25 talking points for better conversation at cocktails based on what I found interesting this week.
Global Street Smarts
1. Westminster Abbey has been the site of royal coronations since William the Conqueror in 1066.
2. Scotland's mood: A survey by the think tank British Future this summer indicated that 45 percent of Scots want to keep the monarchy, and the latest polling suggests that 46 percent want to leave the Union.
3. The FTSE MIB index, Italy's flagship stock market index, has fallen roughly 20 percent this year.
4. The International Space Station has been the trailblazer, the greatest global collaboration in the history of technology. During 22 years of continuous habitation, it has hosted 258 astronauts and cosmonauts from 20 countries and thousands of groundbreaking experiments.
5. Modern slavery: An estimated 50 million people worldwide in 2021 were living in modern slavery conditions, with 3.3 million being children.
6. The world's average adult will be worth $100,000 by 2024, says Credit Suisse.
7. CGI: The Clinton Global Initiative returned to New York City this week after a six-year hiatus.
8. Generation X + Millennials, who are now middle-aged or approaching it, have maintained or even expanded their identification as political independents in recent decades, according to Gallup.
9. LinkedIn started in 2003.
10. Losing sleep over notifications: A new study by De Montfort University Leicester in the UK suggests that 12.5% of 10-year-olds lose about one night of sleep per week because they wake up in the middle of the night to check notifications.
11. Apple plans to create more kinds of ad inventory in the App Store by the end of the year.
12. 70%: Percentage of Roblox played on mobile devices.
13. Air Canada bought 30 short-haul electric planes.
14. Hertz plans to order up to 175,000 Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, and BrightDrop EVs from GM over the next five years.
15. Peloton has officially unveiled its new rowing machine: Peloton Row. It costs $3,195.
16. When Patagonia surpassed $1 billion in annual sales, its founder, Yvon Chouinard, described it as the worst day of his life.
17. Among the Fortune Global 500, 63% of companies have now set 2050 targets for emissions reductions, up 12 percentage points in the last year, and 47% have set more ambitious 2030 targets.
18 . Volkswagen says the chip shortage will last past 2023.
19. QOTW: "Property development and investment is really about people and possibilities, more than it's about physical buildings." -- Carlo Navato
20. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has pushed its 2023 opening by two years due to supply chain issues.
21. La Liga recently raised Barcelona's spending limit by $803 million.
22. The F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix is set for November 18, 2023.
23. Royal football: In 1957, Queen Elizabeth II attended a college football game between Maryland and North Carolina.
24. Scrum: The US will host the men's Rugby World Cup in 2031.
25. The San Diego Wave broke a National Women's Soccer League attendance record last Saturday night, with more than 32,000 attending a match against Angel City.
-Marc
Pro-tip: The picture is of the lobby bar at Fasano Hotel in São Paulo.
