May 12, 2021
Used car prices are booming in the US. They jumped 10% from March to April, the biggest spike since 1953, when the government started collecting data. Overall consumer prices rose 0.8%, a bigger increase than expected, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the pop in prices is not necessarily an immediate cause for concern for inflation hawks worried that the trillions of dollars the government has pumped into the economy will overheat it. What’s happening in the used-car market sheds light on why.
The pandemic strained supply chains
Americans are starting to travel around again as pandemic restrictions ease, and the extra demand for cars is hitting at a time when supply is tight. Car production has been sputtering due to Covid-19. Many manufacturing plants shut down early on in the pandemic as governments struggled to contain the virus. And although car makers have been reopening their assembly lines since then, they have been slowe
It seems intuitive enough: Red means stop, amber means caution, green means go.
As Covid-19 levels fluctuate around the world, health officials are devising ways to quickly alert their constituents about the virus’s threat level. Predictably, most have turned to color and many have adopted the hues of traffic lights. After all, the three-color schema developed in Detroit in the 1920s based on a British system for railroad traffic, has been universally used for over a century.
This is where the problem arises. The thing is, our understanding of color is richer and more nuanced beyond its application in traffic management.
April 16, 2021
Kimberly Potter, the 26-year police veteran who fatally shot Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in Minnesota on April 11, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter. Prosecutors will be tasked to prove to the courts that she was negligent in drawing and firing her Glock pistol instead of her Taser stun gun when subduing the 20-year old.
A widely scrutinized body-cam video shows Potter yelling “Taser! Taser! Taser!
“ before firing a bullet into Wright’s chest which killed him on the scene. Beneath what appears to be another appalling accidental shooting actually belies a complex, systemic issue at the core of America’s problematic, hyper-aggressive policing philosophy. This ethos is ultimately reflected in the design of standard tools law enforcement officers carry and how they use them. It’s bigger than an industrial design problem, but it’s certainly part of the issue.
March 16, 2021
At the end of May last year, as protests exploded over police killings of Black Americans, numerous fashion and beauty companies went online to post their messages of support for the Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as to pledge their own commitments to change.
Instagram was a preferred channel for these declarations. It’s become a vital way for companies to connect directly with audiences, and its photo-based sharing has made it particularly powerful for fashion and beauty brands. Companies published statements expressing solidarity, posted black squares for Blackout Tuesday, and collectively acknowledged a need to do better.