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Travel to Italy and Algeria in these two brilliant, translated mysteries

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Travel to Italy and Algeria in these two brilliant, translated mysteries

I’ve always loved mystery novels that take me inside different cultures. While lots of English language crime writers are good at evoking other lands — think of Philip Kerr’s Nazi Berlin or Cara Black’s Paris — the richest portraits come to us in translations of books by homegrown writers. These have the revelatory tang you get when novelists know their culture from the inside.

As it happens, two terrific novels of this kind have just come out from Bitter Lemon Press, a small London publisher that specializes in translated mysteries. These new books could hardly be less alike, except for one thing: Each is, in its unconventional way, quite brilliant.

The End of the Sahara is a kaleidoscopic murder mystery by the Algerian writer Saïd Khatibi, a rising star who just won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Superbly translated by Alexander E. Elinson, the book’s set in a provincial city on the edge of the Sahara in 1988 Algeria, a troubled time when the ruling socialist government has clearly failed. But you don’t need to know Algerian history to get sucked in by the plot, which centers on the murder of Zakia Zaghouani, a nightclub singer at a local hotel called The Sahara.

Burning with urgency, the story is told by a big cast of characters who all speak to us in first person. There’s Ibrahim, a college grad who’s been reduced to dealing in illegal videos. There’s the hotel owner, Maimoun, a shifty wheeler-dealer who fancied Zakia. There’s Zakia’s fiancee, Bachir, a decent guy found with blood on his shirt. He’s the top suspect of Inspector Hamid, a corrupt, womanizing cop who also fancied Zakia. Bachir’s represented by his cousin Noura, a good-hearted lawyer who’s constantly derided for reaching the age of 30 without a husband.

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As we move from suspect to suspect, Khatibi not only makes us feel the textures of these characters’ everyday lives — the looks and smells, the food shortages and emerging Islamist militancy — but he deftly unveils how they are all are trapped together in a spiderweb of lies and betrayal that began in the past.

Using 1988 Algeria as a mirror for present-day Algeria, Khatibi gives us an X-ray of an entire social structure. Even as we learn who killed Zakia, we realize that no one escapes the bone-deep misogyny that underlies her murder and the repressive, post-colonial politics that leave Algerians spinning in circles. As one character thinks bitterly, “It was as if this country’s history just repeats itself rather than moving forward…”

An Enigma By the Sea, by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini

Not surprisingly, life is far cushier along the prosperous Tuscan coast. That’s the setting for An Enigma by the Sea, a new edition of the 1991 novel by the legendary Italian team of Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini. Witty, erudite and socially astute, they play with the mystery genre as they explore the many sides of Italianness.

The place is the Gualdana, a pine-protected seaside enclave where the well-off have holiday villas. “A certain air of secrecy hangs over it,” the opening tells us enticingly.

The time is winter, when only a few residents are around. They’re an assortment of Italian types that includes a rich, disaffected Roman couple; a philandering count who’s arrived with his latest conquest, a fame-hungry model; an old woman addicted to reading Tarot cards; and a smug politician stewing in paranoia. You get a whiff of Upstairs, Downstairs in the relation between these moneyed folks and the locals who service their many needs — the security guards, the wry police commander and the village handyman, who is also, everyone knows, the village cuckold.

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Deliciously translated by Gregory Dowling, An Enigma by the Sea starts off like a gently acerbic comedy of manners, as these self-absorbed characters go about killing time — chatting, flirting, bickering, having tea. Then suddenly the story shifts. Three residents inexplicably disappear. Could they have been murdered? Here? The question unleashes the sleuthing instincts of their neighbor, Signor Monforti, a pessimistic depressive who’s a born detective: He spends his life scrutinizing every single thing for clues to impending disaster.

Masters of the light fantastic, Fruttero and Lucentini roll out their mystery with the slyest of touches, weaving discussions of the Greek cynics and the nature of depression into their droll evocation of a gray, chilly off-season resort with its wind storms and dire pizzerias. If Khatibi shows us characters caught in the tragic flames of history, Fruttero and Lucentini look at human folly with a cool, almost ancient amusement at what strange, funny creatures we all are.

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‘The Trojan Teddy Bear’: The promise and peril of childhood in the age of AI

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‘The Trojan Teddy Bear’: The promise and peril of childhood in the age of AI

In A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Monica introduces Teddy to David. The seemingly ordinary teddy bear quickly reveals himself to be an intelligent companion capable of conversation and emotional support.

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Warner Bros. Pictures

Back in 2001, Steven Spielberg released an underrated scifi movie named A.I. Artificial Intelligence (yes, the title is a bit redundant). The movie, which loosely borrows from Pinocchio, tells the story of a family who adopts a robotic boy programmed for love, and that robot’s heartbreaking quest to become a real boy.

Much of the technology in A.I. remains elusive. We’re probably not anywhere close to building androids that can convincingly pass as Haley Joel Osment — or Jude Law, for that matter. But some of the AI products imagined in the movie are starting to look surprisingly plausible. Take Teddy, an animatronic teddy bear. Teddy can walk, talk, make decisions, and respond to the needs and emotions of people around him. He’s more than just a toy. He’s an intelligent companion and protector for children.

Today, a slew of technology companies are developing AI companions that sort of resemble Teddy. The most intelligent AI chatbots still live on digital screens, but a wave of startups is giving them bodies — creating dolls, action figures, and robots that can serve as companions for kids.

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What happens when kids grow up with AI?

AI is already a part of childhood. Recommendation algorithms curate what many kids watch and listen to. Chatbots stand ready to answer questions like, “Are monsters real?” or “Why is the sky blue?” They can help with homework, tell bedtime stories, or even feel like a friend. And companies are racing to embed AI into toys, nurseries, classrooms, and eventually robots that live alongside families.

In a new book, Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI, author Dana Suskind grapples with what the rising tide of artificial intelligence means for raising kids. On the one hand, she acknowledges that the technology offers promise as, for example, a productivity enhancer and time saver for parents, a monitoring and research tool that can give parents and scientists valuable data on child development, and an interactive tutor that might help some kids learn.

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It’s time for the night trip to the beach — the grunion are running

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It’s time for the night trip to the beach — the grunion are running

One of the most magical and underrated natural wonders of the American West is about to unfold across California beaches.

In four-day periods every year from March to August, legions of small, silver fish called grunion ride the waves ashore for mating rituals, beginning on the nights of the full and new moons.

But this isn’t just any fish spawning.

First, the females bury themselves halfway in the sand with only their heads sticking out and lay their eggs. Then, the males wriggle up and twist and wrap around them. It’s a rare and mysterious orgy unfolding in the dead of night. And it’s all out in the open for public viewing.

For some SoCal families, watching the grunion run is an annual summer tradition. There have been several runs already this year, with sightings reported from La Jolla to Ventura. Another is expected to start Tuesday night.

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When the grunions will be running

Grunion mate on Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro on June 5, 2023.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

This week’s run is predicted go from Tuesday to Friday.

The fish come up on the sand for about two hours at night, as the high tide starts to ebb, usually between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. The second hour is when the spawning picks up.

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The second and third night of the four-night runs tend to be best to see grunion, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The first night, Tuesday night, is the least predictable.

The agency publishes a schedule of what days and times to expect the ritual, based on moon cycles and the timing at San Pedro’s Cabrillo Beach, a known grunion hotspot.

But it all varies.

“The further south that you go, the grunion tend to show up a little bit earlier, and if you go further to the north, they tend to show up a little bit later,” said CDFW environmental scientist Malcolm Tunnell. “We don’t fully understand this. They are a cryptic species.”

Where to see them

Grunion are a native species and only live off the coast of southern California and northern Mexico. Their usual range is from Santa Barbara to Baja California, although it has been shifting north as climate change heats the oceans.

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While you can expect to see grunion in SoCal, the exact beaches where they decide to spawn is something of a mystery, depending on the tides, the sands and the conditions encountered by the scout fish grunion send out before they decide where to mate.

“We usually say, if it’s a beach where there’s surfing, they like the same surfing waves that people like,” said Karen Martin, a professor of biology at Pepperdine University and leading grunion expert. “But really, any beach that has a nice, wide area where they can come ashore is a potential beach.”

Martin runs a group where citizen scientists can report observations. She said this year the runs have not been as abundant as in the past, but “there have been some nice ones, even earlier this month.”

The CDFW recommends checking social media and calling local lifeguards to ask if grunions have been spotted. Bait and tackle shops may also be able to point you in the right direction.

What are the rules for catching grunion

Grunion face threats from development on the coast, sea level rise, changes in storm dynamics and hunting, said Martin.

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Since the 1920s, populations have shown signs of decline on-and-off. To protect grunion during their peak spawning period, CDFW prohibits fishing from April through June.

The season is open now with a limit of 30 per person; they can only be caught by hand, and anyone over 16 needs to have a fishing license.

Flashlights should be used sparingly, so as not to disrupt them.

“The ideal thing would be to just watch, but if you feel compelled to catch, maybe consider catch and release,” said Martin.

A fish that lives in such a limited geography, she said, needs our care.

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“It’s a really remarkable fish.”

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Why your favorite international artist might be reconsidering their next U.S. tour

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Why your favorite international artist might be reconsidering their next U.S. tour

Here’s something American concertgoers might not know: before a musician from another country can take the stage in the U.S., someone has to file paperwork with the federal government on their behalf. And not just any paperwork — a petition, hundreds of pages long, stacked with press clippings, award documentation, testimonial letters from other artists, venue contracts, a detailed tour itinerary, and evidence that the artist is legitimately accomplished at what they do.

And that’s just to start the clock in a process that may take over a year to complete.

This is the reality for international artists — from musicians to painters, dancers to comedians — who want to come to the U.S. to share their work. It’s a complicated, expensive process that arts advocates say has long made the country a difficult place for foreign artists to access. But now, they say it’s gotten much worse.

The time it takes to process a visa has dramatically increased. The number of available interview slots at U.S. embassies is backlogged. Application costs have surged. And there’s an added layer of uncertainty: paperwork can be perfect, fees can be paid, and yet artists still can be turned away at the border.

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For U.S. audiences, all of this means a quiet loss of global cultural exchange.

What does the artist visa process look like?

To illustrate the nonimmigrant visa process for artists, let’s take Kongero, a small, Swedish folk a cappella group that completed its second U.S. tour last fall.

First step: File a petition.

The group’s booking agent planned the tour and gathered all the necessary documentation to file a petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to demonstrate that the group qualified for a P-3 visa, the category for culturally unique artists.

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