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Today, a new glossy magazine called 72 hits the news stands. On the cover, you’ll find Julia Roberts gazing intensely at the camera, wearing a black button-down shirt and jacket designed by Phoebe Philo along with chunky diamond-encrusted jewelry. Inside, she’s interviewed by George Clooney, but you’ll also find stories about luminaries across fashion and entertainment, from Stella McCartney and Jonathan Anderson to Oprah Winfrey and Adwoa Aboah. 72, a quarterly fashion magazine, is the flagship product of a new media and entertainment company called EE72. It is cofounded by Edward Enninful, the former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, along with his sister, Akua Enninful, a talent agent. (The company’s name combines Edward’s initials and the year of his birth.) After more than two decades running some of the best-known fashion titles in the world, Enninful is ready to strike out on his own. [Cover Image: Craig McDean (photograph)/courtesy EE72] “When you are on someone else’s masthead, you have to please your bosses and advertisers,” he says. “I was ready for total creative freedom.” Launching a new magazine in this moment is a bold move. The media industry has been on the decline for more than a decade, as people shift their attention toward streaming services and TikTok, and advertisers cut their spending on magazines and newspapers. Last year, 15,000 media jobs were cut in the United States, as places like the Washington Post and Vox Media had layoffs. But Enninful is confident in his ability to create a profitable media business, despite these headwinds. After all, he’s done so before. In 2011, he took over W magazine when the publication was struggling and increased ad pages by 16%. Between 2017 and 2023, as editor-in-chief of British Vogue, he drove up both digital traffic and print circulation. “From the time I was in my twenties, I was always offered magazines that needed to be turned around,” he recalls. “Then I realized that turning things around is my superpower.” New Business Models Enninful started his career at a time when magazines were still thriving. He was scouted as a model in London as a teenager, going on to model for Arena and i-D, before pivoting to styling fashion shoots. He was eventually named fashion editor of i-D. Until the internet and social media took off 20 years ago, magazines were a lucrative business because brands would pay top dollar to have their ads seen by large audiences. But 15 years ago, Enninful began to see the uphill battles the media industry was facing. In 2011, when he became style director at W, and then in 2017, when he became the editor in chief of British Vogue, advertising was beginning to decline. To ensure the success of his magazines, Enninful had to think creatively about working with advertisers. Rather than just selling them banner ads or print pages, he’s been focused on finding other ways to collaborate. “The advertising system needed to be disrupted, and I’ve been doing this my whole career,” he says. He’s bringing this same approach to 72. For the first issue, there isn’t a single page of advertising. Instead, he creates bespoke partnerships with each brand that involves things like in-person events, podcasts, videos, and even products. For instance, for the magazine’s launch party, 72 partnered with Moncler and Google Shopping, enabling these brands to get in front of some of the most influential people in fashion. “We offer our clients holistic packages that are tailored to their needs.” he says. While Enninful is the chief creative officer of the company, he has hired a team of experts to run various parts of the business. Simone Oliver (formerly of BET and Refinery29) is the head of content, Sarah Harris (formerly of British Vogue) is the editorial director for both the magazine and website, and Lee Swillingham and Stuart Spalding (founders of the creative agency Suburbia) are co-creative directors of the magazine. EE72 will also have another revenue stream in the form of a consulting wing that works directly with brands to advise them on how to be relevant in this cultural environment. “This takes the pressure off the magazine,” he says. “For the magazine, we can just focus on creating really excellent journalism and beautiful art rather than the needs of the advertisers.” More Diversity But to succeed as a magazine, you need more than just strong advertising revenue. You also need a fresh and relevant point of view. Over the course of the last two decades, Enninfulwhose family moved from Ghana to London when he was a childhas done this by bringing diversity to the notoriously exclusive fashion industry. Throughout his career, he’s focused on highlighting the importance of inclusivity. In 2017, after President Trump was elected the first time, Enninful brought together 80 prominent members of the fashion industry to create a video called, “I Am An Immigrant.” In 2019, he used the September issue of British Vogue to spotlight 15 female trailblazers including Greta Thunberg. (The issue was guest-edited by Meghan Markle.) Enninful says he will bring much of the same approach to 72. In many ways, the magazine will be reminiscent of other high-end fashion magazines on the market, including Vogue. We’ll see top designers’ latest collections and read interviews with cultural icons. There will be lavish photo spreads by top photographers. But Enninful will continue to focus on bringing in underrepresented voices and perspectives. He believes it is particularly important to do this now because “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are under attack not just in the United States, but around the world. Enninful believes that promoting diversity isn’t just a moral issue: It’s good for business. “When you feature diverse people on the cover of the magazine, you attract more people into the eco-system that had previously been ignored,” he says. “Throughout my career, I’ve seen that this is great for business.” But for all his experience in the magazine business, Enninful believes there’s still a lot to learn because the industry keeps changing. He says one of the most exciting things about starting a brand-new media company is that he has the freedom to experiment. He plans to run the magazine like a startup, instead of being bound to the traditions and systems of legacy media companies. “There’s a reason we didn’t buy an existing maazine title,” he says. “We didn’t want to be stuck with a legacy brand. We wanted something new, young, and agile. We can learn from mistakes, move quickly, and adapt.” And ultimately, he believes that readers are also looking for something new right now. “Many people are exhausted by what they’re seeing in the media,” he says. “I think it’s a great time to be starting something new.”
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E-Commerce
When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, it was the largest climate bill in U.S. history, with major incentives for electric vehicle production and adoption. In its wake, investment in the U.S. electric vehicle industry accelerated. But in 2025, President Donald Trumps so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated most of the incentives, and U.S. investment collapsed. Hitting the brakes on electric vehicles will clearly mean less progress in reducing transportation emissions and less strategic U.S. leadership in a key technology of the future. But in a new study, my colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University and I find that fewer electric vehicles will also mean less investment to clean up the electricity sector. How we got here U.S. electric vehicle adoption lags behind the rest of the worldespecially China, which has invested heavily and strategically to dominate electric vehicle markets and supply chains and to leapfrog the historical dominance of American, European, and Japanese manufacturers of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Electric vehicles are much simpler to engineer, and this opened a window for China to bet big on EVs with investment, incentives, and experimentation. As battery prices dropped dramatically, electric cars became real competition for gasoline carsespecially for the massive Chinese market, where buyers dont have strong prior preferences for gasoline. China now dominates the supply chain for battery materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese, as well as the rare earth minerals used in electric motors. In 2022, the U.S. took action to change this trend when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act. The law encouraged EV adoption by lowering costs to manufacturers and consumers. But it also encouraged automakers to find ways to build EVs without Chinese materials by making the largest incentives conditional on avoiding China entirely. After the law passed, investment soared across hundreds of new battery manufacturing and material processing facilities in the U.S. But in 2025, Congress passed and Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which eliminated most of the incentives. U.S. investment in EV-related production has collapsed. Electric vehicles are cleaner As a scholar of electric vehicle technology, economics, environment, and policy, I have conducted numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies characterizing the benefits and costs of electric vehicles over their life cycle, from production through use and end of life. When charged with clean electricity, electric vehicles are one of the few technologies in existence that can provide transportation with near-zero emissions. With todays electricity grid, EV emissions can vary, depending on the mix of electricity generators used in the region where they are charged, driving conditions such as weather or traffic, the specific vehicles being compared, and even the timing of charging. But EVs are generally better for the climate over their life cycle today than most gasoline vehicles, even if the most efficient gas-electric hybrids are still cleaner in some locations. EVs become cleaner as the electricity grid becomes cleaner and, importantly, it turns out that EVs can even help make the electricity grid cleaner. This matters because transportation and electricity together make up the majority of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the passenger cars and light trucks that we all drive produce the majority of our transportation emissions. In its efforts to prevent the government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration is now claiming that emissions from cars and trucks are not meaningful contributors to climate change. But in reality, a technology that cleans up both transportation and electricity at the same time is a big deal. Across most of the U.S., adding electricity demand, such as from increasing the use of electric vehicles, would spark development of clean-energy power plants to meet that rising need. [Image: Michalek et al.] An opportunity for cleaner electricity Our research has found that turning away from electric vehicles does more than miss a chance to curb transportation emissionsit also misses an opportunity to make the nations electricity supply cleaner. In our paper, my coauthors Lily Hanig, Corey Harper and Destenie Nock, and I looked at potential scenarios for electric vehicle adoption across the U.S. from now until 2050. We considere situations ranging from cases with no government policies supporting electric vehicles to cases with enough electric vehicle adoption to be on track with road maps targeting overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In each of these scenarios, we calculated how the nations power grid and electricity generators would respond to electric vehicle charging load. We found that when there are more electric vehicles charging, more power plants would need to be builtand because of cost competitiveness, most of those new power plants would be solar, wind, battery storage, and natural gas plants, depending on the region. Once wind and solar plants are built, they are cheaper to operate than fossil fuel plants, because utilities dont need to buy more fuel to burn to make more electricity. That cost advantage means wind and solar energy get used first, so they can displace fossil-fuel generation even when EVs arent charging. A virtuousor viciouscycle Our analysis reveals that whats good for climate in the transportation sectoreliminating emissions from vehicle tailpipesis also good for climate in the power sector, supporting more investment in clean power and displacing more fossil fuel-powered generation. As a result, encouraging electric vehicle adoption is even better for the climate than many people expected because EV charging can actually cause lower-emitting power plants to be built. Gasoline vehicles cant last forever. The cheap oil will eventually run out. And EV batteries have gotten so cheap, with ranges now comparable to gas cars, that the global transition is already well underway. Even in the U.S., consumers are adopting more EVs as the technology improves and offers consumers more for less. The U.S. government cant single-handedly stop this transitionit can only decide how much to lead, lag, or resist. Rolling back electric vehicle incentives now means higher emissions, less clean energy investment, and weaker U.S. competitiveness in a crucial industry of the future. Our findings show that slowing electric vehicle adoption doesnt just affect emissions from transportation. It also misses opportunities to help build a cleaner power sector, potentially locking the U.S. into higher emissions from its top two highest-emitting sectorspower generation and transportationwhile the window to avoid the worst effects of climate change is closing. Jeremy J. Michalek is a professor of engineering & public policy, professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
The aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah, has been a maelstrom of misinformation and hatred, revealing how polarized social media and the past decade of digital conflict have left us. One of the most unsettling signs that something fundamental has broken in our sense of reality comes from a seemingly trivial detail: Donald Trumps pinky finger. In a White House statement mourning Kirks death, many viewers focused less on the presidents words than on the video itself. The high-contrast footage was scrutinized for evidence that it had been manipulated by artificial intelligence, and some viewers claimed they found undeniable proof. At one point in the clip, Trumps left pinky finger appears to merge with the others as he clasps his hands on the desk. Conspiracy theorists have seized on this, arguing it showed the president as proof that Trump didnt make the statement at all, or that it was highly doctored. The reality is far more prosaic. A mix of the Trump White Houses preferred color tinting, combined with the low resolution and compression of digital video on social media, can cause frames to collapse or distort. Compression adds digital artifacts. Put it all together and you end up with something that makes a metaphorical mountain out of a molehill. Before rushing to dismiss those who are crying foul, it helps to consider the broader context. Such conspiratorial thinking is easier to understand in a world awash with generative AI. When AI image and video generation tools that are capable of producing something not dissimilar to the Trump video are just a Google search away, it becomes easy to question everything. Seeing is no longer believing. Early signs of this shift have already disrupted public discourse. When Catherine, the Princess of Wales, revealed her cancer diagnosis in a video shared on social media in March 2024, it was done so as a way to quell rumors that she had died. Even with video proof, many people insisted it was AI-generated. At that time, the technology was not advanced enough to make such a fabrication plausible. Since then, though, tools have improved dramatically. The release of Googles Gemini AI image generator (nicknamed Nano Banana during its development) made it possible to create images nearly indistinguishable from reality. Paired with new video-generation systems, it is now entirely feasible to replicate the look of Trumps official White House video. In fact, it could be done quickly and cheaply. These powerful tools have been a gift in many respects. Yet they are also unraveling our shared sense of reality. Add them to the toxicity of our modern discourse, and the cracks in public trust deepen into fractures. What counts as real is no longer obvious even to the most attentive observer. And that should alarm us all.
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E-Commerce
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