From Waffle Irons to Winged Goddesses: The History and Impact of Nike pen_spark

 

Nike. The swoosh logo is instantly recognizable, a global symbol of athletic performance and aspirational cool. But how did a company named after a Greek goddess become synonymous with sneakers and sportswear? This article delves into the fascinating history of Nike, exploring its innovative spirit, iconic marketing strategies, and undeniable impact on the world of sports and fashion.

Humble Beginnings: From Track to Blue Ribbon Sports

The story of Nike starts in 1964, not in the glitzy world of brand endorsements and million-dollar marketing campaigns, but on a University of Oregon track. Phil Knight, a former track athlete, was impressed by the quality and affordability of Japanese running shoes made by Onitsuka Tiger (now Asics). He saw an opportunity and partnered with his coach, Bill Bowerman, to distribute these shoes in the United States. They named their venture Blue Ribbon Sports, a nod to the symbolic award given to winners in track meets.

Bowerman, a true innovator, wasn't satisfied with just selling existing shoes. He craved improvement. The story goes that he poured rubber into his wife's waffle iron, creating a new kind of sole with superior traction.This "waffle sole" design became a signature feature of early Nike shoes and a testament to Bowerman's relentless pursuit of better athletic performance.

Birth of a Swoosh and a Brand Identity

Björn Borg and the end of the traumatic marriage with an Italian singer: “He preferred cocaine to me,”

 

Björn Borg is a brilliant legend in the world of tennis. The Swede is, without a doubt, one of the athletes who marked a before and after on the circuit. Between 1974 and 1981 he won 66 titles, eleven of them Grand Slam titles (six Roland Garros and five Wimbledon). Charismatic, talented, winner... he built cinematic duels in romantic times of tennis, with figures like John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl and Guillermo Vilas, among others. It is also known that his life, after becoming a professional, had ups and downs due to his addictions. A dark and deep stage that, from time to time, returns to the scene due to comments from third parties.

The Italian singer and actress Loredana Berté, who was married to Borg between 1989 and 1993, when the Nordic had already retired, once again referred to the addictions suffered by the former world number one. “When we got married, he preferred cocaine to me,” said Berté, 73, during an interview with the Rai 2 radio station in which he reiterated concepts expressed in his memoirs published a few years ago and in which he recounts the ordeal that that marriage turned out to be.

Loredana Berté, currently

Berté, who was a pop icon during the '80s and met Borg during a holiday in Ibiza in 1988, said the former tennis star's addiction to drugs and prostitutes were decisive in the couple's breakup. “I couldn't accept it,” Berté explained, according to the ANSA agency , when commenting on the sexual demands of the Swede, from whom he decided to separate after a specific event that ended up being decisive.

Jeff Bezos buys a third mansion on an exclusive island in Miami Beach for 90 million

 

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the second largest fortune in the world, bought a new property - his third - for 90 million dollars (83 million euros) on the exclusive island of Indian Creek, known as the 'Billionaires' Bunker' and located in Miami Beach, in Biscayne Bay in southern Florida (USA), national media reported this Tuesday.

The transaction was carried out off-market and, according to Bloomberg, the tycoon plans to reside in this six-bedroom mansion while demolishing the other two houses he previously bought on this island.

Property records show the luxury home last sold in 1998 for $2.5 million.

"That's the hottest place (Indian Creek) in the country right now. If there's one thing rich elites want, it's a little exclusivity," a source familiar with the area's real estate sector told the New York Post.

Bezos, 60, acquired two other properties in October and June 2023 for $79 and $68 million, respectively, located in the "Billionaires' Bunker."

The town of Indian Creek, with only 41 residential lots, has a country club, its own police department and is home to personalities and magnates such as Jeffrey Soffer, Carl Icahn, Tom Brady, Julio Iglesias, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump .

Jeff Bezos also has other properties in Washington, Maui and Beverly Hills, which he bought, the latter, for $165 million in 2020, according to Bloomberg.

The Amazon founder, who since resigning as CEO in 2021 has been enjoying the good life with his fiancée, former journalist of Mexican origin Lauren Sánchez, was looking to acquire property in Indian Creek.

Bezos and Sánchez, born into a Mexican-American family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, first went public with their relationship in 2019. Since the two began dating, they have kept the details of their life together private, although They have been photographed at some events.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jeff Bezos has a fortune of $203.7 billion.

Bezos has sold Amazon shares worth about $8.5 billion in recent months, after "not getting rid of company shares since 2021," Bloomberg reported.

The founder of the space company Blue Origin is also the owner of one of the most expensive superyachts in the world, the Koru, the luxurious three-masted schooner valued at $500 million that is considered the largest in the world.

Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj and 200 other artists ask that AI respect their rights

 Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Camila Cabello and around 200 other musical artists published an open letter this Tuesday in which they ask Artificial Intelligence (AI) developers and technology companies that they do not use this tool to "infringe and devalue the rights of human artists."

Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), a non-profit organization run by artists to defend their rights, was in charge of sharing the letter with the support of well-known names in the industry to warn about the use of musical works without permission by AI companies.

"We call on all digital music platforms and music-based services to commit to not developing or deploying AI music generation technology, content or tools that undermine or substitute the human artistry of composers and artists or deny us a fair compensation for our work," the artists demand in the letter.

In this sense, the writing highlights two trends in which songs are used illicitly: to train and produce AI "imitators" and to dilute royalty obligations using the sound of these algorithms.

Music creators also talk about threats such as voice cloning, since the arrival of AI allows a vocal sample to be used to transform songs into others that sound like a human artist without being one.

"The unethical use of generative AI to replace human artists will devalue the entire music ecosystem, for both artists and fans," ARA CEO Jen Jacobsen said in a statement.

Sam Smith, HYBE, Jon Bon Jovi, Norah Jones, Pearl Jam, REM, Chuck D and Kate Hudson are other signatories of the letter.

Already in October 2023, three major music publishers - Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO - sued the AI ​​company Anthropic, alleging that it infringed the copyright of the song lyrics, as detailed by The Hollywood Reporter. .

Also in the cultural sector, Hollywood actors began a strike in July 2023 - which lasted for more than 100 days - to, among other reasons, achieve regulation in the use of AI, considering it an "existential threat."

The heartfelt post of Aryna Sabalenka in the midst of pain over the death of her ex-partner

 

At 42 years old, Kostantin Koltsov , former Belarusian hockey player and athlete, died in the United States while accompanying tennis player Aryna Sabalenka, with whom he had a relationship for a time.

As confirmed by LA NACION through sources from the Miami-Dade County Police, Sabalenka's ex-partner died in the context of a possible suicide. “On Monday, March 18, 2024, at approximately 12:39 a.m., Bal Harbor Police and firefighters were dispatched to the St. Regis Bal Harbor Resort, located at 9703 Collins Avenue, in reference to a man who " he jumped from a balcony ," the security agencies of the North American country explained in response to the death of Koltsov, a well-known personality in Belarus, his country of origin.

The statement on the death of Konstantin Koltsov

“We are in mourning. The Belarusian Hockey Federation expresses its most sincere condolences to the family, friends and all those who knew and worked with Konstantin,” expressed the Belarusian Hockey Federation, which extended its condolences to his loved ones at such a delicate time.

Aryna Sabalenka's new post after the death of Kostantin Kolstov

Faced with the irreparable loss and, at the same time, immersed in the WTA circuit where she is the number 2 tennis player in the world ranking, Aryna Sabalenka decided to use her Instagram account to clarify some events that were publicly disclosed and expressed her pain over the death. who was his partner for a time.

“I want to take a moment to thank all my fans for their outpouring of love and support during this difficult time. Your kind words mean a lot and I carry them with me every day. “I am very grateful for all of you,” Sabalenka highlighted in an Instagram story published this Tuesday, April 2.

The one born in Minsk, Belarus, who has 1.7 million followers on her account and is one of the most influential athletes on this social network, shared the message with a photo of a sunset in the background and took time to reflect in the middle of the demanding circuit.

Aryna Sabalenka expressed her pain on her Instagram account

Previously, Sabalenka expressed herself through the same medium and asked for a mantle of reserve in the face of the journalistic siege. “ Konstantin's death is an unimaginable tragedy and, although we were no longer together, my heart is broken. Please respect my privacy and that of his family at this very difficult time ,” she clarified.

Botswana threatens to "gift" 20,000 elephants to Germany in protest

 

The president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has threatened - in statements to the newspaper "Bild" - to "gift" 20,000 elephants to Germany as a protest against the ban on bringing hunting trophies into the European country.

Masisi says that he sees elephants and their controlled hunting as an economic resource that also prevents the number of elephants from increasing exorbitantly, endangering the population.

Now, according to the president, the German Environment Minister, Steffi Lemke of the Greens party, wants to ban the entry of trophies.

"If the Greens and Lemke know more about everything than the others, then they have to show how to live with elephants. I propose sending 20,000 wild elephants to Germany, it is not a joke," declared the president, who maintains that in the attitude of the Greens there are racist tendencies.

According to Masisi, Botswana has more than 130,000 elephants and the population grows by 6,000 annually and they have donated thousands of animals to neighboring countries such as Angola and Mozambique.

"We want to make a similar offer to Germany and we will not accept a negative response," he said.

Extreme heat causes the suspension of classes in the Philippines and an alert in Thailand

 An extreme heat wave this Wednesday caused the suspension or modification of classes in hundreds of schools in the Philippines, while the Thai authorities issued an alert in the north due to the high temperatures upon entering the hottest season in the region.

Educational centers in numerous locations throughout the Philippines, including Manila, ordered the suspension of classes or the alteration of schedules between Tuesday and Wednesday to avoid health problems in the face of temperatures that have reached 43 degrees Celsius.

In a statement, the Manila Public Information Office indicated that school principals have the authority and responsibility to suspend or seek mixed formulas to avoid the heat wave.

"Teachers and students can also wear more comfortable clothing than uniforms to reduce feelings of heat," the office said in a statement.

According to the Philippine Star, more centers on the island of Luzon (north) and Mindanao (south) took measures today to alleviate the effects of the high wind chill, calculated by combining temperature and humidity.

At what temperature does the dengue mosquito die?

 Given the invasion of mosquitoes that crosses the northern and central areas of Argentina, the hope of many is that autumn temperatures will help reduce the colonies of these insects that make it difficult to be in a park or square. At the same time, the country faces an unprecedented outbreak of dengue. The movement of people carrying the disease that infect healthy mosquitoes when bitten, plus climate change that brought more heat and humidity, created a perfect breeding ground for the proliferation of Aedes aegypti.

With the weekend rains, the temperature has dropped in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. But is this drop in temperature enough to put an end to mosquitoes?

According to the National Ministry of Health, so far in 2024, 163,419 cases of dengue have been registered in Argentina, and 129 people have died from the disease . The accumulated cases represent up to six times more than what was registered in the same period of the previous season, and almost 10 times what was registered in the 2019 and 2020 season.

Laura Harburguer, researcher at the Institute of Scientific and Technical Research for Defense and member of the National Council of this institute, points out that the Culex pipiens mosquito , which is usually brownish and is more present in green spaces, is not the one that transmits dengue. –, is capable of surviving at lower temperatures, however, the adult Aedes aegypti –transmitter of dengue– usually dies after four or five days of temperatures below 15 degrees .