Attenders will be asked to take part in tests to see if they have become more open to views they do not agree with
Festivalgoers sometimes report feeling they have a fresh perspective of the world when they make their weary way home after a stimulating cultural gathering.
A new “festival of ideas” in Somerset is aiming to measure whether the beliefs and ideas of attenders and speakers really are changed by their event.
Continue reading...From Elizabeth I’s backing of early voyages to royal investment in trafficking companies, generations of monarchs were central to Britain’s slave trade
Enslaved African people were seared with hot metal brands bearing the royal crown, according to research by historians who have documented the monarchy’s centuries-long involvement in Britain’s slave trade.
The Register of British Slave Traders identifies thousands of people who invested in Britain’s trafficking of enslaved Africans, including kings and queens.
Continue reading...Exclusive: New research identifies thousands who profited from trafficking enslaved Africans and traces some financial links to institutions still operating today
Continue reading...Wobblesome, firm or silken, tofu is a star ingredient in Chinese cooking. These dishes show why
In the west, tofu is often viewed as a substitute for meat, which may explain why firmer types that can be cut into chunks and fried or grilled like meat have become so ubiquitous. In China, however, where tofu has been eaten for at least 1,000 years, it isn’t a substitute for anything; it’s simply a protein-rich ingredient that forms part of most people’s diets, can be cooked with meat and fish, and comes in myriad forms, from the tender, wobbly tofu used to make Sichuanese mapo tofu to firm smoked tofu, sheets of tofu “skin” and the silken tofu that can be as soft as creme caramel. Many Chinese tofu recipes are so delicious that habitual meat-eaters will devour them as keenly as vegetarians.
Continue reading...Progressive politicians such as Zohran Mamdani offer answers to the bitter post-9/11 legacy of failures at home and abroad
Twenty-five years after 9/11, two pieces of journalism, describing two different phenomena in contemporary New York, tell us a great deal about a city, and indeed a world, caught between two eras. In one, New York Magazine dives into “Habibi City”, a New York where a “cultural shift is underway, led by a generation of New Yorkers coming into its own”. This new generation is labelled as originating in “SWANA” – south-west Asia and north Africa, a region that “includes countries from Palestine to Iran to Sudan”. In the other, Vanity Fair describes calls for Zohran Mamdani to not attend the 9/11 memorial ceremony as partly founded in “inchoate, emotional” impulses, that see “the city’s first Muslim mayor as a stand-in for the 19 Muslims who hijacked four planes and turned them into deadly weapons, part of the ‘them’ who attacked ‘us’.”
Together they capture what has changed over a generation, and what remains stubbornly the same. Members of a diaspora of Muslim background are indeed breaking through and accumulating, as New York Magazine says, “clout”. They are no longer simply a fixture of bodegas and halal carts, but of Saturday Night Live, upmarket dining, entertainment and politics too. Mamdani is both the expression of that cohort and the catalyst of its recognition as an emerging force. They care deeply for their local communities but also for those in Gaza and beyond.
Continue reading...Actor appears naked in ad while mock playing various sports
‘A kick in the face,’ says Olympic champion swimmer Ariarne Titmus
Olympic athletes have come out in force to condemn a sports betting advert featuring actor Sydney Sweeney in various states of undress, while showcasing the real skill, strength and beauty of women’s sport.
The campaign, for US sports prediction market company Novig, depicts Sweeney in minimal to no clothing while she pretends to play several different sports.
Continue reading...Electoral Commission finds abuse, particularly of women, minority ethnic and disabled people, is affecting candidates’ behaviour
Abuse and intimidation of election candidates is “a serious and growing concern”, the Electoral Commission has said, as a review of this year’s local and mayoral elections in England revealed a surge in threats to those who stood.
More than half of the candidates for Labour or Reform UK reported abuse while those most likely to be targeted were women, people from minority ethnic backgrounds and those with disabilities.
Continue reading...Call Me Maybe made the singer-songwriter famous – but also confused. Who was she? Who was her music for? Fourteen years later, about to release the double album Day and Night, she finally has some answers
Carly Rae Jepsen is as bubbly as ever as she comes down for breakfast at Manhattan’s Hotel Chelsea. She’s one of those pop princesses, like Kylie Minogue, whose voice and demeanour remain unchanged whatever the situation. And she feels at home at this New York landmark where, last year, she married the musician and producer Cole MGN. That a wedding at the Chelsea would need to be kept to about 100 people was an immediate selling point. “I loved that it was smaller,” she says. “It felt big to me! I didn’t even get time with all the people that were there.”
We’re here to talk about her new album, though, which comes out 14 years after the song that made her world-famous. Born and raised in the city of Mission in British Columbia, Jepsen had come third on Canadian Idol in 2007, and then released a low-key folk album called Tug of War in 2008, before dropping Call Me Maybe four years later. It became the bestselling global single of 2012; her second album, Kiss, came out in the same year. Now, at the age of 40, she has six more studio albums under her belt. The latest, Day and Night, is her take on marriage and motherhood. And, in its own way – which is to say, a bit coy, a bit breathy – it might also be Jepsen’s horniest album to date.
Continue reading...A bloated ballroom, a six-storey military HQ, a helipad-cum-cocktail patio, a gilded angel on a giant arch honouring himself … our architecture critic deplores the decorator-in-chief’s mutilation of Washington
When you have a developer as US president, you might expect some zhooshing up of the capital. A few buildings renovated, maybe some parks replanted. But when you have a megalomaniac builder in charge, things can get out of hand. A decade ago, when Donald Trump was first elected, I asked what it might mean for the US to be led by a real estate tycoon whose career had left a trail of broken promises, angry buyers and endless lawsuits, with rules flouted, heritage trampled and the world pockmarked by a fleet of aspirational towers clad with a flimsy veneer of luxury. The answer is worse than I could have imagined.
With the air of a nightmarish Hollywood sequel, Trump 2 has seen the president’s true architectural ambitions unleashed: The Blingpire Strikes Back. As America’s self-styled decorator-in-chief, Trump has not only overseen the gilded mutilation of the White House, but embarked on the Mar-a-Lagofication of Washington DC itself, applying his gold paintbrush to statuary, daubing ponds with flaking pool liner, and brewing plans for a colossal triumphal arch – all procured in a blizzard of no-bid contracts. And, in true dodgy salesman style, this programme of bauble-building is turning out to be a high-profile decoy for deeper damage being wrought elsewhere.
Continue reading...
niggyl :) has added a photo to the pool:
Across the snow and wind-swept Pelion Plains, the crenelated spines of Mount Oakley (1286m) emerge from another snow shower.
From New Pelion Hut.
Fabulous day to be in the wilds.
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max, Adobe Indigo App, 9mm f/2.8 back camera lens, 1/1700th sec at f/2.8. ISO 200.
TRUE 2 DEATH has added a photo to the pool:
The local train crosses the 第二小入川橋梁 (Second Koirikawa Railway Bridge) along JR East’s Gonō Line in Happō, Akita Prefecture.
From above, the railway almost disappears into the landscape—crossing the small valley between the houses and dense summer greenery before running along the edge of the Sea of Japan. The Gonō Line is famous for its dramatic coastal scenery, but scenes like this, where the railway feels completely woven into the surrounding villages and landscape, are just as much a part of its character.
Happō, Akita Prefecture, Japan
June 2025
WASHINGTON (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - De regering van de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump wil de beperkingen op de uitstoot van broeikasgassen door kolen- en gascentrales schrappen. Milieuagentschap EPA maakt de maatregel naar verwachting maandag bekend, melden ingewijden aan persbureau Bloomberg.
De EPA trekt daarmee regels uit 2024 van toenmalig president Joe Biden in. Die verplichtten onder meer bestaande kolencentrales hun CO2-uitstoot sterk terug te dringen, bijvoorbeeld door CO2 af te vangen, of uiteindelijk te sluiten.
Ook wil de EPA afzonderlijk voorstellen een besluit in te trekken waarin broeikasgassen van elektriciteitscentrales als een bedreiging worden aangemerkt. Daarmee kan het volgens The New York Times ook voor toekomstige regeringen moeilijker worden om de uitstoot van elektriciteitscentrales te reguleren. Juridische procedures tegen de maatregelen worden verwacht.
De energiesector behoort tot de grootste uitstoters van broeikasgassen in de Verenigde Staten. Trump heeft sinds zijn terugkeer in het Witte Huis meerdere klimaatregels teruggedraaid.
AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De kosten in de transport- en logistieksector zijn flink gestegen door aanhoudende geopolitieke spanningen en verstoringen in de ketens, stelt ING Research. Onder meer de stijgende brandstofprijzen hebben gezorgd voor een kostenshock, stelt de bank. Omdat deze niet altijd volledig kunnen worden doorberekend zet het de winstgevendheid van bedrijven onder druk.
De hogere brandstofprijzen zorgen volgens de bank voor een kostenstijging van zo'n 6 procent in het wegtransport. Bedrijven hebben naast snel duurder geworden brandstof ook te maken met hogere lonen, hogere rente, langere wachttijden in havens en ze moeten omrijden door afgesloten bruggen.
De transportbedrijven vervoeren dit jaar iets meer dan een jaar eerder. De omzet gaat door hogere tarieven met zo'n 10 procent omhoog, maar dat levert volgens de bank weinig op vanwege de opgelopen kosten. "Transportbedrijven vervoeren nauwelijks meer, maar worden wel geconfronteerd met fors hogere kosten. Zij zullen die kosten zoveel mogelijk doorberekenen, maar dit is niet vanzelfsprekend en gebeurt vaak ook niet direct. Dat zet de marges en winstgevendheid onder druk", stelt sectoreconoom Rico Luman. Vooral in het wegtransport is het moeilijk om de kosten door te berekenen.
China
Een extra uitdaging voor de sector is de toenemende onbalans in de handel met China, stelt ING Research. De Europese export naar China daalde met 11 procent in de eerste helft van dit jaar. Daardoor neemt het aantal lege containers in Europese havens toe en dat zorgt voor inefficiëntie en drukte in de havens. Die containers moeten leeg weer naar China en komen vervolgens gevuld weer terug.
Het aantal pakketjes vanuit China is wel teruggelopen door de Europese heffing op kleine pakketjes. Maar omdat bestellingen nu groter worden gemaakt of worden gebundeld, heeft dat nog weinig invloed op het aantal lege containers.
