32 h. ago The astonishing story of the aristocrat who hid her Jewish lover in a sofa bed – and other German rebels who defied the Nazis

From a diplomat who embraced the exiled Albert Einstein to a schoolteacher who helped ‘non-Aryan’ students flee, these remarkable individuals refused to bend the knee to Hitler – only to be dramatically betrayed. What made them risk it all?I grew up in a house where nothing German was allowed. No Siemens dishwasher or Krups coffee machine in the kitchen, no Volkswagen, Audi or Mercedes in the driveway. The edict came from my mother. She was not a Holocaust survivor, though she had felt the breath of the Shoah on her neck. She was just eight years old on 27 March 1945, when her own mother was killed by the last German V-2 rocket of the war to fall on London, a bomb that flattened a corner of the East End, killing 134 people, almost all of them Jews. One way or another, the blast radius of that explosion would encompass the rest of my mother’s life and much of mine.Of course, she knew that the bomb that fell on Hughes Mansions had not picked out that particular building deliberat...

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2 w. ago Are we heading for a world where no one ever needs to talk to another human being?

Self-service tills, apps for shopping and takeaways, silent hair salons, driverless taxis – why are we going to extreme lengths to avoid engaging with each other?So we’re just playing dumb then, are we? Righto. An extremely confusing study of San Francisco’s transport services has found that not only are people completely on board with driverless taxis, they are also willing to pay 50% more and wait significantly longer for them. Whyever could this be, eh? Most of the mooted explanations have been largely practical – driverless taxis are proven to be safer (until the machines rise up as one and wipe out humanity). They can’t be over the limit, on their phone at the wheel or give in to road rage. And yes, these are technically valid reasons, but come on. The real answer, which no one is admitting, is that driverless taxis mean we don’t have to talk to anybody.It’s not surprising that many of us would happily put our lives in robot hands to dodge the horror of panic-asking a living, b...

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2 w. ago I drove electric car for a week on single charge and the numbers were remarkable

The BMW i4 M50 is a big electric saloon car with a hefty price tag, but how does it fare in the real world? We spent a week with it to find out

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2 w. ago QUENTIN LETTS: The encounter was electric with jeopardy... It was worse than watching a chess match when the pieces are live grenades

Zelensky survived. The Ukrainian president's Oval Office rematch passed without diplomatic incident. The trap door under his seat was not activated. He was not served poisoned tea.

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last month Living with an electric BMW iX: Is this the ultimate driving machine?

BMW has made a family-friendly all-electric SUV that is still fun to drive

Politics

last month UK ministers push ahead with discount on bills for households near new pylons

Plans have provoked outrage from communities in areas of Great Britain expected to host new infrastructureThe government is pushing head with a plan to offer those who live near new electricity pylons a discount of £2,500 from their energy bills over the next 10 years to ease the backlash against its clean power plans.Thousands of households within half a kilometre of new or upgraded electricity infrastructure could each receive up to £250 off their annual energy bill from next year to help speed up the rollout of infrastructure critical to the government’s targets. Continue reading...

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