Bill Gates testified at a US Congressional hearing that he was blackmailed by Epstein over his relationships with 2 Russian women
1st — a bridge player, whose relationship was reported as early as 2023
2nd — scientist & one of Gates’ associates, Karima Nigmatullina (on the photo) *Karima is the daughter of the scientific director of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Karima was working at TerraPower on a project to mathematically model the spread of dangerous diseases, which Gates funded & supervised — Congressional testimony
CEOs have offered many different reasons for calling workers back into the office—despite research that suggests working from home can be as effective, if not more effective, than in-office work.
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Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a return-to-office memo that “collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective” in person, and that “teaching and learning from one another are more seamless.”
But there may be another reason for work-from-home crackdowns and in-office mandates that CEOs haven’t mentioned: their own egos.
A new study from Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant and coauthors Marissa Shandell and Courtney Elliott found that leader narcissism was associated with greater resistance to remote work. A big reason? Power trips are easier to stage in person.
“In leadership roles, narcissists have a clear preference for face-to-face interaction, where richer channels allow them to not only gain attention but also wield power and status,” the authors write. Remote settings curtail leaders’ usual means of “directing and inspiring employees” like using hand gestures, fluctuating the volume of their voice, making eye contact, and adjusting their posture. “When communicating by video, phone, email, or text, it is more difficult for leaders to command the attention—and gauge and bask in the admiration—of their employees,” the authors write.
As part of their six-year study, which included large-scale surveys, the authors established proxies for measuring Fortune 500 CEOs’ egos, such as the size of their pay packages, the size of their signatures in company reports, and the size of their photos in company reports.
CEOs with higher narcissism scores were more likely to seek more status, such as becoming chair of their company board, and were more likely to make negative statements about remote and hybrid work early in the pandemic.
In another experiment, the authors primed CEOs’ narcissistic self-image by asking them to reflect on the role that a bold, assertive ego played in the successes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison. Afterward, leaders who’d been primed were more likely to oppose working from home, compared with those who weren’t primed. This, the researchers concluded, suggests a causal link between activating ego and opposing remote work.
“The higher the opinions of themselves leaders expressed, the more they coveted power and status—and the more they favored return-to-office mandates,” the authors wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.
The authors warn that CEOs’ egos may be blinding them to the upside of more flexible working arrangements—a perk employees love—and motivating them to impose full-time in-office mandates that could backfire.
A photograph of Malcolm X’s mother, Louise Norton Little (1897-1989).
Louise Little was a brilliant woman, speaking multiple languages, and for years, along with her husband Earl Little, a dedicated activist of Marcus Garvey’s Pan-African Movement (Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League).
Louise Norton Little (1897-1989) was a Grenadian-born American activist and the mother of Malcolm X.
Here are some key facts about her life. – Born in Grenada to a former slave from Nigeria and a Scotsman – Raised by her grandparents in Grenada – Immigrated to Canada in 1917 and joined the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) – Met her husband Earl Little at a UNIA meeting in Montreal and married in 1919 – Had eight children with Earl, including Malcolm X –
Was a Garveyite activist who taught her children about black pride and self-reliance –
Was committed to a mental institution for 24 years and released in 1963 with the help of her children –
Lived with her family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, until her death in 1991 at the age of 94
New research shows quantum states in the brain may link consciousness to the entire universe.
In a fascinating convergence of physics and neuroscience, recent research suggests that human consciousness may function as a quantum phenomenon—one that connects our minds with the broader universe. Building on the controversial Orch OR (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) theory, scientists are now producing experimental evidence that supports the idea that microtubules—structures within brain cells—can maintain quantum coherence, even in the brain’s warm, wet environment.
These quantum states could be the key to consciousness existing as a wave capable of superposition and entanglement, potentially linking human awareness to quantum systems across space. This theory has gained new traction thanks to simulations and experiments showing that quantum reactions can persist inside microtubules for significantly longer than expected.
Meanwhile, theoretical physicist Timothy Palmer suggests that consciousness may reside in a cosmic fractal “state space”—a shared geometric structure that might explain both free will and our sense of being interconnected with the universe.
While not yet definitive, this research marks a critical step toward understanding consciousness as more than a neural illusion: it may be a quantum feature of reality itself.
At 22 years old, Chauntae Davies was an aspiring actor and a professionally-trained massage therapist, when she was introduced to Ghislaine Maxwell and the sinister world of Jeffrey Epstein. Not long after, she found herself flown around the world to accompany the notorious couple, where massage sessions with Epstein turned to sexual abuse. In this interview with Tara Brown, Chauntae courageously details the harrowing years she spent with the now-dead paedophile, particularly her painful memories at New Mexico’s Zorro Ranch – where she said the vastness and isolation of the property made it one of most eerie places she was taken to. ► Subscribe: http://9Soci.al/chmP50wA97J ► WATCH Full Episodes on 9NOW: https://9now.app.link/uNP4qBkmN6
Discover a raw, unfiltered look at overcoming homelessness and drug addiction in Dublin.
Learn how transformation is possible through resilience and community. In this powerful interview, Kenny Eivers shares his journey from growing up in Swords to spiraling into a debilitating cycle of homelessness, heroin, and crack cocaine addiction in Dublin. After fighting for his life through countless overdoses and years of instability, Kenny highlights his path to recovery and how helping others through ‘Secret Street Tours’ saved his life. This conversation is not just about the dangers of substance abuse; it is a profound look at the harsh realities of the Irish homeless crisis, the impact of private hostels, and the hope found in advocacy. Whether you are interested in social issues, addiction recovery, or want to hear a gripping, true story of redemption, this video offers a candid perspective on the struggles faced on the streets of Dublin. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of addiction, the importance of empathy, and how one man changed his narrative by turning his traumatic past into a tool for education and connection for others.
How modern life compounds the ancient struggle to belong
Ian Corbin, at left, discussed his book “To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World” with fellow philosopher Samuel Kimbriel.Carlos Sanchez/Harvard FAS Staff Photographer
Philosopher Ian Corbin explores mismatch between human nature and contemporary society
Jun 24, 2026 / Read time: 5 minutes
Eileen O’Grady
Harvard Staff Writer
Why do so many people feel lonely in a world designed for connection?
As Ian Corbin sees it, Americans are experiencing a crisis of belonging, which he attributes to some fundamental misunderstandings about what humans need to flourish.
“We are confronting widespread and deep-seated alienation and loneliness in a lot of modern, wealthy populations right now,” said Corbin, an instructor in neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “It seems like the way we’ve been organized in our common life is not working very well. People aren’t happy with it. They may have creature comforts that an 18th-century French aristocrat couldn’t even imagine, but there is this creeping, important, and maybe dangerous feeling of ‘not-at-home-ness.’”
A recent event put Corbin, a philosopher on faculty in the HMS Center for Bioethics, who also co-directs the Trust and Belonging Initiative at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program and directs the Public Culture Project in the Division of Arts & Humanities, in conversation about his new book, “To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World.” He was joined by philosopher Samuel Kimbriel, founder and director of the Philosophy & Society program at the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute.
Struggling to find one’s place is an ancient problem, Corbin pointed out, explored through literature in every generation from Homer’s “The Odyssey” to the 1942 T.S. Eliot poem “Little Gidding.”
But Corbin says the feeling is intensified by modern American society, rooted in the philosophy of rugged individualism. The common narrative today suggests that being happy and successful means being independent — with a focus on personal achievement, consumption, and accumulation of wealth. It’s a worldview he calls “ownerism,” where people build their identities around materialism and consumption.
“The idea that I am the sovereign autonomous individual who creates safety and ‘home-ness’ by establishing myself and getting my property and putting up my fence is a very recent invention, and I don’t think it’s going that well,” Corbin told an audience at Barker Center.
The ownerism mindset, he added, contradicts the communal nature of humans, creatures shaped profoundly by relationships. “Friendship and sustained interaction is, from the beginning and all the way to the end, deeply constitutive of what a healthy self looks like,” Corbin said.
Total individualism and isolation are bad for us; we know this from the mental distress experienced by incarcerated people subjected to solitary confinement. But the other extreme, total absorption into a collective, can be just as dangerous.In the leadup to the rise of Germany’s Nazi party, Corbin said, people expressed feeling alienated and adrift from home. The promise of immersion in the spiritual unity of a German cultural identity was, by contrast, attractive.
“In the temptation of a certain kind of totalitarian collective politics, there is a pleasure to losing yourself in a crowd, into a communal story of who we are,” Corbin said, adding that the sensation can be healthy when experienced in reasonable doses. (Think dancing in a crowd at a rock concert.)
The ideal situation, Corbin suggested, is a “virtuous circle” that alternates solitude with community participation, allowing time to reflect and build ideas before they are discussed and refined with others. As an example, Corbin cited the Lakota tradition of the haŋbléčeyapi, or vision quest, a rite of passage where a young person goes to a hilltop for several days to think and pray, and then returns to share newfound knowledge with their community.
“For human groups in general, there should be this dialectic of going off by yourself and coming back in to interpret what you’ve seen,” Corbin said. “I teach, and I write, and I talk incessantly to friends who will talk to me, and I think that there is a very significant degree to which you can get an inkling, but until you bring it to other people and think it together, you don’t fully know what you’ve learned.”
At one point in the exchange, Corbin and Kimbriel debated whether modern monetary systems contribute to feelings of isolation by separating the ability to meet basic human needs from participation in community. In contrast to agrarian societies where people grow food together, Corbin explained, going to the supermarket and buying potatoes leaves one with a different perception of their role. Especially when knowing that, with no money, the potatoes needed for survival can never be obtained.
“Living in that for years and years, it can start to seem like reality itself is cold and withholding and tit for tat,” Corbin said.
Kimbriel pushed back, arguing that money brings people together in many ways. “It allows people who don’t already know each other, or strangers who don’t agree in some way, to operate within society together,” he said.
Corbin countered that money removes feelings of human connection and mutual obligation. But he agreed the system is necessary given the scale of modern society.
“Can you run Manhattan on a gift economy? Probably not. Of course you’re going to be required to use impersonal forms of exchange,” Corbin said. “But I do think there are ways in which we’ve construed a regime of private property and private enterprise that make people feel like they live in a dog-eat-dog, lonely sort of place.”
Despite growing anxiety about AI’s impact on jobs, few workers appear to be resisting agents.
Only 2% of tech leaders report significant pushback from workers, according to new data from KPMG, as organizations rapidly deploy agents to automate tasks, support decision-making, and coordinate work across teams.
Employee adoption of AI agents has already reached 68%, the firm found.Instead, the findings point to a different challenge: helping workers keep pace with the technology. Among leaders who reported employee resistance, 78% said it stemmed from a lack of skills and fears about job security. More than half also cited concerns around trust and safety, followed by worries that AI is increasing workloads.These fears are emerging at a time when employers are increasingly citing AI in layoff announcements and entry-level hiring continues to contract.
As companies race to deploy AI across their organizations, workers are left trying to make sense of what the technology will mean for their careers.KPMG’s findings suggest that companies have largely moved beyond the question of whether employees will use AI. Instead, the workplace is entering a new phase where AI adoption is expected.That pressure is already taking shape. Nearly half of tech leaders say AI literacy is a workforce priority, KPMG found, and many companies are introducing mandatory training, usage requirements, and performance metrics tied to AI adoption.”As the majority signal growing adoption and acknowledge expectations for employees to become AI fluent, it’s critical to rethink how tasks are executed by embedding human-machine collaboration into everyday work,” said Kevin Bogle, KPMG’s US advisory leader for technology, media and telecommunications.Companies face other hurdles as they scale AI. KPMG found organizations are deploying AI without full visibility into costs, with average AI investments projected to reach $269 million over the next 12 months. As spending rises, tech leaders say that data privacy and a shift toward lower-cost, higher-performing models are shaping their AI strategies over the next six months.Worker attitudes toward AI agents may change as the technology matures. Despite the hype around autonomous digital employees, companies are still deploying the technology cautiously. A separate KPMG study found that 63% of organizations require human review of AI agent outputs, meaning they can’t be taken at face value. Meanwhile, deployments remain limited to low-risk tasks such as triaging IT support tickets or answering HR questions. In other words, the gap between the industry’s vision of AI agents and today’s reality remains wide. Workers may be embracing AI agents today because they still function more like assistants than replacements. But as companies release tools that make agents perform more like coworkers, such as Anthropic’s Claude Tag, that mindset could shift.
Worker attitudes toward AI agents may change as the technology matures. Despite the hype around autonomous digital employees, companies are still deploying the technology cautiously. A separate 
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