Innholdsfortegnelse for V. 1296 i The Week

What happened Brexit threats The Government plunged the UK-EU trade deal negotiations into crisis this week by publishing a bill that would override parts of the withdrawal agreement Boris Johnson signed in January. The Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis conceded that some clauses of the bill would break international law, in a “very specific and limited way”, by giving unilateral legal powers to UK ministers to oversee elements of the Northern Ireland protocol. Ministers insisted this was merely a “safety net”, clarifying the legal position in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but the proposed legislation attracted widespread criticism from both Tory and Labour MPs and led to the resignation of the Government’s top lawyer, Sir Jonathan Jones. Johnson sought to apply more pressure on Brussels before the new round…

Horse lovers, who can now bed down alongside one, in a converted stable. Guests at Stable Stays, in Cumbria, sleep in a double bed with a bunk bed above it, next to their horse, which is separated only by a transparent screen. The stable’s owners describe it as a “magical experience”. Emma Barnett, with news that she is to replace Jenni Murray as the new host of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Oxford University, which was named the best university in the world, for the fifth year in a row. Cambridge, however, fell from third to sixth place in the Times Educational Supplement’s rankings. All the other top ten places were taken by US colleges. Imperial College, which had been tenth, came eleventh.…

Edinburgh Labour dispute: Pressure was mounting this week on Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard, amid reports that the party’s governing body is meeting on Saturday to discuss holding a no-confidence vote in his leadership. The Yorkshire-born MSP succeeded Kezia Dugdale as the leader of Scottish Labour in 2017. Since then, the party has been through two disastrous elections: in the 2019 European election, it lost both its MEPs; and in the general election that year, it lost six MPs, leaving it with just one. Now, with the party languishing at 17% in the polls, there are fears that it will be further wiped out in elections to the Scottish Parliament next May. Leonard’s critics contend that he is an ineffectual leader who is failing to cut through with voters: the…

Bringing down a fraudster When Andrew Wakefield said he’d found a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in 1998, it triggered a worldwide panic. But one man smelt a rat, said Decca Aitkenhead in The Times. Brian Deer, an investigative journalist, got to work, and discovered that the parents of the children cited in the doctor’s study had all been referred to him by a personal injury lawyer. Essentially, Wakefield was fabricating evidence for a class action lawsuit. Deer exposed all of this in a series of articles from 2004. Wakefield fought back, but finally, six years later, he was struck off. The Lancet retracted his paper, and the BMJ declared it a “fraud”. Deer must have thought he had won. But there was a second act. Wakefield fled…

As a young man, Steve Jobs loved technology and developed considerable expertise in electronics – enough to get a job as a technician at Atari. But he wasn’t an electrical engineering and coding genius like Steve Wozniak. Born in 1955 and brought up in Silicon Valley, Jobs dropped out of Reed College, the expensive liberal arts college in Portland to which he had demanded that his adoptive parents, a car mechanic and a bookkeeper, send him. Instead, he travelled to India in 1974, joined an ashram and a commune and experimented with psychedelic drugs. He later claimed that taking LSD was “one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life”. Yet as a businessman, Jobs was a dictatorial, ruthless taskmaster who asked for perfection…

History shows good vaccines take time Jen Christensen CNN Everyone wants a vaccine for Covid-19, says Jen Christensen, but the Trump administration’s recent announcement that it might give emergency authorisation for one as soon as October, before the completion of late-stage clinical trials, is troubling. History shows it’s unwise to rush these things. In 1955, the US government announced the first vaccine to protect children against polio. Within days, labs had churned out thousands of doses. The process was defective, and many of those doses contained live polio virus. Of the 200,000 children vaccinated before the programme was abandoned, 40,000 contracted the disease and about ten died. A similar, though less serious, disaster happened in 1976, when President Ford, eager to impress in an election year, fast-tracked a mass vaccination…

Bronze Age Britons not only kept the remains of their dead loved ones close to them; they also found uses for them, according to a new analysis. Archaeologists from the University of Bristol examined items collected from various Bronze Age burial sites in Britain, and found several cases where people had been buried with bits of human bone that were not their own. What’s more, these fragments had been “curated” – crafted into keepsakes. In one example, a thigh bone had been carved into a whistle before being buried at Stonehenge. That bone belonged to someone who had lived at around the same time as the man with whom it was buried. But carbon dating suggests that in other cases, the relics had been kept for several generations before they…

“The feared second wave of coronavirus infections has become a reality across several European countries,” said Chloe Maughan in The Independent. France recorded nearly 9,000 new cases last Friday, a new daily record for the country. On the same day, cases in Spain exceeded 10,000 for the first time. The UK had appeared to be faring better, but things have taken a worrying turn here too. Close to 3,000 new Covid cases were recorded in the UK on both Sunday and Monday – a big jump from the 1,000 or so daily tally over most of August. The rise has been pinned on young people not observing social distancing (a third of all cases recorded in England last week were among those aged 20 to 29), but the Government deserves…

“How lovely to see Harry and Meghan’s long-planned Hollywood money-making dream come together,” said The Sun. Six months after their dramatic departure from Britain, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex last week revealed that they had signed a lucrative multi-year deal with Netflix – rumoured to be worth $100m (£75m) – to produce documentaries, feature films and children’s shows for the streaming giant’s 193 million subscribers. They revealed their news in a statement that was an object lesson in “meaningless, self-serving also help with the upkeep of the £11m new home in Santa Barbara, California – where their celebrity neighbours include Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres – and with the estimated £1m-£2m they spend each year on security. The couple’s “megawatt” deal will certainly “cement their Californian dream”, said Camilla…

Football England beat Iceland 1-0 in their first match of the Uefa Nations League, thanks to an injury-time penalty by Raheem Sterling. Cycling Britain’s Adam Yates lost the leader’s yellow jersey to Primož Roglič on stage 9 of the Tour de France. Football Lionel Messi said that he would be staying at Barcelona, having previously put in a transfer request. Tennis Dan Evans, Britain’s last singles player at the US Open, lost his second-round match to the Frenchman Corentin Moutet in four sets.…

To The Times I find it incomprehensible that anyone would object to carrying an identity card unless they are here illegally. A single, comprehensive ID card would mean simplicity when being asked for proof of address, age, eligibility to vote, etc. There would be no need to provide a driving licence or utility bill. It could also help by having details of blood group and any major health issues, to speed up treatment in an emergency. I had to carry one in South Africa in the 1960s. It helped with flat hunting, work and union requirements, even crossing borders. It was simply a card then, but any modern ID card could carry an abundance of helpful information. Richard Madin, Buxton, Derbyshire To The Times So Dominic Cummings wants to endow…

by Ottessa Moshfegh Jonathan Cape 272pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 “Ottessa Moshfegh was ahead of the curve on isolation,” said Susannah Butter in the London Evening Standard. Two of her previous novels – Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation – have centred on “lone-wolf women retreating into solitude”. Now, with this “clever, dark” and “funny” tale, she presents another “woman on her own”. Vesta Gul is a 72-year-old widow who lives in a cabin in New England. One day, out in the woods, she discovers a note. “Her name was Magda,” it reads. “Nobody will ever know who killed her.” We are primed for a murder mystery – but it doesn’t materialise, said Lucy Scholes in the FT: Magda’s body is never discovered. Even so, Vesta becomes…

The Music Room (Jalsaghar) Satyajit Ray’s 1958 masterpiece tells of a stubborn old Bengali aristocrat who spends the last of his family money staging spectacles and concerts in his crumbling palace, in an effort to outdo his nouveau-riche neighbour. It’s slow-paced but entrancing. Once Dublin already had one exuberant film about imaginary musicians – The Commitments – to its name when Once came along in 2007. It’s a touching and funny musical about a romance between an Irish busker and a struggling Czech pianist who connect emotionally through the songs they write together. Inside Llewyn Davis The Coen brothers’ unique sensibility – melancholy and charged with macabre humour – takes flight in this 2013 tale of a struggling folk musician in 1960s New York. Some critics found it self-indulgent. Others…

Some artists seem to burst into the limelight almost fully formed, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, alas, was not one of them. The ninth child of a miller from Leiden, the young Rembrandt spent the best part of a decade fumbling in the dark before perfecting his technique. Along the way, he produced scores of “duff portraits” and “unfulfilled drawings”, only slowly transcending the “blockish, crude and clumsy” efforts that characterise his juvenilia to become the master we recognise today. This absorbing exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford brings together more than 30 paintings and 90 drawings to examine the decade from 1624 (the year Rembrandt opened his first studio at the age of 18) to 1634 – when he settled in Amsterdam and…

“Is there a film, sports, TV or pop star who isn’t involved with a wine brand,” asked Susy Atkins in The Daily Telegraph. Kylie Minogue, Cameron Diaz, Sir Ian Botham and John Malkovich are “just a few” of the celebrities who are lending their names – if not necessarily their wine-making acumen – to bottles or ranges. The question is: are any of these wines any good? And the answer is: yes. Graham Norton’s Own Sauvignon Blanc 2019 (£9; Asda) is one of the better New Zealand sauvignons in the under-£10 bracket, while When We Dance Chianti Classico 2018 (£12.99; vintageroots.co.uk), made at Sting and Trudie Styler’s Il Palagio estate south of Florence, is “an appealing, chillable organic chianti”. Two celebrity wine brands really stand out, however. Golfer Ernie Els’…

Vax ONEPWR Blade 4 A great cordless model at a reasonable mid-range price, this Vax model works well on both carpeted and hard floors. It’s super-light at 3.1kg, has a headlight for cleaning dimly lit areas, and has up to 45 minutes of battery (£220; vax.co.uk). Miele Complete C3 Cat  & Dog Aimed at pet-owners, this Miele model collects stubborn hair and has a filter system designed to absorb odours and fine dust from the air. It also has a time strip to let you know when your filter needs changing (£299; currys.co.uk). Dyson V11 Absolute Slightly bigger, and with a bigger bin, than older cordless Dysons, this top-end vacuum cleaner is as powerful as many of the best corded models. Its battery lasts up to 60 minutes, and it…

Markets stabilised midweek following the worst sell-off for US tech stocks since March. The tech-weighted Nasdaq index fell more than 10% from its recent high, taking it into “correction territory”. Tesla, the electric carmaker fell 21% on Tuesday – its worst trading day ever – wiping more than $82bn from its market cap. But traders took heart that the resilience of European equities, and continued calm in bond markets, was a positive sign that the panic hadn’t spread. In Britain, attention was focused on sterling, which fell sharply on renewed Brexit fears that the UK could end the transition period on unfavourable WTO terms, throwing $1trn of trade with the EU into doubt. There were encouraging signs of recovery in China, which reported a 9.5% rise in exports in August…

● Brexit returns Brexit came “roaring back into the picture” last weekend as a result of reignited fears of a “no deal” outcome, said Connor Campbell of Spreadex. The effect on the pound was immediate. It slumped 0.9% against the dollar on Monday, tumbling to $1.315, and by midweek had fallen as low as $1.29. The fall gave an immediate fillip to the FTSE 100, which is packed with blue-chip companies making substantial overseas earnings, said Harry Robertson in City AM. But as the week wore on, even the Footsie started feeling the strain, as Brexit tensions were augmented by the continuing sell-off on Wall Street. “It is almost inevitable that the perceived probability of ‘no deal’ will escalate over the coming weeks,” wrote Goldman Sachs analysts in a note.…

Delia Bushell An unseemly boardroom row at the Jockey Club is threatening to tarnish “the most prestigious organisation in British horse-racing”, said The Sunday Times. Lawyers for former CEO Delia Bushell – who was ousted last month after an investigation upheld claims of “bullying, racist comments and sharing offensive materials” – have written to the club indicating she may take legal action. Bushell alleges a “stitch-up”, claiming she was brought down by a “cabal of male co-conspirators” – including her replacement as CEO, Nevin Truesdale. A former Sky and BT Sport executive, Bushell, 48, set out to modernise the club when she was appointed last October. Instead, she found herself at the centre of an “extraordinary public clash”, said The Sunday Telegraph. She now concedes that sharing an “offensive image”…

Controversy of the week Sunak’s dilemma “In just six months as Chancellor, Rishi Sunak has borrowed as much as Gordon Brown did in ten years,” said Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph. The national debt is now £2trn – more than 100% of GDP, a level not reached since 1963. Senior Treasury officials worry that government finances are close to “the edge”: a moderate rise in interest rates could cost Britain billions. Yet when Sunak floated the idea of “mild” tax increases it was met with “fury on the Tory backbenches”. In fact, Tory MPs want him to spend more: on Covid bailouts, on the NHS, on defence. The current spree has been made possible by ultra-low interest rates and quantitative easing. “There has been a magic money tree –…

Tourism, after seven Greek islands, including Crete, Zakynthos and Santorini, were removed from England’s “safe corridor” list, sparking a rapid exodus of holidaymakers. However, the Government stopped short of removing the mainland (as Scotland has done); and contrary to expectation, it also left Portugal on the safe list, to the frustration of travellers who had cut short their holidays there to avoid having to isolate for 14 days. Gareth Southgate, after two members of his England team were sent home for sneaking two women into the squad’s hotel in Reykjavík. In so doing, Phil Foden, 20, and Mason Greenwood, 18, breached the protocols that have allowed international football to go ahead. However, Southgate urged people not to judge them too harshly. “They’re young lads,” he said.…

Amsterdam Sinking city: A 50ft section of quayside on one of Amsterdam’s canals – the Grimburgwal – collapsed and fell into the water last week, highlighting the scale of the structural challenges facing the city. Amsterdam’s historic centre was built on swampy land around the River Amstel. Its canals were dug out of soft earth, and timber piles were driven into the unstable ground to provide foundations for bridges and walls. Now, thanks to the toll of traffic and rising sea levels, the city is slowly sinking, and its buildings are crumbling. In the next three years, 27 bridges and three miles of canal walls will have to be rebuilt, at a cost of more than s450m. Madrid Second wave ebbs: Spain has become the first Western European country to…

Trump’s media strategy “Donald Trump has instinctively understood the great problem of information in the internet age. This is not, as is often imagined, primarily ‘fake facts’, but is rather the sheer volume of facts, the great porridge of information, that is now available to everybody. A successful politician must shout louder than ever to attract attention, must never be boring and remember that dullness is never news. Trump’s tweets may sound maniacal, but they work perfectly as news headlines that jump off the page or off the TV or computer screen. Compare his utterances with those of Joe Biden, or of Hillary Clinton four years ago, and see why they fail to compete.” Patrick Cockburn in The Independent…

A whiff of political poison in the air Matthew Parris The Times The desire to reform our political landscape is a healthy one, says Matthew Parris. But “there’s something in the wind today, something poisonous”, that dismisses reform as insufficient: everything must now be challenged and swept aside, and to hell with the consequences. You see it in the careless, contemptuous attitude to our great institutions. For all her impatience with those who impeded her agenda, Margaret Thatcher always respected Westminster and Whitehall as “great and permanent estates”. Yet today, certain politicians and “their media claque” refer to the Civil Service as “some kind of fifth column to be subdued, broken”. That same sense of “near-anarchic destructiveness” surfaces when people make light of the possible loss of Northern Ireland and…

Sociopaths avoid face masks People who refuse to wear protective masks, and flout social distancing rules, are more likely to display sociopathic traits, a new study has found. For the research, around 1,600 people in Brazil were asked to fill in questionnaires used by psychologists to assess empathy and expose personality disorders such as narcissism. They were then quizzed about their attitudes to various safety measures imposed or recommended to slow the spread of Covid-19. The researchers found that some 400 of them displayed sociopathic tendencies, and that these people were less likely than the others to see the need to comply with the guidelines. “Our findings indicated that antisocial traits, especially lower levels of empathy and higher levels of callousness, deceitfulness and risk-taking, are directly associated with lower compliance…

Ant and Dec’s first visit to Buckingham Palace left the TV duo disappointed. “What struck us was that there wasn’t much to nick, I mean liberate,” writes Ant in the pair’s new book, Once Upon A Tyne. Then he spotted, in a corner, a Christmas tree adorned with crown-shaped baubles, and seized his chance. “I’d had it in my hand for 2.6 seconds when a footman appeared behind me and delicately but firmly whispered in my ear: ‘Don’t even think about it.’” The French philosopher Raphaël Enthoven has cast light on his affair with Carla Bruni in a new autobiographical novel. He met the singer, who is now married to Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2000, when she was dating his father, and fellow philosopher, Jean-Paul. He was married at the time…

“It is never OK to coerce people’s participation; that is just bullying.” So wrote Lauren Victor last week. She is the woman who – in a video that went viral – was surrounded by angry Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters outside a restaurant in Washington, after she declined to raise a fist in support. Victor is a BLM supporter who has been on BLM marches. But, she said, “I also support an individual’s right to choose whether to participate in a protest, or not.” This is a distinction too many do not understand, said Kenan Malik in The Observer. It’s one thing to protest against injustice: quite another to coerce others into thinking, or acting, the way you think they should. So, members of the climate change action group Extinction…

Spectator-less stadiums; players having to cluster in virus-free “bubbles”: this year’s US Open was already proving a “strange tournament”, said Matthew Futterman in The New York Times. Then, last Sunday, it became stranger still, when the No. 1 seed and overwhelming favourite in the men’s singles, Novak Djokovic, was handed a default (declared the loser) in his fourth round match against Pablo Carreño Busta for “hitting a ball into the throat of a line judge”. In a burst of anger after losing his serve to go 5-6 down in the first set, Djokovic had whacked a ball towards the back netting where it hit the official, who fell to the ground making choking noises. It was clearly unintentional, and Djokovic rushed over to apologise, but he was ejected from the…

England’s rugby captain, Owen Farrell, has “always trod a fine line with his tackling technique”, said Michael Aylwin in The Observer. And last Saturday, his recklessness cost Saracens – his club – dearly. An hour into their Premiership match against the Wasps, Farrell earned his first ever professional red card, after catching 18-year-old fly-half Charlie Atkinson with a swinging arm to the head in a vain attempt to dispossess him. So timing could hardly be worse for his club. Guaranteed relegation to the Championship next season (their punishment for abuse of the salary cap), Saracens had pinned all their hopes on winning the Champions Cup. But now Farrell won’t be available for their next match in that competition – a quarter-final against Leinster on 19 September – and if they…

The masterpiece stolen for a third time A work by the 17th century Dutch master Frans Hals has been stolen – for the third time in 32 years from the same Dutch museum. Police were alerted to a break-in at the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden museum in Leerdam after its alarm went off in the early hours of Wednesday 26 August. However, by the time they arrived at the scene, the thieves had already disappeared with Hals’s 1626 painting Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer, a much-loved masterpiece, which is worth some £13m. The theft comes less than a decade after the painting was recovered in the wake of a previous heist at the museum in 2011. It was also stolen during a 1988 break-in, after which…

There’s discord when Tracy asks Susan to look after Bert for a couple of weeks and Susan refuses. Alice is job-sharing with Adam at Home Farm; when she hears he’s not planning anything for Ian’s 50th, she plans to organise a surprise herself. Ed’s concerned that Alice hasn’t mentioned last week’s incident – when he tries to tell her she can always talk to him, she mistakenly thinks he’s making advances. Gavin’s happy to be back after spending lockdown in the flat with Phil’s workers. Phil is preoccupied with building his business back up after a terrible year. After initially blaming Gavin for his problems, Phil softens towards his son and they agree to look forward. Later they’re shocked to hear Tracy is suing them following the Grey Gables explosion.…

Heston’s “Full English” sarnie Heston Blumenthal is renowned for his “interesting flavour combinations”, says Abigail Malbon in the London Evening Standard. So it’s hardly surprising that his new breakfast sandwich for Waitrose turns out to be “more than just a traditional bacon and egg sarnie”. Costing £3.80, the Heston “Full English” is an attempt to combine all the flavours of a classic English breakfast in a format that can be eaten “any time, anywhere”. The bread is “baked bean-flavoured”; the filling features sausage, bacon, sliced egg and “cold-pressed mayonnaise”, along with tomatoes and cannellini beans; and the whole thing is “finished off with a coffee-flavoured mushroom ketchup”. Unsurprisingly, this odd sounding concoction prompted “consternation” on social media, said Josh Barrie in the I newspaper. As was pointed out, mayonnaise –…

Tips of the week… how to dry fruit ● Drying fruit is a great way of using up any glut. Very ripe fruit works particularly well for giving a concentrated flavour, especially pears and plums that have become too soft. ● You can buy a dedicated dehydrator, which will work at a precise temperature of 50-60°C. But beware: they are bulky. ● You can also use your oven, setting it to 60°C (any hotter and you risk toasting the fruit before it dries out). If you have a four-door Aga, the warming oven runs at 60-80°C. ● Try to cut evenly sized pieces so they all dry at the same time. A mandoline can be useful for this. The time it takes will depend on the thickness and amount of…

Ex-teacher who sent thousands to die in the Killing Fields Kaing Guek Eav 1942-2020 In the 1990s, the Irish photographer Nic Dunlop made frequent trips to Cambodia, and on each one, he carried in his pocket a picture of Comrade Duch – a notorious ex-leader of the Khmer Rouge who had disappeared in 1979, following the fall of the brutal Maoist regime. Dunlop never really thought he’d find Duch, said The Times, but in 1999, he travelled with a mine clearance team to a remote corner of Cambodia’s northwest, where, in a village near the Thai border, he met a small, wiry, bespectacled man, wearing a Western aid group’s T-shirt. “He was garrulous, friendly, disarming. He told me he was a humanitarian aid worker and lay preacher, converting Cambodians to…

“People will eat horseshit if it has enough icing on it,” observed the founder of Associated British Foods, George Weston, 130 years ago. His great grandson and namesake – the current CEO – has every reason to be grateful for the observation, says Patrick Hosking in The Times. ABF’s “unsung sugar division” is on course to triple profits to £100m this year – sweetening the pill of a “big cashflow hit” to more exciting parts of the business, such as the “Covid-battered” clothing chain Primark. Family businesses often get stick for their “reluctance to part with legacy assets”. But that conservatism partly explains why, “four generations later”, the Westons remain firmly in charge.…

Tesla shares might have bombed this week, but elsewhere in the electric car market spirits were high, reported Rachit Vats on Reuters. Investors cheered news that General Motors has joined forces with electric truck start-up Nikola to build a pick-up to compete with Tesla’s Cybertruck. The news is likely to be another boost for lithium, which is used in the batteries of electric vehicles. Indeed, demand for the soft white metal is “set to surge over the next ten years”, said Henry Sanderson in the FT. That’s great for producers in Chile, Australia and China. But could it also “power Cornwall’s revival”? A former investment banker, Jeremy Wrathall, wants to revive the county’s “long-forgotten” lithium industry. As he points out, Cornwall is home to the UK’s only known legacy mine,…

Developers are taking advantage of the relaxation of planning laws – and the decimation of the high street – to turn former shops into tiny, one-room flats, reports The Sunday Times. The smallest measure as little as 15 sq m, and many have scarcely any natural light. The applications are made under permitted development rights, which until recently were mainly used for office conversions. As part of its campaign to simplify English spelling, the English Spelling Society has produced six new versions of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy, and is asking the public to vote on their preferred version. One starts: “To be, or not to be, that is th qeschun: whether ‘tis noebler in th miend to sufer th slings and arroes of outraejus forchun...”…

46% of people in England think Scotland should remain in the UK. 13% think it should be independent. 34% preferred not to give an opinion, saying it is for Scots to decide. Among Conservative voters in Britain, 20% say they’d be pleased if Scotland left the union; 29% would not be bothered; and 48% would be upset. Among Labour voters, 14% would be pleased, 24% unbothered and 59% upset. YouGov/The National 26% of Britons say they’d never buy second-hand clothes or accessories. Even among those who recently donated goods to a charity shop, 21% say they’d never buy clothes from one. However, 28% of Britons say they prefer to buy secondhand rather than new. YouGov…

Lacey, Washington Unrest continues: Michael Forest Reinoehl (pictured), a left-wing “Antifa” protester suspected of killing a far-right demonstrator in Portland two weeks ago, was himself shot dead by police last Thursday, exacerbating tensions in the city. Reinoehl was shot as he left an apartment block in the town of Lacey in Washington state; the police reported that he had drawn a weapon as they moved in to arrest him. Reinoehl, 48, an army veteran and father of two, was the prime suspect in the killing of Aaron J. Danielson, who was shot while taking part in a right-wing counter-demonstration against the Portland anti-racist protests. In an interview shortly before his death, Reinoehl claimed he had been acting in self-defence. Portland is one of several cities where sometimes violent protests are…

The owner of a hair salon was told she couldn’t run an advert for a “happy” stylist – in case it discriminated against unhappy people. In an ad on the Jobcentre Plus website, Alison Birch, of AJ’s salon in Stroud, said hers was a “happy salon looking for happy people”. But 90 minutes after it was placed, she got a call from the Department for Work and Pensions saying it was discriminatory. “They said you’re not allowed to use the word happy, in case somebody thinks they can’t apply because they are not a happy person.” The DWP has apologised – but Birch is “still looking for a stylist”. A life-sized cake of the actor Colin Firth has been baked to mark the 25th anniversary of his portrayal of Mr…

SWEDEN Coughs that killed our grandparents Aftonbladet (Stockholm) FRANCE Voltaire is not the hero we think he is Foreign Policy (Washington) RWANDA No, dictators are never “enlightened” Polityka (Warsaw) Covid-19 has taken a disastrous toll on Sweden’s elderly population, says Anders Lindberg. Nearly 6,000 people have died from it so far, and about half of the victims have been residents of nursing homes. Why? Because the low-skilled, low-wage workers who take care of our grandparents coughed and sneezed all over the homes, “infecting both the elderly and more of their co-workers”. It’s not the workers’ fault. “We made them go to work ill. If they wanted to pay their rent and afford food for their kids, that is.” Much of the world believes Sweden is a workers’ paradise. In fact,…

A charity that organises clean-ups of Britain’s beaches and rivers says it has seen an “explosion” in levels of plastic waste over the past few months. Surfers Against Sewage says its volunteers are still finding discarded plastic bottles and the like – and on top of that, a “new wave” of plastic in the form of single-use masks and gloves. “You see the masks everywhere, on parks and in the streets,” said Charlotte England, who takes part in mass clean-ups in Bristol. “This is a big problem, because before lockdown these items weren’t ever really in circulation among the general public: they were limited to the medical industry.” This month, Surfers Against Sewage is running a new campaign, The Generation Sea: Plastic Protest, which is organising 600 beach clean-ups, and…

There is no doubt as to the “contempt” in which Dominic Cummings holds the British civil service, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent. Back in 2014, he wrote a whole blog about “The failures of Westminster & Whitehall: wrong people, bad education and training, dysfunctional institutions with no architecture for fixing errors.” Now, as the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, he is putting his grand plans for reform into action. No fewer than six permanent secretaries have left their posts in the past six months, including the head of the civil service. Recruitment has been opened up to a new breed of experts and technocrats. And last week, Cummings moved his top aides into “a kind of Nasa-style mission control” – a gleaming new open-plan space over the road in 70…

“Never offend an enemy in a small way.” Gore Vidal, quoted in The New Yorker “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” President Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in The Sunday Times “Zeal is fit only for wise men, but is found mostly in fools.” Thomas Fuller, quoted in Forbes “Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.” Bertrand Russell, quoted in the Montreal Gazette “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” Leonard Cohen, quoted in Far Out Magazine “Write about what you don’t know about what you know.” Eudora Welty, quoted on The Browser “The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a…

“Eoin Morgan’s white-ball teams have achieved many remarkable things in their time,” said Simon Wilde in The Times. But the T20 win they pulled off against Australia last week is sure to “rank high in the list”. The contest, the first of a three-match series played at Southampton’s Ageas Bowl, looked to be heading for a straightforward Australian victory: the tourists, nine wickets in hand, needed just 39 off 35 balls to eclipse England’s “below-par 162 for seven”. Then Australia suffered the sort of “middle-order collapse normally the speciality of their opponents”, said Nick Hoult in The Daily Telegraph. They lost four wickets in 14 balls, gifting England a “route back into the match”. England’s attack rose to the occasion, with some superbly miserly bowling at the death. Australia finished…

Revelry in a pandemic To The Guardian For the first time in six months, my wife and I ventured into Cardiff city centre on Saturday night. Walking to our restaurant, we had to dodge hordes of youthful revellers weaving their way from bar to bar, none of whom were wearing face coverings, complying with social distancing or following the one-way system for pedestrians. Inside the restaurant felt like a safe environment, but on the streets there was minimal change in behaviour from the days before the coronavirus. If our experience is typical of nights out across the UK, we can expect to see significant rises in people testing positive, with little hope of turning things round until there is genuine acceptance that we just cannot carry on as before. Mike…

by Andrew O’Hagan Faber 288pp £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99 Andrew O’Hagan’s new novel is a “joyful, warm and heart-filling tribute to the million-petalled flower of male friendship”, said John Self in The Times. It centres on Jimmy and Tully, two working-class lads from Ayrshire who strike up a close friendship in their late teens. In the first half – set in 1986 – they travel to Manchester for what they will recall as the “best weekend in history”: a raucous few days spent dancing at the Haçienda and watching The Smiths at the G-Mex. In the second half, set in 2017, the tone abruptly shifts, said Allan Massie in The Scotsman. Jimmy – now, like O’Hagan (pictured), a successful writer living in London – learns that Tully (an English…

Nubya Garcia: Source Concord Records £12 “Over the last five years, Nubya Garcia has become a central figure in London’s contemporary jazz community,” said Dhruva Balram in NME. The 28-year-old saxophonist has played a key role in developing its sound, and has been “a crucial component and player” on “great” releases, such as 2018’s We Out Here compilation. Now, she steps into the solo spotlight with a boldly original album melding dub overtones with Calypso rhythms, two-step, “bluesy hard bop, improvisatory jazz and splashes of electronica”. Garcia’s virtuosity is unquestionable, but “it is the expression she puts into the notes that stays with you”, said Will Hodgkinson in The Times. She moves from “sweet melody to impassioned noise” on Pace, “sinks into dub reggae” on the title track, and “glides…

Think of the 1980s series All Creatures Great and Small, and chances are the image of a vet “rummaging around” in the rear end of a cow will spring to mind, said Michael Hogan in The Daily Telegraph. Thankfully, Channel 5’s “handsomely produced” reboot of the BBC original delivered this key plot moment in its first episode – and did its beloved predecessor justice in every other respect, too. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the stories published by vet Alf Wight under the pen name of James Herriot, it charts his “tweed-clad” travails in the Yorkshire Dales during the 1930s with affection and wit, proving a balm for the soul in these “febrile” times. TV debutant Nicholas Ralph makes a “charmingly nervy, scrappy” Herriot, said Victoria Segal in The…

The Lake District shepherd and writer picks his favourite books. His first book, The Shepherd’s Life, was a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller. His latest, English Pastoral: An Inheritance (Allen Lane £20), is out now The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson, 2017 (W.W. Norton £13.99). I have loved Homer’s stories since I was about eight years old; his tales of Odysseus finding his way home still swirl around my head. And this translation is perhaps my favourite. The first by a woman, it provides a fresh take on the stories, full of gorgeous, vivid language that makes them sparkle again. The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono, 1953 (Peter Owen £6.95). This beautiful little parable, about a shepherd who single-handedly transforms an entire landscape in the aftermath…

The Cheltenham Literature Festival has just unveiled a hybrid programme of live and digital events, running 2-11 October. Caitlin Moran and John Lanchester will be there in person; there is also a live debate on the future of the US, with panellists including the former ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch. Live events will be free to stream, and there will also be digital-only events featuring Edna O’Brien and Malcolm Gladwell among others. Early booking for live events is advised; cheltenhamfestivals.com.…

Pasta with cauliflower and pine nuts Serves 4 50g Passolina raisins (Zante currants) or regular black raisins 350g cauliflower, cut into florets 4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 yellow onion, finely chopped pinch of saffron 40g pine nuts 320g maccheroni pasta 40g grated pecorino pepato cheese a handful of basil leaves, sliced salt • Put the raisins in a small bowl, add warm water to cover, and soak for 10 minutes, then drain. • Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the cauliflower and cook for 5-6 minutes. Spoon the cauliflower into a colander to drain; reserve the cooking water. • In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook until softened. In a small bowl, dissolve…

The Daily Telegraph The third-generation Kia Soul “looks like nothing else on the road”. Punters will love or hate its chunky shape, “scowling nose” and odd rear screen, ringed by a band of red lights. But the fact it has gone electric-only, aiming to match Kia’s success with the e-Niro, could give it an edge. And though it doesn’t tick every box – the boot is a bit small, for example – if you like its style, this is a good car. Auto Express The new model uses the same powertrain as the e-Niro, meaning a single motor sends 201bhp to the front wheels, fed by a 64kWh battery. The range is an impressive 280 miles, and Kia claims the car will go from zero to 60mph in 7.6 seconds.…

Barclays/NatWest: mortgage misery The stamp duty holiday, which has helped send UK house prices to a record high, has also intensified demand for mortgages. But affordable deals are in increasingly short supply, said Samantha Partington in the Daily Mail. Homebuyers were this week “dealt another blow” when both Barclays and NatWest introduced new caps on loan sizes, heavily restricting how much they will lend. Barclays has reduced the maximum amount customers can borrow from 5.5 times income to 4.49 times; NatWest, meanwhile, has quietly slashed lending limits for the self-employed to just 4.25 times earnings. Lenders are clearly concerned about “the future of the economy, the end of furlough” and “the direction of house prices”, said broker Rachel Dixon of RH Dixon. She expects more to follow suit, hampering…

How will Wall Street vote in 2020? Editorial The Economist The ties between Wall Street financiers and US politicians have attracted much scrutiny down the years, says The Economist: there’s a reason why Goldman Sachs is sometimes nicknamed “Government Sachs”. And no one needs reminding that these masters of the universe have deep pockets. Of the 68 financiers that could be deemed “Wall Street’s elite”, 52 have given cash to politicians over the past two presidential elections. Together, these individuals are “worth $310bn”. Most like to hedge their bets, donating to both Republicans and Democrats. But the biggest donors are often “one-party loyalists”. Financiers were out in force in 2016, but the striking thing about this election is that “many appear to be sitting 2020 out”. The “lowly sums” given…

The week’s best shares Aviva The Sunday Telegraph Strong hopes abound for the insurance giant under new boss Amanda Blanc. Given decent digital capability and a strong balance sheet, she aims to boost performance in Britain, Ireland and Canada. Yields 7%. Buy. 273.6p. Gresham House Energy Storage Fund The Times This green energy fund hopes to harness the swings in power prices with massive storage. It has overcome technical issues and is expanding fast. Risky, but is the UK’s biggest player and yields over 6%. Buy. 114p. Inspecs Group Shares Inspecs designs and makes spectacle frames. It has a broad global distribution platform and licensing deals with fashion brands such as Superdry and O’Neill. It’s increasing manufacturing capacity to boost margins. Buy. 229.6p. Johnson Service Group Investors Chronicle The textile…