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“Mare’s tails and mackerel scales make lofty ships to carry low sails,” runs an old English saying about summer skies.Mackerel skies are cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds in regular but patchy rows, resembling the light and dark-scale pattern on a mackerel. The cirrocumulus version is white and wispy, altocumulus is grey and thicker. One easy rule is that cirrocumulus is narrower than a finger at arm’s length, altocumulus more like three fingers.Altocumulus clouds. Photograph: Dave Porter/AlamyMare’s tails are correctly known as Cirrus uncinus or “curly hook”. These are high-altitude clouds formed of ice crystals, with a dense, comma-shaped head trailing a…

Wayne Rooney is a man of his word.Turn the clock back to the last 16 of the World Cup, when the former England striker pledged to row down the River Mersey if Norway beat Brazil.Norway did exactly that, beating the five-time champions 2-1, so BBC Sport pundit Rooney confirmed live on air that he would take on the challenge in the US.He and fellow pundits Joe Hart and Micah Richards swapped their microphones for oars and took to the Hudson River in New York.”I loved it,” Rooney said. “The fans were brilliant. So we’ve done it out of respect for…

Director S.S. Rajamouli‘s Varanasi is getting a first look at Priyanka Chopra in her new role. Two new stills from the upcoming film have been released, featuring Chopra as Mandakini. The new images were dropped as a celebration of Chopra’s birthday on Saturday, July 18. Varanasi takes place over thousands of years and in locations around the world, from Antarctica to Africa to the titular city in India. The action-adventure film stars Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra and Prithviraj Sukumaran and is the follow-up to Rajamouli’s last feature, RRR, which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the acclaimed…

England and France will meet in the FIFA World Cup third-place play-off on Saturday, with pride, the Golden Boot race and the end of Didier Deschamps’ 14-year reign as France coach adding significance to a fixture neither side expected to contest. The match at the Miami Stadium will be the first meeting between the two countries since France’s 2-1 victory in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals in Qatar. Both teams suffered semi-final heartbreak. France were beaten 2-0 by Spain despite entering the tournament as one of the favourites, while England surrendered a second-half lead to lose 2-1 to defending champions…

A London Underground worker who was unfairly sacked after whistleblowing about his concerns over exposure to asbestos and other toxic dust has said he wants all tube passengers to know about the potential hazards his case has revealed.Micky Steeds, a former professional boxer from Aveley in Essex, started working for London Underground in 2018 cleaning up decades of dust from vents, lift shafts and inverts – confined channels underneath station platforms for cabling.It was a filthy job that left him and his colleagues looking like chimney sweeps. He said the dust was sometimes so thick he could not see his…

By Juliet Umeh For years, Africa was seen mainly as a market for technology products developed elsewhere, with few believing globally successful technology companies could emerge from the continent. That perception is changing, and one of those leading that transformation is Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, who co-founded Andela and Flutterwave, two technology companies that have each achieved valuations of over $1 billion. Speaking in a recent interview on School of the Hard Knocks, Aboyeji shared the principles that shaped his entrepreneurial journey, offering lessons for young Nigerians seeking to build successful businesses. Inspired by a dream Aboyeji said his entrepreneurial journey began after watching The…

Creators who are part of TikTok’s test and want to use the tool will first have to verify their identity with a company called Jumio. You’ll have to do a real-time selfie scan and an ID check, but Kizer says that “TikTok does not retain ID documents, and facial information is used only for likeness matching and to help identify potential unauthorized uses of a creator’s likeness.”After verification, TikTok’s system scans for AI-generated content potentially using a creator’s likeness. From there, a creator can review what TikTok found and potentially report unauthorized posts and accounts.

“Us vs them”Kolkata football has, over the past century, come to revolve — much like in Madrid, Merseyside and Manchester —  around intense local derbies. In this case, the rivalry between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal draws crowds of more than 50,000 and dominates football conversation in the city.“There is a great passion for football in other parts of India too – Goa in the west, Kerala in the south and Sikkim and Manipur in the northeast,” said Kolkata-based football analyst Debanjan Banerjee.“But the longstanding rivalry between two great clubs in Kolkata has created not just a binary structure for…

Current trends suggest a chance of more changeable weather during the second half of summer.However, the signals from computer weather models are rather mixed meaning there is a lot of uncertainty.The latest sub-seasonal forecast from DTN – the BBC’s weather data supplier – suggests that areas of low pressure will feature more prominently over the next couple of weeks, especially for Scotland and Northern Ireland.This would mean an increase in wet weather.However the Azores high, a semi-permanent large area of high pressure over the North Atlantic which can block weather fronts from reaching the UK, is likely to be close…

Caitlin Clark’s slump is officially over. The Indiana Fever star reminded everyone what she’s capable of with a historic performance on Friday night to lead her team to a thrilling 110-107 win over the Seattle Storm. Clark finished with a career-high 45 points and 10 assists to set the Fever’s franchise scoring record and become the first player in WNBA history with a 40-point, 10-assist game. “I just thought I was aggressive from the start,” Clark said. “Missed a shot, came back and made the next. I knew my team needed me to step up with [Aliyah Boston] out. Just proud of…