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 In the run-up to a bout with Evander Holyfield in 1996, a reporter asked reigning American boxing champion Mike Tyson about his opponent’s fight plan. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” Tyson sniffed. The global response to Covid-19 could elicit a similar response. After a year in which the coronavirus killed more than 3 million people, it is re-accelerating in India. But even though the global crisis is far from over, it has already planted the seeds of a conflict over which economic and political models were reinforced by the pandemic, and which were weakened by it. In “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe”, historian Niall Ferguson seeks to put Covid-19 in context by reviewing nearly everything bad that has ever happened to humanity. Seeking an analytical framework to apply to human miscalculation in the face of cataclysm, he ranges far and wide. He offers the example of Pliny the Elder, the otherwise clever Roman philosopher, who having watched Mount Vesuv...

They are being offered little more than a couple of masks, some hand sanitizer and social-distancing guidance that may be hard to abide by.  For Olympic host cities, one of the keys to a successful Games is the army of volunteers who cheerfully perform a range of  duties , like fetching water, driving Olympic vehicles, interpreting for athletes or carrying medals to ceremonies.  If the rescheduled Tokyo Games go ahead as planned this summer, roughly 78,000 volunteers will have another responsibility: preventing the spread of the coronavirus, both among participants and themselves.  For protection, the volunteers are being offered little more than a couple of cloth masks, a bottle of sanitizer and mantras about social distancing. Unless they qualify for vaccination through Japan’s  slow age-based rollout , they will not be inoculated against the coronavirus.  “I don’t know how we’re going to be able to do this,” said Akiko Kariya, 40, a paralegal in Tokyo wh...

  In recent history, a few individuals have made decisions that could, in theory, have unleashed killer aliens or set Earth's atmosphere on fire. What can they tell us about attitudes to the existential risks we face today? In the late 1960s, Nasa faced a decision that could have shaped the fate of our species. Following the Apollo 11 Moon landings, the three astronauts were waiting to be picked up inside their capsule floating in the Pacific Ocean – and they were hot and uncomfortable. Nasa officials decided to make things more pleasant for their three national heroes. The downside? There was a small possibility of unleashing deadly alien microbes on Earth. A couple of decades beforehand, a group of scientists and military officials stood at a similar turning point. As they waited to watch the first atomic weapon test, they were aware of a potentially catastrophic outcome. There was a chance that their experiments might accidentally ignite the atmosphere and destroy all life on th...

  Amazon has quickly changed its main shopping-app logo, after commentators said the recent redesign made it look like Adolf Hitler. Launched in January, the icon depicts a strip of blue tape over an Amazon "smile" logo. But some observers said it resembled a toothbrush moustache, associated with the Nazi dictator. The technology giant has now changed the design to a folded blue tape, following customer feedback. Amazon told BBC News the first icon had been trialled in a few countries before the change had been made. Branding agency Coley Porter Bell chief executive Vicky Bullen said: “Unfortunately for Amazon, the visualisation of their parcel tape on the original logo will immediately be associated as a Hitleresque moustache, as that shape is forever embedded in our [subconscious] brains as such - not the best association for a brand that wants to create delight on the doorstep.” The app logo - which appears on smartphones and tablets - previously showed a graphic of a shop...

 A California driver who said he had used a mannequin as his passenger for at least a year and a half in order to access carpool lanes has been cited and faces a fine of at least $400. The mannequin — adorned with gray hair, wrinkles, glasses, a Cleveland Indians baseball hat and a face mask — sat in the passenger seat of the driver’s Toyota Tacoma when he was pulled over on Feb. 19.Officer S. Sullinger was patrolling the eastbound 210 freeway in Glendora in search of carpool violators. The officer noticed the front passenger in the Toyota was suspicious and that the vehicle had tinted windows on its front passenger side, which is illegal. Sullinger realized the passenger was fake when the driver rolled down his window. “The driver didn’t say much,” California Highway Patrol Officer Rodrigo Jimenez said to the Los Angeles Daily News on Friday. “Other than that he’s been driving with the mannequin and he’d been getting away with it for a year and a half.” The driver was cited for th...

Talk about your yard sale finds. A small porcelain bowl bought for $35 at a Connecticut yard sale turned out to be a rare, 15th century Chinese artifact worth between $300,000 and $50u0,000 that is about to go up for auction at Sotheby’s. The white bowl adorned with cobalt blue paintings of flowers and other designs is about 6 inches (16 centimeters) in diameter. An antiques enthusiast came across the piece and thought it could be something special when browsing a yard sale in the New Haven area last year, according to Sotheby’s. The piece, one of only seven such bowls known to exist in the world, will be up for auction in New York on March 17 as part of Sotheby’s Auction of Important Chinese Art. The buyer, whom is not being named, paid the $35 asking price and later emailed information and photos to Sotheby’s asking for an evaluation. The auction house’s experts on Chinese ceramics and art, Angela McAteer and Hang Yin, get many such emails every week, but this was one of the kind the...

 1. Millions of Americans have found themselves without power in recent days after dangerous winter storms swept across the country. Many people suffering power outages are in southern states, where snow and ice storms are the exception and not the norm. Newsweek spoke with some experts in cold weather and survival to get some tips for anyone who may find themselves in such a predicament. 2. Insulation is key, both on the body, and in shelter/home, Scott Oeth shared via email. Oeth is a lifelong outdoorsman and considered a master naturalist who owns the wilderness guide company Bull Moose Patrol. Much of his training for camping in extreme cold translates to dealing with freezing temperatures indoors. 3. Keeping your neck and head warm is particularly important, he said, and suggested improvising a scarf or headwear with a sweater, towel, or even a pair of extra pants. Some other tips Oeth offered include: "Crumple up newspapers, magazines, paper towels and stuff inside a large s...

  The conspiracy-theory group known as QAnon has grown in popularity in recent months. It has spread from fringe internet message boards to mainstream platforms and has  become a political issue, and on Jan. 6, its adherents were among the most prominent members of the mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters who   stormed th U.S Capitol  in Washington. Here is what we know about QAnon, the conspiracy theory behind it and how it started. What is QAnon? QAnon is a far right-wing, loosely organized network and community of believers who embrace a range of unsubstantiated beliefs. These views center on the idea that a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles—mainly consisting of what they see as elitist Democrats, politicians, journalists, entertainment moguls and other institutional figures—have long controlled much of the so-called deep state government, which they say sought to undermine Mr. Trump, mostly with aid of media and entertainment outlets. What is the...

 1. TOKYO -- Despite the new coronavirus pandemic, box office takings for an animated film adaptation of popular manga and anime series "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba" are breaking records, with distributor Toho Co. reporting that on Oct. 25 it became the fastest film in Japanese cinema history to make 10 billion yen (around $95.9 million). What's behind its huge success? 2. "Demon Slayer -- Kimetsu no Yaiba -- The Movie: Mugen Train," directed by Haruo Sotozaki, was released on Oct. 16, and sources including Toho says that within three days it had earned about 4.62 billion yen in theaters, later reaching over 10.75 billion yen on Oct. 25. Until now, seven Japan- produced animated films have passed the milestone number, but none as fast as Demon Slayer. The top two highest-grossing Japanese films at the country's box office, " highest-grossing " (30.8 billion yen) and "Your Name," (25 billion yen) each needed three weeks or more in theat...