Lifestyle
Alongside taking care of other people and the planet, make sure you take good care of yourself. The Lifestyle section at the Optimist Daily has solutions for everyday wellbeing on topics like food, beauty, fashion, and the latest trends. Curious about caring for houseplants, eating plant-based, or parenting tips? It’s all in there.
China uses crowdfunding for Great Wall restoration
Heritage officials have launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for restoration work on the Great Wall of China. More than 16,000 people have donated online since the campaign started at the end of August, raising almost 300,000 yuan ($45,000; £34,000) so far. It's being run by the China Read More...
Raise taxes to fund £15bn-a-year bid to end UK poverty, charity tells Tories
The government should raise taxes on the wealthy to finance a massive £15bn annual investment in affordable housing, free childcare and enhanced social security benefits to eradicate poverty in the UK, a leading charity has said. The independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) called for a Read More...
Message to Donald Trump: Immigrants lower the crime rate
Politicians like Donald Trump like to argue that welcoming refugees and illegal immigration lead to higher crime rates. Research shows a different picture. Neighborhoods, communities with high concentrations of immigrants do not suffer from outsized levels of violence. The opposite is the case: Read More...
South Sudan accepts deployment of extra 4,000 UN peace keepers
South Sudan has accepted the deployment of 4,000 troops to the United Nations mission in the nation, and agreed to lift all restrictions on the peace keepers as well as free movement for humanitarian workers in the country, a government official said. The government of South Sudan will also work Read More...
Blockchain technology used for green energy
Blockchain is the public ledger technology underpinning Bitcoin but the technology has also spawned other innovations including a platform to reward the creators of user-generated content. Now Power Ledger is using a greener form of Blockchain technology – Ecochain– to allow those producing Read More...
A neighborhood that learned to live without cars
There’s life without cars. That’s what a neighborhood in the South Korean city of Suwon discovered when it embarked on a radical experiment: For one month, the neighborhood got rid of every car. The city handed out 400 temporary bikes and electric scooters to neighbors. Shuttle buses ran every Read More...
David Lynch: “It’s ignorance that keeps us in that boat of suffering”
David Lynch’s book “Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity” has become an iconic record of the director’s commitment to meditation, his feelings about Hollywood and his working style as an artist. TarcherPerigee has just reissued Lynch’s work in a Read More...
Technology is taking jobs away from men—and reviving a pre-industrial version of masculinity
Many men lost their jobs when technology made them obsolete. The new jobs available were soul-crushing, undignified, and required an arduous commute—and that’s assuming companies would hire them. Most employers wouldn’t, because the men were considered too old and unskilled for Read More...
Thailand announces peace talks with southern Muslim rebels
Thailand’s military government has announced peace talks can go ahead with Muslim separatists in the far south of the country but insisted they observe a ceasefire. Separatists from the far south Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat are suspected of involvement in a Read More...
The app that gives Oslo's children a direct say over their own road safety
If Pokémon Go has taught us anything, it’s that apps and gamification have the potential to change the way we interact with our cities; and as cities become smarter, citizens are increasingly having a greater influence on their development. A new Oslo-based app has taken that idea Read More...