M&C Saatchi Group will join L’Oréal Group’s Agency Village, expanding its remit to deliver creative services for the global beauty company. The partnership builds on M&C Saatchi’s existing relationship with Garnier, marking another addition to its portfolio of recent business wins. The collaboration aims to strengthen L’Oréal’s market leadership while driving engagement across its diverse consumer base. As part of the Agency Village, M&C Saatchi will develop strategic and creative campaigns across L’Oréal Group’s portfolio of brands, which includes L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline, Nyx, Kiehl’s, La Roche-Posay, and Lancôme. “Partnering with L’Oréal Group is a tremendous opportunity to work with a business synonymous with innovation, influence and excellence,” Michael McEwan , CEO of M&C Saatchi, said. “During the pitch process they challenged us to bring bold storytelling, cultural power and creative thinking across their portfolio of brands. Their team is bursting with talent and a desire to drive meaningful connections with their consumers and their communities.” Bianca Cowie , communications manager of Garnier and Thayers, added: “We first met the M&C Saatchi team almost a year ago on a project basis. They blew us away with their depth of thinking and creativity. The team’s understanding of youth culture and their ability to execute in culture more broadly is a real strength that we intend to lean into. “They join our broader agency village where their scale and understanding of intergenerational Australians and New Zealanders will add a new depth of capability to our team”. This appointment follows a series of wins for M&C Saatchi Group, including Lifeblood and Chery Motor’s Jaecoo. The performance brand of creative agency’s recently had its partnership with BeIN Sports was also recently expanded to lead its growth efforts in Australia and New Zealand. Building on their collaboration in Southeast Asia (SEA), beIN SPORTS aims to increase its reach in the ANZ market by leveraging M&C Saatchi Performance’s data-driven, localised approach to expand beIN SPORTS Connect subscribers. See also: beIN SPORTS expands partnership with M&C Saatchi Performance – Top image: Michael McEwan and Emma RobbinsFrench Premier Warns of Market ‘Storm’ If Budget Voted Down
Julia Bradbury on lifestyle change and going teetotal after cancer diagnosis
Jean Stimmell, retired stone mason and psychotherapist, lives in Northwood and blogs at jeanstimmell.blogspot.com. In the early 1990s, while attending graduate school at Antioch in Keene, I fell in love with the work of the social worker Lynn Hoffman. She made it clear that she disliked abstract psychological theories, preferring to discuss human creativity and the art of participating in bonds with others. She spurned conventional thinking that emphasizes hierarchies and rigid sociological systems. She was interested in promoting neighborly ways of being, something desperately needed in our nation, which is so polarized that some pundits warn of civil war. She was ahead of her time, rejecting the conventional metaphor that family therapy was a top-down hierarchy like the structure of a tree. She also repudiated the notion that the family was a mechanistically determined system. Rather than based on a machine, she looked for a more interactive model, as such found in the patterns of nature. She found what she was looking for in the work of the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who had proposed “rhizome” as a new metaphor based on the complex branching stem of fungi we now call mycelium. Because mycelia have no center, they are neither a rigid system derived from technology nor a tree that grows from top to bottom by predictable branching. As described by Professor Katina Rogers : “The rhizome model is a contrast to the traditional model of thought, which is often structured like a tree... In the rhizome model, there is no single point of origin or fixed center, but instead, a multitude of entry and exit points. The rhizome is not a unified whole, but a network of interconnections and flows that can be constantly reconfigured.” For Hoffman, the rhizome was more than an apt metaphor for family therapy: it was an exciting new paradigm for society . By “moving beyond hierarchical and mechanical models to a pulsing aliveness,” it represented the future, what Hoffman predicted would become known as the Rhizome Century. Article continues after... Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess What Hoffman foresaw was the gradual breakdown of conventional politics in our country and around the world in a radical move away from the system metaphor , “with its emphasis on symmetry, order and a return to the same, to the rhizome with its more messy and horizontal plane of endless relations.” Back at the beginning of social media in 2008, Hoffman called the World Wide Web a classic example of a rhizome. “The internet was already sprouting movements, formats, patterns, that are questioning, evading, and uprooting many of the gatekeeping structures that support our Modernist society.” The first stirrings were movements like the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, which were quickly squashed by the status quo. I think the recent rise of authoritarianism is, at least in part, a backlash against this surge of “people power.” Unfortunately, in our country, Trump has hijacked the aspirations of the people for his own corrupt ends. But it will not last. The Rhizome Century that Hoffman predicted is now upon us. As Peggy Sax, a collaborator of Hoffman, has written. “In the future, what counts as an ethical response will require an entirely different focus of attention. It will mean starting on the grassroots level to listen and learn from our neighbors, rather than dictating or deferring to what the experts say: to grow “our attentiveness to and curiosity about what it might mean within a locally and historically situated life - to live an interconnected life with a sense of purpose and meaning.” Nation Magazine, in its January issue, has highlighted one such approach to combat the upcoming Trump agenda: Straight out of the Lynn Hoffman playbook, adrienne maree brown has begun what she calls “mycelial organizing.” As she puts it: “Put your nose down in the dirt and understand that each of us can be a tiny filament in the vast, complex, dynamic web that will make up the resistance. Find your task and your team, and step into your place in the network, where your assignment is to connect, cooperate, and serve. For most of us, it’s not our job to come up with the best strategies. Indeed, if we’re privileged, it must not be our job. Now is the time to take direction from people most affected by the new regime (they’ve had it with your bright ideas), to be curious about each other’s lived experiences — and willing to align ourselves with people even if we share only a belief in our common humanity. “This is how we build the resistance and reconstitute our nation: by stitching together the social fabric one nuanced relationship at a time, our little threads waving at each other in the dark, blocking and building, sharing resources, warning each other of danger, and protecting those who need protecting.”Voters in Ireland were more than usually busy in 2024, casting their ballot in five different polls – for two referenda in March, local and European ballots in June and a general election in November. The country’s political comings and goings were further punctuated by an emotional announcement in March from former premier Leo Varadkar that he was resigning as taoiseach and Fine Gael leader. He was succeeded the following month in both roles by Simon Harris. But the year had so much more to offer than just politics, and PA news agency photographers were on hand to capture some of the highlights. Hundreds of people took part in the annual New Year’s Day charity swim on Bray seafront in Co Wicklow (Brian Lawless/PA) Former taoiseach John Bruton died aged 76 following a long illness in February (Damien Storan/PA) Leo Varadkar made a visit to the US for St Patrick’s Day in the same month he announced he was stepping down as taoiseach and resigning as leader of Fine Gael (Niall Carson/PA) Thousands of people gathered for the Bealtaine Fire Festival at the Hill of Uisneach in Co Westmeath in May (Niall Carson/PA) Natasha O’Brien, who was assaulted by a serving Irish soldier, told a rally in Dublin in June that she would keep up pressure on politicians to tackle violence against women (Gareth Chaney/PA) A mural of athlete Rhasidat Adeleke was created in Waterford after she made history becoming the first Irish woman to run in an Olympic sprint final during the Paris Olympics (Brian Lawless/PA) Actor Colin Farrell ran the Irish Life Dublin Marathon in October to raise money for people living with Epidermolysis Bullosa, a rare genetic skin condition (Damien Storan/PA) A woman cast her vote at Deaf Village Ireland in Dublin as voters went to the polls in the General Election on November 29 (Niall Carson/PA)More of Paulson Summit, other roadways, revealed with introduction of new cameras (Nelson)
Giannis Antetokounmpo returns for Bucks after missing 1 game with knee swelling
Nebraska will be trying to preserve its perfect in-state record when it hosts South Dakota on Wednesday night in a nonconference game in Lincoln, Neb. The Cornhuskers (4-1) are 3-0 at home and also won Friday at then-No. 14 Creighton, beating their in-state rivals on the road for the second straight time. But the last time they did that, in 2022, they followed that win with a 16-point loss at Indiana to open Big Ten Conference play. "Believe me, we've addressed a lot of things," Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said. "A lot of people are saying some really positive things. You've got to find a way to put that behind you. I've liked how our team has responded and come back to work after that great win at Creighton." Brice Williams leads the Cornhuskers with 18.2 points per game and was one of five players in double figures against Creighton. Juwan Gary topped the list with 16. South Dakota (6-2) comes to town off a 112-50 home win Monday night over Randall, the third non-Division I school it has beat. The Coyotes' last game against a D1 opponent was Friday at Southern Indiana, resulting in a 92-83 loss. This will be South Dakota's second nonconference game against a Big Ten opponent, after a 96-77 loss at Iowa on Nov. 12. In December, the Coyotes also visit Santa Clara, hovering near the top 100 in KenPom adjusted efficiency, before jumping into Big Sky play. "The schedule is very good and that should help us," third-year South Dakota coach Eric Peterson said before the season. "We have some good nonconference games that should help prepare us for the end of the season." Nebraska has held four of its opponents to 67 or fewer points, with Saint Mary's the only one to top that number in the Cornhuskers' lone loss. Opponents are shooting 38.1 percent this season. South Dakota shot below 40 percent in its two previous games before shooting 62 percent against Randall. Isaac Bruns, who scored 20 to lead South Dakota in the Randall game, paces the Coyotes with 12.9 points per game. --Field Level MediaBOGOTA, Colombia — 2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that’s a critical counterweight to climate change. A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some fires were set to more easily clear land to run cattle. The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. It has about 20% of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species. But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organized crime is rising at alarming rates. “The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” said Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, an organization that works to protect the rainforest. “Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.” There were some bright spots. The level of Amazonian forest loss fell in both Brazil and Colombia. And nations gathered for the annual United Nations conference on biodiversity agreed to give Indigenous peoples more say in nature conservation decisions. “If the Amazon rainforest is to avoid the tipping point, Indigenous people will have been a determinant factor," Miller said. Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon — home to the largest swath of this rainforest — dropped 30.6% compared to the previous year, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. The improvement under leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva contrasted with deforestation that hit a 15-year high under Lula's predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies. In July, Colombia reported historic lows in deforestation in 2023, driven by a drop in environmental destruction. The country's environment minister Susana Muhamad warned that 2024's figures may not be as promising as a significant rise in deforestation had already been recorded by July due to dry weather caused by El Nino, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific. Illegal economies continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation. “It’s impossible to overlook the threat posed by organized crime and the economies they control to Amazon conservation,” said Bram Ebus, a consultant for Crisis Group in Latin America. “Illegal gold mining is expanding rapidly, driven by soaring global prices, and the revenues of illicit economies often surpass state budgets allocated to combat them.” In Brazil, large swaths of the rainforest were draped in smoke in August from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo. Fires are traditionally used for deforestation and for managing pastures, and those man-made blazes were largely responsible for igniting the wildfires. For a second year, the Amazon River fell to desperate lows , leading some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents. The situation was most critical in Brazil, where one of the Amazon River's main tributaries dropped to its lowest level ever recorded. Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, said he believes people are becoming increasingly aware of the Amazon's fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole." But, like Miller, he worries about a “point of no return of Amazon destruction.” It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005, according to nonprofit Rainforest Foundation US. Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa — 37.42 million acres, or about 15.1 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon — burned. Bolivia had a record number of fires in the first ten months of the year. “Forest fires have become a constant, especially in the summer months and require particular attention from the authorities who don't how to deal with or respond to them,” Ipenza said. Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana also saw a surge in fires this year. The United Nations conference on biodiversity — this year known as COP16 — was hosted by Colombia. The meetings put the Amazon in the spotlight and a historic agreement was made to give Indigenous groups more of a voice on nature conservation decisions , a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize Indigenous people's role in protecting land and combating climate change. Both Ebus and Miller saw promise in the appointment of Martin von Hildebrand as the new secretary general for the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization, announced during COP16. “As an expert on Amazon communities, he will need to align governments for joint conservation efforts. If the political will is there, international backers will step forward to finance new strategies to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest,” Ebus said. Ebus said Amazon countries need to cooperate more, whether in law enforcement, deploying joint emergency teams to combat forest fires, or providing health care in remote Amazon borderlands. But they need help from the wider world, he said. “The well-being of the Amazon is a shared global responsibility, as consumer demand worldwide fuels the trade in commodities that finance violence and environmental destruction,” he said. Next year marks a critical moment for the Amazon, as Belém do Pará in northern Brazil hosts the first United Nations COP in the region that will focus on climate. “Leaders from Amazon countries have a chance to showcase strategies and demand tangible support," Ebus said.
Harris: Fine Gael ‘will gain seats’ amid further fragmentation of Irish politicsPolish foreign minister: Europe must be ready as US rethinks Ukraine strategyClockwise: The timeless art of horology lives on in Colorado