Новости за 20.05.2021

The office novel is a deceptively orderly genre. Its settings are quiet cubicles and solitary glass towers; its characters share a carefully circumscribed world, governed by its own set of rules and social codes, undergirded by the incentives of capitalism. Yet they quickly find ways to resist. Like Bartleby, in Herman Melville’s portrait of a dysfunctional office, the heroes of this genre reject the roles that their bosses and colleagues assign to them, and bristle at the conformity that the workplace itself imposes. Читать дальше...

On Chinese New Year a few months ago, my parents showed me President Joe Biden’s Lunar New Year greeting. Against a backdrop of traditional red-and-gold silk cushions, the president and first lady Jill Biden wished blessings upon the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities: “In this season of renewal, may we all find strength and joy in one another.” Even as a heart-hardened politico, I felt a sudden sense of relief. The days of “the China virus” rhetoric from the White House were over.

Since they were first introduced in the 1970s, tax credits for renewables have helped scale up and dramatically reduce the cost of clean power in the United States. But in recent years they have also created opportunities for a small handful of major investment banks to skim billions off the top, extracting lavish fees and control over clean energy projects as part of deals shrouded in secrecy. Public power providers—who serve nearly a third of retail electricity customers—have trouble accessing clean energy tax credits at all. Читать дальше...

There is almost no schadenfreude in the Matt Gaetz downfall. The latest chapter unfolded Monday, with the Florida congressman’s ostensibly now-former wingman, Joel Greenberg, pleading guilty to sex trafficking a minor and promising his cooperation in a federal investigation reportedly involving Gaetz himself. During the proceedings, a plane flying near the Orlando courthouse dragged a banner reading, “Tick Tock Matt Gaetz.”