CNN World | Aerial footage shows major damage to the ‘lungs of the planet’

CNN – The Amazon rainforest is at severe risk from deforestation and fires that are eroding the forest’s ability to absorb heat-trapping greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Even worse, the fires themselves are releasing carbon and adding to the problem. CNN’s Isa Soares reports. —watch— 

CNN BUSINESS | America’s CEOs are losing confidence in the economy

The Conference Board, which produced the survey in conjunction with the Business Council, reported that 88% of CEOs surveyed in the second quarter had said they expected overall economic conditions to improve over the next six months. But just 60% of respondents felt that way in the third quarter.

What’s more, in the third-quarter survey, just 65% of top executives said they anticipated short-term prospects for their own industry would improve. That’s down from 81% in the second-quarter results.

Job market conditions are another major challenge: 60% of CEOs said they expect to expand headcount, up from 54% in Q2. But open job positions are increasingly difficult to fill.  —read more—

F1 | What tyres will the teams and drivers have for the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix?

The Turkish Grand Prix returns for the 2021 season and Pirelli have announced that they will bring tyres that are one step softer than in last year’s race at Istanbul Park.

Formula 1’s second visit to Turkey in two years comes after the Turkish GP’s nine-year absence from the F1 calendar. Last year, Lewis Hamilton clinched his seventh title in Turkey; this year he’s just two points ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as the two battle for the 2021 title.

Pirelli have allocated C2 (hard, x2 sets), C3 (medium, x3 sets) and C4 (soft, x8 sets) compounds for the race weekend on October 8-10, which is one stop softer than it was in last year’s November race at Istanbul. Pirelli cited a wealth of data compared to 2020, and better surface grip as the track has been cleaned with a high-pressure water jet – with higher temperatures expected this October compared to last November.  —read more—  

CNN World SPACE + SCIENCE | NASA’s DART mission will deliberately crash into an asteroid’s moon in the name of planetary defense

This is an illustration of NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos system.

(CNN) – A spacecraft that will deliberately crash into an asteroid is preparing to launch.

The DART mission, or NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, will lift off at 10:20 p.m. PT on November 23 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

After launching in November, NASA will test its asteroid deflection technology in September 2022 to see how it impacts the motion of a near-Earth asteroid in space.

The target of this asteroid deflection technology is Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting the near-Earth asteroid Didymos. This will be the agency’s first full-scale demonstration of this type of technology on behalf of planetary defense.  —read more—  

CNN US | Architect’s innovative shipping container homes could help solve Puerto Rico’s housing crisis

KONTi’s vision is to turn shipping containers into safe and affordable homes.

(CNN) – Puerto Rican architect Carla Gautier Castro stands overlooking the remains of a home after a string of earthquakes hammered the town of Yauco, on the southwest of the island.

It’s a painful scene she has seen again and again. It is also the reason she now dedicates her life to ensuring everyone on the island has a safe dwelling.

The pillars of this concrete house collapsed, crushing three vehicles underneath. Furniture and personal belongings are strewn around, unreachable, unsalvageable.

“I’m traumatized,” homeowner Luz María Morales Vargas tells Gautier Castro. “We’ve lived here for 27 years.”  —read more— 

Bleacher Report | NASCAR at Talladega 2021 Results: Bubba Wallace Earns 1st Career Cup Series Win

At a rain-soaked Talladega Superspeedway, Bubba Wallace won the YellaWood 500 on Monday.

A day after weather forced postponement until Monday, NASCAR had to call the race early because of inclement conditions. Wallace, the leader after 117 laps, was named the winner.   –-read more—  

CNN style Arts | A museum lent an artist $84K — so he kept the money and called it ‘art’

When an exhibition about the future of labor opened at a Danish art museum on Friday, visitors should have seen two large picture frames filled with banknotes worth a combined $84,000.

The pieces were meant to be reproductions of two works by artist Jens Haaning, who previously used framed cash to represent the average annual salaries of an Austrian and a Dane — in euros and Danish krone respectively.

But when the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg took delivery of the recreated artworks ahead of the show, gallery staff made a surprising discovery: the frames were empty. Rather than being the handiwork of thieves, the loaned cash was missing thanks to Haaning himself, who says he is keeping the money — in the name of art.  —read more—  

CNN travel RECONNECT COLOMBIA | Caño Cristales: Colombia’s spectacular ‘liquid rainbow’

(CNN) — Visit Caño Cristales during the wet or dry seasons in Colombia, and you’d be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about.

However, travel there from July to October, the moderate months between the extremes of the wet and dry seasons, and you’ll witness one of Mother Nature’s crowning glories.

The 62.1-mile-long river is in Colombia’s Serranía de la Macarena national park, in the province of Meta, and is known as the “River of Five Colors.”

This “liquid rainbow” — as it is also called — is one of the South American country’s most spectacular natural wonders, thanks to its vivid colors.

The bed of the river sports bright red, yellow, green, blue and black for the few months that conditions are right. Although the colors can be viewed from as early as mid-May and sometimes into December, they are brightest during June and November.  —read more— 

F1 | Hamilton vs Norris: Onboard with team radio for the dramatic final laps that decided the race in Russia

The final six laps of the Russian Grand Prix were the most dramatic of the entire race, as rain fell at Sochi and put the drivers in a hugely difficult position: pit for intermediate tyres and risk losing all, or stay out and hope they could get around the last few laps without sliding off.

This difficult choice was most acute for race leader Lando Norris – chasing down his first ever Grand Prix win – and Lewis Hamilton behind him, chasing his 100th.

Hamilton opted to pit, while Norris tried to brave it out. In hindsight we know which was the correct choice, but what was it like for the drivers and their teams having to make that call in real time and with so much at stake?

Hit play on the video above to join them in the cockpit for those crucial final laps, and hear the key radio calls between the drivers and their race engineers as they wrestled with the conditions, and the strategy dilemma…-  —watch/ride along/listen— 

PALMER: Should McLaren have overruled Norris to ensure victory in Sochi?

CNN US | 5 charts that illustrate why being Hispanic or Latino is more than speaking Spanish

(CNN) – James Bosquez grew up being singled out by his cousins for only speaking English and prompting surprised looks from his peers for not getting good grades in Spanish class.

The 39-year-old standup comedian says those reactions used to bother him as a young boy, but he learned that not speaking the language didn’t make him less Latino.

Bosquez represents the complexity of Latinos, a diverse group whose presence in the United States predates the country’s current borders.

“We’ve been across the Rio Grande since my great grandmother’s migrated (from Reynosa, Mexico) so we go some four of five generations,” said Bosquez, who now lives in Portland.  —read more—