A baby pygmy hippo named Moo Deng: she is all we want to look at | Helen Sullivan

In West Africa, Pygmy hippos are said to carry a diamond in their mouths, which they use to light their way through the forest

The thing to know about the pygmy hippopotamus named Moo Deng is that she is angry, but also she is sweet. In photographs, she is often blurry and at all times, she is shiny. She secretes something known as “blood sweat” which is actually her sunscreen.

She is a hippopotamidae. She is stout. She runs like a piglet and has a snout like a very, very new puppy’s. She is very fast. Continue reading...


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2024/sep/20/moo-deng-pygmy-hippo-khao-kheow-open-zoo?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger

‘Joshua’s ripe for the taking’: shyness masks Dubois’ hunger for big win

Dubois warns he is ‘really dangerous’ before Wembley bout but happy to let Frank Warren do most of the talking

Daniel Dubois and Frank Warren make an unlikely team. The dapper promoter is a tough yet garrulous 72-year-old while Dubois, a heavily muscled 27-year-old heavyweight who stands 6ft 5in, remains much more hesitant. As he prepares to fight Anthony Joshua at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night, it is striking how often Dubois turns to Warren for reassurance.

When asked how he is coping with the intense media scrutiny that accompanies a fight against the far more celebrated Joshua, Dubois looks to his promoter for help: “What do you think?” Continue reading...


https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/sep/19/daniel-dubois-frank-warren-anthony-joshua-wembley-boxing?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger

Social media and online video firms are conducting ‘vast surveillance’ on users, FTC finds

Agency accuses Meta, Google, TikTok and other companies of sharing troves of user information with third-parties

Social media and online video companies are collecting huge troves of your personal information on and off their websites or apps and sharing it with a wide range of third-party entities, a new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff report on nine tech companies confirms.

The FTC report published on Thursday looked at the data-gathering practices of Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, Amazon, Snap, TikTok and Twitter/X between January 2019 and 31 December 2020. The majority of the companies’ business models incentivized tracking how people engaged with their platforms, collecting their personal data and using it to determine what content and ads users see on their feeds, the report states. Continue reading...


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/19/social-media-companies-surveillance-ftc?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger

After a terrible cup of joe in the office, a founder decided to bring African coffee traditions stateside

Kahawa 1893 prioritizes small producers and premium beans, while also offering consumers a ‘virtual pot’ to support its suppliers

When she was a child growing up in Kenya, Margaret Nyamumbo learned about a custom that took place on her grandfather’s coffee farm: every few weeks, the women who worked there would gather around a table and drop money into a large pot. Anyone who had contributed had the right to later retrieve funds in the form of a small loan.

This so-called “table banking” system, which is a custom in Kenya, helped women involved in the coffee trade support one another. Kenyan women, who historically are denied land ownership and therefore the ability to take out loans, provide 90% of labor on coffee farms but own just 1% of the land. Continue reading...


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/19/kahawa-1893-coffee-margaret-nyamumbo?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger

Best podcasts of the week: Lupita Nyong’o and friends tell tales of the African diaspora

In this week’s newsletter: The Oscar-winning actress goes back to her roots in Mind Your Own. Plus: five of the best comic book podcasts

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Mind Your Own

Widely available, episodes weekly

Lupita Nyong’o came up with the idea for this podcast when she was stuck in traffic and wanted to hear a story from Kenya, where she grew up. She’s inviting others in the African diaspora to tell real-life tales from Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Johannesburg and more. But what’s really interesting is Nyong’o talking about how uncomfortable it felt to lose her accent for the American market, before finding her authentic voice again. Hannah Verdier Continue reading...


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/sep/19/hear-here-lupita-nyongo-mind-your-own-podcast?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=blogger