That’s right. It is a thought – sobering or uplifting, depending on your point of view – that by the time you sit down to eat your turkey this Christmas the leaders of the English-speaking world could be Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

First, the common sense reasons why this could never happen:

Donald Trump is clearly a clown who even if he wins the Republican nomination – and the bookmakers give him a 50 per cent chance at this – will be crushed by Hillary Clinton, a candidate with a pretty much unparalleled resume for the job of President of the United States.

Trump is having fun, but still only wins at best 30 per cent of the GOP vote, or put another way, about one third of the 26 per cent of Americans who self-identify as Republicans. He’s like Marine Le Pen in France, the commander of a significant vocal minority, nothing more.

Nationally, Trump has among the highest negative poll-ratings of all the potential presidential nominees – from either party – and will have to win a contest where the electoral and demographical matrix inherently favours Democrats.

In short, there just aren’t enough angry, white folk in America to see those signature golden "T-R-U-M-P" letters hoisted above the south portico of the White House.

Similarly, with Boris. His route to Number 10, at least in the short term, comes only via a Brexit vote that dethrones David Cameron and George Osborne, clearing the stage for a bobble-hatted Boris to claim the office he has always craved.

But that too still looks unlikely, when you stop to think about it.

Discount the vocal fringes that skew online polls and focus on the telephone polls (which were much more reliable in the 2015 general election) and you will see a persistent, solid margin in favour of the "remain" camp.

Boris may be popular, but the balance of the ledger still tips firmly in favour of the status quo – the PM, the Chancellor, the Home and Business secretaries, as well as elder statesmen like John Major and William Hague all say “stay” - not to mention a reported 80 per cent of the CEOs of the FTSE 100.

In short, Boris will have his fun, but as the Scottish referendum demonstrated, after all the hullaballoo the innate conservatism of the British public means they will never take that “leap in the dark”.

But now the reasons why they very well might.

A US general election – like a referendum - is essentially a two-horse, one-question race – and the history of modern US elections shows that after two terms of a president with approval ratings in the mid-40s, the “other guy” (from whichever party) usually wins by default.

Hillary Clinton, despite her CV, is a weak candidate. Prickly on the stump, deeply mistrusted, a 1990s throwback (look at Bill tottering off the stage these days) and a woman – you have to ask, is Trump’s America really ready for a female commander-in-chief?

Additionally, in a low-turnout election – as this Ipsos study shows – Trump has an even better shot if the young, Hispanic and African-American voters (who tend to vote in lower numbers) don’t get to the polls.

This is not the only similarity with the Brexit campaign, where a low turnout would also help the older, whiter (Eurosceptic) vote to disproportionately propel Britain out the exit door.

Both the Brexit the Trump campaign are selling a kind of nostalgia that, even if it doesn’t stand up to serious scrutiny in the view of the establishment and professional classes, simply makes a lot of voters feel warm and fuzzy inside.

As the satirical Saturday Night Live observed, Trump is offering a “golden goose to Hillary’s cold chicken”, and the people want goose.

Trump wants to “Make America Great Again”, just as Boris and the "out" camp want to put the “Great” back into Great Britain by freeing us from Brussels’s python-like embrace that is said to be suffocating our indigenous ingenuity and Elizabethan buccaneering spirit.

Trump wants to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it; he wants to shut out Muslims and start a trade war with China, all of which of is mad, but it has a basic appeal.

The Brexit debate is more nuanced, but the Brexiteer’s dream of unshackling the UK Europe, the "In" camp will argue, is equally emotional and incoherent.

Boris writes that we will soon have inked in a new free trade-deal with Europe – perhaps – but skates over the reality that that deal will tie us back into Europe in many ways, not all of them advantageous.

The UK will still be obeying EU regulations, will very likely still be contributing to EU funds, and if French irritation was any guide at last week’s Brussels summit, there is a serious risk the UK be on the wrong end of Franco-German lawmaking, and be largely powerless to stop it.

But no matter, for now, that most of the stump promises and the mathematics don’t add up, that didn’t stop Alexis Tsipras and his motorbike riding, far-Left friends getting elected in Greece – although that didn’t work out so well.

But after a two decades of flat wages and globalisation that is perceived to have enriched elites and flattened the wages of Europe and America’s middle classes (it’s a deal more complicated than that) it seems the angry publics of Britain and America can no longer bear too much reality.

President-elect Trump and Prime Minister Johnson, a brave new world awaits you.

Summary: The public is angry and may yet decide to reject the status quo


The New York State Common Retirement Fund, one of the largest U.S. Pension funds and worth about $180 billion, plans to invest as much as 3% of its assets in Africa in the next five years to diversify its portfolio and boost returns. The figure would be more than $5 billion based on the fund’s current valuation.

African private-equity firms, venture capital, real estate and new infrastructure projects such as power plants are likely...

Summary: New York State Common Retirement Fund plans to invest up to 3% of its assets in Africa in the next five years, or roughly $5 billion.


Swansea City boss Francesco Guidolin says he is uncertain about captain Ashley Williams' future at the club.

The 31-year-old defender, who has made over 300 appearances since joining the Swans from Stockport County in 2008, has been linked with a move to Everton.

"For me the transfer market is too long," Guidolin said after his side's 4-0 pre-season friendly win over Wolves at Molineux.

"Ashley is very important to us and I don't know what the situation is."

Williams has been on holiday since leading Wales to the semi-final of Euro 2016 and returns to training on Wednesday, 3 August.

He has two years left on his Swansea contract.

Neil Taylor, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Lukasz Fabianski have also had extended breaks after playing in the European Championship finals.

"It's important for us, for our international players to have a long period of holiday. Three weeks is not very long but I will be happy to see them on Wednesday," said Guidolin.

The club have been linked with moves for Leicester City striker Leonardo Ulloa as well as Sevilla's Fernando Llorente.

Portuguese striker Eder has moved to Lille, Italian Alberto Paloschi has joined Atalanta and Frenchman Bafetimbi Gomis has signed for Marseille on loan.

The Swans begin their top-flight campaign against Burnley at Turf Moor on Saturday, 13 August.

"I can say we are almost ready for the beginning of the season. I feel good, I feel optimistic I am ready to begin," Guidolin added.

Swansea beat Wolves in their third game in a week, having claimed victory against Bristol Rovers 5-1 and Swindon Town 3-0,

"[Beating Wolves] was a different game, a different attitude on the pitch for my players. This week was not easy for us, there were many travels, many kilometres in the coach."

Summary: Swansea manager Francesco Guidolin uncertain about future of club and Wales captain Ashley Williams who has been linked with Everton.


Is the Labour party in imminent danger of splitting? In a Guardian interview, the leadership challenger, Owen Smith, says it may if Jeremy Corbyn remains in charge.

On Radio 4’s Today programme, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, dismissed the warning as misguided. “There is no way I am ever, ever going to allow this party to split.”

Who’s right? Throughout the Corbyn ascendancy I have ruled out split talk as both shortsighted and improbable. Labour split badly after the economic crisis of 1931 and again when Roy Jenkins’s “Gang of Four” broke away from Bennite Labour to create the SDP exactly 50 years later. It didn’t do either faction much good, as a repentant Polly Toynbee admitted here.

Quite right too. “Both a crime and a mistake,” as I called the split at the time. Weightier Labour figures on the Labour right like the ex-communist Denis Healey, Roy Hattersley and many others stayed on and fought their corner. Under leftist Neil Kinnock’s brave leadership, the electable coalition within the party’s ranks wrested back control, enabling Tony Blair to win three successive elections for progressive politics.

I realise that the above is a hotly disputed narrative, not least among those leftwing idealists (that label will be disputed too) who were expelled or marginalised on the march back to power. Amazingly some of them, not all Trots and headbangers, are still around and back on board. I bumped into one expellee, an old pal, in the pub last week. Within minutes he was explaining how well things are going for Jeremy. This time it’s different, he thinks. He always does, as hopeless as ever.

So I’m with McDonnell on the strategic point. Labour shouldn’t split and Smith, a newcomer to politics at the highest level, is making a mistake in suggesting it. So are his well-meaning allies in the parliamentary Labour party (PLP) whose handling of the post-Brexit crisis has been poor. “Fight, fight and fight again to save the party we love,” was Hugh Gaitskell’s response when the unilateral nuclear disarmers won a conference vote in 1960. Gaitskell was right, his acolyte, Roy Jenkins, wrong in 1981. Even though the unilateralists are now in control of the party in 2016, it’s still wrong.

Why? Because splits are a bit like divorces, usually worth avoiding if possible because of the damage they do to most, if not all, concerned. Even in its current Brexit trauma the Tory party has not split – it last disastrously did so, on the same “free trade” issue, corn law reform, as long ago as 1846. Instead it has disposed of its leader and moved on with characteristic efficiency.

Those in doubt need only look at Ukip, back in split territory again after the frontrunner Steven Woolfe MEP, the articulate but high-risk barrister/business candidate from the back streets of Manchester’s Moss Side, was barred (on a deadline technicality) from standing in the contest to replace the autocratic Nigel Farage, at least temporarily, given Farage’s Frank Sinatra tendancy to make comebacks.

I wrote about the habit of small parties run by charismatic autocrats like Farage last year and don’t repent a word of it. Big parties are like solidly built houses in an avalanche or tornado, I wrote: they still stand when shoddier constructions tumble.

So McDonnell is right to warn against splits. He’s right too to say – as he did on Radio 4 today – that he and Jeremy are “not in favour of deselecting MPs … we are going to hold this party together.” He may even mean it, but it won’t prevent a lot of trouble from old score-settling lefties, assorted hotheads and wet-behind-ears kids at constituency level who see boundary changes as a chance to purge their local members. We saw this in the 1980s and so did John.

If Jeremy wants to stop it he will have to show much more leadership than he has so far, which – apart from unavoidable and unhappy sessions of PM’s question time in the Commons – largely seems to consist of talking to admiring audiences who agree with his Latin American approach to the politics of street protest rather than power. As Corbyn’s baleful contribution to the Brexit debate (or was it cynical, as some claim?) shows, he doesn’t do outreach.

Yes, I realise that’s a tendentious interpretation too, but some people are easily misled by enthusiastic crowds. I watched one such crowd greet Corbyn in Nottingham last August and realised he was going to win, but I also noted its unrepresentative character (middle-class, public sector professionals in a university city) and wondered where Corbynism might end up.

Don’t take my word for it. In recent weeks Richard Murphy, scourge of the tax cheats and a star of Corbyn’s Nottingham rally, has given up on Project Corbyn’s lack of drive, coherence and vision. Disappointed that his call for a “People’s Quantantive Easing (QE)” has been pushed aside? Perhaps, though McDonnell and Corbyn’s latest call for £250bn worth of borrowing – to leverage another £250bn for infrastructure projects from the private sector – sounded Murphy’s kind of talk.

In any case, it’s not just Murphy, is it? Before Thursday’s 10-point Corbyn plan (and first head-to-head with Owen Smith in Cardiff) Prof Prem Sikka, another good man in the arcane ways of tax fraud and avoidance, has written a much more upbeat version for the Guardian. But Sikka is an accountancy specialist and lacks the authority of Danny Blanchflower, who made a devastating contribution to the debate the other day.

Hard to dismiss such a distinguished adviser, who preceded John McD on Radio 4 and said he doesn’t have a clue what Labour’s economic policy is. “Danny, pick up the telephone and let’s have a chat about it,” replied the shadow chancellor, but it sounds as if the economist has been no more in the loop than Angela Eagle.

All this may reflect poor organisation and lack of staff or resources. It probably does. But it also points to an introspective cast of mind which is more concerned with capturing/controlling the party – the movement, as romantic aficionados put it – than with persuading a truculent British electorate that Labour is making constructive proposals, ones it has more than a cat’s chance of delivering in office.

And that’s the point really, isn’t it (cries of “No”)? Thursday’s YouGov poll suggests support for either wing of the Labour party would sink even further – see here – if it split again, as happened in the 80s when the Bennites, with Jeremy Corbyn’s support, were trying to do to Foot and Kinnock what they deplore today in Owen Smith.

As Blanchflower points out, most polls are awful: 95 out of the past 100 show Labour behind despite Tory disarray and Brexit strategy collapse. Without the support of his MPs and credible policies, “the bond and equity market would eat him for lunch”, as the prof puts it. Contrary to Len McCluskey’s dark musing, MI5 doesn’t need to plot. The party is marginalising itself.

Still not troubled? Owen Jones, no faintheart, is troubled here. Julian Baggini explained the perils of simple-minded populism – it’s not just about us in Britain – here. And this Marxist analysis – it’s long but thoughtful – condemns what it calls “the terrifying hubris of Corbynism”. They’re all weightier than Richard Burgon or Diane Abbott on a good day.

Is Owen Smith the answer? For the first time in 40 years of watching Labour leadership struggles I have to admit I don’t really know him. He’s made some good points and said some silly things clumsily. I’m not convinced, but I haven’t been by the wannabe leaders on offer since Ed Mil knifed his brother with Len McCluskey’s help in 2010. I share Blanchflower’s doubts that Labour loses when it’s not leftwing enough.

In standing when it wasn’t his turn Smith has at least showed leadership instinct. Leaders don’t have to seek permission to step forward (in Jeremy’s case, pushed forward with an “it’s your turn” from McD). They hear the call and do it. Whoever wins has to compromise with the loser – as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are awkwardly coming to terms – and, more important, compromise with a sceptical electorate which doesn’t do rallies or marches.

If Theresa May proves to be any good and the economy staggers along with less austerity under Phil Hammond, the 2020 election may already be lost.

But politics is a long game and adaptable young politicians learn to adapt and fight again. When Corbyn says he’s determined to stay because he has the backing of the movement, he may even mean it. So the bulk of the Labour movement, which doesn’t want to wait until 2025 to win power, must make it clear to Jez and the purists that they must adapt or go. That means a healthy vote for Owen Smith. The ball is in the members’ court, but members need to remember they are only playing in the qualifying rounds. The cup final, the battle for real power, is decided by voters.

Summary: The Labour leadership challenger is being misguided – a divorce would only damage all sides


The president’s authority over nuclear decision-making challenges the Constitution’s clear declaration that only Congress holds the power to declare war. In practice, the arrival of the nuclear age dismantled the traditional rules by rewriting the timelines of war. It would take 12 minutes or less for weapons fired from submarines to reach Washington, and 30 minutes for warheads from most intercontinental missiles. Bombs dropped by aircraft, if they could pierce the country’s air defenses, would take only hours.

As a result, Congress began delegating the powers of nuclear war-fighting to the president, starting with Harry S. Truman — the only president who has ever ordered a nuclear strike against another nation.

In real life, the lines of authority have blurred — markedly so during the Nixon administration, when there were at least two instances in which top officials tried to slow, or undermine, the president’s nuclear authority.

The first came in October 1969, when the president ordered Melvin R. Laird, his secretary of defense, to put American nuclear forces on high alert to scare Moscow into thinking the United States might use nuclear arms against the North Vietnamese.

Scott D. Sagan, a nuclear expert at Stanford University and the author of “The Limits of Safety,” a study of nuclear accidents, said Mr. Laird tried to ignore the order by giving excuses about exercises and readiness, hoping that the president who sometimes embraced the “madman theory” — let the world think that you are willing to use a weapon — would forget about his order.

But Nixon persisted. Dr. Sagan reports that during the operation, code-named Giant Lance, one of the B-52 bombers carrying thermonuclear arms came dangerously close to having an accident.

Then, in 1974, in the last days of the Watergate scandal, Mr. Nixon was drinking heavily and his aides saw what they feared was a growing emotional instability. His new secretary of defense, James R. Schlesinger, himself a hawkish Cold Warrior, instructed the military to divert any emergency orders — especially one involving nuclear weapons — to him or the secretary of state, Henry A. Kissinger.

It was a completely extralegal order, perhaps mutinous. But no one questioned it.

“Although Schlesinger’s order raised questions about who was actually in command,” Eric Schlosser writes in “Command and Control,” a 2013 book, “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Experts agree that the real nightmare of nuclear command centers not on launching attacks, but responding to them. In a recent memoir, William J. Perry, secretary of defense to President Bill Clinton, called it “the immense peril we face when in mere minutes our leaders must make decisions affecting the whole planet.”

In 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, was awakened by news of an impending nuclear attack that was lighting up the screens at the military’s early-warning command centers.

He asked the military officer who called him for more information and confirmation. The next call said that the attack involved not just submarines but thousands of warheads fired from land-based missiles.

As Mr. Brzezinski prepared to phone the president, the officer called again to say it was all a mistake — a computer had generated a false alarm.

The episode poses the ultimate question for a new administration, a set of judgments that the president, the secretary of defense and the national military command often rehearse in secret, especially at the beginning of a presidency. Because all warning systems are subject to error, the president has to decide, often in minutes, whether to “launch on warning,” to “launch on attack” or — perhaps the hardest decision of all — to absorb a first nuclear attack rather than risk launching on false information.

In the case of Mr. Trump, some members of the Clinton campaign have raised a different fear: that the man who regards himself as America’s best negotiator may try to use the threat of employing nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip.

This week, Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” said that Mr. Trump had asked an unnamed adviser what the utility of nuclear weapons was if no one was willing to use them. The Trump campaign denies that.

Some who have discussed nuclear strategy with Mr. Trump — often in the context of the Iran deal signed last summer — said that he had never expressed a desire to use such weapons, but lacked knowledge of the history of deterrence, and that the negotiator in him seemed interested in the question of whether the United States should ever threaten to use its arsenal.

That threat alone, of course, could have tremendous consequences. It could give another country a motive to invest in a nuclear arsenal. Or if — like North Korea or Pakistan — it already possesses nuclear weapons, the threat could prompt the country to use them pre-emptively.

As long ago as 1984, when he was a 38-year-old developer, Mr. Trump told the Washington Post reporter Lois Romano that he would like to be the negotiator on nuclear weapons with the Soviets.

“Some people have an ability to negotiate,” he told her. “It’s an art you’re basically born with. You either have it or you don’t.” He assured her he could learn about missiles quickly. “It would take an hour and a half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles. … I think I know most of it anyway,” he said.

Decades of arms reductions, and President Obama’s oft-stated goal of making nuclear weapons less central to American defenses, have put only a modest dent in Washington’s ability to initiate the unthinkable.

Some scholars (and Wikipedia entries) insist that a system of checks and balances puts the secretary of defense in the decision loop. But Bruce G. Blair, a research scholar at Princeton University who as an Air Force officer would have launched a nuclear missile if an order had come from the president, said that rule applied in the silos but not at the top of the command chain.

“There’s nothing the secretary of defense can do,” Dr. Blair, who wrote a book on nuclear command and control, said in an interview. “He has no authority to refuse or disobey that order.”

Mr. Sagan, the Stanford expert, agreed, but noted that there were other ways for the secretary of defense to slow things down. “I think we’d be in uncharted waters if a president ordered the use of nuclear weapons and the secretary of defense refused to concur,” he said. “This has never happened.” No one, he added, could predict what would ensue if the nation’s top defense official tried to declare that the president was unfit to issue such an order.

“In some scenarios,” Mr. Sagan added, “such as an unprovoked nuclear attack by a president in peacetime, a constitutional crisis would be more likely than a prompt following of rules regarding succession and command authority.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 5, 2016, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Issue in Race: Can President Be Kept From Hitting Button?. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: There are no checks on a president’s power to wage nuclear war, though history suggests that there may be ways to slow down or derail the process.


Rumblings of further delays were bogus. After a launch bump last fall, Nintendo’s epic dogfighter Star Fox Zero for Wii U is finally coming out Apr. 22.

Nintendo previewed the finished version for me a few weeks ago. It definitely looks like a Star Fox game, the signature “Arwing” fighters built of stylish jutting triangles are there as are towering robot enemies lumbering along on tetrahedral legs. Critics of the art style of this new iteration miss the point: This is Nintendo reveling in fast-moving geometric clarity, not a referendum on what the Wii U can or can’t do graphically. There’s even a special “Super Nintendo” retro mode in Star Fox Zero you can unlock with an amiibo figurine. Place the Fox amiibo (Fox is the series’ lead protagonist) on the Wii U Gamepad while playing and it’s suddenly 1993 again, the days of FX chips and sprites, lovingly low-res memories rekindled.

But Star Fox Zero is also angling to be a smorgasbord of new gameplay ideas. You have the traditional fighter levels, of course, where players pilot their Arwing through obstacle courses and sometimes breakout into freer combat arenas. But the Arwing is now a transformer that can change into something reminiscent of a robot chicken, dropping to the ground and sprinting on two legs to explore areas in levels out of a fighter’s reach.

The tank-like Landmaster returns for ground-oriented combat, but it’s now able to transform into the aerial Gravmaster, a slower but brawnier alternative to the Arwing. There’s a helicopter called the Gyrowing that lets you drop a small tethered robot down to explore hidden nooks and solve puzzles. And the Arwing can now be operated in cooperative mode: one player flies while another fires—call it “Millennium Falcon mode.”

Here’s a lightly edited transcript of what Star Fox Zero producer Shigeru Miyamoto told me about the story, two-screen control scheme, and how the Star Fox team worked to make the game appealing to all players without offending enthusiasts:

“Because the game is split between two screens, we feel the gameplay this time is going to feel very fresh,” says Miyamoto in response to a question about the game’s name. “And thus we thought it would be a good opportunity to go back to the roots of Star Fox. The game itself is not a Star Fox ‘4’ or ‘5’, and it’s not a new spinoff. It really is going back to the roots, and that’s where the ‘Zero’ comes from.”

“For the Star Fox story, what’s really important are the relationships between General Pepper and Andross and Fox and his father. I didn’t want to try to tell a new story, so by keeping those relationships at the core, then going back to the Star Fox 64 story framework, we’ve added quite a bit of story to that and introduced the idea of these teleporters. The teleporters have an important role both from a story as well as a gameplay standpoint, and that’s allowed us to strengthen the original story that existed in Star Fox 64.”

“And so the characters that appear will have the same names, but of course the boss battles are all new, and also the way that you attack each of the routes and approach the levels is very different. It will feel like you’re playing that original style of Star Fox 64 gameplay, but in an all-new version.”

“We designed the game in a way that you play through the map the first time and you get to the end and you defeat Venom,” says Miyamoto, referring to the final enemy planet. “At that point, the teleporters become very important from a gameplay perspective. You’ll have perfected your own skill and then you’ll use those teleporters to find new routes through the map. Even if you’re not paying particular attention to the story, finding those different routes and playing through the map will help you understand the character relationships and the role that the teleporters play.”

“In the original Star Fox 64, from a story perspective, there wasn’t a lot of depth beyond the character relationships. But this time we wanted to try to tell more of the story of the Star Fox universe, and in particular the relationships between Fox’s dad and Andross [the chief antagonist] and General Pepper [your boss]. That’s a focus of this game. And in particular the relationship between Pepper and Andross, and the questions “Why did Pepper kick Andross out?” and “Why can’t Andross accept the reasons he was kicked off the team?” That’s where the teleporters come into play from a story standpoint.”

“‘Project Giant Robot’ [control giant robots using the Wii U GamePad’s motion controls] was something we started as a second project, and unfortunately we haven’t yet decided to turn that into a full game,” says Miyamoto. “But ‘Project Guard’ [a tower defense style game involving security cameras and nefarious encroaching robots] was something that even at E3 2014 was loosely set in the Star Fox universe. “Project Guard” we’ve been working on simultaneously, and we’ve actually completed the game, and it’s now titled Star Fox Guard.”

“Our plan is to release it simultaneously with Star Fox Zero as a companion product. So when you purchase Star Fox Zero at launch, it will come with two discs, one with Star Fox Zero and the other with Star Fox Guard. And people who just want to purchase Star Fox Guard will be able to buy that on the e-shop for Wii U as well.”

In June 2014, Miyamoto said of the game that were he to describe earlier installments as “sort of a movie series,” the new Star Fox would be “something that’s more like a TV series.” But when I asked him during this interview how that’s translated to Star Fox Zero, he told me this:

“At the time of E3 2014, that was the direction,” says Miyamoto. “Afterward, going back to work on the game in Kyoto, we got a lot of feedback from Star Fox fans and fans on the staff. And what we decided to do at that point was take the game more in the direction of Star Fox 64. So it will feel more like a longer form movie, and we did that because we wanted to try to complete the game in a way that will satisfy those longtime fans.”

“But I still have a desire to create Star Fox in a form that’s maybe better suited to the current age, where people have different competing demands for their time, where you’d be able to play maybe in shorter bursts in a more compact form. So I’ll continue to look at those ideas and see what we can do with them in the future.”

“I look at the essence of Star Fox as being an action game, and I feel like we don’t see much of this type of action game in the marketplace anymore. To me what really defines an action game is that you learn a new skill, you perfect that new skill, and then you really use that skill to find the best possible path through the game.”

“So in this case you’ll play the game and get all the way to Venom and defeat Venom, then based on the skills and the techniques you’ve learned along the way, you’ll use those to find different pathways to get to Venom. And along those pathways you’ll find that the skills you’ve learned will be challenged more by the new missions you’ll unlock. That to me is the essence of what makes an action game great, and I think we’ve done a really good job of perfecting that with Star Fox Zero.”

“We recognize that there are probably going to be younger kids who are playing a Star Fox game for the first time with Star Fox Zero, and maybe this will be their first action game,” says Miyamoto. “So we feel we’ve designed the game in a way that it will be welcoming to those new users and help introduce them to this style of action genre.”

“At the same time, we also feel the game is going to be a lot of fun for people to play in the living room with other people in the household. In particular with the cooperative mode, and also with the very simple shooting style of gameplay that’s in Star Fox Guard, we think it’ll be a great way to introduce people who maybe aren’t as good at this action style of gameplay to the fun of the Star Fox universe.”

Star Fox Zero was delayed from last year, according to a note written by Miyamoto, “to polish the game a bit more so that players will be able to more smoothly grasp the new style of play that we are proposing.” Creators like Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) have on the other hand been openly critical of Nintendo for filling games with transparent, protracted tutorials. I asked Miyamoto what he thought of the criticism.

“I think that’s a very good question,” says Miyamoto. “One thing that I think is a misunderstanding, is that I’m not very supportive of simply making a game easy so that people who don’t play games can play the game themselves. Obviously part of the fun of taking on a challenge is that the challenge has to be a hurdle that you overcome. Simply lowering the hurdle doesn’t necessarily mean that the challenge will be fun. What’s fun is you mastering the skill and having that sense of accomplishment—of achieving something that’s difficult.”

“So I think that action games like this have to have a certain level of difficulty to achieve that satisfaction. And particularly with Star Fox Zero, if you try to complete this game, I think you’re going to find it to be quite challenging. But it’s because of that, that we have things like Star Fox Guard and the cooperative mode in this game. What those do, is allow people who maybe can’t deal with that level of challenge or difficulty to easily be a part of the gameplay and enjoy this universe.”

“And then beyond those modes, we have additional ones for people who like the game but find it too hard to get past certain levels. So for instance there’ll be a way for them to get an invincible Arwing, so that they can fly through and see the levels. But at the same time, we’re also preparing modes for Star Fox fans looking for an even harder challenge, such as a ship that does more damage, but which also takes more damage.”

“We realized that for players who were seeing it for the first time, we needed to come up with additional ways to make it easier for them to understand,” says Miyamoto of the unusual ways Star Fox Zero makes use of both your TV and the Wii U GamePad’s 6-inch screen when you’re operating the game’s vehicles. “So that was an area where we put in a lot of effort. For instance, since you have many different vehicles, and because the gameplay differs where each of those vehicles appear, people may have different control expectations. So we worked very hard to try to find the right balance on each of the vehicles. Those are some of the things that have changed.”

“Additionally we looked at how we were sharing information with the player in the form of things like icons on the screen. And we also worked on the response of each of the vehicles, because certainly you have expert players and they need the right kind of response. But then you have newer players, and if the controls are too responsive, it becomes difficult for them to play. So we spent a lot of time identifying the right balance in control responsiveness for each of the vehicles.”

“Another thing that’s really important in the game is something that we’re calling target mode. You’ll see target mode in the All Range battle stages. Typically in All Range, you’re able to fly with the camera behind the ship and you can fly wherever you want. And with target mode, the camera will pull out and lock onto a viewpoint that’s the main objective within the All Range mode. And then what you’re able to do is fly the ship in this style where you’ve got these really cool visuals up on the big screen TV, and you’re flying in target mode focused in on your objective, but you’re doing all of your aiming and shooting through the cockpit mode on the gamepad.”

“You’ll also use the target mode in the dogfights against Star Wolf’s team, where you’re able to put the camera on a particular enemy in the dogfight, then use a combination of the camera following that enemy as you’re flying at each other, or the camera focused on that enemy as it’s following behind you. And you’re able to use things like u-turns and somersaults to create some really cool visuals on the TV while doing all of the fighting through the gamepad screen. I think this is going to make for some really fun battle scenes in the game.”

“The other thing we’ve done, is if you press the minus button, you can flip the view from the TV to gamepad and vice versa. So after you’ve played through the game and mastered the techniques, you can play in that cockpit view locked to the big screen TV. And that gives you an even deeper sense of realism.”

“I do think that we’ve come up with a control scheme that I think works very well for the Star Fox series, and I think we’ve perfected it,” he says, responding to a question about the two-screen approach appearing in future Star Fox games. “I do think that we can take this control style and still find ways to apply it to, for example, a single screen experience by switching back and forth between different view styles. But I hope what will happen is that people will play with this new control scheme and we’ll be able to introduce new players to the Star Fox universe and get them interested in playing more of this dogfighting style of combat and action games in the future. That’s my real hope.”

Summary: It's neither a sequel nor prequel, but a reimagining of Star Fox 64


The Jabulani. Adidas and Fifa conspired to betray the world’s best players with a ball unfit for the beach let alone the World Cup.

Siphiwe Tshabalala - South Africa v Mexico

Soccer City almost levitated above Soweto when Tshabalala latched on to Teko Modise’s through-ball to open the World Cup scoring with a left-foot screamer.

England v Algeria. Honourable mentions go to Honduras v Switzerland in a sub-zero Bloemfontein and the final, but neither out-stank the depressing reality-check in Cape Town.

Desmond Tutu’s dance at the opening ceremony. The inspirational Archbishop shreds cynicism for a living, and never more effectively when channelling Shakira.

What I won't miss about South Africa

A proud country’s willingness to bow to all of Fifa's demands, no matter how petty. The subornment of the criminal courts to Zurich’s marketing department, best demonstrated by the reaction to the Dutch ambush marketing scam, was a disgrace.

South African. Many of those at the stadiums had never been to a football match before, and those that had could only briefly support Bafana Bafana, but enthusiasm for the teams that remained did not wane.

Assamoah Gyan’s penalty, which would have taken Ghana into the semi-final, crashing back of the Uruguayan crossbar in the final minute of extra time to the dismay of everyone except Luis Suarez and his countrymen.

Thomas Muller, Germany. The midfielder who was playing in Germany’s third tier two years ago was the embodiment of his country’s enterprising young side. His display against England mocked every pretension of Premier League superiority.

Even Fabio Capello has to bow to Raymond Domenech here. The calamitous French campaign made England’s second-round exit look like a triumph and gives the Italian something to aspire to as he looks to the future.

Summary: Who flourished and who floundered? Paul Kelso gives his verdict on the highs   and lows of World Cup 2010.


Sacha White is a rock star in the elite, $100 million handmade-bicycle industry.

Last year, five of his bikes appeared in an exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Mr. White has a long list of customers who wait five years to spend from $5,000 to $12,000 for his creations. Lance Armstrong's people have contacted him about getting a Vanilla bicycle (as Mr. White's brand is called), but "I don't know if he wants to wait," Mr. White said.

The appeal of Vanilla bikes lies in both fashion and function: They are known for their smooth ride and speed and for a unique look that blends retro features and unusual paint colors with hand-carved lugs and silver bonding. Mr. White, 34, won't say what he earns, but the company sells about 50 custom bikes a year plus almost 100 of its newer Speedvagen line, which is built in-house by other frame makers, all of which would generate about $600,000. "I am not living large, but I am living well," he said.

When new clients tell him to "be creative" and "do what you think is best" in designing their bikes—which they almost inevitably do—Mr. White bristles. He's learned, the hard way, to get an early buy-in for every detail. That's one reason why his process always starts with an extensive in-person interview in his company's seven-person headquarters, a former sheet metal fabrication plant off a busy road in the Southeast section of Portland. (He recently had clients fly in from China and Japan.)

Visitors are greeted by a discreet sign and a locked steel door. Gaining entry requires knocking on a window through bars and hoping that someone hears. The workshop is an open space with exposed 30-foot ceilings and workbenches with neatly splayed tools. Big pieces of machinery stand by shelves of tubes and vices for holding the bikes. Frames hang on the walls.

Clients are led up a narrow, rail-less wooden stairway to a loft where Mr. White has his office. Sitting on a wooden platform just off the floor, Mr. White moves through a series of questions: How often do you ride? What type of bike do you want? What kind of brakes, stem, cable routing? Each query prompts an in-depth discussion of all the options. Clients change into biking clothes and warm up on the stationary fitting bike for half an hour. Mr. White watches them ride, making adjustments and writing down measurements.

When the client has signed off on the bullet-list, Mr. White begins. He uses software on his Mac laptop to fill in the shape of the bicycle around the fit and component details. He describes his style of design as circling around something until he pinpoints it. Sometimes the bike is a clear-cut road bike, but most of the time it borrows from a spectrum, with elements of road bikes, commuter bikes and off-road bikes. The next challenge is duplicating the design in metal.

While most bikes represent small evolutions, the ones that require bigger changes are his most compelling projects. "Innovation and challenge are big motivators for me," he said. "Sometimes I can't sleep until I get a thought down on paper, otherwise I'll just keep spinning it and spinning it."

He said that his sources of inspiration include old tractors, World War II-era motorcycles, Italian wooden speedboats and a blooming dogwood tree. He also cited "things that pluck the heart strings and connect with the primal side of people—kind of like how Vespa scooters from the '50s to '70s played on the female form."

Mr. White grew up in Colorado. While working as a bike messenger in Portland in 1998, his frame cracked, and he went to a frame builder named Timothy Paterek for repairs. Inspired by what he saw, Mr. White saved for a year to earn the $1,200 fee for a seven-day frame building class in Mr. Paterek's garage. Though he initially built bikes as a hobby, Mr. White wanted a professional look, stenciling on a logo for Vanilla. It wasn't until a friend won a cyclo-cross race on a Vanilla bike that Mr. White felt confident in what he was doing. When friends of friends started requesting bikes, he turned his hobby into a profession.

Even in the beginning he invested a lot of time in the branding and appearance of his bikes and website. He has even branded himself—each wrist has a "V" tattoo in Vanilla's signature color, a shade of sky blue.

Wearing Levis 505s and a T-shirt, Mr. White has an almost retro all-American look, crossed with a touch of hipster sensibility, similar to the aesthetic of his bicycles. He frequently offers people cups of tea. He describes himself as "not a social butterfly" and still prefers to build bikes for friends.

"If I develop a fondness for a person then naturally I want to put more of my heart into it," he said. "My motivation comes from feeling that fondness."

Having an obsessive personality helps in his design process, said bicycle designer and frame builder Sacha White. When he was in high school, he took a ceramics class and worked on one project the whole semester. "I am always trying to achieve some kind of perfection," he said.

He hired two people to take care of the business side of the shop. "The big thing I have learned is to free myself up to do what's important to me and what I enjoy."

Part of what motivates him is thinking about how much more fun a client will have on a bike that's the proper fit. Sometimes during the fit process he'll find the client has been riding in the wrong position—maybe too far over the handlebars. Other times he'll get someone who is overweight but who wants to ride more, so he leaves room in the design for the client to get in better shape.

Write to Nancy Keates at nancy.keates@wsj.com

Summary: Last year, five of Mr. White's bikes appeared in an exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.


More Americans are fueling up at supermarkets and warehouse clubs instead of traditional service stations because of the competitive prices and loyalty-based discounts, according to a new survey.

The report, conducted by Market Force Information, concludes that it's simply a matter of convenience, price—and cleanliness.

"None of us look forward to going to a gas station, so if you're there anyway and you can fill up, you feel like you're getting two things out of the way," noted Janet Eden-Harris, Market Force CMO. "And they're typically clean."

Read MoreOil slips below $113, supply risks ease

Market Force asked more than 5,300 motorists across the U.S. and Canada how satisfied they were the last time they pulled up to the pump and how likely they were to return. The results were averaged to create a Composite Loyalty Score.

Supermarket giant Kroger had the highest score of 79 (out of 100). Costco and QuikTrip (a chain of convenience stores located mostly in the Midwest and South) tied at 78. Sam's Club ranked third with a 76.

The major gasoline companies scored significantly lower. Shell, the top-rated brand, scored a 59. Esso (Canada) scored a 58. Exxon Mobil rated a 56. BP and Chevron tied with a 55. Sunoco had a 54.

The survey found that 7-Eleven had the lowest satisfaction score of 47.

It's hard to beat location

Despite the high marks, supermarkets and wholesale clubs have an uphill battle when it comes to closing the deal. Many drivers said they end up going to a traditional gas station simply because it's closer to home.

When asked what they like about their favorite gas station, 61 percent of those polled said location while price was cited by 59 percent.

"Convenience is often an overarching consideration for consumers on the go, and it's difficult to beat the pervasiveness of the regional and national chains that dot every town across America." Eden-Harris said.

Read MoreHow a shale byproduct could open up US oil exports

Summary: More Americans are fueling up at supermarkets and warehouse clubs instead of traditional service stations, according to a new survey.


Former skeleton racer believes they should not take part in wake of damning evidence of systematic doping

RUSSIA should be banned from the Rio Games, insists British IOC member Adam Pengilly.

The executive board of the International Olympic Committee meets tomorrow to decide whether to kick the entire Russian team out of the Rio Games which kick off on August 5 following damning evidence.

It follows a report by the World Anti Doping Agency which found evidence of Cold War-style state-sponsored doping in THIRTY Olympic and Paralympic sports – not just athletics.

Athletics chiefs have already booted the sporting superpower’s track and field team from the Games with appeals by 68 athletes rejected last week, which has now put pressure on the IOC for a blanket ban on Russia.

And Pengilly, a two-time Winter Olympian in the skeleteon and one of four British IOC members, said: “The scale, co-ordination and leadership of a doping system like this is arguably the most heinous crime possible against the Olympic movement.

“So, somewhat reluctantly, I am led to one conclusion: exclusion from Rio. I say reluctantly because there are very probably clean Russian athletes, and they will suffer, and this is nothing short of terrible.

“But the Russian doping system has meant there are many more athletes around the world that have suffered in the past and will continue to suffer in the future if we don’t do everything we can to get rid of the scourge of doping.”

Pengilly, 38, also insisted: “The Russian flag should not be flown at the Rio Olympic Games.”

In 2013 Pengilly received praise for raising the issue of doping before the vote to decide a host of the 2020 Games, questioning both Spain and Turkey during their bid presentations in Buenos Aires.

British Olympic and Paralympic stars have also backed a letter to the IOC executive board urging it to ban Russia from Rio including swimmer Becky Addlington, 400m hurdler Sally Gunnell, long jumper Lynn Davies and 11-time Paralympic gold medallist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Summary: RUSSIA should be banned from the Rio Games, insists British IOC member Adam Pengilly. The executive board of the International Olympic Committee meets tomorrow to decide whether to kick the entire …


Despite enduring a kidnapping, a car chase and giving a police statement, this 5-year-old Melbourne girl just wanted to go to school.

The little girl underwent a terrifying ordeal on Thursday when an 18-year-old man allegedly got into her father's BMW and drove off from the family home in Wyndham Vale - with her inside.

Police found the girl uninjured in the abandoned car following a police chase and took her back to Werribee police station, where she gave a statement before asking police if she could go to school, the Nine Network reported.

The alleged incident took place after the girl's father, Manik Sharma, reportedly left the car to dash into his home to pick up something.

Superintendent Craig Gillard said police pursued the BMW in a "low-speed chase" after the car was spotted in Norlane, near Geelong.

After crossing onto the wrong side of the road and stopping on a median strip, a man fled from the car.

Police found the little girl safe inside and reunited her with her distraught parents.

"It was terrible, I'm still in shock but I'm relieved I have my daughter back," Mr Sharma told reporters.

An 18-year-old man was arrested after police received reports of a man loitering in Norlane.

He was later charged with kidnapping, car theft, reckless conduct and numerous other offences to face the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on August 26.

A second man, believed to be an accomplice, is still on the run after leaving Wyndam Vale in a Toyota Supra.

Summary: A five-year-old boy who was inside a BMW that was stolen from a Melbourne home has been found safe and well after police spotted the car and gave chase.


Detectives have charged the former president of the Centro Chapter of the Bandidos bikie gang with affray, following a fight in Brisbane's CBD in June.

Taskforce Maxima detectives executed a warrant a Portside address in Hamilton on Thursday and have since charged him with affray.

Police allege the man and members of the Bandidos were involved in a brawl on Eagle Street on June 5, where a man was assaulted.

He will appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court on September 1.

At the time, a 29-year-old man, also a Bandidos member, was arrested and charged with affray.

He will appear at the Brisbane Magistrates Court on October 18.

Detective Superintendent Michael Niland from Taskforce Maxima said the charges were in alignment with a police goal to “disrupt [Bandidos] criminal activities from every angle”.

“Violent and thuggish behaviour by OMCG members will not be tolerated by the community. Further inquiries are continuing to identify a further four OMCG offenders believed to be involved in this alleged affray,” Det. Supt. Niland said.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: Detectives have charged the former president of the Centro Chapter of the Bandidos bikie gang with affray, following a fight in the Brisbane CBD in June.


Both sides of politics in Western Australia not only don't want a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, they're worried it will prove a distraction one month before the state election.

Health Minister John Day said he expected Premier Colin Barnett would raise the matter with the prime minister.

"We would prefer the federal parliament to actually make a decision about the issue itself ... rather than going through what may well be quite a divisive debate in the community," Mr Day told reporters on Sunday.

Opposition spokesman Roger Cook agreed the timing was bad, with the plebiscite expected in February and the WA election following in March.

"What Malcolm Turnbull should have done, of course, is do what all modern leaders are doing, which is stepping forward and making the right decisions to legislate to put marriage equality in place," Mr Cook said.

"We don't need to spend $160 million of taxpayers money on a plebiscite which is only going to bring division and discontent."

West Australians are particularly election-fatigued, having endured the Canning by-election last year and earlier-than-usual campaigning for the state poll.

Summary: Election-fatigued West Australians face the prospect of a marriage equality plebiscite a month before the state poll.


More than 100 arts school students and supporters have marched to NSW Parliament House in Sydney to protest against a proposed loss of funding and merger with a university.

The National Arts School community delivered a 13,000-signature petition on Wednesday calling for the school to remain independent and be given a long-term lease for its famous heritage-listed base in inner city Darlinghurst.

Staff and students are worried about the school's future after the state government proposed a merger with the University of NSW.

They want the federal government to take over the school's funding from NSW, with the aim to eventually become completely self-funded.

"NAS staff, students and Friends of the National Art School are deeply concerned that a proposed merger with UNSW will threaten the school's unique educational offering, which boasts a much higher than average number of face-to-face teaching hours, studio access and professional training and equipment," a NAS statement said.

The school, which has occupied the old Darlinghurst jail on Oxford St for close to 100 years, receives about $6 million annually from the state government.

However, it hopes to be completely self-funded by 2022, NAS Student Representative Council chairman Cameron Stead told AAP.

Meanwhile, about a dozen Sydney College of the Arts students have spent the past two days barricaded inside an administration building in an unrelated protest against Sydney University's proposed cuts to staff and classes at the school in the city's inner west.

Summary: Dozens of National Arts School students and supporters have delivered a petition of 13,000 signatures to NSW Parliament to protest against proposed changes.


09/02/2016 AT 03:35 PM EDT

does not take kindly to a snubbed text.

In a sneak peek at Sunday's

, the reality star comes in hot when brother

doesn't respond to a message she sent him to patch up their turbulent relationship.

Talking through her frustrations with

, she wonders why Rob tends to

In the clip, which was first shared by

, Khloé is on board with how her brother is happy in his relationship with fiancé and mom-to-be

, but she can't help but wonder for her own family: "Why can't he, like, involve any of us?"

"How can you ever progress?" she continues. "Robert as a man needs to get out of his own s--- and man up and say, 'Hey, let's try to bring the family together.' It doesn't mean we're going to be best friends, but by him not talking, you think that's going to fix this situation?"

Disick, 33, chimes in, "I just want to tell him there's a bigger picture here. It's like, you can't go back in time ever so let's try to make everything good before [

As Jenner, 19, points out the longstanding grudges that occasionally flare up between the siblings, Disick also touches on how Khloé, 32, might be especially hurt because of how deep her relationship with Rob has been.

"It's your brother you've basically taken care of for years – he's like your son," he says.

But Khloé fires back, "I don't care if he's my brother or my son, this isn't a way you treat anyone that you say you love."

Khloé and Rob, 29, apparently reconciled in mid-July, cuddling in

And this week, Rob opened up exclusively to PEOPLE about overcoming his self-imposed seclusion during the past two years and making an effort to be more family-focused as he prepares to be a father himself.

Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna on the cover of PEOPLE

"I'm excited for this little journey now with my child and Chyna," Kardashian

. "I want to have a fun life."

And to make up for the many milestones he

, "Now I want to see everybody in my family every chance I get," he says. "You never know what is going to happen tomorrow, and I don't want to do that to my mom [

has its midseason finale this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, and

premieres Sept. 11 at 9 p.m. ET, both on E!

Summary: Frustrated by her brother Rob's tendence to ice out his family, Khloé Kardashian wonders, "Why can't he, like, involve any of us?"


In the fourth quarter of 2010, the iPhone had 4.2% market share and took 51% of the profit

On the same day that Canalys reported that Google’s GOOG Android had become the world’s leading smartphone platform in Q4 2010 — with 33.3% of market share to Nokia’s NOK 31% and Apple’s AAPL 16.2% — Asymco‘s Horace Dediu posted the chart at right that puts Android’s growth in perspective.

It shows the percentage of profit being taken by the eight largest vendors of all types of mobile phones — not just smartphones. In this far larger market, Apple had only 4.2% of the market, but raked in 51% of the profit. Despite Google’s gains over the past three months, Apple’s share of the spoils actually went up a percentage point from Q3 2010.

Click here to see Dediu’s full Q4 market overview, including charts for market share and sales share.

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

Summary: In the fourth quarter of 2010, the iPhone had 4.2% market share and took 51% of the profit On the same day that Canalys reported that Google's Android had become the world's leading smartphone platform in Q4 2010 -- with 33.3% of market share to Nokia's 31% and Apple's 16.2% -- Asymco's Horace Dediu posted…


The British-Tamil singer-producer M.I.A. has existed at a few pop-cultural crossroads since bursting into the pop world with the urgent, chanting “Galang” in 2004. A savvy anticipator of horizon-dwelling pop trends, she also has a keen ability to adapt current radio mores in her own image — one that’s savvy yet passionate, worldly yet hungry, and constantly looking out for answers.

So it makes sense that her fifth album, “AIM,” is explicitly about the experience of people living on the world’s borders. Musically, she presents a heightened-pulse version of the minor-key anomie currently dominating pop radio in the United States and around the world, one that plucks its influences from musics all around the globe. The haze of “Foreign Friends” is sliced by Jamaican singer Dexta Daps’s wrenching chorus, which only accentuates the outsider tales M.I.A. is matter-of-factly recounting. The mood can be a little bit tough to crack at first, particularly when contrasted with M.I.A.’s previous work, although it makes sense when you consider how relatively extroverted pop was even three years ago, when she released the brash “Matangi.”

M.I.A.’s lyrics reflect the confusion brought about by today’s always-on chaos. “Borders — what’s up with that? Politics — what’s up with that? Police shots — what’s up with that? Identities — what’s up with that?” M.I.A. reels off over the dizzying beat of opening track “Borders.” The cavernous “Freedun” features former One Direction member Zayn Malik on its mournful chorus, but M.I.A. whirls around her duet partner, declaring herself “a swagger-man . . . from the people’s republic of swagger-stan.”

M.I.A.’s personal-as-political ideology can be traced to hip-hop battles, where centering on oneself is seen as a radical act in the face of uncaring systems. On “Ola No Visa,” she calls back to her debut album while reframing the triumphant “ya, ya, heyyyy” of her breakthrough “Galang,” and her lyrics are peppered with braggadocio. Which isn’t to say that vulnerabilities don’t creep in; “When I see that dream, I gon make it mine,” she intones over the skeletal beat of “Jump In.” That the word “mine” is glitched out of the line upon its repetition only heightens the tension that M.I.A. is trying to portray on “AIM,” a world-weary yet ultimately optimistic statement about the power people may not even know they possess.

Summary: M.I.A.’s new album “AIM” adapts current radio mores to address our chaotic, always-on modern times.


The doll reportedly had its own plane ticket. (Twitter: @NovicSara)

A writer catching a red-eye flight in the US was unpleasantly surprised to find the seat next to her was occupied by a man’s doll – which even had its own ticket.

Sara Nović was traveling on a midnight flight from Brooklyn to Cincinnati last week and was at first glad to realise the seat next to her was empty, but then became baffled when a man with his “terrifying baby doll” arrived.

Ms Novic documented the strange experience live on Twitter, describing it as a “nightmare”.

“Good news: no person in the middle seat next to me. Bad news: terrifying baby doll that belongs to the man in the window seat next to me,” she tweeted.

“He bought it a ticket,” she added.

“The flight attendant is trying to explain to him why he shouldn't put the doll's name on the ticket next time he buys her one.”

“Happy waking nightmares, everyone," Ms Nović as the caption of this photo. (Twitter: @NovicSara)

“Apparently the TSA was frantically trying to match the name and birthdate he provided until they realised…IT’S NOT A REAL PERSON.”

Ms Nović tweeted a photo of the doll with the caption “Happy waking nightmares, everyone”.

She was even more shocked to find that after a two-hour layover, the man and his doll, reportedly named Barbara, were again seated across from her on the next leg of her journey.

“I had a 2 hr layover, got on next plane and AM ACROSS FROM HIM AGAIN,” she tweeted.

“On the bright side, Barbara was a very well-behaved baby,” she joked.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull doesn't want to get Scott Morrison offside, so after much consideration he's cheering for the Cronulla Sharks to win the NRL grand final.

"I've reflected on it and given the importance of managing the economy and budget repair, I've decided in solidarity with the treasurer I will be backing the Sharks," Mr Turnbull told reporters in Sydney on Friday.

The Sharks, who face Melbourne Storm on Sunday, are based in Mr Morrison's southern Sydney electorate of Cook.

Summary: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbul will support the Cronulla Sharks in the NRL grand final out of solidarity to Treasurer Scott Morrison.


The new Australian five dollar note can be used to spin vinyl records, music lovers have found.

Earlier this week, British music fans discovered the newly minted five-pound note could be used instead of a pin to play records.

Australia’s new five-dollar note was put to the same test by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), and successfully played a tune.

Video shows NFSA educator Cris Kennedy using the note to spin a jazz record.

The note has musical capabilities due to its modified, sharper edges, Mr Kennedy explained.

"What you’re hearing is the note vibrating as it reads the grooves in the record," he said.

"It’s actually genius," he said.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


An Adelaide man who plotted with his wife to set her ex-boyfriend on fire has a strong work ethic and won't sit around watching daytime soapies if shown leniency by the court, his lawyer says.

Ben Woodhardt and Kerry Ross, both 29, have been found guilty of luring the victim and another man into a car park under the guise of a drug deal in 2013.

There, hooded figures doused them in petrol and set them on fire. Both victims suffered serious burns.

Woodhardt's lawyer says while prison time is inevitable, the District Court should consider the scaffolder's work ethic and continued employment in sentencing him.

"He's not going to sit around watching Days of Our Lives," defence counsel Gilbert Aitken said in sentencing submissions on Tuesday.

"This man has had a strong and ongoing work ethic. He's worked since he left school."

Mr Aitken also said Woodhardt had applied to appeal the guilty finding.

Prosecutor Matthew Boisseau said the attack was "horrifying" in its severity and had the potential to be fatal.

"It was a plan that had a lack of control and a real danger of causing extremely serious injury," Mr Boisseau said.

Woodhardt and Ross were earlier found guilty of aggravated causing serious harm and aggravated causing harm, for orchestrating the incident.

The court heard Woodhardt had been jealous of Ross's ex-boyfriend and had sent a series of angry emails to him in the weeks before the attack.

The hooded attackers have not been identified.

Summary: An Adelaide couple who devised a plot to set the woman's ex-boyfriend on fire have faced court.


Don't fight change. Embrace it.

That's the message from Perth artist Johannes Pannekoek, who has taken out the top prize in the world's largest annual sculpture exhibition, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi.

Mr Pannekoek drove his one tonne corten steel creation, titled Change Ahead, across the Nullarbor before being named the Aqualand Sculpture Award winner on Thursday.

"It's about the non-linear nature of life ... Nothing happens in a straight line," he told AAP.

"Expect change ahead. Actually embrace change."

Mr Pannekoek's piece, alongside more than 100 others from 17 countries, will mark the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk until November 6.

The popular annual exhibition on the Bondi coastal walk is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Summary: Perth artist Johannes Pannekoek has taken out the top prize in the world's largest sculpture exhibition, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi.


The search for a small plane in distress over Sydney's northern beaches has been called off after it was discovered the plane was doing an engine failure drill.

A helicopter spent more than half an hour scouring the area between Pittwater and Narrabeen on Thursday morning after a number of triple-zero calls reported that a small plane was labouring, a Westpac Lifesaver Helicopter spokesman said.

Police also responded to the calls with officers from a local command, PolAir and water police assisting.

Police confirmed the search was called off after it was discovered the plane had been undertaking simulated engine failure training and had since safely landed at Bankstown airport.

Westpac LifeSaver Helicopter said while pilots weren't required to notify air traffic authorities ahead of simulations, it was a good idea to err on the safe side.

"The eyewitness reports would suggest this was reasonably low and close to the coast line ... it would make sense that you'd tell the appropriate authority," spokesman Stephen Leahy told AAP.

Summary: Several people have reported seeing a small plane in distress over Sydney's northern beaches, with emergency services heading to the area.


A reptile heater has set a snake enclosure ablaze at a house in Perth's south.

A Department and Fire Emergency Services spokeswoman told AAP the fire did not spread from the snake enclosure and was put out within half an hour of the emergency call in the early hours of Friday.

A young couple, believed to include a pregnant woman, live at the house and were seen on the street while the fire was extinguished.

Summary: A fire started in a snake enclosure after a reptile heater caught alight in a rear room of a house in Perth's south.


Surfers are being urged to wear camouflage wetsuits, use deterrents and ride boards with high-contrast markings to reduce the risk of shark attack.

The call follows the dropping of drum lines on the NSW mid north coast on Friday after a 65-year-old man was bitten at Seven Mile Beach by a great white while surfing.

It's the latest in a string of official measures to combat attacks, with a controversial shark net trial fast-tracked at Ballina last month.

However, Southern Cross University lecturer Dr Daniel Bucher says the animals and the state government shouldn't be the only ones paying the price.

He's encouraging surfers to purchase Shark Shield attachments that emit a localised electromagnetic field causing highly sensitive receptors in a shark's snout to spasm.

He said the device, combined with high-contrast stripes on surfboards, sends a strong message to a shark that there is "a potentially dangerous animal sitting on this board".

"The person who is choosing to undertake that activity ... is taking some personal responsibility to reduce the risk without asking taxpayers, governments or the animals themselves to pay the price," Dr Bucher told an Australian Science Media Centre briefing on Wednesday.

"High-contrast markings on certain animals are a signal that they are dangerous, poisonous, distasteful."

Lionfish, banded sea snakes and blue-ringed octopus all have distinct markings and are among the most deadly marine animals in the world.

Australian surfer Mick Fanning last year switched up his predominantly yellow boards after he was attacked by a great white while competing in the J-Bay Open in South Africa.

"'I've got heaps of yellow boards so I've just been adding some black stripes because I heard that works," he said in a YouTube video posted ahead of the 2015 Billabong Pro.

"For the rest of the year, I'm going to be going the blue and black and hopefully that sort of deters them."

Fanning won the J-Bay Open this year on a surfboard with a blue underside.

The idea has also been adapted to wetsuit design by Perth-based business Shark Mitigation Systems in collaboration with the University of Western Australia - home to Australia's other 'hot spot' of shark activity.

The company's camouflage blue and striped designs can be printed onto wetsuits and surfboards to hide surfers or make them appear unlike typical shark prey.

Summary: A marine studies expert is encouraging surfers to use boards with high-contrast markings in order to look dangerous to sharks and reduce the risk of an attack.


Long before the tiny-homes craze there was a fondness of log cabins.

Police in the Eternal City have created a high-security zone around the city’s most famous landmark following threats from the Islamic State.

The City of Brotherly Love has some of the nation's best food.

Independence Day is your chance to have fun exercising your freedom to decorate-- nothing is too tacky to salute America's Founding Fathers.

Summary: Browse stories from Katie Jackson on FoxNews.com


Repligen Corp., a Waltham company that supplies products to help biotechs make their drugs, said Thursday that it will pay nearly $40 million to buy TangenX Technology Corp., a Shrewsbury company that makes similar equipment.

The deal marks the fourth acquisition in the past five years for Repligen, which makes filtration systems and other technologies used to clear and purify biotech drugs.

“This fits in with what we’re doing in the world of bioprocessing,” Repligen chief executive Tony J. Hunt said. “We want to develop technology in-house and find technology externally that will contribute to our overall growth. We typically look for a company that has great technology but has underinvested in their commercial [sales] organization.”

TangenX Technology Corp., a business unit of Novasep Holding SAS of Lyon, France, has 18 employees who make filters used in bioprocessing. All the employees will join Repligen, including TangenX president John Connors, who will become a Repligen vice president.

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Repligen started in 1981 as a drug developer but, with the emergence of a biotech industry — which began to manufacture protein-based drugs in large stainless steel tanks — the company branched into supplying equipment. In 2012, it decided to focus exclusively on bioprocessing. Its customers include industry leaders Biogen Inc., Amgen Inc., and Sanofi Genzyme.

Both Repligen and TangenX are focused on supplying products for a new type of biologics production called single-use bioprocessing, in which batches of drugs are manufactured in disposable plastic linings within bioprocessors. The process improves efficiency because it eliminates the need to continually clear and test tanks.

The purchase of TangenX, which takes effect immediately, boosts Repligen’s workforce to 238, including about 150 in Massachusetts. The company also has operations in Germany and Sweden.

Repligen is on track to ring up about $100 million in revenue this year. Hunt said it hopes to more than double annual sales by 2020.

Summary: The deal marks the fourth acquisition in the past five years for the Waltham-based maker of filtration systems and other technologies used to clear and purify biotech drugs.


Supporters of the US president-elect, Donald Trump, were outnumbered three to one by anti-Trump protesters and six to one by police at rallies in Melbourne.

About 40 people turned up at Victoria’s Parliament House in support of Trump, far short of the 1,000 people expected by far right groups the United Patriots Front (UPF) and True Blue Crew.

The gathering arrived about an hour after a group of about 150 anti-Trump protesters, loosely grouped under anti-racism, and anti-fascism banners, had congregated at parliament and then marched on, leaving police with riot shields to form a barrier between the two groups.

Police arrested a 41-year-old man from Eaglehawk after an alleged altercation with news photographer Julian Smith, who was left bleeding from the exchange.

Photographer Julian Smith left bloodied after an altercation with a protester @abcnewsMelb pic.twitter.com/cOJn2KaPc1

ABC reporter Guy Stayner said the man had been near the pro-Trump supporters but he did not know if he was a member of the UPF or associated organisations.

A police spokesman said the man had been released pending further investigation.

Made it round police line to Trump rally, maybe 30 odd here. pic.twitter.com/r6Lgc80rxL

UPF leader, Blair Cottrell, had eggs thrown at him before addressing the small gathering, telling supporters that Trump’s election was a “victory for the west,” AAP reported.

It is a new spin on an old theme for protests in Victoria, which have become characterised by duelling marches between the far-right groups and a collection of centrist or left-leaning anti-racism organisations.

Left wing rally has moved up Lonsdale St but police line has it covered. Still no Trump fan club. pic.twitter.com/5uvmcbiSC3

Earlier on Sunday the Victoria police force said it was aware of the rallies and would be out in force to ensure both sides conducted themselves peacefully.

“We respect the right of the community to express their views peacefully and lawfully, but we will not tolerate people breaking the law,” a police spokeswoman told Guardian Australia.

Cottrell declared Trump’s election a “victory of democracy” in a video posted to Facebook on November 9.

“This is a victory that’s going to send shockwaves across the entire world,” he said. “It’s going to change everything. It sets a new precedent. Political correctness, the left, it’s done.

“All the progress that the Marxist left made in America, the United States of America, over the last 50 years … it’s all done, it’s going to be undone in the next four years.”

Protests between the two groups have turned violent before.

In May seven people were arrested in brawls between far-right groups, including the UPF and Reclaim Australia, and anti-racism protesters in Coburg, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Eight people were arrested during violent clashes at rallies in Melbourne and Sydney in November 2015.

Summary: Far right United Patriots Front and True Blue Crew demonstration at Parliament House draws just 40 people rather than the predicted 1,000


Zara and Mike Tindall. (AAP)

Queen Elizabeth II's eldest granddaughter has lost her baby, a spokeswoman for Zara and Mike Tindall confirmed.

The couple had announced on November 30 that they were expecting their second child.

The baby would have been 18th in line to the British throne and the 90-year-old monarch's sixth great-grandchild.

"Very sadly, Zara and Mike Tindall have lost their baby. At this difficult time, we ask that everyone respects their privacy," the spokeswoman said.

The news comes as Britain's royal family gather at the sovereign's private Sandringham country estate in Norfolk, eastern England, for their traditional Christmas get-together.

The spokeswoman would not give any details about the circumstances surrounding the loss of the baby but it is understood Zara Tindall is not in any medical danger.

Zara is the daughter of Princess Anne. (AAP)

Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

Zara is an equestrian who won the 2006 eventing world championships and a silver medal for Britain at the London 2012 Olympics.

Though she is 16th in line to the throne, the 35-year-old daughter of Princess Anne has no title and does not carry out royal duties.

Mike Tindall, 38, is a former England rugby captain who was in the 2003 World Cup-winning squad. The couple married in Edinburgh in 2011.

Their first child, daughter Mia, was born in January 2014.

When news of their second baby was announced, their spokeswoman said the couple were "thrilled", while Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth, and the royal family were "delighted".

Saturday's news comes the day before the royals were due to appear in public together on their traditional walk to church in Sandringham for the Christmas Day service.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: Queen Elizabeth II's eldest granddaughter has lost her baby, a spokeswoman for Zara and Mike Tindall said Saturday.


Nintendo's first Mario smartphone title has set a download record but gamers balked at the one-time cost of unlocking content, prompting investors to push the Japanese game makers' stock to a one-month low.

Super Mario Run hit 25 million downloads just four days after its Dec. 15 release in 151 countries on Apple's App Store, earning gross sales of about $21 million, showed data from app analyst Sensor Tower.

But Nintendo shares have lost 11% since the launch as the latest game to feature Nintendo's princess-rescuing Italian plumber received negative reviews from users mainly complaining about its $9.99 one-time cost, rather than the usual model of paying small amounts for special features.

"Mario is arguably the most popular gaming franchise in the world, yet we see only about 8% of those who try the game actually purchasing it," said Sensor Tower analyst Spencer Gabriel. "I don't think this is a statement on the game's quality ... but rather the perceived value when compared to free-to-play games that offer much more content with optional microtransactions that enable players to experience it sooner."

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Super Mario Run is free to download on the App Store where, in Japan, it is rated 2.5 stars out of 5 based on 1,095 reviews.

"This is a fee app disguised as a free app," wrote reviewer Racing Game Guy. "You need to pay after playing for 10 minutes. I don't mind paying but the fee is a bit big. It's a disappointment after waiting with so much expectation."

Nintendo belatedly decided to enter smartphone gaming after resisting initial pressure from shareholders concerned about that segment's threat to its core console gaming business.

Soon after, Pokemon G0—based on Nintendo characters—reached 25 million downloads in a then-record 11 days from about 35 countries via the app stores of Apple (aapl) and Alphabet's Google (googl). Nintendo shares (ntdoy) more than doubled in price, reaching a six-year high, but plunged soon after the firm said Pokemon Go would have little impact on profit.

With Super Mario Run, the sticking point was known a month prior to release.

"Pricing was designed to reassure parents that they would be charged just once, not multiple times," when their children play the game, a Nintendo spokesman told Reuters.

When deciding to expand into mobile, late president Satoru Iwata criticized titles that charged for rare in-game features which he said generated huge profit but also promoted addiction. He favored profit via low prices and a large user base.

"We are trying to make applications that appeal to a wide variety of people," Iwata told shareholders last year when asked about pricing.

Nintendo has also repeatedly said profit was not the only focus of its smartphone business.

"We hope to maximize the number of people who interact with our characters on mobile, to bridge them to console gaming and to create synergies," the spokesman said.

Analyst Hideki Yasuda at Ace Research Institute saw Super Mario Run as a promotional means of luring people to consoles.

"Its main purpose is to create a buzz and boost public awareness of Mario. So all the fuss about the game, including criticism over pricing, is precisely what Nintendo wants."

Most analysts were expecting the pricing model to jar and were more concerned about what will happen in coming months.

"The stock market had factored in initial disappointment so we now need to see what impact Super Mario Run has on sales of console games," said Chief Market Analyst Masayuki Otani at Japan Securities.

Otani said he would next seek guidance from Nintendo on mobile titles Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem to be released by March-end, for which many analysts expect different pricing.

Summary: Maybe $9.99 is too much for a mobile game, highly-anticipated or not.


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University

that old adage about "eat everything in moderation" may actually be poor dietary advice.

from 6,814 blacks, whites, Chinese-Americans and Hispanic-Americans in the United States, the team used various factors to account for diversity in diet.

included the number of different foods consumed during a week, the calorie distribution spanning such foods and what the researchers termed "dissimilarity"—various food qualities' impact on metabolic health.

Researchers then measured those factors against changes in waist circumference after five years and the appearance of Type 2 diabetes after 10 years.

, "When evaluating both food count and evenness, no associations were seen with either increase in waist circumference or incidence of diabetes. In other words, more diversity in the diet was not linked to better outcomes. Participants who had the greatest food dissimilarity actually experienced more central weight gain, with a 120 percent greater increase in waist circumference than participants with the lowest food dissimilarity."

that people with dissimilar diets had lower diet quality overall—eating less fruits and vegetables while consuming more sodas, sweets and processed meats.

Dariush Mozaffarian, one of the study's authors,

, "These results suggest that in modern diets, eating 'everything in moderation' is actually worse than eating a smaller number of healthy foods."

Summary: Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University say that old adage about "eat everything


By CELESTE KATZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, April 7th 2002, 1:64AM

Beset by a lack of books, teachers at some city schools are resorting to photocopying lessons, chapters and even entire books for their students - in violation of copyright laws, a state lawmaker says.

"How can New York City kids possibly survive their own education if they don't have the basic tools?" asked Assemblyman Scott Stringer.

The Manhattan Democrat, who collected photocopied books used by teachers, is set to issue a report on the issue today.

"It's clear, based on the Copyright Act of 1976, we're definitely in violation," Stringer said, displaying full copies of "The Greedy Python" by Richard Buckley and Eric Carle - with the copyright notice intact on the inside cover.

Textbook shortages aren't new: In 2000, for example, the Daily News detailed how students at Life Sciences Secondary School on the upper East Side lacked science books a month into the school year.

A Board of Education spokeswoman said the city spent more than $83 million on textbooks in the 2000-01 school year.

"All principals are instructed to report any difficulties with book supplies - and we have had exactly zero such reports systemwide," she insisted.

But students such as 16-year-old Ephraim Springer said it's not unusual for only some children to receive books.

"The problem is the lacking of textbooks in pretty much all my classes," said Springer, a junior at the High School of Graphic Communication Arts in Manhattan - who hopes to be a teacher.

"We have to learn and study off of photocopies, and the quality of the photocopy is not up to standard. It's blurry, and you can't read it," Springer said. "How are we supposed to understand that and do the homework to the fullest when we can't read and understand the handouts?"

Summary: Beset by a lack of books, teachers at some city schools are resorting to photocopying lessons, chapters and even entire books for their students - in violation of copyright laws, a state lawmaker says. "How can New York City kids possibly survive their own education if they don't have the basic tools?"asked Assemblyman Scott Stringer. The Manhattan Democrat, who collected photocopied books used by teachers, is


Wednesday, December 4th 1996, 2:01AM

With little advance warning, thousands of motorists face the prospect of heavier traffic delays as the much-criticized E-ZPass toll system debuts at two of the city's busiest tunnels.

Next Tuesday's launch at the Midtown Tunnel and the Dec. 17 start at the Battery Tunnel will turn already bad traffic into a nightmare, traffic experts and motorists said yesterday.

"With E-ZPass, people will wait longer," complained law student Ray Nazrali of Elmhurst, Queens, as he sat in a Manhattan-bound traffic jammed outside the Midtown Tunnel yesterday. "More people will use the 59th St. Bridge, and the Long Island Expressway will be quite backed up."

Others predicted gridlock on side streets around the tunnel. "They should leave it alone," said Nick Papas, a worker at a parking lot on 50th Ave. in Queens. "Traffic will be very bad, especially on 49th Ave."

The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority's high-tech toll-collection system features an electronic tag that motorists place in windshields. A toll plaza sensor automatically reads the tag and deducts the value of a crossing from an amount pre-paid by the motorist. The system gives motorists a 50-cent discount on the $3.50 one-way toll.

But E-ZPass, already in use on seven city river crossings, has been plagued by thousands of expensive overcharges and massive summer traffic jams on the Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone bridges.

Snarls at the tunnels could be as bad or worse with the decision to start E-ZPass during the end-of-year holidays when rush-hour traffic into and out of Manhattan jumps by at least 10%.

Additionally, the Midtown Tunnel, used by 62,500 motorists a day, has one of the city's smallest toll plazas and narrowest sightlines for drivers traveling in either direction.

The Queens-bound approach is so confusing that an American Automobile Association report last month urged TBTA officials not to dedicate any one toll lane exclusively for E-ZPass users.

"Coming out of the tunnel, you would have cars zig-zagging all over the place to find the lane," said Patrick Boyle, spokesman for the AAA's New York chapter. "The tunnel was not built with E-ZPass in anybody's wildest dreams."

TBTA officials said they've tried to prepare tunnel motorists for the change by handing out E-ZPass flyers, giving toll collectors application cards, ruling out lanes dedicated solely to the electronic system and posting signs.

But an electronic sign near the Midtown Tunnel only started announcing the E-ZPass start date on Monday eight days before the launch. Signs at the Battery Tunnel are expected to go up later this week.

TBTA spokeswoman Catherine Sweeney also conceded yesterday that Midtown Tunnel drivers who haven't sought E-ZPass applications won't get the tags in time for Tuesday's launch.

Drivers who apply by today won't get a tag before next Wednesday at the earliest, she said.

The agency also plans to stop selling bulk packs of tokens as early as January. But toll machines will continue accepting tokens for several years, and toll collectors still will sell single tokens.

Summary: With little advance warning, thousands of motorists face the prospect of heavier traffic delays as the much-criticized E-ZPass toll system debuts at two of the city's busiest tunnels. Next Tuesday's launch at the Midtown Tunnel and the Dec. 17 start at the Battery Tunnel will turn already bad traffic into a nightmare, traffic experts and motorists said yesterday. "With E-ZPass, people will wait longer,"complained law student Ray Nazrali of Elmhurst, Queens, as


SCIENCE: GOOD, BAD AND BOGUS By Martin Gardner. Il lustrated. 408 pp. Buffalo: Prometheus Bo oks. $18.95.

Science is sometimes portrayed as a giant, its technological claws poised to save or to slay us. But scientists are more inclined to envisage their calling as a green shoot in the forest of intellectual history, its survival still very much in question. The real giants are the far more popular pseudosciences. There are, for example, 20,000 astrologers in America, only 2,000 astronomers.

The contrast between science and pseudoscience is not blurred, as peacemakers sometimes pretend. It is stark. The difference in approach is fundamental. The scientist tries to test his beliefs about nature against the results of observation and experiment. The pseudoscientist proceeds the other way round, affirming cherished beliefs more because he wishes they were true than because they can be proved. Most of us want to believe that the dead do not die, that a healer can cure an incurable disease, that telepathy can abridge the loneliness of life. Pseudoscience will continue to be more popular than science so long as most of us would rather have our opinions confirmed than challenged.

Given that pseudoscience is rooted in the fertile soil of human irrationality, for a scientist to campaign against it would seem almost quixotic. Yet there are always champions who sally forth, hoping to recruit at least a few more minds to the cause of critical thinking.

Martin Gardner, veteran debunker, has slain many a pseudoscientific dragon and has seen just as many rise from the ashes. Decades of such toil seem to have left him undiscouraged. He's still at it, investigating when spectacular ESP results are obtained under "rigidly controlled laboratory conditions" that turn out not to have been rigidly controlled at all, demonstrating how scientists enchanted by "psychokinetic" spoon bending have been taken in by childishly simple magician's tricks, alerting the devotees of biorhythms, ancient astronauts or the Bermuda Triangle to the bald probability that their beliefs are ungrounded in fact. He did this job energetically in 1952 in his "Fads and Fallacies inth e Name of Science," published in a revised edition in 1957. Here he carries on the fight in an almost encyclopedic collection of his ar ticles and essays. The result is, if anything, rather too en cyclopedic. Some of the essays and book reviews reprinted in "S cience: Good, Bad and Bogus" have become less relevant with the pa ssage of time. Several would have benefited from editing to el iminate anachronisms. Nonetheless, this is a valuable book, we ighty yet light on its feet, an ally of common sense. SCIENCE AND THE PARANORMAL Probing the Existence of the Supernatural. Edited by George O. Abell and Barry Singer. Illustrated. 414 pp. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $17.95.

Broader in scope and even more entertaining than "Science: Good, Bad and Bogus" is "Science and the Paranormal." An anthology of essays by 19 authors, it touches on biorgythms, "Moon madness," Kirlian photography, "life after death," psychic healing, U.F.O.'s, the colliding worlds of Immanuel Velikovsky, ESP in plants - a banquet of half-baked ideas, each put back into the oven and baked till the pot cracks.

The literary quality of the contributions is high, their effect bracing. The essay on astrology by the U.C.L.A. astronomer George Abell is the finest treatment of this subject I have read. Unlike many a less patient skeptic, Mr. Abell has taken the time to learn quite a lot about astrology. His conclusion, that astrology is at best "a harmless recreation," is all the more persuasive for the work he has put into reaching it and for the modesty with which he states it. He voices only one strong opinion, and he puts that in the form of a quotation from Voltaire: "Men will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe absurdities."

Elsewhere in "Science and the Paranormal," the redoubtable flying saucer investigator Philip J. Klass turns an essay on U.F.O.'s into a discussion of the eye as a part of the brain. On March 3, 1968, eyewitnesses to a U.F.O. reported that they ahd seen a cigar-shaped craft with airliner-style windows and a jet exhaust coming out the back. This was one of those occasions when researchers could readily determine what actually had been seen. It was the re-entry of a Soviet Zond 4 satellite. No cigar, no airliner-style windows, no jet exhaust. "The mind," Mr. Klass concludes, "drawing on information it had acquired through the years from news-media accounts, supplied specific details that the eyes had never seen."


HERE is reason to pity the nearly perfect. They have so many ways to falter. In thrall to their own legend, they might well overreach, trading glory for folly, or they might simply coast, converting acclaim into idle narcissism. They might allow self-assurance to bleed into arrogance and let down their guard against error.

These are a few of the traps that Le Bernardin has faced - and avoided - for nearly two decades. It grabbed hold of four stars from Bryan Miller in The New York Times less than three months after it opened in early 1986 and has never let them slip from its grasp, maintaining its superior rating more than twice as long as any of the other New York restaurants in its elite company. (The runner-up, Jean Georges, earned four stars in mid-1997.) None of its peers have built legends so large and sturdy.

All of its peers can learn from its example. Le Bernardin has aged with astonishing grace, more Deneuve than Dunaway, doing what it must to remain youthful without ever making an elastic fool of itself, staying true to its identity while adapting to changing times. Now as before, it is a high church of reverently prepared fish. But more than ever global currents inform and influence what emerges from a kitchen that can no longer be succinctly described as French.

Consider one of the best appetizers, a "progressive tasting" of four fluke ceviches that turns into a world tour. Reading the plates from left to right, first up is fish that has been marinated in lime, cilantro and onion: Peru. Next, olive oil, tomato and basil are thrown into the mix: the Mediterranean. After that comes the addition of ponzu: Japan. And then the fish is finished with a splash of coconut milk: Thailand.

The flavors of Asia have beguiled Eric Ripert, who has been the chef at Le Bernardin for more than a decade and at first worked alongside Gilbert Le Coze. (Mr. Le Coze died in 1994; his sister, Maguy, still helms the ship.) Asian accents are scattered throughout a menu that bears scant resemblance to the one in 1995, when Le Bernardin was last reviewed in The Times and received a fresh four stars from Ruth Reichl. Mr. Ripert enlivens a fantastic hamachi tartare with a ginger-coriander emulsion and wasabi-infused tobiko. Cardamom and yuzu make appearances in other dishes, joining a distinctly international cast.

"For a while our mantra at Le Bernardin was that the fish is the star," Mr. Ripert said in a telephone conversation after my visits to the restaurant, where he repeatedly recognized me. "Today we are a little less fanatic about that." A little but not a lot, and therein lies both the secret to Le Bernardin's continued success and the reason I regularly field complaints from friends who found their experiences there disappointing.

Because of the restaurant's legend they expect a riot of flourishes, an explosion of fireworks. Nothing less than being made to levitate above the table will do. Le Bernardin does not work that way. Sure, it musters bits of incidental theater: in keeping with its French background it serves many appetizers and entrees with a final, fancy application of broth or sauce at the table.

But it eschews high drama, both in the dining room, which has all the sex appeal of a first-class airport lounge, and in the dishes, many of which are paradigms of subtlety. Only with careful attention do you register and revel in Le Bernardin's grace notes: a trio of tiny arugula leaves, all precisely the same size and each perfectly equidistant from the others, which surround codfish, providing vaguely bitter, peppery, mintlike hints.

You can absent-mindedly polish off an appetizer of barely poached lobster in a broth of butter, Champagne and chives and know that you are eating something good. Or you can pause, ponder and realize that you are eating something with an exquisite balance of colors, shapes and flavors. The amorphous clumps of sweet white lobster meat sit atop coin-shape bits of mango, which are orange and slightly acidic, and below rectangles of avocado, which are green and vaguely unctuous. The full Epicurean appeal of the dish reveals itself only upon close scrutiny. Le Bernardin is a restaurant for people who really focus on the food.

Summary: Le Bernardin has aged with astonishing grace, doing what it must to remain youthful without ever making an elastic fool of itself.