General news

• Windsurfing after a storm and London fashion: the weekend’s best pictures

  17-09-2023 16:23 via theguardian.com
  
  The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Rollercoaster career: From Hollywood to YouTube guru

  17-09-2023 12:32 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The comedian, actor and activist has hosted programmes for Channel 4, Radio X, MTV and the BBC.
  
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• We do not comment on intelligence issues - James Cleverly

  17-09-2023 11:11 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The foreign secretary was asked if he raised the issue of spying accusations in Parliament during a visit to China.
  
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• Enter the Observer/Anthony Burgess prize for arts journalism 2024

  17-09-2023 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The annual competition to discover outstanding new critical writing on the arts is now opened for submissionsOur annual competition to discover outstanding new arts reviewers has now opened for submissions.When Anthony Burgess died in 1993, his obituarist in the Times Literary Supplement wrote that he was a man who “ate paper and drank ink” – in other words, a manic basher of the typewriter’s keys. He often gave the impression of writing against the clock, producing six n
  
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• Sydney marathon runners hospitalised after event hit by spring heat

  17-09-2023 10:15 via theguardian.com
  
  Paramedics treated 40 people, of whom 26 were taken to hospital, seven in a serious conditionGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastMore than 25 people have been taken to hospital, with several in a critical condition, after running the Sydney Marathon in unusually warm weather for early spring.More than 17,000 runners took part in the 42km race, with NSW Ambulance paramedics providing treatment to 40 people.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning an
  
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• Russia-Ukraine war live: Nato chief warns of no swift end to war; Russian missiles hit agricultural facility in Odesa

  17-09-2023 10:12 via theguardian.com
  
  Jens Stoltenberg says ‘we must prepare ourselves for a long war’; Kyiv says drones and missiles were used to target Odesa in early morning strikesSee all our Ukraine coverageNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un received five explosive drones, a reconnaissance drone and a bulletproof vest as gifts from a regional governor on his visit to Russia, official TASS news agency said.Kim’s first official visit abroad since the coronavirus pandemic has fanned Western fears that Moscow and Pyo
  
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• We shed crocodile tears over our high streets then click online and finish them off | Barbara Ellen

  17-09-2023 10:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Brexit, Covid and rising costs all contributed to closures like Wilko, but we lazy, hypocritical shoppers played a partOnce more, there are grim reports that the British high street is dying. It’s time for people like me to make it clear how much we care. To become alarmed and talk urgently, nostalgically, of bustling streets, crucibles of commerce, the pumping arteries of local communities.And more. The lost art of live shopping. Ringing tills, rustling bags. The magic and theatre of it a
  
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• Notes on chocolate: Sometimes a nut-shaped praline really hits the spot

  17-09-2023 10:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Novelty shapes are not always my thing, but there’s a time and a place…I am in Poole, Dorset, in an apartment high up in the trees. We almost moved to Poole in 2005; I was working on a book and every morning would walk to the library, then down to the beach to meet my partner and our baby daughter. I’d wonder at the incongruous tors of Special Brew I’d see on my way down, until I discovered that the library car park becomes a dogging paradise at night.None of that this t
  
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• ‘These patients do not have time’: families in UK demand access to new drug that slows brain tumours

  17-09-2023 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Vorasidenib worked in trials but is not yet available on the NHSOn a fine spring day two years ago, Shay Emerton was in good spirits playing for an old pupils’ school football team. There was just 10 minutes of the game to play, when his life changed for ever.Emerton, 26, said: “The goalie kicked to clear the ball and it hit me on the side of the head. I went dizzy and as I went to run off, my legs buckled beneath me. I thought, ‘I am in trouble here’ and then blacked out
  
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• Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein review – across the great divide

  17-09-2023 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The writer’s enjoyable obsession with the ‘other Naomi’ (Wolf), a conspiracy theorist, becomes a deeply insightful inquiry into the way technology fuels the polarisation of societyThe first time it happened, Naomi Klein was in a public lavatory just off Wall Street in Manhattan. She heard two women discussing something she had said about the Occupy movement, which was then camped outside. Klein emerged from her cubicle to put the women right: it wasn’t her who had said th
  
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• Dancing City; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – review

  17-09-2023 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Greenwich+Docklands international festival; Sadler’s Wells, London
  A change of clothes proves transformative in Canary Wharf’s al fresco dance fest, while Alvin Ailey’s season ends as it began, with dazzling graceDance in the open air is something you come across on holiday abroad. British weather has traditionally put a dampener on it. It doesn’t seem so much fun in the rain. The recent heatwave gave Dancing City at Canary Wharf, a mini jamboree of movement within the Gr
  
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• Byelections, the Covid inquiry and a budget – what does UK politics have in store?

  17-09-2023 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Conference season is here, along with significant electoral tests, followed by the king’s speech and autumn statementWith a general election fast approaching – one has to be held by 28 January 2025 at the latest – there is little time for Rishi Sunak to come up with a masterplan. His party is way behind in the polls, and every week brings another crisis – small boats, school buildings, NHS waiting lists soaring, councils going bust.Keir Starmer and Labour now look increas
  
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• After 10 years, I'm stepping down as the Observer's film critic. Here are my top films from the decade | Mark Kermode

  17-09-2023 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As I leave the post, I look back on how cinema has changed since 2013 and, below, pick a favourite movie from each year of my tenure – as well as a turkeyThis week, I filed my final column as chief film critic for the Observer. I’m stepping down after exactly 10 years in the role, making way for the brilliant Wendy Ide to take over the reins and put her own inimitable stamp on the paper. A longstanding colleague and friend, Wendy is an exceptional critic and I look forward to reading
  
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• Elon Musk likes to think he saved us from Armageddon. He’s just brought it closer | Timothy Snyder

  17-09-2023 09:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Whatever his new biography says, by giving into Russia’s nuclear blackmail the X boss can only encourage more threats from PutinThe Silicon Valley oligarch, perhaps the richest man in the world, extends a hand to his fellow oligarch, the man who has his finger on Russia’s nuclear button. They share a secret about the foolishness of the masses, and take action to save us all from ourselves. Thanks to the two of them, the world is saved from Armageddon.Not the precis of a favourably re
  
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• The Super Models – documentary brings to life the fab four of gen X fashion

  17-09-2023 09:20 via theguardian.com
  
  The new film about the four first ladies of 80s and 90s modelling shows their industry’s dark side, but its heart is the their genuine bondCindy, Christy, Naomi, Linda. For a generation of women who were teenage girls in the late 1980s and early 90s, these were our Beatles.And so the Apple TV+ documentary The Super Models is, to a large slice of generation X, what Peter Jackson’s Get Back was to Boomers. A strangely addictive encounter with four characters who have wallpapered our li
  
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• Swearing has lost none of its power to shock – thank f***! | Eva Wiseman

  17-09-2023 09:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Adverts, MPs and newsreaders have all been caught in the act…Whenever I read asterisked swear words in print, and surely you do this, too, I very carefully sound the word out either aloud or in my head. And the feeling it gives me, working out the word from only two letters and an assortment of shapes, is as if I have cracked a secret code or passed a test, which means the word resonates at a higher pitch than its pathetic unstarred pals. It rings like a lovely bell and the stars for lett
  
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• Keir Starmer is borrowing from Tony Blair, but that doesn’t make him a Blairite | Andrew Rawnsley

  17-09-2023 09:02 via theguardian.com
  
  One thing they share is the belief that the purpose of politics is to make things happen – and you only get to do that by winning powerWhen his parents named him after Keir Hardie, Labour’s first leader, they could not have imagined how often their son would be measured against other people who have done the job. When Sir Keir Starmer ran for the role, some were under the misapprehension he would be a beardless version of Jeremy Corbyn. They know different now. During his first two y
  
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• Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan: ‘With that black card they destroyed me, my country, everything’

  17-09-2023 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  After she was disqualified from the world championships for not shaking Russian rival’s hand, her plight has become a touchstone for a war-torn nationOlha Kharlan remembers taking her kit, sitting quietly in a side room and contemplating a future without the sport she loves. It all seemed so nonsensical. She had been disqualified from the fencing world championships in Milan for not shaking hands with her Russian opponent, Anna Smirnova, and the price for exercising a point of principle ha
  
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• Simone Lia: Bright idea – cartoon

  17-09-2023 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
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• 'My son was inside Daniel Khalife's prison - why it's even worse than people realise'

  17-09-2023 09:00 via express.co.uk
  
  EXCLUSIVE: The mum of a prisoner claims her son's psychosis symptoms were ignored for months, only a few months a report showed a man who took his own life tried to see a psychiatrist for three months.
  
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• Japan aim to conjure spirit of 2019 and build on rugby legacy against England

  17-09-2023 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Brave Blossoms have been inspirational in the past two World Cups but are still working to grow the sport’s popularityFour years after it hosted, in Bill Beaumont’s words, “probably the greatest” Rugby World Cup, Japan’s meeting with England could be a similarly pivotal moment for the country’s relationship with the oval ball. Many of the fans lucky enough to have travelled to the tournament’s 2019 incarnation will recall six weeks of often scintillating
  
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• ‘It’s a power game’: students accused in university rape hearings call in lawyers

  17-09-2023 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Parents of young men facing conduct panels over assaults are raising the stakes by bringing barristers to them, academics sayUniversities left to tackle rising tide of sexual assaultsParents of male students accused of rape at university are starting to bring in barristers to help them avoid expulsion, the Observer has learned.As the number of serious sexual assaults escalates across universities, experts say female students often do not want to go to the police, fearing delays and traumatising
  
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• ‘I’m not the showgirl. She’s on TV’: Strictly’s Motsi Mabuse on family life and screen life

  17-09-2023 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As the ebullient Motsi Mabuse starts her fifth series of the show, she talks about being a deep thinker, her South African childhood – and why dancing is cheaper than therapyMotsi Mabuse knows that when people meet her for the first time, they are expecting to meet a showgirl. The former pro dancer and Strictly Come Dancing judge has flown in from her home in Germany this morning but, post-photoshoot, she is wearing a baggy black sweatshirt, leggings and trainers. It’s funny, I say,
  
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• Hardcore porn, choking and rape: universities left to tackle rising tide of sexual assaults

  17-09-2023 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As on-campus sexual misconduct cases escalate, there are increasing calls to talk openly with young people about sex, pleasure and consent‘It’s a power game’: students accused in university rape hearings call in lawyers
  Among the stalls encouraging students to sign up for rock climbing, parkour, the law society, and inevitably the pub crawl group, university freshers’ fairs have for many years now given out free rape alarms to young women. This conjures up the image of an
  
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• Brother review – brilliantly acted Canadian coming-of-age drama

  17-09-2023 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A single mother struggles to protect her two very different sons, growing up in downtown Toronto, in Clement Virgo’s deeply moving filmThis critically feted and broodingly touching Canadian drama from writer-director Clement Virgo focuses on two siblings, Francis and Michael, brilliantly played by Aaron Pierre and Lamar Johnson. Yet despite the title and the poster that both foreground the two male leads, the film could equally have been called Mother (as opposed to mother!), with Marsha S
  
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• 'I bred Killer Kimbo who spawned 600 XL Bully dogs - people feed them steroids'

  17-09-2023 08:55 via express.co.uk
  
  The owner of Killer Kimbo - from whom half of the UK XL Bullies are descended - says that the massive dogs are being pumped full of drugs.
  
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• If only Ed had the balls to cut the podcast bantz and take George Osborne to task | Catherine Bennett

  17-09-2023 08:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Despite his appalling legacy, the ex-chancellor appears to have a lot of unquestioning journalist palsEven for non-attendees, George Osborne’s July wedding lingers in the memory. First, because of the bizarre, orange confetti protest. Second, because of the number of journalists who were guests.Nick Robinson from Today. Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel, formerly of the BBC, now presenting the News Agents podcast. Sky’s former political editor, Adam Boulton. Ed Balls, the former Labour min
  
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• Teachers need guidance to resolve issues of gender identity in the classroom | Sonia Sodha

  17-09-2023 08:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Government must urgently plug the policy gap currently being filled by ideologyThe argument about the relative importance of sex and gender identity – whether someone feeling they are male or female should replace the reality of sex in law and society – has become one of the most polarising identity issues of our time. But out of this toxic mess a sensible consensus has emerged: both parties have largely ditched commitments to enshrine in law the view that people should be able to se
  
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• The big picture: when Nick Waplington became a wedding photographer

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  After documenting the colourful ​family life of his ​grandfather’s neighbour Janet in his first book, Waplington ended up capturing her big dayIn 1986, Nick Waplington began documenting the lives of families on the Broxtowe council estate in Nottingham where his grandad had lived for 50 years. His first book, Living Room, gave the viewer a front-row seat to the chaotic world of a neighbour called Janet and her life-loving kids and friends. Some saw the pictures as exploitative.
  
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• Sunak and Johnson Covid-19 inquiry appearances delayed ‘to avoid party conference season’

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Questions for current and ex-PM over their handling of the pandemic put off until NovemberThe “box office” inquisitions that will bring Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings before the Covid-19 inquiry have been shunted back a month until November to prevent them clashing with the political conference season.The eagerly awaited appearances of those in charge of the pandemic response will lay bare tensions and disagreements at the heart of government, including over the seve
  
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• Only taxing and spending can repair the damage of Brexit. Who will tell Labour?

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Corbyn was lukewarm on Europe. Starmer will not go for re-entry. Blair wants fiscal restraint. When will the party learn?‘You made a mistake, Keegan. I don’t like mistakes. Just don’t do it again.” Those words were spoken by the then editor of the Financial Times, Sir Gordon Newton, early in my career and they have stayed with me. Newton had an air of great authority. I often sense his shadow leaning over me to this day.Alas, the shadow was not in evidence a fortnight ago
  
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• NHS sinks into £7bn cash crisis as inflation and strikes bite

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Soaring deficits at health trusts across England cast doubt on Sunak’s waiting lists pledgeThe NHS is heading into an unprecedented financial crisis and will overspend its budget by at least £7bn next year as the effects of inflation and strikes plunge hospital trusts into alarming levels of debt, according to leading independent experts.The problem of soaring deficits is hitting a growing number of trusts across England ahead of a likely general election within 12 months, and will r
  
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• Lucy Letby's life inside prison from secret sex favours to being in cell 22 hours a day

  17-09-2023 08:00 via express.co.uk
  
  None of the four prisons she stayed in during her months-long trial will have prepared her for what she's likely experiencing inside the prison where she is currently.
  
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• In the footsteps of Virginia Woolf: walking the west Cornwall coast to the Badger pub

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Starting in arty St Ives, this route takes in a hill the writer ‘staggered up’ in 1909, the lighthouse that inspired her novel, and finishes in a pub she lovedFrom St Ives station, there’s a view of sand, palms and, across misty blue water, a lighthouse on a rocky island. Virginia Woolf and her sister, artist Vanessa Bell, saw this view as children from the house their father rented. It later featured in Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse, set in the Hebrides but clearly ins
  
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• ‘I wake up happy! I’m singing all day’: Marina Abramović on pain, love – and her recent brush with death

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The pioneer of extreme performance art is exploring the possibilities of happiness as, at 76, she becomes the first woman to have a full Royal Academy retrospectiveMarina Abramović has spent a good deal of the past 50 years inflicting pain and stress on her own body in the name of art. Earlier this year, her body got a bit of revenge. In May, having gone into hospital for a minor knee operation, the artist suffered a pulmonary embolism that nearly killed her. She was in intensive care for s
  
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• For Elon Musk, the personal is political – but his march to the right affects us all

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Tesla, SpaceX and X owner shows insecurity and anger have driven him to extremesThe personal is political. The phrase was popularized by 1960s second-wave feminism but it sums up Elon Musk’s ideological journey. Once a “fundraiser and fanboy for Barack Obama”, to quote his biographer, Walter Isaacson, the sometime world’s richest man now plays thin-skinned, anti-woke warrior – a self-professed free-speech purist who in fact i
  
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• Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson review – pillock, genius, or both?

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The tech mogul is portrayed as a brutal visionary with father issues in this comprehensive biographyThe big question in the public mind about Elon Musk, as a London cabbie once put it to me, is whether he’s “a pillock or a genius”. The quick answer is that he’s both; a better answer is that there’s a lot of detail between those two extremes – so much so, in fact, that it takes Walter Isaacson 688 pages to cram it all in. But cram it in he does.Isaacson is an e
  
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• American XL bully dog ban may be ineffective in short term, UK experts warn

  17-09-2023 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Limited police resources and court backlogs of owners seeking exemptions for their animals will make new law difficult to enforce A ban on American XL bully dogs may prove ineffective in the short term, with limited resources in police forces to enforce new laws and the prospect of a backlog in the courts, experts warned this weekend.Some police forces only have one or two trained dog legislation officers. The police and the courts may be required to deal with hundreds of cases from owners of XL
  
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• Sunday with Adele Parks: ‘I might sit down to write, with cats sprawled on my keyboard’

  17-09-2023 07:47 via theguardian.com
  
  The novelist describes how kale smoothies are nice actually, enjoys a spicy margarita and praises her feline assistants Gorgeous and FabulousUp early or lie in? Lie in, but only until 7am as Gorgeous and Fabulous, our cats, demand to be let out then. Once that’s done and we’ve had breakfast, it’s back to bed with the papers until 10.Full English or something healthy? Every day, including Sunday, is a kale smoothie, which sounds horrible, but is delicious. It’s a liquid sa
  
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• The Observer view on Labour’s plans to scrap our cruel, unworkable asylum policy | Observer editorial

  17-09-2023 07:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Keir Starmer promises a humane, pragmatic approach to the growing problem of irregular migrationIn recent months, the man who looks increasingly likely to be Britain’s next prime minister has been treading a cautious line. Keir Starmer has made clear that under his leadership a first-term Labour government would stick to tough fiscal rules, and has ruled out making any unfunded spending commitments in the run-up to the next election. That has fuelled criticism from some on the left of his
  
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• The Edinburgh Castle, Manchester: ‘A great place to eat’ – restaurant review

  17-09-2023 07:02 via theguardian.com
  
  There’s a deftness and quality to the cooking at this new place in Ancoats. But you might want to sneak in a pepper grinderThe Edinburgh Castle, 17 Blossom Street, Manchester M4 5EP. Small plates £7-£9, large plates £15-£28, desserts £6-38, wines from £24The Edinburgh Castle in Manchester’s Ancoats is a handsome lump of redbrick that has stood on its corner of Blossom Street since 1811, though not always with anyone in it. For years it was empty. N
  
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• Men deserve care and compassion too | Letters

  17-09-2023 07:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Rather than pour scorn on the notion of a minister for men, think how such a role could help some of our most vulnerable peopleI understand why Martha Gill considers the idea of a minister for men “insulting”, when society remains dominated by male power and women bear the brunt of gender inequality (“A Tory MP wants a minister for men. How about one for white people, heterosexuals and the upper classes?”, Comment). However, her preferred analogies are surely no less insu
  
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• I feel like I’ve wasted my 20s. What is holding me back? | Ask Philippa

  17-09-2023 07:02 via theguardian.com
  
  You’ve accomplished a lot, says Philippa. Don’t think of life as milestones that must be met by certain agesThe question I’m a 29-year-old woman who has never been in a romantic relationship and right now can’t decide on a career path. I have a handful of close friends, graduated from a good university six years ago, but I end up in temporary, seasonal hospitality jobs that I work in for about six months before resigning. And as soon as I get close to someone romantically
  
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• Behind the scenes at Miss America, 1984

  17-09-2023 07:02 via theguardian.com
  
  The morality was Victorian, ‘militant virginity’ was the order of the day‘Prince Charles had to do it only once, but Americans have to go through it every year.’ What? Find ‘a lovely, poised, intelligent girl who is also a virgin – or a reasonable facsimile’. That’s how the Observer kicked off its exploration into who would take home the crown of Miss America on 4 November 1984.The competition was trying to restore its Lysol-clean image following t
  
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• After a long, hot summer, the apple tree is laden with fruit

  17-09-2023 07:02 via theguardian.com
  
  The meadow is full of flowers and the bushes bursting with berries, but it’s the apples we can’t wait to take a bite fromHow green is my garden. Gone the sandy tones of midsummer. To be replaced by a vibrant almost violent lushness. It calls for a scythe like a Van Gogh painting or like Morten our nearest neighbour favours. Instead, I sort the electric strimmer. I need to trim around the currant bushes, the pears, the apple tree. Henri will set the mower to its highest setting.It wil
  
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• TV tonight: it’s the definitive George Michael documentary

  17-09-2023 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Celebrity fans from Stephen Fry to Stevie Wonder remember the beloved pop star. Plus, families fight over inheritances. Here’s what to watch this evening Continue reading...
  
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• Senior Tories warn: if we can’t offer policies to win over young, we’re ‘sunk’

  17-09-2023 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Rishi Sunak has been told his next manifesto must prioritise net zero and help renters if the party wants the under-40s to vote for itRead more: how Tories can boost their image with under-40sSenior Tories are urging Rishi Sunak to use his next manifesto to address their party’s alarming unpopularity among younger voters, amid increasing concern that the Conservatives could be “sunk” without urgent action to win over the under-40s.With mounting anxiety among moderate Tories tha
  
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• Inside UK's most haunted city where 'you can still hear screams and toddlers playing'

  17-09-2023 07:00 via express.co.uk
  
  A history buff's dream, this Northern city is plagued by nightmarish tales of old.
  
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• Increase benefits by inflation, top Tory urges Rishi Sunak

  17-09-2023 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  West Midlands mayor Andy Street says a ‘big chunk of people’ are hurting in cost of living crisisA senior Conservative has called on his party to ensure welfare claimants are not handed a real-terms cut next year, after Rishi Sunak refused to commit to increasing benefits in line with inflation.Andy Street, the West Midlands mayor and the most senior Tory outside London, said the party’s previous commitment to increasing benefits such as universal credit in line with inflation
  
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• Yet another Bank of England rate rise looks likely – but this may be the last

  17-09-2023 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Rising unemployment and sluggish economic growth are unlikely to derail Threadneedle Street’s drive to curb inflationThe Bank of England is poised this week to raise interest rates for a 15th time in a row as Threadneedle Street’s policymakers continue their prolonged battle to tame inflation.Despite rising unemployment and sluggish growth, the City believes concerns over pay pressures will persuade a majority of the Bank’s nine-strong monetary policy committee (MPC) to push up
  
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