FRIDAY THE 13

Liverpool have agreed a deal in principle worth £12m plus add-ons to sell midfielder Jordan Henderson to Saudi Arabian club Al-Ettifaq. Henderson travelled to Germany with Liverpool for their training camp but was not involved in their first pre-season game against Karlsruher. Former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was recently appointed as manager of Al-Ettifaq. Henderson, 33, has two years remaining on his contract at Anfield. The agreement for Henderson follows Liverpool receiving a £40m offer from Al-Ittihad for fellow midfielder Fabinho last Friday. Unlike Henderson, the 29-year-old Brazil international did not travel to Germany while his future is resolved. The England midfielder joined the Reds from Sunderland in a deal worth £20m in June 2011. Henderson made 43 appearances for Liverpool last season as they endured a disappointing campaign by finishing fifth in the Premier League and missing out on a place in the Champions League. Overall, he has played 491 times for the Reds, scoring 33 goals and registering 58 assists. ADVERTISEMENT Henderson was captain when Liverpool lifted the Champions League in 2019 before going on to win the Uefa Super Cup and Fifa Club World Cup later that year. He was also the Reds skipper when the club won the 2019-20 Premier League title to end a 30-year wait for the English top-flight title. Henderson's other honours at Liverpool include winning the FA Cup in 2022 and League Cup in 2012 and 2022. link: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/66251589

effort and some thoughtful recycling will go far. Here are our top tips for low-cost cultivation Claire Ratinon Claire Ratinon Tue 25 Jul 2023 05.00 BST 241 Visit the average garden centre and you might assume it costs a lot of money to get into gardening, but that isn’t the case. No matter how many products and plants are on offer, or how relentlessly the Instagram ads insist, gardening is not shopping. My focus in the garden has always been the plants, not the paraphernalia. Thankfully, the tide is turning towards low-intervention, nature-centric gardening, which works well for those who don’t have much to spend. You don’t need a traditional garden to start growing, either, as many indoor and outdoor spaces – balconies, porches, windowsills – can be used for pots, as long as the the plants catch the sun. So, the mental and physical benefits of spending time in green spaces and tending to plants are not just for people with large gardens and plenty of disposable income. Here are some tips for making things happen for very little money. Grow plants from seed Packets of seeds lined up for browsing Packets of seeds can be picked up cheaply at garden centres, from online retailers or at a seed swap event. Photograph: Francesca Moore/Alamy Starting plants off from seeds, rather than buying them already grown, is one of the most cost-effective ways to fill your garden with life, so mastering how to raise young plants is well worth the time and effort. You can find packets of seeds of almost any plant at your local garden centre or at online seed suppliers, such as Real Seeds or Tamar Organics; most cost no more than a few pounds. Each packet contains hundreds of seeds that will be viable for a good number of years, so a modest initial outlay (including for seed compost, if you are sowing into pots or trays) goes a long way. Additionally, learning how to harvest and save seeds from existing plants (start with straightforward options such as peas, nasturtiums and snapdragons) will keep your seed collection replenished for next to nothing. Every spring, seed swaps take place all over the UK; here, you can exchange your seeds for something new and benefit from the advice of other seed savers. Make your own compost link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/25/the-shoestring-gardener-10-ways-to-grow-gorgeous-plants-for-little-or-no-money

Name: Maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) Where it’s found: South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay) What it eats: Omnivorous diet, including small mammals, birds, reptiles, eggs, sugarcane, bulbs and fruits. Sponsored Links Researchers First Thought They Were Statues investing.com Why it's awesome: If there were a beauty contest for wild canines, the maned wolf would surely be the winner, with its flowing red coat, long legs and large ears. Its name derives from the black mane along the back of its neck. At least one all-black (known as melanistic) maned wolf has been seen and photographed. Despite resembling a red fox and being called a wolf, the maned wolf is not closely related to either of those animals. In fact, the maned wolf forms its own genus, Chrysocyon, which translates to "golden dog." It lives in South America, including in Argentina, Brazil and Peru. The maned wolf's long legs may be an adaptation for hunting in grassland, one of its habitats. Unlike other canids, it eats invertebrates, roots and grass, along with more typical fare, such as rodents, small deer and birds. There's even a fruit associated with the maned wolf: the lobeira, also known as the wolf’s fruit or guarambá. Part of the Solanaceae family — which also includes tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and tobacco — wolf's fruit constitutes up to 50% of a maned wolf's diet. Scientists think maned wolves eat this tomato-like fruit, which can be up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) in diameter, to help expel parasitic worms — particularly the giant kidney worm (Dioctophyma renale), which is usually fatal to maned wolves. nk of extinction Unlike the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), the maned wolf is mostly solitary, but males and females are monogamous and stick together for about a month during breeding season. Even when separate, they keep in contact via a call described as "an explosive roar-bark," which can travel more than half a mile. link: https://www.livescience.com/animals/maned-wolf-a-strikingly-beautiful-south-american-canid

least one person has been killed and 19 injured in Russian missile strikes on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, officials have said. The Transfiguration Cathedral in the Unesco world heritage-listed historic centre was also badly damaged. Russia claimed its Odesa targets were being used to prepare "terrorist acts" and blamed Sunday's cathedral attack on Ukrainian air defence. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed retaliation. Moscow has been launching near-constant attacks on Odesa since it withdrew from a landmark grain deal on Monday. Regional governor Oleh Kiper said 14 people, including four children, were taken to hospital on Sunday after the blasts - that also destroyed six residential buildings. . Kyiv accused Russia of "destroying" the cathedral as part of a campaign to "systematically" harm the Orthodox Church in the country. "A war crime that will never be forgotten and forgiven #RussiaIsATerroristState," its foreign ministry tweeted. The damage is as colossal as the cathedral itself. The cracks along its walls represent the strain Odesa has found itself under after a week of constant attacks from the skies. There is no doubt this was a direct hit from a missile. Most of the roof is missing. The building's thick ancient walls are still standing but there are pillars leaning at a worrying angle. Teams have been ferociously picking up debris since the impact in the small hours of this morning. They show us fragments of what they say was the Russian missile, which destroyed a place of worship under Moscow's control. A cruel irony which is likely to be unintended. The building is Odesa's largest Orthodox church and was consecrated in 1809. It was demolished by the Soviet Union in 1939, before being rebuilt in 2003. Andriy Palchuk, the archdeacon of the cathedral, said he was the first person to arrive at the scene. "The destruction is enormous; half of the cathedral was left without a roof, and the central piles and foundation were destroyed," he said. "All the windows and stucco moulding were blown out. There was a fragmentary fire, the part where icons and candles are sold in the church caught fire. It was all on fire, burning." Unesco, the UN's cultural agency, said it was "deeply dismayed and condemns in the strongest terms" the attack on the historic centre of Odesa. It has repeatedly urged Russia to cease attacks on Odesa. The city's historic centre was designated an endangered World Heritage by the organisation earlier this year, despite Russian opposition. What was the Ukraine grain deal? But in an update posted to Facebook, Ukraine's southern command said Russia had targeted the Odesa region with at least five different types of missiles. The head of Ukraine's presidential office, Andriy Yermak, repeated calls for more missiles and defence systems after the latest attack on Odesa. "This is the undisguised terror of a peaceful city," Mr Yermak wrote on Telegram. "The enemy must be deprived of the opportunity to attack civilians and infrastructure." Moscow has notably stepped up attacks on the port city since it withdrew from the UN backed grain deal on Monday and Ukraine has accused it of targeting grain supplies and infrastructure vital to the deal. A strike earlier this week destroyed some 60,000 tonnes of grain, officials said. Odesa is Ukraine's biggest port, and millions of tonnes of grain have been shipped from its docks under the terms of the deal. The deal - brokered by Turkey and the UN - between Russia and Ukraine was struck in July 2022, allowing cargo ships to sail along a corridor in the Black Sea. link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66281027

CONTRA ! I suggest you have more time to do more activities and participate in two projects

Our slow travel expert takes the off-peak train, discovering along the way that the cross-border ‘express’ train is actually delightfully slowMartigny enjoys a beautiful setting where the waters of the River Dranse tumble down to join the Rhône in Switzerland’s Valais canton. The town is a natural way station for travellers following the classic Grand St Bernard route south into Italy. The chic set stop off in Martigny en route to Verbier.Switzerland has so many celebrated metre-gauge mountain railways, among them an outstanding trinity of lines that are boldly promoted to overseas tour operators and have ample capacity to handle large groups. Those three crowd-pullers are the wonderful Bernina railway from the Upper Engadine to Tirano in Italy, the steeply graded line from Brig to Andermatt and beyond (used by the Glacier Express) and the fine GoldenPass route running west from the Thunersee via the Simme Valley to Gstaad and Montreux.By contrast, the hourly Mont-Blanc Express railway from Martigny to Saint-Gervais-les-Bains in France is relatively unsung, yet in my opinion rates as rewarding as the Bernina, Glacier and GoldenPass routes. The Mont-Blanc Express tussles with topography, cutting through fierce rocky terrain above the Trient Gorge and then following the ominously named Eau Noire upstream across the border into France. The railway then dives into a long tunnel, before dropping down into the Chamonix Valley and following the River Arve down to Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, where there are connections to the Geneva area. The train passes by great cliffs, twisting and turning with a feast of neck-craning panoramic views Although promoted as the Mont-Blanc Express, the 24-mile (38km) journey from Martigny to Saint-Gervais is no fast dash, taking well over two hours and averaging only 15 mph. There are over two dozen intermediate stations, though many are request stops. When I made this journey in May 2023, I took a full day for it, stopping off along the way. Bold engineering The notion of a narrow-gauge mountain railway from the Valais region over the hills to Chamonix in France gained traction in the 1880s as investors saw how Niklaus Riggenbach’s rack system, pioneered on the Rigi Railway in 1871, was allowing cog railways to access remote mountain communities. The line from Martigny through to Saint-Gervais via Chamonix wasn’t completed until 1908 and initially it was suspended during the winter months. Better avalanche protection later allowed year-round operation. When it came to electrifying this route, there were debates whether third rail or overhead wires were the best option; neither side won, and the line uses a mix of both methods.Platform 40 at Martigny station is easily missed, tucked away beyond the main platforms. The red and white Mont-Blanc Express slips out of Platform 40 on time and with no great fanfare. There’s a tantalising glimpse to the left of the fierce ravine cut by the River Trient as it cascades down from the heavily glaciated mountains away to the south. Then we start to climb steeply and I appreciate why engineers opted for a cog railway for this section of the line. The train passes by great cliffs, twisting and turning with a feast of neck-craning panoramic viewsI make a first stop at Salvan, a small village with a neat station styled in the manner of an Alpine chalet. The road which leads past the station is called Rue Marconi, a reminder it was here that Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi conducted early experiments in wireless telegraphy. Joining the next train an hour later, we quickly crest the thousand-metre contour with welcome hints of spring sunshine. Emerging from the tunnel into the sunlit valley of the River Arve, there are glorious views on the run down to Chamonix There’s an announcement: “Prochain arrêt: Le Trétien”. The Mont-Blanc Express duly rolls to a halt at Le Trétien. This is too good a chance to miss, so on a whim I alight. This is a gorgeous village high above the Trient Valley, and a jumping-off point for hikers wanting to explore the Trient Gorge. The area was bypassed in the heyday of tourism development in this region, when resorts like Zermatt, Crans-Montana and Chamonix shot to prominence. But by the 1880s, adventurous travellers were making their way to Salvan and Le Trétien, drawn by a magical mix of glaciers, rugged scenery and pastoral beauty. In a pleasant hour wandering steep alleys and lanes around Le Trétien, I meet only one other person and our paths cross twice, each time with a reciprocal smile and a nod. All too soon, I am back at Le Trétien’s lonely station platform, indicating with a wave of my hand that I’d like the approaching train to stop. For the third time today, I am bound for France and within 20 minutes we are slipping over the border.The Chamonix valley It is well known that the ambition of train operators flags at frontiers and an announcement indicates everyone must change on to a French train at Vallorcine. This is standard practice on the Mont-Blanc Express, which is actually two well-coordinated train services run respectively by Swiss and French operators. It’s an easy cross-platform change of train, and within a few minutes we are on our way again, now on a French train but also prominently branded as the Mont-Blanc Express.We are still climbing, through a long tunnel under the Col des Montets. When the road over the pass is closed by snow, the rail tunnel provides the only link between Vallorcine and the Chamonix Valley. So there’s a creative sharing of the narrow tunnel, allowing cars to drive through when no train is scheduled. It’s an arrangement that has not yet led to disaster.Emerging from the tunnel into the sunlit valley of the River Arve, there are glorious views on the run down to Chamonix, with the rubbly moraines on the Glacier d’Argentière high to the left. I make a third and final stop at Chamonix, enjoying a wander through this pleasant town where the entire economy is defined by mountain tourism. The town’s official name is Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, but the clouds do not cooperate so I am denied a good view of the highest peak in the Alps.By late afternoon, I am back on the train, now with frequent stops and more like a tram, as we slowly drop down to Saint-Gervais-les-Bain. Elevated concrete highways loop assertively over the railway as a reminder that we are returning to more po[CENSORED]ted terrain. I didn’t see Mont Blanc on this occasion, but I still found this international route a remarkable railway adventure. Tickets from Martigny to Chamonix (€34.40) or Saint- Gervais-les-Bains (€44.40) can be bought from Rail Europe. Or exploit the real flexibility of Interrail and build this one-day trip into a longer journey through the Alps. Link : https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/jun/13/rail-route-of-the-month--mont-blanc-express-from-switzerland-into-france

Wagner fighters in Belarus could pose as migrants and enter the EU, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned. Wagner could also facilitate illegal migration from Belarus, which Poland describes as "hybrid warfare", he says. About 100 Wagner troops have moved near the city of Grodno, close to the Polish and Lithuanian borders, the PM added. Some Wagner troops have moved to Belarus under a deal to end a brief mutiny in Russia in June. Warsaw says it sees Wagner's presence in Belarus as a potential threat and is seeking to shore up its eastern flank. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has previously denied provoking a migrant crisis in Europe by luring would-be migrants to its borders with EU nations. But Mr Morawiecki said on Saturday that more than 100 members of the Wagner group had moved to north-western Belarus near the Suwalki gap - Poland's 60-mile (95km) border with fellow EU state Lithuania, which separates Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Poland Belarus map 1px transparent line He claimed the mercenaries might pose as Belarusian border guards in order to help migrants cross into the EU, or even pretend to be migrants themselves to enter the bloc. "Now the situation is becoming even more dangerous," he told a news conference on a visit to an arms factory in Gliwice, southern Poland. "This is certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory," he added. Several thousand Wagner fighters have moved to Belarus since the group's short-lived mutiny against the Kremlin in June. They were offered a choice of joining the regular Russian army or heading to Belarus, a close ally of Russia. On Thursday Poland's interior minister said Poland, Lithuania and Latvia could jointly decide to shut their borders with Belarus if there were incidents involving the Wagner group along their frontiers. Last weekend Mr Lukashenko insisted he would keep the Wagner mercenaries in central Belarus. "They are asking to go west... to go on a trip to Warsaw... " Mr Lukashenko joked in a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "But of course, I am keeping them in central Belarus, like we agreed. " Poland strengthens Belarus border over Wagner fears Wagner's arrival in Belarus: what we know Mr Morawiecki said there had been 16,000 attempts to cross the border between Belarus and Poland so far this year. According to the EU border agency Frontex, there were 2,312 illegal border crossings into the EU from Belarus between January and June. Poland and Lithuania have both erected fences along their borders with Belarus to try to reduce the number of people crossing illegally. Minsk has faced accusations it has encouraged migrants from the Middle East to travel to the country on flights on the false promise of easy access to the EU. The Polish Border Guard says Belarusian border guards help migrants cross into the country illegally, far from official checkpoints. Mr Morawiecki's comments come ahead of this autumn's parliamentary elections, with the Polish government seeking to emphasise the actions it is taking to strengthen border security. link : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66347370

Sir Keir Starmer has said he will seek a "much better" Brexit deal with the EU if Labour wins the next general election. The opposition leader told the Financial Times that the current deal, which is due for review in 2025, is "too thin". Sir Keir was speaking at a conference of centre-left leaders in Montreal, Canada. But he ruled out re-joining the customs union, the single market or the EU. It remains unclear, however, if Brussels would be open to making major changes to the agreement, which was agreed by former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021. A Conservative spokesman accused the Labour leader of changing his position, saying: "Three years ago he promised he wouldn't seek major changes to the UK's new relationship with the EU, but now his latest short term position is that he will. "What price would Keir Starmer be prepared to pay to the EU for renegotiating our relationship?" Starmer seeks new EU deal to stop small boats gangs Analysis on Labour: Damned if they dare, damned if they don't? Starmer embraces Brexit 'take back control' slogan Labour blueprint says tough spending rules 'non-negotiable' Sir Keir has repeatedly said he would not seek to rejoin the EU if his party comes to power, promising to "make Brexit work". His party has consistently held double-digit leads in the political opinion polls, with a general election expected to take place some time in 2024. "Almost everyone recognises the deal Johnson struck is not a good deal - it's far too thin," he told the Financial Times. "As we go into 2025 we will attempt to get a much better deal for the UK," he said, although he did not specify what parts of the deal he would seek to improve. He added that he was confident a better deal could be negotiated with Brussels, as well as a "closer trading relationship". "We have to make it work. That's not a question of going back in, but I refuse to accept that we can't make it work," he said, adding that he was thinking about "future generations". "I say that as a dad. I've got a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. I'm not going to let them grow up in a world where all I've got to say to them about their future is, it's going to be worse than it might otherwise have been. "I've got an utter determination to make this work." This is a significant piece of political positioning from Sir Keir. He has spent much of his leadership trying to reassure voters that he would not take Britain back into the EU, or seek membership of the single market or customs union. That position has not changed. But figures around the Labour leader believe that having got over the message that he does not want to undo Brexit, he has now earned a hearing to talk about changing the terms of the settlement. The Trade and Co-Operation Agreement signed by Mr Johnson already has a review in 2025 written into it. The current thinking in Brussels is that this would only involve minor tweaks, though Sir Keir may have further-reaching changes in mind, including agreements on deeper trade ties, more exchanges for young people and students and easier rules for touring musicians and artists. The willingness to put improved relations with the EU at the heart of his political offer is a sign of Sir Keir's growing political confidence. This was also in evidence last week when Sir Keir visited The Hague, in the Netherlands, to talk about how better co-operation with the EU could help deal with small boats crossing the Channel. The Conservatives have already seized on Sir Keir's comments about Brexit. They believe that his position could push Brexiteers who backed the Conservatives in 2019 back towards Rishi Sunak. A Conservative spokesman said that Sir Keir "wants to take Britain back to square one on Brexit, reopening the arguments of the past all over again". Sir Keir spent the weekend meeting fellow centre-left leaders in Canada, including the country's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He is also expected to travel to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron later this week, where post-Brexit relations are expected to feature heavily in talks. His visit to the Hague last week to meet with the EU's law enforcement agency Europol, seeking a deal to try and stop smuggling gangs bringing people across the channel in small boats led to accusations by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman that his party was planning to let the UK become a "dumping ground" for 100,000 migrants from the continent each year, claims he said were "complete garbage". There is some anxiety in Labour about the row Sir Keir found himself embroiled in about whether Labour would accept a quota of asylum seekers from the EU as part of a 'burden-sharing' migration agreement. On Sunday, the Labour leader ruled this out after days of debate. link : https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66839501

In the Red Hook neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York, masterful yoghurt-makers balance sweet and tart in a creamily decadent fermented yoghurt, and preserve and its byproduct of whey. Iranian author, business owner and yoghurt expert, Homa Dashtaki, lies at the heart of the operation, sealing jars of this timeless kitchen staple with a label embellished with an illustration of a white moustache. In her recent cookbook, Yogurt and Whey: Recipes of an Iranian Immigrant Life, Dashtaki uses her lifelong relationship with yoghurt and whey to tell the story of her culture, faith and relationship with food through her recipes. She emphasises sustainable food production and a battle against wastefulness, instilling these ideals into her 12-year-old yoghurt and whey business, The White Mustache, named for the facial hair of Dashtaki's earliest kitchen companion: her father. [jump to recipe] The White Mustache has remained steadfast in its goal of expanding the market for whey, in order to reduce waste. Rather than discard the whey, Dashtaki and her team bottle the highly nutritious yellow-green liquid and urge customers to use it for smoothies, meat marinades and brines and post-workout hydration. The company is even looking into producing whey chips for pets. Growing up in Iran, her family always made yoghurt from scratch. It functioned as the basis for nearly all meals – sweet or savoury – at any time of day. Dashtaki recalls how conversations over boiling milk fostered a deeper relationship with her father, and, when she immigrated to the United States in 1987, with the small Zoroastrian community that she found in Southern California. "Yoghurt forces you to slow down. It takes a long time for the milk to boil – and an even longer time for the milk to cool. And in that time, everything feels better," she explained. "Yoghurt was the excuse for this togetherness, the result of longing to connect and rebuild some semblance of communal village activities around food that we'd been yearning for ever since we left Iran." link : https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230818-cake-yazdi-iranian-yoghurt-cake

More than 330 species of wildlife around the world are contaminated with widely used chemicals known as PFAS, according to a new analysis that identified traces of the synthetic chemicals in animals on every continent except Antarctica. The report, released Wednesday by a nonprofit advocacy group called the Environmental Working Group, is the result of a review of more than 100 recent peer-reviewed studies of PFAS contamination in animals. The analysis adds to robust research of the negative impact of PFAS pollution on human health and hints at how pervasive these chemicals are across the globe and their far-reaching effects on ecosystems. “Likely anywhere you test for these compounds, you will find them,” said David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group who contributed to the report. “I think that was what is so shocking.” Synthetic PFAS compounds (short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are commonly known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down over time and thus can remain permanently in the air, soil, water and in the body. These chemicals have been used extensively since the 1940s in industrial manufacturing and to make products ranging from nonstick cookware and cleaning products to foams and stain- and water-resistant fabrics. In humans, exposure to PFAS chemicals has been associated with thyroid disease, high cholesterol, infertility, low birth weight, suppression of the immune system and an increased risk of certain cancers, including kidney cancer and liver cancer. People can come into contact with PFAS compounds by drinking contaminated water, eating food grown or caught near where the chemicals are produced, or through direct contact with materials that contain them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Biomonitoring studies conducted by the CDC starting in 1999 have found traces of PFAS chemicals in the bloodstream of most of the general U.S. po[CENSORED]tion, though higher concentrations were detected in people who work in manufacturing and communities in and around military bases. by TaboolaSponsored Stories GOFINDYOULearn MoreCasablanca-settat: The Best Smart Beds in 2023 (View Now) ELVENARPlay NowIf You Need To Relax On Your Computer, You Have To Play This Game. No Install link : https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/forever-chemicals-found-animals-world-rcna71044

Roma manager Jose Mourinho said Romelu Lukaku thrives when he feels loved after the striker scored his first Roma goal in Sunday's 7-0 win over Empoli. The Belgian joined the club from the Italian capital on a season-long loan from Chelsea in the summer. Lukaku, 30, re-joined Chelsea for £97.5m in 2021 but his return proved unsuccessful and he was not part of new manager Mauricio Pochettino's plans. "Romelu needs to feel loved and wanted," said Mourinho. The Portuguese, who worked with Lukaku at Chelsea and Manchester United, added: "When he came here, he could sense the team needed a player like him. "He likes to win - that's in his nature. I think he's really happy." Lukaku, 30, spent last season on loan at Inter Milan, appearing in the Champions League final defeat by Manchester City. But they could not reach a deal to permanently sign him from Chelsea, who he had re-joined from the Italians in August 2021. And, after making clear he did not want to return to Stamford Bridge, he signed for Roma, who have only collected four points from their first four Serie A games. Mourinho added that netting his first goal would be good for the forward's confidence. He said: "That wasn't a big deal for me. Maybe it was for him - you know what footballers are like, especially forwards, they live to score. "He's an intelligent player who since arriving has made it clear that first and foremost what matters is that Roma score, not that he scores." Mourinho also said Inter, who thrashed AC Milan in their derby on Saturday, have "no reason to be angry" at Lukaku. "They won the derby 5-1 and have an amazing team with lots of forwards," added Mourinho, who managed Inter from 2008-2010. "They should be happy for their former coach, who needed Lukaku." link : https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/66842215

How do you picture a menace that creeps into your home unannounced and takes your loved ones? In plague-infested Europe, the answer was the skeletal, hooded figure that we have come to know as the Grim Reaper. He first emerged in the 14th Century, during the time of the Black Death, as wave after wave of the infection (caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis) swept across the continent and killed half its po[CENSORED]tion. The exact form of this macabre being may vary from country to country – "Death" may be young or old, male or female, dressed in white or black – but most folklores across history represent illness and death in a human form. Following the scientific Enlightenment, you might think we would avoid personifying natural phenomena and imbuing them with conscious intent. Yet a quick look at the imagery people used to describe Covid-19 suggests otherwise, with many commentators describing the virus if it had the conscious intention to destroy humanity. Cartoons depicted the virus with arms, legs and an evil grin, while US President Donald Trump spoke of it as "tough and smart". Some scientists have even started giving the different variants nicknames inspired by mythology. Our responses to extreme weather reveal the same tendency. We give hurricanes and storms the same names we might give our children, and describe their actions in the humanising language of wrath and vengeance. We can even see it in our angry reactions to IT issues – every time we curse our computers or cajole our smartphones, we are demonstrating the automatic urge to anthropomorphise inanimate objects. According to recent scientific research, our penchant for personification is a natural human reaction to unpredictable event, and while it is often harmless, it can sometimes lead us to underplay the real risks of the situation. It all depends on the specific characters that we create and the features we give them. Loved-up triangles The foundations of this scientific theory can be traced to the Scottish philosopher David Hume. "There is a universal tendency among mankind to consider all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities, with which they are familiarly acquaintance, and of which they are intimately conscious," he wrote in The Natural History of Religion, published in 1757. "We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice and good will to everything that hurts or pleases us." link : https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230914-why-we-personify-threatening-events

Nickname: @FRIDAY THE 13 Video author: BELAL FF Name of the game: FreeFire link vedio : Rate this video 1-10: 10

Like its previous games, developer Night School Studio utilizes both a choice- and timing-driven dialogue system, taking note of not only what you say but when you say it. Conversations don't pause to give you a chance to figure out what to say next--like an actual conversation in real life, Riley will have to regularly respond to express interest. During conversations, small thought bubbles will appear above Riley's head as people talk to her, giving you a chance to choose how you speak your mind. Wait too long and these dialogue branches eventually fade away, but speak up too soon and you may interrupt someone just before they absent-mindedly say something that creates a more compelling path in the conversation. In this way, saying nothing at all is just as valid a choice as saying something. The main crux of Oxenfree II is Riley's walkie-talkie, which allows her to stay in regular contact with several characters across Camena, like a park ranger trying to understand the supernatural stuff that's happening and a lonely old fisherman looking for a friend. It's through this walkie-talkie that a great deal of Oxenfree II's conversations occur, and being strategic in how and when you talk can drastically alter the relationships that Riley has with these characters and the ultimate conclusions to their stories. Forging these relationships with what are essentially just voices is the strongest element of Oxenfree II. Compelling writing and a talented voice cast bring these characters to life, and navigating their fledgling friendships through the pressure cooker of a single night of terrifying supernatural activity gets you deeply invested in each one. Riley's regular check-ins and conversations about family with her supervisor Evelyn are especially good and feel increasingly poignant to the game's themes about priorities and finding the strength to move forward in life. (Someone, somewhere needs to give actors Liz Saydah, aka Riley, and Alaina Wis, aka Evelyn, all the awards for how well they bring their characters to life.) There's also something especially unnerving about never seeing most of the people that tether Riley to her current reality, lending further support to the game's themes of isolation. Not providing a face for most of the characters is doubly disquieting when it comes to the main antagonists of the game, ghosts who communicate with Riley from another dimension by splicing together their sentences with phrases and words from different radio broadcasts. Occasionally, they'll gnaw at the festering wounds of Riley's trauma as well, pulling her into visions of the past and future so that she can relive the deterioration of her family life and witness how she pays that generational trauma forward to future generations. Rarely does Oxenfree II go for the jump scare, and the game is stronger for it, building up the unsettling presence of its villains by not giving them a tangible face or easily understood motivation until the very end of the game. Oxenfree II does an incredible job building up the tenuous grasp that Riley has on reality and her desperation in needing her walkie-talkie both as the one major lifeline to her support network and the best way to keep tabs on the voices who want to kill her. So it's baffling that the game then undermines that with additional allies and antagonists who Riley does get to see and put a face to. Riley is regularly accompanied by Jacob, who graciously fills the otherwise dead air while walking back and forth across the map with conversation. However, these conversations are oftentimes boring or, worse, unfunny and cringy. I get the sense that Jacob is meant to be a moral indicator for you, with his behavior and characterization evolving in reflection of how he sees you treat others and him over the course of the game. But this leaves Jacob feeling more like a lost puppy dog than an actual person, his repeated pleas for Riley to validate his life choices growing increasingly irritating over time. By the two-hour mark, I wanted to toss him down a cliff. Olivia, the leader of the trio of teens who serve as the secondary antagonist, isn't as bad as Jacob, though I suspect that's largely because she only pops up in brief moments in the story. The trio's tenuous grasp of the multidimensional ghosts haunting Camena also provides the terrifying yet thrilling opportunity for the game's villains to enact physical damage on the world, not just mental or emotional. Plus, it's easier to discern how your choices are influencing Olivia and her friends, with your actions in regard to all three having major ramifications in the game's two most climactic moments. Olivia's presence lends greater emotional weight to your decisions, rewarding however you want to play Riley with tangible effects on the direction of the story and its overall conclusion. That said, Olivia isn't all that interesting of an antagonistic force, especially in comparison to the dark masters she serves, coming off as snobbish, spiteful, and mean-spirited. In spite of these shortcomings, Oxenfree II is still a good game, building on how the first Oxenfree explored someone coming to terms with their guilt in their teenage years to now tackle those same themes from an adult's perspective. Riley is struggling with how her own self-loathing and guilt have left her life feeling static, the voice of past traumas preventing her from moving forward during a period when she feels she needs to. It feels narratively apt that the only way she's able to take that next step forward and do what's best for her is to literally cut through the voices within radio static that's threatening the hometown where she grew up and most of her trauma started. It's a simple metaphor, but it's effective and instantly relatable, especially for anyone feeling a bit stuck in life in their early 30s. The sound design for this game is absolutely killer. Games that aim for a spooky atmosphere live and die by their sound design, and Night School Studio expertly utilizes barely discernible undertones throughout to create the sensation that something supernatural is in the air all around you. I'm of the opinion that a radio is one of the creepiest devices you can put into a thriller or horror game given the strange, almost alien reverberating voices that cascade through the hissing static as you navigate between channels. Those sounds po[CENSORED]te Oxenfree II from start to finish like a dying voice trying to claw its way back into our reality. It's just a shame Jacob keeps breaking the tension with his terrible jokes and unremarkable tangents. Oxenfree II is a strong sequel to the original game. A particular secondary character and antagonist drag the experience down a bit but the overall storyline is a satisfying foray into an adult woman's tenuous grasp on reality and her ultimate decision to cut through the static and strive for something better with the help of the friendships forged whilst speaking over a simple walkie- link : .https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/oxenfree-2-lost-signals-review-unnerving-static/1900-6418088/

The Centennial Case a Shijima Story is a new action mystery game title published by Square Enix and directed by Yasuhito Tachibana, producer of Netflix‘s The Naked Director serving as the Cinematographer and Scenario Director. The game follows an FMV pattern for the game offering beautiful yet thrilling live-action footage intertwines with mysteries to solve, creating highly immersive gameplay. The storyline operated around a mysterious family that eats a magic fruit to stay alive for a century. In this The Centennial Case a Shijima Story Review we would try and rate the game through different metrics for new players in the game. Scan and analyze video clips for Clues and subtle Hints There are several chapters in the game with each having its own videos and mysteries in them. Players are tasked with the responsibility of analyzing each and every video and forming their opinions and suggestions as to who the culprit is in that specific stage. Players take control of novelist-turned-amateur-personal investigator Haruka Kagami, who has one goal: solving the string of mysterious murders surrounding the Shijima family over the past century. Once the players have analyzed the clues in the game, they are tasked with the responsibility of making a hypothesis after carefully stressing out the clues connected and collected. The game as stated before insists players on solving mysteries but some of the mysteries span back to a century and revolve around the family. There are some current findings in the story in terms of mysteries but they are incomplete and cannot be completed without solving the mysteries of the past. Haruka the main character has her work cut out for her, but with her murder mystery novel smarts and a helping hand in Eiji by her side, she’ll be able to solve and fix the pieces of the puzzle one by one and side by side. As the video progresses further players will be able to find new clues and new twists in the story which would force the players to use their critical thinking to solve the mystery at hand Experience FMV graphics along with a decent UI layout Speaking in terms of graphics not much can be complained about as the game follows an FMV pattern and delivers video-based gameplay. The acting and sound effects are pretty solid which allows the game to deliver an engaging and interactive storytelling experience. he UI layout stays pretty solid for the most part of the game, however, it really lacks depth in the hypothesis section of the game where the gameplay really becomes too complex and the UI struggles a bit. Apart from that the game looks and feels well developed. link : https://gamingonphone.com/reviews/the-centennial-case-a-shijima-story-review/

Polish developer The Astronauts was founded nearly eleven years ago and only released the horror adventure game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (in 2014), though that's about to change with the upcoming early access debut of Witchfire. The dark fantasy roguelite first-person shooter was revealed a long time ago at Geoff Keighley's 2017 The Game Awards. The small team went silent for over four years, announcing in January 2022 that Witchfire would launch in early access in late 2022. However, there was another delay to 2023, with the developers explaining that they would add open world-like areas to improve the game's exploration. With mere days separating us from the September 20th launch of Witchfire on early access, we discussed with The Astronauts founder and CEO Adrian Chmielarz (also known as the project leader on 2004's Painkiller and the creative director on Bulletstorm) the reason for the long development phase and one-year Epic Games Store exclusivity, and the exciting performance results obtained with the implementation of NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 3. We also confirmed with him that AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and Intel Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) will still be in the game on day one and received a preview of Witchfire's system specifications. Read on for the full chat. Witchfire took seven years to make, and the full version won't be out until 2024. Can you talk about the development phase for this game? To us, after our first game, it was either significantly grow the team and make Witchfire relatively quickly or keep it small and make it quite slowly. With the fiscal discipline and risks in mind, we opted for the latter. The downside is obvious. What should take us four years will take us, in the end, eight or so. The upside is that we were able to really think through the structure and mechanics of the game, and just give it time to properly cook through. For Witchfire, you've opted to release the game only on the Epic Games Store for a year. Why did you make this choice? Did you get a lot of backlash from the community? Our first game was a story-driven weird fiction game. Yes, it sold well. Very well. But I hope nobody expects a game like that to carry a studio, even a small one, for a decade. The deal with Epic allowed us to keep our independence. We could have sold some of the studio to investors, but thanks to Epic, we didn’t have to. Also, Epic helps us promote the game. A store’s front page is worth more than all of your trailers and social media posts combined. How much content is in the early access version that launches on September 20th? Will the price change for the final release? We juggled many options but settled on the simplest possible solution: one price for both the Early Access period and the final release. The amount of content at the Early Access launch is all over the place, in a way. It’s hard to say “it’s a bit over one-third of the game” or whatever simply because some things are there at 75% and some at 20%. But we’ve done all we could to make sure there’s more than enough content to justify a release. Witchfire is based on Unreal Engine 4. Do you have any plans to upgrade to Unreal Engine 5? If so, will you take advantage of features like Nanite and Lumen? We will be evaluating that as an option for sure. When we remade The Vanishing of Ethan Carter in UE4 from UE3, we basically had to make the game from scratch. The versions were that incompatible. That’s not the case with UE5, luckily. We’ll see. In early 2022, you said you were considering RTX support. Does the game support any ray tracing effects? If not, will you add them later? Not at the moment, but to be honest, our game is not one to beg for it. There’s a lot of natural surfaces in Witchfire, and trees and castle walls and rusty gates are not that phenomenal for ray tracing. And our mix of baked and real-time lights makes sure the radiosity is good already out of the box. You did confirm DLSS 3 support a while back. What do you think about Frame Generation, and what kind of performance uplift are you seeing with it? I think this is fantastic. But I also think we need to explain it better to the players. For example, with only 67% of sharpness, let’s call it that, the image upscaled to 100% is maybe 1% worse than if it was directly rendered to 100%. It sounds weird, it sounds impossible, but that’s the truth. And the framerate boost is phenomenal. So, for the low price of 1% of image degradation, which is basically nothing, you get a much better experience. link : https://wccftech.com/witchfire-qa-on-long-dev-phase-egs-exclusivity-dlss-3s-phenomenal-frame-rate-boost-and-fsr-xess-support/

BMW is selling an old-fashioned, front-wheel-drive minivan, in some markets famous as the 2-Series Active Tourer . (There also exists a seven-seat version famous as the 2-Series Gran Tourer.) The vehicle was presented in 2014 and was originally set for sale in the United States, but local division of BMW eventually realized that it would probably be worse for the brand. The 2-Series Active will get its mid-cycle update next year, and that it has been spotted a prototype for the updated vehicle The 2-Series Active will get its mid-cycle update next year, and that it has been spotted a prototype for the updated vehicle. The visual improvements will be fewer and seem to contain of a new design for the daytime running lights and also refined bumpers at both of the ends. It’s unclear what mechanical changes will have, even there could be some power or efficiency tweaks that are made to the make 3- and 4-cylinder engines available. This prototype is made just for the updated version of the 225xe iPerformance plug-in hybrid model. The plug-in hybrid has only been on sale last year. It has almost same powertrain as BMW’s i8 sports car. It has a turbocharged 1.5-liter inline-3 paired with a electric motor at the rear axle and 6-speed automatic at the front one. The i8 has the reverse setup. The 225xe iPerformance’s output is much lower too at just 221 horsepower. We can look forward and expect an updated versions of the rear-wheel-drive 2-Series models, with the high-performance M2 while we don’t see the updated 2-Series Active Tourer. link : https://www.automotoworld.info/2018-bmw-2-series-active-tourer/