FlashFeed

Full text

Perhaps every sixteen-year-old boy needs a smart sister like Phoebe Caulfield. Discerning movie critic, reader, author of detective stories, skater and mean dancer, she is a very accomplished ten-year-old and the only character in The Catcher in the Rye who seems able to cast a benign influence on her troubled brother.

In his distinctive, confiding voice, Holden mentions her early on in the novel—”She’s all right. You’d like her”—and his thoughts run back to her like a refrain, punctuating the directionless two days in Manhattan which follow his expulsion from Pencey School. He wants to call her but he can’t in case his mother answers the phone. He wishes he could hang out with her instead of jock schoolmates, incomprehensible girlfriends, phony adults or reprimanding teachers. To cheer himself up he buys her a record he knows she will like, and tries to find her at the Mall and at Central Park where he remembers she likes to rollerskate. Finally, it is the thought of how sad she would be if he died from pneumonia on a freezing December night that propels him home to see her, even though he runs the risk of being intercepted by his parents, who don’t yet know that he has been expelled from his fourth school. Phoebe—or rather the thought of Phoebe—draws him slowly back to the family he is avoiding.

There is nothing phony about Phoebe. She is ten years old, skinny and has red hair which reminds Holden of their brother Allie, who died from cancer three years earlier. She dresses neatly but has a penchant for distinctive items—Holden knows that she will love the eccentric red hunting hat that he bought on impulse while on a school trip, and he notices that she has elephants embroidered on her pijamas. She hugs him unselfconsciously when she is pleased to see him, and she hits him when she is annoyed with him: everything she does is direct and sincere, unlike Holden’s date Sally Hayes, who is obsessed with appearances, or his predatory teacher Mr. Antolini.

Phoebe—or rather the thought of Phoebe—draws him slowly back to the family he is avoiding.

But Phoebe also shares with Holden a strong personality and a resistance to convention or behavior she doesn’t like. Earlier, she has thrown ink over Curtis Weintraub’s windcheater because she doesn’t like the way he follows her around. She has given herself a new middle name because she thinks Josephine is awful. She complains to her mother that their home help breathes over her food. Amusingly, with a joyous lack of embarrassment, she is taking belching lessons from Phyllis Margulies and she is also developing a technique for willing her forehead to get hot so it seems as though she has a fever (an excuse for skipping school). She and Holden have in the past entertained themselves by deliberately annoying a shop assistant in the Bloomingdale’s shoe department. When Holden sneaks into the family apartment to chat to her in her room, while avoiding their parents, she covers for him and lends him her Christmas money so that he can hide out in New York for a little longer before having to officially come home for the holidays and confess that he will not be returning to Pencey. Despite the age difference, there is a lot that the two siblings have in common, and Phoebe’s rebellious streak disrupts any idea that she must be good simply because she is a girl.

For Holden, Phoebe encapsulates memories of happy times spent with her and Allie or their oldest brother, D.B., who is now in Hollywood, working as a script writer. They would take her to Central Park and watch her ride on the carousel; they would go to the cinema together; they would take her to see a show. She always had an opinion about what they saw and she always listened carefully to their conversations: “if you tell old Phoebe something, she knows exactly what the hell you’re talking about.” He affectionately calls her “old Phoebe,” an amusing epithet considering she is the youngest sibling, but an appropriate one as she is wise beyond her years. Nostalgia for the innocence of prepubescence is mixed in with his respect for his kid sister, underlined by the fact that she is going to the same primary school that he went to, with school visits to the same museum and she is rehearsing, like he did, for the school play. A good writer and a lover of literature himself (English is the only subject he passed), he delights in the fact that his sister writes detective stories in her notebooks. These activities are a familiar comfort to Holden: “Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.”

But underlying this is Holden’s own fear of reaching adulthood. He drinks and smokes and tries to lose his virginity but ultimately retreats from the model of masculinity and ambition that he is expected to want. School is no good because he cannot see the point of following the rules for an outcome that has no appeal to him: “all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day.” At first Holden asks his date Sally if she’ll go with him to Vermont, to live simply somewhere in a cabin by a brook. She thinks he is mad. Then he modifies his plan, deciding instead to move to Colorado to live and work on a ranch. It is Phoebe who wisely points out that Holden might want to learn how to ride a horse first.

Anchored at last by the positive effect of his belief in a younger, wiser sister, Holden will finally return home and accept the help that he needs.

The quality of empathy between brother and sister allows Holden to talk freely about his experience of Pencey and know that (unlike Sally, who told him he was crazy), Phoebe will listen, and if she hasn’t got anything useful to say, will say nothing. It is somehow Phoebe’s disappointment in him that has a galvanizing effect—”She sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, and she’s only a little child.” He doesn’t mind when she corrects his misquotation of the Robert Burns poem from which the title comes—not a “catcher” but a “body,” from the line, “Gin a body meet a body, comin thro’ the rye”—and confides in her that his ambition is to save all the younger children from falling over the edge of a cliff. She inspires his empathy and sense of responsibility for those younger than himself—from helping a girl with her skate key in Central Park to allowing children their freedom to have fun: “The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them.”

What takes Holden by surprise is that Phoebe is determined to come with him to Colorado. He is dismayed when she shows up with a suitcase at their rendezvous (arranged so that Holden can return the money he borrowed). He had imagined going away until he reached at least the age of thirty-five, and arranging for Phoebe to visit him now and again. His understanding of his sister—and the way a ten-year-old child’s mind works—is out of step with reality. This shocks him into a sense of responsibility. He is concerned that she hasn’t eaten her lunch and he hates the idea that she is planning to skip school and miss her performance as Benedict Arnold in A Christmas Pageant because of him. Finally, a sense of responsibility draws him a little way out of his existential crisis.

Though Phoebe, now cross with her brother, refuses to return to school, or speak to him, she can be enticed to follow him, so Holden heads over to the zoo, knowing that she will become more reasonable when they are there. He promises that he will take responsibility and go home if she goes back to school. He buys her a ticket to ride a horse on the carousel and they reach a moment of mutual contentment, a much safer, childhood version of riding horses in a ring on a ranch—”I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around.” Anchored at last by the positive effect of his belief in a younger, wiser sister, Holden will finally return home and accept the help that he needs.

____________________________

Adapted from Great Literary Sisters by Janet Phillips. Copyright © 2026. Available from Bodleian Library Publishing.

Full text

We’re in what’s being dubbed the ‘year of AI ROI’. Four years on from the AI boom - ignited by the launch of ChatGPT - many businesses now believe that they’re AI-ready, using successful early-stage chatbot and copilot rollouts as evidence.

Yet there is a significant difference between experimenting with AI and embedding it across complex business processes and operations.

The real barrier to this transformation sits beneath the models themselves. While most AI outcomes-related conversations focus on model performance, GPUs, and compute capacity, organisations are increasingly realising that it’s their data infrastructure holding AI projects back.

Up until now, businesses have got away with operating successfully despite their disconnected file environments, inconsistent data governance, and information spread across multiple repositories.

This is because historically, data has been accessed sporadically, mostly by human employees who could compensate for shortcomings when data lacked context or wasn’t where it should be.

Simply put, data infrastructure didn’t need to be perfect, so it wasn’t. However, these fragmented file environments are now impossible to ignore as AI demands 24/7 consistent access to information, strong governance, and trusted data.

This puts enterprises in an uncomfortable situation: under pressure to deploy AI, but missing the foundations needed to be truly successful with AI projects at scale.

AI makes the data puzzle more complicated

Traditional file environments were built for a world where information lived in separate locations, individual teams managed access, and gaps in governance or data availability could be worked around.

This means that enterprises are now operating with fragmented information spread across multiple locations, with inconsistent governance and varying levels of accessibility. When data is accessed primarily by human employees, these inefficiencies are a source of frustration rather than a barrier.

This is where AI changes things. Models depend on fast, reliable access to information. If data is difficult to find, lacks context or cannot be accessed consistently, its value diminishes rapidly. In this instance, enterprises have data, but it’s completely unusable.

Overconfidence is coming at the expense of real success

Most organizations realize that their data infrastructure is far from perfect. Yet, the pressure to demonstrate progress on AI is intense. If businesses aren’t investing in and experimenting with AI, they’re seen as behind the curve. This is creating a strong incentive to deploy new tools as quickly as possible.

The problem is that organizations' early-stage AI learnings, if not outright success, are creating an overconfidence in their wider AI readiness and ability to scale up. Chatbots and copilots, which provide a lower barrier to entry to AI, are enabling organizations to demonstrate early, tangible AI outcomes.

When these projects deliver value, enterprises start to think that perhaps their infrastructure is future-proofed after all, despite a lack of sustained attempts to address and resolve deeper structural issues around their data accessibility, governance and infrastructure. These same businesses are also struggling with data recovery after cyber incidents - the warning signs are there, but current overconfidence is blurring reality.

As a result, businesses are moving rapidly onto major agentic projects, only to face delays, questions over ROI, and often, an implementation that fails. The irony is that an urgency to deploy AI is actually slowing long-term progress.

Organizations hellbent on deploying AI are risking overlooking the deeper risk management and data management work required to support it, while those that invest in strong data foundations are more likely to achieve sustainable success as their AI ambitions grow.

Shifting data from a cost to an asset

Most businesses don’t suffer from a lack of data; if anything, they have the opposite problem. Unfortunately, this is still viewed as an operational cycle driven by capacity planning, refresh cycles and expansion requirements, rather than a strategic asset. Industry research consistently shows IT teams still struggle to get a grip on their unstructured data - where most of their data assets reside - despite most of them believing their file data setup is robust.

The difference now is that AI systems operate continuously, drawing on information created today, yesterday, and sometimes decades ago. To deliver meaningful outcomes, they require consistent access to trusted data, rich context, and clear governance.

This means that organizations need to rethink their approach to enterprise information. When data is treated purely as a storage refresh challenge, AI quickly exposes the limitations of that approach. However, when it’s treated as a strategic asset, organizations can create environments where information is accessible, governed and ready to behave in the way that AI expects.

C-Suites’ goal should be to move from steady-state storage capacity to data utility, creating centralized environments with fewer systems, where data can be used no matter where it is located. This shift reduces fragmentation, simplifies data management and creates a unified view of the enterprise’s information, and with it the path to competitive edge.

The fewer barriers that exist between AI and the data it needs, the easier it becomes to move from isolated AI successes to meaningful deployment at scale for productivity and efficiency benefits.

Fix the foundations before scaling AI

The success of chatbot or copilot rollouts does not indicate AI readiness. It is instead measured by data utility: whether the data underpinning AI tools is accessible, secure, and fit for purpose at scale.

The organizations that succeed with AI in the coming years will not be those deploying the most advanced models or the biggest number of agents, but those who can provide AI with consistent access to trusted, well-governed data.

Those boards that keep investing in sophisticated AI tools without upgrading their data layer and governance will find their operations shackled for years to come by the same underlying data access and governance limitations.

It’s time to stop viewing data as an operational burden and start treating it as a strategic asset, helping unleash organizations' true IP and powering their ability to innovate. Building strong data foundations today will set organizations on the path to realizing long-term AI value, instead of discovering down the line that AI ambitions outpace their ability to support them.

We've featured the best data removal service .

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives , our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

Full text

The next-generation Lexus LFA may reset expectations of electric supercars.

This enticing new model shares its aluminum architecture with the Toyota GR GT.

Lexus isn’t interested in using simulated gear shifts like Hyundai and Porsche.

Amid a sea of high-revving, big-capacity supercars and hypercars at last week’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, the future Lexus LFA made a subtle and very silent dynamic debut. The successor to the company’s iconic supercar, you see, will be all-electric.

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform !== "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("0f7e3106-c4d6-4db4-8135-c508879a76f8");

} else {

adpushup.triggerAd("82503191-e1d1-435a-874f-9c78a2a54a2f");

}

});

Lexus previewed the next-gen LFA last December, showcasing it alongside the Toyota GR GT, which shares its aluminum architecture. However, whereas that car uses a powerful V8 engine, the new LFA will be electric, a far cry from the original car’s all-screaming, all-conquering, Yamaha-tuned V10.

Read: These Future Supercars From Toyota And Lexus Share DNA But Not A Soul

While this will disappoint many rev-heads, the new LFA could get tech enthusiasts very excited.

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform !== "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("89c65a14-4682-4807-a4bb-5436c5361bee");

} else{

adpushup.triggerAd("f25825bd-1260-4574-84ce-2b26e315fad8");

}

});

First Lexus On Solid-State Cells

According to a report from Autocar, the new LFA will be the first production Lexus to run advanced solid-state battery cells. Toyota has spent years developing them, and they now look close to ready for the road. Solid-state cells hold more energy in less space than the conventional liquid-based packs in use today, which is where their advantage lies.

Speaking to the publication, Shogo Kasamatsu, who penned the recent LFA concept, said Lexus wants to upend how people think about performance EVs. The concept’s restrained look drew on the original LFA, which he called “a very humble design, very artistic, and based on its true function.” The car was shaped to carry that message, he added, rather than march in step with Lexus’s current design language.

Similarly, LFA program general manager Yukihiro Yukita said Lexus wants to convince supercar buyers to opt for the LFA over a more conventional, ICE-powered alternative. He acknowledged that weak demand for high-priced performance EVs is the program’s biggest hurdle, but said Lexus intends to lead the shift from combustion supercars to electric ones.

Making A Fun EV?

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform !== "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("bb7964e9-07de-4b06-a83e-ead35079d53c");

} else {

adpushup.triggerAd("9b1169d9-7a89-4971-a77f-1397f7588751");

}

});

“What I get from the market is that a BEV is fake,” he said, “because we imitate the sound [of an ICE], but that’s not something we want to do.” Lexus has no interest in trailing Porsche, Hyundai, and Mercedes-AMG by faking gear shifts or piping in engine noise. Yukita wants drivers to “feel like they are driving with an engine” without cheaply mimicking one.

“We’re not just wanting to replicate the sound of the engine, we want to redesign the sound itself,” he said. Engineering teams will strip out unnecessary noise and vibration and rework what remains, sharpening the sensory experience rather than manufacturing a fake one. EVs give up the sound and vibration that pull a driver in, he admitted, but electric motors answer with a responsiveness and linearity no combustion engine can match.

It all sounds rather fascinating, but it’s hard to imagine how Lexus will be able to get anywhere close to matching the thrills of that old V10.

var adpushup = window.adpushup = window.adpushup || {que:[]};

adpushup.que.push(function() {

if (adpushup.config.platform !== "DESKTOP"){

adpushup.triggerAd("bb7964e9-07de-4b06-a83e-ead35079d53c");

} else {

adpushup.triggerAd("9b1169d9-7a89-4971-a77f-1397f7588751");

}

});

Full text

QUICK FACTS

Name: Tianchi Lake, or Heaven Lake

Location: China-North Korea border

Coordinates: 42.0091, 128.0593

Why it's incredible: It is the deepest lake in China and sits at the top of a giant volcano.

Heaven Lake is a crater lake at the top of Mount Changbaishan (also called Changbai Mountain) — a colossal, dormant volcano on the border between China and North Korea that formed through successive eruptions over the past 2.6 million years.

Known in China as Tianchi, the lake is the highest and largest crater lake in Northeast Asia, according to UNESCO . It is also the deepest lake in China, according to a study published in March. The lake sits at an elevation of around 7,200 feet (2,200 meters), covers roughly 3.6 square miles (9.2 square kilometers), and has a maximum depth of 1,224 feet (373 m), according to the study.

Heaven Lake is surrounded by 16 peaks that belong to Mount Changbaishan. The lake fills a caldera created by past eruptions, the biggest of which was the "millennium eruption" that took place in A.D. 946 and remains one of the largest eruptions in modern history.

Water started to pool on Mount Changbaishan's summit after the prehistoric Tianwenfeng eruption, which scientists dated to between 70,000 and 40,000 years ago. Heaven Lake has periodically emptied and refilled since then due to precipitation, snowmelt, and an active geothermal system beneath the volcano that forces water up through fault lines .

Although hundreds of reports in the early 2000s claimed there was a creature with a head shaped like that of a horse living in the water, scientists have repeatedly said they are skeptical that any large creature could survive in Heaven Lake.

Mount Changbaishan is one of the best-preserved stratovolcanoes from the past several million years, according to UNESCO . Stratovolcanoes, also known as composite volcanoes, are volcanic mountains built from alternating layers of solidified lava, volcanic ash and rocky debris. Mount Changbaishan is an "open-air classroom for volcanism" because it recorded the different stages of multiple eruptions in astounding detail.

In North Korea, Mount Changbaishan is known as Mount Paektu or Paeku Mountain, meaning "white-topped mountain." The volcano's Chinese name means "forever white mountain."

MORE INCREDIBLE PLACES

Socotra Archipelago: The Yemeni islands covered with astonishing cucumber, bottle and dragon's blood trees

Fingal's Cave: Scotland's 'cave of melody' where eerie echoes bounce off pillars of solidified lava

Thríhnúkagígur: The only volcano on Earth where you can descend into a magma chamber

China, North Korea and South Korea have clashed over the volcano in the past , as the mountain holds cultural and geopolitical significance for the three countries. Two border treaties between China and North Korea in 1962 and 1964 divided the volcano and Heaven Lake roughly down the middle, with North Korea securing 54.5% of the lake.

In the 2000s, China moved to develop the region around the volcano, opening the Mount Changbai Airport and the Mount Changbai Eastern Railroad to connect the region with the rest of the country.

A geological park surrounding the Chinese site of the volcano was officially designated a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2024.

Discover more incredible places , where we highlight the fantastic history and science behind some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth.