Author: damazah@gmail.com

Andy Burnham has promised to set out plans for “stronger public control” of essential services as he addressed the House of Commons for the first time since taking power. The prime minister said “a series of wrong turns” since the 1980s had seen economic power in the UK privatised and pointed to the water industry as “a leaking monument to that approach – a country run in the private rather than public interest”. He reiterated his belief that political power had been centralised and announced he would be making devolution powers available to more areas in England. Conservative leader Kemi…

For the sixth time in history, a team of two women completed a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.Nasa astronaut Jessica Meir and French astronaut Sophie Adenot suited up for a 6.5-hour spacewalk. Meir rode the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to the worksites, while Adenot remained tethered to the station.Meir previously made history in 2019 when she and Nasa astronaut Christina Koch completed the first ever all-female spacewalk.This event marked the 284th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, maintenance and upgrades, and the seventh spacewalk of the year.

After 23 years, Arte Moreno is selling the Los Angeles Angels.Stan Kroenke — whose company, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, owns the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche — agreed Tuesday to acquire a controlling interest in the team from Moreno.Under Moreno, MLB’s first Latino majority owner, the Angels made the postseason six times, but haven’t played meaningful October baseball since 2014 — despite the presence of Mike Trout, one of the greatest players of his generation. The team also let two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani walk after the 2023 season, when he signed with…

As the powerhouse publisher behind blockbuster books by Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, Cher, Debbie Harry, and Geddy Lee, Carrie Thornton is used to wooing rock stars in order to acquire their memoirs. But in the case of Tears for Fears’ Roland Orzabal and his current New York Times bestseller, Welcome to My Life, the senior vice president of Dey Street Books (an imprint of HarperCollins) needed their partnership to be written in the stars. Literally. “He did my astrological chart when we met,” says Thornton, a lifelong Tears for Fears fan. “I think he wanted to make sure that, if…

Few things make me happier than a bowl of warm musabaha served with freshly baked bread straight from the pan. It’s a combination that shouts comfort, generosity and the simple pleasure of sharing food. Across the Levant, musabaha is a much-loved breakfast or brunch dish, though I’d happily eat it at any time of day. Served with the buttery, soft turmeric and nigella-seed flatbreads, it becomes a meal that is nourishing, intensely satisfying and perfect for gathering family and friends around the table.Musabaha (warm chickpeas with spicy cherry tomato and coriander salad)Sami Tamimi’s musabaha, or warm chickpeas with spicy cherry…

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic US Senate candidate in Michigan, has hit back at Republican vice-president JD Vance’s onslaught against him, saying it is “evil” to deprive people of healthcare and affordable groceries.Vance, in a Monday speech that railed against undocumented immigrants, cast El-Sayed as representative of “terrible evil” and as someone who fights for “one group at the expense of others”.El-Sayed, who would become the first Muslim US senator if he wins in November, accused Vance of a “dog whistle” at the Islamophobic attacks he has faced throughout his campaign.While Vance did not directly invoke El-Sayed’s religion during his speech…

American forces resumed strikes against Iran on Tuesday, US Central Command has said in a statement.It accused the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of “recent attempted attacks” against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and “American service members deployed to the region”.Shortly afterwards Donald Trump warned that Iran would be hit again at “a much harder and higher level” if it retaliated.The IRGC said the US would regret the strikes and Iranian news agencies reported that retaliatory missile and drone attacks on “US bases and interests in the region” had begun.The attack follows the first known US strikes on…

John Ternus has officially taken the reins as Apple CEO, succeeding Tim Cook, who held the role for fifteen years. The company’s former senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, Ternus enters the CEO role at a critical time for Apple. On September 9, the company will host its annual iPhone event, which is rumored to include the launch of Apple’s first foldable iPhone. Apple is also expected to roll out its new-and-improved Siri AI more broadly, which marks an important opportunity for the company to position Siri as an equal to chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude. “We have…

By Rotimi Ojomoyela, Ado-Ekiti The All Progressive Congress (APC), African Democratic Congress (ADC) and ten other political parties have fielded 174 candidates for the 26 seats in the Ekiti State House of Assembly in the 2027 general election. This was contained in a document signed and made available to journalists by the Ekiti State Legal Officer I of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Sina Ogundana. The document showed that the All Progressives Congress (APC), African Democratic Congress (ADC), New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) each fielded candidates in all the 26…

New fellowships hope to entice Indian researchers living abroad to return to home.Credit: SilviaJansen/GettyIndia is the latest country that is trying to entice researchers who have moved abroad to come back and help to reverse the country’s brain drain. Scientists mostly support these initiatives, which offer generous fellowships and research funding. But some say the programmes are unlikely to make much of a difference, because they don’t address the reasons that many researchers leave the country in the first place, such as a lack of research infrastructure and income security. In June, the government launched the Prime Minister Research Chair…