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August: do you buy for the holiday you’ll be melting through this month, or the one you’ll be pretending to enjoy in a jumper come October? Answers on a postcard, please! The key to staying (relatively) sane in silly season is to embrace the contradictions.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.Read on for the holiday-coded necklace I’ve fallen in love with and the elegant leather handbag I’m dreaming of when I hang up my straw basket. Plus, a lace camisole and a cosy jumper – and the absolute…

Former officials will appeal sentences handed down for neglecting intelligence warnings before the deadly attacks.By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and APPublished On 1 Aug 20261 Aug 2026A Sri Lankan court has sentenced a former police chief and a former Defence Ministry official to death after finding them guilty of criminal negligence for the Easter Sunday bombings that killed 260 people in 2019.Former Police Chief Pujith Jayasundara and former Defence Ministry Secretary Hemasiri Fernando were convicted and sentenced in a 2-1 decision on Friday by the three-member High Court bench.Recommended Stories list of 2 itemsend of listThe judgements at the special…

At least 11 people have been wounded in a Colombian car bombing, days before right-wing President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella is set to take office.The detonation occurred in the city of Cucuta, which borders Venezuela, on Saturday, six days before de la Espriella is set to replace outgoing President Gustavo Petro, the country’s first left-wing leader.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“At this time, we have eight police officers and three civilians who have been injured,” George Quintero, the security secretary for the department of Norte de Santander, told reporters.No groups immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Several rebel…

The possibility of consumers delegating financial tasks to agentic AI poses a new risk for lenders

Screen-time apps aren’t effective for many people because, in the end, they depend on your willpower. They remind you to stop scrolling or let you set timers, but such notifications can be easy to ignore.  Autonomous Key takes a different approach to this issue simply by being a physical device. It’s an NFC key that pairs with a companion app to let you lock away distracting apps. So instead of tapping a button to bypass the block, you have to physically scan the key with your phone to regain access to your locked apps. Each unlock session can last for…

James Udemba On Tuesday, 21 July, Remi Tinubu visited Abia State and Governor Alex Otti rose to welcome the First Lady, Senator Remi Tinubu, with a tribute to her husband that no card-carrying APC chieftain could have bettered. He asked the gathering to thank the President for his sacrifices. According to Governor Otti, it took a man of courage to remove the petrol subsidy in 2023 and to float the naira. He went further to explain and enumerate what those decisions had done. They had freed up money hitherto burned on subsidising petrol consumption. And the result, in his own…

NASA’s Curiosity rover has encountered an extraordinary landscape while climbing through a Martian valley nicknamed “Valle Grande.” Images sent back by the rover show the ground covered with honeycomb-like patterns known as polygonal fractures, each measuring about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. Curiosity has seen small clusters of similar geometric shapes before, but never anything approaching the scale of the field now visible in Valle Grande. A Sea of Polygons Across Mars The full extent of the formations appears in a 360-degree panorama captured on June 19 and 20, during the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days,…

Anna Morris and Jess Roberts secured a one-two for Wales in the women’s 25km points race. Morris followed up her individual pursuit success with another gold, that after she had won team pursuit bronze alongside Roberts.The qualified doctor bossed the race from start to finish, picking up points in each of the first three sprints before lapping the field to claim 20 points with around 60 laps left.Roberts followed in lapping the pack and climbed the points table. In the second half of the race, the lead switched back and forth between the Welsh pair several times before Morris took…

Richard L. O’Connor, an Emmy-winning producer who served as an executive in charge of production on films including On Golden Pond, The Muppet Movie and Across 110th Street, has died. He was 96. O’Connor died July 22 in Palm Desert, his family announced. He received his Emmy for outstanding children’s program in 1990 for producing the NBC telefilm A Mother’s Courage: The Mary Thomas Story, starring Alfre Woodard. O’Connor also was an executive in charge of production on Hickey & Boggs (1972), Stanley Donen’s Movie, Movie (1978), Borderline (1980), Raise the Titanic (1980), Hard Country (1981) and Barbarosa (1982), among…

Jane Ripley* spent some time researching the best apartment to stay in for her family’s trip to Batumi in Georgia, eventually settling on one with an “exceptional” rating on Booking.com.But when the Ripleys arrived at 11pm on the first day, they were directed to another property that was shabby and had stains on the furniture and ceiling.“The host was unfriendly … We had genuine concerns about raising complaints directly. We were forced to find and pay for alternative accommodation for the remaining four nights at a further cost of £334,” she says.Ripley made a series of complaints, starting the day…