Latest news with #Lipson
Business Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Times
Mother's Day gift guide 2025: Books for every kind of mum
Elegant cookbook Como Simple by Christina Ong [SINGAPORE] When Singapore entrepreneur Christina Ong opened The Halkin in London in 1993, she wasn't simply launching her first boutique hotel – she was laying the foundation for a culinary vision shaped by years of travel in the fashion world. In 1995, The Halkin's restaurant, helmed by Stefano Cavallini, earned the first Michelin star ever awarded to an Italian chef outside Italy. The moment affirmed Ong's belief that food could be as transformative as design. Today, Como Hotels and Resorts has grown into a global portfolio of 18 properties, from Bhutan to Burgundy – each with cuisine as carefully considered as its decor. Como Simple by Christina Ong. PHOTO: COMO Recently, Ong launched Como Simple, a luxurious cookbook that distills her lifelong love affair with flavour. Curated by Como's vice-president of culinary Daniel Moran and culinary director Amanda Gale, it's part travel diary, part family scrapbook and part culinary philosophy. Inside are 114 thoughtfully adapted recipes from famous Como collaborators such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Masaru Seki. Dishes include South Indian curries from the Maldives, Tuscan pastas, Balinese nasi goreng, and chef Malcolm Lee's legendary crab and pork ball soup. The tone is thoughtful, nostalgic and quietly luxurious – much like the properties themselves. Como Simple is the perfect gift for the mother who craves worldly flavours while proudly waving the Singapore flag. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up Personal essays Mothers And Other Fictional Characters by Nicole Graev Lipson Published earlier this year, Lipson's book of essays is a philosophical testament to the complexities of womanhood, motherhood and the restless mind that refuses to be tamed by either. With prose that is both gentle and unflinching, Lipson explores what it means to be a thinking woman mulling about love, memory, ageing, grief, desire and the impossible balancing act of modern identity. Mothers And Other Fictional Characters by Nicole Graev Lipson. PHOTO: CHRONICLE PRISM The book reads like a series of elegant collisions: raw emotion meets intellectual rigour; intimate self-examination meets cultural critique. Lipson doesn't offer neat conclusions to what it means to be a smart, modern woman. She accepts doubt, contradiction and ambiguity. She interrogates the myths of motherhood, the roles women inherit and perform, and the narratives women are told about love, family and selfhood. These essays are deeply felt, but not sentimental. They turn to literature, history and episodes from her life to examine how women move through the world – and how the world influences them. Lipson's book offers not just a meditation on motherhood, but a blueprint for how a woman (or man) can live with awareness, compassion and honesty. Gender-swapped fiction Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo Xiaolu Guo is an acclaimed Chinese-born, London-based author who writes in both English and Chinese. Her new novel, Call Me Ishmaelle, is a feminine reimagining of Herman Melville's 1851 classic Moby-Dick, the legendary tale of a crew of sailors pursuing a white whale on the high seas. Flipping the script in fresh and surprising ways, the narrator this time isn't a man named Ishmael – but Ishmaelle, a teenage girl from coastal Kent who dreams of a life at sea. To free herself of the social constraints imposed on women, she binds her chest, cuts her hair and signs onto a whaling ship disguised as a boy. Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo. PHOTO: PENGUIN BOOKS In the original version, the ship is led by the white Captain Ahab, with his peg leg and raging vendetta against the whale who bit his leg off. Here, Ahab has been replaced by Seneca, a free black man haunted by grief and driven by a quieter, more introspective kind of madness. Guo reimagines other characters as well, such as a Taoist monk who reads the I Ching between whale sightings. At half the length of the original version, Guo's novel feels fresh and more intimate – yet still epic. It is the perfect pick for a mum looking for an adventure novel with a woman at the centre of the action. Inspirational picture book Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman If mum doesn't have much time to read but appreciates beautifully designed books, get her this title by much-loved illustrator Kalman. The premise is deceptively simple: a book about women 'holding' things. But Kalman's subjects – both famous and familial – hold more than just objects. Her 86 illustrations include that of Virginia Woolf 'barely holding it together', Gertrude Stein 'holding true to herself', and Kalman's own grandmother 'holding the weight of the world'. Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman. PHOTO: HARPER These whimsical and poignant images show the emotional and physical 'weight' women carry with them for much of their lives. Their accompanying texts explore the profound themes of identity, memory, and the burdens and joys women bear – creating a tapestry that is both personal and universal. Women Holding Things is gentle, funny and deeply human, celebrating the strength and complexities of being a woman. Photography The Women Who Changed Photography, And How To Master Their Techniques by Gemma Padley This part art history, part how-to guide elevates the coffee table book into a beautiful tribute to 50 groundbreaking female photographers. Spanning centuries and countries, the book includes pioneers such as Anna Atkins, whose cyanotypes of ferns laid the foundations of photographic documentation, and avant-gardists such as Claude Cahun, who bent gender and identity through surrealist portraiture. There are fashion renegades such as Nadine Ijewere, whose vibrant compositions reimagine beauty norms, as well as contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman, Pushpamala N and Shirin Neshat, with their unique explorations of womanhood in American, Indian and Iranian societies, respectively. The Women Who Changed Photography, And How To Master Their Techniques by Gemma Padley. What makes this book more than a glossy tribute is its interactive ambition. Padley doesn't just spotlight the artists; she invites the reader in. Each profile is paired with insights into the photographer's style, practical breakdowns of their technique and creative exercises encouraging readers to try it themselves. The result is a book that teaches as much as it inspires – one that doesn't just sit pretty, but asks to be studied and dog-eared. Whether mum is a budding photographer or someone drawn to stories of women who frame the world differently, this book is an empowering addition to her shelf. All titles are available in Kinokuniya and/or on Amazon.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The battle for 23andMe's DNA customer data
A bankruptcy filing by personalized genomics firm 23andMe (ME) calls into question what happens to its most valuable asset: genetic data from 15 million customers. "I think the law on that is pretty unclear at this point," said Jonathan Lipson, a bankruptcy law professor at Temple University's Beasley School of Law. The murky legal ground sets up an uncertain future for 23andMe and its customers, especially those who want their DNA and other information obliterated from the records of a biotech company that once dazzled Silicon Valley. The company built a following by asking customers to mail in their biological information through "cheek swabs." In exchange for a fee, customers received gene-based health indicators, ancestral histories, and subscription services that provided them with control over their data. But under bankruptcy protection, a "stay" halts enforcement of all contractual obligations against the company. And its assets — potentially including customer biometric data — become the property of a bankruptcy estate that is legally protected from creditors. Lipson expects 23andMe's managers to argue that certain customer data is not theirs to delete because the data belongs to the estate. The managers, he said, are legally obligated to maximize the value of the remaining assets, which would involve retaining the data. "While I don't know exactly what the legal characterization of this data is," Lipson said, "I'm sure they're thinking about it." 23andMe sent an email to customers assuring them that their data would remain protected during the bankruptcy. "The Chapter 11 filing does not change how we store, manage, or protect customer data," the email said. Any buyer of the company, it added, would be required to comply with applicable law with respect to the treatment of customer data. 23andMe's instructions for account deletion can be found here. Roughly 20 states, including California, Colorado, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Utah, and Connecticut, have adopted protections applying to biometric data, and most give consumers a right to delete their information. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has warned 23andMe's California customers that they are legally entitled to scrub their genetic data from the company's systems, including their DNA, identity, and biological samples — the saliva test samples submitted to the company. "Due to the trove of sensitive consumer data 23andMe has amassed ... Californians who want to invoke these rights can do so by going to 23andMe's website," the attorney general's office said in a statement that outlines the steps consumers can take. "Given 23andMe's reported financial distress, I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company," Bonta said. Daniel Gielchinsky, a partner and co-founder of DGIM Law, said the unfortunate reality is that the "more customers who go and scrub their data ... the less value this entity has as a going concern," noting that the company's value resides in its data. The stock of 23andMe fell more than 11% Tuesday after dropping 59% on Monday. The company's bankruptcy petition seeks court authorization to pursue a structured sale of its assets through an auction. The filing reported $277 million in assets as of the end of 2024 and debts of $215 million. The 23andMe board has rejected a nonbinding acquisition offer from co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki, who stepped down on Friday. Wojcicki has been trying to take the company private since April. Even if 23andMe's managers were to push the bankruptcy court to free it from its consumer agreements, the company would still need to abide by state laws. And customers in states that have adopted biometric data privacy laws are in the best position to control their data, said Ryan Sulkin, a data protection attorney at Benesch. However, Lipson cautioned that there's some uncertainty about how the bankruptcy court would apply its federal authority to administer the sale of the estate. A major factor likely to influence the fate of customers' data is whether the US Justice Department or the US Federal Trade Commission takes an interest in the bankruptcy proceedings. "I would expect the Federal Trade Commission to have a voice at the table here," Sulkin said. And Sulkin suspects that only certain buyers would satisfy US national security interests in a transition of 23andMe's troves of personal genetic data. "Does this entity need to be solely owned by US interests?" he asked. If so, he said, "then you start getting into a TikTok scenario," referring to a law passed last year by Congress banning the social media app unless it finds a buyer for its US operations. One hope for customers worried about the safety of their data is that bankruptcy courts are accustomed to protecting individual healthcare records in proceedings involving hospitals or doctors' practices. Typically, courts appoint a healthcare ombudsman to ensure patients continue to receive ongoing care. But 23andMe falls into a gray area because its customers are not technically patients, and protecting healthcare information is tangential to the ombudsman role. "So it's not quite a perfect fit for this situation," Gielchinsky said. "It's going to be an ongoing conversation between the creditors, the debtor, and the court about how best to protect customer data while still allowing there to be a competitive auction process." 23andMe's consumer notice says that in the event of a sale, customer data would "remain protected under the current 23andMe Privacy Policy, unless and until they are presented with materially new terms." Notice of such a change, it says, would be made "as required by law." Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The battle for 23andMe's DNA customer data
A bankruptcy filing by personalized genomics firm 23andMe (ME) calls into question what happens to its most valuable asset: genetic data from 15 million customers. "I think the law on that is pretty unclear at this point," said Jonathan Lipson, a bankruptcy law professor at Temple University's Beasley School of Law. The murky legal ground sets up an uncertain future for 23andMe and its customers, especially those who want their DNA and other information obliterated from the records of a biotech company that once dazzled Silicon Valley. The company built a following by asking customers to mail in their biological information through "cheek swabs." In exchange for a fee, customers received gene-based health indicators, ancestral histories, and subscription services that provided them with control over their data. But under bankruptcy protection, a "stay" halts enforcement of all contractual obligations against the company. And its assets — potentially including customer biometric data — become the property of a bankruptcy estate that is legally protected from creditors. Lipson expects 23andMe's managers to argue that certain customer data is not theirs to delete because the data belongs to the estate. The managers, he said, are legally obligated to maximize the value of the remaining assets, which would involve retaining the data. "While I don't know exactly what the legal characterization of this data is," Lipson said, "I'm sure they're thinking about it." Roughly 20 states, including California, Colorado, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Utah, and Connecticut, have adopted protections applying to biometric data, and most give consumers a right to delete their information. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has warned 23andMe's California customers that they are legally entitled to scrub their genetic data from the company's systems, including their DNA, identity, and biological samples — the saliva test samples submitted to the company. "Due to the trove of sensitive consumer data 23andMe has amassed ... Californians who want to invoke these rights can do so by going to 23andMe's website," the attorney general's office said in a statement that outlines the steps consumers can take. "Given 23andMe's reported financial distress, I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company," Bonta said. But Daniel Gielchinsky, a partner and co-founder of DGIM Law, said the unfortunate reality is that the "more customers who go and scrub their data ... the less value this entity has as a going concern," noting that the company's value resides in its data. The stock of 23andMe fell more than 11% Tuesday after dropping 59% on Monday. The company's bankruptcy petition seeks court authorization to pursue a structured sale of its assets through an auction. The filing reported $277 million in assets as of the end of 2024 and debts of $215 million. The 23andMe board has rejected a nonbinding acquisition offer from co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki, who stepped down on Friday. Wojcicki has been trying to take the company private since April. Even if 23andMe's managers were to push the bankruptcy court to free it from its consumer agreements, the company would still need to abide by state laws. And customers in states that have adopted biometric data privacy laws are in the best position to control their data, said Ryan Sulkin, a data protection attorney at Benesch. However, Lipson cautioned that there's some uncertainty about how the bankruptcy court would apply its federal authority to administer the sale of the estate. A major factor likely to influence the fate of customers' data is whether the US Justice Department or the US Federal Trade Commission takes an interest in the bankruptcy proceedings. "I would expect the Federal Trade Commission to have a voice at the table here," Sulkin said. And Sulkin suspects that only certain buyers would satisfy US national security interests in a transition of 23andMe's troves of personal genetic data. "Does this entity need to be solely owned by US interests?" he asked. If so, he said, "then you start getting into a TikTok scenario," referring to a law passed last year by Congress banning the social media app unless it finds a buyer for its US operations. One hope for customers worried about the safety of their data is that bankruptcy courts are accustomed to protecting individual healthcare records in proceedings involving hospitals or doctors' practices. Typically, courts appoint a healthcare ombudsman to ensure patients continue to receive ongoing care. But 23andMe falls into a gray area because its customers are not technically patients, and protecting healthcare information is tangential to the ombudsman role. "So it's not quite a perfect fit for this situation," Gielchinsky said. "It's going to be an ongoing conversation between the creditors, the debtor, and the court about how best to protect customer data while still allowing there to be a competitive auction process." 23andMe's consumer notice says that in the event of a sale, customer data would "remain protected under the current 23andMe Privacy Policy, unless and until they are presented with materially new terms." Notice of such a change, it says, would be made "as required by law." Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Sign in to access your portfolio
CBS News
11-03-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Givenchy bag, signed sports memorabilia among items found inside mayor's gift room at City Hall
It's not uncommon for Chicago's mayor to receive gifts, but when the Chicago Office of Inspector General wanted access to the mayor's gift room to see the items, they were repeatedly denied. On Monday, the doors to the room were opened for CBS News Chicago. So, what was inside? Hundreds of items, some lavish, some ordinary. The big question remains: Who is giving these gifts, and are they getting anything back from City Hall in exchange? Despite the tour and revamped policies, most gifts continue to be received without a note on who gave them. Deep inside the little-used third floor of City Hall. "We have the shoes, the Kate Spade purse," said Lori Lipson, deputy mayor of infrastructure and services. The tour begins in an unremarkable room about the size of a one-car garage with low-hanging pipes. "Every mayor has had a gift room. It's just not been exciting until now," Lipson said. "It includes hats, t-shirts, there's some memorabilia you'll see from NASCAR, and awards. There are also pricier items that all appear unused, including a Givenchy bag, signed sports memorabilia, and a Montblanc pen. When asked if any of the items were used by the mayor, Lipson said "no." The Inspector General report revealed that 70% of gifts to Mayor Johnson failed to include who gave them—leading the mayor to call for better record keeping, including who gave the gift, when possible. After checking the now public report, the vast majority of items still lack details about who gave the gift, including a crystal necklace the week of Valentine's Day. Why is that still happening? "Most of the time, they're given at a parade or school; it's not a particular person. Sometimes, an organization gives something, and so we are trying to make sure we note that appropriately," Lipson said. "Where there anything of value being exchanged, we would absolutely want to know if these are coming from people looking for influence," said Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg. When asked if she can understand why people are considered about the possible writ pro quo? "I understand the concern, and that's why we're making it available to the public," Lipson said. The city donates portions of what it has received every few months. In a few weeks, the gift closet will be open to the public to see what's inside. The mayor said he'd never been to the room when the Inspector General report first came out. Last week, it was mentioned during his heated questioning on Capitol Hill about Chicago being a sanctuary city.
Boston Globe
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Brookline author Nicole Graev Lipson unmasks the fictions that shape motherhood — and herself
Some books crack wide open our understanding of what it is to exist in this world. 'I wanted to explore the blurry boundary between truth and fiction when one is a woman,' Lipson, who lives in Brookline, said, 'and how easy it is to find ourselves performing fictional versions of who we are.' In 12 essays, Lipson mines her experience as a case study to peel away these fictions and reach for a deeper reality. Peppering her explorations with examples from literature, philosophy, and pop culture from Shakespeare to Eddie Vedder, from Maya Angelou's memoir 'Mom & Me & Mom' to the film 'Mean Girls,' she critiques herself and her relationships with candor and empathy, prompting the reader to awakenings of their own. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The award-winning writer and Emerson College MFA program alumna will discuss 'Mothers' with author Joanna Rakoff at an event for Brookline Booksmith at Advertisement Q . In the essay 'Thinkers Who Mother,' you shine a light on the often-unrecognized deep thinking that goes into mothering. How are mothers thinkers? A . The term 'mental load' is used a lot in terms of the minutiae that mothers have to contend with, the calendaring and remembering. It implies busy work. But if you think about a mother's day, and all of the resources we're drawing on in real time, observing our children and attuning to their needs and to the situation at hand, the complexity is profound. We're making hypotheses and calculations, and all of them have a rationale that comes from experience, from years of gathered wisdom, from what we've learned from our children, and they from us, in this complex symbiosis. There is this age-old distinction in western culture between thought and feeling, and historically, thought has been connected to the male realm and valued over feeling. Mothering requires both feeling and deep, deep thinking, happening together and fueling each other. Advertisement Q. In 'The Friendship Plot,' you argue against the idea that deep fellowship is experienced only by men, a concept reinforced by the likes of Montaigne and Plato. A. Few places in our culture have done justice to the incredible life-changing, soul-nourishing, politically meaningful power of close female friendships. Our closest friends can be the mirrors through which we discover ourselves; the bridges we cross to more fully become ourselves. So often, close female relationships, if not trivialized, are demonized. Gendered terms like 'cliques' in middle school or 'coven of witches' illustrate the ways our culture treats them with suspicion. In a patriarchy, close female friendships challenge the status quo. I wanted to step out of the fictions that our culture teaches us about drama between women and celebrate my long-term friendship. In some ways, friendship is the purest form of care and love because there is no obligation built into it. It is freely chosen. Q. In this book, you also examine cultural archetypes that apply to men, specifically as they relate to your son and your mothering of him. A. Yes, it's not simply women who have to contend with these fictional characters. Men have templates pressed upon them too, and I've thought a lot while raising my son about how to protect him from cultural messages about what makes a 'man.' Unfortunately, the dominant narratives about manhood still insist that men are stoic, tough, above feeling, and violent. In the essay 'Tikkun Olam Ted,' I write about a time when my worry about our culture's impact on my son gets turned toward him and in some ways taken out on him, as I interpret his actions — behaving in ways that were embarrassing to me at Tikkun Olam Day at Hebrew school, a day devoted to goodness and repair — through the lens of what I fear him becoming as opposed to what he actually is and the goodness that lives inside of him. My son, contrary to stereotypes, might just be the most deeply feeling of my three children, and I've often talked to him about how this is his superpower. Advertisement Q. You examine the concept of solitude and mothers' guilty cravings for alone time in 'A Place, and a State of Affairs.' What literary references helped you process this? A. I'm an introvert who needs a great deal of alone time in order to function, and having children is hard to reconcile with alone time for women. I tried to hold up my experiences chafing against the constant togetherness of family life within the broader context of the stories we've absorbed about solitude. Canonical works of American literature — whether it's 'Moby Dick' or Thoreau's 'Walden' — promote this romantic idealization of the solitary seeker. Becoming a mother brought home how this romantic ideal isn't accessible for women with children. In books like Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening', we see a woman who longs for solitude and some escape from her children. And ultimately, the only way she can get it is to walk into the ocean and drown herself. This is a recurring motif throughout literature, that the only way for mothers to access that silence is through death. What is lost when women caring for the next generation don't have access to solitude as a way of replenishing themselves? Advertisement Q. Later in the book, you question your relationship to aging when, in your 40s, you begin to obsess over becoming a 'hot mom.' How did your perspective transform? A. That essay helped me learn two things. One, how much women in our culture are trained to confuse desirability with desire. When I started to wear sparkly tank tops and do Pure Barre and buy expensive face creams, what I truly wanted wasn't to be 'hot,' but to feel like I was still vital and alive. And two, while I was holding up the 20-something Pure Barre instructors with shiny hair as models of womanhood that I should aspire to, I realized that the most powerful role models throughout my life have been older women: my high school English teacher, my college writing professor, my neighbor who's this brilliant rabbi and writer — all wise, experienced women with the inner strength to set the terms of their own mattering. Those are the people I genuinely long to be like one day. Interview has been edited and condensed.
