Rishi Sunak will âwave throughâ Boris Johnsonâs resignation honours list, says The Times, in the hopes of ending âmonths of acrimonyâ between the pair. Among the 50 people who will be nominated for a peerage are the MPs Nadine Dorries and Alok Sharma, who would have to stand down and trigger by-elections if they were to move to the House of Lords. Britain will host the first global summit on AI regulation this autumn. China will probably be excluded from the conference, which Downing Street says will be limited to âlike-minded countriesâ. Wildfires in Canada have blanketed cities on the east coast of North America in a thick layer of smoke, disrupting everything from air travel to Broadway shows. New York was the worst hit: on Tuesday night its air quality ranked worse than any city in the world, even New Delhi.
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JK Rowling (left) and the Oxfam advert. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty |
Oxfam should worry about poverty, not pronouns |
Imagine the horror Oxfamâs bosses must have felt, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph, when âthousands upon thousandsâ of Twitter users pointed out that a cartoon published by the charity depicting an âevil, scowling, hate-fuelled transphobeâ looked exactly like JK Rowling. Of course, the do-gooders were quick to issue an arse-covering statement insisting there was âno intentionâ to portray âany particular personâ. And who am I to question their sincerity? Itâs no doubt merely an âunfortunate coincidenceâ that the animated bigot closely resembled a widely published photograph of Rowling attending a 2018 movie premiere, âright down to her hairstyle and outfitâ.
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Even if the cartoon hadnât looked remotely like the beloved childrenâs author, âOxfam would still have been utterly in the wrongâ. Partly because of the absurd implication that anyone who supports single-sex changing rooms and thinks only women should play womenâs rugby is a ânasty old hag who loathes the vulnerableâ. But the bigger problem is that Oxfam is a charity that was founded to tackle poverty. âHow exactly does attacking âterfsâ help to feed starving children?â Transphobia may be a hurtful prejudice, but itâs not a leading cause of âdrought, hunger, disease and warâ. Perhaps they think a starving child in Burkina Faso might shout: âNo! I refuse to accept any food that may have been paid for by someone who believes that biological males should not be allowed to enter the womenâs Olympic weightlifting!â But on the whole, âI think itâs unlikelyâ.
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Good Morning America asked bartenders to predict the âitâ cocktails weâll be sipping this summer. Their bets included: the limoncello spritz, combining the liquor with prosecco and soda water; a tequila tipple mixed with âpineapple, mango and coconut, with a dash of spiciness like jalapeĂąosâ; and a âRocco margaritaâ, pairing blanco tequila with mandarin-infused cognac, fresh lime, honey and grapefruit bitters. |
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âVirgin birthâ might be possible in crocodiles, says New Scientist. Staff at a Costa Rican zoo discovered that a female croc had laid 14 eggs â one containing a still-born fetus â despite having had no contact with any males for years. Parthenogenesis, âa form of asexual reproduction in which embryos develop from unfertilised eggsâ, is known to occur in some snakes, lizards and even turkeys. Its discovery in a crocodile suggests that the trait dates back to the animalsâ shared ancestors, and could even have taken place in dinosaurs.
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In 1982, the town of Northampton held a double-decker bus race as part of its annual carnival. As one Twitter user writes, itâs âa lot more interesting than Formula 1 this yearâ. |
A top-level meeting of Nato in 1957. Bettmann/Getty |
Donât blame the West for doing the right thing |
Try to get your head around the âmagnitude of American powerâ in the 1950s, says Janan Ganesh in the FT. The US had established Nato; it had ârevivedâ Japan and western Europe in the wake of World War II. It led the world in mass culture â from Hollywood to Elvis â and in high art, with abstract expressionism and the novels of Saul Bellow. It provided a âmonstrous shareâ of global output, and had such far-sighted leaders as Dwight Eisenhower. Yet even then, as the Cold War intensified, Washington couldnât convince countries home to âhalf the worldâs peopleâ to take its side. âIf the West, at its mightiest and best led, couldnât charm, induce, reason or bully them into its camp, who could blame it for failing to do so now?â
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Quite a few people, it seems. On Ukraine, many commentators argue that the West is culpable for âlosing the restâ. But thatâs the wrong way of looking at it. These other countries have agency of their own, including âthe power to be wrongâ. And on the matter of Ukraine, they are. Wrong morally, because this is a war of imperial conquest of the kind that these former colonies profess to oppose, and wrong strategically because Moscow is a terrible âalternative patronâ to Washington. But too many in the West think that âif something in the world is awryâ, then the US and its partners must be to blame. This allows Western progressives to feel their favourite emotion: âostentatious guiltâ. Their obsessive self-criticism has the veneer of humility, but really ânothing could be more patricianâ.
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Product designer Soren Iverson creates mockups of nightmarish â and often genius â âimprovementsâ to the apps we use each day, says Digg. Examples include a nepotism disclosure feature for LinkedIn (pictured); a note on Facebook to tell you if someone has actually read the article they are sharing; and âMeet Your Meatâ for Uber Eats, which gives a brief biography of the animal used for your order (âJanice ate primarily alfalfa but loved apples as a treatâ). See more here.
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Last year I drove past a church in south London outside which was a sign proclaiming âGod Loves Manâ â to which someone had added the word âUnitedâ. |
Itâs a life-size replica of the Ferrari Daytona SP3, made from 402,836 Lego bricks. The ridged sculpture, currently on display at Legoland in Windsor, weighs more than 1,500kg, and has been fitted with a genuine steering wheel and rubber tyres. |
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âYield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.â
Science fiction writer Robert Heinlein |
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