Free for ALL Friday!
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
Honey Traps and Hidden Cameras: All of Epstein's Suspicious Ties to Moscow
From Moscow flights to friendships with Kremlin officials, the late paedophile's emails raise alarming questions over his ties to Putin.
The trips to Moscow. The glowing references to Putin. The Russian women. The allies connected to the Kremlin. The use of secret cameras. The demands for information. Amongst all the squalor of the Epstein files, the disgraced financier's fascination with Russia and so-called "kompromat" is impossible to ignore. And it has prompted some – from the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, to British politicians and broadcasters – to ask extraordinary questions about whether he was a Kremlin asset. Any investigation into Epstein must navigate a fog of rumour, secrecy and his own tendency towards self-aggrandisement. In November 2017, for example, two FBI agents interviewed a "confidential human source" who told them that Epstein was "Vladimir Putin's wealth manager". Nothing else in the files seems to support that extraordinary claim. But Epstein did clearly strain – desperately – to get close to the Kremlin. Perhaps that culminated in a relationship with Russia's intelligence services. Equally, it is still possible that, as Tusk suspects, Epstein oversaw an operation that was set up, from the outset, by the Russian secret services. Whatever the truth, the case should ring alarm bells in the West.
The Mega-Rich Are Turning Their Mansions Into Impenetrable Fortresses
Anxiety over high-profile violence has the wealthy spending big on armed security, bunkers and even moats to keep themselves safe from intruders.
British music producer Alex Grant was living in an under-construction mega-mansion in Los Angeles when, one morning shortly after 9 a.m., an armed intruder burst into the home. "He came in and we had a tussle," recalled Grant, formerly known as Alex Da Kid. Grant managed to call his manager, who phoned the police. Soon, officers and helicopters were on the scene. He briefly considered abandoning the project after the 2017 break-in but ultimately finished the 24,000-square-foot home, which has eight pools, a car elevator and a nightclub. But, he doubled down on security features, installing a guard house, tall gates and a security system with retina scanners that alert the homeowner to movement in the home. "Later, I found out he had these knives on him," said Grant, who recently listed the mansion and a neighboring house for $85 million after moving to New York. In an era of high-profile violence—including the suspected abduction of Savannah Guthrie's mother from her Arizona home just over a week ago—the wealthy are investing heavily in their personal security, particularly when it comes to their homes. The ubiquity of social media has stripped away a layer of anonymity the wealthy once relied on. "Prior to the wide use of social media, most CEOs—whether they're in private equity, finance or tech—no one knew their names or what they looked like, with few exceptions," said Miami real-estate agent Danny Hertzberg of Coldwell Banker Realty. "Now, people are tracking them."
Casting Disappointed Gazes, Cape Town 'Aunties' Patrol Gang Strongholds
On a recent morning in Cape Town, as tourists bronze themselves on the city's white-sand beaches, a small volunteer army of mothers and grandmothers patrols streets that visitors rarely see.
The group moves briskly on foot across Rocklands, a working-class neighborhood on the city's edge. The goal is simple: to protect residents and disrupt the activities of local gangs, which were responsible for nearly 500 homicides in Cape Town between April and September of last year alone. In theory, this should be the work of the police.
But many here view officers with suspicion. In any case, these matriarch patrollers have a weapon the police don't. Call it the power of the neighborhood "auntie," who like any loving older woman in one's life, is there to protect, nurture, and, when the situation calls for it, make one wither under her disappointed gaze. "We speak to [gang members].
We respect them, treat them as human beings," explains one of those aunties, Cheryl Driver, her high-pitched voice full of enthusiasm. In return, gang members usually speak to the aunties in the hushed, deferential tones reserved for elders. "We are all families; they are our children," Ms. Driver says.
The Secret to Happiness? These Experts Say It's Feeling Loved by Others.
There are plenty of theories about the source of happiness. Who doesn't think they would be happier with more money and success?
We talked to happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside, and relationship expert Harry Reis, a psychologist at the University of Rochester, about their recently published book, "How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most."
They explained their findings about how we can actually feel better about ourselves — and our relationships. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Our country feels more divided than ever. Can your advice be a prescription for our society?
Lyubomirsky: True curiosity and listening, which is so hard when you really don't understand where someone's coming from, to actually be curious about that — why do they believe that? That must have come from somewhere, from their childhood, from their background. I really think it could make the world a better place.
Reis: I have a colleague who studies affective polarization in America today. And the interesting thing that he's uncovered is that you'll have a conversation with someone, they will reveal what side of the political aisle they're on, and if it's not yours, you turn off. I'm not interested in talking to you, goodbye. All that does is, of course, increase the degree of polarization.
The New Fabio Is Claude
The romance industry, always at the vanguard of technological change, is rapidly adapting to A.I. Not everyone is on board.
Last February, the writer Coral Hart launched an experiment. She started using artificial intelligence programs to quickly churn out romance novels.
Over the next eight months, she created 21 different pen names and published dozens of novels. In the process, she discovered the limitations of using chatbots to write about sex and love.
Some programs refused to write explicit content, which violated their policies. Others, like Grok and NovelAI, produced graphic sex scenes, but the consummation often lacked emotional nuance, and felt rushed and mechanical. Claude delivered the most elegant prose, but was terrible at sexy banter.
A longtime romance novelist who has been published by Harlequin and Mills & Boon, Ms. Hart was always a fast writer. Working on her own, she released 10 to 12 books a year under five pen names, on top of ghostwriting. But with the help of A.I., Ms. Hart can publish books at an astonishing rate.
Last year, she produced more than 200 romance novels in a range of subgenres, from dark mafia romances to sweet teen stories, and self-published them on Amazon. None were huge blockbusters, but collectively, they sold around 50,000 copies, earning Ms. Hart six figures.
"If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who's going to win the race?" she said.
Why Are American Skiers So Weird About the Safety Bar?
It's easy, it doesn't cost anything, and it might save your life. So why don't we like to use the chairlift restraint bar? (Very short article ... but I’ve been skiing much more this year than any I can remember, and I’ve absolutely noticed this.)
For as litigious and safety-obsessed as we are here in the United States, I'm perpetually baffled by how resistant some skiers are to using the safety bar on chairlifts.
It's a no-brainer; reach up and pull it down—giving a quick head's up to your fellow chair-mates, of course—then settle in for the ride. Sounds easy enough, no? According to a study that tracked safety bar use, the bar is pulled down only 40 percent of the time at ski areas in the Rocky Mountain region (Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico).
It's used more consistently at East Coast resorts (80 percent; it's worth noting here that Vermont is the only state to required safety bar use) and much less in the Midwest (just 9 percent).
While it's true that riding a chairlift remains extraordinarily safe—one fatality for every 570 million rides—why not do the one simple thing that makes it nearly impossible to fall?
What Is the Origin of Valentine's Day?
The holiday was preceded by an ancient Roman festival, though two medieval poets and a Catholic pope are credited with its invention.
"That's a complicated story," says Elizabeth White Nelson, an associate professor of history at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of Market Sentiments: Middle-Class Market Culture in 19th-Century America. "The short answer is that we really don't know. The longer answer is that there are a series of different theories that are overlapping."
St. Valentine's Day was originally a Catholic feast day established in A.D. 496 to honor a third-century priest named Valentine who was executed on February 14. Although the Catholic church still recognizes St. Valentine, it removed his feast day from its calendar in 1969.
However, Valentine's Day as we now know it likely originated as a folk practice to celebrate springtime in mid-17th century England. Nelson points to a 1725 account about the holiday from an antiquarian named Henry Bourne.
"He calls it quite intentionally Valentine's Day not St. Valentine's Day and makes the point in his book…that St. Valentine had nothing to do with the holiday at all," she says.
Bourne describes a custom whereby men and women were paired together as Valentines through random drawings; the matchmaking lottery became a good omen for a couple's future marriage.
The initial observers were English commoners often from rural areas, but widespread adoption of the holiday and the tradition of sending Valentine's cards did not set in until the late 18th century in England.
Every newsletter just gets better and better Bill!
I wonder if the people who don’t use the safety bars on ski lifts are the same ones who don’t use seatbelts? Or don’t push the blink lights to cross the road as pedestrians? Chairlifts are safe, but a youth in Canada died earlier this year when he fell off a chair lift.