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[
"Larry Elliott",
"Anatole Kaletsky"
] | 2016-08-26T13:23:50 | null | 2016-08-25T13:10:23 |
The CBI data should be treated with caution but alongside other evidence it is clear that if the post-referendum economy declines it will do so slowly
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fuk-retail-sales-brexit-slow-puncture-not-car-crash.json
|
en
| null |
UK retail sales show Brexit effect will be more slow puncture than car crash
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The sun shone. London was a magnet for overseas tourists taking advantage of the weak pound. UK consumers splashed the cash. Retailers shrugged off the post-Brexit vote blues.
That, simply, was the message from the latest CBI snapshot of high street and online spending. Retailers had a much better August than they were expecting, with solid year-on-year growth in business.
Sales were considered to be above average for the time of year even before the chance for an Olympics feelgood factor to have an impact. The CBI did its fieldwork in the two weeks that ended on 12 August, before Team GB’s gold rush.
That said, the CBI’s distributive trades survey has to be treated with some caution. The sample size is small – 58 retailers – and the correlation with the official figures for retail sales has tended to be poor.
In July, for example, the CBI reported a sharp drop in high street spending. The gap between those retailers saying spending was higher than a year earlier and those saying it was lower stood at -14 percentage points. The Office for National Statistics reported a 1.4% increase in retail sales in July, which seemed to chime better with the upbeat trading statements from individual retailers.
There are two plausible ways of interpreting what is happening to spending. One view is that record employment, rising real incomes and the lowest interest rates in history will keep the economy humming and soon make Brexit a distant memory.
Retail sales growth expected to slow after summer bounce Read more
An alternative take is that consumer spending growth will ease back as firms respond to increased uncertainty by laying off staff, and the rising inflation caused by dearer imports adversely affects living standards.
But none of the evidence so far available – whether from the ONS, surveys or retailers – is consistent with a third notion: that the shock of the referendum would send the economy spiralling straight into recession. If there is to be a Brexit effect, it will be more slow puncture than car crash.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/25/uk-retail-sales-brexit-slow-puncture-not-car-crash
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9a46d30edf1ce93c9fa1ac95b43867a68cf90668449c0293081387a747307853.json
|
|
[
"Mazin Sidahmed"
] | 2016-08-26T13:15:25 | null | 2016-08-26T10:30:16 |
Counter-terrorism program meant to dissuade teens from being radicalized leads to racial profiling and bullying, American Federation of Teachers argued
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Ffbi-dont-be-a-puppet-terrorism-muslim-teachers.json
|
en
| null |
FBI's Don't Be a Puppet game targets Muslim youth, teachers' union says
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A controversial FBI program targeting Muslim teenagers has drawn criticism from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), claiming it leads to bullying and profiling.
The union, which represents 1.6 million teachers in the US, sent an open letter to FBI director James Comey earlier this month to call for an end to the agency’s Don’t Be a Puppet program which aims to prevent youth from being radicalized.
“What we saw with the Don’t be a Puppet program, was that it created this broad based suspicion of people based upon their heritage or ethnicity,” AFT president Randi Weingarten said.
Don’t Be a Puppet: Pull Back the Curtain on Violent Extremism is an online game the FBI launched in February. It is set in a dingy basement where students compete a series of tasks to liberate a puppet on strings.
“Increasing ideological policing and surveillance efforts like the Don’t be a Puppet campaign will have a chilling effect on our schools and immigrant communities,” the letter said.
Nineteen civil rights and community groups signed the letter including the National Immigration Law Center and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Several Muslim community leaders previewed the game last year and were instantly incensed.
“It was pretty bad,” said Abed Ayoub, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee who was at the initial preview. “We felt that it really did target the Arab and Muslim community, and there was no room for it inside a classroom.”
ADC and other groups have actively spoken out against the game, which they say leads to bullying and profiling of Muslim students.
Following the meeting, the game’s release was pushed back but it was eventually rolled out in February, with some minor modifications.
It was met with ridicule and widely panned by gaming publications. In one game, users navigate a goat around virtual obstacles, and are rewarded with a sample text of the “distorted logic” foreign terrorists use to lure youth.
It remains unclear how many – if any – schools have adopted the program for use in the classroom or individuals at home.
“The FBI is aware of concerns raised by the American Federation of Teachers about the Don’t Be a Puppet campaign and plans to engage directly with the group’s leaders in the near future,” said Matthew Berton, FBI spokesman said.
The game is part of a larger counter-extremism program by the FBI. The agency released guidelines in January that provide suggestions to children on how to report others who travel to “suspicious” countries, and those who criticize western corruption.
In a report last year, the 9/11 review commission suggested that the FBI was not “an appropriate vehicle” for producing social programs combating extremism given its role as a law enforcement and intelligence agency.
The state department launched a Twitter campaign in called Think Again Turn Away in December 2013 to combat extremism online, which involved actively engaging with known jihadist accounts on Twitter. The state department’s Twitter handle would chime in on conversations between prominent jihadists accounts’ and attempt to convince them to change their beliefs. It was widely criticized for playing into the Islamic State propaganda as opposed to stifling it.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/26/fbi-dont-be-a-puppet-terrorism-muslim-teachers
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1bd851d90053a1071ec9fe869289fe7cf5cf3ed4e8e92de782ad4c731f28c9c4.json
|
|
[
"Heather Stewart",
"Diane Taylor"
] | 2016-08-26T13:14:26 | null | 2016-08-26T06:09:58 |
Investigation by the Guardian and 38 Degrees reveals NHS faces £20bn funding shortfall by 2020-21 if no action is taken
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsociety%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fnhs-plans-radical-cuts-to-fight-growing-deficit-in-health-budget.json
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en
| null |
NHS plans closures and radical cuts to combat growing deficit in health budget
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
NHS bosses throughout England are quietly drawing up plans for hospital closures, cutbacks and radical changes to the way healthcare is delivered in an attempt to meet spiralling demand and plug the hole in their finances, an investigation by the Guardian and campaign group 38 Degrees has revealed.
Without the changes, the NHS at local level could be facing a financial shortfall of about £20bn by 2020-21 if no action is taken, the research suggests.
The cost-cutting shakeup is being overseen by NHS England, but is already sparking a series of local political battles over the future of services, and exposes the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to fresh criticism after his controversial role in the junior doctors dispute.
Last year’s Conservative manifesto pledged an extra £8bn a year for the NHS by the end of this parliament, as demanded by the NHS chief executive, Simon Stevens, in his 2014 “five-year forward view”. But Stevens made clear that was the minimum money needed, and radical reforms to the way healthcare is delivered would also be necessary to make the NHS hit its budgets.
Plan to 'transform' NHS could lead to downgrade of major London hospitals Read more
NHS England has divided England into 44 “footprint” areas, and each was asked to submit a cost-cutting “sustainability and transformation plan” (STP).
The Guardian has seen the detailed plans for north-west London, while 38 Degrees, a crowdfunded campaign group, commissioned the consultancy Incisive Health to collate and analyse proposals from across the rest of England.
The picture that emerges includes:
In the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland region, there are proposals to reduce the number of acute hospitals from three to two.
In the Black Country region of the West Midlands there are proposals to reduce the number of acute units from five to four and close one of two district general hospitals.
A reduction in the number of face-to-face meetings between doctors and patients in north-west London through the use of more “virtual consultations” and a proposal to give patients coaching to help them manage their own conditions without seeing a doctor.
Some of the proposals are likely to be given the go-ahead as soon as October, though consultation would then have to take place locally.
Health policy experts, doctors and campaigners say that the public are unaware of how significant the changes are going to be, and while some elements are likely to be welcomed, hospital closures tend to be highly unpopular among voters.
A spokesperson for NHS England said the health service needed to make major efficiencies: “We need an NHS ready for the future, with no one falling between the cracks. To do this, local service leaders in every part of England are working together for the first time on shared plans to transform health and care in the communities they serve, and to agree how to spend increasing investment as the NHS expands over the next few years.
“It is hardly a secret that the NHS is looking to make major efficiencies and the best way of doing so is for local doctors, hospitals and councils to work together to decide the way forward in consultation with local communities.”
North-west London’s draft plan highlights risks to the implementation of the programme, including a failure to shift enough acute care out of hospitals, a possible collapse of the private care home market, and a failure to get people to take responsibility for their own health.
Two local authorities in north-west London, Hammersmith and Fulham and Ealing councils, have refused to sign up to the draft plans because of concerns about hospital closures. Officials claim that pressure was exerted on them to sign off an executive summary of the draft plans quickly without seeing the full document. NHS officials have denied this.
A spokeswoman for NHS North West London insisted the policies were based on evidence, saying: “There is a whole body of clinical evidence, research and best practice that clinicians are using to deliver better clinical care for patients.”
Hugh Alderwick, senior policy adviser at the King’s Fund, said that while some elements of the plans were positive others were less so: “There are some concerns that NHS leaders have focused their efforts on plans for reconfiguring acute hospital services, despite evidence that major acute reconfigurations rarely save money and can sometimes fail to improve quality of care.”
Dr Eric Watts, consultant haematologist and chair of the campaigning group Doctors for the NHS, said: “We as an organisation welcome any plan that holds true to the founding principles of the NHS and gives our patients the fairest possible treatment. But from what we can already see, STPs do not bode well for the future health of the NHS itself. Plans to move services into the community have been given as a reason for reducing hospital beds for many years now but we see the beds being closed without increases in community provision.”
Steve Cowan, leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council said: “This is about closing hospitals and getting capital receipts. It’s a cynical rehash of earlier plans. It’s about the breaking up and selling off of the NHS. It will lead to a loss of vital services and will put lives at risk.” He added: “Our job is to protect the NHS and this plan is about dismantling it.”
Laura Townshend, of 38 Degrees, said: “This is new evidence that plans are being made to close local NHS services. We all rely on these services, yet we are being kept in the dark.
“These proposed cuts aren’t the fault of local NHS leaders. The health service is struggling to cope with growing black holes in NHS funding. These new revelations will be a test of Theresa May’s commitment to a fully-funded National Health Service.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/26/nhs-plans-radical-cuts-to-fight-growing-deficit-in-health-budget
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f1a09c9e23b7bdfdbd7f203a5ee8f490b56df75fc6b28a1124771ae7a95f029a.json
|
|
[] | 2016-08-28T04:59:26 | null | 2007-04-27T22:57:33 |
I need to raise some cash and am thinking of selling some of my old junk at a car boot sale. I've never done this before, so I would welcome tips. What sells well? How do I price my goods? And what sort of profit can I hope to make?
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2007%2Fapr%2F27%2Fpersonaleffects.json
|
en
| null |
Any tips for my first car boot sale?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
I need to raise some cash and am thinking of selling some of my old junk at a car boot sale. I've never done this before, so I would welcome tips. What sells well? How do I price my goods? And what sort of profit can I hope to make?
This is the modern world
I did a car boot sale and was surprised how little people were prepared to pay - they would haggle over a price tag of 50p. On top of paying £7 to sell, it was hard work and there were a few awkward customers to deal with. If you have a computer, eBay is a far easier if lengthier option.
Joanne Quinn, Reading
Tips of the trade
My tips: 1. Put price stickers on your goods before the day of sale. 2. Pack items in smaller cardboard boxes - they are easier to move in and out of the car. 3. Take a table for your goods, such as a paste table 4. Arrive early - ring the organisers to ask what time they suggest. 5. On arrival, unload your table and one box then lock your car while you unpack the box, otherwise people will swarm all over your car, picking up items and confusing you totally. 7. Dealers come early to make offers. Don't take them unless you are happy with the price; better to tell them to try again later as you've only just started selling. 8. Take lots of change and a container with a lid for money taken. Once you have a few notes, lock these in your car. 9. Take a chair, wet wipes, carrier bags for buyers, sandwiches and a drink. 10. Best of all, share the stall with a friend as this halves the cost and ensures you get a toilet break!
Lynne Smith, Cornwall
It's all in the timing
Last weekend we sold a greenhouse heater for £5, an old oil painting for £10, four CDs for £4 and DVDs for £1 each. The early birds will be dealers; don't give an item away as they will come back at the end if they really want it. The nine o'clockers will pay better. See you on Sunday!
Ruth Hutson, Lincolnshire
A fun way to make some cash
I've done a car boot sale nearly every week for a year. Don't expect to make a fortune because it's where everybody goes for a bargain: 50p-£1 is common for things like videos, books, clothes, toys and garden pots; maybe £3-£5 for small kitchen appliances. Be prepared to get up extremely early and for a good deal of loading and unloading. We take a folding pasting table, folding chairs, sheets of plastic to spread on the ground (good for displaying clothes), warm jackets, sun hats, an umbrella, food, flask, a float with change and a copy of the Guardian for slack periods. It's great fun if you enjoy the hustle and bustle of markets and you can shop while you're there. You will save money and feel good because you're taking part in the great recycling of goods that are car boot sales. I think they're great!
Jo Protéro, Bath
Rules of engagement
First, let's be clear about one thing - there will be NO profit! What you get from your car boot sale will probably be around 10% of what you originally paid for the items you sell. Rule one: do your homework! Visit a couple of local boot sales before you go as a seller. For locations go to Carbootjunction.com. Find out when they start - this is often as much as two hours before the advertised time. Rule two: take a helper. Quite apart from the obvious advantage that having someone with you will be useful to keep an eye on the stock when things get busy, it also enables you to visit the toilet and to have a look round the other stalls, but mind you don't end up taking home more stuff than you sold. Rule three: get there early! If you arrive after the event has already began you will be immediately surrounded by vultures looking for bargains and emptying your car boot for you. Rule four: it's probably best not to label your goods with prices, but instead have a good mental picture of what you've got and what you want for it. Price labels give you away as an inexperienced first timer and will attract the attention of hardcore professional buyers. Most importantly, enjoy the experience! Not only are you recouping a few pounds on items you might otherwise have thrown away, but also you are helping the environment by recycling things rather than consigning them to a landfill site.
Mike Pim-Keirle, Cornwall, who wins this week's £25 National Book Token
It's a boring lottery
I've only ever sold things at two car boot sales. At the first I made approximately £80 and at the second I just about broke even for the price of the pitch. In the second one everything was in good condition but hardly anything sold, particularly the children's books and games. It definitely helps if things are labelled with a price. People also tend to rummage if they're not being watched. My advice is to take a book - it staves off the boredom!
Nicola Dias, Cambridgeshire
A fellow novice speaks ...
I have no experience but have been thinking along similar lines. My plan of action is to research two or three local sales without parting with any money just to get the feel of the event. It is important not to travel more than about five miles otherwise the exercise can prove too costly. Sort your items into three or four price bands - 50p, £1, £2 and £5, for example - and use the same number of clearly labelled boxes with these prices on. Each item could have a coloured spot representing its price band so there is no confusion or cheating by the customer. Anything worth more than £5 should be sold on eBay or through small ads to realise its full market potential. Keep an account book to enable you to assess how worthwhile the project is. Good luck!
Linda Richardson, Lincoln
Car boot versus computer
Don't rush off to sell until you have worked out the value of your 'junk' and where the best place to sell it might be. Do some research - scan adverts in Loot, free local papers or newsagents' windows for current prices. Auction houses will sometimes give free valuations. Check the completed sale listings for items on eBay to see what things actually sold for. Car boot sales may have 500 visitors if it doesn't rain while eBay has millions worldwide. eBay is good for branded good and collectables, while car boot sales are good for selling tools and toys, domestic equipment and the sort of anonymous, average china, glass or costume jewellery that does not sell well online because it can't be precisely described and searched. A significant advantage of car boot sales is that people pay cash and carry their purchases away themselves.
Loveday Lemon, London
This week's question:
I buy clothes from discount retailers but am concerned about the working conditions in which they're made. We don't have much money and can't afford to use big stores. The recent publicity on this issue has left me feeling guilty. What's a girl to do?
Any ideas? Email your suggestions to personal.effects@theguardian.com
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2007/apr/27/personaleffects
|
en
| 2007-04-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/04fc30bb71cb5a2ec4df40fee50de108d7d6944825ed1eab8f57d871ce11c19c.json
|
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[
"Josh Halliday"
] | 2016-08-29T10:49:56 | null | 2016-08-29T09:29:48 |
Mother of Mia Ayliffe-Chung says she wants her daughter to ‘visit places she hasn’t visited yet’
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fmother-murdered-backpacker-mia-ayliffe-chung-scatter-ashes-around-world.json
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| null |
Mother of murdered backpacker to scatter her ashes around the world
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The mother of a British backpacker murdered in Australia plans to scatter her ashes around the world so she can continue her travels.
Mia Ayliffe-Chung, 21, was stabbed to death at a hostel by an attacker allegedly shouting “Allahu Akbar” in Queensland on Tuesday.
A Frenchman, Smail Ayad, 29, who had allegedly become obsessed with her, has been charged with murder.
Rosie Ayliffe, from Wirksworth in Derbyshire, said that she understood that some of her daughter’s friends wanted her body flown home and were “struggling” with the decision.
“Hence the plan to create a place of remembrance here, but also to give various people vials of Mia’s ashes to scatter in places dear to her or to them,” she wrote on The Independent website.
“That way she can visit places she hasn’t visited yet. Canada, New Zealand, Singapore.” She said that the only way she could cope with her loss was to think that “Mia’s time had come”.
Tom Jackson, 30, from Congleton in Cheshire, who was stabbed trying to save Ayliffe-Chung, remains on life support. His father, Les Jackson, said that he was “immensely proud” of his son’s actions.
Queensland police said there is no evidence that Ayad – who has also been charged with the attempted murder of Jackson – was even a practising Muslim.
In her column, Ayliffe said “much nonsense” had been spoken in the media about her daughter’s alleged killer.
“Smail Ayad – the French man being held on suspicion of my daughter’s murder – is not an Islamic fundamentalist, he has never set foot in a mosque.
“It appears he wasn’t allowed to appear in court this week because of safety concerns, so I’m unlikely to get near enough to have a conversation, and only if I were suicidal would I want to (I’m not).”
Detectives are investigating whether “mental health or drug misuse issues” were a factor alongside any “indication of an extremist slant or he was radicalised”.
Ayliffe added: “At the moment the only way I can really cope with our loss is to think, Mia’s time had come, and what happened in that hostel on Tuesday was her fate.
“It was always going to happen like that. She was lent to us for a period of time and now, in Ben Johnson’s words, she’s been ‘exacted by the Lord on the just day’. (I always struggled to teach that poem without welling up!)
“But I also think that wise little girl was here for a reason, and part of my journey will be to find out what that reason was.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/29/mother-murdered-backpacker-mia-ayliffe-chung-scatter-ashes-around-world
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en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/edc2c9eaa9b2091aa7ccd1e2fc40d0a724e33e53fcc2748ad036b858f7013d29.json
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[
"Paul Macinnes"
] | 2016-08-30T20:52:50 | null | 2016-08-30T20:31:31 |
British players do not always thrive in Serie A and the England goalkeeper will hope to be one of the success stories in a country where the fans can be much more demanding
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fjoe-hart-torino-serie-a-fans.json
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en
| null |
Joe Hart heads for Torino but is not the first to seek Italian renaissance
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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At least somebody loves Joe Hart. Whereas he was frozen out of Manchester City at a speed that would surprise even gelato manufacturers, the England international was met by rapturous crowds on his arrival in Turin on Tuesday. The new Torino goalkeeper wore sunglasses that Marcello Mastroianni would have been proud of and posed, perhaps inadvisedly, with a T-shirt celebrating the club’s Granata Ultras. Welcome to Serie A, Joe.
In choosing to join Torino Hart becomes part of a select, if not always successful, group. The 34th British player to sign for an Italian club since the second world war, Hart follows in the footsteps of not just John Charles but also Jay Bothroyd. While David Platt made his reputation in Serie A, Des Walker almost contrived to blow it. And for every cult hero – a Trevor Francis or Paul Ince – there is at least one who has left with a good riddance. And yes, that includes Paul Gascoigne, described by one Italian journalist as “one of the worst buys since the war”.
Jack Wilshere beats Joe Hart in transfer tales of woe table this summer Read more
Before making the decision to move Hart consulted his friend and former City team-mate Micah Richards. The Aston Villa defender spent a season at Fiorentina two years ago and loved it. “He asked me about Italy and I told him it’s probably the best country you can go to,” Richards told the Guardian. “It was one of the best experiences in my life. Obviously I got to live in Florence, an amazing city, but the people were really welcoming, really nice, and made me feel right at home.”
One of the biggest things Hart will have to contend with, says Richards, is the change in footballing culture. “It’s a lot different to England,” he says. “It is much more tactical – everyone knows their jobs. In Italy they will always play an older player who has more experience than a younger one who wants to express themselves. Every day in training you work on tactics, you work on shape. On the other hand it’s not so physical. It helped my game, though. I like to get up and down but they helped me to know when to hold my position.”
The former England international Tony Dorigo, who played for Torino in the 1997-98 season, knows better than most what Hart is getting into. He says it is not just the culture on the pitch that Hart will have to adjust to. “It’s really intense, extremely intense, it’s absolutely crazy,” he says. “I remember once when we lost a match at home and the following day the fans stormed the training ground. We had to fly somewhere else to train and then stay there for the entire week. The fans give you great power when they get behind you, but you feel the pressure all the time.”
Dorigo, now a pundit for BT Sport’s Serie A coverage, believes that Hart will be busy in his new role. Although Torino competed in the Europa League last season they finished a disappointing 12th in Serie A. This summer the manager, Giampero Ventura, left to replace Antonio Conte as the Italy coach, with Sinisa Mijhailovic replacing him. “It looks as if they will end up getting rid of three of their four best defenders this summer,” says Dorigo. “So Hart will get plenty of work. Torino are a club that have to change a lot. They get good players but they have to sell them too.”
Torino’s association with British football runs longer than most, dating back to the 1960s and the signing of Joe Baker and Denis Law. Two of the most promising forwards in Britain, Baker and Law were also only 21 years old. The pair acquired a reputation as young men about town. Constantly followed by paparazzi, Baker famously assaulted one then, on another fateful night, crashed his Aston Martin into a statue of Garibaldi. He and Law survived the crash but their careers in Italy were soon over.
John Foot, in his history of Italian football, Calcio, describes the careers of British footballers that went a similar way, from Jimmy Greaves to Gascoigne. Greaves had gone to Italy only because of England’s maximum wage and, as soon as the rule was overturned, felt homesick. Gazza, meanwhile, was known not only for his drinking and tendency towards injury but also for his bad manners, notoriously answering one journalist’s question with a big burp.
The problem, as Foot sees it, was with the fact that such high standards had been set by British football’s first great export, John Charles. The Gentle Giant who played for Juventus for six years from 1957-63 is still remembered fondly in Turin.
“John Charles remains the model against which all foreign players – and especially British players – have been measured,” says Foot. “He was an exemplary figure on the field and off the field where he was known for being modest, generous and ‘good’. No other British player has come close.” Foot adds a coda, observing that another well-mannered export also left a good impression. “My advice to British players in Italy is don’t get drunk. It’s bad publicity and conforms to stereotypes. One person who was quite good there was David Beckham.”
But Hart is part of a mini-revival of Britons looking for an Italian job. Ashley Cole, Nathaniel Chalobah and Richards have played in Serie A in the past three seasons and, at the time of writing, Ravel Morrison remains on Lazio’s books. For Richards this trend will continue. “It’s not that people don’t want to go away,” he says. “But you’re in your comfort zone in the Premier League. But now that more Champions League places are going to be guaranteed [from 2018-19] I think loads of players will want to give it a go.”
Dorigo, meanwhile, has one final piece of advice for England’s number one as he embarks on a new chapter in his career. “Move to Moncalieri,” he says. “It’s a beautiful village 10 miles outside the city. And when you wake up, the first things you see are the Alps.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/30/joe-hart-torino-serie-a-fans
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en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e79ff2234f6d5de842d3e5f852fef7d930456591dd6da46e5571375aebef03ad.json
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[] | 2016-08-29T18:52:37 | null | 2016-08-29T17:56:20 |
Editorial: The power of smartphones is too easily turned against their users. Governments, companies and users must all work together to keep themselves safe
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fthe-guardian-view-on-internet-security-a-huge-and-growing-problem.json
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| null |
The Guardian view on internet security: a huge and growing problem
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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The phone in your pocket gives you powers that were hard to imagine even five years ago. It can talk to you, listen, and give sensible answers to questions. It knows your fingerprint and recognises your face and those of all your friends. It can buy almost anything, sell almost anything, bring you all the news you want, as well as almost all the books, films and music you might want to look at. What’s more, it will even allow you to talk to your friends and to communicate with almost anyone.
The problem is that these powers are not yours – at least they don’t belong to you alone. They belong to whoever controls the phone and can be used to serve their purposes as well as yours. Repressive governments and criminal gangs are all contending to break into phones today, and this kind of hacking will increasingly become the preferred route into all of the computer networks that we use – the ones we don’t call “phones”.
Apple’s sudden forced upgrade to the iPhone operating system last week was a response to these anxieties. A dissident in the UAE appears to have had his iPhone hijacked by a very sophisticated piece of malware produced by a security company and sold legally, if in secret, to regimes that want to spy on their enemies. This offers its controllers complete knowledge of anything the infected phone is privy to: that’s all the contacts, all the messages of any sort, whether chats, texts or emails, all the calendars and even, potentially, any voice conversation that it overhears. It’s difficult to imagine a more assiduous or intimate spy. And once one phone has been subverted, it becomes a tool for spying into all other the networks to which it or the owner has access.
This is not exclusively Apple’s problem. The much more widespread Android system is reasonably secure only on some Samsung and LG models and Google’s own-branded Nexus phones, which are updated frequently and automatically to keep abreast of security vulnerabilities. Other manufacturers have access to the updates but few get them installed in a timely fashion. In the poorer parts of the world, where Android has an overwhelming market share, the problem is especially acute. The Iranian secret police bug their dissidents using a tool (in the jargon of the trade, an Android RAT) called KrakenAgent.
Beyond rogue nation states there is an unpleasant and insufficiently regulated market of legal firms that specialise in finding security vulnerabilities and selling them to the highest legal bidder, which normally means oppressive regimes; then there is a second tier of entirely illegal operators who sell tools to criminal gangs. Little of this is used for spying (though there is a market among jealous and abusive men for software that will enable to them to track their partners, one reason why some women’s shelters are reluctant to allow smartphones inside). Much more damage is done by “ransomware”, which encrypts and in effect steals all of a user’s data, to be released only on payment. Such assaults are becoming increasingly common. Twenty-nine NHS trusts were targeted by them last year. This is a global problem now. Since almost every country will want these powers for its own security services, if for no one else, what is developing is something like an international arms trade. International efforts to police it are urgently needed and the companies that sell us these powerful phones must also be pressed to live up to their responsibilities to keep them safe so that their power is not easily turned against their owners.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/29/the-guardian-view-on-internet-security-a-huge-and-growing-problem
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en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f3473e71a93bc00a019f65d8778b46255f27dc359438fd94221cd99bfa780bcb.json
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[
"Associated Press In Rio De Janeiro"
] | 2016-08-26T13:16:49 | null | 2016-08-26T06:20:30 |
Brazilian police have charged American swimmer with filing a false robbery report over Rio incident
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Ryan Lochte: swimmer charged by Rio police with filing a false robbery report
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www.theguardian.com
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Brazilian police charged American swimmer Ryan Lochte on Thursday with filing a false robbery report over an incident during the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
A police statement said Lochte would be informed in the United States so he could decide whether to introduce a defense in Brazil.
Ryan Lochte: an Olympic tale of gold medals and white privilege | Marina Hyde Read more
The indictment will also be sent to the International Olympic Committee’s ethics commission, the statement said.
Lochte initially said that he and fellow swimmers Jack Conger, Gunnar Bentz and Jimmy Feigen were robbed at gunpoint in a taxi by men with a police badge as they returned to the Olympic Village from a party on 15 August. However, security video suggested the four actually faced security guards after vandalizing a gas station restroom.
Lochte left Brazil shortly after the incident. Three days later, local authorities took Conger and Bentz off an airliner heading to the United States so they could be questioned about the robbery claim. They were later allowed to leave Brazil, as was Feigen, after he gave testimony. Feigen, who initially stood by Lochte’s testimony, was not charged.
Lochte has since acknowledged that he was highly intoxicated and that his behavior led to the confrontation. It is not clear from the video whether a gun was ever pointed to the athletes.
Under Brazilian law, the penalty for falsely filing a crime report carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison. Lochte could be tried in absentia if he didn’t return to face the charge.
Emotional Ryan Lochte sorry for 'stupid mistake' and 'shenanigans' at gas station Read more
The United States and Brazil have an extradition treaty dating back to the 1960s, but Brazil has a long history of not extraditing its own citizens to other nations and US authorities could take the same stance if Lochte is found guilty.
That is currently the case of the head of Brazil’s football confederation, Marco Polo del Nero, who faces charges in the wide-ranging scandal entangling international soccer’s ruling body, Fifa. He has not travelled outside Brazil for more than a year to avoid being arrested by US authorities somewhere else.
The charges in Brazil raise questions about the future for Lochte, who is planning to take time off from swimming but wants to return to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. He has 12 Olympic medals, second only to Michael Phelps among US male Olympians.
Lochte lost four major sponsors early this week over the controversy, including Speedo USA and Ralph Lauren. But on Thursday he picked up a new – Pine Bros Softish Throat Drops. Pine Bros. said people should be more understanding of the swimmer and said he will appear in ads that say the company’s product is “Forgiving On Your Throat.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/25/ryan-lochte-charged-rio-police-false-report
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| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8ad68e7a3dc360b710a226be087e382d385739fcb4a7f4d84c4dc7372df1f625.json
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[
"Pete Etchells"
] | 2016-08-29T10:59:14 | null | 2015-02-02T00:00:00 |
Pete Etchells: Some news outlets are claiming that scientists have discovered that touchscreen devices are bad for child development. What does the journal article actually say?
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2Fhead-quarters%2F2015%2Ffeb%2F02%2Fno-research-does-not-say-that-ipads-and-smartphones-may-damage-toddlers-brains.json
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No, research does not say that ‘iPads and smartphones may damage toddlers’ brains’
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www.theguardian.com
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It’s been a bad week for neuroscience in the news. Last Wednesday, we were told that it’s neuroscientific fact – FACT - that watching a murder mystery is good for your brain. We weren’t treated to any evidence to back up this astounding claim, but don’t worry – the writer was a neuroscientist. “The research in my field affirms this”, we were assured. And then, on Sunday in the Guardian, we had this gem – “research says iPads and smartphones may damage toddlers’ brains”. Thankfully, it’s since been changed to “Tablets and smartphones may affect social and emotional development, scientists speculate”, but I’m going to have a rant anyway.
Right. So there are two initial problems with the original headline. The first is that the research doesn’t have anything to say about brain damage in children. The second is that it’s not research.
The journal paper in question is a three-page commentary from Paediatrics that provides a whistle-stop tour of some of the main areas of research concerning the potential positive or negative impact of interactive media use in young children. It’s not exactly a definitive guide – while it claims to review the relevant existing research literature, it only refers to seven studies, so there’s not much to go on here. Beyond that though, it’s a fairly balanced article – and nowhere does it say anything about touchscreen devices causing brain damage. Anywhere. The words ‘brain’ and ‘damage’ don’t appear once.
The main thrust of the commentary is that there’s a bit of research on children’s use of smartphones and tablets, but not much – and certainly not enough considering the takeup of such devices. The research that has been conducted has mixed results. In some cases, beneficial effects have been demonstrated, for example on improving early literacy skills, or improving academic engagement in students with autism. In other studies, we see negative outcomes – for example, ebooks that tack on sound effects or games distract children from understanding the actual story they’re reading. So clearly, “more research is needed”. The worry though, is that there are relatively few paediatric guidelines concerning the use of these sorts of devices. So the commentary finishes with some preliminary guidance for parents that includes commonsense claims like “parents should be encouraged to try an app first”. Which is fine, if a little patronising. But still nothing about brain damage.
Where did all the nonsense about “brain damage” come from then?
Back in December, the BMJ published an article headed up by Head quarters’ own Chris Chambers. The study looked at the association between exaggeration in health-related science news in the media, and the content of the associated academic press releases. Basically, they found that in a large number of cases where exaggeration was present in news stories, it was also present in the press releases. So it makes sense, in our “ipads cause brain damage” case here, to look at whether the source of this scaremongering comes from an overeager press officer.
Nope. While there’s a slightly more negative tone to the press release than the original paper, there’s nothing about brain damage in there. Which is made all the more bizarre, given the fact that our hyped-up article seems to be based almost exclusively on the contents of the press release itself, quotes and all. The original scaremongering, then, seems to have first appeared in the news article in question. I’ve not been able to get a response from the journalist in question, but in an exchange with an academic on twitter yesterday, she wrote “it [the commentary] voices concern and has tone of alarm, researchers clearly fear the risks, with use outpacing knowledge, etc, we amplify”.
I’m not going to get into the whole scientists-versus-science-journalists debate here; it’s tired and boring. Ed Yong has a good summary of it here. But suffice to say, the issue here is not one of amplification; it’s simply that the headline was wrong, devoid of evidence, and served to derail public understanding of a very controversial and heated area of debate.
What do we actually know about the effects of touchscreen technology on childhood development?
The story is complex - given that it’s such a new area of research, the findings are a healthy mix of positive and negative effects. I’ve written about this before in the context of screen time. For instance, a 2011 study suggested an association between poor physical health and the amount of time spent watching television. On the other hand, a 2010 systematic review showed that video game use promoted light physical activity in children. In terms of psychological and behavioural development, a 2013 study suggested that television use, but not video game use, was associated with increases in conduct problems between the ages of five and seven years. However, the effects were small, and related to watching 3+ hours of television a day at age five.
I spoke to Clare Smith, a PhD student at the University of Surrey investigating risk factors for early indicators of language delay. She has also previously blogged about similar claims that forward-facing buggies can damage childhood development. “First, there is no evidence of a detrimental effect on child development from using iPads. The articles that looked at the different learning effects gained from story based apps compared to books do not recommend that iPads are not used, but rather that parents are aware of the different presentations of the story and that they guide the reader accordingly. They are balanced and highlight the potential gains for literacy development to be made from using a range of media” she says. “Second, there is no evidence of use of iPads as a ‘shut up toy’, particularly in the under 3s”, she adds. “The observations I made during my research indicate, if anything, that for this age group the use of tablets and smartphones tends to be a collaborative activity with parents”.
Professor Essi Viding, Director of the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit at UCL, adds “I do not think there is convincing evidence that iPad use would limit social or motor development for example. One might even argue that some aspects of iPad use can prepare for social and motor demands of the current world. What the current data do suggest is that having excessive screen time (excessive likely to vary from one individual to next), especially close to bed time, can disrupt sleep patterns because of the impact of the blue light from the screens on melatonin production and consequently cicardian rhythm. We have good longitudinal data from humans, as well as animal data, emphasising the importance of adequate sleep on learning and memory. However, I do not think we have anything resembling specific guidelines on this topic (though people can apply common sense) and this is not a problem that is specific to iPads.”
I think there are a number of takehome messages here. The first, obviously, is that more research is needed. It’s really tiresome to have to say that, and I feel really reluctant to write it. But it feels as if there are a huge number of potentially exciting avenues for research in this area that aren’t being adequately addressed at the moment. I know it’s a difficult task, but we desperately need to specifically look at the effects of the content of apps and games that children play, and how these interact with the effects of the social context in which they play them.
Second, scientists need to be careful when writing these sorts of opinion pieces – all too often they seem prone to over-exaggeration in the press, and I’m not convinced they really add all that much value to the research literature. “No doubt the authors of such commentaries are well meaning and many of the recommendations are no doubt very good” says Prof. Viding. She adds “No one would argue that it is a good idea to spend time with your children, doing something fun or educational without distractions. However, while that type of recommendation is benign, it is another matter entirely to demonise screen time without appropriate evidence base”.
Finally, and this is a personal plea more than anything – for the love of all that is sacred, can we please stop with the newspaper headlines (and articles) that are chock full of nonsense neuroscience. It doesn’t do anyone – reader or journalist – any favours.
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2015/feb/02/no-research-does-not-say-that-ipads-and-smartphones-may-damage-toddlers-brains
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en
| 2015-02-02T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7052934eb33c1ddac307a9b495bd981ed1e1222bf68ed50ac246af366221cc21.json
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[
"Les Carpenter"
] | 2016-08-31T10:53:08 | null | 2016-08-31T09:00:33 |
Josh Norman is a big loss for the Carolina defense but they should still be able to hold off an improving Tampa Bay and a fast fading Saints team
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NFC South season preview: were the Panthers a one-year wonder?
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Was last year a mirage for Carolina or a sign of the future?
You have to feel very good about your team to let one of your best defensive players walk away in a contract dispute. Carolina Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman took an enormous risk gambling that Josh Norman’s success at cornerback in 2015 was a product of the team’s entire defense and not individual brilliance.
There are a lot of positions on a roster where you can make that assumption, but cornerback is the one place where the normal rules don’t apply. Great corners are hard to find: no matter how good your pass rush or run defense is, if you don’t have a defender who can run alone with the other team’s best receivers, you will have trouble winning. Next to quarterback, a shutdown corner may be the most indispensable position on the field. Carolina had a league-high 24 interceptions last year, can the Panthers rely on their tremendous pass rush to carry them again?
AFC South questions for 2016: can Andrew Luck drag the Colts to the postseason? Read more
Carolina have every reason to believe they have the NFL’s best quarterback in Cam Newton. Last season he was tremendous both on the ground and in the air. The Panthers will again be very tough for defenses to stop. But does the loss of Norman set off a domino effect in the defense that will leave Carolina vulnerable? No matter how good Newton was last season, the Panthers could rely on the NFC’s best defense. Do they still have that? It’s probably not a question that will come up in a weak NFC South but could be a factor in the postseason.
Will Matt Ryan ever become a top quarterback?
Just when Matt Ryan looked to be ready to take the next step toward greatness he ran into offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, who seemed to set him back. Last year, the reliable Ryan was intercepted 16 times and looked like a shell of his former self. Was this just a product of a first-year adjustment to a new system and blocking scheme? Will Ryan become at least the player he was before if not better this season? Or is it the start of a decline?
The way the Falcons fell apart last season they were lucky to finish 8-8. They might have had the NFL’s worst pass rush last season and brought in Dwight Freeney to improve that. They will have to create more turnovers. But the questions revolve around the team’s offense, which was supposed to be a strength. Ryan should be lobbing touchdowns to Julio Jones and winning division titles. But his decline last year was jarring.
Atlanta have bolstered the offensive line and that should help. And yet you get the sense that the Falcons fortunes rest on their quarterback. If he plays well they may have enough to challenge the Panthers. But if Ryan is anything like last season the Falcons could tumble to the bottom.
How good can Jameis Winston become?
Winston was great in his first NFL season. He threw for more than 4,000 yards and had 22 touchdowns, and the team was so encouraged by his growth the Buccaneers made the offensive coordinator, Dirk Koetter, their head coach. But Winston needs to show he is a leader and less like the troubled and immature player he was at Florida State. So far it seems he is trying.
He came to camp this year in far better shape than last season. He seems to be taking a stronger role in organizing players and improving the offense. The real test will come in games where he needs to be more careful with the ball and to make better decisions. He continues to have two excellent receivers in Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans and if he can get the ball to them with more regularity he can really take off. Doug Martin remains a bruising force who can barrel through lines and make Winston even more effective.
The Bucs also did a great deal to improve their defense last year, and have added former Falcons coach Mike Smith as their defensive coordinator. They seem to believe that top draft pick Vernon Hargreaves can be an excellent cornerback and Noah Spence can really help their pass rush. If Winston continues to develop the Bucs could be a .500 team for the first time since 2010, and possibly leap past Atlanta into second place.
Is there anything left of the once-great Saints?
Drew Brees is now 37. He can still fire passes across the middle as he did in the great Saints seasons a few years ago, but the team around him are not the same. And there is a fear that Brees is going to break down after taking so many hits over the years. But Sean Payton remains one of the game’s great offensive minds and he will undoubtedly find ways to milk points from an intriguing group of new players.
Payton is going to rely on Brandin Cooks and the team’s second-round pick Michael Thomas to be Brees’s top passing targets as well as finding opportunities for the newly-acquired Coby Fleener. Thomas has the moves that can allow him to grow fast in a Payton offense. The offensive line should be stable and at worst, New Orleans will be able to score points.
The biggest problem is not giving those points up. The Saints defense was terrible last season and there aren’t many signs it will get better. They drafted a defensive tackle, Sheldon Rankins, in the first round but he has a fractured fibula and will be out for six to eight weeks. Even with Kenny Vaccaro’s improvement over a dreadful 2014, New Orleans haven’t shown enough overall growth on defense to say they can stop many teams. With a flimsy defense again and not enough weapons on offense this might really be the end of a great decade-long run for the Saints.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/aug/31/nfc-south-season-preview-carolina-panthers
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en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4afa48389ed10a2255c54eac5a2a288d1716f47eae6d6482b27a357d2a8cb589.json
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[] | 2016-08-28T16:52:04 | null | 2016-08-28T14:00:34 |
From the Euros to the Olympics, it’s been a glorious few months of sport. But how much do you know about the names in the headlines?
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flifeandstyle%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fthe-hot-summer-2016-sports-quiz.json
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The hot summer 2016 sports quiz
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www.theguardian.com
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He commented for the BBC.
He competed in the 4x200m bong relay.
He told his millions of followers on Twitter that Nigeria’s rower Chierika Ukogu had won a medal when she hadn’t
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/28/the-hot-summer-2016-sports-quiz
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en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a84f488886c7d788efda2a38e1f4f635e1d898fafaf14f3c2a551c6277f75fe8.json
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[
"Miles Brignall"
] | 2016-08-31T00:50:21 | null | 2016-08-30T23:01:14 |
Better Family Life index finds East of England residents rank highest in Britain for exam results, pay prospects and sunshine
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Hertfordshire is best place to raise a family, says uSwitch
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www.theguardian.com
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New parents should consider selling up and moving to Hertfordshire, according a new study which has just named the county the UK’s best place to raise a family.
Top exam results, good pay prospects and plenty of sunshine, combined with lots of GPs and fast broadband, place Hertfordshire firmly at the top of the uSwitch Better Family Life index, published on Wednesday.
The index, which ranks 138 local authorities on 33 factors it considers important to family life, named Cambridgeshire as the second best county in which to bring up a family.
Central Bedfordshire, which offers better value house prices than the first two, sits in third place, while Warrington, York and Tyneside are the next best places to bring up kids, said the study.
In Hertfordshire, best-known for its commuter towns, 81% of residents aged 16-64 are in work and earning a healthy average gross salary of £33,435.
In contrast, the mainland areas of East and North Ayrshire in Scotland was the UK’s worst region for families. Its higher crime rates, poorer exam results and low average salary – £26,962 – make it harder for parents.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest uSwitch Better Family Life index best and worst performing areas.
Researchers noted that as well as having less sunshine, Ayr locals said they slept less than anywhere else in the UK, getting just six and a half hours sleep a night on average.
uSwitch said families living in the east of England benefited from close proximity to local amenities: it took residents an average of just nine minutes to get to their GP and just under 10 minutes to reach their local primary school – compared with the average of almost 12 minutes.
The east of England was the best performing region in the study, taking more than a quarter of the top 20 spots.
Those living in the region also managed to spend more time with their family, clocking up 4 hours 51 minutes of quality time on an average day. They slept better than many of their regional counterparts, enjoying seven hours on an average night compared with the UK average of 6 hours 48 minutes.
Pre-Brexit vote research shows prosperity hotspots emerging across UK Read more
While Scotland dominated the bottom of the league table, Leicester, home of the Premier League football champions, is named the worst place in England for family life.
Th city had the fourth worst employment rate in the UK and higher council taxes, coupled with the fact it had a low number of nursery schools compared with other areas. Leicester residents also spent the least amount of time with their family and friends, at just 4 hours 15 minutes each day.
There is one primary school per 4,178 people in Leicester, compared with one primary school per 773 people in the Shetland islands, researchers found.
Tashema Jackson, uSwitch.com money expert, said: “The better family life index shows that life is far from equal for families across the UK. Although there is much to celebrate in many areas, it’s not surprising that so many families are thinking about moving to a new region to improve their circumstances. With the new government yet to announce its budgetary priorities, it is vital that positive changes are made to help give all families fair opportunities no matter where they live – whether it is access to a good education, childcare, housing, GPs or jobs. Quality of life should not be a postcode lottery.”
Almost half of parents in the survey said they were considering moving to improve their circumstances. Disposable income, cheaper cost of living and lower bills were the top three factors considered in such decisions. Interestingly, the fourth most important influence was better weather.
More than four in 10 parents (43%) said they believed that better weather would improve their lifestyle.
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/31/hertfordshire-best-place-raise-family-uswitch
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en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f697518c2369083a2128a260d5201c73ac89371b93ae1a993a14be0834a640fc.json
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[
"Virginia Spiers"
] | 2016-08-31T04:50:16 | null | 2016-08-31T04:30:27 |
Country Diary: Kit Hill, Tamar Valley Patches of sunlight enhance emerald regrowth in hay and silage fields, and the luminous glow of stubble and uncut corn
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Bringing the harvest home in Cornwall
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Harvesting of cereals is fast these days, hardly noticed by passersby. Close to home, stubble is glimpsed through gateways off narrow lanes encompassed by rank hedge banks overgrown with honeysuckle. Loaders and trailers race to gather the big round straw bales before rain, and there remain some uncut fields of later, spring-sown, barley.
The rare sight of stooks (cut for thatching) prompt boyhood reminiscences: Jack, my husband, drove the Fordson Major, pulling the binder with his father sitting on the back, and our neighbour, Jeff from Yorkshire, was tasked with catching tossed up sheaves and handing them, butt side out, to the expert rick builder for layering around the central vent.
Master of a traditional craft Read more
This afternoon, up on Kit Hill, a circular walk reveals the panorama of undulating fields and woods between Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor, part obscured by the sun “drawing water”. Cloud shadows wander across the predominantly pastoral landscape, where patches of sunlight enhance emerald regrowth in hay and silage fields, and the luminous glow of stubble and uncut corn.
Up here, clumps of tall grass, coloured like straw, contrast with the pinks and purples of ling and bell heather. Blackberries are ripe, and a motley assortment of cows with calves grazes placidly among the bracken and gorse that mask granite outcrops and quarrying and mining remains.
On the hill’s northern flank, rowans with scarlet berries appear extra vivid before the hazy blues, greens and blonds of lower land extending towards the Tamar and beyond into Devon. A flock of pipits undulates across the hillside; they perch on a wire and dip off and away southwards, towards the sound of traffic and the plaintive mew of buzzards.
Below lies familiar territory of little valleys and fields interspersed with the larger arable enclosures of Dupath, Westcott and Viverdon Down. Shafts of westering sun glint on St Dominic church tower and also draw attention to land near Metherell, where old varieties of apples are now ripening in the orchard of my sister and brother-in-law, alongside fields of maize awaiting harvest in October.
Follow Country diary on Twitter:@gdncountrydiary
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/31/bringing-harvest-home-cornwall-country-diary
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| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
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[
"Gwyn Topham"
] | 2016-08-26T14:54:42 | null | 2012-12-11T00:00:00 |
Virgin boss suggests wager on whether he will be in charge of airline in five years – but Willie Walsh changes the stake
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Richard Branson and BA chief's 'knee in the groin' bet
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Willie Walsh, the boss of British Airways' parent company IAG, has further stoked hostilities with his rival by offering to accept Richard Branson's million-pound bet that he will still be running Virgin Atlantic in five years – but on condition that the stake is "a knee in the groin".
Describing Branson as a "billionaire banker" who has contributed little to aviation, Walsh said: "I don't think a million pounds would hurt him. I don't have a million pounds – so a knee in the groin, maybe – I'm sure that would be just as painful for him as me."
There has been increasing speculation that Branson may soon be taking a back seat in running the Virgin airline after moves from Delta, the US giant, to buy Singapore Airlines' 49% stake. Branson confirmed in October that he was considering joining an airline alliance. Walsh claimed that the commercial logic for Delta would be in taking effective control through an alliance and ending the Virgin brand.
Branson responded by writing on his blog: "This is wishful thinking and totally misguided. Will BA never learn? Let's see how much they believe this. Let them put their money where their mouth is.
"The last time BA had to make a settlement to me for damages (in part for spreading not dissimilar false rumours) I split the money amongst our staff. Rather than suing them on this occasion, I will pay £1m to their staff if Virgin Atlantic disappears within, say, five years. If not, BA pays our staff £1m."
Walsh, speaking in the South Korean capital Seoul, where British Airways is launching a new route, said: "If he wants to say he will be owning it in five years' time in its current form, then that would be an interesting bet to accept.
"I'm pretty sure I've said lots of things about Branson and he hasn't sued me."
Walsh went on to compare the Virgin boss unfavourably to Ryanair's Michael O'Leary: "I don't see that the guy has anything that stands out in terms of what he's achieved in the industry, unlike others.
"O'Leary has been a true pioneer and changed the industry. He's a very abrasive individual but he manages customer expectation like no one else in the world. Everyone has a clear idea before they book a Ryanair flight and I don't think they disappoint.
"But on financial performance, he's achieved things no one else has and he should be recognised for that. He's demonstrated that you can be profitable in this industry even in a downturn and even in a recession."
Walsh meanwhile announced that the first of British Airways' new and quieter Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes would come into service at Heathrow in May next year, along with more Airbus 380s in July. Nine of a total of 24 of the new models on order will arrive in 2013.
He said the new planes would replace old Boeings on existing routes in the very short term but that they would soon allow them to expand to new destinations worldwide, especially in Asia.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/11/richard-branson-virgin-british-aiways-bet
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en
| 2012-12-11T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/58d90a5e6e3d48228fed8b841130cf3dfd3be97f226f35f6b631f23538ad986c.json
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[] | 2016-08-26T13:21:16 | null | 2016-08-23T13:22:18 |
The authoritarian leader of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has criticised the country’s sports officials and athletes after they failed to win any medals at the Rio
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fturkmenistan-leader-olympians-betrayed-motherland.json
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en
| null |
Turkmenistan leader: our medal-less Olympians ‘betrayed the motherland’
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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The authoritarian leader of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has criticised the country’s sports officials and athletes after the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation failed to win any medals at the Rio Olympics.
Speedo drops Ryan Lochte sponsorship and donates $50,000 fee to charity Read more
“It’s disappointing that even with all the facilities provided, you could not justify the trust of the motherland,” Berdymukhamedov told the sports committee chief, Kaakbay Seiidov, in an angry encounter shown on state television.
Turkmenistan, which has a population of around five million, has never won any Olympic medals, but the fitness-loving Berdymukhamedov likes to cast the energy-rich country as a haven for sports enthusiasts and warned Seiidov to “make good on these shortcomings in the near future or face the sack”.
In April, state employees were coerced into performing pre-work, open-air fitness exercises as part of an annual month-long drive to boost healthy lifestyles. Berdymukhamedov is regularly shown on television playing sports and, on occasion, winning horse races.
Turkmenistan was represented in Rio by nine athletes across five disciplines. Turkmenistan’s neighbours Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both enjoyed their best-ever medal hauls at Summer Games, taking 17 and 13 medals respectively.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/23/turkmenistan-leader-olympians-betrayed-motherland
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en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3c43b521d1463a1f07d60d113a569e4ff5730fc5fcdcea7c29e4e51fc6267fa1.json
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|
[
"Mohamed El-Erian"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:09 | null | 2016-07-18T10:06:41 |
Millennials must demand greater say in politics or older generation will continue to excessively borrow from their future
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Fjul%2F18%2Fyoung-people-have-once-again-got-the-short-end-of-the-political-stick.json
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| null |
Young people got short end of the political stick
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Once again, young people have gotten the short end of the political stick. The outcome of the UK’s EU referendum is but another reminder of a yawning generational divide that cuts across political affiliation, income levels and race.
Almost 75% of UK voters aged 18-24 voted to remain in the EU, only to have leave imposed on them by older voters. And this is just one of several ways in which millennials’ economic future, and that of their children, is being determined by others.
I am in my late 50s, and I worry that our generation in the advanced world will be remembered – to our shame and chagrin – as the one that lost the economic plot.
In the run-up to the 2008 global financial crisis, we feasted on leverage, feeling increasingly entitled to use credit to live beyond our means and to assume too much speculative financial risk. We stopped investing in genuine engines of growth, letting our infrastructure decay, our education system lag, and our worker training and retooling programmes erode.
We allowed the budget to be taken hostage by special interests, which has resulted in a fragmentation of the tax system that, no surprise, has imparted yet another unfair anti-growth bias to the economic system. And we witnessed a dramatic worsening in inequality, not just of income and wealth but also of opportunity.
The 2008 crisis should have been our economic wakeup call. It wasn’t. Rather than using the crisis to catalyse change, we essentially rolled over and went back to doing more of the same.
Specifically, we simply exchanged private factories of credit and leverage for public ones. We swapped an over leveraged banking system for experimental liquidity injections by hyperactive monetary authorities. In the process, we overburdened central banks, risking their credibility and political autonomy, as well as future financial stability.
Emerging from the crisis, we shifted private liabilities from banks’ balance sheets to taxpayers, including future ones, yet we failed to fix fully the bailed-out financial sector. We let inequality worsen and stood by as too many young people in Europe languished in joblessness, risking a scary transition from unemployment to unemployability.
In short, we didn’t do nearly enough to reinvigorate the engines of sustainable inclusive growth, thereby also weakening potential output and threatening future economic performance. And we are compounding these serial miscarriages with a grand failure to act on longer term sustainability, particularly when it comes to the planet and social cohesion.
Poor economics has naturally spilled over into messy politics, as growing segments of the population have lost trust in the political establishment, business elites and expert opinion. The resulting political fragmentation, including the rise of fringe and anti-establishment movements, has made it even harder to devise more appropriate economic policy responses.
To add insult to injury, we are now permitting a regulatory backlash against technological innovations that disrupt entrenched and inefficient industries, and that provide people with greater control over their lives and wellbeing. Growing restrictions on companies such as Airbnb and Uber hit the young particularly hard, both as producers and as consumers.
If we do not change course soon, subsequent generations will confront self-reinforcing economic, financial, and political tendencies that burden them with too little growth, too much debt, artificially inflated asset prices and alarming levels of inequality and partisan political polarisation. Fortunately, we are aware of the mounting problem, worried about its consequences and have a good sense of how to bring about the much-needed pivot.
Given the role of technological innovation, much of which is youth-led, even a small reorientation of policies could have a meaningful and rapid impact on the economy. Through a more comprehensive policy approach, we could turn a vicious cycle of economic stagnation, social immobility and market volatility into a virtuous cycle of inclusive growth, genuine financial stability and greater political coherence. What is needed, in particular, is simultaneous progress on pro-growth structural reforms, better demand management, addressing pockets of excessive indebtedness, and improving regional and global policy frameworks.
While highly desirable, such changes will materialise only if greater constructive pressure is placed on politicians. Simply put, few politicians will champion changes that promise longer term benefits but often come with short-term disruptions. And the older voters who back them will resist any meaningful erosion of their entitlements – even turning, when they perceive a threat to their interests, to populist politicians and dangerously simplistic solutions such as Brexit.
Sadly, young people have been overly complacent when it comes to political participation, notably on matters that directly affect their wellbeing and that of their children. Yes, almost three-quarters of young voters backed the remain campaign. But reports said only a third of them turned out. In contrast, the participation rate for those over 65 was more than 80%. Undoubtedly, the absence of young people at the polls left the decision in the hands of older people, whose preferences and motivations differ, even if innocently.
Millennials have impressively gained a greater say in how they communicate, travel, source and disseminate information, pool their resources, interact with businesses, and much else. Now they must seek a greater say in electing their political representatives and in holding them accountable. If they don’t, my generation will – mostly inadvertently – continue to borrow excessively from their future.
• Mohamed El-Erian is chief economic adviser at Allianz and chairman of US President Barack Obama’s Global Development Council.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2016
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/18/young-people-have-once-again-got-the-short-end-of-the-political-stick
|
en
| 2016-07-18T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8ec9c49e4bfb88096d7942c618bfc0f651270c42c4cbe7885cadbee4fb100de2.json
|
|
[
"John Naughton"
] | 2016-08-26T13:26:58 | null | 2016-08-14T06:00:28 |
A cyberpsychologist is worryingly persuasive about the potential damage to children of a life online
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2016%2Faug%2F14%2Fthe-cyber-effect-mary-aiken-review-internet-social-media-psychology.json
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en
| null |
The Cyber Effect by Mary Aiken - review
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Note the doctorate after the author’s name; and the subtitle: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behaviour Changes Online; and the potted bio, informing us that “Dr Mary Aiken is the world’s foremost forensic cyberpsychologist” – all clues indicating that this is a book targeted at the US market, another addition to that sprawling genre of books by folks with professional qualifications using pop science to frighten the hoi polloi.
This is a pity, because The Cyber Effect is really rather good and doesn’t need its prevailing tone of relentless self-promotion to achieve its desired effect, which is to make one think about what digital technology is doing to us. At this stage, there can’t be many people who haven’t, at one time or another, fretted about this question. After all, the technology has invaded every aspect of our lives; it is changing social and private behaviour, having a disproportionate impact on our children and facilitating types of criminal and antisocial behaviour that are repulsive and sometimes terrifying. And it is now also changing democratic politics: the most interesting thing about Donald Trump is how his narcissistic personality has found its perfect expression in Twitter – which is how we come to have an internet troll running for president.
Aiken finds it alarming that parents of babies believe that it’s good for infants to have access to technology
But at the same time our public discourse about technology remains depressingly Manichaean – with enthusiasts (and a formidably powerful global industry) extolling its wonders, while critics focus only on its manifest downsides. But this isn’t a proper debate: we are like two drunks in a bar arguing about whether oxygen is, on balance, a good or a bad thing.
The reality is that digital technology (like most technologies) is both good and bad. And, as with oxygen, it’s not going to go away. So the only rational way forward is to figure out how to live intelligently with it. But in order to do that we need to understand it. The industry and its boosters have done a pretty good job in explaining the advantages. What we lack is an informed understanding of the problems, dangers and pathologies to which it gives rise.
This is the gap that Dr Aiken seeks to fill. As a psychologist, her prime interest is in the scientific understanding of online behaviour. “If I seem to focus on many of the negative aspects of technology,” she writes, “it is in order to bring the debate back to the balanced centre rather than have one driven by utopian idealism or commercialism. My job is just to provide the best wisdom possible, based on what we know about human beings and how their cognitive, behavioural, physiological, social, developmental, affective, and motivational capabilities have been exploited or compromised or changed by the design of these products.”
Why spending more time on the internet is a good thing Read more
Her book has to cover a lot of ground. She begins with fetishes and addiction and leaves one in little doubt that the old boast of the now defunct News of the World (“All human life is here”) is definitely fulfilled by the internet. Aiken’s point is really just that the network provides unprecedented opportunities for personalities that are warped in particular ways to follow their inclinations, harmless or otherwise.
But in a way, we knew much of this. Where Aiken really hits her stride is in three central chapters covering the impact of digital technology on children and young people. Here she makes a powerful case for the view that our society has been criminally negligent in the way it puts children in the harm’s way of digital technology. This is partly about the usual dangers of pornography, paedophilia, cyberbullying etc, but it’s just as much about the casual laxity of parents, and the way in which the technology industry continues to avoid responsibility for the perils that it facilitates and the damage that its products can do.
For example, Aiken finds it alarming (as I do) that parents of babies mistakenly believe that it’s good for infants to have access to the technology from very young ages. As I write, I’m looking at the Fisher-Price iPad Apptivity Seat, which Amazon.com is selling for $57.99. It shows a tiny baby cheerfully reclining under an iPad which is held in an “adjustable removal toy bar” above it. The parent can download free apps for the iPad which have been “created with child development experts”.
Sign up to our Bookmarks newsletter Read more
Or then there’s Facebook’s apparent reluctance to enforce its rule preventing children under the age of 13 from opening an account. Yet it turns out that between 23% and 34% of kids under that age have Facebook accounts. When asked why the company doesn’t enforce its own rules, a spokesman shrugged. “We haven’t got a mechanism for eradicating the problem,” he said. For a company with the technological resources of Facebook, this is simply not a credible response. The real reason must be that keeping underage users out is not a corporate priority.
Other areas covered by Aiken are online dating, cyberchondria and cybercrime, but the real strength of this book is the persuasive case it makes for taking seriously the potential damage to children. This is partly – but only partly – a matter of regulation, which in relation to the internet is always a tricky problem. But it’s mainly a problem of the cognitive dissonance which afflicts us all in relation to digital technology. Most of us love it and value the ways it enhances our lives and augments our capabilities. (What is the web, after all, but a memory prosthesis for humanity?) But, deep down, as we see what digital technology is doing to behaviour, relationships, crime and politics, we’re also aware that it’s becoming increasingly dangerous and problematic – and that it’s our grandchildren who will really reap this whirlwind. If nothing else, The Cyber Effect should enable us to have a more sophisticated conversation about it.
The Cyber Effect is published by John Murray (£20). Click here to buy it for £16.40
|
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/14/the-cyber-effect-mary-aiken-review-internet-social-media-psychology
|
en
| 2016-08-14T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b1fef282d824cfb5caf0b69e4fa9460f004a43d8777d89808f8e332a46d75f3d.json
|
|
[
"Ed Aarons"
] | 2016-08-31T12:53:15 | null | 2016-08-31T09:26:13 |
Everton are close to agreeing a club record deal to sign Yacine Brahimi from Porto and the Algeria forward is expected on Merseyside on Wednesday to complete a medical
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fyacine-brahimi-everton-club-record-deal-porto-forward.json
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en
| null |
Everton close to club record £35m deal for Porto forward Yacine Brahimi
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Everton are close to agreeing a club record deal to sign Yacine Brahimi from Porto, with the Algeria forward expected on Merseyside on Wednesday to complete a medical.
Transfer news: Leicester agree £30m Slimani deal, Brahimi to Everton – live! Read more
Despite signing Yannick Bolasie for an initial £25m from Crystal Palace, Ronald Koeman is still searching for more attacking reinforcements and has targeted Brahimi and the Napoli striker Manolo Gabbiadini.
But while progress in the move for Gabbiadini has so far stalled, negotiations with Porto for the 26-year-old are continuing, with Everton offering a deal that could be worth up to £35m. The Portuguese club are yet to accept that, although it is expected an agreement will be reached and Brahimi will move to Goodison Park.
Born in Paris, he began his career at Rennes before moving to the Spanish side Granada in 2012. Brahimi moved to Porto in 2014 for around £5m, although 80% of that fee was paid by the investment group Doyen Sports.
Capable of playing on either wing or in the No10 role, Brahimi scored seven league goals in both of his two seasons in Portugal. He is currently on international duty with Algeria for their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Lesotho.
Despite reports in Italy on Tuesday that Everton had ended their interest in Gabbiadini, it is understood that a deal could still be reached for the Italy striker. An offer of around £16m was made earlier in the week, while Koeman is also interested in signing Wilfried Bony from Manchester City.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/31/yacine-brahimi-everton-club-record-deal-porto-forward
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/dd77ffd34b85f1374661b717a336e99ae1f7a501b9e04a8e545cd6321a997189.json
|
|
[
"Observer Sport"
] | 2016-08-27T12:51:41 | null | 2016-08-27T12:22:50 |
Accusations of eye gouging by the New Zealand prop Owen Franks soured their 29-9 victory over Australia in the Rugby Championship on Saturday, which also ensured the world champions retained the Bledisloe Cup
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Fmichael-cheika-australia-new-zealand-eye-gouging-owen-franks-referee-romain-poite.json
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en
| null |
Australia’s Cheika hits out at referee as eye-gouging row mars Bledisloe loss
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Accusations of eye gouging by the New Zealand prop Owen Franks soured their 29-9 victory over Australia in the Rugby Championship on Saturday, which also ensured the world champions retained the Bledisloe Cup.
Video footage of Franks appearing to gouge the Wallabies lock Kane Douglas during a maul early in the match in Wellington emerged on social media after the niggly game.
All Blacks retain Bledisloe Cup with comfortable win over Wallabies | match report Read more
“We saw it at the time,” said the Wallabies coach, Michael Cheika. “I’m sure the match review [officer] will pick that up. It was pretty open, it would be pretty hard for the match review guy to miss.”
The incident was one of numerous occasions when both teams pushed the boundaries of the law, with referee Romain Poite struggling at times to control tempers from boiling over.
Cheika vented his anger in Poite’s direction after the match which, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, was down to a meeting that took place between his counterpart Steve Hansen and the French referee in the build-up to the match.
“I was bitterly disappointed to be honest,” said Cheika when asked about the refereeing. “I’m on record with the referees boss Alain Rolland about the treatment to our captain and our players by Romain Poite. There was a time there in the game where in a break in play, when the national captain of Australia was asking the referee when might be an opportunity for me to talk to you and he absolutely ignored him.
“The attitude showed right through when David Pocock was being called off by the other referee for a HIA test, the ref wouldn’t stop the game,” Cheika said. “The players almost went straight through the doctor. I don’t know if it’s subconscious or not but it’s there and it’s got to be dealt with because that can’t be going on. No-one is saying anything bad to him. If they’ve got pre-determined position on our players … it’s pretty blatant to anyone listening to the ref’s ears I would say.”
The Wallabies had been hammered 42-8 last week in Sydney as the All Blacks moved the ball at high pace with near flawless execution and the Australian side had been pilloried by their media and fans for that “Bledi-awful” loss.
On Saturday, Cheika’s side were more confrontational and got into the All Blacks’ collective faces to ensure they did not suffer humiliation for a second successive week, an approach mirrored in the Australian press.
— Courier Mail Sport (@cmail_sport) Sunday Mail Sport cover via @couriermail : @AllBlacks hand final #BledisloeCup insult to @qantaswallabies #NZLvAUS pic.twitter.com/7yPs3LnmF5
The visitors were physical, with the lock Adam Coleman at the centre of many of the scuffles, including several confrontations with Brodie Retallick and the hooker Dane Coles.
“Perhaps we let it get to us a little bit in the first half. There was quite a bit of niggle out there,” the All Blacks captain, Kieran Read, said. “I suppose you expect that in a high pressure game.”
While the scoreline was not as emphatic as last week, it was more than enough to send the Wallabies to a sixth successive loss. The All Blacks have held the Bledisloe Cup, the symbol of trans-Tasman supremacy, since 2003 and only had to draw in Wellington to ensure it stayed locked in New Zealand Rugby’s trophy cabinet for another season. The Wallabies, however, managed to slow the pace of the All Blacks’ game with negative tactics.
The ploy worked to an extent, the All Blacks leading only 15-9 at half-time courtesy of two tries by Israel Dagg and a conversion and penalty from Beauden Barrett. Bernard Foley (two) and Reece Hodge kicked penalties for the visitors.
Coleman did earn the ire of Poite when he received a yellow card for a late charge, though the All Blacks did not take advantage of the extra man. Julian Savea gave the hosts breathing space just after Coleman returned early in the second half when Barrett’s blistering pace exploited space in the Wallabies defence before Sam Cane grabbed New Zealand’s fourth try.
“They [Australia] have copped a fair bit of criticism back home,” Hansen said. “So they were going to come and bring whatever they had to bring and they did that.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/27/michael-cheika-australia-new-zealand-eye-gouging-owen-franks-referee-romain-poite
|
en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b31ee60ef6b2dea914be562e90f71b15446abd4a328fc5a2eea738492baf8c6f.json
|
|
[
"Richard Sprenger",
"John Domokos",
"John Harris",
"Mustafa Khalili"
] | 2016-08-26T13:23:34 | null | 2016-06-22T08:31:16 |
As the big vote approaches and many voices say the EU referendum has whipped up the politics of hate, John Harris and John Domokos go on a five-day road trip from post-industrial Labour towns to rural Tory heartlands
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Fjun%2F22%2Feu-referendum-welcome-to-the-divided-angry-kingdom-video.json
|
en
| null |
EU referendum: welcome to the divided, angry Kingdom - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
As the big vote approaches and many voices say the EU referendum has whipped up the politics of hate, John Harris and John Domokos go on a five-day road trip from post-industrial Labour towns to rural Tory heartlands. In Birmingham, Leave voters cross racial and cultural divides; in Manchester, students uniformly back Remain; while people in the city’s neglected edgelands want out. And one fact burns through: whatever the result, the UK’s grave social problems look set to deepen
EU referendum live: remain and leave make final push in last day of campaign
|
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jun/22/eu-referendum-welcome-to-the-divided-angry-kingdom-video
|
en
| 2016-06-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/053c69cd8125ca81cea33a02ff21edef82269a21580ab3325afbc37982ccd161.json
|
|
[
"Photograph",
"Simon Leigh"
] | 2016-08-28T14:51:56 | null | 2016-08-28T13:28:38 |
Built in 1880, 5 Beekman Street in lower Manhattan stood as an office building for much of its existence and now has opened as a hotel, featuring the most beautiful atrium in New York
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Finside-new-york-beekman-hotel-in-pictures.json
|
en
| null |
Inside New York's beautiful Beekman Hotel - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Built in 1880, 5 Beekman Street in lower Manhattan stood as an office building for much of its existence. The historic building became a landmark in 1998 and recently opened as the Beekman Hotel – featuring a beautiful atrium
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2016/aug/28/inside-new-york-beekman-hotel-in-pictures
|
en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9e3711940f4af0d837fc55ac9851c64368965113294f6044947848d2992321c3.json
|
|
[
"Euan Mctear"
] | 2016-08-26T13:18:37 | null | 2016-08-17T10:29:56 |
In the 12 years since a disappointed Diego Forlán left Manchester United, he has won the Copa América, the Europa League and the Golden Ball award for the best player at the 2010 World Cup – and his globetrotting career hasn’t finished yet
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F17%2Fdiego-forlan-mumbai-manchester-united-uruguay-hope.json
|
en
| null |
Diego Forlán has joined a new club aged 37, giving more hope to late bloomers
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Surely he couldn’t fluff his lines again, could he? Diego Forlán’s career at Manchester United was on the verge of frittering out as he stepped up to take a penalty against Maccabi Haifa in September 2002. He simply could not afford to add another miss to his already substantial collection. United were winning 4-2 and there was only one minute remaining in the Champions League group stage match, but this was big.
Forlán had arrived at Old Trafford that January and, eight months and 27 appearances later, he was yet to score. So when David Beckham was brought down in the box, the long-haired Uruguayan asked his captain for the chance to finally score his first goal for the club.
Anything but a rippling of the net would surely have been the final nail in the coffin for the 23-year-old’s United career. Sir Alex Ferguson – a man not known for his patience – was caught chuckling by the camera as Forlán looked to Beckham for some mercy. So, after placing the ball on the spot, off he went. One step, two step, three step, four step, five … bang! Forlán slotted the penalty to the left side of the goal, while the keeper dived in the opposite direction, and Forlán enjoyed a moment of pure relief.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Diego Forlán celebrates after scoring for Manchester United. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
By that point in his life Forlán was no stranger to pressure. As the son of Pablo Forlán and grandson of Juan Carlos Corazzo, who had both won the Copa América for Uruguay, he had lived in the shadow of success throughout his childhood. Yet Forlán never worried too much about living up to his name and didn’t even plan on joining the family business. Instead, as a youngster he looked likely to become a professional tennis player.
However, a change of path came about in 1991 when a horrific car accident paralysed his sister Alejandra and killed her boyfriend. The family was struggling to afford the treatment but Diego Maradona, a friend of Pablo Forlán, helped them pay for mounting medical bills by playing in a fundraising game. Alejandra, who is involved – with Diego – in running a foundation that warns of the repercussions of dangerous driving, later reflected: “The first thing he told me when I was lying in the hospital bed was that he would become a famous football player and make money to get me the best doctors in the world.”
Forlán began his bid to become a professional footballer at a later age than most other world class players and had some catching up to do. Despite plenty of hard work, rejection from AS Nancy in 1995 – after flying to Europe and spending several months on trial with the French club – showed that his development still had some way to go.
The teenager started afresh across the Río de la Plata border, in Argentina, where he joined up with the Independiente youth team and he refined his craft, eventually earning promotion to the senior team. He made his first-team debut aged 18 – older than most other future world stars – and he performed reasonably well in his four seasons there. By scoring 40 goals in 91 appearances, he attracted interest from some European clubs, including Middlesbrough.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Diego Forlán arrives at Gatwick Airport in 2002, unsure if he is going to Middlesbrough or Manchester. Photograph: Peter J Jordan/PA
With a move to the north-east of England on the cards, Forlán flew back to Europe in the 2002 winter transfer window for another big move audition. Unlike his experience in France seven years before, this trip surpassed all expectations as he ended up signing for one of the giants of world football, Manchester United. Middlesbrough were not able to pay the £6.9m transfer fee in one instalment, so United swooped in and snatched the Independiente player for themselves.
Yet the man nicknamed “El Cachavacha” was out of his depth as he began his United career. His effort and energy could not be faulted, but he charged about like the Tasmanian Devil. Even when he did manage to get shots away, they seemed more likely to land in the car park than pass through the frame of the goal. Eventually, however, Forlán got off the mark against Maccabi Haifa and, spurred on by finally breaking his duck, he scored a late equaliser against Aston Villa and a late winner against Southampton shortly afterwards, before nabbing two goals in a memorable 2-1 win at Anfield in January 2003, capitalising on a Jerzy Dudek howler.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jerzy Dudek drops to ball against Manchester United in December 2002. Photograph: Gary M. Prior/Getty Images Sport
All of a sudden, the Uruguayan’s chest was regularly beamed out to TV sets across the country, with his customary celebration marking some vital Manchester United goals. When he hit that late winner against Southampton, he even struggled to get his shirt back from the fans after some bare-chested celebrating and he comically restarted play half-naked. Fifa’s ban on removing shirts in 2003 owes a lot to the fact that Forlán finally hit a purple patch at Old Trafford.
For neutrals, it was encouraging to see. Plenty of jokes had been made at Forlán’s expense, but fans admired his effort and the way he would chase every ball as if he had a third lung. His manager commended his work ethic during that troubled spell and his never-give-up attitude helped him score some important goals as United won the league in 2002-03. Of course, this was not the happy ending to the Forlán story; it was merely the optimistic note on which Act One ended. His impressive spell was bookended by mediocrity.
The 2003-04 campaign began poorly, with the striker failing to find the back of the net until the 10th league match of the season, in a 3-1 defeat to Fulham. After posting a total of just four goals in the Premier League campaign, plus two in the Champions League and one in the FA Cup, Forlán was let go that summer. With Wayne Rooney arriving to plenty, there was no place for the well-liked but frustratingly inconsistent striker.
There is nothing disgraceful about failing at Manchester United, yet many players have struggled to bounce back from Ferguson’s rejection over the years. Despite being good players – just not Manchester United level players – the likes of Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kléberson, Roy Carroll and Kieran Richardson were all bruised by their Old Trafford experience and struggled after leaving Old Trafford. Yet Forlán, who left Old Trafford aged 25 – around the same age – went on to reach his peak after being moved on.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Diego Forlán celebrates after scoring for Manchester United against Aston Villa in October 2002. Photograph: Getty Images
His next destination was Villarreal, a club as different from Manchester United as it is possible to be while remaining in a top European league. With the city boasting a population of just 50,000 people, Forlán had fewer neighbours in 2004-05 than he had fans watching him in 2003-04. As he had done after his rejection from AS Nancy, Forlán put his head down and went back to work, determined to achieve greatness. If this was a movie of the striker’s life, then this would be the time to insert the inspiring training montage.
Unlike his stuttering start to life in the red of Manchester United, Forlán hit the ground running in yellow, scoring on the opening day derby against Valencia, before scoring in three consecutive matches in October. As Christmas neared he really hit top form and smashed in 14 goals in a 15-game span, including a brace in a 3-0 win over Barcelona.
With just two games of the season remaining, Forlán had scored 20 league goals and was on course to finish in the top three goalscorers of the La Liga season, behind Ricardo Oliveira and Samuel Eto’o. Yet he scored a hat-trick in a 3-3 draw against Barcelona at the Camp Nou, before scoring twice in a 4-1 win over Levante on the final day of the season. In the span of nine months, Forlán had gone from Premier League reject to the holder of the Pichichi Trophy and the joint-winner of the 2005 European Golden Boot – along with Thierry Henry.
He won the Pichichi again in 2008-09, proving that his debut season in Spanish football was no fluke. By that point Forlán was wearing the red and white of Atlético Madrid after relocating to the capital in 2007, following two further stellar seasons for Manuel Pellegrini’s Champions League semi-finalists.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Forlan celebrates after scoring for Atlético Madrid against Fulham in the Europa League final in 2010. Photograph: Fabian Bimmer/EPA
Signed by Los Rojiblancos for £18m in 2007 to replace Fernando Torres, Forlán quickly became a fan favourite at the Vicente Calderón. Many supporters were sceptical about whether he could lead the line as effectively as El Niño, but Forlán was quick to showcase his talents, scoring in his first four Uefa Cup matches and racking up five more in his first nine La Liga appearances. His decent return of 16 league goals that season was capped off with the winner in the 1-0 victory over Deportivo La Coruña in the penultimate weekend of the season that took Atlético into the Champions League for the first time in a decade.
Forlán doubled his La Liga goal tally from 16 to 32 in the following campaign to claim the Pichichi award for the third time and the European Golden Boot outright, while, just for good measure, he scored a last-minute winner against Espanyol in May 2009 to take the club into the Champions League once again.
Atlético struggled in that 2009-10 Champions League and Forlán had a poor start to the season, even sitting on the bench at times. Quique Sánchez Flores came in as manager in October and helped Atlético and Forlán flourish once again in a remarkable second half of the season. He scored a dozen times from New Year onwards to help the club to the final of the Copa del Rey and the Europa League, the latter of which they won.
The Uruguayan was exceptional in that final, turning defenders, raising eyebrows and breaking Fulham hearts. He smacked the post with a shot in the 12th minute, hinting at what was to come 20 minutes later when he blasted the ball into the net to finish off a lightning-quick Harlem Globetrotters-eque counter-attack that passed from José Antonio Reyes to Simão to Sergio Agüero to Forlán. In his early Manchester United days, that ball would have trickled past the post; now the ageing Forlán hit the target with astounding consistency.
Fulham pulled level and pushed the final into extra-time, where Forlán excelled. In the final minute of the first period he went on a jinking run into the box and played a nutmegged pass through Aaron Hugues, only for Agüero to strike wide. Ten minutes into the second period, though, the roles reversed and Agüero played the ball into his colleague, who prodded the winner past Mark Schwarzer before ripping off his shirt for old times’ sake.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Diego Forlán in action for Uruguay at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Photograph: Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images
If you thought lifting a European trophy would be the highlight of Forlán’s summer in 2010, you’d be mistaken. Although already in his 30s, Forlán had yet to truly shine in the light blue of Uruguay, but that was all about to change in South Africa. Having failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup, when he would have been 27 and, theoretically, at the height of his powers, Uruguay and Forlán were just happy to be there.
Following a goalless draw in their opener against France, Forlán scored two goals against the host nation to effectively secure passage to the last-16 stage. His assist for a Luis Suárez goal against South Korea got the knockout stages off to an excellent start and he didn’t look back. Forlán scored a free-kick equaliser in the quarter-final against Ghana (the game made famous for Suárez’s handball) and he also scored a long-range screamer in the semi-final against Holland – although the Dutch would ultimately progress with a 3-2 win.
World Cup 2010: Diego Forlán falls but shows he belongs with greats | Paul Hayward Read more
Uruguay lost 3-2 to Germany in the third place play-off, but Forlán added his fifth goal of the tournament – a beautifully agile volley – to help him claim the Player of the Tournament award, a prize also won by Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo and family friend Diego Maradona. At the age of 31, Forlán’s name was finally mentioned in the same sentence as the term “world-class”.
The following summer brought even more success for Uruguay and their veteran striker, as Forlán followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by bringing the Copa América home to Montevideo. Despite not scoring in the group stage or in the quarter-final and semi-final wins – although he did hit the ferocious long-range effort that produced the rebound from which Suárez tapped home the opener in the semi-final against Peru – Forlán saved his best for last by scoring a brace in the final against Paraguay to complete a 3-0 win and claim a 15th Copa América title for Uruguay. It made Uruguay the most successful team in the tournament’s history at the expense of hosts Argentina. Nothing could be sweeter.
Nothing since has been quite that sweet for the striker. On an international level, Forlán played in and scored in both the 2013 Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup, before announcing his international retirement after Uruguay were defeated by Colombia at the last-16 stage in Brazil. On the club scene, Forlán left Atlético in the summer of 2011, a decision that was more about politics than his form on the pitch.
He was shipped off to Inter, where he was often played out of position and lasted just one season, after which he returned to South America to join Brazilian side Internacional, his father’s former team. His tournament-leading nine goals helped them win the Campeonato Gaúcho and off he went again, this time to Cerezo Osaka in Japan for 18 months of Asian football.
A return to boyhood and hometown club Peñarol followed, where he secured another title at the age of 37. Although that title win was an emotional one for the man from Montevideo, and although he celebrated every goal by sprinting off with the same childlike joy of always, it was becoming clear that Forlán’s glory days were coming to an end. But there will be at least one more chapter for Forlán. He signed a three-month deal with Indian Super League club Mumbai City over the weekend and may end up staying with the club for a year.
When Forlán does announce his retirement from the game, football will have lost one of its greats. He was a naturally skilful striker, but his greatness is largely derived from his attitude and willingness to improve when doubted, all the while maintaining a friendly smile and an easy-going attitude.
Forlán resonates with fans. It is not often that a footballer’s career can provide morals, but there are plenty of lessons to be learned from Forlán. If you’re planning a career change but worry that you’re too far down one path, remember that Uruguay’s second-top appearance holder and second-top goalscorer was planning to be a tennis player. If you’re handed an unexpected promotion too early and find yourself out of your depth, keep at it like Forlán did after 26 Manchester United matches and you might eventually find some success. And, if you feel like you’re climbing the career ladder slower than your peers, keep in mind that Forlán peaked at the age of 31.
Quite simply, if you feel you’re failing in your professional life, remember that Diego Forlán was a late bloomer who achieved a career few of us could dream of through perseverance and hard work. Forlán’s time in football tallies well with an ancient Chinese proverb: be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
• This article is from These Football Times
• Follow These Football Times and Euan McTear on Twitter
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/17/diego-forlan-mumbai-manchester-united-uruguay-hope
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| 2016-08-17T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4f07599c6f9dde3ac30d177f88c6f3748b2a83d763e5969801f5afd0a1e4b7a9.json
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[
"Peter Walker",
"Graham Ruddick",
"Dan Milmo",
"Aditya Chakrabortty",
"Owen Jones"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:51 | null | 2016-08-24T06:28:52 |
Virgin releases CCTV footage they say disputes Labour leader’s claim that no seats were available, but Corbyn camp says he could not sit next to his wife
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Jeremy Corbyn fends off Branson attack over 'ram-packed' Virgin train
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www.theguardian.com
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Jeremy Corbyn was drawn into an extraordinary row with Virgin Trains after the rail operator disputed the Labour leader’s filmed account of having to sit on the floor of a “ram-packed” train, releasing CCTV images of him walking past free seats beforehand and sitting down shortly after the film was shot.
Backed up by Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, the train operator said it had to “take issue with the idea that Mr Corbyn wasn’t able to be seated on the service, as this clearly wasn’t the case” on a crowded train that the Labour leader had taken from London to Newcastle on 11 August.
But the Labour leader stood by his description of the train journey, saying while there had been some available seats he had not been able to sit with his wife, Laura Alvarez, and that he was only able to sit later because train staff had upgraded another family to first class to create space.
Virgin Trains took the unusual step just more than a week after Corbyn was filmed sitting on the train floor after he could not find a seat on the morning train. In the video he laments the lack of available seats, saying: “This is a problem that many passengers face every day; commuters and long-distance travellers. Today this train is completely ram-packed.”
One of the images released by Virgin Trains, which shows a time code of 11.10am – 10 minutes after the service had departed from London – showed Corbyn walking past seemingly unoccupied seats which did not have slips attached to them indicating they were reserved. Virgin Trains also released another CCTV still, from 11.43am, about 15 minutes after the video was shot. This showed Corbyn and his travelling companions returning to the same carriage to sit down.
A Corbyn source said a handful of seats had been available, but not two together, and the Labour leader wanted to sit with his wife. As a result he, his wife and team were among a series of other passengers forced to sit or stand in the corridor.
The source added that when Virgin staff spotted Corbyn sitting in a vestibule they offered him a complimentary upgrade to first class, which he refused.
CCTV footage shows Jeremy Corbyn on the Virgin Trains London-to-Newcastle service. Photograph: Virgin Trains
He added: “Seats became available after a family were upgraded to first class, and Jeremy and the team he was travelling with were offered the seats by a very helpful member of staff.”
Corbyn’s spokesman sought to tie the row to the Labour leader’s wider transport policies. “Passengers across Britain will have been in similar situations on overcrowded, expensive trains,” he said.
“That is why our policy to bring the trains back into public ownership, as part of a plan to rebuild and transform Britain, is so popular with passengers and rail workers.”
Branson also tweeted to his 8.2 million followers a third image of Corbyn walking through a crowded carriage, timed at 11.11am, where the seats were clearly marked with reservation tickets. The Virgin entrepreneur wrote: “Mr Corbyn & team walked past empty-unreserved seats then filmed claim train was ‘ram-packed’”.
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) Mr Corbyn & team walked past empty unreserved seats then filmed claim train was ‘ram-packed’ https://t.co/R5hawIpQek pic.twitter.com/22t8EkjW5l
Yannis Mendez, who filmed the original video – he has been following Corbyn and volunteers for his leadership campaign against Owen Smith – added that some of the seemingly empty seats shown in the first Virgin Trains image had bags and coats on them, so were not free.
The Corbyn team’s account was supported by a woman who said she sat on the floor next to the Labour leader, having sent a social media photo of herself and her daughter with him.
Ellen – who asked to not be named in full– told the Guardian that Corbyn had seemingly gone through the entire standard-class section of the train but had not been able to find a seat. The 26-year-old, who was with her one-year-old daughter and son, aged six, said she had similarly been unable to find seats.
“He’s not lying,” she said. “When I saw him he was in coach A, right at the front. He hadn’t managed to find a seat in the whole of the train. I was sat on the floor, there was no space for me to get a seat. There were people in every space between every carriage. It was totally overcrowded. They were full of bags and full of people.”
Another woman, Keren Harrison, tweeted a photo of herself with Corbyn on the train, saying there was only a seat for him about 45 minutes into the three-hour trip “when staff started shuffling people around”. This process appeared to involve Virgin staff directing other passengers sitting in corridors to reserved seats which had not been occupied.
A spokesperson for Virgin Trains said: “We know that some of our services on our east and west coast franchises are extremely popular, and it can be hard to find a seat.” It usually happened in particular circumstances, the operator added, for example when there’s a big sporting event, or on the first off-peak train out of London.
“Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about cup finals or fares regulation, which could spread demand much more effectively if it was less of a blunt instrument,” the spokesperson said, arguing they would be “delighted to work with ministers if they were interested in reviewing the fares structure for long distance services, with the aim of reducing the overcrowding that can occur”.
At a rally in east London on Tuesday night night, Sam Tarry, the Labour leader’s campaign director, told the crowds that Branson had released the letter because he was upset about Corbyn’s plans to renationalise the railways. “Some of you might have seen on social media today there’s been a little bit of a spat,” he said. “Richard Branson has decided he’s very upset about our not particularly radical plans to renationalise our railways, so he’s having a little pop at us.
“I’d just say that’s very, very indicative – the establishment is absolutely petrified about what this campaign is about, what this movement is about.”
Smith, who is challenging Corbyn for the Labour leadership, was quick to poke fun at the situation, tweeting: “My campaign remains on track. Proud to be genuinely standing up for ordinary people.”
— Owen Smith (@OwenSmith_MP) My campaign remains on track. Proud to be genuinely standing up for ordinary people.
Smith will try to regain the initiative in the leadership contest today with a pledge to block Brexit in parliament.
The Pontypridd MP will say a Labour party led by him would vote against the triggering of article 50 – the formal process for Brexit – until the Conservatives agreed to put the final negotiated departure to the people, either through a referendum or at a general election.
The track record: how the journey unfolded
11.10am Jeremy Corbyn and his wife, Laura Alvarez, board the train. Virgin Trains CCTV shows seemingly unoccupied seats without reservation slips. A source close to the Labour leader said there were not enough free seats for Corbyn to sit with his wife.
11.11am A second CCTV image, with a time stamp of 11.11am, tweeted by Virgin’s owner, Richard Branson, shows Corbyn clearly walking past empty seats. However, these all seem to have slips indicating that they are reserved.
11.30am A few minutes later, Yannis Mendez, a freelance filmmaker accompanying Corbyn, films him sitting on the floor. He says the ‘ram-packed’ train’s lack of seats emphasises the need for the railways to be returned to public ownership.
11.43am Corbyn takes a seat in coach H after staff directed passengers to use booked seats that had not been taken. A Corbyn source said the leader’s seats were provided after Virgin staff upgraded a family to first class to make space for him and Alvarez.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/23/jeremy-corbyn-virgin-trains-disputes-claim-over-lack-of-seats
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| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f6fb0fa52f15018f449fe2253a20fcd2c6d604b520435e6cc682a757f9700a26.json
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[
"Rowena Mason"
] | 2016-08-31T06:50:30 | null | 2016-08-31T06:01:29 |
From Brexit-lite in the EEA to full Brexit with tariffs, the UK will have two years to negotiate once article 50 is triggered
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After article 50: the EU trade and movement deals the UK could seek
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Britain will have two years to negotiate its preferred relationship with the EU after triggering article 50, the formal mechanism for leaving. Civil servants and ministers are currently working on the basis of three broad scenarios for Brexit with differing levels of access to the single market and acceptance of free movement.
1. Brexit-lite (Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein model)
Anna Soubry: Norway-style trade would be worst deal for small business Read more
Many pro-EU campaigners are hoping the UK may be able to get away with staying part of the European Economic Area. This would mean the UK still had access to the single market, with no tariffs on most goods (except much of agriculture and fisheries). Essentially, it would pay into the EU for this privilege and abide by many EU trade laws, but without participation in Brussels.
However, the catch is that the EU would almost certainly demand a continuation of free movement, which is unacceptable to many of those who campaigned and voted for Brexit. It is the model thought to be favoured by the Treasury, which is concerned about the economic impact of leaving the single market, but not contemplated by a number of other ministers who believe it is not tenable to maintain current border arrangements with the EU.
2. Customised Brexit (Switzerland, Turkey or Canada models)
This appears to be the scenario most favoured by Downing Street, as Theresa May has said she wants a bespoke relationship with the EU for the UK, rather than the inflexibility of an off-the-shelf relationship. While some EU countries have cautioned the UK it cannot expect an “a la carte” approach of picking and choosing what it wants from Brussels, others – such as Germany – have sounded more open to creating a special new relationship. In this situation, divorce from the EU would probably be relatively amicable and require a negotiated free trade agreement.
For example, Canada’s deal with the EU, which took years to agree, offers tariff-free access for most goods, but not a number of agricultural products and not on car exports for seven years. Withdrawing from the official single market would allow Britain to end the current free movement arrangements for EU citizens. However, those rights would probably end up becoming a key plank of trade negotiations, with issues such as EU citizens’ access to benefits, healthcare and the right to move to the UK for work all up for discussion.
3. Full Brexit (Russia or Brazil model)
What Russia thinks of Brexit – and how it could gain from a fractured Europe Read more
If the UK falls out with the EU, it may end up defaulting to trade relations on World Trade Organisation terms. This would only happen in the event of a messy parting in which the two sides cannot agree terms or an extension of negotiations within two years of triggering article 50.
The UK would have the flexibility to impose tariffs on the EU and the EU would be able to do so back to the UK, which could raise prices of consumer goods. Britain would also be able to comprehensively end free movement of EU citizens, and would have to make decisions about the terms of their right to remain in the UK.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/31/after-article-50-the-eu-trade-and-movement-deals-the-uk-could-seek
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| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/2ce0bc6c0fe7a3516b50ec2ffc285dd67651c87db7378b03dab8c2d8c38dcd73.json
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[
"Steven Morris"
] | 2016-08-30T14:50:12 | null | 2016-08-30T14:23:08 |
Twenty-year-old will serve at least 11 years for fatally stabbing Shamus McNama during an argument at their family home
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Jazzie Watson jailed for life for killing younger brother
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A 20-year-old man who stabbed his younger half-brother to death during an argument over how the teenager was speaking to their mother has been jailed for life.
Jazzie Watson knifed 17-year-old student Shamus McNama 10 times in the face, leg, chest and back at the family home in Bristol. Watson, who admitted murder, was told he would serve at least 11 years and three months in prison before he could be considered for parole.
Bristol crown court heard Watson took exception to the way Shamus spoke to their mother, Paula McNama, when she told him off for taking her car.
Adam Vaitilingam QC, prosecuting, described how the pair argued in an upstairs bedroom of the family home in Lockleaze, Bristol, in the early hours of 28 February. They exchanged punches and held each other in headlocks before they were pulled apart by their mother and a friend. The fight resumed downstairs and Shamus was fatally stabbed with a small potato knife.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shamus Mcnama. Photograph: Avon and Somerset police/PA
The teenager died in Southmead hospital, Bristol. A postmortem examination found he had suffered 10 wounds.
Shamus, who was studying bricklaying at college, was due to become a father this summer with his partner Donna-Marie Hudson.
Watson, who fled the house after the attack, walked into a police station later that morning and gave himself up.
Richard Smith QC, defending, said there was an “utterly disproportionate explosion in temper” by Watson after the “red mist” descended.
Smith said: “He was incensed at the manner in which his half-brother was talking to their mother … He has to deal with the consequences of what happened for the rest of his life. It was a spontaneous outpouring in a moment that he bitterly regretted instantaneously.
“His mother finds herself in a dreadful situation and she understands what he is going through. She remains supportive of him. He simply cannot bring himself to see her.”
Jailing Watson, Judge Neil Ford QC, the recorder of Bristol, said: “It is plain that what you did was to act in an extremely violent way with a knife in an explosion of temper.
“In the circumstances where life is lost the impact is always enormous. You have taken the life of your half-brother, who you loved. You have deprived your mother of a son and your siblings of a brother. You have also added to your own mother’s grief by ruining your own life. The anguish which you have caused is immeasurable.”
The investigating officer, DS Leon Swaby, said: “Shamus’ tragic death demonstrates the devastating impact knives can have. In the wrong hands knives can be extremely dangerous weapons which have very real and in this case catastrophic consequences.
“Jazzie Watson made a fatal decision when he armed himself with a knife that morning and he will have to live with the fact he killed his brother for the rest of his life.
“Not only has a family had to mourn the death of Shamus, a much-loved son, but they now also have to suffer the loss of another for a very significant time. I hope the sentence today sends out a very clear signal that any crime involving a knife could result in a lengthy prison sentence.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/30/jazzie-watson-jailed-life-killing-younger-brother-shamus-mcnama
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| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/819e57500adcfe1276d4fdee1e8dd00941424902ecd5416e5437527b0f2ca35b.json
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[
"Source"
] | 2016-08-26T13:20:04 | null | 2016-08-26T12:07:39 |
Rescue and recovery efforts enter a third day in regions hit by Wednesday’s deadly 6.2 magnitude earthquake
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Frescue-efforts-continue-aftershocks-central-italy-earthquake-video-report.json
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Rescue efforts continue as aftershocks hit central Italy - video report
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Rescue and recovery efforts enter a third day in regions hit by Wednesday’s deadly 6.2 magnitude earthquake. Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi has vowed to rebuild the devastated towns, as residents return to ruined homes and rubble
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/aug/26/rescue-efforts-continue-aftershocks-central-italy-earthquake-video-report
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| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e79557d699da594cb984a7b266a9929469862774053531283d3493bb4e673e10.json
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[
"Amanda Holpuch"
] | 2016-08-30T20:52:30 | null | 2016-08-30T14:40:07 |
The former New York City mayor claimed his policies, which included stop-and-frisk, reduced violent crime after the singer’s racially charged VMAs performance
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Frudy-giuliani-beyonce-black-lives-vmas.json
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Rudy Giuliani: I've 'saved more black lives' than Beyoncé
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Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said on Monday that he had “saved more black lives” than Beyoncé, following the singer’s heralded MTV Music Video Awards performance, which made allusions to racial injustice.
At the awards show in New York on Sunday, Beyoncé performed a medley of songs from her recent “visual album” Lemonade, which was released with an accompanying film. The 15-minute performance began with her dancers falling as though shot by guns after they were hit by a red light, a reference to police killings of black people, and she was later joined onstage by a black man wearing a hoodie, a seeming reference to the clothing teenager Trayvon Martin wore when he was killed. She also brought the mothers of four unarmed black men who were killed in the US to the awards show.
Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001, told Fox News on Monday that the singer’s performance was “a shame”.
“I saved more black lives than any of those people you saw onstage,” he said, “by reducing crime – and particularly homicide – by 75%, of which maybe four or five thousand were African American young people who are alive today because of the policies I put in effect that weren’t in effect for 35 years.”
Beyoncé’s performance should have also symbolized why police officers are dispatched to “those neighborhoods”, the former Republican presidential hopeful said.
“Neither of them have saved any lives, although only Giuliani has the hubris to claim that he has,” Jeffrey Fagan, director of the Center for Crime, Community and Law at Columbia Law School, said. “His claim is dubious at best, without basis in fact.”
There was a 56% drop in the violent crime rate during Giuliani’s tenure, which mirrored a nationwide trend in falling crime rates at the time. Giuliani also instituted a controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which a federal judge said in 2013 violated individuals’ constitutional rights and was “racially discriminatory”.
“Crime was going down everywhere at the same time; perhaps he wants to take credit for saving lives in San Diego, Houston and many other large US cities,” Fagan said.
Giuliani, who made a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, was hailed as a hero in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, but in recent years has become known for his inflammatory comments.
Last month, he suggested Muslims on the government’s watch list should be forced to wear GPS wristbands. In 2015, Democratic leaders condemned him for saying Barack Obama did not love America. Over the summer, Giuliani called Black Lives Matter “inherently racist”.
Giuliani, who endorsed Donald Trump earlier this year, has criticized Beyoncé before. After her February half-time performance at the Super Bowl, which featured dancers dressed like Black Panthers, Giuliani said Beyoncé had used the show “as a platform to attack police officers”.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/30/rudy-giuliani-beyonce-black-lives-vmas
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4558eff9a90eb4ec0687f8c7c8cae6d297beea7f62da2e9bd8e42b8cac26bf5e.json
|
|
[
"Jamie Jackson"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:41 | null | 2016-08-25T14:12:46 |
Manchester City have confirmed the signing of Claudio Bravo from Barcelona for a fee of £13.75m, a move that signals the end of Joe Hart’s career at the club.
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fmanchester-city-confirm-signing-of-claudio-bravo-from-barcelona.json
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en
| null |
Manchester City confirm signing of Claudio Bravo for £13.75m
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Manchester City have confirmed the signing of Claudio Bravo from Barcelona for a fee of £13.75m, a move that signals the end of Joe Hart’s career at the club.
Claudio Bravo: The reluctant goalkeeper who became Pep Guardiola’s No1 man Read more
Bravo completed his long-mooted switch to City on Thursday afternoon, with the transfer occurring after Barça signed Jasper Cillessen from Ajax as the Chilean’s replacement. Bravo shared goalkeeping duties at Camp Nou with Marc-André ter Stegen, having joined from Real Sociedad two years ago. The 33-year-old was the No1 in La Liga while Ter Stegen started in the Champions League.
Bravo is certain to be Pep Guardiola’s No1 at City, making Hart effectively the club’s third choice goalkeeper behind Bravo and Willy Caballero, who has started ahead of the 29-year-old in City’s opening two Premier League matches this season. That is a situation that is not expected to last beyond the close of the transfer window next week, with it widely expected that Hart will leave City, whom he joined a decade ago, in order to maintain his status as England’s No1 goalkeeper. Hart all but said his farewell to City’s supporters during Wednesday’s 1-0 victory over Steaua Bucharest at the Etihad Stadium.
Hart has been linked with a loan move to Everton. However, Ronald Koeman, the Merseyside club’s manager, ruled that out on Thursday, insisting “there’s no interest” in the player.
Bravo, who won two league titles and a Champions League-winners medal at Barcelona, flew into Manchester on Tuesday to complete a medical and is Guardiola’s final acquisition of the summer, with the Catalan’s former club in line to make a further £2.5m in add-ons from the deal based on Champions League success and other factors.
Bravo, who has signed a four-year contract with the 2014 Premier League champions, could make his debut in Sunday’s Premier League match against West Ham United.
“I’m very proud to be joining Manchester City,” he said. “I know the club is building something very special and I hope I can be part of many successes in the coming years. I have followed City’s progress in recent years and know some of my new team-mates from the Copa América.
“It is not easy to leave a club like Barcelona where I had two fantastic years, but the opportunity to work with Pep Guardiola was too good to refuse. Now I will challenge the other great goalkeepers the club has and together I hope we can win many trophies.”
Pep Guardiola shows ruthlessness over Joe Hart but he is not a bad judge | Daniel Taylor Read more
Guardiola said: “Claudio is a fantastic goalkeeper and an excellent addition to our squad. He has experience and great leadership qualities and is in the prime of his life. He is a goalkeeper I have admired for a number of years and I’m really happy he is now a City player.”
Hart is facing career limbo, with his dropping as City’s first-choice keeper based on Guardiola’s belief that he is not accomplished enough with his feet. It had been reported that a loan move to Everton broke down after City refused to subsidise any of Hart’s £135,000-a-week wage, however Koeman was adamant on Thursday that he has never been interested in bringing the player to Goodison Park. “No...no,” said the Dutchman when asked if it had ever thought about signing Hart, before going to add: ““Like everyone we’re trying to improve, to make the squad stronger that we have at the moment. But I’m not that manager who speaks a lot about rumours, about players. Everyone will see at the end of the transfer window what the final squad at Everton is.”
At City Hart has claimed two Premier League titles, the FA Cup and two Capital One Cups, though he did not play in the finals of the latter.
Cillessen, meanwhile, has joined Barcelona from Ajax for a fee of £11m plus a further £1.7m in add-ons. The 27-year-old has signed a five-year contract that includes a buyout clause of £51.3m. He will be announced at the Camp Nou on Friday.
Cillessen tweeted an image of himself in Barcelona’s kit alongside the caption “dreams do come true” after completing the move. He has 30 caps for Holland and make his debut in 2013. He started every game at the 2014 World Cup.
Cillessen will be battling Ter Stegen to be Barcelona’s first-choice goalkeeper. Tim Krul is expected to leave Newcastle for Ajax on a season-long loan to replace Cillessen.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/25/manchester-city-confirm-signing-of-claudio-bravo-from-barcelona
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a61f99aa493bc50e470240466ac1138d1d829244df260e8a09cfbdbb5b2eab91.json
|
|
[
"Michael White",
"Sadiq Khan",
"Rutger Bregman"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:25 | null | 2016-08-24T17:16:03 |
Young activists feel party leader is invigorating country’s youth in same way as 2014 independence vote
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fjeremy-corbyn-offers-labour-a-chance-to-rebuild-support-in-scotland.json
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en
| null |
Jeremy Corbyn 'can help Labour rebuild in Scotland'
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Jeremy Corbyn offers a gateway back to Labour for younger Scots, according to youth activists who compare the movement around his leadership to the unprecedented political engagement prompted by the independence referendum of 2014.
Speaking before Corbyn’s first visit to Scotland since the Brexit vote, during which he will take part in hustings with leadership challenger Owen Smith in Glasgow on Thursday as well as rallying supporters in Edinburgh, young activists argue that growing numbers of those in their teens and 20s who supported pro-independence parties in the previous Westminster and Holyrood elections are being drawn back to Scottish Labour through Corbyn.
Rhea Wolfson, who will become the youngest and only Scottish member of the NEC when her election is confirmed at next month’s party conference, told the Guardian: “Younger people who support the SNP and Greens are now going to Corbyn rallies. My frustration is that they see him as a figure of the left rather than of Labour, and we need to change that. He is an essential gateway to rebuilding Labour in Scotland as younger people come back to the party.”
Wolfson, a trade union organiser and member of Scottish Labour Young Socialists (SLYS), believes that the route to supporting Corbyn has been different for young people north and south of the border, where a significant proportion of the 12,000 strong membership of Momentum, the activist movement that propelled Corbyn to power last summer, is made up of under-30s.
Scottish Labour admits that its membership has not seen a comparable increase to those in England and Wales since Corbyn’s election as UK leader, which has also had no lasting impact on the party’s standing in the polls. Indeed, last May Scottish Labour endured its worst election result in more than a century, beaten into third place in the Holyrood elections behind the Scottish Conservatives.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National party secured a third successive victory in the Holyrood elections in May. Photograph: Robert Perry/EPA
Wolfson said: “In England, young people were politicised by the student fees protests and this was the first campaign to bring them into mainstream party politics.
“That didn’t happen in Scotland, where we didn’t have the fees movement [university tuition is free], but the involvement came through the independence campaign. So people in their 20s in both countries have had a different political awakening.”
For Jenny Killin, a 24-year-old student sabbatical officer at Aberdeen University, the grassroots yes campaign of 2014 and the movement that has grown around Corbyn’s leadership have a lot in common.
“They both presented an opportunity for young people who were not previously engaged with politics to see themselves as active participants,” says the former yes voter, who joined Scottish Labour several months after the pro-independence movement failed to secure a majority in the referendum of September 2014.
Killin said she didn’t join the Scottish National party in the membership surge that immediately followed its referendum defeat “because for me independence wasn’t about national identity but about the opportunity that it presented”. While both the independence cause and the SNP have now become “synonymous with leftwing politics in Scotland” according to Killen, she said the party’s position of taxation, for example, didn’t align with her more socialist values.
“There’s still a mistrust of the Labour party in Scotland but people are genuinely invigorated by what Corbyn has done,” she added.
It’s a shift in perception of the SNP also noted by Ewan Gibbs, 26, another SLYS activist who estimates that around half of younger people now joining Scottish Labour voted for independence in 2014.
“There is disillusionment with SNP, for example, not raising taxes on the wealthy, and young people’s own experiences of the labour market are not tallying with the SNP’s economic vision,” Gibbs said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Support for independence in 2014 was consistently higher among younger voters. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
He believes that many younger Labour supporters are keen to move away from the constitutional question. “Those people who voted yes for reasons that were not largely nationalist are now looking at the Corbyn movement as a more effective way of achieving those objectives,” he said.
Zara Kitson, 30, Scottish Greens activist who was heavily involved in the pro-independence movement, agrees that there are similarities between the broader yes campaign and grassroots support for Corbyn amongst younger voters. “There are definitely parallels, in that young people who felt disillusioned were offered a properly leftwing politics that seemed to better reflect their vision.”
But echoing Wolfson’s concerns, Kitson said most young voters regarded Corbyn as “at one remove from Scottish Labour”.
She said: “Young people in Scotland don’t think Jeremy Corbyn in the answer to an independent, outward-looking, internationalist Scotland, and they are also very aware that the Scottish Labour leadership does not support him.”
While Corbyn has the backing of the majority of constituency Labour parties in Scotland, this is not reflected in the upper echelons of the party. Earlier this week, Kezia Dugdale pledged her support for Owen Smith, saying: “I don’t think Jeremy can unite our party and lead us into government.” Scottish Labour’s only Westminster MP Ian Murray resigned from Corbyn’s cabinet immediately after June’s Brexit vote.
With support for independence among younger voters consistently higher than in other age groups, and with around 21% – or just over 25,000, SNP members under the age of 30, Kitson is sceptical about the idea of a Corbyn drain from pro-independence parties to Scottish Labour.
“I don’t think that the two are interacting in that way,” she said. “Young people are very supportive of Jeremy Corbyn in terms of the opportunity he presents to change UK politics, but those who are supporters of the independence movement don’t see themselves are a part of UK politics. We still have another route to progressive politics in Scotland.”
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/24/jeremy-corbyn-offers-labour-a-chance-to-rebuild-support-in-scotland
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9ce5f1966c24688a5ab5b0ccf92db59323c0dc1591d14d77ce01ba3650d5a339.json
|
|
[
"Mark Wohlwender",
"Photograph",
"Eduardo Munoz Reuters",
"Stephanie Keith Getty Images",
"Kris Connor Getty Images"
] | 2016-08-29T10:52:04 | null | 2016-08-29T10:00:03 |
Taking its name from the 2003 film by the same name, Afropunk is a free outdoor festival in Brooklyn, which has grown from 100 visitors to about 60,000
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fculture%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fnew-yorks-afropunk-music-festival-2016-in-pictures.json
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en
| null |
New York's Afropunk music festival 2016 - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Matthew Morgan, founder of the Afropunk festival, grew up feeling culturally isolated in a mostly white environment. Taking its name from the 2003 film by the same name, Afropunk is a free outdoor festival in Brooklyn. Now the black punk festival has grown from 100 visitors to about 60,000, including performances by George Clinton, Laura Mvula and Tyler, the Creator
|
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2016/aug/29/new-yorks-afropunk-music-festival-2016-in-pictures
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9a5e3574aed260303aa0ec18fd7e477a087b533a011f1fc55c2d205ec9cefd35.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-31T00:50:20 | null | 2016-08-31T00:32:34 |
Application made under victims’ right to review after previous investigation closed; Richard has denied any wrongdoing
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fdecision-not-to-prosecute-sir-cliff-richard-in-abuse-investigation-under-review.json
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en
| null |
Decision not to prosecute Sir Cliff Richard in abuse investigation under review
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The decision not to press charges in the abuse investigation against Sir Cliff Richard is being reviewed.
The singer was the subject of a long-running South Yorkshire police investigation which centred on sexual assault accusations dating between 1958-1983 made by four men.
Officers investigating allegations of historical sex offences were filmed searching his apartment in Berkshire in 2014, leading to him being publicly named as the subject of the probe.
The 75-year-old was never arrested or charged and his case was discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in June on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Richard denies any wrongdoing.
But at the beginning of August an application under the victims’ right to review scheme was lodged by an accuser – challenging the decision by the CPS not to pursue a case against Richard.
The process allows an alleged victim, within three months of the original decision, to call for it to be reviewed. It is understood a lawyer will look at the evidence before deciding to uphold or overturn the original decision made by the CPS.
A spokesman for the CPS confirmed they have received an application under the victims’ right to review scheme over the decision made in relation to Richard. He added: “It is ongoing.”
After the investigation was closed in June, Sir Cliff said he was thrilled.
“I have always maintained my innocence, co-operated fully with the investigation, and cannot understand why it has taken so long to get to this point,” he said.
“Nevertheless, I am obviously thrilled that the vile accusations and the resulting investigation have finally been brought to a close.”
The career of the singer, actor and TV star has spanned 57 years. Richard’s greatest hits include chart-toppers such as The Young Ones, Living Doll, Summer Holiday, We Don’t Talk Anymore and 1988 Christmas number one Mistletoe And Wine.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/31/decision-not-to-prosecute-sir-cliff-richard-in-abuse-investigation-under-review
|
en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/577ca7719cb171efc763909cb8ab8bb440518818b8cbd42f305667fa91433908.json
|
|
[
"Sean Farrell"
] | 2016-08-29T12:50:02 | null | 2016-08-29T12:29:30 |
Decision on the Bradwell reactor could be stalled to allow a discussion about its effect on British security, potentially endangering the deal with China
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fuk-government-could-approve-hinkley-point-delay-essex-project-bradwell-china.json
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en
| null |
UK government could approve Hinkley Point but delay Essex project
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The government is considering a proposal to detach development of the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant from an agreement allowing China to build a reactor in Essex.
The proposal is one of the options under consideration after Theresa May delayed approving the £18bn Hinkley Point project last month, according to a report in the Times (£).
The prime minister is concerned about China’s involvement with the project to build Britain’s first nuclear power plant for a generation in Somerset and a further agreement for China to build reactors in Bradwell, Essex, and Sizewell, Suffolk.
The government enlisted China last September to fund a third of Hinkley Point in a deal meant to ease financial pressure on EDF, the French builder of the plant, and forge closer links with China.
But May, who raised objections to the deal when she was home secretary, called a surprise review soon after becoming prime minister.
An option under consideration in Whitehall is to approve Hinkley Point but delay a decision on the Bradwell reactor to allow a discussion about its effect on British security, the Times said.
Any attempt to split Hinkley Point from the agreement to let China build reactors in Britain would endanger the whole deal because the Bradwell plant was meant to be a showcase for China’s nuclear technology in Europe.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chinese artist Wu Xiaoli with a model of prime minister Theresa May for the G20 summit. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images
Tension over Hinkley Point means May risks an awkward first G20 meeting of world leaders as prime minister. The meeting, on 4 and 5 September, takes place in the Chinese City of Hangzhou and will be hosted by Xi Jinping, China’s president, who signed the Hinkley Point agreement last year.
EDF, the French state-owned energy group, approved the building of Hinkley Point in July after months of doubts about whether it was financially strong enough to take on the giant project.
On Sunday, Vincent de Rivaz, EDF’s UK chief executive, called on the UK to set aside concerns about Chinese involvement in the project.
“We know and trust our Chinese partners.” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. De Rivaz said there were “enormous benefits for the UK” from the involvement of China, which has the largest civil nuclear programme in the world.
China has made clear its frustration over May’s decision to delay a decision on Hinkley Point. The Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, wrote that relations with Britain were at a “crucial historical juncture”.
May then wrote to Xi and China’s premier, Li Keqiang, promising closer business and trade ties between Britain and the world’s second-biggest economy.
May’s chief of staff, Nick Timothy, last year raised concerns that Chinese state-owned companies were investing in sensitive infrastructure.
Timothy wrote on the ConservativeHome website: “Rational concerns about national security are being swept to one side because of the desperate desire for Chinese trade and investment.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/29/uk-government-could-approve-hinkley-point-delay-essex-project-bradwell-china
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en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/beaa9215d479f40b1c45c68a44c564baae84b50ca74acfa400c5ee79eb674dac.json
|
|
[
"Tim Radford"
] | 2016-08-27T10:58:55 | null | 2016-04-12T16:00:16 |
Project to aim for sending a featherweight robotic spacecraft to the nearest star at one-fifth of the speed of light
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2016%2Fapr%2F12%2Fstephen-hawking-and-yuri-milner-launch-100m-star-voyage.json
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en
| null |
Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner launch $100m star voyage
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
How the star travel concept will work
In an unprecedented boost for interstellar travel, the Silicon Valley philanthropist Yuri Milner and the world’s most famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking have announced $100m (£70m) for research into a 20-year voyage to the nearest stars, at one fifth of the speed of light.
Breakthrough Starshot – the third Breakthrough initiative in the past four years – will test the knowhow and technologies necessary to send a featherweight robot spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri star system, at a distance of 4.37 light years: that is, 40,000,000,000,000 kilometres or 25 trillion miles.
A 100 billion-watt laser-powered light beam would accelerate a “nanocraft” – something weighing little more than a sheet of paper and driven by a sail not much bigger than a child’s kite, fashioned from fabric only a few hundred atoms in thickness – to the three nearest stars at 60,000km a second.
Milner, a Russian-born billionaire investor who began as a physicist, was one of the founders of the Breakthrough prizes, the biggest in science, announced in 2012 and awarded for fundamental research in physics, life sciences and mathematics. Last year, he and Professor Stephen Hawking of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge announced another $100m Breakthrough Listen initiative to step up the search for extraterrestrial life beyond the solar system. The project has just released its first data from stars within 16 light years of Earth. The entrepreneur describes science as his “hobby.”
Today’s announcement comes on the 55th anniversary of the first orbit of the planet by the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Milner, who was born in Moscow in 1961, was named after the cosmonaut.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking: reaching for the stars. Photograph: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Breakthrough In
“The human story is one of great leaps,” he said. “Today we are preparing for the next great leap – to the stars.” And Professor Hawking said: “Earth is a wonderful place, but it might not last forever. Sooner or later we must look to the stars. Breakthrough Starshot is a very exciting first step on that journey.”
Near-lightspeed flight by a spacecraft would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. The gamble is that it could be possible within 15 years, with accelerating advances in microelectronics, nanotechnology and laser engineering. The research programme will be led by Pete Worden, until last year the head of the Nasa Ames research centre. Milner, Hawking and the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, already a partner in the fundamental science initiative, comprise the board, which will advised by a committee of distinguished engineers and scientists. This committee has already identified 20 formidable challenges to be overcome before any possible takeoff for the stars.
The project’s begetters argue that they have Moore’s Law working for them: the memory and processing power available on a computer chip doubles every 18 months or so. New advances in nanoscience mean that fabrics with unique properties can be made to order. And advances in laser technology mean that huge power can be generated at relatively low costs.
At the heart of the project will be the starchip and lightsail. The great hurdle in all space missions is the cost of launch and the weight of fuel. The headlong miniaturisation of microelectronics means that it might be possible to pack the entire control system, the sensors, camera, navigation equipment, photon thrusters, transmitter and power supply onto a tiny silicon wafer, and mount it on an ultra-thin sail weighing only grams, that would respond to the pressure of light.
“We hope to have good answers to the key challenges in about 10 years. At that time we hope to have assembled a coalition of high net-worth individuals to fund the full-scale project and begin work on what will likely be a 10 year or more construction effort,” Worden told the Guardian. “The key challenge is that the final interstellar system is affordable – by that we mean its final cost is comparable to other large scientific endeavours such as the Cern accelerator.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest See what was announced at the press conference
He added: “We would welcome participation by governments, national and international organisations and space agencies. Indeed, we have already discussed our plans with several space agencies around the world.”
Researchers worked out more than 50 years ago that sunlight could power a space mission, and by 1989 had calculated that solar radiation alone could slowly accelerate a spaceship with vast lightweight sails – and no fuel to carry – to 100kms a second: faster than any spacecraft so far. Even at that matchless speed a journey to the nearest star would take thousands of years.
But falling costs and increasing processing power mean that spacecraft could become ever smaller and lighter: they could be launched by the thousand from a mothership and then driven by the proposed Light Beamer, a billion-watt laser array, mounted somewhere high and dry such as the Atacama desert in Chile.
This could multiply the radiation pressure, and accelerate the space sailors to a significant fraction of light speed. This would reduce such a journey to the timescale of one human generation: some of the scientists caught up in the beginning of the project could expect to see results within a working lifetime.
“We take inspiration from Vostok, Voyager and the other great missions,” said Worden. “It’s time to open the era of interstellar flight but we need to keep our feet on the ground to achieve this.”
The research funded by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative will be entirely in the public domain. Nobody pretends that any of it will be easy. Avi Loeb, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, who heads the advisory board, said that to power the spacecraft, researchers have to work out how to link lasers into one massive array. Since the range of focus of a big laser on a small target would be no more than a million kilometers, the fragile spacecraft must reach terminal speed in just two minutes, and survive an acceleration of 60,000 times the force of gravity.
The night sky. Photograph: Babek Tafreshi/SSPL via Getty Images
He believes that starship could record images and data as it nears the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, the nearest to Earth. The big challenge would be to transmit the information across a distance of more than four light years to a receiving station on a planet already far away and long ago. The laser array – the Light Beamer – would double as a telescope system to receive the signal back from the receding nanocraft.
“Just imagine reversing the direction of time,” he said. “Instead of an electromagnetic wave coming out of the system, it can receive a wave.”
Speaking at the project’s launch on Tuesday, Hawking said transcending our limits was what made humans unique. “Gravity pins us to the ground but I just flew to America. I lost my voice but I can still speak thanks to my voice synthesiser. How do we transcend these limits? With our minds and our machines.
“The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars. But now we can transcend it, with light beams, light sails, and the lightest spacecraft ever built we can launch a mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation. Today we commit to this next great leap into the cosmos, because we are human and our nature is to fly.”
Freeman Dyson, the American physicist and writer, said that in the quest to find life elsewhere, humans should focus not just on planets, but on asteroids, comets and even the dust clouds that hang in interstellar space. “All kinds of small places are much better for life, and the huge advantage is that it’s easier to get off one object and move to another,” he said. “You can hop into space, fly over to your neighbour’s, have a cup of tea, and come back again, which is hard to do when you are on a planet.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/apr/12/stephen-hawking-and-yuri-milner-launch-100m-star-voyage
|
en
| 2016-04-12T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/991cd77d700b932515cd5f0842adc905967e1322392a6c1e599091079c25bde5.json
|
|
[
"Guardian Readers",
"Sarah Marsh"
] | 2016-08-26T13:22:31 | null | 2016-08-23T15:10:30 |
Since the EU referendum, a growing number of Britons are investigating a move to New Zealand. Here, people talk about life in the land of the long white cloud
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fcome-with-an-open-mind-what-life-is-really-like-in-new-zealand.json
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en
| null |
'Come with an open mind': what life is really like in New Zealand
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
What’s been the fallout from the EU referendum so far? One unexpected consequence is a rise in interest in moving to the land of the long white cloud. The New Zealand immigration website – a guide to living and working in the country – recorded a huge spike in queries from British nationals. So much so that the New Zealand Herald playfully declared it a “British invasion”.
But what should Brits expect if they relocate? And why is the country so appealing? We asked those already there to tell us.
Ann, 52, from Auckland: ‘I love the idea of Brits moving here – they have a great sense of humour’
What do I think of British people moving over? It’s a great idea – they have a great sense of humour. The only advice I have is come with loads of money, because New Zealand is really expensive. The one word I would use to describe New Zealand is easy – everything is so straightforward here. It’s also stunningly beautiful, with great schools, great healthcare, good weather and great food. The negatives are our prime minister and his conservative government. Housing is also ridiculously expensive in Auckland. We have dreadful traffic and an expensive (and pretty hopeless) public transport system.
More spacious without the Brexit: why Britons are flocking to New Zealand Read more
Robin, 40, from Wellington: ‘Flights and beer are expensive’
I welcome Brits – the more the merrier, I say. New Zealand is a wonderful place, but it does need more people here (from the UK or anywhere else). Be prepared for things to cost a fair bit more than the UK, especially travel and beer.
The “short hop” to Australia is nearly a four-hour flight, too, and there isn’t the choice of going via Easyjet or Ryanair to keep the cost down. Beer in the city (I live in Wellington) is NZ$10 a glass (£5.50), which is often annoyingly called a pint yet is more likely to be 350-425ml. Similarly, at the local nationwide chain supermarket nearby I recently paid NZ$28/kg (£16/kg) for green beans and NZ$6.50 (£3.60) for a cucumber.
The weather, house prices, salaries and traffic vary massively up and down New Zealand, so your experience will depend on where you choose to live.
The picture I’ve shared above is one of Mount Ruapehu, which you’ll see when flying between Wellington and Auckland. It makes me smile and certainly beats driving up and down the M1.
Graeme Horne, 36, from Auckland: ‘People here get up early and leave work early’
It’s great for Brits to come over here, as it will be pretty easy for them to feel immediately at home. For the locals, the society is not perfect. Poverty and hungry kids are a problem. The rate of immigration is causing some trouble – such as crazy house prices and pressure on jobs and services – and it’s not inconceivable that immigrants will be blamed, as they have been in the UK.
Make sure you understand what the job market is like before you move. Even Auckland – the biggest city – is relatively small, and the jobs that are in demand here are quite different from back home. There simply aren’t a large number of well-paid office jobs, because the local market is so small and the country is very focused on the export of commodities rather than the local consumer.
If you want to enjoy nature, sports, or simply a slower pace of life than the UK, then this is definitely the place for you.
People here get up early, go to work around 8am, and leave work early compared to the UK. This makes it a really good place to have a more family-focused life as they tend to be heading home from work at 4-5pm.
The worst thing by far is of course the isolation from friends and family. New Zealand really is as far away as you can possibly get! I’ve heard of people starting a family and having to move back home because they needed to be closer to their support network.
Bob George, from Maungautoroto: ‘Consider New Zealand if you want to add adventure to your life’
I am British. I moved to New Zealand in 2008; I rather wish I had moved here earlier. People are welcoming, both at the national level and on a personal level – you go into a shop and people chat.
If you are thinking of moving to New Zealand, do it for positive reasons – forget what bugs you about Britain. Consider New Zealand if you want to add adventure to your life, if you get thrilled by stunning vistas, like an outdoor life, enjoy people and activities and want to develop as a person.
New Zealand, like Britain, has a very mixed culture: I run a tennis group and get people from 20 different countries coming along (Auckland has a bigger mix of nationalities than most UK cities). Maori represent about 10% of the population and have impressive spiritual and social values.
The worst parts of living here include the poor infrastructure. Earthquakes and volcanoes might be a challenge too. It’s also very cut off – there are advantages in being 2,000km from the next nearest countries, but also a sense of isolation from the world.
Andy, from Auckland: ‘House prices have spiralled out of control’
I moved to New Zealand from the UK almost 20 years ago. In that time I’ve seen house prices spiral out of reach for almost anyone but cash-rich investors. If you are serious about putting down roots here you will need to come to terms with house prices in the urban centres of around NZ$1m (£555,600). If you have children, a house in a desirable catchment area will set you back a fair bit more.
There are undoubtedly benefits to relocating, however. For example, the weather is generally much more reliable in summer. Auckland in particular is an ethnically diverse and exciting city with many beautiful parks and beaches, which are never packed in the way an English beach such as Bournemouth is.
There is crime here, and terrible congestion at times. The health service is also under the same strain as the NHS, although it is still largely free at point of use. As a tip for anyone thinking to make the move, remember that if someone says “bring a plate” on an invitation, be sure to put some food on it too. I got caught out by that one a couple of times early on.
Steve, 68, from Puhoi: ‘Respect the local environment’
I’m not keen on New Zealand becoming overpopulated. I know that may sound very nimbyish but the fragile environment can only take so much. I worry about people coming here with little regard for how they might damage the surrounding area, so if you do come please find out about our original ecosystems and how some are in danger of total extinction. Learn to love what is unique to the country.
Hayley Ray, 27, from Auckland: ‘I was shocked at the culture difference’
As a Brit working and living in New Zealand, I think it’s amazing news that more British people are deciding to move here. New Zealand is still growing and developing. It’s a fantastic opportunity for people who want to contribute to the growth of this wonderful country. You won’t regret making the move.
Raglan, a small seaside town 50km west of Hamilton, is so stunning when summer kicks in. However, I have fallen in love with Auckland. There is so much to do and see. Every suburb has its own unique personality, which makes Auckland a fantastic city to live in.
When I first moved to New Zealand I was shocked at the culture difference. However, when you look for it the country has much to offer. Sure, you may not have the same music scene and high-street fashion shops, or the same access to watching the Olympics without having to pay for Sky. But you have amazing companies that manufacture goods by hand. In Britain this is becoming very rare.
Mick, 32, from Wellington: ‘Leave bigotry behind’
Our country is populated by immigrants, so naturally they are most welcome here. My father’s family immigrated here in the 1970s from Scotland, and they never looked back. When he’s travelled overseas since he’s told anyone who will listen to follow suit. Immigrants fit right in here, and there are many different ethnic community centres, newspapers and other assorted organisations.
New Zealanders are prepared for all seasons. The further south you go, the colder it gets. In Auckland you can expect humidity and the occasional tornado; in Dunedin there are very cold winters, including snow. Everywhere has beautiful summers, though, and as the local saying goes: “You can’t beat Wellington on a good day.”
Leave bigotry behind. Displays of racism, sexism, misogyny or any other forms of abuse are met swiftly with social justice, and even prosecution. We are a progressive nation: we have had openly gay and transsexual MPs, prostitution is legal here, and we legalised gay marriage long ago.
We are a nation that proudly welcomes refugees, and often protests occur to increase the number we annually allow. Many different religions and ethnicities are represented by peaceful communities, and any harassment of them is quickly met with prosecution by an unforgiving justice system.
Kim, 56, from Wellington: ‘Be prepared to slow down and say hi in the street’
Aotearoa, the north part of New Zealand, is full of migrants. A few more won’t hurt. It’s not where you come from; it’s how you live that counts. This isn’t Britain, which has a lot of advantages – concentrate on these.
People should come with an open mind to bi- and multi-cultural living. They should be prepared to slow down, smile, watch Division 4 football in the Australian A-League, say hi to people on the street, and learn enough te reo Maori to be comfortable in Maori settings.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/23/come-with-an-open-mind-what-life-is-really-like-in-new-zealand
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en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e8f4f16eb564172503133233d2bda00007cc33ae4684e8ad03a30de129c658c4.json
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[
"Roy Greenslade"
] | 2016-08-29T12:50:08 | null | 2016-08-29T11:45:36 |
As the final tranche of BHS stores is closed, the former owner’s latest offer to ‘sort’ the pension deficit gets short shrift from the national press
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmedia%2Fgreenslade%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fphilip-green-suffers-another-round-of-newspaper-excoriation.json
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Philip Green suffers another round of newspaper excoriation
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www.theguardian.com
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The coincidence of the closure of the last 22 BHS stores with the revelation that Sir Philip Green has come up with a ploy to stymie an investigation by the pensions regulator was greeted with another round of negative newspaper headlines and editorials.
It is doubtful that he bothered to read them while cruising the Mediterranean on his “£100m superyacht”, but the mainstream media message could not be clearer. Green is the hate figure of the moment.
I don’t think too many people will share the view of Forbes commentator Tim Worstall that it amounts to a witch hunt. National newspaper editors obviously disagree with him.
The Daily Mail’s front page on Monday, “Sir Shifty bids to ‘blackmail watchdog’”, was echoed in other papers: “After 88 years, doors close on high st icon destroyed by one man’s greed” (Daily Mirror); “Green is ‘evil’ and an ‘asset stripper’, claims MP” (The Independent); “Green in the firing line” (i).
The Sun ran a picture of a sobbing BHS employee overprinted with the headline “Now give back the Green stuff... and the knighthood, too”.
The Daily Express carried pictures of demonstrators outside a BHS store calling on Green to sell his luxury yachts in order to live up to his pledge to MPs to “sort” the pensions deficit.
The Times reported that Green “is trying to end the threat of legal action against him... by writing a cheque for more than £300m that would help to plug a hole in the company’s pension fund.”
But the shortfall totalled £571m, which is now thought to have reached £700m because of lower interest rates that have resulted from changes in monetary policy by the Bank of England.
Several editorials reiterated their dislike for Green’s conduct. The Sun wondered if there was any limit to “smug tycoon” Green’s “arrogance” and accused him of trying to wriggle out of an investigation. It said:
“Green is trying to keep his wife – who controls the family fortune – out of the firing line. But the probe by the regulator must reach its conclusion, if only to deter future attempts at asset stripping successful companies... Sir Philip has lost the respect of his peers in business, he’s lost most of his celebrity pals, and – if he continues to fight against paying the debt he owes – he should lose his knighthood.”
The Mirror agreed. The BHS closures are “not the closure of this scandal”, it said:
“Huge debts are still to be settled with a shop full of unsavoury characters - from shifty tycoon Philip Green and his tax haven-based wife Tina to three-time bankrupt Dominic Chappell, accused of short-changing loyal staff, company pensioners and suppliers. None of them must be allowed to walk away from deals which expose how capitalism shouldn’t work.”
And the Mail was similarly exercised by Green’s offer to pay £300m “but only if the watchdog drops its probe into his business practices”. The paper said:
“Does he think Britain is a banana republic, where justice is negotiable and money can buy immunity from investigation for possible wrong-doing? If so, he must be made to think again. Indeed, it is vital that the regulator continues its scrutiny of Sir Shifty’s dealings, which could have worrying implications for members of other pension schemes in his retail empire, nominally owned by his tax-exile wife.”
Could Green have saved himself from this ignominy? According to a fascinating story in the Financial Times at the weekend, he might have done so.
It revealed that former business journalist Jeff Randall was approached months ago by Frank Field, the Labour MP who chairs the work and pensions select committee, to broker a deal with Green.
Randall, the former Sunday Times business editor, Daily Telegraph editor-at-large, BBC business editor and presenter of an eponymous Sky News show, is a friend of Green’s.
The FT article stated that the talks “fizzled out at the end of May, when it became clear that the distance between two sides was only growing wider.”
It reported that Randall - who received no payment and had no formal advisory role - “spoke to both men several times and was confident at first that he could get them to agree.” The article continued:
“At one point he suggested to Sir Philip that he deposit a large sum in an escrow account, which could be added to or reduced following a final deal. But people briefed on the discussions said it soon became apparent that the gap between the two men was widening.”
Randall was quoted as saying, with typical self-deprecating humour: “I tried to help but I failed. My future career as an honest broker is clearly limited.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/aug/29/philip-green-suffers-another-round-of-newspaper-excoriation
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en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/2bf4023877160fed3eb370ba663794f51f89c33bcd069fe98582032f87706405.json
|
|
[
"Andrew Sparrow",
"Claire Phipps",
"Rowena Mason",
"Jessica Elgot",
"Kim Willsher",
"Kate Connolly",
"John Crace",
"Polly Toynbee",
"Ayesha Hazarika",
"Mark Wallace"
] | 2016-08-29T06:51:54 | null | 2016-07-20T17:58:03 |
All the day’s politics news as Theresa May heads to Berlin after facing her first PMQs
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2Flive%2F2016%2Fjul%2F20%2Fgermany-uk-brexit-theresa-may-angela-merkel-politics-live.json
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en
| null |
Theresa May arrives in Berlin for Brexit talks with Merkel - as it happened
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2016/jul/20/germany-uk-brexit-theresa-may-angela-merkel-politics-live
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en
| 2016-07-20T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/91d0fff8ffe571f54042885d2dadd383e78dc3124a83bc76bda1df01411a6a14.json
|
|
[
"Henry Mcdonald"
] | 2016-08-29T18:50:13 | null | 2016-08-29T17:45:13 |
Ex-IRA inmates Richard O’Rawe and Gerard Hodgins visit Cuffs restaurant at former prison
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fbelfast-ex-ira-richard-orawe-gerard-hodgins-cuffs-restaurant-crumlin-road-jail.json
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No porridge on offer at former Crumlin Road jail in Belfast
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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When the ex-IRA prisoners Gerard Hodgins and Richard O’Rawe last passed through the gates of Belfast’s Crumlin Road jail their city was in a state of war and their one thought on entering the Victorian prison was to escape.
They entered a regime of beatings at the hands of some prison staff, cockroach-infested cells, frequent clashes with their Ulster loyalist enemies and having to “slop out” in the morning if they went to the toilet during the nightly lock-up.
Deal could have ended IRA hunger strike, says former press officer Read more
Decades later, with the peace process entrenched and the prison now a tourist attraction, Hodgins, a former hunger striker, and O’Rawe, the IRA prisoners’ press officer during the 1981 death fast, have returned to Crumlin Road to sample the gourmet food on offer in the jail’s newly opened restaurant, Cuffs.
As they tucked into chicken liver pâté and smoked salmon starters in what was once the main kitchen for feeding the prison, Hodgins and O’Rawe both used the same word to sum up their journey back to the jail: surreal.
“It’s the first time I’ve been back here and to be truthful I hoped I’d never be back … at least if it was still a real jail,” O’Rawe said as he sipped a glass of Chilean red at a table beside a cell door.
Crumlin Road jail casts a long shadow over O’Rawe’s family. His father and his uncle Albert were both incarcerated there in the 1940s for IRA activities. His uncle was sentenced to be flogged 12 times with a cat-o’-nine-tails at the age of 17.
“I remember my father telling me that after Albert was flogged he asked him how hard the screws [prison officers] had beaten him,” he said. “Albert called back from cell, ‘Sure my dad has given me worse beatings.’ I arrived here in 1974 during the early Troubles and so I kept up the family tradition of resistance and republican struggle, and ended up here in the Crum as well.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hodgins and O’Rawe outside Cuffs. Photograph: Paul McErlane for the Guardian
Hodgins, who like O’Rawe was a friend and prison comrade of Bobby Sands, the first IRA hunger striker to die in the 1981 fast, said he had a flashback to the first time he walked through the gates of Crumlin Road in 1976. “When I first went through, that gateway was bristling with barbed wire and aggressive screws calling you a ‘Fenian bastard’, slapping you about – stuff you took for normal back in the 70s and even the 90s,” he said. “But coming through there again for the first time today it was totally different, it was the same architecture but it’s brightened up a bit and you get a pleasant welcome at the door.”
The Cuffs menu is a far cry from what used to come out of the prison kitchen. “They always gave us fish on Fridays, probably because they thought we were all good Catholic boys and had to abstain from meat on that day. Actually the fish they served up was huge and I always looked forward to it,” said O’Rawe. “In fact the food in general in this jail was far better than the cold slop they often gave you in the H-Blocks [Maze prison], which sometimes would be adulterated – especially during the blanket [and] dirty protest when we refused to wear prison clothes and smeared our cells with our excrement in our campaign for political status. But in fairness the food was far better in here inside the Crum.”
The tea was not good, said Hodgins. “You got it in big urns and it really was rotten,” he said.
Melanie McFadyean on the legacy of the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland Read more
O’Rawe said: “Maybe because of the bromide they put in the tea – that was to stop sexual urges, Gerard! They did that during Victorian times and I don’t think their mentality about controlling prisoners had changed even by the 70s.”
As both men recalled, food could also be the trigger for clashes between IRA inmates and their loyalist rivals.
“Political status for all prisoners was withdrawn in March 1976 and afterwards there was an uneasy truce in the jail until July of that year, the 12th of July [Orangemen’s Day] to be precise,” Hodgins said. “We were in the canteen and the loyalists were watching a news programme that included a local musician, Bobbie Hanvey, playing an Orange song for the 12th of July and a loyalist got up and did this swaggering show-off John Wayne-style walk. For a laugh an IRA comrade of mine hit him on the head with a bun and that was the spark which kicked off trouble with the loyalists, with everybody lifting chairs, smashing them over each other. A bun fight became a real fight.”
Even the music that greeted Hodgins and O’Rawe as they ordered pre-lunch drinks – including Irish whiskey (the jail will soon be home to a new Belfast distillery of its own) – seemed weirdly appropriate. It was the Eagles’ song Hotel California, the last verse of which contains the lines: “You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave”
O’Rawe and Hodgson, however, were eventually able to leave and gave the thumbs up for Cuffs’ new “prison food”, which will cater for the thousands of visitors, including some other former inmates of the jail, on “terror tours” around Belfast.
• Cuffs Bar & Grill opens seven days a week and takes bookings from 12pm to 10pm
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/29/belfast-ex-ira-richard-orawe-gerard-hodgins-cuffs-restaurant-crumlin-road-jail
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en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/58af1c68fa8dada57f0c497ec4b4014acf7a22aac5c353db6a49a3010887ccb6.json
|
|
[
"Tim Hill",
"Luis Miguel Echegaray"
] | 2016-08-26T13:15:18 | null | 2016-08-26T09:00:15 |
Plus: Rocky Mountain Cup rivals; top plays bottom; Kreis looking for revenge against NYC FC; all aboard the Toronto train
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fblog%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fmls-weekend-preview-new-england-revolution.json
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MLS weekend preview: what's gone wrong with the Revolution?
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www.theguardian.com
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On Wednesday night, New England played a joyless 0-0 game against San Jose Earthquakes at Avaya Stadium in California. It was their third consecutive match without scoring a goal and without a victory. In fact, this summer has been a disaster for the Revs, with only two league victories to their name since the beginning of July. Whilst the US Open Cup remains a saving grace (They face FC Dallas on 13 September in the final) it would also be fair to say that the cup has been a major headache for their league campaign. After 26 matches, the Revs are in eighth place and two points behind DC United who currently occupy the last playoff spot, so it’s not mission impossible just yet.
New England have the worst defensive record in the entire league, having conceded 46 goals so far this season. A big reason for this has been due to the fact that their head coach, Jay Heaps, has a limited number of natural center backs at his disposal. Andrew Farrell has struggled in 2016, to the point where Heaps has been flip-flopping him between center-back and right-back. Jose Goncalves is currently dealing with a hamstring injury and did not play against San Jose. And Portuguese loanee, Sambinha has been somewhat of a disappointment.
Offensively, Kei Kamara has had an awkward start. Since joining the team from Crew in May, the striker has only managed four goals in 1339 minutes. “I want to bring my experience onto this team, but at the same time, I have to adapt to the team’s play,” said Kamara last weekend. “And, you know, [also] what the team is doing, so I don’t feel pressure on myself.”
A loss to New York this weekend – a team who is only six points behind top spot in the East – just might change that. LME
Rocky Mountain Cup rivals face off in Friday night’s big game
An intriguing game on Friday night at Rio Tinto Stadium, where third in the West play second. Colorado’s push for the Supporters’ Shield has stalled somewhat with an iffy run of form, and Real Salt Lake have proven to be frustratingly inconsistent in recent weeks: a good win seems to be followed by a disappointing loss. Something’s got to give in Utah, especially since RSL remain unbeaten at home this season.
The Rapids still have two games in hand on first-placed Dallas, but with 10 games to go their weakness in front of goal is beginning to look like a worry. They’ve only won two of their last eight, and a team total 27 goals in 24 games is hardly the stuff of MLS Cup champions. Shkëlzen Gashi and Kevin Doyle lead the standings with four goals apiece, but they’ve got to try to find some production from elsewhere, particularly with Jermaine Jones missing with a knee injury. Could Sebastien Le Toux prove to be the late-season acquisition they need?
“You obviously want to win the games,” said Doyle after his team’s 0-0 draw with Orlando last week. “It’s hard to be disappointed, because we’re obviously getting points and not losing. No one is getting away from us at the top of the table. You want to win them, but you don’t want to get overly disappointed. You don’t want to get too greedy.”
RSL head coach Jeff Cassar admitted he was expecting a tight affair, particularly with two top goalkeepers, Nick Rimando and Tim Howard, between the sticks. “Goals are going to come at a premium this game,” he predicted. The Rapids have conceded a league-low 20 goals this year – the first goal on Friday could be crucial.
A side note: RSL this week broke ground on their giant state-of-the-art training complex in Herriman, Utah, and owner Dell Loy Hansen wasn’t playing it down. “I call it the Harvard of soccer and education,” Hansen said. “We literally will have no academy finer in the nation or in Canada than what we’re building here.” TH
Top plays bottom as FC Dallas visit Houston Dynamo
To Texas, where we’re seeing one of the more interesting trends in Major League Soccer. When FC Dallas, the team leading the standings in the West, don’t score, they lose. In a peculiar twist, the Texans have lost seven MLS games this season, all away from home, and they’ve failed to score in each of them. (The only time they’ve not lost when they haven’t scored was a 0-0 draw against San Jose in May.) So the equation for Oscar Pareja is simple: score a goal, and you’ll be fine. But, interestingly, his team haven’t beaten Houston this season: that crazy 5-0 thumping in March was followed by a 1-1 home draw in June.
Pareja’s team had a moderate result in midweek, a surprise 1-1 draw against Nicaragua’s Real Esteli in the Concacaf Champions League. In a breathless start, Atiba Harris levelled moments after Elvis Figueroa had opened the scoring for the hosts. But Dallas are still odds on to advance to the quarter-finals, in a competition Pareja described as “great experience” for his players. “It’s a different scenario, different people, different culture, different feel and all those things will make us grow,” the coach said. He wants to win it, but do Dallas have the know-how to challenge on both fronts?
Wade Barrett, by contrast, saw his team draw 1-1 on Wednesday in very different circumstances. His team, bottom of the Western Conference with a paltry 25 points, looked set to end Seattle’s three-match winning run after Andrew Wenger opened the scoring in the 75th minute, but Nicolas Lodeiro equalized for the visitors four minutes into stoppage time, and Barrett, who endured a tricky couple of months since taking over from Owen Coyle, admitted he was “hurt” by the late concession.
“Can’t take away any of the disappointment. Every single person is hurt. I am,” Barrett said. “I’ll be asking questions about what we could have done differently. Maybe what I could have done differently in-game. But it comes down to one play. You have to make another play.”
But he said his team won’t be feeling sorry for themselves at the weekend. “I told the guys in the locker room, ‘It’s on us to decide what team shows up on Saturday,’” Barrett said. “And maybe it’s a foregone conclusion that we won’t make the playoffs but if that’s the case, I know which way I want the season to go. I want us to fight and scrap for every single point, for every single minute.” TH
Jason Kreis faces his old employers
When Kreis was fired from New York City FC last November, he wanted the glass to be half-full. “From a positive perspective, I never would have been able to spend six months in Manchester, England, with my family,” he said in April to CBS. “I never would have had the opportunity to coach Villa, Lampard and Pirlo if I hadn’t taken the risk to leave Salt Lake.”
But the fact remained: being fired was something he couldn’t shake off, especially after such a short stint. “From the other perspective, it wasn’t positive. I got fired. Now I’ve been out of the game for some period of time and I don’t know for how long — it might be forever. The risk that I took to come here and build something that I thought would be a long-term venture turned out to be an extremely short-term venture. Myself and my family have had to pay the price for that.”
Now, as manager of Orlando, this fixture is an opportunity for vindication, not to mention the fact that Kreis needs three points after going four matches without a victory. The hosts are just below the playoff line in seventh, trailing DC United by a point.
For Patrick Vieira, this is all about reclaiming top spot in the East and making it five games unbeaten. It will be a tough ordeal as the Frenchman does not know exactly what to expect from Orlando and their new man in charge.
He shouldn’t fret too much - both men actually share similar philosophies and you can expect some high pressure with a focus on possession and domination in midfield. The bigger factor will be how both defensive units deal with David Villa (16 goals) and Cyle Larin (13 goals.) New York will probably feel more confident seeing as their stout backline proved too much for Los Angeles last weekend.
One thing is also certain, the crowd loves it when these baby franchises meet as the attendance averages more than 50,000 when they play in Orlando. Add the star power of Kaka, Pirlo, Villa and Lampard and you’ve got the makings of a great encounter. LME
All aboard the Toronto train as they face Montreal in the Canadian derby
With eight games remaining in the regular season, Toronto FC head into this weekend top of the Eastern Conference after beating Orlando City on Wednesday evening, thanks to a late Jozy Altidore goal.
It’s been quite a run for the Canadians as that victory made it seven consecutive matches without a loss, and even more impressive when you consider the fact that the summer is normally the time when Toronto show signs of inconsistency. Last season, in the months of July and August, Greg Vanney’s squad won four, lost four and drew twice. Fast forward to the present and Toronto have only lost once during the same months and if they win this weekend, they will make it seven wins from the last eight.
Vanney, however, doesn’t want to get carried away with the stats. “My message to the team was not to relax now,” said the head coach after Wednesday’s victory. “There’s more teams that we need to look ahead of us. We want to continue to climb and get better every game and improve on things that we need to improve upon and not to relax now because we think we’ve accomplished something because we still haven’t accomplished anything. There’s still a lot of work to do.”
Montreal, who tied with DC United on the same day, will not be an easy game as they themselves are looking to push up the table. Impact are currently fifth with a game in hand and nine points behind the leaders. All to play for on Saturday night at BMO Field. LME
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/aug/26/mls-weekend-preview-new-england-revolution
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1f68fbcb991a29d59e8fb009447f32ceda9d7ab0aa2eb078eaef9ba8ba388283.json
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[
"Barry Glendenning"
] | 2016-08-27T18:51:23 | null | 2016-08-27T18:48:43 |
Minute-by-minute: Join Barry Glendenning for Real Madrid’s first home league game of the season against Celta Vigo
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Flive%2F2016%2Faug%2F27%2Freal-madrid-v-celta-vigo-la-liga-live.json
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Real Madrid v Celta Vigo: La Liga - live!
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2016/aug/27/real-madrid-v-celta-vigo-la-liga-live
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en
| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1772e22db4527a0c865189769867fd91a702d9b35994c527f7441be82f5b81ff.json
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[
"Kevin Mitchell"
] | 2016-08-26T18:51:35 | null | 2016-08-26T16:59:38 |
Andy Murray has been drawn against Lukas Rosol at the US Open while Novak Djokovic both a wrist injury and personal problems
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fandy-murray-lukas-rosol-first-round-us-open.json
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| null |
Easy US Open draw for Andy Murray while Novak Djokovic hints at issues
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www.theguardian.com
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Andy Murray’s route to the ultimate prize in his distinguished career – toppling Novak Djokovic from the summit of the tennis mountain by winning his second US Open – was decluttered in a kind draw here on Friday that served up the 31-year-old Czech journeyman Lukas Rosol in the first round and middling opposition up to the semi-finals.
Make some noise: Juan Martín del Potro is back to his bloodcurdling best | Jacob Steinberg Read more
Djokovic, who opens his defence of the title against the talented but unreliable Pole Jerzy Janowicz, not only has a slightly tougher path to the final weekend, he also had to set aside rumours he was considering withdrawing from the tournament after suddenly curtailing his morning practice session.
“I can’t wait to start,” Djokovic said but an injury to his left wrist, which he picked up during his early exit at the Rio Olympics, forcing him to miss the Cincinnati Open, might be worse than originally thought.
On Tuesday his wife, Jelena, put up an Instagram screenshot of Djokovic with his left wrist wrapped in an electrified bandage, apparently a “transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation therapy” device.
“The wrist hasn’t been in an ideal state for the last three-and-a-a half weeks,” Djokovic said on Friday, “but I’m doing everything in my power with the medical team so I’m as close to 100% as possible, at least at the start of this tournament.
“It started in Rio. I’d never experienced this particular injury before. I played against Juan Martín del Potro, who had been absent from the Tour with a wrist injury himself. After undergoing certain treatments, I’ve gotten better and I just hope I can get as close as possible to executing my backhand.
“There are different methods of healing that I am considering, consulting different medical experts. One of them is the electricity treatment that you see. Some times, time is what you need as an athlete. And with the US Open around the corner, I improvised the best way I can.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andy Murray, pictured during a practice session at Flushing Meadows prior to the start of the US Open, is seeded second for the tournament. Photograph: Chris Trotman/Getty Images
It is as much medical information as has ever come out of the Serb’s camp. The wrap is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and it also promotes analgesia: in other words it is a painkiller. In other words, Djokovic more than likely will be playing in some pain, as was Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros before pulling out after two excellent wins in the first week.
“I’m getting there,” Djokovic said after the draw. “A couple of days and hopefully when it starts on Monday, I’ll be there. I’m the kind of player that likes to give everything in every single match. I was aware we were going to have a more congested schedule.”
Djokovic revealed he has also been having personal problems. He described it as, “nothing physical, but something that has nothing to do with the wrist injury, something privately”.
He added: “Everyone has a time when they are in a position like this. You have private issues where there are some challenges and issues which you have to overcome as a human being. For me, it was personal and it has happened. They have been resolved for me. Life is going on.”
Djokovic did not sound totally convincing about his prospects of even getting out of the first week. He has played only six matches since his shock defeat in the first week at Wimbledon and nine since the French Open. If he gets past the big serve and inventive, unpredictable all-court game of Janowicz, the world No1 could be in for a run that includes John Isner, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Nadal and, at the bottom half of his draw, this year’s Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic. Nadal, who is also nursing an injured wrist back to full health, plays the tough Uzbek Denis Istomin in the first round.
But the key imponderables in the men’s draw at the beginning of the fortnight remain: can Murray, the Wimbledon and Olympic champion, carry his magnificent summer run into the autumnal conclusion to the grand slam season, and will Djokovic be fit enough to hold him at bay and remain at the top of the world rankings?
Murray, closing fast on his old rival in the race to the ATP World Tour Finals in London, did look tired in losing to Marin Cilic in the final in Cincinnati on Sunday, but later said the schedule and a sore shoulder hindered him and he hoped to be back to full working order after a few days’ rest.
Beyond Rosol lie either Feliciano López or Grigor Dimitrov, who is looking more like his old self lately but not quite at the level when he beat Murray at Wimbledon in 2014, and the sixth seed Kei Nishikori, whom Murray invariably grinds down on the big occasion.
Elsewhere in the men’s draw, Birmingham’s Dan Evans drew a qualifier in the top quarter, where the eighth seed Dominic Thiem will start against the in-form Australian John Millman. British ambitions took a blow when Aljaz Bedene drew Nick Kyrgios, who is worth more than his 14th seeding on ability alone, yet still is struggling for consistency.
In the women’s draw, the British No1 and the No14 seed here, Johanna Konta, plays the American wild card Bethanie Mattek-Sands, with the Olympic champion Mónica Puig, the resurgent Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova and the rising American Madison Keys in her quarter of the draw.
Heather Watson, who, like Konta, had a disappointing Olympics, plays a qualifier first up – but finds herself in Serena Williams’s quarter. Before the draw, the dangerous but inconsistent American Sloane Stephens withdrew with a foot injury.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/26/andy-murray-lukas-rosol-first-round-us-open
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/57323e548471541e26e14ccb725a1e603ec0649a5751f7740c0b6cbe8f4cd62b.json
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|
[
"Associated Press In Brunswick"
] | 2016-08-30T14:52:30 | null | 2016-08-30T14:42:28 |
President of cemetery society’s board says flags were removed because they had deteriorated to the point that they were no longer respectful
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fconfederate-flags-removed-georgia-graves-veterans-memorial.json
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en
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Confederate flags were not stolen from Georgia gravesites, group says
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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A not-for-profit group that helps to maintain a Georgia cemetery removed 70 Confederate flags from graves because they became worn and faded, and that they weren’t stolen as some suspected, the group’s president said.
Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans had placed the flags last April in Brunswick’s Oak Grove cemetery for Confederate Memorial Day, an official holiday in Georgia.
The veterans group contacted police this month when the flags went missing, the Florida Times-Union reported. Group leaders suspected that someone took them because they depicted the Confederate battle emblem.
But Robert M Gindhart III, president of the Oak Grove cemetery society’s board, said the flags were removed because they had deteriorated to the point that they were no longer respectful.
Gindhart told the veterans group that “over a brief time the flags deteriorate to a desecrated condition. It is a dishonor to the flag and the veteran it is honoring,” the Jacksonville newspaper reported.
The American Legion advises its members to remove flags from graves as soon as possible after displaying them each Memorial Day. In federal cemeteries, groups displaying US or Confederate flags at gravesites are required to remove them no later than the first business day after the holiday.
Gindhart questioned why the veterans group didn’t contact the cemetery society when it was discovered the flags were no longer on some graves, adding that would have prevented a police investigation, the paper reported.
The cemetery society does such tasks as cleanup work and conducting tours on the grounds, among other things.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/30/confederate-flags-removed-georgia-graves-veterans-memorial
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en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7e3ecbb4f98a3d1640b3fd7b234de15b400b9a59df928f65ccd841a997041442.json
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[
"Suzanne Moore"
] | 2016-08-26T13:22:53 | null | 2016-08-24T17:00:22 |
From cosmetic surgery to HRT, we pursue almost anything that makes us appear youthful because we cannot talk about the reality of ageing
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fat-what-point-are-women-allowed-to-look-their-age.json
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| null |
At what point are women allowed to look their age?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Sometimes, it’s hard to be a woman. Sometimes? When are the in-between times when it’s just about alright? Every other day there is some bad news but still we are meant to chug along and pretend to be free. A bit equal. And content.
There is an epidemic of anxiety and depression among young women. We don’t know why exactly, but we suspect it has something to do with that vague term “self-esteem”. Boys suffer, too, but evidently many young women are unhappy when they should be having the time of their lives. The pressure on them to look a certain way grows. That pressure is no longer confined to youth.
Still, they can look forward to the next stage where they can “choose” to impoverish themselves by having babies, the apparent explanation for the gender pay gap. Men don’t make this choice: I guess children are simply thrust upon them. Then comes the time of life when you can no longer have children, and feel tired and grumpy (can you tell?). You must also do everything you possibly can not to look your age and soothe yourself with hormonal replacement therapy (HRT), which now increases your risk of breast cancer nearly threefold. Give me a break. Literally, give me a break. Except, now we are to supposed to work till we are 67 because the pension age has been shifted.
No wonder then, in this confused state, we pursue almost anything that appears youthful as we cannot talk about the reality of ageing. We rarely talk about the menopause, which is why so many women either “suffer in silence” (not me obviously) or are entirely misinformed about HRT, and just bemused by this week’s headlines.
The main way we edge around these discussions remains the celebrity confessional where, again, everything is focused on how a woman looks and not what she thinks. Courteney Cox, for instance, has apparently confessed “her regrets” – presumably about plastic surgery – to Bear Grylls. As you do. She felt the pressure to stay young and beautiful: “Sometimes you find yourself trying [to stop the ageing process], and then you look at a picture of yourself and you go: ‘Oh God. I look horrible … I have done things that I regret and luckily there are things that dissolve and go away.’ Don’t ask me what this means. There is now an entire genre of female celebs who regret their surgeries, and I feel for them. Of course they get work done. To get work.
If your sense of self-value is so absolutely bound up with how you look and not with how you feel, you will never be “worth it”, whatever age you are. This is how we live now, with ordinary women comparing themselves with those whose faces and bodies are their fortunes, while these most gorgeous creatures hate themselves for ageing.
The biggest compliment you can give a woman is not “Well done on that PhD”, but: “You don’t look your age.” This overvaluing of how we look and undervaluing of what we know, this mismatch between our insides and outsides, is a huge cause of misery right through a woman’s life-cycle, and it’s getting worse.
Our unhappiness is monetised with everything from overpriced moisturisers to sticking women on HRT for years without them fully understanding the risks or even the basic idea that they are delaying, not eradicating, the symptoms of menopause. I am not against surgery, fillers, fashion, makeup, antidepressants or HRT. Ageing gracefully is beyond me as I wasn’t even young gracefully. Nor do I fetishise the “natural”, as what is natural is often what used to kill us, from childbirth to disease. What I am concerned about is the denial around the subject.
The latest research on HRT, for instance, will mystify the many women who were told a year ago that it was safer than we once thought. There are all sorts of reasons why women take HRT, and one is certainly to do with its promise of better skin and hair. A slew of private clinics now promote bio-identical hormones as “natural” HRT, but any combined hormone treatment will carry the same risks as synthetic ones.
We can’t know what is best for us if we don’t talk about it. But the menopause remains embarrassing as it reveals the truth: we are ageing. Which is akin to dying, though is in fact the opposite of it. Where are the celebrity interviews that talk about medicating oestrogen depletion instead of the guff about good skincare regimes? Tell me, at what age can women just look the age they are? Give me less advice on avoiding all that is pleasurable, from booze to sunlight, and more on how reading actually improves memory and cognitive function. Tell middle-aged woman that their rage is not an individual problem to be feared, it’s fuel for the fire of the next stage of their lives. Nourishment means doing the things that make you feel full of yourself. That does not come in a jar. It never did.
On my wall I have a print I bought in Mumbai. It is one of the first ads for Pears Soap, marketed to an Indian audience. Underneath a goddess, the ad says: “Pure as Lotus. Learn without sorrow, the eternal truth, youth is Godlike and beauty is youth.” Learn without sorrow. If only we could. From girlhood to old age, women live exactly within that sorrow.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/24/at-what-point-are-women-allowed-to-look-their-age
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en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/84b05627459bb1b03fb67e120e37e2575c53c3c1acbab2ad8dc5ceb4d3198299.json
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|
[
"Amber Jamieson"
] | 2016-08-26T13:16:03 | null | 2016-08-26T10:00:16 |
The rightwing blogosphere claims Hillary Clinton is ill, has left a trail of death and has links to radical Islam. But even the most far-fetched rumors start somewhere
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fhillary-clinton-conspiracy-theories-activists-rightwing.json
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Conspiracy central: the activists painting Clinton as a sick, terrorist-friendly killer
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Hillary Clinton is a psychotic murderer who suffers from syphilis and is months away from death, and her chief of staff is a secret Muslim terrorist – at least according to some parts of the internet.
In recent weeks, the political conspiracy level dial has been turned up to Beyoncé-runs-the-Illuminati level crazy. Who is pushing the biggest conspiracy theories against Clinton during this campaign?
Hillary’s health hoax
Most of the recent flurry stems directly from InfoWars, a conspiracy-fueled political site run by shock jock Alex Jones that funds itself partly through the sale of supplies necessary for doomsday prepping such as bulk vitamins and a year’s worth of long-life food.
InfoWars has been pushing the “Clinton is sick” theory hard in the last few weeks – with stories including “EXPERTS: HILLARY IS A SOCIOPATH AND COULD HAVE BRAIN DAMAGE” and “HILLARY HEALTH COVER-UP IMPLODES”.
But the first recent coverage to get attention came from a little-known YouTube user, DaPhoneyRapperz, who uploaded a video supposedly showing the Democratic nominee convulsing and having seizures – mainly the same few bits of video of Clinton laughing or making faces looped to a creepy soundtrack – on 21 July and has more than 2.2m views.
DaPhoneyRapperz didn’t respond to the Guardian’s attempt to contact them. The video went viral on Reddit, Twitter and Facebook, and then InfoWars writer Paul Joseph Watson published a video on 4 August claiming “The Truth About Hillary’s Bizarre Behavior”, which now has more than 3.3m views.
The Daily Beast notes that one of the few named experts in the Hillary health stories is PharmaBro Martin Shkreli, infamous for hiking the price of an anti-HIV drug by 5,556%, but not actually a medical professional (Shkreli is certain Clinton suffers from Parkinson’s disease).
The InfoWars articles on Clinton’s health are all written by Watson, the editor-at-large of InfoWars, who also runs the sister conservative news and aggregation site Prison Planet. Watson did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. He believes the US government was highly involved in 9/11 and wrote the book Order Out of Chaos, which was published by InfoWars. In the book’s acknowledgements, he thanks founder Jones “for awakening me to the New World Order”.
InfoWars is owned by Alex Jones, a 42-year-old from Texas. The Southern Poverty Law Center called him “almost certainly the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America”. Rolling Stone called him “the most paranoid man in America”.
The sick Hillary story is not new: back in May 2014, Karl Rove, former senior adviser under President George W Bush turned talking head, first began pushing this story, questioning whether the former secretary of state had received a traumatic brain injury after a fall in December 2012 – rather than a blood clot as Team Clinton says.
Rove is one of the most infamous faces of the GOP so having him speculate publicly about possible brain damage left the crowd “stunned”, reported the New York Post, with Clinton’s team immediately dismissing it and a former White House communications director who worked with Rove calling his comments “off the wall”. “It’s only 2014, but the 2016 presidential race has already taken an ugly turn,” reported the Huffington Post.
Weeks after Rove’s comments, a former Drudge Report editor, Joseph Curl, published a column at the Washington Times demanding Clinton’s health records be made public. Then in January of this year, rightwing site Breitbart claimed a law enforcement source said Clinton’s long bathroom break during a primary debate was because of cognitive problems from the fall.
After InfoWars pushed its health video, rightwing commentator and Trump fan Sean Hannity at Fox News declared on his show later that week: “it almost seems seizure-esque to me”. During the primaries, Hannity gave Trump more than 50 hours of interview airtime on his show, dramatically more than any other candidate and more than double that on any other show. The New York Times says Hannity has become more like an adviser to Trump, offering ideas for media strategy. Media Matters estimates Hannity has given Trump more than $31m in free publicity.
WikiLeaks is now on board tweeting leaked Clinton emails saying she identified with “decision fatigue” and was interested in a drug that helped exhausted people stay awake. Decision fatigue is not a medical illness, but a phenomenon in which people struggle to make decisions if their brain is tired from constant decision making – essentially a marketing psychology idea created from studying shoppers. Julian Assange from WikiLeaks is promising to leak “significant” material from Clinton’s election campaign before November (remember, Clinton was secretary of state when WikiLeaks released US embassy cables and Assange lives in Ecuador’s embassy in London to avoid possible extradition to the United States).
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) Clinton & 'decision fatigue' https://t.co/BGMmiHjn0r 2 months later looked into wakeup pills https://t.co/ftmwzMcE9U pic.twitter.com/9Djozxnnln
Then Rudy Giuliani, former NYC mayor turned Trump talking head, raised the “sick Hillary” debate during a recent Fox News appearance, including when he told viewers on Sunday to “go online and put down ‘Hillary Clinton illness’, take a look at the videos for yourself”. Clinton even appeared on Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night opening a jar of pickles to prove she was in good health, a move that popular Twitter troll Mike Cernovich (who believes that date rape “does not exist” and thinks the Orlando Pulse shooter did not act alone) saw as a win for rightwing Twitter and blogs, such as his own, pushing the sick Hillary idea – although his gloating did make it seem he didn’t necessarily believe the conspiracy:
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) We made a candidate for POTUS open a jar of pickles on live TV. Totally embarrassing. Well done Twitter, and @PrisonPlanet!
And Rove is still pushing the supposed “brain injury”, more than two years after he first proposed it, appearing on Fox’s The Kelly File with Megyn Kelly on Tuesday with three mini whiteboards showing a timeline of supposedly damning events and quotes from Clinton officials and husband Bill, much to Kelly’s amusement.
Huma Abedin: secret Muslim extremist
For years rightwing commentators have speculated that Clinton’s chief of staff, Huma Abedin, known as her closest adviser, is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic organization – and it’s popped up again this week.
“Why aren’t we talking about Huma and her ties to the Muslim Brotherhood? Why aren’t we talking about the fact that she was an editor for a Sharia newspaper?” asked Sean Duffy, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin and former contestant on The Real World: Boston, on CNN – who has also been pushing the “sick Hillary” theory – on Tuesday.
The Muslim Brotherhood theory stems back ito 2012, when Frank Gaffney, dubbed “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, released a report from his organization Center for Security Policy claiming three of Abedin’s relatives were connected to the Muslim Brotherhood – including her father, who died in 1993.
Shortly afterwards Michele Bachmann, founder of the Tea Party, called on federal agencies to examine whether Abedin fueled the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda – which resulted in Senator John McCain speaking out against Bachmann, declaring: “These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis and no merit.”
Paul Sperry, a columnist for the New York Post – a paper which has already declared it is backing Trump – wrote this week that Abedin worked at a “radical Muslim publication that opposed women’s rights”. She used to work as an associate editor at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, a scholarly journal edited by her mother and founded by her father that examines the life of Muslims living in traditionally non-Muslim areas. The Washington Post quotes various scholars denying that the publication is “radical”.
On Wednesday Jones from InfoWars and Trump adviser Roger Stone – who is known for compiling aggressive dirt files full of conspiracy theories, arguing that Chelsea Clinton is not the real daughter of Bill and has had plastic surgery to more closely resemble him – discussed on radio whether Abedin suffered from genital mutilation as a child because of her family:
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) Alex Jones & Roger Stone discussed today whether Huma Abedin has had her “genitals cut off" https://t.co/IbF9iGsgAB pic.twitter.com/RdJmAFb35S
The Clinton murder conspiracy
Another favorite of Clinton conspiracists is the “Clinton body count”, a claim that a number of mysterious deaths over the years are somehow tied to the Clintons. The recent death of Democratic National Convention staffer Seth Rich, who was shot while walking in his suburban Washington DC neighborhood just days before the DNC started, helped reignite the murder conspiracies story.
WikiLeaks’ Assange brought up Rich – who died just before WikiLeaks released thousands of leaked DNC emails – while talking to Dutch TV about the need for whistleblower protection, saying “our sources take risks”. WikiLeaks is offering a $20,000 reward for anyone with information about his murder.
The most famous Clinton body count conspiracy is about Vince Foster, Bill Clinton’s deputy White House counsel, who killed himself in the first year of the Clinton administration. He was a close friend of the Clintons, and it’s been argued since the 1990s by conspiracy extremists – such as a series of reports by the Arkansas Project funded by late conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife – that either: 1) he was killed because he knew too much about the Clintons’ scandals; or 2) Hillary publicly humiliated him and caused him to kill himself.
The Foster case reappeared this week after Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post reporter who penned a 2009 book based on secret service agents revealing the private lives of presidents and their families, wrote in the Daily Mail that FBI files linking Clinton to Foster’s suicide are “missing”. Kessler says the documents have disappeared from the National Archive – although it’s not clear the documents ever existed.
InfoWars collects a list of the Clinton body count, with dozens of names – from lawyers to criminals – of people who have died and are in some way connected to the Clintons. This week Paul Joseph Watson, of sick Hillary fame, claimed that Google is not autofilling in its search “Clinton body count”, although other search engines do. A writer at Media Post noted this could simply be due to Google algorithms, known to be different from other search engines, and not necessarily censorship – since the story comes up if you type out the whole words. That falls into a wider theory that Google is suppressing negative stories about the Clintons – another favorite complaint of Assange’s.
Fox News mentioned Google’s lack of autofill on Wednesday , citing InfoWars as its source.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/26/hillary-clinton-conspiracy-theories-activists-rightwing
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/3b6172703c2c2b011157dda36de5ff393319c4840bc164f9ea2c754bb802976c.json
|
|
[
"Source",
"Virgin Trains"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:40 | null | 2016-08-23T14:53:25 |
Virgin Trains has released CCTV footage of Jeremy Corbyn taking a seat on a train on 11 August on the London-to-Newcastle service, to dispute his claims there was nowhere to sit
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fjeremy-corbyn-takes-a-seat-on-ram-packed-virgin-train-video.json
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en
| null |
Jeremy Corbyn takes a seat on 'ram-packed' Virgin train - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Virgin Trains has released CCTV footage of Jeremy Corbyn taking a seat on a train on 11 August on the London-to-Newcastle service, to dispute his claims there was nowhere to sit. Last week, Corbyn was filmed sitting on the floor of the three-hour train journey calling for the nationalisation of the railways
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/aug/23/jeremy-corbyn-takes-a-seat-on-ram-packed-virgin-train-video
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en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/67ca91734793574873b87743c40ddfff30e347e098309fd4cd03cd8ac6688a4c.json
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[] | 2016-08-26T18:51:03 | null | 2016-08-26T17:08:11 |
Letters: Mr Wolfe claims that his father was hanged ‘for a crime against apartheid’. He was not. He was hanged for a crime against an elderly lady – murder
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Flifeandstyle%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fnot-really-such-a-good-terrorist.json
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| null |
Not really such a good terrorist?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Joanna Moorhead’s interview with the barrister David Wolfe (My activist father was hanged, 13 August) makes moving reading, and provides valuable background to the TV documentary The Good Terrorist, to be shown on Channel 4 on 27 August. But Mr Wolfe gets several facts wrong, and ends with an extraordinary judgment.
I was a close friend of Mr Wolfe’s anti-apartheid activist father John Harris; was among those detained by the security police after the lethal bomb blast in Johannesburg station in July 1964; and was held in a cell very near to Harris’s for a month. After my release I attended every day of his trial; and after his conviction visited him regularly in prison until the morning before his execution. May I , from direct experience and records kept at the time, offer these comments?
Mr Wolfe claims that his father was hanged “for a crime against apartheid”. He was not. He was hanged for a crime against an elderly lady – murder – which he admitted, to which his counsel offered the defence that a mental disease had rendered him unable to distinguish between right and wrong.
This claim was rejected by the trial judge and by the subsequent court of appeal, and correctly so – it was, as all of Harris’s friends and family privately knew, a desperate fiction to save his life. David Wolfe ends by stating that his activist father – whose home-made bomb badly maimed 23 innocent civilians and killed one – had done “the right thing”. Was he misquoted by Joanna Moorhead? If not, I find this a shocking thing for an eminent British barrister with a special interest in human rights to say.
Maritz van den Berg
London
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/26/not-really-such-a-good-terrorist
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/afd546c6b08af6cdb865ef13c5630c8a551a808c5f9b98afc7cfa3b803f9aa66.json
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[
"Daniel Boffey"
] | 2016-08-30T06:52:06 | null | 2012-05-19T00:00:00 |
David Cameron risks meltdown with the civil service as blueprint reveals plans to set earnings according to location
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http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2012%2Fmay%2F20%2Fcivil-service-pay-cut-whitehall.json
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'Pay map' to cut earnings for regional civil servants
| null | null |
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David Cameron is facing a complete breakdown in relations with his mandarins as a secret blueprint to break up the civil service is revealed today.
The plans put the country's 434,000 civil servants into four geographical pay zones, with those living in the south-west, on the south coast, Wales, much of the Midlands and the north-east earning least. Those in inner and outer London will be highest paid, followed by civil servants working in a corridor stretching from Bristol to the Thames estuary, and those in pay "hotspots" in Manchester and Birmingham.
The Cabinet Office's Reward, Efficiency and Reform Group (Rerg), assisted by the Hay Group private consultancy, has drawn up a "local pay map" that will form the basis for how civil servants' pay is set for the next three years. It is understood ministers are working on estimates that show average earnings in the north-east are 10% lower than the UK average, 6% lower in the West Midlands, and 7% lower in Yorkshire and the Humber.
However, the plans threaten to push relations with the civil service – already strained over the reform agenda – to breaking point.
Ian Watmore, 53, who was in charge of cutting costs across departments and headed Rerg, quit last week, six months after he became permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, following a series of disagreements with his minister, Francis Maude.
Huge consternation has followed the leaking of details last week of a fiery meeting between Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, and the prime minister's director of strategy, Steve Hilton, who was reported to have voiced his frustration at the "failure" of the bureaucracy to implement his more radical ideas.
Hilton, who left Downing Street last week, is reported to have proposed that 90% of the work done by civil servants could be outsourced to thinktanks, charities and private companies.
Kerslake tweeted on Saturday: "Back in Sheffield after an interesting week. I am a champion of change in the civil service but I will also defend what is good about it. We need to hang on to [civil service] values – integrity, honesty, objectivity, impartiality." Lord Turnbull, former head of the civil service, was also critical of Hilton's views. He said: "I have no problem with supplementing with special advisers and consultants, but as a replacement it is based on a very oversimplified view."
Sir Andrew Cahn, who headed the government's UK Trade and Investment department until 2011, said ministers should stop briefing against civil servants, who he claimed had reacted well to the challenges set by the government. He said: "What the ministers are saying to the civil servants is 'we want radical change at the same time we want radical downsizing'. That is a big ask, but it is a legitimate and proper ask and it's unhelpful if ministers go public and start criticising civil servants."
On Saturday, the shadow cabinet office minister, Gareth Thomas, said the government was in danger of losing any remaining goodwill and appeared to be "waging war on the pay of hard-working, often lowly paid, public servants".
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said his union would fight the plans because regional pay threatened to stifle rather than stimulate growth in the poorest parts of the country.
"What we can now see is that, on top of a pay freeze, it would be permafrost for public servants in Wales and most of the rest of the UK, with no prospect of a pay rise for years," he said. "This is a very crude, but calculated, plan to cut public sector pay even further, and will do nothing to help low-paid workers in the private sector or local economies crying out for investment."
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Regionalising pay will deal local economies a further damaging blow, risk causing recruitment problems in our public services outside London and the south east, and won't help local businesses take on new staff either."
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: "We don't comment on leaks. In the civil service, pay is usually set on a 'one size fits all' basis at a national level, whereas in the private sector pay is set in accordance with local labour markets. This means civil servants are often paid more than private sector workers in similar jobs in the same area, which has the potential to hurt private sector businesses."
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/may/20/civil-service-pay-cut-whitehall
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en
| 2012-05-19T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/565a2897cea0b50ef5f4ce970a8334f90fb6eaacde71af8bfc268d3cd4957d6a.json
|
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[
"Australian Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-28T08:51:37 | null | 2016-08-28T07:32:48 |
A toe injury has forced defender Bailey Wright out of the Socceroos squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Iraq and the United Arab Emirates
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fjosh-risdon-called-up-for-socceroos-with-bailey-wright-out-of-iraq-clash.json
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en
| null |
Josh Risdon called up for Socceroos with Bailey Wright out of Iraq clash
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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A toe injury has forced defender Bailey Wright out of the Socceroos squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.
Coach Ange Postecoglou ruled England-based Wright out on Sunday, calling in Perth Glory’s Josh Risdon to replace him.
Cahill the only A-League player named for Socceroos World Cup qualifiers Read more
“Bailey has a minor injury that he has been nursing and although he played for Preston overnight we thought it better for him to stay in the UK,” Postecoglou said.
“We have two tough matches in quick succession and will need everyone ready to go.”
Risdon was to join his Socceroos team-mates who began assembling in camp in Perth on Sunday ahead of the match against Iraq at NIB Stadium on Thursday and the clash with the UAE in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday week.
“Josh Risdon has come into the group recently and equipped himself well and I have no doubt that he will do a job if required over the next two matches,” said Postecoglou.
Along with Iraq and the UAE, the Socceroos have been grouped with Japan, Saudi Arabia and Thailand in the final stage of Asian qualifying for the tournament in Russia.
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/28/josh-risdon-called-up-for-socceroos-with-bailey-wright-out-of-iraq-clash
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en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d945d9253d673c107c9c4d5ff4c0cd34c5117e5ba339acf2dffaf595c6f005aa.json
|
|
[
"Jasper Jackson"
] | 2016-08-26T16:48:53 | null | 2016-08-26T16:18:58 |
Comedian says British broadcasters have hit a stale patch and ‘you wouldn’t know there had been alternative comedy’
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmedia%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Ftv-comedy-back-to-the-70s-frankie-boyle.json
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en
| null |
TV comedy has gone back to the 70s, says Frankie Boyle
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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British comedy has hit a stale patch, with broadcasters unwilling to take risks on alternative and edgier shows, according to the controversial comedian Frankie Boyle.
Interviewing Sharon Horgan for the Alternative MacTaggart at the Edinburgh TV festival, Boyle said commissioners were choosing safe, mass appeal shows such as Mrs Brown’s Boys at the expense of alternative shows such as Horgan’s own Pulling, which was cancelled after two series.
He suggested that the fallout from the Sachsgate scandal involving Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand had led to a more cautious approach at the BBC and other broadcasters.
“Ratings are the main thing. Critical hits are a bonus,” said Boyle. “If something is a big ratings hit – like Mrs Brown’s Boys as a random example – they try to do one of those. But when something comes out that’s a critical hit, they go, ‘That’s ticked that box for a while. Don’t need to make another sitcom with a lesbian for five years.’
“It seems to me that television has gone back past 1978. There’s a sort of air, it’s an air of you wouldn’t know there had been alternative comedy.
“Now you can pretty much watch most things. Most of the comedy is observational. Most of the shows are variety shows. Most of the sitcoms are family-friendly. I think it’s hit a bit of a stale patch.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sharon Horgan. Photograph: Ian West/PA
Mrs Brown’s Boys recently topped a Radio Times poll of the best sitcoms of the century so far, and has proved a reliable ratings hit for the BBC. It has repeatedly been the most watched show at Christmas, and has also spawned a film spin-off.
Boyle also highlighted the BBC’s Landmark Comedy season, which features remakes of old sitcoms including Porridge, Are You Being Served? and Goodnight Sweetheart as examples of a lack of risk.
Horgan said that when broadcasters began playing it safe it stemmed creativity.
She said: “What they are trying to do is replicate a hit show and find another version of that. I don’t think it necessarily brings the best out of creative people or writers. Because you end up seeing the same thing done a different way.
“People have got to write the thing they are born to write or really need to say or it’s just going to be the same as everything else.”
Boyle also added his voice to calls for quotas to improve diversity in television.
“I just think we should have quotas,” he said. “Because they have been trying to do it for years, and they come to the TV festival as well and they were bringing quite senior people from the BBC or Channel 4 and they say, ‘Oh yeah it’s terrible, it’s terrible.’
“And I’m thinking, ‘You’re the creative head of the BBC, just do it. It’s your job to do it.’ And they just give a shrug.
“If they won’t do it they should be forced to do it because it shouldn’t be like that. It shouldn’t be some young black comedian’s job to make sure that the BBC do better on representation.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/26/tv-comedy-back-to-the-70s-frankie-boyle
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a5c014d7251472ecc424f0ff2e74240a64af142b76d54ae622e2f9d30d088001.json
|
|
[
"Michael Williams"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:29 | null | 2016-08-26T08:05:22 |
Spanish tennis player Pablo Carreno Busta seems transfixed by an interloping butterfly as he prepares to serve during the winston-Salem open
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fphotography-blog%2Fpicture%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fsport-picture-of-the-day-the-butterfly-effect.json
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en
| null |
Sport picture of the day : The butterfly effect
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Spanish tennis player Pablo Carreno Busta seems transfixed by an interloping butterfly as he prepares to serve during the Winston-Salem Open
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/photography-blog/picture/2016/aug/26/sport-picture-of-the-day-the-butterfly-effect
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0634fd019a0e100420880f79480f74b1ca498e1fb48f5e02ab7a45e0b8cbf210.json
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[
"Mark Guarino"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:03 | null | 2016-08-25T15:49:11 |
The singer-songwriter reflects on new album Apache, the recent flooding, overcoming addiction – and the eclectic mix of artists who influenced him
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmusic%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Faaron-neville-fragile-louisiana-katrina-country-music.json
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en
| null |
Aaron Neville's Fragile World: 'The people in Louisiana are human beings'
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www.theguardian.com
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Move over chicory coffee, beignets and shrimp etouffee – the voice of Aaron Neville is the greatest export of New Orleans. The singer emerged from a musical fraternity that included his brothers, who in various incarnations helped shape the sound that is now associated with second lines (often impromptu street parties) in that city. Through the Neville Brothers, the sound traveled the world, which for Aaron led to a solo career in the late 1980s where he bridged easy listening, gospel, soul and country music. Neville showcases his own songwriting on Apache (Tell It), a new album that is a standout for moving past the requisite ballads and revealing Neville’s roots in slinky street grooves and horn-addled R&B.
Louisiana is under water at the moment. What was your experience of Hurricane Katrina?
It reminds me of Katrina. When I lost my house and my kids and my brother and my sister [all lost their houses]. I know how they feel and what they are going through. One of the songs on my album, Fragile World, talks about all of that. All kinds of natural disasters and the things humans don’t do to help.
Louisiana is at the forefront of these climate disasters yet why are these catastrophes often marginalized?
I don’t know the answer. All those days of people in the water and on the rooftops [during Katrina], I was saying to myself, “when something used to happen in the United States, the calvary would show up and save the people, but where’s the calvary? It’s not coming to New Orleans.” It was a long time before calvary came. The people down there are human beings, they’re not refugees like they called them in Katrina. They’re people who are in dire need of help.
Did you ever fear you might lose your voice because you can reach such high registers?
Not my voice, but a few times when I’m playing with live bands I worry about broken vocal chords. But I sing every day. You gotta use it or lose it.
Was your faith the main thing that led you to recovery from heroin addiction?
Faith got me through everything. If it wasn’t for faith I wouldn’t be here. My mother turned me on to Saint Jude. The Saint of Hopeless Cases. The earring in my left ear is a Saint Jude medal. While I was in [prison] I was praying to get out of it but then I would go back in. It was a cycle; they call it chasing the dragon. Looking for that first hit that you’ll never find. Finally, I went to rehab in 1981 and that was it. I realized God was the best high that I ever had.
Are you still a practicing Catholic?
I still go to church. I pray all the time, I pray through the day. I have prayers in my phone. When I’m singing I’m praying. When I was in rehab I remembered a prayer I learned in school, Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue. A couple of days before I went to rehab, I put music to that song. It’s on my album, To Make Me Who I Am. That’s the kid in me asking the Blessed Mother to teach me how to pray.
My favorite prayer is Footprints in the Sand. You know that prayer? I know the times that he carried me, you know? I kind of wore him out.
The music business is not an industry many associate with the faithful.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Aaron Neville Photograph: Sarah A Friedman
You’d be surprised. We close our shows with Amazing Grace and I look at the audience and there are people with their hands up, some of them with tears in their eyes. Faith is all around us. I give them my energy and they give it back to me with their appreciation. I know that god is good and he saved me from hell and damnation.
The music made in New Orleans in the late 50s and early 60s is still so electric and influential. What made those early years so special in New Orleans?
It was the camaraderie of the musicians. They were like brothers and sisters. [R&B singer] Irma Thomas was a waitress at a club and Tommy Ridgley and his band would play there and call her onstage and sing. They started calling her “the Singing Waitress”. And then he helped get her a record deal. Same with Ernie K-Doe and Benny Spellman and so many. And before that we were listening to Fats Domino and Professor Longhair and Pete Fountain and Louis Prima. It could have been Motown because of the talent in New Orleans.
What prevented it from becoming Motown?
The record companies were behind the money and that was it. They weren’t behind growing talent like Motown did. Motown took people to dance school and this and that. But in New Orleans, you go in to record, you put the record out, and that was it.
Your favorite songwriters are Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Bob Marley, Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan. But country singers also influenced you.
Back in 1993 I was nominated for best country male singer for The Grand Tour [the song originally by] George Jones. And when I was kid I was a cowboy. I was into Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and Hank Williams and [the novel] Riders of the Purple Sage.
What got you into the singing cowboys like Autry and Rogers?
I could yodel with it. That’s one thing you hear in my voice today. I could yodel from one octave to another octave. It always fascinated me. When I was living in the projects, I had a mop stick for my horse. I wanted to be Gene Autry or Roy Rogers so I would ride my mop through the projects.
Is there one song you’ve sung all your life that has the deepest meaning for you?
Maybe Tell It Like It Is — [Neville’s first hit single from 1966]. It’s 50 years old this year. It was a turning point in my life. I guess it’s my signature song that I sang ten million times and always looking forward to singing again. There are other songs like Ave Maria. That was one that helped me through a lot of things through my life. A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke. I recorded that four times.
Interesting that these songs happen to be about transcendence, about moving to a higher place. What does a song have to do for you?
It’s got to have a meaning and a feeling. A Change is Gonna Come – that was written in [the civil rights era] and we’re still looking for a change. I think change will come one day.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/25/aaron-neville-fragile-louisiana-katrina-country-music
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en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5ecf1ef5ce6e6df5b755f9367d4be1b818b89dd6382d79ccbed1b8bc2ce694a9.json
|
|
[
"Alex Hern"
] | 2016-08-26T13:26:55 | null | 2016-08-22T14:08:53 |
Would it be better to hit a granny or swerve to hit a toddler? It seems like a dilemma, but the designers of self-driving cars say otherwise
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2016%2Faug%2F22%2Fself-driving-cars-moral-dilemmas.json
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en
| null |
Self-driving cars don't care about your moral dilemmas
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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As self-driving cars move from fiction to reality, a philosophical problem has become the focus of fierce debate among technologists across the world. But to the people actually making self driving cars, it’s kind of boring.
The “trolley problem” is the name for a philosophical thought experiment created as an introduction to the moral distinction between action and inaction. The classic example is a runaway mine cart, hurtling down tracks towards a group of five oblivious people. With no time to warn them, your only option is to pull a switch and divert the cart on to a different track, which only has one person standing on it. You will save five lives, but at the cost of actively killing one person. What do you do?
All kinds of tweaks and changes can be made to the basic problem, to examine different aspects of moral feeling. What if, rather than pulling a switch, you stop the mine cart by pushing one particularly large person in its way? What if the five people are all over the age of 80 and the one person is under 20? What if the five people are in fact five hundred kittens?
What if rather than a mine cart, you were in a runaway self-driving car? What if, rather than making the decision in the heat of the moment, you were a programmer who had to put your choices into code? And what if, rather than picking between the lives of five people and one person on different roads, you had to pick between the life of the car’s sole occupant, and the lives of five pedestrians?
It seems like a question that cuts to the heart of fears over self-driving cars: putting questions of life and death in the hands of coders in California who make opaque decisions that may not be socially optimal. After all, would you buy a car if you knew it was programmed to swerve into a tree to protect someone who crossed the road without looking?
A recent paper in the journal Science suggested that even regulation may not help: polling showed that regulation mandating such self-sacrifice wouldn’t be supported by a majority of people, and that they’d avoid buying self-driving cars as a result. That, of course, would result in far more deaths in the long run, as the endless deaths at the hands of incapable human drivers would continue.
But to engineers at X, the Google sibling which is leading the charge to develop fully self-driving cars, the questions aren’t as interesting as they sound. “We love talking about the trolley problem”, joked Andrew Chatham, a principal engineer on the project.
“The main thing to keep in mind is that we have yet to encounter one of these problems,” he said. “In all of our journeys, we have never been in a situation where you have to pick between the baby stroller or the grandmother. Even if we did see a scenario like that, usually that would mean you made a mistake a couple of seconds earlier. And so as a moral software engineer coming into work in the office, if I want to save lives, my goal is to prevent us from getting in that situation, because that implies that we screwed up.
“It takes some of the intellectual intrigue out of the problem, but the answer is almost always ‘slam on the brakes’,” he added. “You’re much more confident about things directly in front of you, just because of how the system works, but also your control is much more precise by slamming on the brakes than trying to swerve into anything. So it would need to be a pretty extreme situation before that becomes anything other than the correct answer.”
Even if a self-driving car did come up against a never-before-seen situation where it did have to pick between two accidental death scenarios, and even if the brakes failed, and even if it could think fast enough for the moral option to be a factor (Nathaniel Fairfield, another engineer on the project, jokes that the real question is “what would you …oh, it’s too late”), there remains no real agreement over what it should do even in idealised circumstances. A public tool released alongside the Science paper allows individuals to create their own ethical dilemmas, and the only consistent finding is that people are inconsistent – even when it comes to their own views. So it’s probably for the best that we aren’t trying to code those views into our cars just yet.
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-driving-cars-moral-dilemmas
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en
| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4592f9cf8d5a71e406c160298aee8305fa2066a61243a67b6db5417345e2db07.json
|
|
[
"Alan Johnson"
] | 2016-08-28T18:49:56 | null | 2016-08-28T17:47:06 |
John McDonnell has attacked the party’s biggest donor for money he gave to the Lib Dems as part of the remain campaign. It’s a wildly wrongheaded move
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fjohn-mcdonnell-attack-on-lord-sainsbury-labour-party-donations.json
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en
| null |
Lay off Lord Sainsbury. At least he really tried to stop Brexit
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
“I am sorry that we failed to convince the British people,” wrote my friend and former Department of Trade and Industry colleague Lord Sainsbury as the Electoral Commission published details of his crucial donations towards trying to help Britain remain in the European Union. I feel his pain.
Richard Branson should lose his knighthood, says John McDonnell Read more
Alongside funding for the main campaign – StrongerIn – the former science minister provided Labour and the Liberal Democrats with ringfenced funding to help us make the progressive case for remain to our supporters. It was welcome when offered, and critical to our efforts.
This contribution was not a secret. Anyone in the party who took an interest in the campaign would have known about it. The money helped us tour the country making the case for staying in the EU. Workers’ rights and environmental and consumer protections are not cheap values to defend. I, for one, am very grateful that Sainsbury helped our campaign. I know Tim Farron will feel the same.
What is surprising is that John McDonnell has decided to attack Labour’s biggest ever donor for the ringfenced £2.1m he gave to both the Liberal Democrats and Labour to aid the remain campaign. Yet Sainsbury has also given more than £20m to Labour over two decades – not just because he is generous, but also because, as science minister, he laid much of the groundwork for helping a vibrant research and development and manufacturing base continue in the United Kingdom.
It was this work that informed much of the “industrial activism” pioneered while Gordon Brown was prime minister, which received broad support across the party, including everyone from Peter Mandelson to the unions and the Labour left.
Lord Sainsbury's money helped us tour the country and make the case for staying in the EU
McDonnell’s attack is also surprising because Sainsbury’s book, Progressive Capitalism, is a clear retort to the neoliberalism that McDonnell himself rails against. Yet he now suggests that Sainsbury, for making his remain donation via the Liberal Democrats, could be suspended from the party. Labour’s shadow chancellor should be taking Sainsbury out to lunch to pick his brains, not turning to the media to pick fights.
Many people offered to give Labour money to help them communicate the pro-EU message to the party’s supporters. These donations should also be welcomed – especially by senior shadow cabinet members who demand from the party the resources necessary to get their views across. I notice McDonnell did not turn down any of the LabourIn support that was offered to aid visits and media appearances.
Sainsbury did not just help his party fight its corner – he put his country first and went the extra mile to keep Britain in Europe. If only everyone in Labour had done as much.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/28/john-mcdonnell-attack-on-lord-sainsbury-labour-party-donations
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en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c6b6bf34b9c546e2d3eed04a4534b0137dcf09a3b5656ccae3ccabf7cdd8c89b.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-26T13:27:46 | null | 2016-08-23T13:58:05 |
Christmas special will feature an ‘explosion of comedy, music and dance’ choreographed by former Strictly judge Arlene Phillips
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmedia%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Feric-idle-brian-cox-the-entire-universe-bbc-strictly-arlene-phillips.json
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en
| null |
Ex-Python Eric Idle and Brian Cox to take on The Entire Universe for the BBC
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Former Monty Python star Eric Idle will star alongside Professor Brian Cox, Warwick Davis and Noel Fielding in a BBC Christmas special “depicting the birth of the entire universe”.
Written by Idle, the one-hour show will feature the return of Rutland Weekend Television, the haphazard station depicted in Idle’s sketch show of the same name during the 1970s.
Filmed in front of a live studio audience, The Entire Universe will feature an “explosion of comedy, music and dance” and will air on BBC2.
Strictly Come Dancing 2016: full lineup revealed Read more
Davis plays The Big Bang and comedian Fielding is Einstein, while Game of Thrones actor Hannah Waddingham tackles time, and Robin Ince attempts to keep order.
Idle has written songs for the Christmas special, which will be choreographed by Arlene Phillips and combine “fascinating facts about the birth of the universe with larger-than-life comedy characters”.
Cox finds himself in a major musical at Rutland Weekend Television, after thinking he is booked to give a lecture.
Idle said: “I am very pleased that Rutland Weekend Television is back on BBC TV with a Christmas special only 41 years after its last one. The world’s smallest TV station takes on the world’s largest subject: the entire universe.”
He added: “It’s fitting that 41 years after Rutland Weekend Television produced a Christmas special with [ex-Beatle] George Harrison, it is back with the Beatle of science, Brian Cox.
“No doubt what Rutland did for TV in the 70s it will now do for science – and set it back 40 years.”
Cox joked: “I’ve made many television documentaries over the years, and a constant complaint has been that the music is too loud and obscures the science.
“This undermines my credibility as a serious scientist. I expect The Entire Universe to be the final nail in the coffin.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/23/eric-idle-brian-cox-the-entire-universe-bbc-strictly-arlene-phillips
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1277820bdac4f8f974f04e3d597d7571f0d77fac2eace439af4fe6b49640a387.json
|
|
[
"Tim Hill"
] | 2016-08-30T22:52:49 | null | 2016-08-30T22:51:28 |
The world No1, who lost in the semi-finals here last year, gets her campaign under way against the unseeded Russian. Follow all the action with Tim Hill
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Flive%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fserena-williams-ekaterina-makarova-us-open-tennis-live.json
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en
| null |
Serena Williams v Ekaterina Makarova: US Open tennis first round - live!
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
The world No1, who lost in the semi-finals here last year, gets her campaign under way against the unseeded Russian. Follow all the action with Tim Hill
Email tim.hill@theguardian.com or tweet @timmyhilleh
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2016/aug/30/serena-williams-ekaterina-makarova-us-open-tennis-live
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6e822bdc09e171963e9df5101b893fc50b89fa1b5e3af96a4d6d2d2862cb23c6.json
|
|
[
"Source"
] | 2016-08-26T13:21:54 | null | 2016-08-23T08:39:28 |
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers believes his side should be considered among Europe’s elite and cites Barcelona, Real Madrid and AC Milan as comparable to the Glasgow club
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F23%2Fbrendan-rodgers-celtic-are-among-the-great-clubs-in-europe-video.json
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en
| null |
Brendan Rodgers: Celtic are among the great clubs in Europe - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers believes his side should be considered among Europe’s elite and cites Barcelona, Real Madrid and AC Milan as comparable to the Glasgow club. Rodgers, speaking in Beersheba, Israel, on Monday ahead of Celtic’s Champions League qualifier against Hapoel Beer Sheva, says the Parkhead club is synonymous with European success
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/23/brendan-rodgers-celtic-are-among-the-great-clubs-in-europe-video
|
en
| 2016-08-23T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1ef88891c957daccf0cdf0a720906f6d3efdf040e0e895c27a21a126d0c197db.json
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[] | 2016-08-26T13:30:19 | null | 2014-11-24T00:00:00 |
You can navigate your way through what can be a long and complex process by following these steps
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2014%2Fnov%2F24%2Ffactsheet-buying-home-property.json
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en
| null |
Factsheet: Buying a home
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www.theguardian.com
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Buying a home can be a long and complex process, but typically it involves going through these steps:
Find out how much you can borrow
Call a mortgage broker to get an idea of how much you can borrow. He or she will be able to search the market for the best available deal and to help you maximise your borrowing power. You will need to give details of how much you earn and all of the things that you spend money on each month.
When working out how much you can afford to put down as a deposit, remember to keep some savings aside to meet stamp duty and other fees, and to furnish your new home. Get information about the different mortgages on offer, and start thinking about whether you want to go for a fixed or variable-rate deal.
Define your criteria
Decide what you are looking for in a property – whether you need parking and a garden, how many bedrooms you need, if it’s a flat, whether you want it to be freehold or leasehold – and pick an area on which to focus your search.
Consider what you want out of the location: are local schools, transport links and shops important to you? How long are you planning to live in the property for? Here are 10 things to think about before you rush into a property purchase.
Beginning the search
Start scanning the internet and local newspapers and register with estate agents - some properties sell before they are advertised online, so it is worth being on the agents’ books. If you see a property you want to look at, call the agent and arrange a viewing.
Bear in mind there are lots of different property websites out there you can use for your search – you don’t just have to use the big ones.
Out and about
Visit some properties. You are unlikely to find the home you want straight away, so don’t despair and don’t be tempted into edging over your budget if you don’t like the first place you look at. This is probably going to be your biggest financial outlay, so it is worth waiting until you find the right place.
Don’t be shy about asking questions when you are looking around a property, or afterwards. The estate agent should be able to provide you with basic details about the property, and to pass on any other queries to the people who are selling.
Making an offer
When you find somewhere you like, make an offer. Before you do so, try to glean as much information from the estate agent as possible. Ask how long it’s been on the market and if the seller wants a quick sale. Some websites have details of when a property was first listed, although this won’t tell you if the seller has switched to a new agent.
Many buyers initially make an offer below the asking price, and often this is accepted. You may want to start low and negotiate with the agent to find a price that satisfies both parties. But if you want to be sure you get the property you like – and you think it is worth the asking price – you may want to offer the full amount straight away.
Acceptance
If your offer is accepted, ask the estate agent to take the property off the market. You now need to instruct a solicitor. If you need to find a solicitor, ask for a few quotes and follow up personal recommendations.
Getting a mortgage
Once your offer has been accepted, call your broker or a lender to sort out your mortgage application. At this point you will need to provide lots of paperwork showing your income and outgoings.
Paperwork
Instruct your solicitor to start working on a contract. They will also send the seller a list of questions to answer, including a questionnaire asking which fixtures and fittings they intend to leave when they move out.
Surveys
Your lender should arrange a surveyor to value the property within a few days of agreeing the mortgage in principle. Its valuation will be very simple and you should arrange your own survey to get an idea of what problems there may be with the property.
To save money, it can sometimes be worth asking the lender’s surveyor to also put together a survey for you, but this is not always the case. Ask for a quote and compare it with quotes from other surveyors - again, ask around for recommendations.
The most expensive and comprehensive option is to ask the surveyor for a full structural survey of the building, and this is particularly worth doing if you are buying a property that is very old, has been extensively renovated or clearly needs work. It is also a good idea if you are planning to build an extension or structural changes to the building. However, a cheaper – albeit less comprehensive – homebuyer’s report should highlight any major problems and is a good option in other circumstances.
A good surveyor will talk to you before the survey to find out if you have any particular concerns and afterwards to highlight and explain any issues.
Next steps
Read the survey when it arrives. If there are a lot of problems with the property and you are not happy to carry on with the purchase, then act quickly to let everyone know, before you incur any other costs.
If you do want to pursue the purchase, but the survey advises that you get quotes for work that needs doing, arrange for that to be done - you will need to talk to the estate agent to arrange access to the property.
If a lot of work needs doing, you may want to go back to the seller and renegotiate on the price you are paying for the property.
Exchange of contracts
After your solicitor or conveyancer has completed all the necessary checks you’ll be asked to sign a contract legally committing you to the purchase. At this point you will need to pay a deposit for the property – usually at least 5% of the price but more typically 10%. At this point you will usually agree a date to complete the sale.
Book a removal van
When you know your moving date you can start organising how to get your possessions to your new home. This could involve hiring a van and doing it yourself or hiring professional removal men. Either way, you should act fast to give yourself the best chance of finding a company to help when you need at a good price. You may also want to hire professional packers to pack up your belongings.
Buy buildings insurance
Your lender will expect you to have buildings insurance in place for the date of completion. It will quote a rebuild cost in its valuation – this is the amount you need to cover.
Completion
This is when the property finally becomes yours. When your solicitor tells you that the sale is completed you can pick the keys up from the estate agent. This will probably be the day that you move in, unless you are having work done in advance. It is likely to be a stressful day, even if everything goes according to plan, but should feel worthwhile after your first night in your new home.
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/24/factsheet-buying-home-property
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en
| 2014-11-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/ed8146503a2150520ce3eb55e96b84bd84a08529cc1d50a2dbfee9ada6c67914.json
|
|
[
"Lucy Mangan"
] | 2016-08-26T13:22:29 | null | 2016-08-24T06:00:12 |
Terror, Brexit, Trump. No wonder we’re looking for kindness and gentleness on our television screens
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fbake-off-terror-brexit-trump-x-factor-television.json
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en
| null |
In a year like this, we need Bake Off’s sugary embrace
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www.theguardian.com
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Forget yer mists and yer mellow fruitfulness. Chuck out yer close-bosomed friendship with the maturing sun. If autumn’s on the way, it must be The Great British Bake Off (returning tonight for its seventh sinfully delicious series), Strictly Come Dancing (embarking on its 14th sashay across the floor on 3 September) and The X Factor (the 13th season of which starts on Saturday).
Bake Off is PC? Show me a reality show that isn’t contrived | Gaby Hinsliff Read more
The X Factor is ailing. Viewing figures have been declining, and last year not even its final (8.4m viewers, down 2 million on 2014’s audience) made it into the top 40 most watched shows of 2015. By contrast, all 10 GBBOs and 12 of Strictly’s shows made the list – Bake Off taking first place, with 15 million gently salivating viewers.
It’s hard to imagine any kind of reversal of fortune taking place this year. At the moment the buzz is all around the return of Mel, Sue, Mary and Paul, and the drip-fed list of Strictly’s new competitors. You would have to suspect that Simon Cowell’s offering will fall on stonier ground than ever.
The public mood has changed. The year has been a brutal one so far. The first half was dominated by the deaths, in quick succession, of many loved and admired figures, from David Bowie in January to Caroline Aherne last month, with Prince, Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Victoria Wood and many equally unexpected others in between. The collective grief occasioned by such losses is different from personal bereavement, of course. But it is real.
Then came the brutalising summer of Brexit. At least 48% of the population, plus an unspecified proportion of the remainder who found themselves suffering regrexits, were left reeling by the result and found themselves staring into the abyss, from which Nigel Farage’s delighted face leered back.
All of this plays out against a backdrop of increasing global misery and rising domestic tension and disarray. Trolls run riot on Twitter and other social media platforms unconstrained by the forums’ owners, which makes for an audience whose gladiatorial appetite – on which the combative setup of X Factor depends – is more than sated. Who wants to turn from Theresa May, Labour’s internecine warfare, Trump, Turkey, Syria and all the rest and see the sob stories, cold commercial calculations and bullying-by-any-other-name on which Cowell’s behemoth depends?
Surely, finally, this is the end for The X Factor Read more
Who can bear to watch tears being extracted by emotional manipulation when there are so many already flowing freely elsewhere? Who wants to watch people laying their lives bare so that others can Auto-Tune and profit from them, when the headlines are full of the little guys getting beaten down every day?
The need now is for comfort watching. Which means telly with low stakes and with that long-unfashionable commodity, kindness, at its heart.
Both of these are baked into GBBO and Strictly Come Dancing. Baking and dancing are real things, real skills; but they are not important. Nobody ever died from lack of choux or paso doble. Even the most anxiety-ridden viewer can cope with the level of jeopardy on display here.
Meanwhile, X Factor runs at fever pitch. It’s make or break! A lot of the contestants seem sincerely to believe that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance – and given the lack of opportunities most of our lives hold, they may be entirely correct. X Factor holds out the promise of recording contracts and stellar careers (although few winners actually achieve these. Will Young, who won its forerunner, Pop Idol, is taking part in this year’s Strictly, and will probably do at least as nicely out of it as he did out of Pop Idol –and with much less emotional trauma).
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Paul the prison officer was given, uniquely, a special commendation for his bread lion, to acknowledge its magnificence.’ Photograph: BBC
Bake Off and Strictly, by contrast, channel a more Corinthian spirit. Any career upswing for Strictly’s competitors is fully subsumed in the week-to-week challenge of learning the dance and not letting your partner down. GBBO has prize money but it is barely mentioned (most viewers probably don’t even realise it has any).
Its essence was best exemplified in the episode when Paul the prison officer was given, uniquely, a special commendation for his bread lion to acknowledge its magnificence, even though – for technical, baguette-based reasons – he couldn’t be made star baker that week. So shines a good deed in a weary world. I could cry big, yeasty tears again just thinking of it.
The kindness and gentleness of the two formats is balm to the watching soul. Their contestants aren’t vulnerable, as many of X Factor’s are. The dancers are professionals or celebrities, well able to bear the judges’ verdicts; and though GBBO’s bakers are amateurs, they are doughty enough to handle the disappointment if it all goes profiteroles-up.
Mel and Sue are there for moral support and bad puns if anyone’s bottom goes soggy. The experts are honest, constructive and, er, genuinely expert. This is all rare and restorative stuff.
Kind, gentle programmes fly in the face of the dominant cultural mode of address – which is to hector aggressively until you get your way, whether you’re enacting policy in parliament or asserting your position on the attractiveness of the Olympics’ latest female gold medallist, 140 characters at a time. Such shows become increasingly valuable at times of increasing strife.
As well as providing an hour of escapism, they can function as a little reminder that – let your bread lions roar it to the heavens – it doesn’t always have to be this way.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/24/bake-off-terror-brexit-trump-x-factor-television
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en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/efccfbb4e26df01b478bd4c4f427f050a21ac65f9ec34c142a5f5f08b3746201.json
|
|
[
"Jill Papworth"
] | 2016-08-26T13:29:43 | null | 2016-08-05T06:00:53 |
A high-spec interior and uninterrupted views of the sea make this the ultimate bolthole
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2Fgallery%2F2016%2Faug%2F05%2Fbeach-house-sandcastles-kent-in-pictures.json
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en
| null |
Shoreline chic: a beach home in Margate - in pictures
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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If you like to be beside the seaside, this might be the home for you. This two-floor, two-bed leasehold property is in a row of contemporary beach houses on the Margate seafront in Kent. They were completed in May 2016 and designed by architect Guy Hollaway. All photographs by The Modern House
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2016/aug/05/beach-house-sandcastles-kent-in-pictures
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en
| 2016-08-05T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a93ddb1800007ad38331aaa87c660d04d39afe683bfa9e72e64da90360d4d45d.json
|
|
[
"Samuel Gibbs"
] | 2016-08-31T08:55:29 | null | 2016-08-31T05:00:28 |
Online retailer’s challenge for the likes of Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s extends its Prime lock-in for taking the work out of buying toilet roll and detergent
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Famazon-launches-dash-instant-order-internet-of-things-buttons-in-the-uk.json
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| null |
Amazon launches Dash instant-order Internet of Things buttons in the UK
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www.theguardian.com
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Amazon has finally launched its Dash physical instant purchase buttons in the UK, bringing one-push buying of nappies, toilet roll, dishwasher tablets and washing powder to a washing machine near you.
The branded wireless buttons, which are essentially free to the consumer and purchase a set item when pushed, are another step in Amazon’s attempt to lock customers into its Prime subscription service, and edge out traditional supermarkets from the household goods market.
There are intially 40 branded buttons to choose from in the UK, each costing £4.99 to purchase but come with £4.99 in credit for the customer’s first order. They’re linked to an Amazon account and allow anyone in the home to instantly order replacement staples from toothbrush heads, kitchen roll and washing up liquid to coffee, anti-smoking aids and condoms.
The director of Amazon Dash, Daniel Rausch, said: “There is no retail therapy in buying toilet roll or bin bags. It’s just work. We wanted to take the one-click experience from our website and put it right where people need it most, in the home, near the products that run out. So that buying them is no longer work.”
The initial 40 brands cover a range of different types of products and include household names such as Air Wick, Andrex, Ariel, Cesar, Dettol, Durex, Fairy, Finish, Gillette, Huggies, Listerine, Nerf, Nescafé, Nicorette, Olay, Pedigree, Play-doh, Regaine, Right Guard, Rimmel, Vanish and Wilkinson.
The buttons are powered by Amazon’s Dash Replenishment Service (DRS), which can be built directly into products such as a Britta water jug that orders new filters and printers that order new ink. It was launched in the US in March 2015 with small selection of brands. Since then, the number of brands available has reached over 150 and DRS has been built into washing machines and other household appliances.
Setting the up buttons is simple using Amazon’s smartphone app for Android and iOS, connecting to them via Bluetooth or ultrasonics. The buttons stay dormant until pressed, connecting to your home Wi-Fi network and placing an order on the first time they are pressed. The account holder is notified of the order, and can change the quantity or cancel it. Subsequent presses will be ignored until the item is delivered, preventing duplicates.
Bosch and Siemens dishwashers will soon be available with DRS integration for ordering dishwasher tablets automatically in the UK, while Grundig’s new washing machines will be able to do similar for detergent. Whirlpool Sense Live devices will also be able to order detergent, descaler, anti-bacterial filters or softener when needed. Some printers made by Samsung will be able to order ink automatically too.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dash buttons cover brands from a variety of product categories. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
Convenience is the main selling point for consumers. For brands, a boost in sales and the ability to get a foot in the door of a large retailer’s push for the future before rivals marks the main appeal.
Taryn Mitchell, global vice president of Digital Sales for RB, manufacturer of brands such as Vanish, Harpic, Durex and Dettol said: “A significant number of the orders we see through Amazon today are placed via the Amazon Dash Button. It’s a remarkably convenient way for customers to reorder everyday items, and even adds a bit of fun to the process.”
Amazon refuses to disclose numbers, but Rausch said that buttons for beverages are used most frequently, being pushed more than once a week on average and that across the US two orders are placed via its Dash buttons every minute, with order rates increasing by three times in the past two months.
Data from research firm Slice Intelligence paints a slightly different picture. In June it estimated that less than half of people who bought Dash buttons actually used them, and those that do only place an order via the Dash button once every two months. Since then Amazon has added another 50 brands to its Dash portfolio.
Transforming the distribution and retail of staple goods
Geoff Blaber, vice president of research for the Americas for CCS Insight said: “Brands need to be onboard from the start. While Dash may appear gimmicky today it is very likely to transform distribution and retail of such products. Once the service is integrated into appliances and can automatically sense when replenishment is needed, brands will need to be involved or risk marginalisation.
“Amazon is seeking to establish itself as the scale supplier of high frequency purchase goods as diverse as printer ink and washing powder.”
The Dash button joins the recent launch of Amazon’s Dash Barcode Scanner in the UK, a device for buying groceries from the company’s Fresh subscription service by blipping barcodes or saying the name of the product into the microphone.
Between Fresh and Prime, Amazon is seeking to expand its market position from ocassional goods such as electronics, games and books to household staples and produce, directly challenging the biggest retailers, including supermarket chains Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s.
But the Dash buttons also show Amazon’s increasing precense in the next big technology space, the Internet of Things (IoT) - a series of connected devices that look to automate tasks such as lights that respond to presence or timers or smart thermostats that save energy by only putting the heating on when people are in the house.
Rausch said: “We talk about the Internet of Things in tech, but customers are often left wondering what the utility of it is. Dash is a super accessible, practical, useful way to smarten up their homes, and that’s the kind of reaction we’ve had from customers in the US.”
Dash is just one element of Amazon’s IoT push. Its wireless, voice-controlled speaker, Echo, has the company’s Alexa smart voice assistant built in. It competes with Apple’s Siri, Google’s Now and Microsoft’s Cortana, and is capable of connecting to and controlling various automated and IoT systems about the house with voice commands.
Echo has rapidly become Amazon’s biggest sleeper hit seizing the company a significant chunk of a market of which all the biggest technology firms in the US are seeking a slice.
For an online retailer an automated purchase and replenishment service is an obviously logical next step.
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/31/amazon-launches-dash-instant-order-internet-of-things-buttons-in-the-uk
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en
| 2016-08-31T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e4cb12e535eeff255056d9dcfe89ff541770ac746183dae6dddadcde65bc96e7.json
|
|
[
"Juliette Garside",
"Chris Huhne",
"Maggie Aderin-Pocock"
] | 2016-08-28T12:55:01 | null | 2013-10-13T00:00:00 |
Virgin Group founder says he moved main residence to private Caribbean island seven years ago for health reasons
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2013%2Foct%2F13%2Frichard-branson-tax-exile-virgin.json
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en
| null |
Richard Branson denies being a tax exile
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Sir Richard Branson makes great play of wrapping himself in patriotic trappings to promote his businesses, but Britain's best-known entrepreneur on Sunday revealed he had been living as a tax exile for the last seven years after moving his main residence to a private Caribbean island.
Branson has swapped the union flag for the ensign of the British Virgin Islands, where income is not taxed. Having nominated Necker, an island he bought in the 1970s, as his tax base, he can only spend a maximum of between 46 and 183 days a year in the UK.
Defending his decision following a report in the Sunday Times, Branson said he planned to spend his remaining years on Necker for the sake of his health rather than to protect his bank balance.
"I have been very fortunate to accumulate so much wealth in my career, more than I need in my lifetime and would not live somewhere I don't want to for tax reasons," he wrote on his Virgin blog.
"I still work day and night, now focusing on not-for-profit ventures, but on Necker I can also look after my health. There is no better place to stay active and I can kitesurf, surf, play tennis, swim, do pilates and just play."
His Virgin companies have frequently referenced their British origins in branding campaigns. When Margaret Thatcher criticised British Airways for dropping the union flag from its tailfins, Branson commissioned his planes to be decorated with flying ladies trailing the British flag.
In a publicity stunt to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee, Virgin Atlantic petitioned New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to rename Union Square as Union Jack Square. Virgin Media capitalised on last year's surge in national pride during the jubilee and London Olympics by incorporating the flag into its logo.
"Branson is damaging his personal brand," said Alex Smith, a spokesman of UK Uncut, which campaigns for a greater tax contribution from corporations. "I don't see any difference between him and a hedge fund manager. He is quite happy to take from this country but is not happy to give very much back. If he is so loaded he can afford to spend his time on charity work why doesn't he pay 50% tax?"
Branson's Caribbean home was destroyed by fire two years ago, but has now been rebuilt. He is hoping to supplement his income by renting out the island for $60,000 (£37,600) – a night.
"After almost 40 years of working in the UK, Richard, now in his 60s, chose to live on his island Necker in the British Virgin Islands [BVI], an island he bought in 1979," his spokesman said. "He moved there more than seven years ago, but rather than retiring there, he spends 90% of his time starting not-for-profit ventures and raising millions for charity through speeches and other charitable engagements. Since he gives 100% of any monies he earns from these to charity, it makes no difference for tax purposes whether he is in the UK or the BVI."
Branson earns $11m a year, according to his spokesman, of which around $10m is from speeches, and donates much of his income to the Virgin Unite charity, which supports entrepreneurs around the world. His spokesman said the 63-year-old lives off money earned in the past and does not take a dividend from Virgin Group Holdings, which owns his stakes in the Virgin operating companies and is itself registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Land registry filings show Branson's Oxfordshire home was bought in August last year for £1.35m, a sum estimated below its market value, by his children Sam and Holly, although it is understood ownership was actually transferred to them four or five years ago.
As a non-resident, Branson is required to pay tax on UK income but not on any personal earnings outside of Britain. His companies continue to pay corporation tax, with Virgin Rail and Virgin Money making the biggest contributions.
The entrepreneur was named by Forbes as Britain's sixth richest resident this year, and his fortune is estimated at £3.5bn. His investments range from Virgin Trains, which operates the routes from London to Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and Virgin Atlantic, which flies to the Unites States, to the Virgin Active gyms.
Branson also used Twitter to step into the debate that followed the revelations, telling his 3.5 million followers: "The companies we've built have created tens of 1000s of jobs & paid 100s of millions in tax & will continue to do so."
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/13/richard-branson-tax-exile-virgin
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en
| 2013-10-13T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/552f8a1197fdec88c8044381174de54b3102441548eb85d0376b5da02e67af27.json
|
|
[
"Virginia Wallis"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:04 | null | 2016-08-25T06:00:03 |
I’m also wondering whether my ex-wife would have had to pay CGT when she sold her share of the property to me after our divorce
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fsell-house-renting-out-capital-gains-tax.json
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en
| null |
I want to sell a house I've been renting out - will I have to pay capital gains tax?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Q Could you please assist me with the following complicated but not uncommon situation. In 2001, I bought house for £167,000 with my then wife. In 2005, we let the house out. In 2013, we divorced and I mortgaged the house to be able to buy out my ex-wife.
In 2015, I remarried and gave my new wife half the property for mortgage and tax purposes. We are now considering selling the house for around £400,000. The house is still let and has been for around 136 months.
Am I right in thinking that my ex-wife was liable for capital gains tax when she disposed of her share by selling it to me? And would I be liable for capital gains tax (CGT) if I sold the house today? Would I be advised to move back into the house for a period of time to limit my exposure to CGT? AH
A Whether you are right in thinking that your ex-wife was liable for CGT when she sold you her share – not that it’s any of your business – depends on when the disposal took place.
If she transferred her share to you before the end of the tax year in which you separated, then – like transfers of assets between spouses who are not separated – the transfer would be treated as giving rise neither to a gain nor a loss, so no CGT would be payable.
If the transfer took place after the end of the tax year that you separated, your ex-wife may be liable for CGT but that’s between her and her tax office. More information is available in Helpsheet 281 – “Spouses, civil partners, divorce, dissolution and separation” – from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
You too would be liable for CGT if you sold the property, but only on your share of the gain and probably not on the whole of that. The fact that you say “move back into the house” suggests that when you first bought the property with your now ex-wife, it was your home until you let it out in 2005 so the answer to your last question is: you don’t need to move back in to minimise your tax bill.
The fact that you lived in the home before letting it out means that you qualify for partial “private residence relief”, which makes part of the gain tax-free. You can work this out by taking the number of months you lived in the house plus 18, and then dividing that figure by the number of months you owned the property. Multiplying this fraction by whatever the gain is (what you sold it for less what you paid for it, legal fees and stamp duty) gives you the amount of private residence relief you can subtract from the gain to reduce the tax you pay.
If you moved back in, the fraction would be calculated differently. Rather than adding 18 to the number of months you lived in your property, you would add the number of months out of the final 18 of ownership not covered by actual occupation. So, for example, if you moved back in for six months before selling, you would add 12 to the number of months you lived there.
Since you let the property, you may also qualify for “lettings relief”, which also reduces your tax bill. The amount of the gain qualifying for lettings relief is the smallest of: the gain attributable to the period of letting (calculated by multiplying the gain by the number of months the property was let then dividing by the number of months of ownership); the amount of private residence relief you’re entitled to; and the maximum lettings relief of £40,000. More information on calculating lettings relief is available in HMRC’s Helpsheet 283 on private residence relief.
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/25/sell-house-renting-out-capital-gains-tax
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en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/cd4a4327663bb518a69021534be7a7cb1a930f77dfe43e7e778e19aae8ee2028.json
|
|
[
"Leah Green",
"Fred Mcconnell"
] | 2016-08-26T16:51:07 | null | 2016-08-26T12:04:30 |
When curiosity oversteps the mark – trans man Freddy and black Jew Leah create an ‘offence-free’ zone to discuss. Prepared to be shocked
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Faustralia-news%2Faudio%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fmost-offensive-questions-you-can-ask-a-trans-man-or-black-jew-token-podcast.json
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en
| null |
The most offensive questions you can ask a trans man or black Jew - Token podcast
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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We don’t mean to offend you but...
Is it OK to be impressed by someone’s race? Can you ask trans people lots of personal questions? And when is it OK to ask if someone’s gay? Many of us feel curious about other people’s identities but can often overstep the mark, whether accidentally or not.
In this episode we create an ‘offence-free zone’ and let our curiosities run wild.
Token is based on discussion and differences and we’re hoping to find voices who disagree with us, (we don’t think it should be too hard). This is a platform for all, so as long as you’re respectful, we’d love to hear from you. You can send us a voice memo at podcasts@theguardian.com or tweet us at @guardianaudio @leahgreentweets and @fredmcConnell
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2016/aug/26/most-offensive-questions-you-can-ask-a-trans-man-or-black-jew-token-podcast
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b448102464e65d9eb50d844e32871bbcf6117ec6a0bbd1fead30cb7c6a51c9a1.json
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[] | 2016-08-26T13:30:46 | null | 2016-06-07T00:00:00 |
Almost every student at his fun-filled, Atlanta-based Ron Clark Academy has gone on to college
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpersonal-investments%2Fng-interactive%2F2016%2Fjun%2F07%2Fron-clark-academy-dancing-teacher-students-college.json
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en
| null |
Ron Clark: the dancing teacher who started an international movement
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Almost every student at his fun-filled, Atlanta-based Ron Clark Academy has gone on to college
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http://www.theguardian.com/personal-investments/ng-interactive/2016/jun/07/ron-clark-academy-dancing-teacher-students-college
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en
| 2016-06-07T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/40d9ffec8de1f0ff2bba0758954694f5f02a10ac40441b1bf981c67edef2453d.json
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|
[
"Gwyn Topham",
"Chris Huhne",
"Aditya Chakrabortty"
] | 2016-08-28T12:55:04 | null | 2013-04-08T00:00:00 |
Sir Richard Branson has said Virgin Rail could provide 'massively' better value than state-run East Coast
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2013%2Fapr%2F08%2Frichard-branson-rail-franchises-underperformers.json
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en
| null |
Richard Branson insists rail franchises should kick out underperformers
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Future rail franchises should include provisions to boot out underperforming train operators, according to Sir Richard Branson, who said that Virgin Rail could provide "massively" better value for taxpayers than the current state-run East Coast.
The east coast mainline from London to Edinburgh, a prize the Virgin boss has long coveted, will be the next big rail competition, to be awarded next year, after the government announced a number of extensions to the current franchises – including allowing Virgin to retain its west coast service until 2017.
However, Branson said he did not welcome the new deal as it delayed investment. "We would have ideally liked to be able to bid for the west coast sooner."
Speaking in Edinburgh, where his Virgin Atlantic airline yesterday officially launched its first domestic services, Branson claimed to have "transformed" the west coast mainline. "The subsidies the government had to put in were enormous. Now the government are net beneficiaries. We can absolutely do an awful lot better than the current management team on the east coast. The east coast has stagnated."
He added: "The feedback we get is that East Coast passengers would like to see a change. We have years of experience in building companies, how to get people working for us really motivated and steamed up.
"If you just work for the government you don't get people hungrily trying to make a real difference."
He said he could not promise to match the payments made to the government by the current East Coast trains, run by the Department for Transport's arms-length company, Directly Operated Railways. In the last three years it has returned more than £600m to the DfT in premium payments and profits.
He indicated he would expect the franchise to make "massively" more money under Virgin, but a significant amount would be invested back into the line. "We'd want to invest considerably in improving the track, trains, and speed times," Branson said.
He reiterated a note of caution after the west coast franchising fiasco, which saw Virgin involved in legal tussles with the DfT after a botched process led to rivals FirstGroup being awarded the London-Manchester-Glasgow route. "We have to be sure that the rules of engagement are different from last time."
He added: "Kicking out private companies if they're not performing would be an excellent added twist to the next franchise."
Even without the east coast franchise, Branson's rail and air empires both now link London and Scotland. Virgin Atlantic's first domestic services, branded Little Red, officially launched yesterday with between three and six daily return flights to Heathrow from each of Manchester, the Scottish capital and Aberdeen. It has taken over the slots taken from British Airways by competition authorities after bmi was swallowed up by the national carrier. While bmi haemorrhaged money on the routes, Virgin expects most of the domestic passengers to feed into its global long-haul network.
New chief executive Craig Kreeger said: "Bmi didn't have the network that we connect to, nor the brand and the customer service we have. We don't expect [Little Red] to be by itself hugely profitable but to add total value to our network - by creating local traffic, but mostly by connecting these three airports to the world."
Virgin Atlantic reported an £80m loss last year, and losses are anticipated to exceed £100m this year. Kreeger said that Little Red would be "part of the turnaround story in the two-year recovery plan."
He said there could be some redundancies but no wholesale job cuts at the airline.
Virgin is pinning its major hopes on a tie-up with Delta for a transatlantic joint venture, plans which it will submit to competition authority scrutiny in the US and Europe in coming weeks. "That's a major strategic shift that says in light of the new competitive market we find ourselves in, we need to do some things differently."
However, Branson remained bullish. Asked about rival Willie Walsh's "knee-in-groin" wager that Branson would not be heading Virgin Atlantic in its present form in five years, the Virgin boss said: "The bet is certainly on."
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/08/richard-branson-rail-franchises-underperformers
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en
| 2013-04-08T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b0265bead4044ab5f3bb1d3976c127df71cb38ad7c19f5114060b530cf89b65a.json
|
|
[
"Erin Fitzgerald"
] | 2016-08-26T13:25:20 | null | 2016-08-24T11:00:18 |
Park rangers reassess how to manage tourist violations, staff burnout and ‘animal jam’ as number of national park guests peaked to four million last year
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fyellowstone-national-park-visitors-wildlife-safety.json
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en
| null |
Increase in Yellowstone visitors raises park's concerns over wildlife and safety
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Yellowstone national park is finding new ways to manage tourism after visits jumped by almost 600,000 between 2014 and 2015. After 15 years of steady growth, last year’s 4m visits was a tipping point, says park ranger Charissa Reid.
The park expects the number to rise in 2016. July is likely to be the first million-visit month in the park’s 144-year history.
However, extra visitors have increased accidents between humans, animals, and the park’s flora and fauna.
Park rangers issued more than 52,000 resource violations last year. People broke thermal features, interacted with protected wildlife and relieved themselves in the park. DUIs and domestic violence inside the park also increased.
The number of full-time staff at Yellowstone has remained static for over a decade, adding to problems. The NPS employed only 330 permanent and 406 seasonal Yellowstone staff last year.
Some incidents have made headline news – a man who strayed 225 yards off a designated path and fell to his death in Yellowstone’s Norris geyser basin and five people were gored by bison. However, dying in Yellowstone is unlikely.
“When you consider we had 4 million visitors, I think we’re doing pretty good,” says Reid.
Managing human behavior to maintain safety, prevent staff exhaustion and keep visitors happy is a daily challenge.
A common disruptive human behavior at Yellowstone is an “animal jam”. This happens when people see a bear or a buffalo, or any other animal, and come to a full stop to jump from their cars.
“We can always tell the difference between a bison jam and a bear jam, because at a bear jam doors are flung open,” says Reid. “People kind of lose it over bears in the park.”
Yellowstone needs better understanding of visitor behavior to help with management, says Reid.
Animal biologists, law enforcement and printers in Yellowstone’s sign shop are all involved in visitor management. “We are trying to engage everyone to find solutions,” says Reid.
Yellowstone has also hired a social scientist to study humans. He researches how visitors enter and exit through the park, and how they interact with park attractions.
“Our superintendent often says visitors are the least studied mammal in Yellowstone,” says Reid. “We know more about bison biology than we know about park visitors.”
Increasing international visitors, use of social media and varied cultural expectations among visitors have all caused problems.
The park has hired Mandarin-speaking park rangers to communicate with the increasing number of Chinese visitors. Animal warnings have been translated into 10 languages and more toilets have been installed. New barriers and signs stop tourists from wandering, and protections outside wolf and wildlife dens keep them safe.
Reid acknowledges these are short-term solutions. Effective long-term solutions remain beyond park management’s immediate control, buried in budgets, and stored in as yet unmined visitor data.
In the meantime, visitors are part of the solution.
Reid wants people to stay on paths and to refrain from taking selfies with animals. Bison may seem harmless from a distance, but they injure more people annually than any other animal in the park.
Visitors need to heed warnings to keep 25 yards away from buffalo and other wildlife, and 100 yards away from wolves and bears. The park issues pamphlets asking visitors to use pullouts to view wildlife.
Literature suggests visiting during non-peak hours, before 9am and after 3pm. It also encourages people to explore the many alternative federal lands surrounding Yellowstone.
Reid, who grew up in Yellowstone, says she knows why the wild and awe-inspiring park keeps visitors coming back.
“You can still see predator and prey activity here,” says Reid. “Wildfires still rage. These big processes – predation, wildfires, migration – are still active in Yellowstone. Sure, there are places to buy an ice cream cone in Yellowstone. But there are many more places, just 200 or 300 yards into the wilderness, where you very quickly realize you’re a guest in a grizzly bear’s house.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/24/yellowstone-national-park-visitors-wildlife-safety
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en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/5501efbe4907a14ac25de2fd40a2ca592f3697f47251c0746d905527056fce3b.json
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[] | 2016-08-26T18:52:11 | null | 2016-08-26T17:09:20 |
Letters: The selective school system not only resulted in the majority of pupils being rejected at 11: it also segregated children within families
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Feducation%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fexams-test-only-how-good-you-are-at-exams.json
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en
| null |
Exams test only how good you are at exams
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Fiona Millar (Education, 23 August) lists arguments made for grammar schools, including the “thoroughly unscientific idea that there are ‘clever’ children and the rest”. Those who believe 11-year-olds are inherently of two types, academic sheep and practical goats, should consider some real-life examples. Is the child who excels at maths but finds it hard to string two sentences together a sheep or a goat? What about the one who likes reading and writing but loves drawing and making things? Or the talented refugee who performs poorly in the 11-plus because she’s not yet fluent in English? Is the child who falls just below the dividing line in test results because he’s missed weeks of schooling through homelessness really a goat? Is the one who scrapes through because of private tuition really a sheep?
The whole idea is a nonsense, as is the idea that two types of school are needed to provide sheep-education and goat-education.
Janet Dobson
London
• I was delighted to read the letter from Michael Liversidge (24 August) in which he outlined his academic successes despite his poor performance at O-level. I was a pupil at the same school, which at the time held direct grant status and at which my father, Don, was one of Michael’s history tutors. Shortly before our O-levels I recall overhearing Don referring to a number of my contemporaries as “nice lads but not very bright”. One of them, Chris Penny, went on to work at GCHQ where, so he said, he was just a cleaner, although the attendance at his funeral last year suggests a more significant role. Another, Matthew Harding, left to become a tea-boy in a finance house: he ended up owning that business and also Chelsea football club. Good results in academic exams are a clear indicator of being good at academic exams, nothing more.
Dick Willis
Bristol
• The selective school system not only resulted in the majority of pupils being rejected at 11: it also segregated children within families. In 1958, I passed the 11-plus and went to a grammar school; my twin brother failed and went to a secondary modern. I was not good enough however to continue in the sixth form, so went to a further education college instead. There I met someone who told me he had failed the 11-plus. His parents were so concerned about the stigma of the local secondary modern that he was sent to one in the next town whose uniform the neighbours would not recognise.
Bert Clough
Newbury, Berkshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
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https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/aug/26/exams-test-only-how-good-you-are-at-exams
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en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/9ebcf25b12da728ed79d04f3ac6e5a13e5e4852ef34d5dde414aea92741fb782.json
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|
[
"Karl Mathiesen"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:57 | null | 2016-08-12T06:00:15 |
In the last three years, significant amounts of illegal ivory have been picked up in the Singapore – conservationists worry that new smuggling routes are opening up
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2016%2Faug%2F12%2Flarge-ivory-seizures-in-singapore-make-it-a-smuggling-hub-of-primary-concern.json
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en
| null |
Large ivory seizures in Singapore make it a smuggling hub of 'primary concern'
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Large-scale seizures of ivory in Singapore over the last three years make the south-east Asian city-state one of the world’s premier ivory smuggling hubs for organised crime, say conservation watchdogs.
Data from seizures, collected by the UN’s wildlife trade monitor Traffic and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and shared with the Guardian, reveals how the gangsters operate. Shipping containers carrying thousands of tusks are labelled as carrying anything from tea to waste paper or avocados. They leave Africa from a few ports well-known for high levels of corruption.
Customs officials in China and Hong Kong – where most ivory ends up – target containers which have come from those ports. In order to get around this, according to EIA director of campaigns Julian Newman and traffic wildlife trade expert Tom Milliken, ivory shipments are being dropped off in transit ports, such as Singapore or Port Klang in Malaysia, where they can sit for months before being loaded on to a new vessel with paperwork listing a new port of origin.
“You’d probably get a red flag if you were shipping dried fish from Africa to Hong Kong,” said Newman. “But if it came from Malaysia then it wouldn’t. There’s lots of loopholes that people are able to exploit to try and get their stuff through customs control.”
Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia are the transit countries traditionally favoured by the gangs. Between 2010 and today, the EIA recorded these countries seizing a total of 32, 18 and 14 tonnes of ivory respectively.
By comparison, there had been relatively few seizures in Singapore for more than a decade before 2013. Since then, authorities have made four large seizures of 1.8 tonnes, 1 tonne, 3.7 tonnes and 0.5 tonnes – all of which Singapore crushed in a display of defiance against the trade.
The speed at which the syndicates have established themselves in the city-state has caught the attention of wildlife trade experts such as Milliken. “Singapore literally came out of nowhere and became a country of primary concern. It’s not a lot of seizures but the ones that occurred were a large volume of ivory,” he said. Amounts of half a tonne and above indicate the involvement of criminal gangs.
Organised crime is a key threat to elephant survival, said Milliken, because of the huge volumes they are able to ship at once. The payoffs are huge and the consequences usually minimal. Traffic estimates that more than 95% of illegal shipments evade officials. Arrests are rare. As a result elephant poaching in Africa has exploded since 2008 with catastrophic results in countries such as Tanzania where the population dropped 60% from 2009 to 2014.
More than 95% of illegal shipments evade officials and arrests are rare
Milliken has prepared a report (pdf) for next month’s critical wildlife summit – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) conference in South Africa – in which he names Singapore as “a country of primary concern”. The conference will consider whether to put Singapore on a list of worst offending countries that are required to submit a plan for controlling the trade and overseen by their peers.
A spokesperson for the Singaporean Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said the agency was reviewing the recommendation made to Cites and that Singapore used “a multi-pronged approach to weed out illegal wildlife trade”. They would not comment on the apparent renewed presence of criminal gangs.
In June, when the country crushed its seized ivory, senior minister of state for national development and home affairs Desmond Lee said (pdf): “Tackling this illicit trade requires close international cooperation, and also the assistance of the public and NGOs. We will continue our enforcement efforts, to prevent Singapore from being used as a transit point.”
The Cites conference of parties (CoP) is the major global meeting on the wildlife trade. It occurs every three years, this year in Johannesburg. On the agenda are controversial proposals to allow some sales of ivory by some African countries. The international trade in ivory was banned by Cites in 1989.
Like most aspects of the ivory trade, global data on seizures varies in quality from country to country. Traffic and the EIA maintain databases of seizures using police records, tips, leaks and media announcements.
This is not the first time that ivory gangs have operated in Singapore. In 2002 a tip off to the EIA led to one of the biggest ivory seizures of all time (pdf) – 6.2 tonnes. The only person arrested was Toh Yew Lye, a middleman who had signed the port documents in Singapore (he claimed to believe the shipments were sculptures). Documents captured in Africa suggested the syndicate had made as many as 18 shipments from Malawi between 1994 and 2002. Lye was fined just $3,000. But the crime itself was worth millions of dollars. One of the most lucrative smuggling routes of the 1990s was broken and Singapore remained quiet for a decade.
Milliken believes the return of at least one smuggling ring to the world’s second busiest port could be motivated by increasing pressure on the trade in Malaysia. At the last Cites CoP in 2013, Malaysia was named a country of primary concern and forced to submit a national ivory plan. While Malaysia remains a premier smuggling route, the humiliation has led to some progress, according to Milliken, which may have pushed the criminals back to Singapore.
“If law enforcement gets tough in one place then of course the people behind these consignments will find another way. They are constantly looking for the path of least resistance,” he said. Newman calls this interpretation “credible”.
In Hong Kong and China, ivory has taken on an increased level of political importance. The Chinese government announced last yearit would phase out the country’s domestic ivory trade. As such, highly sophisticated systems have been developed to target shipments that fit certain profiles.
Thirty million containers pass through Singapore’s port every year. It is this volume that makes it attractive to gangs and a nightmare for customs trying to combat the illegal passage of everything from pangolins to rocket launchers.
“Most of their targeting and profiling, probably number one is looking for drugs and then perhaps armaments. Wildlife trade, ivory, it’s probably somewhere there but it’s certainly not a mega priority,” said Milliken.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/12/large-ivory-seizures-in-singapore-make-it-a-smuggling-hub-of-primary-concern
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en
| 2016-08-12T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/7635723d644390ab0860207e4a8993a12007062e1ed124b82b7e4173212dc4b9.json
|
|
[
"Michael Safi"
] | 2016-08-30T16:52:40 | null | 2016-08-30T14:48:40 |
Claims by Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod to have climbed world’s highest peak were verified by authorities but later doubted
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Findian-couple-banned-from-climbing-after-faking-ascent-of-everest.json
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en
| null |
Indian couple banned from climbing after faking ascent of Everest
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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An Indian couple have been banned from climbing Nepalese mountains for 10 years after authorities determined that their claimed ascent of Mount Everest this year was faked.
Dinesh Rathod and his wife, Tarakeshwari, both police officers, were hailed as the first Indian couple to climb the world’s highest peak on 23 May.
The couple’s claim, initially verified by Nepalese authorities, was based on photographs they supposedly had taken at the peak.
But in June complaints were lodged by several other mountaineers including Satyarup Siddhanta, a climber from West Bengal, who said the couple had used doctored versions of photographs from his successful ascent two days earlier.
Indian couple accused of faking photo of summit at Mount Everest Read more
On Tuesday Nepalese tourism officials said an investigation had determined the Rathods never reached the 8,850-metre peak.
“Our investigation shows that the couple faked their summit. We have imposed a 10-year ban against them from climbing any mountain in Nepal,” Sudarshan Prasad Dhakal, the tourism department chief, told Agence France-Presse.
The police commissioner in Pune, where the two officers are based, said their fraud was “indeed shocking”. Rashmi Shukla said the couple had “tarnished the image not only of police force but of the whole country.”
Shukla said the two 30-year-olds had disappeared after being interviewed and were still missing. “The two have disappeared without a trace even as we were conducting the inquiry,” she told the Indian Express.
Neither of the pair co-operated with the investigation, and the two sherpas tasked with accompanying them to the summit have also absconded, according to Nepalese authorities.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dinesh Rathod and his wife Tarakeshwari on Mount Everest in a photo claimed to be faked. Photograph: Facebook
Nepalese media reported in July that 15 of 32 government-appointed liaison officers, who are tasked with supervising successful Everest climbs, had verified climbers’ claims without even visiting the mountain’s south-side base camp.
The officers are supposed to accompany climbers who reach the summit to the camp and then await their return, deciding whether to recommend them for a verification certificate.
Of the remaining 17 officers who did reach base camp, the report said, six returned the same day and five stayed for only a handful of days. A spokesman for Nepal’s tourism department told the Guardian the report was “baseless”.
Another climber who lodged a complaint against the Rashods, Anjali Kulkarni, said the pair’s attempts a doctoring the photographs had been amateurish, showing them in varying outfits in different photos from the summit. “Being able to change one’s clothes mid-climb and not get frostbitten would be a miracle,” he told a Mumbai newspaper.
The complaint also reportedly alleged the couple had been previously denied a verification certificate by Australian authorities, for their claim to have scaled Australia’s 10 highest peaks in November 2014.
About 450 people scaled Everest during the March to May climbing season this year, after two consecutive years of disasters on the mountain during which almost all attempts were abandoned.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/30/indian-couple-banned-from-climbing-after-faking-ascent-of-everest
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en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b9d20cb9ca0fe04cc6303c74269a1bf4bd4db86573d4d906617a610c51e4ea89.json
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|
[
"Shane Hickey"
] | 2016-08-26T13:23:42 | null | 2016-08-25T14:07:34 |
Also, the pension top-up that no one seems to want, and how to go on holiday when you’re not spending for a year
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fpersonalised-number-plates-summer-houses-pension-top-up-holiday.json
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en
| null |
The pull of personalised number plates, plus unique summer houses
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Hello and welcome to this week’s Money Talks – a roundup of the week’s biggest stories and some things you may have missed.
Money news
UK women still far adrift on salary and promotion as gender pay gap remains a gulf
DVLA disputes £400m revenue loss following abolition of tax disc
FL45H G1T: Why personalised number plates are more popular than ever
More than 1.5m UK households in extreme debt, says TUC report
Poorer renters at risk from homelessness as benefit shortfall grows
Feature
My year of no spending: I’ve been on one of the best holidays ever
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michelle McGagh taking a pitstop at Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk. Photograph: Michelle McGagh
In pictures
When art meets architecture: summer houses for sale
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A summer house designed by Berlin studio Barkow Leibinger. Photograph: Iwan Baan/The Modern House
In the spotlight
More than a quarter of a million people were expected to boost their pension by making an upfront payment but fewer than 4,000 have signed up so far.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Keep on running: the longer you live, the better the value of the top-up deal becomes. Photograph: Alamy
Consumer champions
The Post Office made a mistake, but won’t give me a refund
Amazon is making me share my payment details
Zika grounded our dream holiday, now Virgin Atlantic won’t refund us
Money deals
Save 10% on Guardian travel insurance when you quote Summer10. Get a quote now.
Get fee-free mortgage from the experts at L&C, provider of the Guardian Mortgage Advice Service. See our latest best buys.
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/25/personalised-number-plates-summer-houses-pension-top-up-holiday
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en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/af8aa5185c28bbda7a2ccb9059ccf0c1f8340b07839495b594ce84df7a2be051.json
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|
[
"Dj Gallo"
] | 2016-08-26T13:15:53 | null | 2016-08-25T11:43:27 |
The next Games provides baseball a rare opportunity to sell itself on the world stage – and it needs its best players to showcase the sport
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2Fblog%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fbaseball-olympic-games-2020-tokyo-mlb-team-selection.json
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en
| null |
Baseball needs a USA Dream Team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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The 2016 Summer Olympics are over. Baseball is an Olympic sport again.
Left out of the Games in London and Rio, baseball (along with its pal softball) is set to return again in Tokyo in 2020. There is no commitment to the sport beyond Tokyo, however, which means the sport can’t afford to blow its opportunity on the international stage. As big as the “World” Series claims to be, baseball’s only truly global showcase comes when it’s allowed to be seen every four years along with the rest of the big-time Olympic sports: track and field, swimming, dressage and the like.
The sport needs to put on a show in Tokyo or it might not get another chance – and doing so will require participation from the best players in the game. Think about the excitement surrounding the 1992 Dream Team, only imagine Michael Jordan as a baseball player. OK, bad idea. But you get my point.
Mike Trout, Kris Bryant, Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw, all in red, white and blue and taking on the best of the best from the other top baseball nations. Bat flips from around the world, chanting, brushback pitches, baseball’s unwritten rules unwritten in every language. Host nation Tokyo might even feature a 46-year old, .300-hitting Olympian Ichiro. Everything about it sounds amazing.
A star-studded tournament would get attention both in the US and around the world and the huge, enthusiastic crowds that would undoubtedly show up to the games in Tokyo would make the sport one of the Games’ big stories. This would be far from the contrived World Baseball Classic, an event with no history. This new form of Olympic baseball would feature the best baseball players in the world playing in the ultimate global sports tournament, with hundreds of millions watching around the world (give or take a few tens of millions of millennials, right NBC?)
The only problem is that Major League Baseball doesn’t want to send its stars to the Olympics because the Summer Games happen just as the pennant chase heats up. The 2020 Games will run from 24 July to 9 August, holy summer days for those who worship baseball as it has always been. But this is old thinking that new commissioner Rob Manfred hopefully won’t adopt. Manfred has already said he is open to reducing the regular season to 154 games. So cut eight games off the regular season in 2020, ditch the All-Star Game along with it – the wildly unpopular event earned record low ratings in July – and, abracadabra, we’ve instantly found the two weeks we need to sell baseball to the world.
There is no downside. The players who don’t make an Olympic team get time to nurse injuries and rest up for the pennant chase, MLB can make the 31 July trade deadline into a multi-day, mega-hyped event, the game’s best players will get to battle it out for their countries – while staying fresh for their U.S. teams – and maybe just win a few million fans the world over will fall in love with the sport. It’s a win, win, win, etc.
The safe bet is that baseball goes its regular route and fills the US Olympic roster with the usual retreads and nobodies. For who, outside of everyone, can forget the fearsome 2008 Team USA lineup with Nate Schierholtz, Jayson Nix and Taylor Teagarden? Or it can do something very un-baseball-like, go bold and try to sell the game to a new generation.
The NHL has allowed its season to be interrupted for the Olympics since 1998 and ice hockey has been a huge part of the Games ever since. And this during the tenure of Gary Bettman. Gary Bettman. Does Manfred want his legacy to be that he was a worse commissioner than Gary Bettman? That’s his choice. And there’s only one good option for him and the sport: baseball must go all-in on the 2020 Olympics.
Video of the Week
Oregon Little League coach Joel Jensen called timeout on Tuesday at the LLWS to tell his son that he loves him. It’s easy to be a little cynical about ultra-competitive youth sports, but this is undoubtedly a nice, tender and sincere moment. Although, if you are very cynical about youth sports, you could say he feels this way about his talented son because the kid has major league potential. Who doesn’t love a meal ticket?
Quote of the Week
“It’s boring out there.” - Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez, explaining why infielders often go to the mound when the pitching coach comes out to speak to the pitcher.
— David Schoenfield (@dschoenfield) Keith Hernandez on why infielders go to the mound when the pitching coach comes out: "It's boring out there."
Be honest, Keith. Infielders go to the mound because they hope their coach will tell them that he loves them.
Who’s closer to victory: Donald Trump of the Cubs?
Donald Trump continues to trail in most every national poll and is down big in several key swing states, while the Cubs became the first MLB team to 80 wins this week and remain the favorite to win their first World Series. Of course, things could change if Trump follows trough on his old threat and drops an October surprise on the Cubs.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $'s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!
Although, history has proven that an October surprise related to the Cubs would be ... the Cubs winning the World Series. Feels like a lose-lose for Trump.
How did the kids piss off Goose Gossage this week?
While there is no particular Goose Gossage connection to this week’s lesson in baseball’s code, it does harken back to the fight the former Yankees reliever got into with teammate Cliff Johnson in 1979. That brawl left Gossage with a broken thumb, whereas this week’s baseball punching left A’s DH Billy Butler with a head injury thanks to team-mate Danny Valencia.
The Butler-Valencia bout reportedly started when Butler told a shoe brand representative that Valencia was wearing a pair of off-brand cleats in breach of his contract. For this bit of teammate snitching, Butler received a punch to the face from Valencia. Sometimes baseball’s code is confusing. Not in this case. Go out of your way to tell on a coworker and get punched in the face. That’s common sense and karma.
Nine thoughts in order
1) It’s still too early to determine who truly “won” and “lost” last month’s non-waiver trade deadline, but there are definitely early contenders. Andrew Miller has been outstanding since going to Cleveland from the Yankees, posting a 1.69 ERA and 0.46 WHIP with two saves and 16 strikeouts in 10 and two-thirds innings. Watch him dominate the A’s here on Monday night with three straight Ks to pick up the save in a 1-0 win.
— Scott @ WFNY (@WFNYScott) Schools back in. Here's How to Properly Pitch a Ninth Inning with Dr. Andrew Miller https://t.co/pON4aHnHKu
Then there’s the case of Josh Reddick, late of the A’s, who the Dodgers picked up before the deadline. He’s hitting .149 under the careful watch of Magic Johnson in LA, including no home runs and no runs batted in more than 70 plate appearances. That’s pretty tough to do. Even tougher to do? Injure yourself while getting room service.
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughTimes) Josh Reddick hurt his finger when his hand got caught in a door last night while ordering room service. "This is rock bottom," he cracked.
2) The Cardinals still have a hold on the last wildcard spot in the National League, but they’re not making it look easy. Despite having the Best Fans in Baseball™ St Louis somehow have the fourth-worst home record in all of baseball. That becomes a serious problem due to the fact that the Cardinals have a narrow lead over the Marlins and Pirates for that last wildcard spot and close out their season with six games at Busch Stadium – including Games 160, 161 and 162 versus Pittsburgh. Imagine a scenario in which the Cardinals go from a playoff position in the final week to missing the postseason completely thanks to gagging on that final homestand. Could they end their season by get booed off their home field by the Best Fans? This truly could be a dream season for Cubs fans.
3) Yankees COO Hank Steinbrenner told the New York Post that part of what convinced him to go all-in on the team rebuilding was because Yankee fans on social media supported a youth movement. They no doubt did. Because the general consensus on social media about sports, politics/movies/music/gardening/whatever issue is dominating the news cycle sucks big time. In fact, it might just be the worst ever and the complete opposite must be done straight away. So expect Yankees fans on social media to be pushing for some veteran additions upon completion of the first three-game losing streak.
4) The first place Dodgers currently have seven starters on the DL: Clayton Kershaw, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brandon McCarthy, Rich Hill, Alex Wood, Brett Anderson and Scott Kazmir. That is more than $79m in payroll on the disabled list, meaning the Dodgers have to battle on with barely $185m worth of healthy players. Please keep them in your thoughts during this difficult time.
5) The art of pitch framing has been around since the first catcher wanted to buy a call from the home plate ump, but it’s only in recent years – beginning around 2006 with the introduction of the PITCHf/x pitching tracking system – that teams were able to quantify the skill and then compensate catchers who do it well. Now we are beginning to see catchers who grew up in this era arrive on the big stage of the Little League World Series. Expect this kid to receive a large bubble gum bonus from management.
6) Blue Jays slugger Edwin Encarnacion is being sued for more than $11.5m by a woman who claims he gave her STDs. His agent has said that the charges are “completely inappropriate and meritless” and that the designated hitter will “take every legal measure to defend himself against this meritless claim.” The courts will decide that, but I think we can all agree that STD feels a bit outdated in modern baseball. Surely there is something like xSTD, STD+ or VORstD that can more accurately judge what Encarnacion did or did not give.
7) With Derek Jeter retiring from baseball two years ago, A-Rod going out two weeks ago and David Ortiz leaving the game two months from now, there may be a lot of fans without a favorite player in the sport. If you are such a fan, consider filling that hole with Royals third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert. He’s a 23-year old rookie batting .292 with 10 home runs. That covers the baseball part.
Now for the much more interesting off-the-field component: the Venezuela native used a chunk of the $1.9m signing bonus he received in 2009 to buy chickens and now has nearly 300 of them waiting for him back at home. “He gets photos and videos and makes calls to their caretaker everyday,” his sister told La Prensa. “He adores them.” How can you not root for a man with a phone full of pictures of his pet chickens? And, please, people of Kansas City, try to consider the man’s feelings. Don’t eat your massive platters of barbecue chicken right in front of him.
8) MLB released the postseason schedule this week. A few dates you’ll want to keep open:
– Tuesday 25 October: Game 1 of the World Series.
– Wednesday 2 November: Game 7 of the World Series, if necessary.
– Friday 7 October: four playoff games in one day with the NLDS Game 1s and the ALDS Game 2s.
– Tuesday 4 October: postseason opens with the AL wildcard game.
– Wednesday 5 October: Pittsburgh Pirates lose in the NL wildcard to team TBD.
9) After each of the last three Summer Olympics, the football world has pondered if Usain Bolt could play in the NFL. Just last week, former coach Tony Dungy said he’d use Bolt as a receiver to “clear out one side of the field” with his speed, while Falcons receiver Julio Jones said Bolt would struggle without the “burst” he’d need to get off the line of scrimmage.
But why are we always projecting Bolt into football? Why couldn’t he be a MLB pinch runner? And a late-inning defensive replacement to run down balls hit into the gap Billy Hamilton-style? Sure, it’s improbable, but it seems more likely to happen than a football career. That reminds me, there’s one more date coming up on the baseball calendar that you’ll want to remember: Tim Tebow’s baseball tryout is now set for 30 August in Los Angeles.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/aug/25/baseball-olympic-games-2020-tokyo-mlb-team-selection
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| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0580c9ca3c077136993c4b7f2f92295c98507438ff0b787433f830c266cf1223.json
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[
"Andrew Sparrow",
"Rowena Mason"
] | 2016-08-27T18:51:10 | null | 2016-07-27T22:53:15 |
Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Owen Smith’s Labour leadership speech
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Labour leadership: Owen Smith proposes £3bn wealth tax - as it happened
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10:19
Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith has apologised for saying Labour should do more to “smash” Theresa May back on her heels.
After criticism of his choice of language, a spokesman for Smith said:
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/jul/27/labour-leadership-corbyn-owen-smith-speech-millions-of-labour-supporters-prefer-may-to-corbyn-poll-suggests-politics-live
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| 2016-07-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d765733372054a14581c0ca9ad873df5ce68c475b75fb8d96b6187f6db28db7f.json
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[
"Richard Gibson"
] | 2016-08-27T18:51:24 | null | 2016-08-27T16:54:55 |
Huddersfield, top of the Championship for the first time since 1999, stayed ahead of the pack with a 1-0 win against Wolves, secured by Rajiv van La Parra’s sixth-minute goal
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Huddersfield maintain lead as Rajiv van La Parra downs Wolves
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The Championship is very much an international affair these days and it took a Dutchman’s goal to maintain the smile on his German-American manager’s face and deliver a first English defeat for the Italian in the opposite dugout.
Rajiv van La Parra’s opportunism in the sixth minute, sweeping home his first Huddersfield goal against his former club, massaged the club’s fine start to the season into their best in 64 years. Unsurprisingly, they are accepting David Wagner as one of their own after such an unexpected surge out of the blocks but this victory over Walter Zenga’s Wolves was not so much about their attacking verve as their defensive tenacity.
While their flowing football won plaudits on the road at Newcastle and Aston Villa, it was the ability to protect a lead that saw Wagner’s men surpass the start made by the Huddersfield vintage of 1969-70. That season ended in promotion to the top flight. Not since December 1999 have they sat on top of the second tier, and their stay at the summit will last another fortnight at least owing to the international break.
Football clockwatch: Leicester 2-1 Swansea, Watford 1-3 Arsenal and more – as it happened Read more
“There are different ways to win – this was a different one to our others this season and I will take every victory I can,” Wagner said. “The first half was outstanding, one of the best 45 minutes we have played. We were very sharp, organised behind the ball and quick in our reactive pressure.”
Huddersfield is hardly a sporting mecca but they are getting accustomed to toasting successes with unapologetic fervour. At half-time, there was a rousing reception for another of their own, Ed Clancy, the gold medal-winning cyclist. Then, there was the post-match roar to signify another significant scalp.
Wolves have invested heavily since their Chinese takeover this summer with Zenga intent on having two players for every position. Nine players have arrived already – the Dutch striker Paul Gladon, a £1m signing from Heracles, was signed too late to feature here – with a deal also in place for the Angers midfielder Romain Saiss.
Here, the charismatic Zenga – in his 16th managerial job in 18 years – maintained the core of team he inherited from Kenny Jackett, with the Icelandic striker Jon Dadi Bodvarsson the one new recruit to start. But they could not live with Huddersfield’s energetic start: Kasey Palmer, the on-loan Chelsea youngster, provided the intricate pass, that teased its way between the feet of Danny Batth, Nahki Wells took it into the area, and guided the ball wide of Carl Ikeme. Although it rebounded off the base of the post, Van La Parra reacted first.
The squally showers around kick-off greased up the playing surface, suiting Huddersfield’s slick passing, and at that stage it looked likely further goals would follow. Palmer, who lasted 57 minutes before going off, was full of invention and occasional audacity, such as the 20-yard clip with the outside of his right boot that forced Carl Ikeme into action.
Nigel Clough haunts Derby as Jackson Irvine seals win for Burton Read more
At that point, Ikeme’s opposite number Danny Ward had watched a couple of George Saville efforts sail off target. However, although Joe Mason had the ball in the net at the end of the first half, only for an offside flag to scrub it off, Wolves’ attacking threat was improved by the introduction of João Teixeira at the start of the second.
Ward was faced into his first save seven minutes after the re-start when the left-back Matt Doherty bundled his way through the Huddersfield defence and rasped in a cross-shot. Moments later, Teixeira clipped the outside of the post from 20 yards.
But try as they might, Wolves could not force the ball the other side of it – although a stupendous reflex reaction from Ward played its part when Bodvarsson’s header from a 68th-minute corner was repelled low to the goalkeeper’s left.
Mason then had a penalty claim dismissed when he hit the turf under a challenge from Hudson.
“In the second half there was only one team on the pitch without doubt,” Zenga said. “We lost the game but we didn’t deserve to lose.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/27/huddersfield-town-wolves-championship-match-report
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| 2016-08-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/04a294787466a8f6c83b51695e58832721908164e4dcda42bfe6451730f43e7c.json
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[
"Damian Carrington"
] | 2016-08-26T13:02:36 | null | 2016-08-26T10:12:21 |
Government countryside assessment paints a ‘grim picture’ with key species such as hedgehogs, dormice, birds and butterflies all continuing to decrease in number
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England's best-loved wildlife still in serious decline, report shows
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Much of England’s best-loved wildlife remains in serious decline, according to the latest official assessment from the government. Birds and butterflies on farmland have continued their long term downward trend and 75% of over 200 “priority” species across the country – including hedgehogs, dormice and moths – are falling in number.
The Natural Environment Indicators for England also showed that water quality has fallen in the last five years, with just one in five rivers and lakes having high or good status, and the amount of time given by conservation volunteers has also fallen.
However, the sustainability of fisheries has improved, as has the amount of carbon locked up in forests and litter in the seas has begun to decline. The indicators were established by the government’s Natural Environment white paper in 2011, which said it would “put right damage done in previous years” by placing “the value of nature at the centre of the choices our nation must make”.
“This report paints a pretty grim picture of how our wildlife is faring in the countryside,” said Sandra Bell, at Friends of the Earth. “Added to recent new evidence that wild bees have been harmed by neonicotinoid pesticides, it’s clear that if we want to enjoy a thriving natural environment big changes are needed to our farming system. This must be a priority for the government as part of its Brexit strategy.”
Christopher Price, at the CLA, which represents landowners, farmers and rural businesses, said: “This progress report is a tough read for all those who care about our countryside. As we prepare to exit the EU, it is clear that the new [farming and environment] policy must have greater ambition in how it supports farmers and land managers to deliver better environmental outcomes.” On Thursday, a poll showed the public strongly supports stronger post-Brexit environmental policies.
A spokesman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which published the new report, said: “We have some of the most fantastic wildlife in the world and we are determined to protect our excellent natural resources.”
“We are making good progress – over 100,000 hectares of habitat created or restored, targeted conservation increasing populations of once very scarce species, such as the cirl bunting, and schoolchildren helping to plant at least 10m new trees by the end of this parliament,” the spokesman said. “Although we have seen many clear successes, government cannot create a better natural environment alone – that is why we are working with businesses, farmers, land managers, and communities to achieve our shared ambition of better protecting our precious wildlife.”
Over the last five years, six of the 24 key indicators assessed were deteriorating and 10 showed little or no change, while eight were improving. Eighteen of the indicators were assessed over the longer term, 10 years or more, with seven deteriorating, 3 showing little or no change and eight improving.
Farmland birds fell to the second lowest level ever recorded in 2014, the most recent year for which data was available, 56% lower than in 1970. Farmland butterflies reached their lowest point in 2012 and small increases in the next two years did not significantly alter the overall downward trend. Wintering water birds have also declined in the last five years.
Christine Reid, at the Woodland Trust, said: “It’s hard to be positive about the state of our wildlife when reading these figures, which is why we need government to deliver a 25-year plan for the environment which can truly enable positive change.” A comprehensive 25-year plan for the environment due to be published by the end of 2016 has been postponed by the Brexit vote.
Reid said: “It’s about people power too. We saw the reaction when our public forests were at risk of being sold off – people care about the environment – but it can take the threat of loss to motivate. So make a change now; create a wildlife habitat, help preserve a local conservation area or campaign for ancient woodland.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/26/englands-best-loved-wildlife-still-in-serious-decline-report-shows
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| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6361b22bf3669c62f2df0d71f13b47f78661ed4c06ac5ee85fc793c3cb7793ac.json
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[
"Australian Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-29T02:51:47 | null | 2016-08-29T02:13:59 |
Former Socceroos captain Paul Okon will coach the Central Coast Mariners for the next two A-League seasons, replacing sacked manager Tony Walmsley
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Paul Okon announced as Central Coast Mariners A-League coach
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Former Socceroos captain Paul Okon will coach the Central Coast Mariners for at least the next two A-League seasons. Okon assumes the full-time role at the Mariners from Tony Walmsley, who was sacked earlier this month after the team won just three games last season to finish last.
It means Okon, who has previously coached the Australian under-20s, will have just five weeks to turn the team around before their opening A-League game of the season against Perth on October 8. However it’s not something he is concerned about.
“One thing that I’ve learnt to accept and do my best with at a national team level has been preparing players with limited time so it’s not new to me at all,” Okon said. “It’s a part of what I’ve been doing for four and a half years.
Sydney FC captain Alex Brosque re-signs for another season Read more
“Any coach will tell you that they don’t have enough time but I’m happy with five weeks and confident that the type of football I want to play, I will be able to get across before round one.”
Okon made 28 appearances for the Socceroos, and returned to Australia to play with the Newcastle Jets in 2006. He then held an assistant coaching role at Gold Coast United in 2008, and has since played a key role in the nation’s youth teams.
Mariners vice chairman Peter Storrie said the club had received more than 60 applications for the role, but saw Okon’s knowledge of youth as key in turning the Mariners around. “In Paul we have an outstanding candidate that covers all areas for us,” Storrie said. “His extensive knowledge of young players across the country, understanding of the Hyundai A-League and understanding of the Central Coast Mariners were crucial decision making factors.”
Okon’s appointment also comes with the endorsement of Socceroos head coach Ange Postecoglou and the club’s football advisor Harry Redknapp. “(Redknapp) also played an important role in the recruitment process and agreed with our final decision to appoint an Australian coach compared to the raft of overseas candidates who applied for the position,” Storrie said.
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/29/paul-okon-announced-as-central-coast-mariners-a-league-coach
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| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/cb5f99200f61dad74185db8aa9cfd80a236ab89c972953f676bd38a97a677402.json
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[
"Stuart Clark"
] | 2016-08-26T13:27:53 | null | 2016-08-11T20:30:03 |
Experiments with ‘entangled’ particles could pave way for hack-proof communications network
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Chinese satellite will test 'spooky' Einstein claim
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Sometime this month, China is planning to launch a satellite that could be a first step towards establishing a “hack-proof” communications network.
The satellite is a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It will be launched from China’s Jiuquan satellite launch centre in Inner Mongolia aboard a Long March 2D rocket.
It will test the quantum phenomena that govern the sub-atomic world of particles. These are often bizarre: particles can be in two places at once, they can behave like waves and solid particles, they don’t quite know exactly where they are – the list goes on.
French satellite puts Einstein to the test Read more
However, one of the weirdest behaviours is the one Einstein described as “spooky”. It is termed entanglement. When two particles interact with one another, they become “entangled”, and any subsequent interaction that one of those particles has immediately affects the other one.
According to theory, this entanglement persists over any distance, but so far researchers have only tested it across the 143km that separates the Canary islands of La Palma and Tenerife. The new satellite will attempt to communicate with ground stations in Beijing and Vienna, and test entanglement over 1,200km.
No one understands the mechanism by which entanglement works, but if it can be harnessed it offers “hack-proof” communications. This is because any eavesdropping would automatically change the message. Thus the intended recipient would know the signal had been tampered with.
Military and governmental applications are obvious, as are secure on-line shopping and banking. Other countries, such as Japan, UK, Italy, Canada and Singapore are also pursuing quantum satellites, but the US appears not to be investing very much in the technology.
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/11/chinese-satellite-test-einstein-spookiest-claim
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| 2016-08-11T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1daf177aac8d66845b4f520f1622ec9d53df6c140de3b2fcc6be303aa403b9a6.json
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[
"Paul Macinnes"
] | 2016-08-30T10:52:36 | null | 2016-08-30T09:07:57 |
Sports psychologists are increasingly important to footballers who have been told it’s over and don’t want it to be, who have gone ‘from something to damn all’
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Being frozen out at a football club is ‘professional trauma’ akin to a partner leaving
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Imagine you are a footballer – and not just any footballer, an elite one, an elite footballer who has suddenly found yourself given the cold shoulder, informed you are surplus to requirements, encouraged to get yourself some game time, only at another club. Imagine you are that footballer. What would you do next?
Premier League: transfer window summer 2016 – interactive Read more
Football fans are used to seeing exhibitions of player power in 2016; the sulk, the transfer request, the unattributed remarks in the press. But the other side of the dynamic, where the clubs exert their power, happens many times more frequently.
This summer a spate of players has been given the cold shoulder – from Joe Hart, passing the hours in his back garden working on his passing game, to Saido Berahino, now celebrating the one-year anniversary of his Jeremy Peace tweet, and Bastian Schweinsteiger wondering if it could really be only two years ago that he was kissing the World Cup. As the sash cords on the transfer window continue to be reeled in, these players will be getting ready for some awkward conversations.
“As much as the player might dig his heels in,” says an agent with Premier League clients who wishes to remain nameless, “the reality is that, if a club want someone out, they can make it difficult for them.” This includes applying such time-honoured techniques as making a player train with the kids and will often happen when a new manager enters a club. “If it’s the start of a new reign and the manager is reluctant to commit to a player, it’s a strong sign,” he says.
An agent’s job is then to source alternatives and put them to a client, with the emphasis on one thing: money. “Any agent worth his salt would sit down with his client and put all the options on the table,” the agent says. “If the money’s the same and it’s all about football, he’ll want to work. If the offers that come in don’t match up, he faces a tougher choice. A year not playing is really damaging to your career, really damaging. By the time your contract comes to an end, you won’t be able to get the same amount of money.”
Despite this risk, however, the agent is confident he knows which choice most players would make when faced with taking a pay cut. “It’s the player that makes the decision,” he says. “For sure, they’d think strategically but, ultimately, they won’t leave for less money to play.”
If that seems a particularly unsentimental approach to pursuing a career in the sport you love, then welcome to modern football. But while players might be taking business decisions in a hard-nosed manner, that does not mean that feelings of vulnerability are not bubbling away underneath.
Professor Dave Collins is the director of the Institute of Coaching and Performance at the University of Central Lancashire. A former head of performance at UK Athletics, he has worked with Olympians as well as professional sportsmen to deal with the psychological impacts of injury and retirement. Being forced out of a club against your will is not a dissimilar experience, he says.
“It is a professional trauma. One day you’re something and the next day, in your eyes, you’re damn all,” he says, drawing the parallel between a football club and a lover. “Imagine that you’ve been in a very high-maintenance relationship and been committed to it. Imagine someone tells you it’s over and you don’t want it over. You’ll feel that you’re no longer one of the in-crowd. All of a sudden people around stop acknowledging you, people stop calling you up. When that’s a big part of your identity, the trauma you experience will be close to a bereavement.”
Collins says the role of the sports psychologist is increasingly important in helping athletes move on from disappointment. “If I’m retained by a club or squad and a guy gets cut, I consider it part of my responsibility to look after them,” he says. “It’s important that people who are coming in see how you treat people on the way out. Part of the job would be to rationalise the emotions being experienced. Say that you’re 45 and your wife has left you. You think you’ll never meet someone again but the third part doesn’t follow from the first two. A player thinks: ‘I’ve been at a top club, now I’m surplus to requirement, that means I’m not good enough.’ Again, it doesn’t follow. To rationalise what’s gone on is important.”
While the agent is working out a deal and the psychologist is conducting a debrief, there is one more crucial role in managing a player out of a club. Player liaison officers are a new breed of sporting executive whose job is to make sure a professional footballer has to lift only the fingers he wants to. And they are the ones who will finally see a player off the premises.
“You have a duty of care to a player no matter what’s happened,” says one officer, again speaking anonymously. “You’ve built a relationship with them and, if you’re in this profession, you’re a caring person anyway.”
One area of particular attention is property. A liaison officer may be needed to help negotiate the end of a lease or put a house on the market. They might take one recently vacated property and pass it to a new signing. They might even be required to go through a flat with a bin bag.
“I have had examples where players leave and they say: ‘I’m not interested in any of this stuff,’” the officer says. “They’ll say: ‘I’ve got this television and I don’t want to take it to Uzbekistan’ or whatever. In fact, people can just walk out and leave everything. They leave a house permanently and it can look like they’ve just gone out for the day.”
And in that way, the cycle of sporting life continues. For every Joe Hart, there is a Claudio Bravo and in football there is little time for sentiment. “You do try to manage them out of the club and town as best you can,” the officer says. “But still there is always an element of ‘the king is dead, long live the king’.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/30/being-forced-out-of-club-professional-trauma-partner-leaving-sport-psychologists
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/8061e726ba4fa8c85f339382afeebca03b4a15d45b457890bde36d2cb67815d1.json
|
|
[
"Daniel Taylor"
] | 2016-08-29T22:52:30 | null | 2016-08-29T22:10:00 |
Sam Allardyce has said Wayne Rooney will continue as England’s captain but Marcus Rashford will find it hard to return to the squad unless he plays regularly for Manchester United
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F29%2Fwayne-rooney-play-no10-england-captain-sam-allardyce-marcus-rashford.json
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en
| null |
Wayne Rooney to play in No10 role as England captain for Sam Allardyce
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Sam Allardyce has confirmed that Wayne Rooney will continue as England’s captain but the manager warned Marcus Rashford it will be difficult to force his way back into the squad unless the teenager can convince José Mourinho he should start playing regularly for Manchester United.
Michail Antonio morphs from so-called invisible man to shining light Read more
Allardyce announced Rooney would continue with the armband during his inaugural meeting with the players at St George’s Park before his first game in charge as manager, against Slovakia on Sunday. Rooney, England’s record scorer, has been asked to spearhead the team’s 2018 World Cup qualification campaign and Allardyce intends to use him in the No10 role, despite the Football Association listing him as a midfielder in the squad announcement.
With Tottenham Hotspur’s Dele Alli also in the squad, Allardyce has linked this directly to Ross Barkley’s omission, despite acknowledging the Everton player had impressed him with a “fantastic start” to the new season.
Rashford is also missing and Allardyce confirmed the 18-year-old was paying the price for his lack of starts since Mourinho took over at Old Trafford and brought in Zlatan Ibrahimovic to play in United’s attack. Rashford’s late winner, as a substitute, at Hull on Saturday has led to questions about why one of the few England players to come out well from Euro 2016 was demoted last week into the Under‑21s, for their game against Norway at Colchester on 6 September. Yet Allardyce insisted it was not a mistake when it was put to him that England’s chances in Slovakia would have been improved by Rashford’s presence.
“As soon as he scored that goal I was pleased for him and I knew it would bring a bit of: ‘Why have you not included him?’ I just hope what he did in 15 minutes or so makes José put him in the team more, which makes my choice when it comes round next time easier,” Allardyce said. “If he plays on a regular basis for Manchester United he will be in my squad.”
Sam Allardyce: If England are to win something, we must look at ‘foreigners’ Read more
Allardyce was, however, willing to pick Joe Hart and Chris Smalling when neither has featured in the Premier League this season and he also acknowledged it had been a “difficult time” for Daniel Sturridge, another player he has called up despite being out of favour for his club team. Smalling’s selection, he admitted, stemmed from there being “not a lot of options” in central defence and Sturridge had been given the benefit of the doubt because “the goals he scores are always at the back of your mind”.
Allardyce said it was “an easy decision” to continue with Rooney as captain – “he is the most senior member of the squad and hugely respected by his peers” – and he also explained why Barkley and Jack Wilshere had been left out.
“I wouldn’t say I don’t fancy them. Ross is a difficult one but the change of position for Wayne makes it difficult for Ross. It may be that Wayne is listed on the squad as a midfielder but he is playing behind the front man at Manchester United,” the England manager said. “Dele Alli has started well, too, so that makes it a difficult choice. As for Jack, he just hasn’t had enough game time. Unfortunately, he isn’t playing. If Jack Wilshere was playing every week for Arsenal, then he’d be in this squad but unfortunately he isn’t.”
Allardyce evidently sees Rooney in the No10 role, with Alli as back-up in a squad where the manager has tried to find two players for each position. Barkley has dropped out as a result, even though Allardyce also seemed concerned about Alli’s position for his club team. “I watched Harry Kane play in the No10 role for Tottenham,” he said. “What does that do for Dele Alli?”
The manager will hold his first training session on Tuesday and, in his determination to keep the squad entertained, he plans to invite Paddy McGuinness and Bradley Walsh to host a quiz night for the players at a future date. “A bit of fun,” Allardyce said. “Christ, I haven’t come here to be miserable.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/29/wayne-rooney-play-no10-england-captain-sam-allardyce-marcus-rashford
|
en
| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/49bf2e815f2159215aee47d8173ac84695bbb2bbaf43a5dc5d77735cb88f610b.json
|
|
[
"Ryan Baxter",
"Jonathan Fisher"
] | 2016-08-26T13:19:21 | null | 2016-08-25T17:52:13 |
Pep Guardiola will once again return to the Camp Nou after Manchester City were drawn into Champions League Group C along with Barcelona, Celtic and Borussia Mönchengladbach on Thursday
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fmanchester-city-celtics-champions-league-group-all-you-need-to-know-video.json
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en
| null |
Manchester City and Celtic's Champions League group: all you need to know - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Pep Guardiola will once again return to the Camp Nou after Manchester City were drawn into Champions League Group C along with Barcelona, Celtic and Borussia Mönchengladbach on Thursday. City managed to reach the last four of the competition last season while Celtic are back in the group stage for the first time in three years
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/25/manchester-city-celtics-champions-league-group-all-you-need-to-know-video
|
en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/6399619b45d1a114043615d9364403c8a193de510290b1a54047380115e83aef.json
|
|
[
"Sean Farrell"
] | 2016-08-30T10:52:20 | null | 2016-08-30T10:26:04 |
European commission says country afforded Apple illegal help with tax breaks but Dublin vows to appeal against the ruling
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fapple-pay-back-taxes-eu-ruling-ireland-state-aid.json
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| null |
Apple ordered to pay up to €13bn after EU rules Ireland broke state aid laws
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Apple has been ordered to pay up to €13bn (£11bn) in back taxes to Ireland after the European commission ruled that deals between Apple and the Irish tax authorities amounted to illegal state aid.
The commission said Ireland’s tax arrangements with Apple between 1991 and 2015 had allowed the US company to attribute sales to a “head office” that existed on paper only and could not have generated such profits.
The result was that Apple avoided tax on almost all profits from sales of its products across the EU’s single market by booking the profits in Ireland rather than the country in which the product was sold.
The taxable profits of Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe did not correspond to economic reality, the commission said. Apple paid an effective tax rate of 1% in 2003 on profits of Apple Sales International. The rate dropped to 0.005% in 2014.
Margrethe Vestager, the European competition commissioner, said: “Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules. The commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years.”
The €13bn, plus interest to be recovered, covers the 10 years before the commission first requested information in 2013. Apple changed its tax arrangements with Ireland in 2015.
Ireland’s finance minister, Michael Noonan, said Dublinwould appeal against the ruling.
Apple faces large Irish tax bill in EU ruling - business live Read more
He said: “The decision leaves me with no choice but to seek cabinet approval to appeal. This is necessary to defend the integrity of our tax system, to provide tax certainty to business and to challenge the encroachment of EU state aid rules into the sovereign member state competence of taxation.”
Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, recently dismissed the investigation as “political crap” and promised to appeal if the commission ruled his company owed back taxes.
The commission has been examining Apple’s tax deals with Ireland for three years. The deals have allowed the US company to pay very little tax on income earned throughout Europe. The commission opened a formal inquiry in 2014 after initial findings concluded that the arrangements amounted to state aid incompatible with the single market.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/apple-pay-back-taxes-eu-ruling-ireland-state-aid
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en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4ec6b77827fd71ae64be4ff3ef05958f61c23d44362fd9b7924e7717518f2d68.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-28T12:49:38 | null | 2016-08-28T12:21:56 |
Teenagers arrested in Greater Manchester over death of 17-year-old boy, who is said to have taken drugs
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Ftwo-held-suspicion-drug-offences-leeds-festival.json
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en
| null |
Two held on suspicion of drug offences after death at Leeds festival
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Two teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of drug offences following the death of a 17-year-old at Leeds festival.
The boy, from the Greater Manchester area, was taken to hospital at 4.45pm on Saturday after taking drugs, West Yorkshire police said.
Two 17-year-old males were arrested in the Greater Manchester area on suspicion of drug offences and are being questioned by police.
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/28/two-held-suspicion-drug-offences-leeds-festival
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en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a0c0a82602b93f247f76acaace4ed11631437596a86de4b2be7c83af15e0d379.json
|
|
[
"Andrew Sparrow"
] | 2016-08-30T08:50:21 | null | 2016-08-30T08:17:51 |
Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on digital democracy
|
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2Fblog%2Flive%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fcorbyn-labour-leadership-digital-manifesto-to-democratise-the-internet-politics-live.json
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en
| null |
Corbyn promises to 'democratise the internet' - Politics live
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on digital democracy
|
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2016/aug/30/corbyn-labour-leadership-digital-manifesto-to-democratise-the-internet-politics-live
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/d76162574d8a0fa2f97ab17d9f56479f434a3657d0fe8487213c6919988578bf.json
|
|
[
"Press Association"
] | 2016-08-31T04:59:54 | null | 2016-06-19T23:01:17 |
Consumer group says too many banks and building societies are cutting rates for instant-access cash Isas
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fmoney%2F2016%2Fjun%2F20%2Fwhich-slams-scissor-happy-isa-providers.json
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en
| null |
Which? slams 'scissor-happy' Isa providers
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Too many Isa providers are “scissor-happy” when it comes to chopping savers’ rates, according to Which?
The consumer group analysed 212 instant-access cash Isas from 21 banks and building societies to find the “worst offenders” when it comes to rate cuts over the past six years. It looked at how many cuts were made and the number of cuts per account.
The research carried out in April focused on cuts for existing Isa customers and excluded those they would have known about when they took out the account, such as bonus rates expiring.
Which? said NatWest, part of Royal Bank of Scotland, had the highest number of cuts per account, with eight across two accounts over six years- a rate of four cuts per account.
Its e-Isa previously earned savers 2%, but customers who haven’t moved their money would now be earning a “meagre” 0.25%, Which? said.
The consumer group also found Tesco Bank had made three rate cuts on one account, Royal Bank of Scotland had made two cuts on one account and Barclays 13 across seven accounts.
Harry Rose, Which? money editor, said: “Many savers simply want a provider they can trust to keep their Isa rate competitive. Too many banks are paying truly woeful rates of interest or are scissor-happy when it comes to cutting rates often penalising their most loyal customers”
A spokesman for the British Bankers’ Association said: “These have been frustrating years for savers. The Bank of England’s base rate has remained at a record low for several years and while this has been good news for borrowers it has fostered a low interest rate environment, which has not been easy for many savers to bear. During this period banks have made it easier for savers to find the right products for their needs.”
A NatWest spokesman said: “We have simplified our savings products to help meet our customers’ needs. In addition we no longer offer teaser rates meaning existing customers benefit from the same or better savings rates than new customers.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jun/20/which-slams-scissor-happy-isa-providers
|
en
| 2016-06-19T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/f762c4fa8e6d40e37c25661f2b2484a58c53e69417de19c9498b70179b7ecf9e.json
|
|
[
"Paul Wilson"
] | 2016-08-30T16:52:43 | null | 2016-08-30T15:04:50 |
The sympathy vote has shifted from Manchester City’s Joe Hart to the 24-year-old Arsenal midfielder, who is paying the price for missing too many games
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fjack-wilshere-joe-hart-manchester-city-arsenal.json
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en
| null |
Jack Wilshere beats Joe Hart in transfer tales of woe table this summer
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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By its very nature every transfer window will produce winners and losers – that is part of the reason for all the cod drama on television – but some dramas happen to be real and this summer seems to be specialising in personal tales of woe.
Until recently Joe Hart was the main object of sympathy, having to put a brave face on the fact his face no longer fits at Manchester City, before Arsenal brought a collective gasp from English football by revealing they would be willing to let Jack Wilshere go out on loan.
Wilshere was supposed to be the future. Fabio Capello said so, back when he was in charge of England and when Wilshere was still emerging as a delightfully mature youngster. Unfortunately the midfielder has rarely been fit enough to live up to that promise, a series of frustrating injuries interrupting a career that now seems to be back where it started.
Premier League: transfer window summer 2016 – interactive Read more
When Wilshere went out on loan to Bolton Wanderers in 2010 he did not quite make his name – most Arsenal fans realised the club had an exciting young talent on its hands – but he announced himself to the wider world beyond London. He played only 14 games, though gained vital Premier League experience including his first goal in the top flight in a win at West Ham United, and Bolton were so impressed they tried to bring him back for the following season.
Arsenal were having none of that, and on his return to the Emirates Wilshere appeared in the club’s opening games and made his England debut at the age of 18. He was already Arsenal’s youngest debutant, having beaten a record set by Cesc Fàbregas, and had even appeared in the Champions League as a 16-year-old. A glittering future seemed assured when Wilshere went on to make 49 appearances for Arsenal in the 2010-11 season, yet he was unlucky enough to miss the whole of the following campaign with what originally seemed a relatively minor stress fracture to an ankle in a pre-season friendly.
It would not be far from the truth to state that Wilshere has been unlucky ever since. He was unable to play a part for England in Euro 2012, and though he reappeared for Arsenal with some outstanding performances after a 17-month layoff, he was injured again right at the end of the 2012-13 season and on his return was used only sparingly as he needed surgery to remove a pin from a leg. The following season went well until a hairline fracture of a foot saw him miss important games at the end, and though he made the England squad for the World Cup in Brazil he started only the final game against Costa Rica, a meaningless game with Roy Hodgson’s side already eliminated. A pattern was being established, and Wilshere became an increasingly peripheral figure through surgery on left ankle ligaments in 2014-15 and a fractured fibula in pre-season training for 2015-16.
Joe Hart set to join Torino on season-long loan from Manchester City Read more
That last injury was the one that made his inclusion for Euro 2016 a matter of widespread debate. He made the trip and played three times in France but was never seen as a certain starter. At 24 it appeared Wilshere still had plenty of time on his side but alarm bells must have started to ring when Arsenal paid £35m for the Switzerland midfielder Granit Xhaka. Then after failing to start any of Arsenal’s opening games Wilshere was omitted from Sam Allardyce’s first England squad, the manager explaining quite reasonably the midfielder needed more games for his club to be considered for selection, a blow quickly followed by the tacit admission he was unlikely to get them at Arsenal with the revelation he could be loaned out.
In terms of individuals, there can be no doubt who has been the summer’s biggest loser. City’s Hart is 30 next birthday after all, he has already had a successful career, and though finding himself playing in Italy on loan to Torino may have been an unexpected departure along the way, at least he is still playing and still capable of showing Pep Guardiola may have made a mistake. Virtually every footballer is at risk to a certain extent when a club changes manager.
Arsenal, however, have not changed manager. Arsène Wenger is by a distance the longest-serving manager in the Premier League and a byword for stability and consistency. He still has his vision for the future but as things stand Wilshere is no longer part of it. While there is plenty of support and understanding for the player within the club, patience appears to have run out. Wilshere has simply missed too many games and though everyone in football will wish him well once he finds a new club all parties in the transaction must be painfully aware there are no guarantees. As ever in football, even for its most gifted entertainers, the future is not easy to predict.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/30/jack-wilshere-joe-hart-manchester-city-arsenal
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/b96463629a3fc15a236f99586c7ef0d262229892ca3bb05b96ec19738ec40cbe.json
|
|
[
"Kevin Mitchell"
] | 2016-08-30T18:52:45 | null | 2016-08-30T18:02:05 |
Heather Watson has been beaten in the first round of the US Open, losing 6-2, 7-5 to the Dutch qualifier Richel Hogenkamp
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fheather-watson-out-us-open-first-round-richel-hogenkamp.json
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en
| null |
Heather Watson crashes out of US Open as heat and Hogenkamp prove too much
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Anyone who witnessed the almost unbearable drama of Heather Watson coming within two points of beating Serena Williams at Wimbledon last year would struggle to recognise her as the same player who went out of the US Open in straight sets here on day two to Richel Hogenkamp, a 24-year-old Dutch qualifier ranked 135 in the world.
There were extenuating circumstances. Watson’s back looked to give up on her and Hogenkamp raised her game to a level she had rarely hit before in her career to win 6-2, 7-5. This was her first win in the main draw of a big tournament.
The biggest win of her career, by far, was over the former slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in more than four hours in a Fed Cup match this year, the longest in the history of the competition. If that was an earthquake, this was at least an earth tremor.
Johanna Konta starts US Open campaign with victory over Bethanie Mattek-Sands Read more
Watson was a break down within 10 minutes on the wide open Court Four on another hot, slow-wind day, the thermometer hitting 26C (80F) before noon, and humidity rising to 59%. This is their workplace, but it is not an easy environment.
It was getting increasingly grim for Watson; within 20 minutes she trailed 1-4, unable to get her serve clicking and hitting one sloppy forehand after another. When Hogenkamp went 5-2 up, Watson went to her chair on the changeover and dropped her head into her hands. The Guernsey player thereafter could not get going in attack, hitting a single winner in the first set, and seemed at a loss to handle the all-round competence of Hogenkamp.
As the sun beat relentlessly on their heads, Watson took a long while at the end of the first set sitting under an umbrella held over her by a patient ballkid, as Hogenkamp idled her time away nearby with an ice pack on her head: elite tennis at its most brutal.
With anxious staff hovering, Watson spoke at length with two medical attendants, and seemed to indicate she was having trouble moving her torso. The tears began to flow as they counselled her, and she asked to lie down on court as the physio manipulated her left side.
After about 10 minutes, Watson went to the service line to start the second set. The best rally of the match ensued, as she chased down one clever angled shot after another, before finishing the point with one of her own, for 15-all. Whatever ailed her, seemed to have passed. It was an illusion.
Hogenkamp let her off the hook on break point and Watson held, grateful for any favours. The irony was the Dutch player, who showed no signs of distress, had at this point hit twice as many unforced errors as her stricken foe, and twice as many winners – so clearly was playing with freedom.
Hogenkamp had lost only two points on her first serve after just under an hour of stop-start tennis. Watson was finding it tough to get a break. The British player had spoken earlier of the advantage of coming into the main draw through the qualifying tournament, and certainly Hogenkamp was moving with confidence, sure in the shot and, despite her inexperience at the highest level, playing without fear.
Watson’s movement – normally snappy and athletic – was sluggish by comparison. Every game since she had held serve at the start of the match, she found herself in a dogfight of her own making just to hold, and she was broken again in the third game. She doubled up in distress on her chair again at the changeover.
Watson had held just twice in the match and had to red-line through deuce to get to 2-3. She then seemed to get a burst of energy from nowhere and was grateful for a Hogenkamp double-fault to gift her the break and parity in the sixth game. However, a double fault and a couple of sloppy errors handed the break back. This was slow, sweaty torture for Watson, but she broke back immediately when her forehand clipped the net and trickled over.
True to script, Watson served a double fault and an ace to hold, and the pressure shifted across the net for the first time in the match as Hogenkamp stepped up to stay in the set. She served just her second ace of the match for deuce, then Watson failed to cash in on a weak second serve and the chance passed.
Watson’s suspect back seized up again in the 11th game, at precisely the wrong moment of her brief fightback. Clearly in pain, with her serve barely of club-player speed, she handed Hogenkamp three break points, two of which the Dutch player squandered before going 6-5 up in what turned out to be the longest game of the match.
Hogenkamp could hardly believe it when Watson did not chase down a regulation return in midcourt, and was relieved when the British player put her final forehand long.
Watson was wrecked, physically and spiritually, as she dragged herself off court in tears, and on to the treatment table.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/30/heather-watson-out-us-open-first-round-richel-hogenkamp
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/50ebe63aa154512d880bc13960c7c28832f1d5b0db32b8dedc677bc39f604501.json
|
|
[
"Elle Hunt"
] | 2016-08-30T20:52:36 | null | 2016-08-30T20:04:57 |
With the NSW government set to deliver an independent review of its divisive lockout laws, a new report reveals a dramatic reduction in assaults in Kings Cross and that rates of business closures have been drastically exaggerated
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Faustralia-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F31%2Fnightlife-is-still-alive-and-well-do-critics-have-it-wrong-on-sydneys-lockout-laws.json
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en
| null |
'Nightlife is still alive and well': do critics have it wrong on Sydney's lockout laws?
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Sydney’s controversial lockout laws have divided the city since their introduction in early 2014.
Critics say the laws mandating last entry to venues at 1.30am and last drinks at 3am in Kings Cross and the CBD have had a chilling effect on the city’s nightlife, forcing businesses to shut down without targeting the root cause of alcohol-fuelled violence.
Opposition to the reforms gained momentum earlier this year when a lengthy opinion piece by technology entrepreneur Matt Barrie, accusing Mike Baird’s Coalition government of a pattern of nanny-state regulation, was widely shared.
“Sydney, once the best city in the world, has become an international joke thanks to the NSW Liberal government. No wonder everyone’s apparently moving to Melbourne,” Barrie said.
Sydney's lockout laws: five key facts about the city's alcohol debate Read more
But supporters of the laws point to reductions in crime and hospital admissions as evidence of their effectiveness. Residents of affected areas such as Kings Cross say the restrictions have restored safety and civility to their neighbourhoods – and they deny the problem has been shifted elsewhere.
The independent review of the laws by former high court justice Ian Callinan QC was scheduled to be delivered to the state government by the end of August. Guardian Australia has sought clarification on the timing from the deputy premier’s office.
But, apparently in readiness for the report’s release, both camps have been bolstering their arguments with new data and surveys. Recently released figures suggest the negative impacts of the reforms have been exaggerated and that there is much more widespread support than some media coverage would suggest.
Here are the main questions the public can expect the review to rule on.
Have the lockout laws led to a decrease in alcohol-fuelled violence?
A variety of sources point to an unequivocal “yes”. The question is, by how much?
Reports and analysis released by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Bocsar) in April 2015 and February this year show a decline in assaults in areas covered by the lockout laws. The most recent figures show a 40% decline in assaults in Kings Cross and a 20% decline in the Sydney CBD “entertainment precinct”.
A report released on Monday by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (Fare) that took into account figures from Bocsar and other sources put the figures much higher. It found that non-domestic assaults during the lockout period had reduced by 70.2% in Kings Cross and 30.7% in the CBD on weekend nights, and by 75.5% in Kings Cross and 41.5% in the CBD after last drinks were called at 3am.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sign points to St Vincent’s hospital and Kings Cross in Sydney’s east. Emergency service workers say they have noticed an improvement since the lockout laws were introduced. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP
The director of Bocsar, Don Weatherburn, did note earlier this year that assaults had been decreasing in New South Wales since 2008: “What the lockout laws did was accelerate the existing downward trend, so it fell even faster than before.”
But the Last Drinks Coalition of NSW doctors, police, nurses and paramedics says emergency service workers have noticed the difference since the lockout laws were introduced. Recent Bocsar statistics show a 59.2% decrease in assault rates in Kings Cross between 6pm and 1.30am and a 93.9% decrease between 3am and 6am.
“Those are staggering statistics and proof that the suite of measures are working,” said Scott Weber, coalition spokesman and president of the Police Association of NSW.
“You’ve got to look at the whole picture, and the picture tells the very clear story that assault rates haven’t just dropped since the suite of alcohol measures were introduced, they’ve plummeted.”
Have the laws caused social and economic damage to the city’s nightlife?
'They're treating us like children': a generation rages against Sydney's lockout laws Read more
A key argument against the lockout laws is their impact on Sydney’s nightlife, often referred to as “once vibrant”. The lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, said they took a “sledgehammer” to the problems of the late-night economy without solving them. Several thousand protesters, mostly young people, attended a rally organised by lobby group Keep Sydney Open in February.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A demonstrator takes part in a rally on 21 February against the Baird government’s lockout laws and their impact Sydney’s nightlife. Photograph: Paul Miller/AAP
One reported impact has been the closures of high-profile bars, clubs and music venues. Analysis by Apra Amcos and the Live Music Office in February found a 40% drop in live performance revenue at Apra- and Amcos-licensed venues within the CBD lockout area and a 19% decrease in attendance figures at licensed nightclubs and dance venues.
A Guardian Australia analysis of ads for live music and club night events showed a decline in gigs advertised for venues within the Kings Cross lockout area.
Kings Cross in particular is reported to have suffered under the lockout laws, with opponents reporting as much as an 80% reduction in foot traffic in the area, attributed to a September 2015 report produced by the City of Sydney.
But the Fare analysis, informed by that same report and other sources, found the average decline in foot traffic in Kings Cross was only 19.4% between 5pm and 4am on Friday and Saturday nights – and that pedestrian traffic in the evenings before the lockout, from 5pm to 1am, had not changed significantly between 2012 and 2015.
It indicated that rates of business closures as a result of the lockout appear to have been greatly exaggerated, finding that only four fewer businesses were trading between 5pm and 4am on Friday and Saturday nights in Kings Cross in 2015, compared with 2012. The number of pubs, bars and clubs trading during this time fell by just three from 2012 to 2015.
There had been reports that 40 businesses had closed as a result of the reforms. The collapse of the Keystone Group, an investment fund that owned the Australian arm of the Jamie’s Italian franchise, among other ventures, had been attributed to the lockout laws, but that claim was quickly revised given its $80m debt.
Analysis shows Sydney’s lockout laws led to 40% drop in live gig revenue Read more
As for property values, both mixed use and residential property values in affected areas had increased between 2014 and 2015, though commercial property values in the Potts Point area declined by 20%.
Have the laws simply moved violence to nearby suburbs?
Opponents of the lockout laws have argued they have displaced the harm, but the Fare report found that assaults in surrounding and alternative entertainment precincts had remained stable since the liquor laws were introduced.
An earlier analysis found the number of assaults at the Star casino and in the Pyrmont area in general had increased, but the same was not true for other areas such as Newtown, contrary to media reports.
Have the lockout laws improved life for residents of affected areas?
Residents of Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo say the lockout laws have been highly effective in restoring “safety, diversity and amenity” to their neighbourhoods. Jo Holder, coordinator of the Darlinghurst Residents’ Action Group (Drag), said their communities had been “overrun every weekend by crowds of binge drinkers”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Residents of Kings Cross, where the NSW government’s lockout laws have been enforced, say the restrictions have restored safety and civility to their neighbourhood. Photograph: Rick Rycroft/AP
“They literally ransacked our neighbourhood and left with little or no regard for the residents who had to endure their noise and businesses,” she says. “The lockout and last drinks legislation brought welcome respite for residents and many small businesses.”
The Fare report found a reduction of about 75% in antisocial behaviour of all degrees of severity – from physical fights and verbal abuse to loud music, vomiting and vandalism – in Kings Cross between 2012 and 2015.
Helen Crossing, the convenor of the 2011 Residents’ Association (2011 is the postcode for Potts Point), said the area had experienced a “renaissance” under the new restrictions, which had better balanced the needs of night-time trading businesses and those that were open during the day.
“Contrary to what many opponents of lockout laws believe, nightlife is still alive and well,” she said.
A survey conducted by the organisation this year found that more than 70 businesses had opened in Kings Cross since the laws were imposed in early 2014.
A recent ReachTEL poll of 1,600 voters commissioned by Fairfax Media found that support for the lockout laws was widespread, with nearly 60% of NSW voters in favour of extending them to the rest of the state. Support for retaining the 1.30am closing time and 3am last drinks was highest within young voters aged between 18 and 34.
The poll had a sample size of 1,600 and a margin of error of 2.8%.
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/31/nightlife-is-still-alive-and-well-do-critics-have-it-wrong-on-sydneys-lockout-laws
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| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/a1ead39220f5c9e3d73f8f4d101630cfce5ba46f46fe01a08ab9d58bb75dfffb.json
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[
"Margaret Mccartney"
] | 2016-08-30T08:50:07 | null | 2016-08-30T08:00:25 |
A new study suggests stronger links between MHT and breast cancer. But patchy information means it’s hard to advise my patients properly
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When it comes to menopausal hormone therapy, women are left guessing at the risks
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As a freshly minted doctor in the early 1990s, I attended lectures describing hormone replacement therapy – which is now known, in this context, as MHT, menopausal hormone therapy – as close to a miracle cure-all. Women shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads, it was implied at the time, because doctors knew best – and this treatment would not only make them feel fantastically sexy, but prevent cardiovascular disease and strokes. Promotion, back then, went beyond recommending it for menopausal symptoms. It was the elixir of life, preventing future illness and making women look younger.
Women have been oversold HRT for decades | Margaret McCartney Read more
Let’s sidestep the sexist and ageist undertones of that era, and fast forward to the publication of the Women’s Health Initiative study in 2002, which found that the treatment increased the risk of breast cancer. For every 10,000 person-years of combination menopausal hormone therapy use (oestrogen plus progesterone), there were seven more heart attacks, eight more strokes, eight more blood clots on the lungs, and eight more invasive breast cancers. In the ensuing years, the amount of menopausal hormone replacement being prescribed fell by half.
In November 2015, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) published new guidance on treating the menopause. In a press release, it suggested that menopausal hormonal treatment was being underprescribed, and GPs needed to prescribe it more. “For the last decade, some GPs have been worried about prescribing HRT, and women worried about taking it …” it wrote. “For health professionals, the guideline should boost their confidence in prescribing HRT, having fully discussed the woman’s individual circumstances with her.”
That seemed pretty clear, but now a new UK study apparently shows that the risks of breast cancer have been underestimated and “nearly tripled” when women were taking hormone treatment for menopause.
So should I still feel confident about prescribing it? Is this a high or a low risk? Is it a risk worth taking? Well, that depends on the patient. There will be women who regard the risks as reasonable because they experience such enormous benefits. Then there are other women who would consider a much smaller risk of serious harm unacceptable. Autonomy rules, and there is no “correct” answer (although I suspect the General Medical Council would be quick to hold doctors to account for what was viewed as reckless prescribing). But to make that autonomy meaningful, we have to be able to make a rational, informed choice. That needs quality data. So what does the latest study tell us?
It’s a prospective, cohort study, which specifically looked for hormone use and age at menopause, which many other studies have not. Just over 39,000 women had their age at menopause documented, and 775 of these developed breast cancer. They found that the women who used combination MHT were more likely to develop breast cancer by a factor of 2.7; this risk dissipated when the women stopped the MHT, but rose the longer it continued.
The NHS offers detailed decision aids for treatments for everything from arthritis to angina – but none on the menopause
We need to put this into context: 2.7 times a small number is still a small number, so you need to know what your risk was to start with. For a woman aged between 50-70, the risk of breast cancer is about 5%. Is an increase to about 13% for the years a woman is taking the hormones worth it? I don’t know. But I am also concerned as to whether this cohort are truly representative of the population at large, because the women who volunteered for this study were not asked to participate randomly, but were recruited through newsletters sent out by a breast cancer charity. They may, therefore, have been more likely to have a family member with breast cancer, or share the same environmental risks as friends with breast cancer, and so faced a higher risk to start with.
I also don’t reliably know how much the change in breast cancer risk is per woman: as one of the authors, Dr Michael Jones, told me: “Our results are internally consistent and we can talk about relative changes, but we cannot make external extrapolations in absolute risk to the whole UK.” In other words, care is needed – and we will need this data to be replicated in other data sets before we can be confident that it applies equally to other women.
Uncertainty is a hallmark of medical decision making. If a woman develops breast cancer while taking MHT, no one can be sure whether it would have happened in any case. We need context. We can’t control our genes, but what other risk factors can we at least partially control? Cancer Research UK says that 9% of breast cancers are linked to obesity, 6% to excess alcohol, and 3% to insufficient physical activity. In context, MHT is linked to 3% of all breast cancers. If this has been underestimated, as the new study claims, by up to 60%, that means that up to 5% of all breast cancers could be linked to MHT. But there are so many ongoing uncertainties that I think pinning it down to the last percentage point makes this look more accurate than it is.
So what do we do in the meantime? GPs are under enormous pressure anyway – each of our appointments is just 10-12 minutes long, with an average of 2.5 problems being discussed, so there’s barely time to make a safe diagnosis, never mind discuss most of the side effects for each possible treatment. There has been a quiet revolution in medicine in the last decade, a realisation that making choices is often hard to do well. There are now a wealth of “shared decision aids” online, based on high-quality evidence and with the emphasis on assisting patients, not dictating “choice”. They work in different ways; some are online or DVD-based, and they usually try and lay out the pros and cons of treatments in a logical way, giving the person enough time and information to make high-quality decsions.
These have been shown to help people make better decisions about treatment choices – and using them before or after GP appointments is a useful way of making oneself surer of healthcare choices.
The NHS has a website devoted to detailed decision aids for treatments for everything from arthritis to angina – but none, so far, on the menopause. Nice does have an information section on its website about the pros and cons of hormone treatment for menopause, but doesn’t provide any numbers about the risks – or define what they mean by “low-risk”, in common with other US decision aids – and while that might be enough information for some women, it’s unlikely to be detailed enough for others.
We need better quality information that doesn’t offer more certainty than we actually have: we are in a new era of medicine, and honesty about the knowns and unknowns, and the limitations of our knowledge is essential. I will continue to prescribe MHT, but when it comes to discussing risks and benefits, I suspect I will be answering many questions with an honest “I don’t know”.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/30/menopausal-hormone-therapy-treatment-women-risks-breast-cancer
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| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
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[
"Emma Featherstone"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:20 | null | 2016-08-22T07:15:12 |
Have you noticed a small business in an unexpected spot? We’d like to see any examples that you’ve come across
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Sipping cocktails in a former public loo? Share your photos of unusual business locations
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Entrepreneurs often take a skewed view of the world – identifying opportunities that others miss. Some spot a canal barge and imagine a mobile hairdresser, others see a church basement and picture a tapas restaurant.
Recently, Lambeth council has been seeking renters for its disused public toilets, with bar and cafe operators among those who have expressed an interest. In Deptford, 14 new trading spaces are opening up under the carriage ramp, London’s oldest railway structure. A hi-tech software company in Dartmoor has made a former railway store its home, while a food startup is selling salad from a phone box.
We’d like to see any unusual business locations that have caught your eye. Perhaps you’ve spotted a bookshop on a barge? Maybe are you an artist working out of a railway carriage? It could be that you have decided to set up your business in a lighthouse, or inside a shipping container. Take a photo, share it with us, and we may publish it in a gallery on the Guardian Small Business Network.
You can post your photos by clicking on the ‘contribute’ button on this article. You can also use the Guardian app and search for ‘GuardianWitness assignments’.
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https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2016/aug/22/sipping-cocktails-public-loo-share-photos-unusual-business
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| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
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[
"Julian Baggini"
] | 2016-08-29T08:49:54 | null | 2016-08-29T08:00:00 |
We focus on the new year as the time for bold thinking and fresh starts. But when we consider what we know and may learn, next month seems a better candidate
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It’s the circle of life - and it starts in September
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I’m sure I’m not the only one who cannot shake the association of September with the start of the academic year. It’s not just because of the ubiquitous back-to-school adverts and signs in shop windows. All those years of education have ingrained the rhythms of terms and holidays into our minds.
The academic year is just one of several cycles by which we mark our lives. Their rhythms follow the beat of two different drums, one natural, one human. The other major cultural cycle is the calendar year, with its associated end-of-year reckoning and looking ahead to the one to come, whether we make resolutions or not. Religions and states pin on to these their own commemorations, times for feasting and fasting, celebration and penance. Then there are the natural cycles of the seasons, of harvests, of solstices, punctuated by the anniversaries of our own births.
Some people profess to be indifferent to all of this. Most of us, however, find it helpful to use at least some of them as reference points to give structure to our lives, providing moments of reflection, review, renewal and resolution. September is a good example of how the natural and cultural cycles work together. Summer has ended, and with it the time of year when we most typically relax and try to enjoy ourselves. The shortening of the days seems to be a message to start getting serious again. So perhaps it’s no coincidence this is the traditional time to start a course of learning, formal or informal.
The academic year also brings together two contrasting features of the movement of life: the linear and the cyclical. The linear is one of progress: one year older, one school year higher. The cyclical is one of endless repetition: the phases of the moon, the four seasons, the perpetual revolving door of students.
Tuning into the cycles of culture and nature can act as a corrective. It reminds us that nothing is for ever
It seems to me that living well requires us to give due weight to the natural and the cultural, the cyclical and the linear. We need some sense of the linear, because life is finite, with a beginning and an end, and each stage on the journey requires something different from us. Also, if we don’t keep moving, life loses its vitality. Heeding September’s call to learning is one way of keeping our minds’ cogs turning.
However, we can become too fixated on the idea of progress and self-development, as though our lives were projects that we could eventually complete and perfect. That’s when tuning into the cycles of culture and nature can act as a corrective. It reminds us that nothing is for ever, and that just as the sun sets, the moon wanes and the leaves fall, we will also all too soon fade away. Our journey is not one with a final destination as its goal, but one that returns us to the nothing from where we started. The course of life is circular, not straight: the linear is ultimately also the cyclical.
Appreciating that potentially grim truth is part of growing up. For children, the academic year is primarily about the linear, and rightly so. A child, even an adolescent, changes so much from one September to the next. Every new school year brings a new progression in year group, a step up the playground pecking order. When we’re adults, however, the cyclical aspect of the academic year becomes more evident. For anyone who works in education, it’s another set of first-years, another dining hall full of kids to feed. Everyone’s place in the bigger, repetitive picture becomes clearer. Seeing the next generation head off to school reminds us that, just as they have taken our place, others will take theirs. That, of course, is also a reminder that we will take the place of those older than us, and ultimately follow them to the grave.
If that sounds gloomy rather than simply a matter of fact, it’s in part because our culture has become so fixated on the ideals of progress and development that it has lost touch with the cyclical. We pursue higher GDP, improved life satisfaction scores, greater fitness, better health. September is a good time to remind ourselves that while any such progress is welcome, the main point is to be living well now, not for the hope of a better life to come. The purpose of learning new things or practising old ones is so that, if we are lucky enough to see another September, we will do so enriched; and if we are not, our final lap of honour was a trip worth taking.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/29/circle-of-life-september-autumn
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| 2016-08-29T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/0b76ced6bd79b7dbbf27fda9849fb9ebb421c0f824dbc46b2d110735462f7b48.json
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[
"Jon Henley",
"Anne Mcelvoy"
] | 2016-08-26T13:30:30 | null | 2016-08-22T04:35:27 |
Leaving the EU may not happen soon given the government does not know what it wants and is not yet equipped to ask for it
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Brexit means Brexit … but the big question is when?
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Two months ago on Tuesday, Britain voted to leave the European Union. The shock was immense; the fallout dramatic. But then summer came. The early turbulence subsided and normality (more or less) returned.
Brexit, though, has not yet begun to happen.
The government does not know what it wants and is not yet equipped to ask for it. Britain and the EU, it is increasingly clear, are far more intimately enmeshed than the leave camp had claimed. For all the leavers’ assurances, extricating the UK from the bloc, negotiating new relationships with Europe and the rest of the world – and ensuring that Britain’s laws and practices adapt – is a gargantuan undertaking.
The referendum result, however, is a political reality. The 52% of leave voters – and the politicians who represented them – expect it to be acted upon. So two months on, where does Brexit stand?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The three Brexiteers – (from left) Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox
The machinery – and the cost
One of the first acts of the new prime minister, Theresa May, was to establish two new ministries: the Department for Exiting the European Union, led by David Davis, and the Department for International Trade, headed by Liam Fox.
Neither is yet fully up and running. Worse, a predictable and potentially damaging turf war already appears to be under way between Fox’s ministry and the last of the cabinet’s three Brexiters, Boris Johnson at the Foreign Office. That aside, International Trade has so far secured about 10% of the trade negotiators it needs. (Britain has few skilled personnel because the EU negotiates trade deals for its members. Canada, in contrast, has 300.)
Meanwhile, DExEU, as it is known, has hired – mainly from elsewhere in the civil service – 150 of the 250-300 total staff it is expected to employ, and reportedly has yet to move into its permanent home. With the civil service a fifth smaller since 2010, fast-stream recruits are being drafted in, but negotiators, lawyers, economists, regulatory experts and management consultants from the private sector will prove essential.
They will not come cheap: experienced senior personnel from the likes of KPMG, PwC, Linklater’s and McKinsey cost up to £5,000 a day, recruitment consultants say, or will be seconded on annual salaries of up to £250,000.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trade talks are rarely quick and don’t come cheap – some estimates put the bill at £5bn and the timetable at 10 years. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters
Some estimates suggest “full Brexit” may take 10 years and involve up to 10,000 people, not only in the new and other so-called “hot” departments such as foreign, home, environment and business, but across the civil service nationally, at an administrative cost of close to £5bn.
Hannah White, Brexit lead at the Institute for Government, claims such figures are “finger in the wind” stuff but warns that with all the government has set out to achieve besides Brexit “there is clearly going to have to be a really, really strong process of prioritisation”.
The model – and why it matters
The government has not yet decided what trade relationship it wants with the EU. A huge amount hangs on the choice between “membership of” and “access to” the EU’s single market.
European leaders have repeatedly stressed that membership of the single market as part of the European Economic Area (like, say, Norway) will mean accepting EU immigration, obeying EU rules and making a contribution to the EU budget. Single market membership would make Brexit a lot easier to implement and could – according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies – be worth roughly 4% to the UK’s GDP. It is, however, unacceptable to many leave voters (and Norway may not let the UK join its club anyway).
City seeks Swiss-style trade deal for EU access Read more
One alternative is a free trade agreement with the EU, such as Canada’s recent deal; but this gives Britain only limited access to the single market. Although that may be politically acceptable, it would take longer to agree and could hit the economy harder – especially the all-important services sector; trade deals are invariably much tougher on services than on goods.
Recent signs indicate the government may be mulling a deal outside the single market as the only option acceptable to voters. May has spoken of a “bespoke” agreement, and ITV’s Robert Peston reckons Whitehall is aiming for a deal based on Canada’s, albeit with “a bespoke add-on for services”.
The City reportedly wants an arrangement along the lines of the complex patchwork of bilateral sectoral accords Switzerland has agreed with the EU for access to parts of the single market – though the Swiss, problematically, had to accept freedom of movement and EU regulations as part of their deal.
Before any decision can be made, DExEU has to work out exactly which bits of single market membership – including non-tariff barriers, the common regulations, licences and standards that, for example, give UK banks their “passport” to operate across the EU – are most valuable, and what they are worth.
The politics – and the timing
May’s catchphrase that “Brexit means Brexit” may disguise Whitehall’s uncertainty about what Brexit actually means, but it does commit to deliver it – and there are plenty pushing to ensure it does.
The former Ukip leader Nigel Farage has threatened to return to the fray if nothing happens soon and there are many within May’s own party and the broader leave camp who believe all Brexit requires is for article 50 of the Lisbon treaty to be triggered and a short act of parliament to be passed.
That constitutes a “hard” Brexit: crashing out of the EU and the single market with no economic safety net beyond WTO rules, which would mean costly tariffs. The “soft” approach – taking time to negotiate an exit and a preferential trade arrangement – is plainly the government’s favoured course.
May has repeatedly said she would not trigger article 50, the two-year process by which Britain must leave the EU, before the beginning of next year. Some think March looks a likely moment.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. Photograph: Francois Lenoir/Reuters
But there is a persistent rumour that late 2017 or even early 2018 is more likely, partly because it could take Whitehall at least that long to be ready before triggering the two-year exit talks, and partly because Dutch, French and German elections will get in the way.
That would mean Britain would not leave the EU until late 2019, which the pro-Brexit camp as well as the EU, which wants Brexit over before the 2019 European elections and the new EU budget in 2020, have said emphaticallyis not desirable.
Some observers argue that since the Tory leadership has never been capable of resisting its Eurosceptic wing (of which Davis and Fox – the day-to-day Brexit ministers – are hardcore members), the talks may prove short-lived: a “hard” Brexit could happen.
Those other negotiations ...
Assuming Brexit remains soft, article 50 is just the beginning, covering the essential details of the divorce: who pays the pensions of Britain’s EU staff, where the EU institutions based in Britain end up.
As well as the article 50 talks a raft of others must follow, including on Britain’s new trade deal with the EU, which could prove so complicated it requires an interim agreement to tide things over.
Then Britain’s full WTO membership must be re-established (which means drawing up a new set of national tariffs, a monumental task, and winning approval from 164 countries), and the 50-plus free trade agreements negotiated by the EU on its members’ behalf renegotiated.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest It is not clear legally whether the UK can leave the EU, constitutionally speaking, without a vote in parliament. A high court case starts in October Photograph: Alamy
Plus, as Charles Grant, of the Centre for European Reform, points out, new deals will be needed on European security, defence, the environment, science and research and, in all probability, Northern Ireland.
And that takes no account of the changes needed in UK domestic laws and regulations. Brexit, notes Dominic Cook of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, is “the biggest transformational project a UK government has ever undertaken” not only because of foreign negotiations but “the inward-facing part: implementing and educating in the UK”.
The legal challenges
The most immediate obstacle to Brexit is judicial. There is a substantial school of thought which says the government is not constitutionally entitled to pull the trigger on article 50 without the specific approval of parliament.
At least seven private actions have been grouped together and will be heard by the high court starting in October in what judges have said is a “matter of great constitutional importance”, with a decision possible by the end of the year.
Separately, cases have been launched in Northern Ireland arguing that Brexit would breach the Good Friday agreement by reinstating a physical border with the Republic of Ireland and undermining the legal basis for the 1998 peace deal.
So, while we may be two months in, you might want to get used to the waiting. Brexit may not happen quite yet.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/22/brexit-means-brexit-when-is-big-question
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| 2016-08-22T00:00:00 |
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[
"Harriet Meyer",
"Ac Grayling"
] | 2016-08-30T08:59:47 | null | 2016-06-05T06:00:32 |
Controversial loan system is under fire again as it emerges that thousands overpay after leaving university
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Graduates who keep on paying after they’ve cleared their student debts
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Two years after she paid off her student loan, Melanie Rodrigues thought she had finally seen the back of her university debts. Instead, the BBC producer has found herself locked in an “infuriating” battle with the Student Loans Company (SLC) after repayments continue to be docked from her salary.
“I’m owed at least £4,000,” she says. “But I wasn’t ever told my loan had been cleared and I’m struggling to get this money back.”
Her problem is far from unique. Official figures show graduates overpay on their student loan debt by millions of pounds each year, prompting calls for an overhaul of the system.
More than 78,800 graduates who took out student loans between 1998 and 2011 overpaid by an average of £580 each during the 2013-14 tax year, according to a freedom of information request submitted to the SLC by accountancy firm Baker Tilly.
The SLC, a non-profit, government-owned organisation that administers loans to students, has been at the centre of controversy, most recently after a graduate – who detailed how his student loan had grown by more than £1,800 in the year since he left university – said he and his contemporaries did not understand what they were signing up to when they took out the financing.
Rodrigues’ problem comes as a result of sluggish bureaucracy in how information about her repayments are dealt with.
HMRC only tells the SLC how much employers have deducted from salaries at the end of each tax year. This causes a time lag, with money continuing to be taken until the SLC is made aware that the debt has been settled. It then sends a “stop notification” to employers, preventing further payments being deducted from wages.
While borrowers can log on to the SLC website to see their balance, this only gets updated once a year.
Rodrigues only discovered the overpayment when she switched to a freelance contract and began submitting tax returns. “My accountant queried my student loan payment, suggesting I might have already repaid the £12,000 or so originally borrowed,” she says. “It’s outrageous that graduates aren’t told when they’ve repaid their debt – particularly when we’re chased up for the smallest amount of tax owed.
She adds: “There was a two-year gap before the stop request was put to my employer. SLC told me it can only act on HMRC’s information – something clearly needs to change.”
The loan system allows for enormous overpayments to take place, according to Helen Saxon, chief product analyst at MoneySavingExpert.com. “It’s the system that allows big overpayments as the SLC doesn’t know how much you’ve paid off until it gets this money from HMRC,” she says.
Self-employed graduates may also overpay because of the delay between submitting a tax return, by 31 January for the previous financial year, and HMRC passing this information on to the SLC.
Student loans have prompted endless demonstrations since they have been used to cover tuition fees, introduced in 1998, alongside living expenses. Tuition fees are limited to £9,000 a year, but universities will be allowed to raise this figure in line with inflation from 2017.
Meanwhile maintenance grants, given to students who could prove they need support, are to be scrapped from September. This is despite today’s graduates starting life saddled with the highest debts in the world, averaging £44,000, according to the Sutton Trust.
Many graduates want to wipe their debt as quickly as possible, and have taken to Twitter to share their battles with the SLC, with some saying they cannot get an accurate balance.
Others are getting statements saying they still owe money years after paying off their debt.
Rodrigues has repeatedly asked for the excess payments to be refunded. “This £4,000 ‘loan’ I have effectively given the government would have been precious, particularly since I’ve just bought a house with my partner – it could have been put down as part of the deposit,” she says. “The SLC and HMRC don’t seem answerable to anyone, despite making money out of this cash.”
The plan to freeze the repayment threshold shows complete disdain for students and their futures Sorana Vieru, National Union of Students
Sorana Vieru, vice-president of the National Union of Students, says: “There are a number of problems with the student loans repayment system and the government should be making an effort to fix the processing issues.”
A spokesman for HMRC says: “For the vast majority of borrowers our processes work correctly but in a small number of cases errors do occur. Once identified, we work quickly with SLC to ensure the situation is corrected.”
The spokesman adds that HMRC reports details of repayments made by employed borrowers to the SLC after the end of each tax year when the employer returns have been received and processed to give the full picture of the amount deducted.
He says the introduction of real-time payroll data by some employers is ensuring fewer borrowers overpay. Employers who are signed up to the system submit PAYE information to HMRC on their employees each time they’re paid, rather than just once a year.
A spokesman for the SLC says: “We apologise to Miss Rodrigues for any inconvenience she encountered in arranging a refund of her overpaid balance and for any incorrect information she was given regarding interest. Miss Rodrigues’ refund will include interest that has accrued on her credit balance.”
As a separate issue, millions of graduates who have taken out student loans since 2012 will pay more for their debt than expected after the £21,000 income threshold at which borrowings must be paid back was frozen for five years.
At present, graduates pay 9% of their income above this threshold to clear their debt. In 2010, the government pledged that from April 2017 the threshold would rise in line with average earnings. But it will now be frozen until April 2021 at least.
Raising the threshold would prevent graduates repaying more of their income and see fewer repaying it at all. Freezing it means that on average a former student will pay £306 a year more in 2020-21 compared with 2016-17, according to a report by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
The government was urged to reconsider the freeze in a consultation, but it didn’t budge.
Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert and one of the leading proponents of the student loan system, has called the move “a disgrace”.
“It goes against all forms of natural justice. If a commercial company had made retrospective changes to what they’d promised about their loans, they’d be slapped hard by the regulator – the government shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it either,” he says.
A petition against the freeze that runs until November 2016 has topped 100,000 signatures, so the issue will now be considered for debate in parliament.
The petition states: “A commercial company would not be permitted to alter the terms of a loan agreement, so why should our government?”
Vieru says: “The system is not progressive if the government needs to go back and tinker with the terms and conditions to recoup money. The plan to freeze the repayment threshold is a betrayal of students and part of a long list of political measures that show complete disdain for students and their futures.
“It will have a real impact on the income of graduates, particularly the most disadvantaged and those on lower earnings. The system was designed so the richest graduates would pay more and some of the poorest would not pay anything. The freeze is a regressive move as the poorest graduates will now have to pay more.”
HOW TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR REPAYMENTS
Unlike credit card and personal loan debt, borrowers are not provided with regular statements for student loans.
Keep an eye on repayments through P60 forms and payslips to monitor how much you are paying and track your balance by logging on to Studentloanrepayment.co.uk.
If you are within a few years of paying off your student loan, set up a direct debit to avoid being overcharged. The SLC should offer you this option when you are close to clearing your debt.
Debits should automatically stop when the loan balance is repaid in full. “This gives you control over your money, so once the loan’s paid off no further payments are taken,” says Helen Saxon.
However, if you find you have overpaid contact the SLC to process a refund on 0300 1000 0611.
You should get your money back along with interest at the rate paid during the duration of the loan. This amounts to 0.9% for loans taken out before 2012, or the rate is linked to the RPI for loans after this date, currently at 1.3%.
Since April 2016 anyone overpaying on their student loans will only have 60 days’ worth of interest paid. After this time period, interest payments will cease.
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jun/05/graduates-student-debt-loan-system
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| 2016-06-05T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/76e91595fd6c18d9b9476da4dd294c418d33ea01ee9a0b0f7c11fe3230cd43cb.json
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[
"Jason Burke"
] | 2016-08-28T08:51:46 | null | 2016-08-28T07:00:26 |
Tourists may be returning to the Kenyan coast, but the hinterland is being ravaged by Islamic militants, their defectors and armed police
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| null |
Kenya’s seaside looks peaceful, but a murderous war is being waged
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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A football field and a grove of mango trees lie between Bongwe and its neighbouring village. On one side live the family of 33-year-old Subira Mwangole, shot dead by gunmen while watching television with friends one evening in May. On the other live his alleged murderers.
The two villages, 30km south of the port city of Mombasa on Kenya’s coast, are almost identical: three-room houses with rusting tin or thatch roofs, a ramshackle primary school, a government office, a small mosque with white walls stained by rain, a crossroads where two tracks meet, a well, small plots of tall corn plants.
Yet, despite their placid appearances, the villages lie on the invisible frontline of a brutal, low-level, three-way war pitting security agencies against the Islamic extremist network al-Shabaab, and the militants against the local community. It is a war carried out by small groups of armed men who shoot first and ask few questions.
“We are very anxious, frightened. He knew he could die at any moment. We all know we could be next,” said Ibrahim, a former al-Shabaab fighter and a close relative of Mwangole.
There is a steady beat of violence. The extremists murder those they see as a threat. Local human rights groups say the police do the same thing. Both sets of killers know that the fear they provoke brings impunity.
Mwangole was particularly hated by al-Shabaab for his role in convincing veterans of the movement to take advantage of an amnesty offered by the Kenyan ministry of the interior last year. The shopkeeper and father of two was himself a defector from the group, which has waged an insurgency in Somalia since 2006 and has expanded across the porous border into Kenya.
Mwangole was shot in the head by a group of men dressed as policemen but identified by family members as local members of al-Shabaab. His death was swiftly followed by the murder, in similar circumstances, of three community leaders in Bongwe. All were involved in government “anti-radicalisation” schemes.
Hundreds have died at the hands of Islamic militants in Kenya in recent decades. A first wave of violence between 1998 and 2002 was directed by al-Qaida against foreign targets, including US embassies and Israeli tourists. It had ebbed by the middle of the last decade.
But radicalism was growing among Kenya’s Muslim minority, fuelled by a sense of marginalisation, extremist clerics, the impact of the US-led “war on terror” and a shift away from traditional moderate Islamic practices to more rigorous versions of the faith influenced by countries in the Gulf.
In 2013 gunmen from al-Shabaab stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, killing 67 people. Last year 148 people were shot dead at a university in Kenya’s north-east. Both attacks were launched from Somalia, where Kenyan troops are fighting the extremists as part of an African Union force, but focused attention on support networks within Kenya itself.
Investigators found that young men from villages such as Bongwe in Kwale county had been travelling to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab for over a decade. Authorities launched a major crackdown and, officials say, a comprehensive “anti-radicalisation” strategy. One element was the amnesty announced last year. By this spring, 70 al-Shabaab veterans – or returnees – had made a clean breast of their militant past to authorities, receiving an assurance that they would not be prosecuted in return.
According to local journalists and former al-Shabaab fighter Sami, who worked closely with Mwangole and was a friend, two amnestied returnees have since been killed, as have six other al-Shabaab veterans.
“We trusted the government. We thought we could live a better life, in peace, and put our past behind us,” Sami said.
Many amnestied veterans receive constant threats from militants, while also facing harassment from police. “The government issued an amnesty that was not anchored in law,” said Hussein Khaled, of Haki-Africa, a human rights monitoring group in Mombasa.
The identity of the alleged killers of Mwangole and the three community leaders reveals how, despite the extremist rhetoric of “global jihad”, the conflict being fought out in Kwale is very intimate.
In interviews with the Observer, Mwangole’s relatives and friends blamed a band of a dozen young men from the neighbouring village for the murders in Bongwe. Most are in their 20s and only recently recruited to al-Shabaab. They include several relatives of the victims. Well before the four murders in May, the group had already made a series of threats to amnestied veterans, accusing them of treachery and spying for the government.
Sami, who returned from a stint in Somalia with al-Shabaab six years ago, said: “We went to the police. We identified those threatening us, but they did nothing. Sometimes I think they wanted Mwangole to be killed – that’s why they gave him no protection.”
In June, police detained 10 men for the killings, including three of those named by Mwangole’s relatives. They say they are confident they have now broken up the network. This has inspired little confidence in Bongwe, however, where the authorities are as feared as al-Shabaab. Campaigners claim systematic human rights abuses by the police, including 70 extrajudicial “executions” or disappearances in the past year alone in and around Mombasa.
Many such killings and disappearances involve former members of al-Shabaab, or individuals alleged to be extremists. At least three alleged members of al-Shabaab in Kwale have been shot dead by police in recent months.
One, named as Omar Hesbon Matheka, died on 4 June when he was “running while shooting at the police”, according to officials, who claimed a grenade had been found among the dead man’s possessions. Witnesses said Matheka was killed by officers while sitting in a rickshaw. His mother told local newspapers that the 24-year-old was looking for work.
“Terrorism is the worst form of human rights violation. We want to eradicate terrorism … [but] it seems that the [government] strategy is simply using firepower. There is nothing about community resilience, addressing underlying problems or rule of law,” said human rights activist Khaled.
Maalim Mohammed, the police commissioner of Mombasa, denied any human rights abuses by Kenyan security agencies. “These allegations are baseless, malicious and unfair,” he said. “Our constitution and laws are very clear and we always respect the process. You cannot use coercive means to win against terrorism. You need to win hearts and minds. We get a lot of information from the community.”
The police crackdown has had a significant impact – at least in the short term. Analysts say the al-Shabaab support network on the coast and elsewhere is much weaker than it was, and has been eradicated in Mombasa.
The British and US governments recently lifted travel warnings applied two years ago to almost all of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline, giving the crucial tourist industry a much-needed boost. “We can assure all visitors that they will be entirely safe here on the coast of Kenya,” Mohammed said.
But there are still frequent cross-border incidents. Five policemen were recently killed by suspected al-Shabaab fighters near the border with Somalia. There is also continuing recruitment, according to villagers. Several Kwale county residents, who did not want to be named, added that some women are also attracted by the extremist ideology, and marry al-Shabaab veterans in the area.
Last weekend Bongwe and its neighbouring village were calm. Both were full of women wearing flowing robes. Young children, cows and chickens wandered between the trees. A dozen youths wearing old T-shirts played on the football pitch.
“I left one war behind me in Somalia when I returned,” said Ibrahim. “But now I am in the middle of another one.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/28/kenya-seaside-look-peaceful-murderous-war-al-shabaab
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en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e8ae3f2429408e39ba7a51869368117edc59e583a2f919101fc543d52168a8f7.json
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[
"Dominic Fifield",
"Ed Aarons"
] | 2016-08-26T13:18:31 | null | 2016-08-25T15:48:05 |
The Crystal Palace chairman, Steve Parish, has insisted that Wilfried Zaha is not for sale after rejecting a bid worth an initial £12m from Tottenham for the twice-capped England international
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fcrystal-palace-reject-tottenham-hotspurs-bid-for-wilfried-zaha.json
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en
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Crystal Palace reject Tottenham Hotspur’s £12m bid for Wilfried Zaha
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Crystal Palace’s chairman, Steve Parish, has insisted Wilfried Zaha is not for sale after rejecting a bid worth an initial £12m from Tottenham for the twice-capped England international.
The bid, which also included £2m in add-ons, was submitted on Thursday but was quickly dismissed as derisory by Palace. They intend to rebuff any further offers from suitors for the 23-year-old and will seek to renew talks over a new contract for the winger, though they still face an uphill battle to convince the player his long-term future should be at Selhurst Park.
Premier League: transfer window summer 2016 – interactive Read more
“We had a bid from Spurs but £12m – it’s ridiculous. I can’t imagine that they’re serious,” Parish told TalkSport.
“There’s no chance whatsoever of Wilfried Zaha leaving the club in this transfer window. I can absolutely reassure every Palace fan he is an integral part of our plans. We’ve told Spurs that there is really no point bidding for him because he is going nowhere – 100% guaranteed.”
Zaha, apparently already aware of Tottenham’s interest and instinctively tempted by the idea of playing in the Champions League, had spoken to the Palace manager, Alan Pardew, at the club’s Beckenham training ground earlier in the day. Pardew, with whom the player has endured an occasionally strained relationship over the past 18 months, immediately indicated Palace’s reluctance to part with the youth team graduate and told Zaha and his representative to speak directly to Parish. He is currently in New York. Palace are in the early stages of renegotiating Zaha’s contract, though the player’s camp have been left unimpressed with the level of improvement proposed to his £35,000-a-week deal.
Player and chairman remain close and it would take Zaha handing in a formal transfer request for Parish even to consider a sale. “It’s not right really that players get their heads turned,” Parish added. “I was told that the manager there [at Tottenham] thinks he’s the next Ronaldo. Well, I’d like to get the next Ronaldo for £12m. We need to convince Wilfried that Palace is the right place for him and he can succeed here.”
The winger, who had played such an integral part in helping his boyhood club reach the Premier League in 2012-13 – he joined Manchester United for £15m midway through that season before finishing the campaign back on loan at Selhurst Park – returned on a permanent basis in February 2015 and produced his most consistent form last term as Palace reached the FA Cup final.
But, despite encouraging form since, his wage package does not yet reflect his status at the club.
he forward has seen the Yohan Cabaye and Christian Benteke recruited on substantial salaries, with Palace hoping to address the relative disparity in discussions with Zaha, Jason Puncheon, James McArthur and Wayne Hennessey in the next few weeks.
Spurs had earmarked Zaha as a player who would offer an injection of pace to their strike force, though their interest in him is unlikely to affect their £11m pursuit of Marseille’s Georges-Kevin Nkoudou.
“I would like a player like this,” said Mauricio Pochettino when asked if he is in the market for a quick, attacking player. “We have improved because now we have two strikers. Now I think we need some players in the second line of offence to help the team compete better and have more quality in the squad because it will be a very tough season with the Champions League.”
Clinton Njie, a forward, is set to move to Stade Vélodrome on loan as part of the deal for Nkoudou, while Nabil Bentaleb and DeAndre Yedlin have moved to Schalke and Newcastle respectively.
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/25/crystal-palace-reject-tottenham-hotspurs-bid-for-wilfried-zaha
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en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/180ff6d9b785abcc09d7fae8fedc91fe67d1a1ec5b41d58151fe6096bb95c868.json
|
|
[
"Julia Kollewe"
] | 2016-08-26T13:24:01 | null | 2016-08-25T07:56:12 |
Car production increases by 7.6% in July to 126,566, taking total since the start of 2016 past 1 million mark, SMMT figures show
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2016%2Faug%2F25%2Fuk-car-production-biggest-total-first-seven-months-of-year-since-2004-smmt.json
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| null |
UK builds 1m cars in first seven months of year for first time since 2004
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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More than 1m cars were built in the UK in the first seven months of this year, the biggest number for more than a decade.
Car production rose by 7.6% to 126,566 units last month, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. So far in 2016, output is up by 12.3% to 1,023,723.
This is the first time since 2004 that the 1m milestone has been reached in July and comes despite the Brexit vote in June.
Production for the UK market increased by 14.1% last month, while exports rose by 6%. Almost 80% of cars manufactured this year, more than 750,000, were destined for overseas markets. The EU is the biggest export market for cars made in the UK.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest UK car production. Photograph: SMMT
Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the SMMT, said: “UK car production in 2016 is booming, with new British-built models in demand across the world.”
He said manufacturers had invested billions to develop new models and produce them competitively in the UK. “Future success will depend on continued new car demand and attracting the next wave of investment, so Britain must demonstrate it remains competitive and open for business,” Hawes said.
Shortly after the EU referendum, the industry body warned that carmakers faced a skills shortage if the rights of people from the rest of Europe to work in the UK were restricted. The chief executive of Toyota Europe, Johan van Zyl, said the scale of the manufacturer’s future presence in Britain would depend on the outcome of negotiations between the UK and Brussels.
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/25/uk-car-production-biggest-total-first-seven-months-of-year-since-2004-smmt
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en
| 2016-08-25T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/2f6fabad3a85fcafd6c098297b93e4709464bc2863b3aba75cdadf521dde85b2.json
|
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[
"Australian Associated Press"
] | 2016-08-28T12:52:01 | null | 2016-08-28T11:31:03 |
A remarkable race to AFL finals ended with a frenzied finish at the MCG on Sunday that has only heightened expectations of something special in September
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F28%2Fstage-set-for-close-fought-afl-finals-after-frenetic-final-round.json
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| null |
Stage set for close-fought AFL finals after frenetic final round
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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A remarkable race to AFL finals ended with a frenzied finish at the MCG on Sunday that has only heightened expectations of something special in September. Six clubs, including triple reigning premiers Hawthorn, started the final round with a chance of snatching the minor premiership or missing out on the top four entirely.
Hawthorn secure top four spot after late drama against Collingwood Read more
The Hawks posted a one-point win over Collingwood at the MCG on Sunday, setting up a mouth-watering qualifying final against rivals Geelong at the same venue. Sydney and Greater Western Sydney will meet in the other qualifying final, while Adelaide and West Coast will host elimination games against North Melbourne and Western Bulldogs respectively.
History dictates only the top-four sides can win the flag – it has been that way since the introduction of the current system but the advent of a pre-finals bye and final-round ladder logjam suggests it could be different this year.
“The finals series will be really close this year. I reckon probably anyone in the top eight can steal it if they play well for a month,” Hawks midfielder Isaac Smith said. “It should be a pretty interesting finals series for the fans.”
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson suggested it would be foolish to dismiss any of the top-eight sides, pointing to how eighth-placed North won through to an elimination final in 2015.
“Ladder positions [being up for grabs in the final round] indicate it’s pretty close,” Clarkson said. “We’re of the view that every side in the top eight is a dangerous opposition. On any given day they can play some outstanding footy.
“It’s going to be harder [to win the premiership] from fifth to eighth but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Particularly this year when there’s a little bit of a curveball in terms of the [post-season bye].”
Swans clinch minor premiership, Cats hammer Demons in Roos' final game Read more
Clarkson indicated he would try to keep things as normal as possible during the upcoming week. “The only difference is we’re not playing a game next week,” he said. “We’ll be pretty low key early in the week and give our players plenty of time to recover but then start to prepare for the Cats.”
Premiership players Ben Stratton and Ben McEvoy are likely to return for the Hawks against Geelong. Plenty of other clubs will be making some big selection calls over the next fortnight – on account of both form or fitness.
The Swans will surrender home-ground advantage against GWS but boast plenty of confidence after five straight wins, the latest being a 113-point demolition of Richmond.
Geelong were resounding 111-point winners over Melbourne in the final round of the season, while the Giants downed North by 37 points on Saturday.
Western Bulldogs, who travel to Perth and face the Eagles in week one of the finals, have plenty to think about after a shock 20-point loss to Fremantle on Sunday. The Crows were also far from convincing in round 23, suffering a 29-point loss to the Eagles at Adelaide Oval.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/28/stage-set-for-close-fought-afl-finals-after-frenetic-final-round
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en
| 2016-08-28T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/1ea1ae422159708d2a50283cdb96951ccb84703424a3bf11d7f4638ef32c35cf.json
|
|
[
"Paul Mason",
"Bruno Rinvolucri",
"Leah Green"
] | 2016-08-26T13:22:21 | null | 2016-07-27T06:00:35 |
Paul Mason argues that as Theresa May negotiates Brexit, the left should unite in a progressive alliance in parliament
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2Fvideo%2F2016%2Fjul%2F27%2Fthe-left-is-not-dead-heres-how-we-come-back-fighting-video.json
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| null |
The left is not dead. Here's how we come back fighting - video
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
A coherent progressive voice is needed more than ever in the UK, argues Paul Mason. To make sure the terms of Brexit encourage an open and tolerant society, he says, politicians should form a progressive alliance. To stop Ukip and the Tories becoming all powerful, the left must work together
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jul/27/the-left-is-not-dead-heres-how-we-come-back-fighting-video
|
en
| 2016-07-27T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/bc2613f8be7578d9427e81b090270e2626fe57e9617e05f8c80b1e3e2b781985.json
|
|
[
"Jamie Jackson"
] | 2016-08-26T13:18:02 | null | 2016-08-26T12:00:18 |
Steven Defour, the former Anderlecht and Porto midfielder once good enough to interest Alex Ferguson, has turned down better money to play for Sean Dyche at Burnley
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https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fsteven-defour-burnley-sean-dyche-record-signing.json
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en
| null |
Steven Defour’s will to win can justify Burnley’s record outlay
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
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Steven Defour’s tattoos are a clue to the mind of the player who, at £7.5m, is Burnley’s record signing. One, on a forearm and written in Gothic script, reads: “Exitus acta probat”. The motto of the Roman poet Ovid, this translates to: “The end justifies the means.”
Defour was once the next big thing in Belgian football. A player many believed to be in the class Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne now occupies, the midfielder’s progress was hampered by injury and off-field distractions, which have included a difficult personal life and an uneven approach to training.
On the pitch Defour thrives, particularly when faced with the hostility a controversial career has caused. Another phrase on one of the 28-year-old’s arms sums up the boy from Mechelen. “Voluntas vincendi maior timore perdendi” – “The will to win is greater than the fear of losing.”
Anderlecht’s Steven Defour sees red over Standard Liège fans’ banner Read more
This self-determination has proved vital. At 16 Defour was the wunderkind handed a debut at Genk by René Vandereycken, who later did the same when becoming Belgium coach. A year later Defour was a first-choice and when Ajax expressed a serious interest in the summer of 2006, his first divisive decision followed. Defour invoked a law that allows footballers in Belgium to terminate contracts for a fee. A gentlemen’s agreement among clubs means this rarely occurs and so Defour provoked ill-feeling and, more materially, made Ajax back away from the transfer.
Instead he joined Standard Liège, which still upsets Genk supporters, and when Defour’s new club played Genk in August that year fans pelted eggs at the team bus, and vicious chants were aimed at the player. His response was to step off the bus first, offer a broad smile, then turn in an impressive display.
Renowned for being fiery, Defour maintained his cool. Even when Genk’s Tom Soetaers administered an industrial tackle on an ankle, the cold-eyed calm remained. “Frankly,” Defour said, “I was expecting much worse. I liked it.”
In private Defour is likeable, though he can find privacy difficult. At his wedding in 2011 he and his bride asked the paparazzi to stay away and felt moved to hide behind umbrellas as they arrived. Later, Defour could not resist a joke: he posed with a brolly for an interview shortly after the ceremony.
The wedding (Defour is now divorced) was front-page news in Belgium and he has often featured on the gossip pages. His parents separated when he was young and his relationship with them has not always been smooth. Defour’s father, Jacques, was a footballer but his career ended after he broke a leg on his debut. Despite this, Defour Sr drove his son towards becoming a professional and has often been emotional in public during the highs and lows of his career.
Burnley and Sam Vokes catch Liverpool cold as Klopp’s men fire blanks Read more
At Liège, Defour’s edge was honed by playing alongside Sérgio Conçeicão. The Portuguese’s CV included the scudetto at Lazio and the Cup Winners’ Cup. He was also a three-time league champion at Porto. At 19, Luciano D’Onofrio, the Liège manager, made Defour captain, though calf injuries and a shoulder troubled him.
Yet by May 2009, the midfielder had won two Belgian championships – the first broke Liège’s 25-year drought – a domestic cup, the golden shoe, as the nation’s finest player, and was an international of three years.
Defour also operated in tandem with Marouane Fellaini before the latter left for Everton in September 2008 – and was considered the team’s driving force. But he then broke a foot, causing Sir Alex Ferguson to write a letter to him in September 2009. It read: “I am going to pay attention as to how you are progressing and I am going to get in touch with your club to get the information on your recovery.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Standard Liège fans display their contempt for Steven Defour on his return with Anderlecht in 2015. Photograph: Yorick Jansens/AFP/Getty Images
Ferguson’s interest faded and Defour moved to Porto in 2011. There he won the title twice in his first two seasons, played in the Champions League and, in total, made 111 appearances before returning to Belgium in 2014.
This again caused friction as he signed for Anderlecht, Liège’s fierce rivals. Defour’s status at his former club fell to pariah and caused a graphic banner to be unfurled when he returned to the Stade Maurice Dufrasne in Anderlecht colours. “RED OR DEAD” it read and featured Defour’s detached head being clutched by a masked figure holding a butcher’s knife in the other hand.
That was last year. By then Defour had lost his place with Belgium having been in the 2014 World Cup squad, although he was Friday selected in Roberto Martínez’s first Belgium squad for the upcoming matches against Spain and Cyprus.
He had also fallen out with a section of the Anderlecht fans – causing them to hurl beer at him – leading to the move to Burnley, one that offers some respite.
The transfer came close to not happening though. Twelve years into an attritional career, Defour was tempted by a more lucrative offer to join Abu Dhabi’s Al Jazira. While the player will earn around £1.5m a-season at Turf Moor – his biggest ever salary – Jazira offered markedly more.
But the intervention of Sean Dyche helped convince Defour, the Burnley manager having been impressed with the player after watching him during Anderlecht’s 5-1 victory over KV Kortrijk and then having a face-to-face meeting. Daily contact by phone followed and this month the deal was agreed.
The challenge for Defour is to make his mark in the Premier League having also made the transition from attacking midfielder to spiky holding player. In last Saturday’s 2-0 win over Liverpool at Turf Moor he made a bright start, creating Andre Gray’s second. “Once we get his physicality right then I think he’ll be a good asset for us,” Dyche said.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/26/steven-defour-burnley-sean-dyche-record-signing
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/912466bd7f2d655ff5db63e6b23b96847292ba894f965ec99a1596d3ff68d621.json
|
|
[
"Rowena Mason"
] | 2016-08-26T13:17:54 | null | 2016-08-07T23:01:16 |
Policy Exchange says population register would allay Brexit-related fears that Britain is an ‘economic transit camp’
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2016%2Faug%2F08%2Fuk-should-monitor-population-with-unique-person-numbers-thinktank.json
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en
| null |
UK should monitor population with 'unique person numbers' - thinktank
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
British people should be given a “unique person number” to help the government keep track of the population following the vote for Brexit, according to a new report by a leading thinktank.
The paper from Policy Exchange said people feel Britain is being used as an “economic transit camp” and these fears could be allayed by creating a “population register”.
Registering EU nationals in UK could take 140 years at current rates Read more
The controversial idea is likely to be met with opposition from civil liberties campaigners who stopped the Blair government bringing in ID cards. But the report said the numbers would not mean people carrying cards, but would help to distinguish between full and temporary citizens.
David Goodhart, the author of the report, said: “Roughly 2 million people arrive in the UK on visas every year and too many are overstaying. We have to urgently address the resentment that people feel about the fact that some migrants use Britain as a sort of economic transit camp.
“The government needs to get a grip on who is coming into Britain, where they are living and what public services they are accessing. A British population register which differentiates between full and temporary citizens will help the government concentrate rights, benefits and integration efforts on those who are making a full commitment to the country.”
Policy Exchange, which was founded by the former Conservative ministers Michael Gove and Nick Boles in 2002, is considered an independent thinktank on the centre-right and has been addressed by leading Labour politicians as well as Conservative leaders over the years.
EU immigration debate upset more than half of voters, report finds Read more
The paper says the databases of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), HMRC and the Home Office do not share information, meaning most people have several unique identifiers, such as an NHS number, National Insurance number and passport number.
It claimed a unique person number stored in a central register would give the government a much more informed picture of migration flows.
Goodhart argues that temporary citizens on visas such as students and short-term migrant workers – who currently account for two-thirds of the annual inflow into Britain – would not have full access to social and political rights, would not have an automatic right to bring in dependents and would leave after a specific period of time.
He also suggested EU citizens who have been living in Britain for more than five years should be offered a special cut-price ‘Brexit citizenship’ and EU citizens should have to get work permits to come to the UK after leaving the EU.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/08/uk-should-monitor-population-with-unique-person-numbers-thinktank
|
en
| 2016-08-07T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/c75361fff0ada98cc93a055df6d68dbf79a1dc11e16fdc18aeba94864c495eaa.json
|
|
[
"Damien Gayle"
] | 2016-08-30T10:50:12 | null | 2016-08-30T09:31:23 |
More than 450 people arrested at event on Sunday and Monday, including 169 for alleged possession of drugs
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fculture%2F2016%2Faug%2F30%2Fnotting-hill-carnival-arrests-hit-record-high.json
|
en
| null |
Notting Hill carnival arrests hit record high
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Police made more than 450 arrests at the Notting Hill carnival in London over the bank holiday weekend, setting a record for the numbers of arrests made at the event, which is the world’s second biggest street party.
A section 60 order, which covered the entire carnival area, allowed officers to execute random searches – and a policing operation that seemed to take a light touch changed as the day progressed, with officers in riot gear on the streets after nightfall.
Ninety arrests were made for alleged possession of points and blades, and 169 for drugs.
Officers also made 38 arrests under the new Psychoactive Substances Act, which came into force in May, that were related to nitrous oxide. Possession of the substance, a popular party drug sold in gas form by the balloon, is legal but it is illegal to distribute it.
A further 40 arrests were made for alleged public order offences, while 25 arrests were made on suspicion of assaulting a police officer. Last year, there were 407 arrests, a big increase on the 2014 figure of 252.
Five people were hurt in four separate knife attacks on Sunday, according to the Metropolitan police. Among those arrested was a 14-year-old boy held on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after a 15-year-old was stabbed.
The Met had a huge presence in Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove, with 6,000 officers deployed on Sunday and 7,000 on Monday.
Most sound systems, particularly those playing dub reggae, dancehall or grime, had a significant police presence. There was friction at the People’s Sound sound system on All Saints Road when police in riot gear moved in just before shutdown at 7pm.
— Micheál Campbell (@michealjcampbel) Police shutdown Peoples Sound on All Saints Road #NHC2016. pic.twitter.com/jDyV1P9EnY
One bystander, who asked to be named only as The Dread, accused officers of intimidation. Asked why he thought the People’s Sound had been singled out, he said: “For some reason, they have their targets. This sound here is the peaceful sound that’s been going on for the past 30 years. All the vibes are good and still we get this intimidation.”
Other arrests included 17 for common assault or actual bodily harm; 13 for sexual offences; 10 for theft from the person, eight going equipped for theft; six for grievous bodily harm; three for drink or drug driving; two for criminal damage; one for robbery; and 32 others that the Met did not specify.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/aug/30/notting-hill-carnival-arrests-hit-record-high
|
en
| 2016-08-30T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/4484d4c09187f0414cc11adb71d0a1de7e3f1ec160f9538d5ff350e7b6b71969.json
|
|
[
"Ed Aarons"
] | 2016-08-26T18:50:51 | null | 2016-08-26T16:57:15 |
Southampton are set to break their transfer record to sign Sofiane Boufal, the Morocco forward, from Lille
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2016%2Faug%2F26%2Fsouthampton-sofiane-boufal-lille-close-signing.json
|
en
| null |
Southampton close to signing Lille’s Sofiane Boufal for club record fee
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
Southampton are set to break their transfer record to sign Sofiane Boufal from Lille after the two clubs moved closer to an agreement over the fee for the Morocco forward.
Negotiations for the 22-year-old have continued in the last few days after Southampton’s initial bid of around £13m was rejected in the week, with Lille expected to accept a renewed offer which could eventually be worth up to £21.2m (€25m).
Transfer window: exposing the widely held myths about how clubs sign players Read more
The sticking point appears to be over any potential sell-on fee the French club could be due in future, although that is not expected to prevent Claude Puel’s club from exceeding the £14m they paid to sign Dani Osvaldo from Roma in 2013. It is understood that Boufal has already told friends he has his heart set on moving to the south coast club, with an official announcement possible over the weekend.
Puel, who managed Lille between 2002 and 2008, refused to discuss the transfer in advance of meeting with Sunderland at St Mary’s but he is understood to have pushed for the signing after watching Boufal in action last season. However, the player is recuperating after injuring a knee in May and is not expected to be match-fit again until the middle of next month.
A product of the youth system at Angers, who he left last January to join Lille, Boufal won the award for the best African player in Ligue One and is comfortable out wide or as a No10. Born in Paris, he opted to represent Morocco – for whom he qualifies through his parents – this year and made his debut against Cape Verde in March.
His arrival could allow the England international Jay Rodriguez to join West Brom on loan. The 27-year-old has also been linked with Burnley, a former club.
The Euro 2016 winner Cédric Soares, meanwhile, has signed a new four-year contract with Southampton.
The club have also recruited the goalkeeper Stuart Taylor on a free transfer. The 35-year-old will offer cover for Fraser Forster and Alex McCarthy after Kelvin Davis’ retirement and Paulo Gazzaniga joining Rayo Vallecano on loan.
|
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/aug/26/southampton-sofiane-boufal-lille-close-signing
|
en
| 2016-08-26T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/e5c9468b55074e9e95f5ede8e0803155354d91ba32f10e0b58b2eafcf571f0d2.json
|
|
[
"Jacob Steinberg"
] | 2016-08-26T13:21:14 | null | 2016-08-24T21:28:00 |
British Paralympian David Weir has said he is increasingly concerned at the extent of doping in disability sport
|
https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsport%2F2016%2Faug%2F24%2Fdavid-weir-paralympics-drugs-in-sport-rio.json
|
en
| null |
David Weir calls for tougher measures to rid disability sport of drug cheats
| null | null |
www.theguardian.com
|
David Weir, one of Great Britain’s most decorated Paralympians, has revealed that he has been increasingly concerned about the extent of doping in disability sport in recent years and has welcomed the decision to ban Russia from the Paralympic Games in Rio, which start on 7 September.
The wheelchair racer has won the London Marathon six times – and remains hopeful these Games will not be affected too much by major budget cuts – said he has been sceptical about times posted by some athletes before the court of arbitration for sport upheld the Russian Paralympic Committee’s suspension by the International Paralympic Committee because of evidence of state-sponsored doping.
David Weir: ‘Peaking for Paralympics has been more of a challenge’ Read more
Weir has called for the introduction of tougher measures to ensure the sport is clean. “It’s probably the right choice if they’ve got evidence that most of the athletes are on a doping programme,” the 37-year-old said. “It’s a bold step by the IPC and definitely the right one if they’ve got evidence. Every time I get on that track, I never want to suspect that someone’s cheating. As an athlete you hope that everyone’s clean and racing on a level playing field. Over the last few years I’ve started to doubt people, which you never want to do. You look at people’s performances and think ‘really?’ and not ‘wow’.”
Weir, who will be trying to win five gold medals at his final Paralympics, believes there is not enough testing outside the United Kingdom. “The doping policy needs to be a bit more thorough throughout disability sport,” he said. “Not in the UK, because we’re tested constantly, but throughout championships.
“London 2012 was thorough but it needs to be pushed more. We’ve seen athletes getting caught and if it’s happening in the mainstream, it’s got to be happening in the Paralympics. When I was at the European championships I did four events and got tested once. At the 2011 world championships in New Zealand I got tested once in the hotel and not at all in competition, despite winning three gold medals. At London 2012 I was tested every day. Maybe it’s manpower or funding. A lot of nations are throwing millions of pounds at medals and we want to deliver on a level playing field.”
Weir, who won four gold medals in London and two in Beijing in 2008, hopes that financial problems and poor ticket sales will not ruin the Paralympics. He was left disillusioned after performing in front of an empty stadium at his first Games, Atlanta 1996, and the Londoner does not want the new generation to go through the same thing.
“I feel they’ve been working very hard in Rio in the past couple of weeks and the IPC seems to have been trying their best to sort things out,” he said. “They’ve not been sitting there waiting and hoping. The British Paralympics Association have been brilliant trying to make sure everything is spot-on for us.
“I do feel a bit of worry for the first-timers after seeing London [2012] on telly or just missing out on it, training four years for Rio, getting there and going ‘is this supposed to be the best sporting platform’?
“That’s what I felt in Atlanta as a 17-year-old. I felt like the sport had no future. But it’s different in this day and age. Tokyo won’t be the same in 2020. We could just do a bit more to make sure it’s the best Games ever.”
|
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/24/david-weir-paralympics-drugs-in-sport-rio
|
en
| 2016-08-24T00:00:00 |
www.theguardian.com/fd45a6e5cf116397eebe6d1fec4bb2fbc7f2cb0aeed21e45bf8eddfcf9539417.json
|
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