DINNER PARTY INTEL...

The topics you have to be able to discuss this week

1. Sleepless at Steinhoff

Steinhoff-owned Mattress Firm Inc, the largest mattress retailer in the US, is considering declaring bankruptcy to get out of costly leases and shut some of its 3,000 stores that are losing money, Reuters reports.

Steinhoff bought Mattress Firm for $3.8bn in 2016. The furniture retailer has been working on a deal to restructure the debt of some of its subsidiaries, following its huge accounting scandal. Creditors agreed last month to hold off on their debt claims for three years.

2. Earth as crematorium

The northern hemisphere summer has been marked by heat waves, wildfires and drought, making a new warning that things could get worse under a scenario dubbed “hothouse Earth” even more alarming. Scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Centre say humaninduced climate change could trigger uncontrollable warming.

With the destruction of rainforests in the Amazon, and as Antarctic sea ice melts, these natural mechanisms that help store carbon will instead begin emitting it. is unclear how likely this scenario is. Were it to happen, it would threaten life as we know it.

3. Blocking the hate

It India has asked its telecom operators to find ways of blocking apps such as Facebook and Whatsapp in case of misuse, Reuters reports. The country has cracked down on mass message forwards after it found that people were using the apps to spread rumours and stoke public anger. False messages circulated on Whatsapp recently led to a series of lynchings and mob beatings.

India is Whatsapp’s biggest market, with more than 200 million users, and one in which it says people forward more messages, photographs and videos than they do in any other country.