ThunderStorm.

i like v2 more than v1, i love the text , effect. Good job!

“How the Democrats lost the working-class vote”, ran the headline on the New York Times’s front page on 6 January. According to the Times, the Democrats’ estrangement from the working class was decades in the making. The party’s enthusiastic embrace of trade and globalization led to the closure of factories across industrial America, eliminating jobs that had been a prime source of stability, identity and prestige. While many Democrats attributed Trump’s success to the left’s embrace of “woke” language and causes like transgender rights, the Times observed, the economic seeds of his victories “were sown long ago”. A longtime AFL-CIO official was quoted as saying that “one of the things that has been frustrating about the narrative ‘the Democrats are losing the working class’ is that people are noticing it half a century after it happened”. Given the long incubation of this development, one might say the Times itself was late in recognizing it. But the question remains: how can Democrats win back those working-class voters? One key question has dominated: should the party move to the left or tack toward the center? Should it stress progressivism or moderation? In a way, though, it’s a false choice. The Democrats could combine both approaches in a policy of pragmatic populism, fusing the insurgent ideas and galvanizing fire of an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with the plainspoken bread-and-butter appeal of a Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto-repair shop owner who represents a rural district in Washington state. Pragmatic populism would offer sweeping solutions to the economic anxiety facing so many American families but without the polarizing rhetoric. It would avoid labels like “oligarch” and “tycoon”, drop references to socialism and redistribution and refrain from saying that billionaires should not exist (even though a strong case can be made for that proposition). Instead, pragmatic populists would adopt a message of “let us join together to create a more perfect union”. They would promote the idea of a social contract, founded on the notion that those who have surged ahead economically have an obligation to help those who have been left behind. They would argue that the .01% have thrived thanks to an economic system built over decades of public investment in schools, roads, ports, communications, regulatory agencies, the police and the courts, and that the very wealthy need to “give back” (as super-rich philanthropists are fond of saying) so that ordinary working people can share fully in the fruits. To consider how this would work, take the issue of childcare. A pragmatic populist would say: “The skyrocketing cost of childcare is crushing families across the country. In New York City, the typical family is spending a quarter of its income on such care, and many parents, especially mothers, have to quit the workforce to look after their kids. And childcare providers earn so little that many are leaving the industry. We need to provide parents more in tax credits and providers more in wage subsidies. The cost will not be negligible, but such a policy would not only ease the struggles of parents but also make them more productive workers. So we’re going to ask corporations and the very wealthy to contribute somewhat more in taxes to help make that happen.” Or take dental care. While food deserts have gotten a lot of attention, dentistry deserts have not. According to the CDC, nearly 60 million Americans live in areas in which dental services are in short supply. Even where such services are available, the cost of root canals, implants and crowns can be prohibitive, especially for the working class. Two-thirds of the shortages are in rural America, and a program to expand the Affordable Care Act to include dental insurance could help the Democrats make inroads in a part of the US they have all but lost. Small businesses offer another ripe constituency. Such enterprises (defined as having revenues of less than $40m and workforces of under 500) make up more than 99% of all firms in the country. Many of them are hampered by fines, fees and red tape. The Democrats have long been seen as indifferent or even hostile to this sector. In a promising sign of change, the New York mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, has proposed creating a “mom-and-pop czar” to help ease the regulatory burden on the city’s bodegas, pharmacies, barber shops and beauty salons. These businesses also have a hard time getting credit. Most are too small to interest the mega banks that dominate the US financial system. The thousands of small banks in the country that do cater to this community are themselves under tremendous strain. The Democrats could propose ways of easing the availability of credit for small-business owners, especially Black and Latino ones, who often lack the necessary credit records and collateral. The hemorrhaging of Black and Latino voters is among the most troubling developments for Democrats. Many complain that the party shows up every four years asking for their vote, then forgets about them. During the recent election, Trump’s surge among Latinos in Texas’s Rio Grande valley offered a stinging rebuke to a party that had long counted on their support. “I think Democrats have historically taken the Rio Grande valley for granted,” Beto O’Rourke, the former senatorial candidate, told the Guardian last summer. “Republicans saw an opportunity, they’re hungry, and they’ve gone after it, investing money and running strong candidates with resources behind them.” The Democrats have by contrast spent heavily on Washington-based consultants and lobbyists, starving local operations of funds and hollowing out the party’s infrastructure on the ground. Where the Democrats are present, they have a reputation for being bad listeners given to lecturing people about what’s good for them. This has to change. Here are some recommendations for Democrats – politicians and otherwise: Don’t ask what’s the matter with Kansas. Don’t ask how Trump voters can vote against their interests. Don’t ask evangelical Christians how they can support someone like Trump. Don’t claim that the facts and science are on your side. Don’t claim that Trump voters are victims of disinformation. Don’t blame the Democrats’ unpo[CENSORED]rity on Fox News and other rightwing outlets. Don’t campaign with celebrities. Don’t sermonize when discussing climate change. Don’t call Trump supporters stupid. That last suggestion might pose the greatest challenge of all. Even after the accumulation of so much evidence about the resentment that blue-collar Americans feel at the hands of white-collar liberals, condescension remains rampant. This was clear from the more than 2,000 reader comments posted on the Times article about the Democrats’ loss of the working class. Some samples: “They’re just dumb, bitter jerks who were looking for permission to be as resentful and judgmental in public as they were in private.” “The working class has, by and large, left the 4th estate for the purveyors of disinformation.” “I have to live with trump as president the next 4 years and possibly the rest of my life because of these ‘working class’ idiots who vote against their own interests.” “Most working class people are not reading the NYT, or any conventional news sources—this goes double for the Trump supporters amongst them. They are ignorant.” In the end, such an outlook is neither pragmatic nor populist. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/23/democrats-progressives-centrists-future

An attempt by the New South Wales government to reintroduce koalas to a forest in the state’s far south has failed after more than half of the moved animals died, including two with signs of septicaemia, and the remaining marsupials were taken into care. The translocation and deaths of seven out of 13 koalas in April were not made public by the government, prompting questions about whether something went wrong with the project and calls from the NSW Greens for a review. The project was aiming to re-establish a koala po[CENSORED]tion in an area of south-eastern NSW where the species is locally extinct. Translocation is part of NSW’s koala strategy to try to improve the trajectory of the endangered species, at risk of extinction in the state. A spokesperson for the NSW environment department told Guardian Australia 13 koalas were selected for translocation in April and moved from “a high-density po[CENSORED]tion” in the Upper Nepean state conservation area west of Wollongong to the South East Forest national park near Bega. They said three koalas died within a two-day period in early April, which led the department’s project team to put the remaining 10 animals into a wildlife hospital. Four more koalas died. They said necropsy results from two of the first three koalas that died revealed chronic and acute infections of the lungs and liver, suggesting septicaemia – a bloodstream infection – “as the likely cause of death”. Koalas face death, attacks and starvation as blue gums chopped down in Victoria Read more The spokesperson said the remaining six koalas were healthy and returned to their original habitat in the Upper Nepean. They said the reintroduction project was immediately put on hold for research to try to establish what caused the deaths. The team was “investigating a potential link between septicaemia in koalas and adverse weather conditions, as the mortalities occurred four to five days after a significant rainfall event,” they said. “We believe prolonged wet weather can pose serious health risks to koalas, disrupting feeding behaviour, inhibiting thermoregulation, and weakening the immune system.” They said the project team, in collaboration with researchers and veterinarians, would continue investigating “the potential impact of heavy rainfall, as well as factors such as diet, nutrition, and gut microbiome on the success of future translocations”. The state Greens environment spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said the incident was “deeply distressing” and sent “a very cynical message that the government is focused on [a] high risk and failed koala program effort” while habitat destruction for development and logging continued. “This koala translocation experiment has been a catastrophic failure and raises serious questions about how it happened,” she said. “The control settings around this translocation experiment must now be brought into question and reviewed because it would appear they were flawed. “It is deeply concerning that the government allowed this program in the circumstances and given the outcomes, it’s clear they shouldn’t have.” Carolyn Hogg, a professor of biodiversity and conservation at the University of Sydney, said wildlife translocation could be complex and the deaths were “a really unfortunate event”. “We do know unexpected weather events may cause pathogens to unexpectedly appear,” she said. Hogg said for NSW koala po[CENSORED]tions under pressure from habitat fragmentation and isolation, translocation projects were a management tool that could improve gene flow and genetic diversity. Valentina Mella is a senior lecturer in animal behaviour and conservation at the University of Sydney. Speaking generally, she said there were important scientific questions that should be considered before translocating wildlife into a new area. “When you move an animal into a habitat that is considered suitable for that species but that species is not actually present, you have to ask yourself why,” she said. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/14/more-than-half-of-koalas-relocated-to-nsw-forest-died-in-failed-government-attempt-at-reintroduction

Our spy photographers caught what we thought was a Ford Bronco Sport Raptor testing without camouflage, but it's actually just a joke. The fake Raptor version of Ford's compact crossover sits higher, partially thanks to BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM3 tires. The prototype also has larger exhaust pipes and two mufflers instead of one, but we now know that a real-life Bronco Sport Raptor isn't in the cards. UPDATE 7/24/25, 6:50 p.m.: A Ford spokesperson confirmed to Car and Driver that the Bronco Sport "Raptor" that was captured in our spy photos isn't a real upcoming model. Instead, it's more of an internal joke. "This is our team having fun, not a Bronco Sport Raptor. Just like our customers, we encourage employees to leverage the customization superpowers of the Bronco family and continue to explore possibilities," the spokesperson said in an email. Once exclusive to the F-150 pickup truck, the Raptor nameplate has begun spreading through the Ford lineup. Along with the F-150 Raptor and V-8-powered F-150 Raptor R, Ford now sells a Raptor variant of the Bronco off-roader and a Raptor-ized version of the smaller Ranger pickup. It appears that Ford isn't stopping there: our spy photographers have caught this Raptor-badged Ford Bronco Sport prototype testing, and it seems to pack some serious hardware upgrades. The Bronco Sport Raptor prototype wears no camouflage, curiously, and it proudly displays Raptor badges on the front doors and tailgate. The former appears to be the emblem from the tailgate of the Bronco Raptor, while the latter looks like the badge from the rear of the Ranger Raptor. The prototype also sports a Sasquatch sticker on the rear fender, suggesting that this vehicle may have started life as a Badlands Sasquatch model, a new addition to the Bronco Sport lineup for 2025. There's also a sticker on the rear window depicting Mothman, a cryptid that was reportedly spotted prowling West Virginia in the 1960s, spawning a series of tall tales. We're not sure what to draw from this sticker, and it might just be Ford engineers having a bit of fun, given that the Sasquatch package is already named for a legendary cryptid. The steel front bumper and bull bar look identical to those of the Sasquatch, but there are some notable differences on this Raptor prototype. The fender flares are wider and feature exposed rivets. This Bronco Sport looks to have a taller ride height, which could come in part from a revised suspension. But that extra ground clearance is also thanks to the beefy BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain T/A KM3 tires, a significant upgrade over the Sasquatch model's Goodyear Territory all-terrain rubber. Unfortunately, we don't know the tire sizes, as Ford's engineers appear to have scraped off the tire code on the sidewalls. Interestingly, the KM3 is a more serious off-road tire than the BFGoodrich KO2s fitted to all other Raptor models, with more of a focus on traction in mud and on rocks at the sacrifice of on-road performance. The prototype is also sporting a new exhaust setup. Instead of a single muffler that leads to two exhaust tips, there are two separate mufflers that each lead to much larger exhaust outlets. This could mean that the Bronco Sport Raptor could add some extra oomph on top of the 250 horsepower put out by the turbocharged inline-four. We're not entirely sure what to make of this prototype. Ford could be developing a new Bronco Sport Raptor, or it could just be testing upgrades to the Sasquatch package or other optional equipment, with the Raptor badges meant to fool us. If this does enter production as a Bronco Sport Raptor, we expect even more design changes to differentiate it from lesser Bronco Sport models, starting with a bolder grille featuring the large "FORD" badging like other Raptor models. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a65501680/ford-bronco-sport-raptor-spy-photos/

Andrei Cordea (26 de ani) e pe lista lui Gigi Becali pentru a îl înlocui pe Marius Ștefănescu. Furios după 0-1 cu Shkendija, patronul FCSB a dezvăluit la FANATIK SUPERLIGA că îl trimite pe Ștefănescu la Dinamo. Andrei Cordea, primul mesaj după ce Gigi Becali vrea să îl readucă la FCSB Andrei Cordea poate profita de conjunctura de la FCSB și să revină la echipa pentru care a jucat între 2021 și 2023. Mijlocașul dreapta e liber de contract după despărțirea de Al-Tai și a stârnit interesul lui Gigi Becali. Latifundiarul din Pipera caută înlocuitor pentru Marius Ștefănescu, pe care vrea să îl cedeze la rivala Dinamo. În cazul în care se va întoarce la FCSB, Andrei Cordea va fi din nou coleg cu Florin Tănase. Cei doi sunt foarte buni prieteni și deja fac afaceri împreună. Cordea a achiziționat un apartament în Noura Residence, complex amplasat în partea de nord a Bucureștiului, pe care Tănase îl construiește împreună cu agentul Florin Vulturar. „Am achiziționat un apartament cu trei camere de 93 de metri pătrați cu balcon și parcare. Am fost plăcut surprins să știu cât de repede va fi gata proiectul și important a fost că nu au fost blocaje, cum se întâmplă des în alte imobiliare. M-a convins prietenul meu, Florin Tănase, pentru că știam că el este în spatele proiectului și va face totul așa cum își dorește și evident cum îmi doresc și eu. Un alt coleg de națională și-a luat apartament în complexul lui Florin Tănase: Încet, dar sigur, Florin Tănase își strânge prietenii și coechipierii în Noura Residence. Recent, Deian Sorescu, coleg de națională cu Tănase și fost jucător la FCSB, a cumpărat și el un apartament în complexul din nordul Bucureștiului. Ansamblul rezidențial pe care îl construiește „decarul” campioanei României va avea 127 de apartamente. Ele vor fi repartizate în patru blocuri cu câte 6 etaje. Complexul este unul de lux, astfel că prețurile sunt destul de piperate și nu vor fi accesibile pentru orice buzunar. „Încrederea colegilor este cel mai bun feedback. Mulțumim, Deian Sorescu, că ai ales să fii parte din proiectul semnat Florin Tănase. Vino și tu în echipa campionilor”, se arată în postarea celor de la Noura Development. https://www.fanatik.ro/m-a-convins-florin-tanase-andrei-cordea-mesaj-dupa-ce-gigi-becali-si-a-manifestat-interesul-video-21234006

Some call it a friendship recession: a time when close male friendships sink to their lowest. Here’s how friendships for straight men fall to the wayside – and what could bring them together. As a therapist, Jeremy Mohler spends his days guiding middle-aged men through feelings of loneliness. He encourages them to seek connections, yet the 39-year-old is the first to admit it: when you’re a guy, making real friends in midlife is difficult. “It feels like an uphill battle,” says Mohler, who lives in Baltimore. Some call it a friendship recession: a time in midlife when close male friendships sink to their lowest. According to data from the Survey Center on American Life, 15% of US men said they do not have close friends in 2021, compared with 3% in 1990. Those reporting 10 or more close friends decreased from 33% to 13% during the same period. Authentic or close friendship may mean different things to different people. One straightforward description is finding “someone who sees you as you see yourself, and you see them as they see themselves”, says Niobe Way, a developmental psychology professor at New York University. Jeffrey Hall, a professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas who studies friendships and has previously found it can take 200 hours to make a close friend, says: “A true friend will support and stand by you no matter what, will stand up for you, and tells you the truth.” Overwhelmed by company? Five introvert-friendly ways to hang out Read more The reasons for the friendship recession are complex, says Hall. Straight men Mohler’s age often depend on their partners for socializing. Some dive deep into parenthood. College buddies disperse. Work priorities take over. And moving to a new city or country can dissolve formerly strong bonds. Ultimately, it can feel too hard to invest time in new and deeper friendships. Despite loneliness due to estrangement from relatives or different family structures, “many gay men find and build community around an embrace of shared spaces,” says Matt Lundquist, a therapist in New York, which he finds is less common for heterosexual men. “This sort of intentional taking on a project of searching for new, deeper friendships is more a heterosexual project. It is a demographic that is very isolated.” “My clients are looking for more connections,” Mohler says. “I have ideas and skills and solutions, but I’m still personally searching for practical ways to do that.” He is not the only one feeling the itch to turn a workout buddy into someone he can call on a Saturday afternoon. US men aged 15 to 35 are among the loneliest in wealthy countries, with 25% reporting feeling lonely for a lot of the previous day, according to a 2025 Gallup poll. Marketing professor and po[CENSORED]r podcast host Scott Galloway recently touted the benefits of authentic connections for men amid what he called a “perfect storm of loneliness”. “Men have it drilled into us from an early age that vulnerability and emotional connections are signs of weakness,” Galloway wrote. “They aren’t, and men with influence have an obligation to cleanse this bullshit version of masculinity from the zeitgeist.” The men I interviewed say they don’t want to be just a stat in the much-touted loneliness epidemic, which is also increasingly being tied to poorer physical and mental health outcomes. Still, it’s difficult to avoid in practice. “There’s a certain cultural understanding that men don’t know how to enact intimacy or that it’s simply not practiced very much,” says Hall. “And even men’s po[CENSORED]r culture doesn’t show you how to go about the process.” Some are figuring it out. Jedidiah Jenkins, 42, an author living in Los Angeles, says he’s had to relearn about the importance of maintaining close bonds with other men. As a teenager, he had plenty of friends; making them seemed effortless. “You didn’t have to work for it,” Jenkins says. “We have to learn in the same way that we actively download dating apps and pursue a relationship that we have to pursue friendships.” I’m in my 20s with lots of online friends, but can’t seem to connect IRL Read more For the last few years, Jenkins has organized a weekly hangout at his house. Anywhere from three to 20 friends show up for what he calls “riff raff Thursdays”, including a handful of regulars. He starts a bonfire and serves hot tea, mezcal and peanut butter pretzels. The consistency means that his friends know what they are doing that week, and takes away the pressure of scheduling one-on-one meetups. “It doesn’t require the full energy of finding time for a weekly coffee date,” he says. How male friendships fall by the wayside Before the second world war, same-sex male friendships were a large part of public life, and women’s friendships were seen as frivolous and less important, Hall explains. But these roles have since reversed. Today, most heterosexual men feel they are marrying someone who becomes the default events planner, and their genuine close friendships fall away, Hall says. “They rely on their wives to develop the social calendar – they think: ‘She’ll do it and I don’t have to do it’,” he says. “There’s atrophy in their skillset.” Way, the developmental psychology professor, says girls and boys start out on the same trajectory of prioritizing friendships. But boys feel pressure to give up their same-sex friendships because it feels “girly or gay”. Rates of male suicide also tick up around adolescence. “It’s not that they naturally don’t want these friendships. They had them when they were younger,” she says. “It’s not some weird biological thing.” Way, who receives emails from hundreds of men each year about her research, says more of them feel like it’s possible to secure closer friendships after the pandemic because the topic is receiving more attention. “They are now recognizing what the problems are,” she says. “They’ve hit the bottom of the barrel.” At the same time, her research points to a culture that doesn’t value friendships. Since the 1980s, she says, the United States’ focus on self-fulfillment has reduced the importance of friendships for everyone. Digital life distracts us too much or provides a simulacrum of closeness; even listening to podcasts can bring a faux feeling of intimacy. “We focus more on the self, and the tech just exacerbates it,” she says. Bringing men together In Hebden Bridge, England, former professional rugby player Craig White has started hosting nature retreats for men to encourage deeper connections. White, now a mentor and coach, runs a “mid-life intensive” program that offers online meetings along with a three-day in-person meet-up. White’s retreats involve hiking, spending nights around a fire, discussing feelings openly and bonding outside of day-to-day pressures. When it came to his father, “healthy male friendship wasn’t modeled and the friendship groups involved alcohol,” he says. “A lot of my clients are brilliant men, but a lot of their old friends are still doing the same thing and there’s a reluctance to go back to that.” Draymond Washington, an entrepreneur and former financial adviser, founded a private club in Chicago called Three Cities Social earlier this year, and says connecting midlife professionals is the goal. But after months of hosting events, he realized that while the club’s membership is roughly 40% male, event attendance was typically 80% women, he says. Men aren’t always willing to come to the club to socialize. So he has started hosting events aimed specifically at men in their 30s and 40s: boxing classes, pickleball and boat rides. “Guys like to do stuff,” Washington says. “Someone needs to curate and then they do want to show up.” He’s been able to engage more men this way, but it’s been more difficult than he expected. https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-interactive/2025/jul/10/male-friendships-midlife

Americanii au aprobat joi, vânzarea de sisteme de apărare aeriană către Egipt. Afacerea are o valoare de aproape cinci miliarde de dolari. Egiptul este unul dintre cei mai mari beneficiari ai echipamentelor militare americane, informează Mediafax. Tranzacția se referă la NASAMS, sisteme de rachete sol-aer produse de RTX și utilizate în special de ucraineni timp de luni de zile pentru a contracara atacurile aeriene rusești. Această vânzare va „susține politica externă și obiectivele de securitate națională ale Statelor Unite prin consolidarea securității unui aliat major non-NATO, care este o forță pentru stabilitatea politică și progresul economic în Orientul Mijlociu”, a transmis Agenția de Cooperare pentru Securitate și Apărare a SUA (DSCA) într-un comunicat citat de Le Figaro. Egiptul este, alături de Israel, unul dintre cei mai mari beneficiari ai suportului militar american. După ce Donald Trump a revenit la putere în ianuarie, guvernul american a înghețat toate livrările, cu excepția celor acordate Egiptului și Israelului. https://www.stiripesurse.ro/tranzactie-majora-cu-puternice-implicatii-militare-statele-unite-aproba-vanzarea-de-sisteme-de-rachete-sol-aer-catre-egip_3767464.html

Contra for me too, no activity at all!

Tesla sales in Europe have collapsed by one-third this year, data shows, after Elon Musk warned the electric carmaker faced “a few rough quarters” ahead. According to the figures published on Thursday by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), sales of Tesla vehicles in Europe slumped by 33% to 110,000 in the first half of 2025, compared with 165,000 in the first half of 2024. The data suggests Tesla is still trying to emerge from a sales rut in Europe, even after releasing a refreshed version of the Model Y, its bestselling car. It is not the only carmaker struggling to tempt European customers, with total new car sales across the EU down by 7% in June. However, Tesla faces specific challenges. Musk, whose shares in the company have made him the world’s richest man, has contributed to the decline by backing Europe’s far-right political parties, and briefly allying himself with Donald Trump, who is deeply unpo[CENSORED]r across the continent. The Tesla chief executive’s alliance with Trump has since blown up spectacularly, while the company has come under pressure in the US from the president’s anti-EV policies. Sales across Europe – including the EU, UK, Norway and Switzerland – were down for the US carmaker by more than a fifth year on year in June, to 35,000. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/24/tesla-european-sales-elon-musk-electric-carmaker

saw her personalised shin pad adorned with her wedding photo, and because she joked last week that she still hadn’t got her husband, Scott, a card. But then Kelly has always had a rare gift for catching the eye. Her shirt-waving celebration at Wembley remains the defining image of the Euro 2022 triumph. Her trademark headband renders her instantly recognisable in a squad full of above-average-height blond women. Her hop-skip penalty run-up is unique. In a profession where many are naturally wary of being seen to court attention, Kelly is luxuriantly comfortable with being the focus of your gaze. As her teammate Esme Morgan puts it: “She just doesn’t really care what people think.” Being England’s unashamed icon and an effortless content generator comes with clear off-pitch benefits. Be real: who here can name the wedding date of any other Lioness? Who here can imitate a typical Lauren Hemp penalty run-up? How many Jess Park goal celebrations have you seen commemorated in a tattoo? But of course the benefits can be felt on the field too, and so far this month England have been merrily reaping them. There is a counterfactual history of England’s Euro 2025 to be written in which Kelly does not post her astonishing social media tirade against Manchester City at the end of January. In which she does not get the move to Arsenal that rescues her career, does not win back her England place, does not rescue the quarter-final against Sweden or score the winning goal against Italy. And – quite frankly – it is a history in which England’s players are watching Sunday’s final from their sofas. Frozen out by Gareth Taylor at Manchester City, out of contract in the summer, handed one league start all season, Kelly was ready to walk away from the game. City were prepared to let her go on loan to Brighton. Kelly wanted to join Manchester United. City were unwilling to lose her to a rival. Result: deadlock. And with just hours remaining of the January transfer window, a deadlock Kelly realised she was going to have to break herself. “While I can’t control someone’s negative behaviour towards me, I can control how long I am prepared to tolerate it,” Kelly wrote in an Instagram post very clearly self-penned. “To be dictated whom I can and can’t join with only four months left of the football season is having a huge impact on not only my career but my mental wellbeing. Our dreams can be crushed while we live in silence.” Kelly’s outspokenness was immediately rewarded with a last-gasp move to Arsenal. And yet to burn her bridges with City so publicly was a decision fraught with risk, but also a measure of her need to dictate terms rather than have them dictated to her, to act rather than let things drift, to determine her own fate. After the Italy game, someone asked Kelly who had made her the person she is today. “Myself,” she answered. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jul/24/chloe-kelly-england-women-euro-2025-final

The Jeffrey Epstein files scandal swirling around Donald Trump and his administration continued to escalate on Thursday as officials from the Department of Justice met with the late sex offender’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, whose lawyer said she “answered every question … honestly and to the best of her ability”. Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, arrived on Thursday morning at the office of the US attorney in Tallahassee, Florida, ABC News reported. The state prosecutor’s office is based in the federal courthouse in the Florida capital and Maxwell’s lawyers were also seen entering the building, the TV network reported. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes at a federal prison in Florida, after being convicted in New York in late 2021. On Thursday afternoon, Maxwell’s attorney David Markus said that his team and Blanche had a “very productive day”, Fox News reported, adding that Markus declined to comment on whether Maxwell and Blanche would meet again on Friday. “[Blanche] took a full day and asked a lot of questions,” Markus said, adding: “Miss Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped. She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.” The meeting comes amid growing political and public pressure on the Trump administration to release more details about the Epstein investigation – something that Trump and members of his administration had promised. Mark Epstein, the brother of the disgraced financier, told the Guardian in an interview that if he had the opportunity he would ask Maxwell “what she and Jeffrey might have known what the dirt was on Donald Trump”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/24/ghislaine-maxwell-jeffrey-epstein-doj

Perhaps the most notorious of Ozzy Osbourne’s outrageous on-stage antics was biting the head off of a bat. So as tributes for the late rocker poured in from around the globe, one stuck out as particularly surprising – from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta). The 76-year-old Black Sabbath frontman’s death was announced on Tuesday, with his family saying Osbourne – who suffered from various ailments, including a form of Parkinson’s disease – “was with his family and surrounded by love”. Tributes soon poured in for Osbourne from musical world luminaries such as Elton John, Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart … and Peta, the famously strident animal-protection group. “Ozzy Osbourne was a legend and a provocateur, but Peta will remember the ‘Prince of Darkness’ most fondly for the gentle side he showed to animals – most recently cats, by using his fame to decry painful, crippling declawing mutilations,” Peta said on its website and social channels. “Ozzy may have been the singer, but his wife, Sharon, and his daughter, Kelly, were of one voice when it meant protecting animals. “Ozzy will be missed by animal advocates the world over.” Osbourne had famously partnered with the organisation in 2020 to speak out against the declawing of cats, and lent his face to an ad campaign showing his bloodied hands with the tagline: “It’s an amputation. Not a manicure.” “Amputating a cat’s toes is twisted and wrong. If your couch is more important to you than your cat’s health and happiness, you don’t deserve to have an animal! Get cats a scratching post – don’t mutilate them for life,” Osbourne was quoted as saying at the time. Peta suggests that those looking to protect their pets to seek out “humane ways to prevent cats from scratching on furniture”. As well as biting the head off a dead bat he believed to be a stage prop in 1982 while performing in Iowa – and later going to hospital for a rabies inoculation – Osbourne also claimed to have bitten the heads off two doves during a record label meeting the year before, supposedly having brought them to the meeting to release as a sign of peace. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/23/ozzy-osborune-animals-peta

A man who was apparently trying to reach Spain from Morocco using a rubber ring and flippers has been rescued after he was spotted by a family sailing to the Balearic islands. The family were on their yacht 13 nautical miles south of the Andalucían town of Benalmádena on the Costa del Sol, on 16 July when they manoeuvred around the stern of an oil tanker and saw something moving on the waves. According to the Diario Sur newspaper, they assumed it was a bird until they looked through a pair of binoculars and realised it was a person. Video of the rescue, shared on social media by the Spanish Royal Assembly of Yacht Captains (RAECY), shows the exhausted young man swimming towards the yacht as a rope is thrown for him to grab. After bringing him on to the boat, the family gave him water, clothes and a cup of soup. “We’ve called in a shipwrecked man and we’re going to pick him up,” says a man in the footage as he pans the camera around the empty waters. “It’s incredible where he is because just look, all the passing boats are really far away from him.” Sources at the RAECY said the man was wearing a wetsuit and was equipped with only the ring and a pair of flippers. “He almost didn’t speak,” they said. The family headed for the port of Estepona but were met by a maritime rescue service vessel at sea that took the man to port in Málaga and handed him over to police and the Red Cross. Such dangerous crossings are not uncommon. “Dozens of migrants try to reach Spain like this, using the only basic means they can afford,” wrote María Martín, migration correspondent for the Spanish daily newspaper El País. She said it was a method often used by young men trying to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa, but added it was less common among those trying to cross the wider stretch of the Alborán Sea between Morocco and Spain. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/22/man-rescued-trying-to-reach-spain-from-morocco-in-rubber-ring-and-flippers