility has become an epidemic, and they are kept as handmaids who are forced to take part in sexual rituals with high-ranking couples in order to bear their children. Recognizing the power she wields, Offred, aka June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss), is not content to remain enslaved and sets about changing the rules as she seeks to reunite with her lost husband and daughter. It’s been a while since we’ve seen any new episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale; its most recent season aired in 2022. Production on the sixth, and final, season is expected to commence this summer for a 2025 release.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
If you thought the characters on Seinfeld were terrible people, wait until you meet the gang from Paddy’s Pub. For nearly 20 years, Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Mac (Robert McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson), and Frank (Danny DeVito) have unapologetically plotted against each other and total strangers in a series of completely self-centered schemes with absolutely no regard for the rules of civility. The show follows the “no hugging and no learning” rule Larry David established for Seinfeld, but elevates it to a new level of sociopathy. “Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare,” “Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack,” “How Mac Got Fat,” “Dennis Looks Like a Registered Sex Offender,” “The Gang Turns Black,” and “The Gang Goes to a Water Park” are just some of the offbeat adventures awaiting viewers. In 2021, Sunny became the longest-running live-action sitcom in the history of television, and it shows no signs of slowing down—or taking it easy on its characters. It also happens to be one of the easiest shows to binge: Pop an episode on and, without even realizing it, you’ll be on to another season. Its 16th (!!) wrapped up in 2023—but there are at least two more on the way.
Letterkenny
What began as a web series is now a Hulu original that wrapped up its eleventh season in December. The show is a portrait of small-town Canada (the fictional Letterkenny of the title) and focuses on siblings Wayne (co-creator Jared Keeso) and Katy (Michelle Mylett), who run a produce stand with help from friends Daryl (Nathan Dales) and Squirrely Dan (K. Trevor Wilson). As is often the case in small-town series, many of the residents fall into specific categories—in Letterkenny, you could be a gym rat, a hick, a skid (their word for a drug addict), or a “native” (a member of the nearby First Nation reservation). But in contrast to many small-town series, these groups—and the individuals who comprise them—aren’t reduced to meaningless stereotypes.
Only Murders in the Building
Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez make for a delightful trio of true-crime-obsessed podcast fans who, in season 1 of this original Hulu series, decide to join forces and create their own podcast while attempting to solve the mysterious death of a fellow resident of their Manhattan apartment building. From the very beginning of their odd alliance, it’s been clear that all is not what it seems, and everyone is keeping secrets. Now they’ve upped the ante on guest stars, too; the third season saw Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep join in the fun. Streep will return for season 4, which will premiere on August 27, and will be joined by Eugene Levy, Kumail Nanjiani, Tina Fey, Melissa McCarthy, Zach Galifianakis, and Eva Longoria.
The Patient
Steve Carell plays against type—or is at least nothing like The Office’s Michael Scott—in this psychological thriller from Joel Fields and The Americans creator Joe Weisberg. Carell is Alan Strauss, a therapist being held captive by his patient (Domhnall Gleeson), who cops to being a serial killer and desperately wants Strauss to “cure” his desire to kill. The series plays out like one big-bottle episode; much of the action occurs in a single room, with Carell and Gleeson speaking only to each other—each trying to determine his best next move.
Pen15
Mining the awkwardness of one’s middle school years is hardly a new comedy concept. But being in your early thirties and playing yourself as a junior high school student and then surrounding yourself with age-appropriate actors who are actually going through that hellish rite of passage brings a whole new layer of cringe and humor. This is exactly what co-creators/stars Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle did for Pen15.
Under the Banner of Heaven
Murder and Mormonism collide in this true-crime drama, in which detective Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) is sent to investigate the murder of a woman (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her baby near Salt Lake City. While trying to solve the crime, Pyre learns some troubling information about the most devoted members of the LDS church that forces him to reckon with his faith.
While shopping online for your son’s holiday gift, you stumble across a cashmere scarf from an unfamiliar retailer. You’re checking out as a new customer, and the site requests your contact, shipping, billing, and payment information. You don’t have your credit card number handy, so you leave the checkout frustrated—without buying the scarf.
Sales are lost in scenarios like this all too frequently. In fact, the average online shopping-cart abandonment rate is higher than 70%, according to the Baymard Institute.
Shoppers don’t finish checking out for a variety of reasons, including:
• The requirement to create an account
• A lack of trust around payment information security
• A long, complicated checkout process
To convert new or existing customers, businesses cannot overlook the guest checkout experience—particularly around the holiday season, when guest-shopper traffic is highest.
Improving Guest Checkouts
Simply offering guest checkout is not enough to improve customer experience. Guest shoppers still need to complete multiple form fields, which makes the process notoriously cumbersome. Businesses that invest in speeding up and easing this experience can convert more customers.
A streamlined guest checkout process should offer:
• Early guest recognition that can quickly identify shoppers and their payment preferences
• Pre-filled customer information that automatically supplies a shopper’s email address and payment, shipping, and billing information
• Checkout speed that allows shoppers to finalize transactions in as little as one click
Sixty-six percent of customers expect to check out in four minutes or less, according to Capterra, and each innovation can shave precious time off the checkout experience. Taken together, these improvements can help a business drive conversion and deliver an ideal shopping experience for all customers.
Speed Powered by Data
The key to fast guest checkout is data, including access to information about customers’ purchase history, credentials, and payment information.
“The ability to recognize verified shoppers is what makes a fast, one-click guest checkout experience possible. And it’s only possible with the right breadth and depth of data,” says Mike Sutter, SVP and head of checkout at PayPal. “You need the scale and trust of a large network to truly accelerate the process.”
Ensuring customer trust around data is equally important. Customers aren’t comfortable giving their personal information to just anyone. A majority will only buy from companies that have a reputation for protecting data, according to McKinsey. Businesses need to align with payment service providers known for taking data privacy seriously.
More Checkouts, More Conversion
A speedy checkout doesn’t just enable a convenient buyer experience. It can also lead to more completed checkouts, lower cart abandonment rates, improved authorization rates, and higher conversion rates. Importantly, it can also drive higher customer satisfaction, which can encourage customers to return.
The concept of a high-speed guest checkout isn’t new. Solutions are already available. But they all differ in the scale of their data network and their access to it.
Fastlane by PayPal is the only accelerated guest checkout solution that is powered by the scale and credibility of PayPal’s immense network, with 550 million cards securely stored. Businesses that use Fastlane can recognize shoppers and let them pay in seconds.
“Effective guest checkout solutions should balance ease of use with robust security measures,” says Sutter. “By recognizing returning customers and allowing for quick, one-click payments, businesses can create a smoother, more satisfying shopping experience.”
The holidays are just around the corner, and guest traffic is about to soar. A high-speed guest checkout may be the make-or-break element of the season. Now’s the time for businesses to examine their checkout processes and consider how they can improve customer experience with an accelerated guest checkout.
Learn more about how PayPal is helping businesses convert shoppers into buyers with a fast, simple, and frictionless buying experience.
If you have been following here since the way back when, you know ASOS has always been in heavy rotation for me. Even as my style have evolved and my budget has changed (since starting this site as a 24 year old in San Francisco) ASOS has remained on my radar. Recently I have had so many good finds, evidenced by the three dresses above! I typically gravitation towards ASOS EDITION and ASOS LUXE but have found gems all over the site. In fact, I’m currently eyeing this beauty.
Right now the site is offering 25% off to the first 2,000 people to use the code SPEEDY at checkout. After that code expires you can still use SPEEDY at checkout for 20% off! Some exclusions do apply, but so many items are included. You can browse the full line up here and see more of my picks below…
When Roberto Macri built his luxury hotel in the Kenyan coastal village of Kipini, it was about 100m (330ft) away from the beautiful waters of the Indian Ocean.
For nearly two decades his business thrived as tourists arrived in droves to enjoy the pristine beach and sunny weather.
The Tana Lodge Hotel, which was built on top of sand dunes, offered a spectacular view of the ocean.
But in 2014 people started to notice a change. The sea level had begun to rise and within five years, the hotel’s nine guest cottages had been swallowed by the sea – one after the other.
“The ocean changed steadily and started encroaching the hotel. The last standing cottage was gulped by the sea in 2019, marking the end of my glorious hotel,” Italian businessman Mr Macri told the BBC.
Roberto Macri
Guests once enjoyed this view from the Tana Lodge Hotel
Now other residents of Kipini village, whose houses are located further back from the hotel, are facing the same prospect.
Kipini – built at the mouth of Kenya’s longest waterway, the Tana River, which flows into the Indian Ocean – is among several coastal villages that are slowly disappearing.
“The ocean advances every day and our houses are becoming weaker. We are afraid and distressed but there is nothing much we can do,” Saida Idris, a community leader, told the BBC.
She said several people had died and an unknown number were missing after being swept away by the rise in sea levels, coupled with strong winds and heavy tides, especially at night.
The depletion of mangrove forests along the shoreline – the coast’s main line of defence against erosion – is to blame.
Mangrove forests are full of salt-tolerant trees and shrubs that prevent sea water from advancing into farmlands by stabilising soil that otherwise could be washed away.
The cause of their disappearance appears to be a combination of deforestation by locals wanting coveted hard wood – and rising sea water as a result of climate change, which scientists feel is the major factor.
“The shoreline in Kipini is very exposed to the effects of strong winds that strengthen the ocean waves,” George Odera, a scientist with Fauna and Flora, a nature conservancy group, explained.
Roberto Macri
Kipini is situated at the point where the Tana River meets the Indian Ocean
Kipini, with its welcoming palm trees and smells of spice and barbecuing seafood, evokes what every Kenyan pictures of laid-back coastal life.
But this idyll is under threat as the seawater levels continue to rise.
According to Omar Halki, a local administrator, nearly 10km (6.2 miles) of what used to be dry land have been swallowed by the sea in the last 10 years.
“It’s just a matter of time before the whole region goes under water,” he told the BBC.
Kipini has a population of about 4,000 people and residents told the BBC they could no longer dig or build strong foundations for their homes because of the rising sea levels.
Some in Kipini estimate that more than 1,000 people have relocated to other villages over the last decade.
Most of the wells or boreholes that used to give them fresh water have now turned saline, forcing them to look for alternative sources of drinking water.
The increasing salinity in groundwater has also severely affected farming.
Crabs and prawns, which have also served as a source of livelihood for locals, are now scare as their breeding grounds are within the mangrove swamps.
The remains of a mangrove forest can be seen washed up on Kipini’s beach
The rising waters have affected almost all facets of life, including how people are buried.
“Graves are shallow because if we dig the recommended six feet, the dead will be buried in water,” one resident told the BBC.
Kipini is within Tana River county, which is facing multiple climate emergencies – from severe drought and water shortages in some places to flooding in others.
It is the county’s first recorded instance of a village being overtaken by rising sea levels.
But some locals say the geography of the coast has always changed – pointing to how the small fishing community of nearby Ungwana Bay was swept away years ago.
Others say the Tana River could be changing its course.
“Our forefathers showed us where the original waterway used to pass,” resident Rishadi Badi told the BBC, explaining that he was told the river used to pass through Kipini generations ago.
People in Kipini fear for their livelihoods as well as their homes
But Mr Odera, who studies the calamity facing Kipini, puts the blame squarely on climate change.
“What is happening in Kipini is not history, it is a recent occurrence and the bitter truth is, it is not getting better,” he said.
Local authorities want to build a sea wall along the 72km (45-mile) coastline to save the village from further intrusion by the ocean.
Although the authorities acknowledge the situation is dire, the wall project is yet to start because of a lack of funds, says Mwanajuma Hiribae, a senior land official in the county.
“The seawater intrusion is a deeper problem affecting about 15 other villages and the county government alone cannot undertake to solve it,” she told the BBC.
Although she said the UN Environment Programme and UN Habitat had expressed support for the wall project.
Similar walls have been built at the historical sites such as Fort Jesus in Mombasa and Vasco Da Gama Pillar in Malindi after the rise in seawater threatened these tourist attractions.
But climate experts say building a wall in Kipini is a “mechanistic solution”, and there needs to be conservation initiatives, like the restoration of mangrove forests.
“The sea is not something that the government will just wake up and stop. We need to help our communities to adapt and become more resilient to these climatic changes,” Mr Odera said.
Locals say that they feel like they are temporary visitors in their own homes, walking to the shore every day to check how far the ocean has moved.
“If no help comes within three years, the entire Kipini region will be swallowed by the ocean,” Mr Halki said.
For Mr Macri, the whole situation has been devastating and he has now moved to the coastal town of Malindi town,170km (100 miles) from Kipini.
“The area was like gold – a calm village with beautiful sand dunes surrounded by coconut trees and historical buildings just next to the beach,” he said.
All that remains of his $460,000 investment is what used to be the manager’s house, standing less than 50m from the sea and awaiting its fate.
Out of the 10 acres (four hectares) on which the hotel stood on, four are fully submerged.
Mr Macri is holding on to his remaining six acres hoping to return and invest again once the ocean has been stopped from encroaching on to land.
His former managing director, Joseph Gachango, is equally bereft.
“It broke my heart to see the hotel that used to attract guests from as far as Italy wiped out with about 50 workers losing their jobs,” he said.
Matt McBriar, one half of successful Northern Irish dance music duo Bicep, has announced he is receiving treatment for a “large and pretty rare” brain tumour.
McBriar, 38, detailed his illness and treatment in an Instagram post, explaining he had begun to experience fatigue and headaches towards the end of 2023, with resultant scans showing a craniopharyngioma tumour on his pituitary gland.
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“The good news is firstly, it’s almost certainly not cancerous and secondly, I’ve caught it in the earlier stages of damage,” he wrote. “I’d been very lucky to get those initial blood tests followed by an MRI. Had it been much longer I might’ve lost some eyesight and a load of other problems due to the size and position of the tumour pressing on my optic nerves.”
He had surgery on Friday 9 August. Bicep had been due to perform at Boardmasters festival in Newquay over the weekend, but cancelled that set, citing “unforeseen personal circumstances” at the time.
McBriar said the operation “went well” and that he would be in recovery for six to eight weeks, followed by “a long road of aftercare”. He thanked NHS staff, calling them “amazing, kind and empathetic”.
McBriar’s partner in Bicep, Andy Ferguson, will continue to perform as Bicep solo in the interim, including a set at Creamfields festival, which takes place on 22-25 August.
Playing a thickly atmospheric form of breakbeat-driven techno, Bicep have become icons to a generation of young ravers thanks to their melodic production and visually arresting live sets.
They started out in Belfast as DJs and music bloggers focused on disco and house, before moving into production. They released their self-titled debut album in 2017, featuring the hit track Glue, followed by Isles in 2021, which reached No 2 in the UK album chart. The album earned them two nominations at the 2021 Brit awards, for British group and breakthrough artist.
More recently they have launched an audiovisual project called Chroma, which spans newly released singles and a hybrid live set blending DJing and live performance.
At Glastonbury this year, a Chroma set proved so popular that it had to be cancelled due to overcrowding. The duo also delivered a popular set at Coachella festival earlier this year.
Gold strategy: Yellow metal mildly lower; analysts advise buying the dips
Gold prices today: Spot gold was trading with a slight loss of 0.19 per cent at $2,468 at the time of the MCX Closing. Weakness could be attributed to weakness in outside markets as most of the commodities fell despite largely softer than expected US PPI data (July). The yellow metal traded in a relatively narrow range of around 1 per cent. READ MORE
8:53 AM
India just shy of top-weight China in the MSCI EM index after rejig
The Indian equity markets will soon account for over a fifth of a key emerging market (EM) benchmark tracked by funds with assets exceeding $500 billion. This development is expected to funnel as much as $3 billion into the domestic markets. READ MORE
8:47 AM
Red-hot growth projections point to cooler outlook for Voltas stock
Voltas saw strong growth in both UCP (Unitary Cooling product) and EMPS (electro mechanical projects) segments. It reported a profit in EMPS versus expectations of loss. READ MORE
8:42 AM
Mauritius FSC denies allegations against Sebi chief over offshore funds
The Mauritian fund was run by an Adani director and its ultimate parent was the vehicle used by two Adani associates to round-trip funds and inflate stock prices. READ MORE
8:37 AM
3 entities settle insider trading charges with Sebi in PNB Housing case
Three individuals on Tuesday settled with capital markets regulator Sebi a case pertaining to alleged violation of insider trading rules in the scrip of PNB Housing Finance Ltd after paying Rs 1.56 crore collectively. READ MORE
8:32 AM
ALERT:: FIIs net sold stocks worth Rs 2,100 cr on Tuesday
Meanwhile, data shows that DIIs were net buyers of shares to the tune of Rs 1,240 crore on August 13.
8:27 AM
Ather’s $450 mn IPO: The next big spark in India’s electric revolution
The move to go for an IPO is well timed as it comes on the heels of a successful debut in the stock market by its start up rival Ola Electric just few days ago when it raised Rs 5500 crore. READ MORE
8:22 AM
Stocks to Watch Today, August 14: Vedanta, Ola Electric, Nykaa, NBCC, SJVN
Here is the list of buzzing stocks to watch during today’s trading session. READ MORE
7:46 AM
GIFT Nifty gains 100 pts; trading holiday, weekly F&O expiry in focus today
All you need to know before the market opens on Wednesday: The US market rose as cooler inflation raised September rate cut bets. FIIs long-short ratio in index futures dipped below 1 after two months. READ MORE
The United Auto Workers union, which represents some 400,000 workers in the automobile, aerospace, and agriculture industries, on Tuesday said that it filed federal labor charges against Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The charges follow what the UAW describes as “attempts to threaten and intimidate workers” that arose during a conversation between Trump and Musk, hosted on X Spaces Monday evening, in which Trump appeared to praise X owner Musk for firing workers who strike.
“Well, you’re the greatest cutter,” Trump told Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in and you just say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike. I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s okay. You’re all gone. You’re all gone.’” Musk did not respond specifically to Trump’s statements, but laughed as the former president spoke, and said he would “be happy to help out” on a government efficiency commission.
US workers—both unionized and nonunionized—cannot be fired for engaging in protected strikes, according to the National Labor Relations Board. In his comments, Trump “stated a position which is a violation of law, flat and simple,” says William B. Gould IV, a professor at Stanford Law School and former chair of the NLRB. Trump could be seen as acting as an agent for Musk’s companies, Gould says, and his words could potentially interfere with votes to unionize at companies.
The NLRB will need to investigate the claims and then decide how to move forward if it feels the charges have merit.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” UAW president Shawn Fain said in a statement. “Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”
The UAW has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, and previously called Trump “a scab and a lapdog for the billionaires.” The union did not provide a copy of the charges it filed Tuesday when requested by WIRED; they were not yet docketed on the NLRB website as of press time.
Musk’s companies have a blighted record when it comes to workers’ rights. Trump did not name the Musk company he was referring to, but Musk is CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and the Boring Company. Musk has said in the past that unionization at Tesla would result in a loss of stock options, and he slashed staff at X (then Twitter) when he bought it, ultimately even canceling services from janitors who went on strike. Meanwhile, SpaceX is currently sparring with the NLRB in court.
The UAW previously tried to unionize Tesla workers, but fell short. The union is trying still to do so. Tesla and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment either.
Shortly after the UAW announced the charge, Musk posted to X: “The last two UAW presidents went to prison for bribery & corruption and, based on recent news, it looks like this guy will join them!” (Two former UAW presidents were sentenced to prison time in a large corruption probe, but they were not the two most recent union presidents.)
