2 h. ago A new branch of photography? Found images of women in trees – in pictures

For 25 years, Hamburg-based collector Jochen Raiß scoured flea markets for historical amateur photographs. After finding a photo of a woman smiling in a tree, he started to notice this was a recurrent theme, especially popular between the 1920s and 1950s. Over the years he accumulated 91 such photos, now collected into a book, Women in Trees. “A number of the photographers have created images that possess a remarkable depth and beauty,” he wrote in the book’s introduction. “The women exert a great effort to hold on to these trees without losing their balance. Their Sunday dresses and fashionable shoes stand in stark contrast to the nature around them.”Women in Trees by Jochen Raiß and Johanna Adorjan is out now (Hatje Cantz, £18) Continue reading...

Culture

3 h. ago Creative industries are among the UK’s crown jewels – and AI is out to steal them | John Naughton

The tech firms’ efforts to change copyright laws and gain free access to intellectual property is patently wrongThere are decades when nothing happens (as Lenin is – wrongly – supposed to have said) and weeks when decades happen. We’ve just lived through a few weeks like that. We’ve known for decades that some American tech companies were problematic for democracy because they were fragmenting the public sphere and fostering polarisation. They were a worrying nuisance, to be sure, but not central to the polity.And then, suddenly, those corporations were inextricably bound into government, and their narrow sectional interests became the national interest of the US. Which means that any foreign government with ideas about regulating, say, hate speech on X, may have to deal with the intemperate wrath of Donald Trump or the more coherent abuse of JD Vance. Continue reading...

Events

3 h. ago Usain Bolt reveals how quick he could run 100 metres now eight years after retiring

The eight-time Olympian has revealed that he wouldn't get close to running sub-10 seconds if he ran the 100 metres now, years after hanging up his spikes

Politics

4 h. ago What Manchester United players discussed in dressing room at half

Man United fought back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Everton at Goodison Park on Saturday lunchtime.

Sport

5 h. ago Boden's floral midi dress that 'makes you look slim' slashed from £155 to £37 in limited time offer

Boden's floral midi dress has been reduced to £37 from £155 in a limited time sale, with shoppers saying it 'makes you look slim' and is easy to style for all occasions

Economics

5 h. ago Claudia Winkleman breaks down in tears after 'extraordinary' moment on One Question

Claudia Winkleman was reduced to tears on Channel 4's One Question after a father and daughter duo managed to win £100,000

Politics

5 h. ago Boden slashes price of £155 dress to £37 as shoppers say it 'makes you look slim'

Boden's £155 midi dress is perfect for spring weddings, and it's now been slashed to £37 in the brand's sale with shoppers praising it for making you 'look slim'

Economics

6 h. ago Claudia Winkleman wanted to cry after pair won £100,000 on One Question

The pair won the prize without seeing all 16 possible answers.

Economics

7 h. ago Hackers steal $1.5bn from crypto exchange Bybit in record theft

It is one of the biggest online thefts of all time

Events

7 h. ago Bong Joon Ho: ‘I wish I had Ken Loach’s energy, but I’m just thinking about nap time’

How do you follow up an Oscar winner like Parasite? If you’re the South Korean auteur, you make a sci-fi satire where Robert Pattinson dies over and over again. The director discusses the inspirational Loach and Mike Leigh and why it’s hard being a ‘middle-aged film-maker’We are in the run-up to the release of Bong Joon Ho’s latest, Mickey 17, and Warner Bros has got the Oscar-winning Korean director stashed away in what appears to be some kind of basement storage room, with grey-painted brickwork and exposed wiring. In fact, this room could pass for one of the “gritty and kind of nasty” cargo-container-packed cabins of his film’s spaceship setting.Not that anyone is complaining. Bong, who speaks good English but prefers to conduct interviews via his longtime interpreter Sharon Choi, appears cheerful throughout our conversation, taking occasional sips from a takeaway coffee cup, while dressed in his usual arthouse auteur uniform of a slate-grey blazer over a black T-shirt. He i...

Politics

8 h. ago Nobody's Child dress 'perfect' for both cold and sunny days reduced by £57 to £35

The flowy black dress can be worn with boots in cold weather or sandals on sunnier days

Economics

8 h. ago Needle drop! The world’s first sewing machine orchestra takes Munich

This weekend, a symphony of Singers (not that kind) will lead an experimental performance that stitches together feminism and fashion – and offers the audience free repairsStepping into the studio of the Brazilian-born artist and performer Lisa Simpson – no relation to the cartoon character – feels like entering a crossover between the Mad Hatter’s workshop and a postindustrial steampunk landscape with a colourful girl-power twist. The ground floor space in Berlin’s southern district of Neukölln is filled with shelves laden with old sewing machines and coat racks brimming with hats, bags and fabric scraps. Even more sewing machines propped on two tables might suggest that this is a tailor’s workshop, were it not for the tangle of cables and synthesisers connected to them. Toy sewing machines in candy colours have a purple phone receiver attached; colourful cables with knitted covers sneak out of household sewing machines and seam overlockers; pins and needles are connected to microp...

Politics

8 h. ago London Fashion Week Street Style Will Refresh Your Approach to Transitional Dressing

London Fashion Week Street Style Will Refresh Your Approach to Transitional Dressing  Refinery29

Culture

9 h. ago Shouts of 'absolute joke' as planning committee makes controversial decision

Plans to turn a four-bed detached house into a residential children's home were the subject of more than 100 objections

Politics

9 h. ago A Thousand Blows true story: Inside the real infamous Forty Elephants all

A Thousand Blows brings to life real-life characters that walked the dirty East End streets more than 100 years ago.

Politics

10 h. ago Bizarre CCTV shows man climbing through Sainsbury’s ceiling to steal crisps

This CCTV shows a crisp thief climbing through the ceiling of a Sainsbury’s Local in Radford.

Events

10 h. ago Vegan children are 'desperately trying' to have playdates with meat

One mum from an area 'where it's become fashionable to be vegan' said it is 'insane' watching vegan children come to their house who then 'never stop eating' the forbidden foods.

Politics

10 h. ago ‘It allowed us to survive, to not go mad’: the CIA book smuggling operation that helped bring down communism

From George Orwell to Hannah Arendt and John le Carré, thousands of blacklisted books flooded into Poland during the cold war, as publishers and printers risked their lives for literatureThe volume’s glossy dust jacket shows a 1970s computer room, where high priests of the information age, dressed in kipper ties and flares, tap instructions into the terminals of some ancient mainframe. The only words on the front read “Master Operating Station”, “Subsidiary Operating Station” and “Free Standing Display”. Is any publication less appetising than an out-of-date technical manual?Turn inside, however, and the book reveals a secret. It isn’t a computer manual at all, but a Polish language edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s famous anti-totalitarian novel, which was banned for decades by communist censors in the eastern bloc. Continue reading...

Events

10 h. ago Kilmarnock woman, 94, 'meets' relatives from 100 years ago at former family home

Margaret Campbell was left delighted by the encounter.

Society

10 h. ago Over 100 horses to be disqualified from horse racing as shocking cover

The US’s racing integrity body found that three horses died and 30 per cent never raced again as a result of an alleged conspiracy between a vet and 13 trainers to evade the rules

Events