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• Arsenal also go to Qarabag | PAOK and BATE for Chelsea • Celtic and Rangers drawn in difficult groups Arsenal will take on Sporting Lisbon in the group stage of the Europa League. The Gunners, last season’s semi-finalists, were drawn in Group E alongside the Portuguese club, Azerbaijan champions Qarabag and Ukrainian outfit Vorskla. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NAMssn

The young England flanker has a straight-shooting attitude and a clear vision of what need to be done on the field For years it has been the missing link in English rugby union. National coaches have been searching for a reliably fit, energetic, top-class specialist openside for so long they had almost given up trying. Could it be they have found him, the one sitting across the table on a cloudy bank holiday in Manchester picking at a huge plate of chicken and veggies? Soon enough everyone will be wanting a piece of Sale’s Tom Curry. There is, no question, something different about this polite, affable Cheshire-reared prodigy. Before he even takes a mouthful of lunch he springs to his feet and flicks off the switches on two empty power sockets barely in his eyeline. He insists it’s not an OCD thing, it just makes him feel more comfortable. Really? Even before he mentions a few moments later that “learning to switch off mentally is a big thing for me” it is clear relaxation is not his ...

A decade after its release, Sex on Fire’s legacy seems to be a slew of NSFW Twitter sex bots The easiest way to gauge the pop cultural status of literally anything – from Donald Trump’s hair and just how fit New Jack on Love Island really was to the mighty Ed Balls – is to give it a quick search on Twitter. By using this digital, cat gif-heavy answer to Debrett’s, it seems that in the 10 years since its release, Kings of Leon ’s Sex on Fire has lost its status as an indie disco floorfiller and has instead become a shortcut for highly NSFW sex bots. Search the song by name and, in among the occasional “this tune still bangs!” proclamations from enthusiastic 27-year-olds lamenting the loss of their teenage years, are a huge number of mucky links to cam girls who almost certainly don’t really exist. And while there is a certain Bukowski-esque poetry in free association tweets such as “kings of lean [sp] sex on fire lyrics girls having sex in the weather porn sex commandos”, grubby is th...

The death in Colombia of the 19-year-old Briton Henry Miller is a warning to the plant medicine’s growing number of users It wasn’t until relatively recently that the plant medicine known most commonly as ayahuasca attracted the interest of the western world. Used in the Amazon for centuries for its healing and spiritual purposes, as a way of connecting the person drinking the brew to the natural world and much more besides, ayahuasca has offered psychedelic enlightenment to those who visit the centres that have sprung up around South America. Related: Briton, 19, died after taking hallucinogen in Colombia, inquest told Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C4NLhV

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2MGXVdB

The wild child author of Baise-Moi and former sex worker has completed a trilogy, Vernon Subutex, which has secured her renown as a ‘rock’n’roll Zola’ In her living room in northern Paris, Virginie Despentes, a former punk and wild child of French literature, sits on her sofa with coffee in a Motörhead mug, rolling a cigarette and reflecting on the passing of time. “I’ve changed a lot as a person – the anger and anxiety isn’t the same,” she says. It is almost 25 years since Despentes burst on to the French literary scene with her debut novel Baise-Moi , a rape revenge story that she began writing aged 23 while she was also occasionally a sex worker. In 2000, when she directed the film version, working with female pornography actors, it was banned in France for a time, and became a cult hit across Europe. Despentes, who took her pen name from the area in Lyon where she was a sex worker, was branded crude, outrageous and refreshing – the working-class daughter of postal workers from Na...

The PM’s stay in the continent underlines the mammoth reinvention task Britain faces post-Brexit Theresa May ’s decision to go dancing not once but twice in a week suggests a surprising level of confidence on the part of the embattled prime minister. Related: Theresa May busts out dance moves one more time on Africa trip Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PRtsHJ

Decades of research have gone into condoms, the coil and the pill – we need to give next-generation birth control a chance • Natural Cycles app: ‘highly accurate contraceptive’ claim misled consumers It’s with a heavy heart that I’ve paused my subscription to the contraceptive app Natural Cycles this week. It follows the news that the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that the app cannot with confidence advertise itself as a “highly accurate contraceptive”, primarily because the statistics on its efficacy – that only seven in 100 women using it will become pregnant – come from a study conducted by the company that developed the app itself. Natural Cycles promotes itself as a form of non-hormonal, non-intrusive contraception. Women input information about their menstrual cycles and body temperature into the app, and it uses algorithms to predict which days they are at risk of getting pregnant in the event of unprotected sex. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://...

The Guardian is pleased to announce the appointment of international footballer Eni Aluko as a new sport columnist. Aluko, who has made 102 appearances for England, joined Serie A side Juventus from Chelsea this summer. While at Chelsea, she won two league titles and two FA Cups and was named player of the year in 2015. She has also played for Birmingham, Charlton and for three clubs in the US. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wt1ie0

French and German media provided with YouGov poll showing British support for second referendum could grow The People’s Vote campaign for a second Brexit referendum is seeking to turn French and German opinion against a ‘blind Brexit’ under which the UK would leave the EU without certainty on the terms of a future trade deal. Two major European newspapers, Le Monde and Die Welt, have been given a YouGov poll of 10,000 Britons by the campaign group, which shows that 72% of people are opposed to a Brexit in which the details of the future deal are unclear when the UK leaves. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wAHYL5

London non-league club’s shirt salutes International Brigades who fought in Spanish civil war A London non-league football club’s away kit has become a surprise hit in Spain, because of the anti-fascist message embroidered into it. Clapton Community FC has taken more than 5,400 pre-orders for its shirts, after pictures of the kit gained media attention on the continent. The red, purple and yellow shirt was worn for the first time last Saturday, and the colour scheme is inspired by the International Brigades who fought in the Spanish civil war. The back of the shirt features the slogan “no pasarán” , meaning “they shall not pass”, which was used by anti-fascist fighters in the 1930s. It also features the three-pointed star of the International Brigades, and was released to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the conflict. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C4Cazs

Caitlyn Jenner is a trans woman, ‘asexual for now’; Rachel Dolezal identifies as black. Who owns your identity, and how can old ways of thinking be replaced? In April 2015, after a long and very public career, first as a male decathlete, then as a reality TV star, Caitlyn Jenner announced to the world she was a trans woman. Asked about her sexuality, Jenner explained that she had always been heterosexual, and indeed she had fathered six children in three marriages. She understood, though, that many people were confused about the distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity, and so she said: “Let’s go with ‘asexual’ for now.” Isn’t it up to her? What could be more personal than the question of who she is – what she is? Isn’t your identity, as people often say, “your truth”? The question is straightforward; the answer is anything but. And that’s because a seismic fault line runs through contemporary talk of identity, regularly issuing tremors and quakes. Your identity i...

The pharmaceutical industry gets a bad press. Some of the criticism is surely deserved, but the widespread notion that academia is morally superior is ridiculous. It was summer. I had just finished my undergraduate degree, and was waiting to take up a doctoral studentship. My Part II research project supervisor had offered me the opportunity to work in her lab for 3 months – she’d get some funding for me – to finish the work I’d started and write the paper. Who in my position would have turned down that opportunity? The work went well, and we got some nice photomicrographs. We wrote the experiment up. I started my doctoral research. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2MCcVtf

The MP’s claim that he fled the Labour party in the name of anti-racism is audacious. He knew his time was up “God, what am I doing in this party?” That’s how Frank Field describes what was going through his head: but this wasn’t when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. This was under his predecessor, Ed Miliband, after Field demanded to know if Labour was responsible for “this huge influx” of immigrants, and his fellow MPs cheered when the leader said “no”. Here was a politician who no longer felt comfortable belonging to his party before Corbyn had even stood for leader, and all because Labour was not sufficiently hostile to immigration . In his resignation letter , Field cites antisemitism as a factor in his departure. To be clear, antisemitism is a sickening disease, it exists on a fringe of the left and there are some in denial over that fact. Both Labour and the broader left have to do far more: British Jews, tortured by a shared history of 2,000 years of persecution and an attempt to ext...

The tennis player is one of the most unpredictable athletes in the world, but he can always be relied on for drama The main interview room in the bowels of Arthur Ashe Stadium was as packed with reporters and cameramen as you’ll find it after a second-round match on an otherwise routine Thursday afternoon during the first week of the US Open. The occasion was an audience with Nick Kyrgios, the mercurial Australian star who an hour earlier had seen off the Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert amid sweltering heat and humidity on the fully exposed Court 17, where after what appeared to be a public unravelling was curtailed by an unusual intervention from the chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani, who descended from his chair and entered an exchange with the world No 30 that many onlookers, particularly those privy to the intimate angles and sound captured by the television cameras and on-court microphones, was interpreted as a pep talk . Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2LJiqR...

Alex Salmond has resigned from the party. But the crowdfunding of his legal bills has ensured the furore continues Salmondgate, as we will inevitably come to know it, has unfolded just six weeks before the annual SNP conference in Glasgow. It’s a particularly vital conference, given the imminence of the Brexit endgame, the debate over the merits and timing of a second independence referendum, and the status of the contentious growth commission report on future Scottish finances. Yet these issues threaten to be subsumed by the astonishing events of the past seven days, which have consumed Scottish political circles . The whole saga is beginning to have Shakespearean undertones. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Nz3Uh0

Parents of Olivia Burt, who died outside a Durham nightclub, complain of inaction as man admits online abuse The parents of a student who was crushed to death outside a nightclub have criticised Facebook for letting an internet troll abuse the memory of their daughter. The father of Olivia Burt, a 20-year-old Durham University student who died in February , said dealing with the social media company had “compounded our misery”. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PmGz2C

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER and TAMIR KALIFA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2CaSaQi

Nationwide says 0.5% monthly dip in August was biggest since July 2012 House prices have recorded their biggest month-on-month fall in six years, according to the Nationwide house price index. Values fell by 0.5% month on month in August, marking the biggest decline since July 2012, Nationwide building society said . In July, house prices increased by 0.7% month on month. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2N13Rxv

Unaddressed antisemitism and our toxic culture has divided this great party. We must find a solution – without splitting This has been a truly miserable summer for the Labour party. We could have been tearing the Tories to pieces over Europe, staff shortages in the NHS and the state of the criminal justice system. Instead, the headlines have been dominated by a self-inflicted crisis over antisemitism and the increasingly toxic level of debate within our own party. It is too easy to dismiss Frank Field’s resignation from the Labour whip. For all his achievements rooted in Labour values – from defeating the 10p tax rate Gordon Brown wanted to bring in, to challenging the excessive greed of the likes of Philip Green and the exploitation of gig economy – Frank is outside of the Labour mainstream on Europe and has always been something of a maverick. We’re told that he was facing deselection in his Birkenhead party and so jumped before he was pushed. End of story? Not at all. Continue ...

Move follows poll finding that more than 80% of Europeans are against changing clocks The European commission will recommend EU member states abolish daylight saving time, where clocks are advanced by one hour in summer, Jean-Claude Juncker has said. “We carried out a survey, millions responded and believe that in future, summer time should be year-round, and that’s what will happen,” he told the German public broadcaster ZDF, adding that the commission planned to decide on the matter later on Friday. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PkAT9a

Star Trek’s Captain Kirk voices concerns about virtual reality after simulating a walk on Mars As Captain Kirk in Star Trek, William Shatner took us to places “where no man has gone before”, with stories that foreshadowed the invention of the mobile phone and tablet computers. Now, in real life, the actor is exploring virtual reality – but he wants the entertainment industry to be aware of its potential detrimental impact on vulnerable minds. Shatner told the Guardian: “The use of technology to affect our minds is so powerful now that we need to be on guard in the future.” Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Pnqt8R

The BBC’s ambitious project promised to bring new Asian voices and stories to primetime audiences but did it really ‘create a shared cultural moment’ or help reinforce stereotypes? The BBC’s Big British Asian Summer was billed as one of the TV events of 2018. A whole month of programming dedicated to the Asian experience in the UK, and a chance for untold stories to be heard. Patrick Holland, BBC Two controller, laid out his ambitions for the season which focused around two goals: attracting new voices and creating a “cultural moment”. “Seasons like this are valuable on a number of levels: they create a shared cultural moment, they allow us to grow talent in front of the camera and also allow us to supercharge the way we commission and produce,” he said before the season kicked off. “I hope this season inspires programme makers to look at the range and depth of storytelling about British Asian culture and know that there is a home for them at the BBC.” But the season’s first program...

Trapped in London’s Bermuda Triangle of food, our hungry critic finds that six experimental dishes are not enough ... Some restaurants provoke an existential crisis. Yes, I know it’s just dinner. But dinner is my job, and some evenings remind me I could be running a cat orphanage in Udaipur, or something useful. Rather than, say, visiting a restaurant that serves tiny tastes of “bitter herbs, parmesan, anchovy”. Plus, exactly 15 other teensy dishes such as “halibut with elderflower” or “squid with sandalwood”. Each concoction offputting, but hewn to test boundaries. Each reminiscent of something an antihero in a Bret Easton Ellis novel would order. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wHjcsX

Spokesman for project says it will miss its planned December opening date London’s new east-west railway Crossrail will miss its December opening date and services will not begin until autumn next year, a spokesman for the project has said. More details soon … Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NAmRjh

Request for £37bn budget also follows growing Chinese air and naval activity in the region Japan’s defence ministry has requested a record budget as it seeks to counter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and respond to growing Chinese air and naval activity in the region. If approved by the cabinet and parliament later this year, the 5.3tn yen (£37bn) budget would mark a 2.1% increase from last year and be the seventh consecutive rise under Japan’s conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2MCLXlc

The 73-year-old rebuilding her marriage after hormone replacement therapy My husband is very highly sexed and demanding, but any discussion about our sex life has always ended in a row. We’ve been married 45 years; after the menopause intercourse became painful and I was reluctant to engage, thinking I deserved a break from the constant pressure of his libido. Consequently, he went online to find a sex partner. I discovered the emails when my husband was six months into his affair. Although he promised he would no longer see her, he continued the affair and it was another two years before I realised it was still going on. During those two years he was distant, disengaged from the family, and always made a beeline for attractive women when we were out. I wanted a separation but never had the courage to leave, and there was a part of me that hoped we would find a way back to a better relationship. However, things became so toxic that I asked for a divorce. He said he felt a sense of re...

MP declines to say he will not trigger vote in Birkenhead as he criticises Jeremy Corbyn Frank Field has refused to rule out triggering a byelection after resigning the Labour whip, saying Jeremy Corbyn had failed to address the reasons for his decision. The veteran Birkenhead MP, who was due to hold talks on Friday with Labour’s chief whip, Nick Brown, told the Guardian he had yet to decide on his next step after announcing that he had resigned the whip because of antisemitism and a culture of bullying in the party. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NzXtu7

In honour of UK prime minister Theresa May’s brave attempt at dancing in Kenya recently, we take a look back at the many times world leaders and other politicians have shaken off the shackles of good judgement and let loose Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2N7fenm

Whitbread says the sale will allow it to focus on its Premier Inn hotel business Costa Coffee, Britain’s biggest coffee shop chain, is being bought by Coca-Cola in a £3.9bn deal. Costa owner Whitbread, which also owns the Premier Inn hotel chain, had been planning to demerge Costa but said the Coca-Cola deal offered a far higher price. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2LJjlBl

Reports of poor care come as Shrewsbury and Telford trust is already being investigated More than 60 mothers and babies are feared to have died or sustained serious injuries at a maternity unit already under investigation for failing families. Dozens of cases of poor care were reportedly found at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS trust, according to the Health Service Journal (HSJ). Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wu0zs0

The plight of Barcelona shows the damage Airbnb can do, exacerbating urban inequality and freezing out young locals The banner hung from a third-floor balcony, unfurling itself almost all the way down to the cobbles of the square. Barcelona no est à en venda , it read, in large hand-painted letters: the city is not for sale. It wasn’t the first such slogan we’d seen in only an hour or so strolling around the narrow, winding streets of Barcelona’s beautiful old quarter last week, and naturally our curiosity was piqued. Something to do with gentrification, or developers maybe? Well, partly. But, disconcertingly, it turned out to have quite a lot to do with people like us, and possibly you too. Or to be more precise, with the multibillion-pound global phenomenon that is Airbnb. As it happens, I’m boringly old school enough to have stayed in a hotel this time, but the airport bus was full of young families chattering about picking up their flat keys via the site that is famo...

The tragedy motivated me to become a councillor, yet my Tory colleagues are still failing to listen to those they serve In a well-intentioned reaction to last year’s Grenfell tragedy, Wandsworth council in south London has decided to retrofit sprinklers in all 100 of its tower blocks. Most of London’s fire engines can only pump water as high as 10 storeys (30m) so the move seems, at first glance, to make sense. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NwHYTr

If illegal levels of air pollution had a role in Ella’s death, a new inquest could help save other children My beloved nine-year old daughter Ella Roberta was a bubbly, healthy and happy child, yet she died on 15 February 2013 . It all started with a chest infection in October 2010, which led to Ella suffering from respiratory issues for the remainder of her short life. She was admitted to hospital 27 times over a three-year period with life-threatening asthma, including three spells in intensive care. Ella’s final ​​hospital admission happened during one of the worst air pollution episodes in our area​​ of south London Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wBu2R7

Research suggests explosion in social care assistance for Britain’s ageing population The number of people in the UK aged 85 or older who require round-the-clock help to eat, dress, wash and go to the toilet will almost double over the next 20 years, research has suggested, highlighting the explosion in social care needs. Related: Adult social care services on brink of collapse, survey shows Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NxVIh0

Propaganda unit’s 117-page book contains pictures purportedly taken in Rakhine state that are really from Tanzania and Bangladesh A new book on the Rohingya crisis written by Myanmar military propagandists uses fake photographs and a chilling rewriting of history in what appears to be an attempt to justify the killing of thousands of Rohingya over the last year in attacks by the army that the UN has condemned as genocide. The 117-page book, published in July by the army’s department of public relations and psychological warfare, includes what it calls “documentary photos”. A Reuters investigation reveals that the provenance of three of the eight historical photographs contained in the book were faked. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2N48Mxn

Detectives question man detained in Birmingham … aftermath of Wonga’s collapse … and plight of dolphin trapped in defunct marine park Hello – it’s Warren Murray rounding out the week in news. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wwyC3L

Gold smartphone and an Apple Watch with a larger display are expected at company’s regular September gathering Apple shares hit record highs on Thursday after it said it would host an event on 12 September at its Cupertino campus where it is widely expected to unveil new iPhone models. At one point its shares rose to more than $228 each amid speculation that Apple plans to release three new smartphones this year, including one with a larger display than previous models. Analysts also expect Apple to release an iPhone with a edge-to-edge display similar to the iPhone X but using less-costly LCD screen technology. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wrbrrK

Payday loan company was struggling under a welter of customer compensation claims Wonga, the payday lender that became notorious for its extortionate interest rates and was a toxic symbol of Britain’s household debt crisis, has collapsed into administration after it was brought down by a welter of compensation claims. Its collapse on Thursday leaves an estimated 200,000 customers still owing more than £400m in short-term loans. But borrowers were told to continue making payments and administrators are expected to sell Wonga’s loan book to another lending firm. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PgIBRJ

In Bloomberg interview, president criticises organization and lauds plan on China tariffs, driving down US equities Donald Trump has threatened to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization if it doesn’t “shape up” and treat the US better. The US president issued the threat against the international trade body during an interview with Bloomberg news . “If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO,” Trump said, making public a proposal he has reportedly made to top aides in the past. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PToASa

Teenager known as Khadija claims that during two-month ordeal she was repeatedly assaulted, starved and tattooed with swastikas A dozen men have been arrested in Morocco over the alleged rape, kidnapping and torture of a 17-year-old girl who claims to have been held against her will during a two-month ordeal that has sent shockwaves across the kingdom. The case has reignited a fresh debate over women’s rights in Morocco, where sexual abuse is well-documented despite laws recently passed to combat gender-based violence and harassment. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2LJaiAq

Man, 21, taken into custody over the killing of Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem, according to West Midlands police A 21-year-old man has been arrested in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham on suspicion of murdering Raneem Oudeh, 22, and her mother Khaola Saleem, 49, West Midlands police have said. The pair were fatally stabbed in Northdown Road in the early hours of bank holiday Monday. Police said the suspect was detained on Thursday evening and would be questioned by detectives. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NzJFQ2

Astronauts patch small rip leaking oxygen, seemingly caused by collision with a meteorite fragment Astronauts on board the International Space Station have managed to repair a tiny tear in the fabric of a Russian capsule that was letting oxygen leak into space. The ship docked at the orbiting lab in June. Scientists believe the small rip in its shell could have been caused by a fragment of a meteorite colliding with the capsule. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wrMegI

Max is joined by Barry Glendenning, Andy Brassell and Lars Sivertsen to discuss Mourinho (again), Carabao Cup action, Declan Rice’s international dilemma, Hal Robson-Kanu’s international retirement and flesh-eating rats Join the conversation on Facebook , Twitter and email . Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning , Andy Brassell and Lars Sivertsen to discuss the last few days of football, starting with Tottenham’s 3-0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wAdpFr

The former editor-in-chief of the Guardian looks back on two decades that changed journalism for ever. By Alan Rusbridger By early 2017 the world had woken up to a problem that, with a mixture of impotence, incomprehension and dread, journalists had seen coming for some time. News, the thing that helped people understand their world, that oiled the wheels of society, that pollinated communities, that kept the powerful honest – news was broken. The problem had many different names and diagnoses. Some thought we were drowning in too much news; others feared we were in danger of becoming newsless. Some believed we had too much free news; others, that paid-for news was leaving behind it a long caravan of ignorance. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C2vBxp

The president will be absent for John McCain’s memorial services – a clear sign of his failure to accept the responsibilities of a head of state “The lion of the US Senate,” said Barack Obama during a stirring eulogy at the funeral mass for Senator Ted Kennedy in 2009 . Listening at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston were George W Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Senator John McCain. Related: 'A true American hero': friends and family bid John McCain farewell Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2LHvpDl

Twenty years on from their seminal album, Version 2.0, the band’s singer is still as driven by anxiety and anger as ever. She talks about her history of self-harm, the pressures of fame – and why she has become so vocal in the #MeToo movement ‘Cheers! Up yer bum,” says Shirley Manson raising a glass as the light fades on her rooftop home over the Hollywood Hills. Her husband, Billy, has prepared Aperol spritzes. They’re bright orange and match Manson’s hair. She chortles deeply. “I was out with my goddaughter on Saturday night. I had an orange dress on, orange hair, orange lipstick and an orange cocktail. She said: ‘Auntie Shirl! You’ve excelled yourself.’” The orange matches the sleeve of Version 2.0, the second album by Manson’s band, Garbage. In 1998, it became their first UK No 1 album and picked up four Grammy nominations, including album of the year; they are currently rehearsing a 20th-anniversary tour where they will play it in full. Continue reading... from The Guardian h...

Better known for exhibitions on art, the museum has opened its doors to the darkness of magic Visitors may wish to cross their fingers for luck before walking under a ladder into Spellbound, a new exhibition on the history of magic , at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, to encounter a very dead cat, a unicorn’s horn, a medium’s ectoplasm and padlocks cut from the Centenary Bridge in Leeds when their weight foretold not everlasting love but the imminent collapse of the whole structure. The first object in the exhibition is a silver bottle that, if opened, will unleash dire but unspecified consequences. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Podt2W

Prime minister suggests show about female home secretary is not relaxing television for her Theresa May has said she did not enjoy watching the BBC drama Bodyguard, which focused on the relationship between a rightwing home secretary and her personal protection officer. The prime minister switched off after 20 minutes of the first episode and told reporters while visiting Africa that she preferred watching programmes that were not so close to home. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C40PEt

He no longer wants to take lead roles but the Oscar-winner’s new film, King of Thieves, a dramatisation of the Hatton Garden robbery, sees him do just that. He talks about Brexit, Putin’s good side and lunch with Trump It is a wet and blustery August morning: perfect Michael Caine weather. When the actor returned to Britain in the 1980s after a decade in Los Angeles, he claimed it was because he missed the rain, although there was also the happy coincidence that the Conservative government (“Maggie,” he says, with inextinguishable fondness) had implemented a tax structure more favourable to those on extravagant incomes. Of which more, inevitably, later: a conversation about tax is the price you pay for the considerable pleasure of Caine’s company. On the day we meet, it is half a century almost to the month since Caine (who wasn’t a “Sir” until 2000) laid out his career plans in the Daily Express. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wvGPob

Anger after hundreds of fish and reptiles have been left in tiny pools amid crumbling concrete since January Anger is mounting in Japan after a dolphin, 46 penguins and hundreds of fish were found to have been abandoned for months in a derelict aquarium. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wtGIKx

Only one of these two makes it past halfway in this gruelling spin on the celebrity challenge show. Plus, the Coco Chanel story is better than fiction Ben Fogle has achieved something noble and profound: he has made those series where semi-famous people sweat over contrived ordeals, such as pretending to be an Edwardian serf or going on quite a long walk, look even more trivial. In Our Everest Challenge With Ben Fogle & Victoria Pendleton (ITV), the adventurer and his Olympian pal literally try to climb Mount Everest. It’s very much the Everest of celebrity-challenge documentaries . Not that the majestic enormity of the task means we’re immune to the tropes of the form. Early on, Fogle ticks off the obligatory shot of him discussing the project with his family, to give us a sense of both the sacrifice involved and the desirability of his house: on the latter point, he has got a kitchen-diner the size of a squash court. In Kathmandu, “Vic” masters the art of banal scene-setting ...

A hard Brexit would entail years of chaos. But no deal would be far worse, whatever Dominic Raab says I was awakened by the bedside radio coming to life, leaving me briefly lost between a bad dream and reality. Two BBC World Service reporters were calmly discussing a nation gone raving mad. Its food needed stockpiling. Medicines were running low. Ports were jammed and motorways were turning into vast lorry parks. Foreigners were fleeing, care homes emptying of staff, fruit lying unpicked. Where was it? Then, through my slowly dawning consciousness, someone called Dominic Raab started talking about bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches and writing 75 “technical notices”. Meanwhile the prime minister was off to sell child pornography policing in Africa . What nightmare was this? Surely not 21st-century Britain? Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2N2Ru3H

The message being sent out is that what happens to women is always less important than the reputation of ‘great’ men One of my recent donations to a crowdfunding page was in memory of a friend’s spouse for research into a rare form of cancer. Another was to keep a local community centre going, and a third to help someone with huge medical bills in the United States after an accident. I am not here to talk about my altruism, but to explain how I and many others treat crowdsourcing. The fact that Alex Salmond, the former leader of the Scottish National party, is using crowdfunding to pay his legal costs for a judicial review into the Scottish government’s handling of sexual harassment claims against him, is somewhat gobsmacking. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C1rG3H

The payday lender went a long way towards creating demand, not just satisfying it It was the 1980s, I was drifting in and out of low-paid jobs, and near constantly broke. When the cash machine wouldn’t shell out any more, when the credit card was maxed out, my last resort was a shabby exchange bureau near Oxford Circus. They would accept me writing a cheque for £50 with a cheque guarantee card (remember them?). We both knew it would bounce. But the guarantee meant he got his £50, plus a fee, and I got my emergency £50. The consequences would come later. This was before Wonga. If it had been around, maybe (OK, probably) I would have used them. The cost of bounced cheques - a huge earner for the “respectable” banks - can work out even higher than a short-term loan, even at 5,800%. It’s telling that Wonga’s biggest customers were always 20- to 35-year-old males. A former colleague, James Ball, wrote a searingly honest account of how he had used it . Yes, he said, they’re the perfect pin...

Britain should fear the consequences of the hard-right entryism birthed and nourished by the Tory leadership and press There are several species of spider whose young hatch and gradually eat their own mother. The term for this macabre practice is matriphagy. This is now the fate of the Conservative party and its hungry Ukip offspring. Remainer Tory MPs are reporting sharp rises in applications to become members of their local associations – of up to 30% in the last three months. While dozens of Tory councillors defected to Ukip under David Cameron’s leadership, one report suggests at least 10% of Ukip councillors have gone the other way since 2015. Related: New party members are not entryists, say pro-Brexit Tory MPs Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wrVK3k

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There needs to be a new way of thinking about gender, one that replaces name-calling and bullying with listening and learning • Greens rising star quits deputy leader race after father jailed for rape A few days ago, David Challenor, the father of a high-profile Green party member, Aimee Challenor, was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison for child rape, torture and other depraved and horrific crimes. My thoughts are with the survivors of his shocking and disgusting acts. The Green party has, rightly, faced questions about its association with David Challenor, who in the past has acted as an election agent for his daughter and whose own membership of the party has now been terminated with immediate effect. Our governance bodies have established an urgent and independent formal investigation and a review of the party’s safeguarding and child protection procedures, and Aimee has stepped back from her spokesperson role, as well as withdrawing as a candidate in our current le...

Iheanacho looks to impress, what now for Mourinho’s shambolic defence and no change for Rafa at Man City Despite not dropping a point or conceding a goal, Liverpool have yet to really hit their stride in the current campaign. West Ham took very little beating in their opener, while subsequent victories over Crystal Palace and Brighton were a mite laboured. An away trip to Leicester on Saturday lunchtime should provide another reasonably stiff test ahead of what is likely to be a more challenging trip to Tottenham Hotspur after the international break. Leicester clearly missed the searing pace of the suspended Jamie Vardy against Southampton and Kelechi Iheanacho struggled to impress in his role as replacement. The striker got off the mark for the season against Fleetwood Town in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday and with Vardy sitting out the last instalment of a three-match ban , he needs a big performance against the – thus far – impregnable two-man portcullis that is Virgil van Dijk and J...

• Mohamed Lahyani leaves umpire’s chair to gee up Australian • Roger Federer beats Benoît Paire in straight sets Nick Kyrgios was saved from himself and from possible expulsion from the US Open on day four when the respected chair umpire, Mohamed Lahyani, broke with convention to comfort and warn the emotional young Australian about tanking during his second-round match against Pierre-Hugues Herbert. Related: Andy Murray targets Davis Cup return after encouragement of US Open Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C22vht

Manchester United, Liverpool and Spurs should squeeze through tricky groups while Manchester City’s task looks relatively straightforward Atlético Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Monaco, Club Brugge Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2oqzNNM

The manner of the opener’s dismissal in the first innings of the fourth Test against India highlighted a player whose ability to make decisions is hampered by the mental pressure he is under Back when Keaton Jennings was a coming man, he was one of a group of English players picked to take part in a military training camp. One of the tasks, Jennings said then, was that the players had to fix a broken boat during a storm. Turns out that while this may have been good metaphorical preparation for the experience of playing in this England team, it was less help getting him ready for the actual business of Test match batting. Jennings made such a strong impression at that camp England earmarked him as a candidate to be Test captain. Two years later, he is barely hanging on to his place in the team. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NyQGAQ

• England manager knows ‘every facet’ of his players’ lives • Neville adopts holistic approach before crucial Wales match Phil Neville sends text and WhatsApp messages to his England Women players on a daily basis to “know every facet” of their lives. The manager, whose team play Wales in a pivotal World Cup qualifier in Newport on Friday night, believes it is impossible to coach properly unless you understand the player as a person. “The first month after I took over, I messaged players maybe once or twice a week but now I speak every single day with every single player,” Neville said. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PlVvOm

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RevenueCat (YC S18) is hiring our first SDK engineer by jeiting | on Hacker News .

Standard Cyborg is hiring a computer vision engineer by jeffchuber | on Hacker News .

Outschool, marketplace of live online kids' classes, is hiring a growth PM in SF by amirnathoo | on Hacker News .

In her third film for Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, who calls her his muse, her role as a lovelorn singer has sparked talk of an Oscar Joanna Kulig won the glitzy Polish TV talent contest Chance for Success at the age of 15 and hasn’t really stopped singing since. Now 36, each of the three films she has made with the great Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski has required her to burst into song. In the existential mystery The Woman in the Fifth , Ethan Hawke is able to resist her until the moment she starts warbling; in the Oscar-winning Ida , she has a dynamic cameo as a nightclub chanteuse. And now, in the exceptional Cold War , Pawlikowski has finally given her a leading role: she plays Zula, who joins a touring company performing folk songs in postwar Poland. Politics inevitably intrudes – the musicians are pressured to include compositions praising Stalin to the skies – but so, too, does love. Zula and the show’s conductor, Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), begin an affair that spans 15 ye...

Your rights explained over loans and compensation as the firm stops making new loans Britain’s biggest payday lender, Wonga , stopped taking new loan applications on Thursday, as it teeters on the brink of collapse following a surge of customer compensation claims that could cause it to call in administrators. A message on Wonga’s website tells its customers: “While it continues to assess its options Wonga has decided to stop taking loan applications.” Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PGzkUd

A study of #hot tags on Instagram says it’s about women maximising their lot, but nudity is about control by men “A woman must continually watch herself,” is a John Berger quote you might remember if you studied art at school, or if you like watching bad 70s fashion in action on YouTube. The theory (from his 1972 documentary series, Ways of Seeing ) goes, “from earliest childhood [each woman] has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually … how she appears to men is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life … This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.” It’s a useful quote to pull out if you’re writing an essay about the ubiquity of naked female paintings throughout history. It also works well as an answer to the question asked by a new academic study this week, “Why are there so many sexy selfies of women everywhere these days?” Continue reading... from The Guardia...

Capitalism’s near-death experience with the banking crisis was a golden opportunity for progressives. But they blew it Placards are being prepared. Photo-opportunities are being organised. A list of demands is being drawn up by a coalition of pressure groups, unions and NGOs. Yes, preparations are well under way for protests to mark next month’s 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers – the pivotal moment in the global financial crisis . Make no mistake, the fact that events will take place in all the world’s financial centres is no cause for celebration. On the contrary, it is a sign of failure. The banks were never broken up. Plans for a financial transactions tax are gathering dust. Politicians toyed with the idea of a green new deal and then promptly forgot about it. There never was a huge swing of the pendulum away from the prevailing orthodoxy, just a brief nudge that was quickly reversed. The brutal fact is that the left had its chance, and it blew it....

Uhuru Kenyatta complains that it has taken 30 years for a British PM to visit his country Kenya’s president has complained that no British prime minister has visited the east African country for 30 years, delivering a diplomatic rebuke to Theresa May in a press conference on the final day of her visit to the continent. Uhuru Kenyatta told May he was pleased she had “found time” to visit and went on to struggle to remember Boris Johnson’s surname at the culmination of a three-day trip aimed at boosting Britain’s trade and diplomatic presence in the country. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2okBLz8

The EU negotiator’s remarks about an unprecedented partnership were nothing new The flurry of excitement in national newspaper newsrooms, and on the trading floors, on Wednesday illustrates one thing: the Brexit summer holiday is over, and with negotiations at the squeaky-bum end of the process, the slightest indication of where this is all going to end up will be seized upon, make headlines and move markets. But, it is worth looking at some facts – not always the highest-value commodity in the Brexit debate. The fateful words from Michel Barnier which triggered the value of the pound to jump by 1% to $1.3029 were, sadly for Downing Street, nothing new. The EU was proposing “a partnership with Britain such as has never been with any other third country”, the EU’s chief negotiator said during his visit to Berlin. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2LFQeyL

Most patients will derive no health improvement from medication. We should tackle the root causes of disease instead When former airline pilot Tony Royle came to see me last year to seek reassurance that it was OK to participate in an Ironman event, having stopped all his medications 18 months after suffering a heart attack, I was initially a little alarmed. But after talking to him, I realised he had made an informed decision to stop the medication after suffering side effects, and instead had opted for a diet and lifestyle approach to manage his heart disease. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2MZYVc4

Migration Observatory report says risk of labour exploitation might rise when freedom of movement ends An estimated 500,000 EU citizens are working in low-skilled jobs in the UK such as picking fruit, cleaning offices, working in warehouses and food factories, a report by leading academics has found. The report by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said that employers could struggle to find workers after Brexit and the risk of labour exploitation might be heightened under the two main options available to companies to find staff willing to do the work once freedom of movement ends. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NsKQRo

Recently repaired 119-year-old timepiece in Delph, Greater Manchester, too loud for some The bell on a historic village clock may no longer toll after villagers claimed its newly restored 24-hour chime was too noisy. The clock, a prominent centrepiece in the moorland village of Delph in Greater Manchester, has been keeping time for the past 119 years. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NsLxKu

Lauren Laverne will cover BBC Radio 4 show while longtime host away due to fibromyalgia Kirsty Young is to take a break from presenting the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs for “a number of months” because she is has a form of fibromyalgia. Lauren Laverne will host the show while Young is away, the BBC said. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wrqHEH

Burnley chairman Bob Lord took raised hackles to new heights with his comments about Manchester United after Munich It’s often said José Mourinho … don’t worry, this isn’t another column about José Mourinho ... it’s often said he could start a 22-strong media‑accredited brawl in an empty press room. But for services to the field of unnecessarily inflammatory quotation, deliberately incendiary riffing and consequence‑disregarding button‑pressing, Mou is the spiritual love child of Mahatma Gandhi and bed-in era John Lennon when compared with Bob Lord. Related: Is José Mourinho still the man to fix Manchester United’s problems? | Jamie Jackson Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2PQNWQP

Former party leader reaches crowdfunding target as civil service union chief calls his actions ‘vindictive’ SNP MPs are helping to fund Alex Salmond’s legal challenge against the Scottish government’s handling of sexual harassment allegations as the leader of the top civil servants’ union condemned his attacks on a senior government official. Dave Penman, general secretary of the First Division Association, which represents the UK’s senior civil servants, accused the former nationalist leader of “nasty, vindictive and deliberate” attacks on the integrity of Leslie Evans, the Scottish government’s permanent secretary. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wrgZlN

Controversial ticketing firm expected to send deputy to speak for ‘publicity shy’ founder Controversial ticket resale website Viagogo has been called to appear before a parliamentary inquiry, a year after it outraged MPs by refusing to turn up to a previous evidence session. The secondary ticketing site, already the subject of multiple investigations for alleged transgressions including breaches of consumer law, is expected to send an executive to a hearing on 5 September. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wp6DmI

Government refusal to pay widowed parent’s benefit breached human rights, supreme court says Denying the mother of four children a widowed parent’s allowance is illegal, the supreme court has ruled, in a decision which significantly extends the rights of unmarried couples. By a majority of four to one, the court’s justices declared that the government’s refusal to pay up to £117 a week in benefits breached the family’s human rights. It will put pressure on ministers to consider making urgent changes to the law. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C28gfg

The postal worker being chased by a snarling mutt is a comedy cliche, but it’s no joke for those at the sharp end: last year saw six dog attacks a day. Now posties have a new tool at their disposal ‘This one will bite the letters and head butt the door,” smiles Charlie, a postal worker I am shadowing on his rounds. He slides a catalogue halfway inside the letterbox of a green door, and it is instantly snatched by jaws unseen. I can tell by the sound that there is drool on the carpet. “Good boy!” I whisper through the door. I am here to learn about the threat of dogs to postal staff, as part of Royal Mail’s annual drive to raise awareness . Yet not only is my blindly pro-dog prejudice part of the problem, I am too excited to learn anything. I have always been fascinated by the post, with its nostalgic link to national services – even after privatisation, the company has kept its government charter, the universal service obligation to deliver to 30m addres...

Hemp cultivation for non-pharmaceutical could help revert desiccation of farm land Italian farmers are in crisis as low prices of wheat, desiccated land and big companies importing grain take their toll. But some have found a solution: growing cannabis. Hemp cultivation has been legal in Italy since 2016, and over the last few years the amount of land dedicated to the plant has increased from 400 hectares (1,000 acres) in 2013 to 4,000 hectares today. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wtDdD2

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