82 m. ago Paris cafes caught pouring cheap wine after customers pay for posh plonk

Wine fraud is ripe in the French capital, with tourists being cheated out of high-end vin

Economics

3 h. ago What's next in the Commanders' process of building a new stadium in Washington

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledged that a new, state-of-the-art Commanders stadium in Washington would drastically increase the chances of the U.S. capital hosting the Super Bowl for the first time

Politics

3 h. ago ‘I felt caught between cultures’: Mongolian musician Enji on her beguiling, border

She started singing in her family’s yurt before a Goethe-Institut residency led her to jazz and life in Munich. The distance from home is ‘bittersweet’ – but both styles, she says, are about trusting your instinctGrowing up in the icy Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, singing was as natural as speech for Enkhjargal Erkhembayar. “Every day after my parents came home from working in the local power factory, they would gather with a group of friends in our yurt to unwind and someone would always begin to sing,” she says. “Soon, we would all join in, singing old folk songs to keep warm and to express ourselves long into the night.”As Enji, 33-year-old Erkhembayar is now taking this music into international concert halls, having forged a beguiling hybrid of Mongolian folk music with acoustic jazz improvisation. She anchors her performances in the circular-breathing vocal style of Mongolian long song – a folk tradition where syllables are elongated through freeform vocalisations – her del...

Events

3 h. ago Chaos is Trump’s calling card. But reality is biting back | Lloyd Green

In his first 100 days, the president has taken a sledgehammer to institutions and the constitution. We can only guess what’s nextIn nearly 100 days on the job, Donald Trump has outlasted Liz Truss and a fabled head of lettuce. That’s a fact, not an achievement. Like the hapless British prime minister, the 47th president blazes a trail of wreckage. Chaos is his calling card. If, when and how the carnage ends is anyone’s guess.The US simultaneously wages economic war on its allies and China. Tariffs soar. It’s as if Trump forgot the words “Smoot-Hawley” and “Great Depression”. The president risks higher inflation and a recession for an idealized yesteryear that never quite was. Back on Earth, markets signal potential capital flight and stagflation.Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading...

Politics

3 h. ago It’s time for the US to guarantee healthcare to all | Bernie Sanders

We spend almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other country on Earth. It’s time to change thatI have held public meetings all over Vermont and in many parts of the country. At these gatherings I almost always ask a very simple question: is our healthcare system broken? And the answer I always receive is: Yes! The American healthcare system is broken. It is outrageously expensive. It is horrifically cruel.Today, we spend almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other country on Earth. According to the most recent data, the United States spends $14,570 per person on healthcare compared with just $5,640 in Japan, $6,023 in the United Kingdom, $6,931 in Australia, $7,013 in Canada and $7,136 in France. And yet, despite our huge expenditures, we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.Bernie Sanders is a US senator and a ranking member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represent...

Politics

3 h. ago Moment power is finally restored in Madrid after outage as cheers erupt across Spain’s capital

Energy had almost fully returned after one of Europe’s most severe blackouts

Politics

3 h. ago Richard Branson says opening of first Virgin hotel in London ‘really special’

The entrepreneur’s Virgin Group began life in the capital more than 50 years ago.

Politics

4 h. ago The stadium myth: new grounds won’t rescue your club – or your city

From the Premier League to MLS and the NFL, huge stadiums with gargantuan costs are a symptom of elite sport’s unrealistic promises“Nil satis nisi optimum,” boasts the motto of Everton FC: “Nothing but the best is good enough.” Performances on the pitch over the past few seasons have suggested otherwise (what’s Latin for “Anything to stay up will do?”) but in the form of the sparkling new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, which will replace Goodison Park as Everton’s permanent home from the start of next season, the club now has tangible proof that its historic aspiration to excellence is at last being met.Based on the renderings and early footage of its interior, Everton Stadium (it will be a while before that bland placeholder is draped in the capitalist rococo of the “TeslaDome” or “Open AI’s ChatGPT Arena” or “Palantir Presents Bramley-Moore Dock”) appears to be a pleasingly raked and compact arena that should retain at least some of the raucousness of Everton’s old home. The stand...

Events

7 h. ago Parallel Lines by Edward St Aubyn review – troubled minds and family mysteries

The Patrick Melrose author brings his trademark dark wit and flinty compassion to this wide-ranging sequelEdward St Aubyn’s previous novel, 2021’s Double Blind, was something of a challenge even for his devotees. Leaving aside the usual gripe that he is never quite as compelling without the shield of his authorial alter ego Patrick Melrose, the obsessive nature of the book’s inquiry into bioethics, narcosis, psychotherapy, oncology, venture capitalism and inheritance made too heady a cocktail to be more than sipped, a few pages at a time. I struggled with it until the very last scene, a charity bash where a schizophrenic young man takes his first terrified steps in employment as a waiter and happens upon a woman who, unknown to both, is intimately related to him. Their chance encounter was intensely moving and tautly suspenseful – you felt an immediate longing to know what would befall them.That longing is now answered in Parallel Lines, which picks up the narrative five years later...

Events

8 h. ago Where to sweat it out in Tampere, Finland — the sauna capital of the world

London might be in the grips of a social sauna boom, but if you want to visit their birthplace, Arielle Domb has your guide to the best in Tampere

Politics

8 h. ago Bohemian Tbilisi is not to be missed – here are the six best things to do in the Georgian capital

Sean Moulton takes the new midnight plane to Georgia and discovers a city packed with architectural wonders and cultural treasures

Politics

8 h. ago Electricity restored to 90% of Spain and most of Portugal after massive power outage

The outage, blamed by operators on temperature variations, left tens of millions without electricityLights flickered back to life across most of Spain and Portugal on Tuesday after a massive blackout hit the Iberian peninsula, stranding passengers in trains and elevators while millions lost phone and internet coverage.Electricity had been restored to nearly 90% of mainland Spain by early on Tuesday, the grid operator REE said. Power was restored overnight to around 6.2m households in Portugal out of 6.5m, according to the national electricity grid operator. Lights also came on again in Madrid and in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon. Continue reading...

Politics

12 h. ago Trump signs orders stepping up immigration crackdown and ‘unleashing America’s law enforcement’ – US politics live

Executive orders target sanctuary cities, give legal help for police accused of misconduct and require truck drivers to speak EnglishHere is an extract from The Atlantic’s piece on Trump’s first 100 days – in an interview secured after initially being canceled by the president over previous reporting from the journalists, who then reached the president on his cellphone – detailing some of the key development’s of his second term so far.The president seemed exhilarated by everything he had managed to do in the first two months of his second term: He had begun a purge of diversity efforts from the federal government; granted clemency to nearly 1,600 supporters who had participated in the invasion of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, including those caught beating police officers on camera; and signed 98 executive orders and counting (26 of them on his first day in office). He had fired independent regulators; gutted entire agencies; laid off great swaths of the federal workforce; and...

Politics

13 h. ago Sadiq Khan backs London bid for 2040 Olympic Games as mayor pledges to make city 'the sporting capital of the world'

Sadiq Khan wants London to host the 2040 Olympic Games as part of his quest to make the city 'the sporting capital of the world'. London 2012 proved to be a monumental success.

Sport

14 h. ago Activist pastor who has criticized Trump arrested while praying inside Capitol

William Barber, leader of ‘Moral Monday’ progressive movement, was arrested Monday by Capitol Police officers along with two others

Politics

15 h. ago Tragic last minute decision that may have cost Idaho murder victims their lives

In a new court order in the capital murder case against Bryan Kohberger, the judge unveiled the most detailed timeline to date about the final hours of the four victims and their surviving roommates.

Events

18 h. ago Spain power outage LIVE: State of emergency declared amid major power outage across Iberian peninsula

Outage hits cities across Spain and Portugal, including capitals Madrid and Lisbon, knocking out metro networks, phone lines, traffic lights and ATM machines

Politics

19 h. ago In Madrid, electricity outages can’t hold a candle to people power

The lights may be out, but life goes on for families and businesses across the Spanish capitalFour long hours after the power went out across Spain, bringing trains to a halt in Madrid’s metro stations and sending people scurrying for light and taxis, the denizens of the Spanish capital were swinging between pragmatism and polite, almost jocular, panic.Behind the counter of his neighbourhood bazaar in a quiet corner of the city, a shop owner reeled off a list of the afternoon’s most popular purchases: radios, batteries, torches and candles. As he finished, yet another optimistic customer entered the shop. Continue reading...

Politics

21 h. ago Electricity blackout fears cause panic buying in Madrid as residents flock to supermarkets

Electricity blackout fears have caused people to panic buy in the Spanish capital of Madrid as residents flocked to supermarkets.

Economics

22 h. ago Spain power outage LIVE: 'Rare atmospheric phenomenon' causes major power outage across Iberian peninsula

Outage hits cities across Spain and Portugal, including capitals Madrid and Lisbon, knocking out metro networks, phone lines, traffic lights and ATM machines

Politics