You needn’t go quite to the ends of the Earth to see penguins in the wild, but you’ll need to get pretty close. Of the 17 species that occur worldwide, the majority – and certainly the largest populations – are confined to the southern latitudes, found either on Antarctica itself or on the various sub-Antarctic islands that surround the world’s wildest continent.

A cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula, taking in the Falklands and South Georgia en route, should produce half-a-dozen species, including huge colonies of king penguins, plus adélies, gentoos, chinstraps and rockhoppers. To see emperor penguins – for the full Happy Feet experience – you must head even farther south, across the Antarctic Circle, to the coastal pack ice.

But Antarctica is not your only option. If you don’t fancy crossing the notorious Drake Passage, you can stay shore-bound on the South American mainland. Macaroni, Magellanic and rockhopper penguins inhabit the wild islands and inlets of Patagonia, from Argentina around to Chile, with some fabulous scenery to boot.

If these latitudes sound too cold and blowy, why not visit the African penguins around the Cape coast of South Africa – the closest wild penguins to Britain – or stroll a southern Australian beach at night to watch little penguins venture out of the surf? And for a truly tropical species, try the Galapagos penguin, which is confined to this equatorial archipelago.

Penguin aficionados might also consider a cruise around New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic islands. Scattered among these remote, uninhabited outposts are such rarities as erect-crested, snares and yellow-eyed penguins, found nowhere else on the planet. Drop in on the remote fjords of the South Island and you may also pick up a shy Fiordland penguin.

The little penguin – the world’s smallest – lives in scattered colonies around the southern coast of Australia. One is at Penneshaw, on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, where you can watch these endearing seabirds by torchlight as they return to their burrows after a day at sea. The island is also home to an impressive selection of other Australian fauna. Kangaroos, naturally, but I also found wallabies and echidnas at Flinders Chase National Park and tracked down rare glossy black cockatoos to their one breeding site.

The scattered islands are home to some of the rarest animals on Earth, including at least five species of penguin. Exploring such remote outposts as the Bounty and Antipodes islands will bring close encounters with the delightful erect-crested and yellow-eyed penguins, while a cruise among the South Island’s dramatic fjords may produce shy Fiordland penguins waddling out of the coastal rainforest. Serious bird lovers will also encounter a wealth of other rarities, including several endemic species of albatross. Sperm whales and dolphins also put in an appearance during one of my trips.

One of the world’s most impressive penguin gatherings is at Punta Tombo, on the Patagonian coast of Argentina, where more than a million Magellanic penguins have excavated a city of burrows beneath the sand dunes. Other wildlife includes the elephant seals and southern right whales of the Península Valdés, guanacos roaming the scrubby interior, and Andean condors soaring above the Moreno Glacier.

Against the backdrop of Table Mountain on South Africa’s Cape Peninsula is the world’s most laid-back penguin experience. On Boulders Beach, you can hardly step out from your car before African penguins (the continent’s only species) waddle beneath the boardwalk at your feet. Other highlights include southern right whales and – for the intrepid – cage-diving with great white sharks. With famous beaches, Cape Town and the Stellenbosch and Franschhoek vineyards, plus good roads and guesthouses, this is one penguin expedition to make under your own steam.

The Galapagos penguin is the northernmost of the birds and endemic to these equatorial islands, where it breeds in crevices beneath old lava flows – notably on the islands of Isabela, Fernandina and, possibly, Bartolomé. It is, of course, far from the only attraction of this archipelago. Other highlights include giant tortoises, marine iguanas, sea lions, green turtles and a host of unique bird species.

Summary: Mike Unwin reveals where to see penguins, from Australia to South Africa and Patagonia


NHS trusts are spending up to £3,200 for one doctor to cover a single shift, with payments of up to £2,200 for a nurse to work 12 hours. The sums mean trusts are paying rates equivalent to a salary of more than £700,000. A significant chunk of this is paid to the agencies providing the workers.

The use of agency staff by the NHS has long been a source of contention. Critics say that the system is wasteful and increases risks to patients, with too many unfamiliar staff working in hospitals.

Mr Stevens told the Andrew Marr show on BBC One that there has been a significant increase in the number of nurses on the NHS in the wake of a series of scandals.

However, he said that because that the NHS needs to get "maximum bang for the buck" and make significant efficiency savings.

He said: "What's happening here is that there has rightly been a big focus on increasing nurse staffing on the NHS. We have got to convert that spending into good, paying, permanent jobs. We have got to ensure NHS hospitals are offering flexible employment but also we will have to clamp down on some of these staffing agencies who frankly are ripping off the NHS."

Asked whether he would consider a cap, Mr Stevens said: "Collectively the NHS can take action here. We will be doing that."

Summary: Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS, says he will take action to   stem the billions being spent on agency doctors and nurses


This week, thousands of people gathered at the Sicilian port of Syracuse to wave white handkerchiefs. They were greeting the return of the city’s patron saint, Santa Lucia – “the most kidnapped saint in paradise” – whose remains have been passed around Europe for over a thousand years.

Bishop Giuseppe Constantini, who fought hard for her return, pretended it didn’t matter where a relic ended up. “It’s all the same,” he said, but he didn’t believe it, and neither did the tearful citizens on the pier who waved Santa Lucia of the Gondoliers back home.

People are, of course, comforted by the notion of permanence: national, religious, or possessive instincts are honoured by things of value being in a known place for the foreseeable future. Also, I think one of the themes in our culture is that people like to imagine that the world they leave will be in some ways unchanged from the one they entered.

Mona Lisa will still offer her bewitching smile to passers-by; Durham Cathedral will still tower over the messy lives of the people in the town below. Great art is like that: it makes us feel better about our own temporary nature, as if being closer to eternal objects can make us a little eternal too.

We know that art is modern by its more robust attitude towards disposability. A fortnight ago, Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, a urinal signed R. Mutt, was judged to be the most influential artwork of the modern era. It is, in fact, a urinal, shapely and familiar, a “readymade” or “found object” whose value as art must be reckoned to exist in the cheeky (some might say shocking) manner of its presentation in 1917.

Ironically, Fountain has become, in its own way, every bit as iconic as the remains of Santa Lucia of the Gondoliers, but – like so much of art now – its meaning can be understood only in the context of modern art. Both of these objects have a link with human waste – human remains on the one hand, and body waste, on the other – and yet they have a place in the annals of permanence.

A great deal of contemporary art has no such place, and is gone almost before it is seen. This newspaper recently published an aerial photograph of more than 44,000 fridges piled on a disposal site next to the Manchester Ship Canal.

“This shocking monument to the waste of the consumerist age,” wrote Matt Barnwell in the article which accompanied the photograph, and “monument” was right, because, more than anything else, the mountain of fridges, pictured right, looked like a work of contemporary art, and it occurred to me that if they’d been piled up in a corner of the Whitechapel Gallery then the piler-in-question would soon have been up for the Turner Prize.

Modern art galleries are filled at the moment with piles of rubbish, some of it more interesting and more beautiful than others. I remember the first time I saw such a work: an amazing sculpture made of used newspapers by the Scottish artist David Mach.

That seemed to me a rather fine invention, but no finer, or no more memorable, than the fridges piled by the canal in Manchester. Mach’s beautiful curve, though, was described in 1986 in the way that all such piles of stuff are now described.

“Concerned with mass production and the mindless repetition of such production, the materials employed by Mach serve to comment on, and satirise the loss of individuality in our contemporary consumer society.”

Is that all? Our age is obsessed with the glory of spent materials: we love scattered detritus, piles of old tyres, dirty beds surrounded with rubbish. The Young British Artist is part of a dumbshow now, each of them a performer too hung up on the joke of disposability, too unintelligent about language and image to avoid becoming poster campaigns for their own boredom.

Some of these artists, Tracey Emin, Sam Taylor-Wood, have made art so disposable that it needn’t have existed at all.

I once sat next to gallery owner Jay Jopling. It seemed a very modern sort of art dinner: the artists all spoke like car salesmen, and the guests of honour were people famous for being famous, in this case David Furnish and Tim Jefferies, two young men famous for going out with celebrities.

I told Jopling I’d recently been asked to do a book with a Scottish artist.

“He’s very good,” said Jopling.

“Yes,” I said. “And very receptive. I put an idea to him recently. I suggested he put a wax model of himself into a specially built room.”

“And he said he’d like that. He said the room should be locked and never opened again.”

“He said I should go in there once a year for life to inspect the state of the waxwork and then lock the door again.”

“Fantastic,” said Jopling, “though I don’t know if you’re the right person to go in every year.”

“That’s his idea of the perfect work to follow his winning the Turner Prize last year.”

“I’d commission that in a minute,” said Jopling.

“Tell him I’d build the room anywhere he likes.”

The two famous-for-being-famous waxworks looked over the table at us for a second, momentarily interested in the prospect of more marvellous work about waste and decomposition, work which also raised questions about permanence.

Things that endure can be understood to endure for a reason, even if that reason is bad. Disposable culture, on the other hand, is one of those concepts that vanishes as soon as it is grasped, and the objects usually have no reason to endure, not even a bad one.

I, for one, have lost patience with the Warhol-tainted love of the repetitive and the banal. You can see more interesting accumulations of that sort just by visiting your local corporation dump.

Art you can flush down the loo means nothing to me, even were the loo to be selected by Marcel Duchamp.

Summary: Andrew O'Hagan on why ephemeral artwork has no more value than the rubbish it mimics.


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

Wednesday's episode of "Dating Naked" is sure to serve up some memorable television.

In the upcoming episode of the show, 69-year-old Bob goes on a date with 24-year-old Natalie, and it's just as awkward as it sounds -- at least at first.

SEE ALSO: Lindsay Lohan went full-on Mischa Barton with tribute to terrorism victims

You can watch a clip of their date over at Entertainment Weekly, but we got a first-look at their full date, which takes an unexpectedly heartwarming turn.

Are Bob and Natalie meant to be? We're going to stay mum-lipped on that, but let's just say that the pair definitely has a fun time together.

RELATED: Most cringeworthy texts sent by couples:

38 most cringeworthy texts sent by couples (BI)

Well yeah I love falling asleep

The Bachelor is on.... Don't ask me for anything

We all want different things

Love is patient. Love is kind

LOVE IS PAINFUL LOVE IS OTHER THINGS

Honestly running this account is one of the strangest things you can imagine. The things we read

Just a few more emoji and I'm sure she'll forgive you

These two are clearly on the same page

Sexting and getting pizza are almost the same thing

To be fair, it's a pretty good show.

Breaking up via emoji is smooth

This is not an ad for Del Taco but it should be

How can you almost forget about that?

Text this to your partner right now

Good day to break up with someone because no one will believe you

This woman knows how to run a relationship.

Probably a little more than that

SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH LIAM

More from AOL.com: Megyn Kelly told Murdoch investigators that Roger Ailes sexually harassed her Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney break off their engagement Watch Lady Gaga sing 'Born This Way' during Mexican foster home visit

Summary: When Natalie, 24, met Bob, 69.


Self-described “car guy” Eric Brassard recently paid $846,000 for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. One big draw: It was wired to allow a charging station for vehicles.

The 29-year-old TV-development executive didn’t even own an electric car. But after his move in April, he leased a BMW BMW -1.61 % i3—then bought a charging station for it on Amazon for less than $500.

“There’s something about it that has a total cool factor to me,” he said of his car. Several of his neighbors have electric cars in their driveways, he added.

When Arjan Dijk built his home in 2014, he felt he should make it “as good as it gets for the environment.” Now under contract and last listed for $3.75 million, the San Francisco three-bedroom with a one-bedroom cottage has many green features: solar panels, low-energy appliances, a high-efficiency boiler. There is also a charging station in the garage where the 45-year-old technology executive can juice up a car.

The two homeowners are among a growing number of home buyers and developers installing charging equipment at home. It is a relatively low-cost amenity that appeals to tech lovers, committed greens and car aficionados. New condominium developments across the U.S. also are including them.

“I would not build a residential project today without providing for a charger for electric vehicles,” said Aldo Pascarella, 48, a real-estate lawyer who developed a townhouse in Greenwich, Conn., with a charging station in 2012.

Having a charger “puts you in the game where you’re communicating at the level of how affluent buyers live today,” said Gregg Lynn, an agent at Sotheby’s International Realty in San Francisco who listed Mr. Dijk’s home. Even homeowners who don’t have electric cars install the chargers to attract future buyers, he said.

Since January 2015, the median listing price of a home with a charging station is $713,500, compared with $194,560 overall, in part because the amenity is more common in high-price markets. It isn’t clear exactly what premium, if any, a charging station adds.

Electric cars represent less than 1% of the new-car market in the U.S., said Joel Levin, executive director of San Francisco-based advocacy group Plug In America. But the market is growing. More than 400,000 electric vehicles were on the road at the end of 2015, a roughly sixfold rise over 2010, U.S. Department of Energy figures show. In March, Tesla’s mass-market sedan drew 180,000 preorders the day it launched.

The trend is particularly big in California. Since April 2011, 39% of homes listed with the charging feature are in California, followed by Florida (22%) and Massachusetts (18%), according to real-estate website Trulia.

As of July 1, 2015, California has required all newly built homes, including multifamily residential projects of 17 units or more, to have the capacity to support electric-vehicle charging. Some cities, such as Denver, have similar laws.

Most electric vehicles come with a cordset, a charger under the hood that, using an adapter, plugs into a standard 120-volt outlet. Because it can take 10 to 20 hours or more to get a full charge, some homeowners install higher-voltage stations, cutting charging time roughly in half, said Will Beckett of the Electric Auto Assn.

These high-voltage stations are wall-mounted apparatuses about the size of a small backpack and cost from about $300 to $1,000. They can be bought online or at a dealership. They use the same 240-volt outlet as a clothes dryer, and most people hire an electrician to install the dedicated line, for about $1,000 and up.

Homeowners who install residential charging equipment before the end of 2016 can receive a federal income-tax credit up to $1,000. Many states, municipalities and utilities offer further incentives.

Future condo buyers will likely have more options for buildings with communal chargers.

In New York’s Tribeca area, the Related Companies’ 46-condo building, 70 Vestry, will have eight charging stations. Home prices there start at $6.25 million.

In Boston, the Four Seasons Private Residences One Dalton Street will open with six valet-run stations in its 300-car garage, said Richard Friedman, CEO of Carpenter & Co., the developer.

Mr. Friedman plans to live in the condo-hotel hybrid, where the 170 units are listed for $2 million to $40 million. In a building offering dog-washing services, a golf driving range and a private restaurant, charging stations seemed essential, he said. “You can’t miss this one—it’s too important.”

Summary: As electric vehicles gain popularity, more homeowners and real-estate developers are adding this relatively low-cost amenity


Using a device to extract blood clots from brain arteries can significantly improve patients’ ability to rebound from a stroke, according to a landmark study published Wednesday.

The research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that using a so-called stent-retriever for up to six hours after a stroke showed benefits—a longer window than for the clot-busting drugs doctors currently use.

The study, conducted in 502 patients at 16 hospitals in the Netherlands, was the first to achieve a strong positive outcome with stent-retrievers. Previous research hadn’t shown any positive results, meaning some insurers won’t pay for the devices.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Saver, director of the stroke center at UCLA Medical Center, called the result “the start of a new era in stroke treatment, a once-in-a-generation advance in acute stroke care.” Dr. Saver wasn’t involved in this study, but is conducting similar research in the U.S.

“This is really exciting, a landmark finding that we have been buzzing about,” said Dr. Stephan A. Mayer, a neurologist and the director of the Institute for Critical Care Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York. “It reduces by half the number of people bed-bound” and lowers “by 40% the people who need another human being to help them walk.” He also wasn’t involved in the study.

The new treatment was especially effective among difficult-to-treat patients with large clots in large arteries.

There has been considerable debate about the use of stent-retrievers. Earlier studies used older devices that didn’t restore blood flow as often. The new research could prompt wider insurance coverage of the treatment.

The study included 233 patients who were assigned to get the clot-removal, while most of the remainder were placed in a control group. About twice as many patients in the treatment group were functionally independent after 90 days compared with the control group.

“This treatment leads to a clinically significant increase in functional independence in daily life by three months, without an increase in mortality,” the researchers wrote.

Patients with large blockage in a major intracranial artery “have a poor prognosis,” said Dr. Diederik Dippel, professor of neurology at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam and lead investigator on the study. “One out of five of those patients improve without our treatment. With our treatment, one out of three improves.”

The Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery estimates 300,000 people a year in the U.S. could benefit from the treatment because they have clots in large vessels supplying blood to the brain.

Not all the findings, however, were positive. Thirteen of 233 patients in the treatment group had signs of a new stroke within 90 days, compared with only one of 267 in the control group.

The main treatment for a clot-based stroke has been the clot-dissolving drug tPA, which stands for tissue plasminogen activator.

But the short window for treatment with tPA—up to about 4½ hours after a stroke—has been a problem largely because patients may not realize they have had a stroke, and family members may not recognize symptoms. Clot retrieval extends that window.

Moreover, tPA hasn’t been able to break up the biggest clots in the largest arteries. That is where stent-retrievers come in.

“In large artery occlusions, intravenous tPA is not enough,” said Dr. Donald Frei, a Denver neurosurgeon who is president-elect of the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery. He called the findings “an important milestone in the transformation of care for stroke patients.”

Write to Thomas M. Burton at tom.burton@wsj.com

Summary: A landmark study of stroke patients found that using devices known as stents to pull blood clots from brain arteries can significantly improve people’s ability to rebound from a stroke.


If you're planning an overseas holiday anytime soon you might want to check out Click Frenzy tonight.

The travel website is holding its first sale and is promising to slash up to 70 percent off packages, flights, accommodation, experiences, tours and cruises.

“We’re expecting more than a million customers over 24 hours to rock our website and make this Australia’s biggest ever online travel sale,” Grant Arnott, co-founder of Click Frenzy, said.

There are more than 600 deals on offer including:

Up to 85% off holiday packages around the world

Bali - Flights + 6 nights accom from $399 pp

Port Douglas – Flights + 7 nights with free sunset sailing tour from $659 pp

China – Flights + 8 day tour with 5 star accom from $999

Fiji – Naviti Resort at 35% off

Thai Airways 24 Hour Special Sale (via BYO Jet)

Sri Lanka – 13 Day Tour Incl. Flights & Accom from $2,799 pp

Accor Hotels – 30% off globally + free breakfast

Gold Coast – 4 Theme Parks VIP Access $89.99

You could snag a cheap holiday to Fiji. (Supplied)

Tips to make sure you're successful in booking:

1. Subscribe for early access.

2. Plan a domestic and international holiday. There's deals on both, but if your flexible you have a better chance of booking something.

3. Pick your dates before you log on.

4. Take time exploring to get the best deal for you.

Huge savings on trips to China. (Supplied)

However, some travel experts are warning consumers to be cautious about booking travel deals, which sound too good to be true.

“Sometimes with these super cheap deals, you don’t realise how monumentally inconvenient the flights are. If you have a late night or early morning flight the only option is a taxi to the airport, so what looks like a fairly cheap deal can fall over pretty quickly,” Angus Kidman of Finder told escape.com.au.

The sale will launch tonight at 7pm AEDT and run through until 7pm Wednesday, October 19.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


Four men have been charged with the murder of Sydney gangland figure Pasquale Barbaro, after police made arrests and conducted 13 raids across the city yesterday.

Five other men have also been charged with serious criminal offences, after what police have labelled the "first phase" in a crackdown on gang crime.

Strike Force Osprey will now focus on seven other murders, Acting Deputy Commissioner Frank Mennilli said this morning.

"This was the first phase of Strike Force Osprey. 29/11 is the first arrest phase. There is no end date," he said.

"There will be ongoing arrests. We will be protecting the state of New South Wales."

Police discovered the alleged supply of methylamphetamine while investigating the activities of the Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang’s Burwood Chapter.

Subsequent investigations linked the alleged syndicate to the shooting death of Barbaro, 35, on a street in Earlwood on November 14.

Yesterday’s nine arrests were part of the ongoing investigation, Assistant Commissioner Mark Jenkins said. Forty-three firearms and 40 phones were seized, he added.

"Nine men were charged with murder, conspiracy to murder, criminal group offences, and drug offences. All those that were charged with a substantive murder charge were in relation to Pasquale Barbaro," Asst Comm. Jenkins said.

"Strike Force Osprey is overarching and related to eight murders. We continue to work on the other seven."

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione launched Strike Force Osprey less than two weeks ago after a spate of bloody executions of notorious crime figures on Sydney's streets.

Hitman Hamad Assaad, 29, was shot in Georges Hall on October 25, and gangland kingpin and convicted killer Walid Ahmad, 40, was killed in April in a spray of bullets on the rooftop car park of Bankstown Central shopping centre.

His murder is believed to be in retaliation for the fatal shooting of Safwan Charbaji outside a Condell Park panel beater several weeks earlier.

The nine men arrested yesterday have been charged with the following offences:

-A 27-year-old man has been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, knowingly direct a criminal group, supply prohibited firearm, aggravated firearms possession, possess ammunition, and drug supply offences. He has been refused bail to appear at Newtown Local Court later today.

- A 28-year-old man has been charged with murder, and participate in a criminal group. He has been refused bail to appear at Burwood Local Court later today.

- A 24-year-old man has been charged with murder, larceny, intimidation, and participate in a criminal group. He has been refused bail to appear at Parramatta Local Court later today.

- Another 24-year-old man has been charged with participate in a criminal group, take/drive conveyance, and enter vehicle without consent. He has been refused bail to appear at Burwood Local Court later today.

- A 23-year-old man has been charged with murder, driving offences, dishonestly possess interfered-with unique identifier, and participate in a criminal group. He has been refused bail to appear at Parramatta Local Court later today.

- An 18-year-old man was charged with participate in a criminal group, and was granted conditional bail to appear at Burwood Local Court on Thursday 15 December.

- A 22-year-old man has been charged with habitually consort with convicted offender, and was granted conditional bail to appear at Burwood Local Court on Wednesday 14 December.

- A 27-year-old man has been charged with participate in a criminal group and habitually consort with convicted offender, and was granted conditional bail to appear at Burwood Local Court on Monday 16 January 2017.

- A 29-year-old man has been charged with three counts of possess prohibited drug, and two counts of goods in custody, and was granted conditional bail to appear at Parramatta Local Court on Tuesday 10 January 2017.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: NSW Police will provide an update on a major investigation into Sydney's gangland warfare after officers conducted raids on several properties across the city.


A policewoman and mother-of-four who fell into financial ruin after the accumulated psychological trauma of her work forced her to medically retire has appealed to Queen Elizabeth II in her bid to seek redress.

Wendy Kennedy, 49, served in the West Australian force for 15 years, seeing horrendous crimes such as a woman who had been stabbed and thrown through a window by her partner.

She saved people from ending their own lives, but other times, nothing could be done.

The images are burnt into her mind and still haunt her.

She lists off the many times she was in mortal danger - a broken bottle attack while working pregnant as Katanning's first female police officer, running from a man who came at her with a machete, seeing an axe about to fall on her before her partner jumped on the assailant.

It still rattles her to recount the time a car ploughed into her mounted police colleague as they patrolled a dark Perth highway at 2am.

"I watched him go over the car," Ms Kennedy told AAP.

"We didn't wear hard hats. There was no requirement - our uniform was an Akubra hat.

"His head hit the cement. He was convulsing, his head in blood, his horse was hurt.

"I thought 'my partner's dying'."

She rushed to his aid and he thankfully pulled through, but no-one asked her if she was okay and she was sent straight back to work.

Ms Kennedy, who suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, says the mental health of officers is not properly monitored, and she's backing the Medically Retired WA Police Officers Association in calling for regular wellness checks, particularly after traumatic jobs.

Such checks were a key finding from an inquest into the death of Collie policeman Elliott Watt, 36, who fatally shot himself in the station's armoury in December 2008 on his first day back from long service leave.

For Ms Kennedy, her psychological health is turning a corner thanks to the support of the association and her psychologist Joseph Presti.

And after not being well enough to work for the past 12 years, she's now managing four hours a week as a personal trainer.

Her clients, who have become friends, understand if she has to reschedule because some days are better than others when you suffer from PTSD.

But she's so broke, she's on the brink of being evicted. Even her superannuation fund was closed after fees ate up all that was in there.

Sick of asking for help from Centrelink, Ms Kennedy has gathered strength to fight for the recognition and financial redress she feels she deserves after all of her public service.

"I put on my life on the line and I've seen the most gruesome stuff," she said.

"I shouldn't have to live like this."

She's preparing her first application for an ex-gratia payment from the state government, with the WA Police Union officially declaring her case has merit.

The rare act-of-grace payments are currently the only way medically retired officers are financially acknowledged, although they are usually for physical injury, and while a worker's compensation scheme is now finally on the cards for police, it won't be retrospective.

Like all WA police, she's not considered an employee of the state, so Ms Kennedy has written to the woman she promised to serve - the Queen.

Australian readers seeking support and information about depression can contact the Depression Helpline (from 8am to midnight) on 0800 111 757.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467.

Summary: A mother-of-four who was forced to leave the WA police force after suffering PTSD has endured years of financial hardship but is now fighting for redress.


Australia Day fireworks over Fremantle. (AAP)

The City of Fremantle will hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day rather than January 28 after being given an ultimatum by the federal government.

The council had moved its traditional January 26 Australia Day events to January 28 because of cultural sensitivities.

Mayor Brad Pettitt said the council had been excited about giving people the opportunity to become Australian citizens during the One Day in Fremantle festival on that date.

But assistant immigration minister Alex Hawke told Dr Pettitt the Commonwealth would not allow the City of Fremantle to hold citizenship ceremonies as part of the planned January 28 events because it would give an anti-Australia Day message.

"This was never about the citizenship ceremony," Dr Pettitt told ABC radio on Friday.

"It was about offering people what we thought would be a really inclusive alternative celebration to Australia Day, two days later, which was meant to be inclusive, another option, another choice, rather than telling people what they should or shouldn't do."

Mr Hawke welcomed the decision and said January 26 was a perfectly appropriate choice for an Australian citizenship ceremony.

"The government's view is that citizenship ceremonies are non-commercial, apolitical, bipartisan and secular," he said.

"They must not be used as forums for political, partisan or religious expression or for the distribution of material which could be perceived to be of a commercial, political or religious nature."

Summary: The City of Fremantle will hold their citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day rather than January 28, after being given an ultimatum by the federal government.


In a time of rising global prosperity and newfangled technological wizardry, it’s easy to forget that, for virtually all of human history, living standards have been very low. Even so, there are those who respond to economic dynamism, and the accompanying volatility, by pining for the supposed stability of the past. Others look ahead and claim that economic progress is imperiled by bad policies or bad business practices. These weighty issues, among others, are taken up in two new books whose authors have divergent, though neatly complementary, views.

In “Progress,” the Swedish author Johan Norberg deploys reams of data to show just how much life has improved—especially over the past few decades but over the past couple of centuries as well. Each chapter is devoted to documenting progress in a single category, including food, sanitation, life expectancy, poverty, violence, the environment, literacy and equality.

In response to people who look fondly on the “good old days,” Mr. Norberg underscores just how grim they could be. Rampant disease, famine and violence routinely killed off millions. In the 14th century, the so-called Black Death wiped out a third of Europe’s population. Five hundred years later, cholera outbreaks throughout the world led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and even killed a U.S. president, James Polk. Out of the squalor of everyday life came an outlook best expressed by Thomas Malthus in 1779: “Premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”

Set against such misery are the advances of the modern era. At the start of the 20th century, average life expectancy globally was just 31 years. Today it is 71. Every country in the world has seen improvements in infant and child mortality since 1950. The so-called Green Revolution has increased food supply and reduced famine in parts of the world where malnutrition and starvation had long seemed inevitable. Throughout the world, there’s less violence, more literacy and greater political freedom.

Will this progress continue? Mr. Norberg thinks so. He cautions that “progress is not automatic” but doesn’t elaborate. His otherwise persuasive narrative would have benefited from an exploration of future threats to well-being, or worrying trends, such as the dramatic increase in obesity rates—in the United States but also in other parts of the globe—or falling birthrates throughout the world (in China in particular).

Picking up where Mr. Norberg leaves off are Fredrik Erixon and Björn Weigel, two fellow Swedes who make a thought-provoking and refreshingly non-ideological argument that a bleak future lies ahead unless capitalism undergoes a shake-up. In “The Innovation Illusion” they argue that “there is too little breakthrough innovation . . . and the capitalist system that used to promote eccentricity and embrace ingenuity all too often produces mediocrity.”

The authors identify four factors that have made Western capitalism “dull and hidebound.” The first is “gray capital,” the money held by entities such as investment institutions, which are often just intermediaries for other investors. Their shareholders, say the authors, tend to focus on short-term outcomes, a perspective that makes company managers reluctant to invest in the research and development that is the lifeblood of the new. The authors’ second villain is “corporate managerialism,” which breeds a “custodian corporate culture” that searches for certainty and control instead of “fast and radical innovation.”

A third villain is globalization, though the authors have a novel complaint: The global economy, they say, has given rise to large firms that are more interested in protecting their turf than pursuing path-breaking ideas. Finally, they decry “complex regulation” for injecting uncertainty into corporate investment and thus stifling the emergence of new ideas and new products.

Echoing the views of Northwestern economist Robert Gordon, Messrs. Erixon and Weigel lament the paucity of big-bang innovation, writing that “the advertised technologies for the future underwhelm.” They wonder why there hasn’t been more progress in all sorts of realms, from the engineering of flying cars to the curing of cancer. Responding to those who worry that robots will drive up unemployment, they say that the real concern should be “an innovation famine rather than an innovation feast.”

The ideas in “The Innovation Illusion” would be even more compelling if the authors had supported them with more real-life examples. A notable exception is their dissection of Nokia, which transformed itself from a Finnish power company into one of the world’s communications giants. The company faltered, the authors say, when it failed to heed one of Steve Jobs ’s maxims: “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.” Clinging to its traditional products and systems, Nokia lost market share to companies such as Apple that launched game-changing devices.

By cataloging the ups and downs of companies, countries and capitalism itself, both “Progress” and “The Innovation Illusion” give fresh emphasis to a fundamental truth: that improving the state of human societies—i.e., a rise in well-being and living standards—isn’t easy to do. It requires a mix of enlightened public policy and enterprising human capital, as well as social and political stability and an ability to adapt to new ideas. Throughout history, societies have struggled to get this recipe right, and even today all sorts of obstacles—from opioids to Aleppo—are potent reminders that progress is not preordained.

Mr. Rees is president of Geonomica, in McLean, Va., and a senior fellow at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

Summary: Matthew Rees reviews “Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future” by Johan Norberg and “The Innovation Illusion: How So Little Is Created by So Many Working So Hard” by Fredrik Erixon and Björn Weigel.


A fire-suppression foam spilled out of a hangar at Mineta San Jose International Airport on Friday afternoon and oozed like a bubble bath gone awry onto a nearby street, fire officials said.

The foam stemmed from a malfunction with equipment at the hangar, said Capt. Mitch Matlow, a spokesman for the San Jose Fire Department. The foam — which can irritate exposed skin or eyes — is designed to put out jet-fuel fires, he said.

A fire-alarm malfunction in a massive hangar housing multimillion-dollar corporate jets triggered the foam discharge, said Rosemary Barnes, a spokeswoman for the airport. Mountains of foam, feet deep at points, covered nearby Martin Avenue on the west edge of the airport

The 70,000-square-foot hangar is owned by Signature Flight Support, an international company that runs aviation operations worldwide, Barnes said, deferring further details to the company.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Blake Harrington rides through an overflow of foam from a fire suppression system on Martin Ave. in Santa Clara next to the San Jose International Airport on Friday, Nov. 18, 2016.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam explodes on Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, Calif.

Foam spills out of San Jose airport hangar, covers street

Patrick Sniffen, a spokesman for Signature Flight Support, said the hangar was empty when the sudsy scenario unfolded.

The company hired an environmental cleanup contractor Friday afternoon to clean up the foam, breaking down the suds before vacuuming up the remains.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @michael_bodley

Summary: A fire-suppression foam spilled out of a hangar at Mineta San Jose International Airport on Friday afternoon and oozed like a bubble bath gone awry onto a nearby street, fire officials said.  A fire-alarm malfunction in a massive hangar housing multimillion-dollar corporate jets triggered the foam discharge, said Rosemary Barnes, a spokeswoman for the airport.  The 70,000-square-foot hangar is owned by Signature Flight Support, an international company that runs aviation operations worldwide, Barnes said, deferring further details to the company.  The company hired an environmental cleanup contractor Friday afternoon to clean up the foam, breaking down the suds before vacuuming up the remains.


A Georgia man was overjoyed to open a PlayStation 4 for Christmas, but a cat did not share his enthusiasm.

Jessica Freeman posted a video to Facebook on Christmas Eve showing her friend Andrew Woodard excitedly opening a brand new PlayStation next to a Christmas tree. Two pets — a dog and a cat — can be seen wandering nearby to find out what the fuss is about.

As Woodard holds his gift, the cat pounces on him, digging its claws into his head as he falls to the ground.

“Y’all, this is what pure joy looks like. Also terror. Merry Christmas!” Freeman captioned the post, including the video and photos of the injuries sustained by Woodard. “This has resulted in a trip to the doctor and stitches. We love him and genuinely hope he feels better. It’s just nice to be able to laugh with your best friends.”

The shocking 8-second video quickly went viral, racking up over nearly 80 million views and 225,000 shares in less than 48 hours.

Initial reactions to the video included accusations of animal abuse, but Freeman vehemently dismissed the claims.

“The cat lives in a good home. Plenty of pictures of him being spoiled. He’s a jerk. Seriously,” she wrote. “This is not the only person he’s attacked. He wasn’t ‘provoked’. A grown up was acting overly excited as a joke and the cat walked across the room then back. He wasn’t ‘startled’. You can clearly see him walk up and calmly sit while planning his attack. Also, this is not my cat. No reason for me to lie. He is a jerk. Take your threats somewhere else. You can report me for animal abuse all you want. It’s. Not. Mine. And it’s not abused.”

She continued, “A human was attacked here, not a cat. Only in 2016 would people blame a person who didn’t touch an animal for getting attacked by said animal bc they were excited.”

Summary: Initial reactions to the video included accusations of animal abuse, but the video’s poster vehemently dismissed the claims


I've made no big secret of the fact that I've been eagerly awaiting the coming of the PlasticLogic reader, the device shown at DEMOfall 08 that's due out early next year. Since we talked about the device a couple weeks ago on Mashable Conversations, there's been a couple other announcements from other manufacturers (including Sony and iRex).

While I'm not completely against the idea of the Amazon Kindle anymore (because if it's good enough for Matt Mullenweg, it's good enough for me), I much prefer these other devices in theory. While their price points may end up being higher than the slightly-subsidized Kindle, the open architecture leaves it open to working with other cool applications aside from what the designers intended.

What am I talking about? Things like what Google announced today: a Book Search Data API designed to bring the functionality of its Data APIs to Book Search. ProgrammableWeb has the run down on all the technical specifications:

The REST- and Atom-based API lets applications search for and get information about books and fetch data like reviews and labels (tags) from Google Books’ My Library feature. Authentication is required for writing data back to a My Libriary collection, for which web-based applications can use AuthSub while ClientLogin support is supplied for stand-alone programs.

To coincide with the API updates, Google has partnered with high-profile organizations like WorldCat, Goodreads, and the University of California’s California Digital Library, all of which are now using embedded Book Search previews on their sites.

In English, this means that through the aid of the API, a lot of free functionality and content is going to become available to applications and devices that grab from Google's own (and partner) libraries.

We in the blog business generally salivate over eReaders primarily because it can mean a whole new distribution channel for the content we put our blood, sweat and tears into creating. The average Joe, though, who doesn't eat, sleep and breathe every post from every tech blogger might actually find it a major selling point for their eReader to access something other than the latest blog posts from their favorite magazines (be they Old or New Media).

Certainly this functionality isn't outside the reach and ability for Amazon to implement on the Kindle, but given the walled garden nature of the device as opposed to the openness of many of its competitors, I say it's a pretty safe bet we'll see it elsewhere first.

Summary: I've made no big secret of the fact that I've been eagerly awaiting the coming of the PlasticLogic reader, the device shown at DEMOfall 08 that's due out early next year. Since ...


hyllis Williams Lehmann, an archaeologist and art historian known for reuniting the hand of one of the icons of Western art, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, with two of its long-lost fingers, died on Sept. 29 at her home in Haydenville, Mass. She was 91.

The cause was congestive heart failure, according to Smith College, where Dr. Lehmann taught for more than 30 years.

Dr. Lehmann was an authority on the monuments and architecture of Samothrace, a remote, mountainous island in the north Aegean. The island was considered crucial in the development of the art and architecture of the Hellenistic period, which lasted from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. until the mid-first century B.C.

Samothrace was the center of one of the most famous mystery cults of Greek antiquity; its rituals were carried out in the group of imposing buildings known as the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, erected between the fourth and the second centuries B.C. The first of these structures to be built in marble was dedicated by Alexander's father, Philip II. Alexander's successors also erected monuments in the sanctuary.

As a result, the ruins at Samothrace have been of continuing interest to archaeologists, who have excavated there since the 1860's. Dr. Lehmann, who first visited the island in 1938, did her early work there with her husband, the archaeologist Karl Lehmann. She was assistant field director of the excavation from 1948 to 1960 and acting director from 1960 to 1965, and she remained closely involved with Samothrace for the rest of her career. A member of the Smith faculty from 1946 to 1978, she was dean of the college from 1965 to 1970.

Phyllis Williams was born Nov. 30, 1912, in Brooklyn. She received a bachelor's degree from Wellesley in 1934, and for the next two years worked at the Brooklyn Museum as an assistant in charge of the Classical collection. In 1936, she began her graduate work at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, which ran the excavation on Samothrace. She received her Ph.D. in 1943, and married Mr. Lehmann, the excavation's director, the next year. He died in 1960. No immediate family members survive.

Working on Samothrace in 1949, Phyllis Lehmann made one of her most important discoveries, a tall marble statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, dating from the second century B.C. Unearthed in three large pieces, Dr. Lehmann's statue was the third Nike to be found on the island. The first, the Winged Victory that today greets visitors to the Louvre from the top of an imposing staircase, was found in 1863 by the French archaeologist Charles Champoiseau. That statue, from around 190 B.C., was unearthed in fragments, probably damaged in an earthquake in the sixth century A.D. Reassembled in Paris, it lacked head, arms and hands.

In the 1870's, Austrian archaeologists uncovered a second Nike on Samothrace, this one a Roman copy. They took it to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, along with an unrelated assortment of marble fragments also found on the island. The fragments remained at the museum, unidentified and forgotten, for three-quarters of a century.

Dr. Lehmann's Nike, which had stood atop a building called the Hieron, is today on display in a museum on Samothrace.

In 1950, a team led by Karl Lehmann unearthed the missing right hand of the Louvre's Winged Victory. The hand, which had lost its fingers, had slid out of sight, under a large rock, near where the statue had originally stood. The team also found the tip of the ring finger nearby.

On their way home from Samothrace, the Lehmanns stopped in Vienna, where Phyllis sifted through the dusty storerooms of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Examining the fragments left there by the Austrian team more than 70 years before, she found the rest of Winged Victory's ring finger and a thumb. The hand, with thumb and finger reattached, is displayed at the Louvre in a glass case next to the statue.

Dr. Lehmann's many books include "The Pedimental Sculptures of the Hieron in Samothrace" (1962) and "Samothrace III: The Hieron," which was awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award of the Society of Architectural Historians in 1969.

She was made an honorary citizen of Samothrace in 1968.

Summary: Phyllis Williams Lehmann was an archaeologist and art historian known for reuniting the hand of one of the icons of Western art with two of its long-lost fingers.


By Laura Roberts and Thomas Harding Published: 7:30AM GMT 12 Jan 2010

The East Midlands Trains guard refused to honour the Ministry of Defence warrants for the four soldiers from the Intelligence Corps.

The men, who had left Helmand for two weeks’ rest and recuperation, arrived on a flight from Cyprus, which was diverted from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire to East Midlands Airport. The four soldiers from 11 Light Brigade were dropped at East Midlands Parkway station to catch the 8.06pm to St Pancras on Jan 7.

The ticket inspector ordered them off the train because their warrants were made out from Oxford station.

An MoD source said: “They were still dressed in desert combats and were carrying their kit bags but the guard told them to get off the train and refused to let it leave. The train driver even offered to have the men travel at the front of the train with him. No one on the train could understand why the ticket inspector was being so inflexible.”

The soldiers were unable to buy tickets because they only had US dollars and the train was the last service to the capital that evening.

The guard threatened to call the police until another passenger, who gave his name only as Mr Parkes, stepped in and paid for four full-price fares at a cost of £150.

An East Midlands Trains spokesman said: “We are extremely sorry for the way these soldiers were treated. We are currently trying to identify the specific soldiers affected and we will also be providing them with a full formal apology.”

"We have also spoken, and passed on our thanks, to the passenger who generously agreed to cover the costs of the soldiers' travel, and we are in the process of reimbursing the costs he incurred.

"We are proud of our armed forces and the important role they play in many very dangerous environments. East Midlands Trains is more than happy to provide assistance to forces personnel returning from duty overseas."

Maj Gen Mick Laurie, the former Director Intelligence Corps, said:“It is an extraordinary pity when a petty bureaucrat sticks so inanely to the rules that clearly don’t make sense in this instance,” he said.

An MoD spokesman said: “While still in Afghanistan, troops returning from operations are issued travel warrants for their onward travel home. In this case, the flight was diverted to East Midlands Airport because of bad weather. While this may have caused an inconvenience for some passengers, there is a system in place where personnel reclaim costs incurred in cases such as this.”

Summary:
A group of soldiers returning home from Afghanistan were threatened with
  arrest by a ticket inspector who claimed their rail warrants were not valid.


Sunday, September 7th 1997, 2:03AM

Here come the serious blonds ready to seriously act.

Starring Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the movie based on Jane Smiley's 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "A Thousand Acres," has a great deal of material to emote over. Jason Robards is the Midwestern farmer who gives his thousand acres of land to his three daughters, only to then turn against them. The women have very complicated relationships, and there is in this family a truly nasty secret. Ginny is the sister who thinks her life is in order until she's forced to confront a few issues including cancer, adultery, divorce and child abuse. This is "King Lear"set in 1979.

Of course, Lange loves to tackle intense drama. Pfeiffer's no slouch in that regard, either. And Jason Leigh lives for these parts. Apparently, the novel was difficult to adapt, and there was a fair amount of tension on the set. So let's hope the book survives some rough cuts and a studio demand for a recut. The movie also stars Keith Carradine, Pat Hingle and Colin Firth.

Summary: Here come the serious blonds ready to seriously act. Starring Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the movie based on Jane Smiley's 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "A Thousand Acres,"has a great deal of material to emote over. Jason Robards is the Midwestern farmer who gives his thousand acres of land to his three daughters, only to then turn against them. The women have very complicated relationships, and there is in this family


BY Alev Aktar and Candice Rainey

Sunday, November 3th 2002, 1:02AM

WHO is introducing a skin-care line? Supermodel Christie Brinkley (above) is putting the finishing touches on anti-aging products. She's the latest cover girl, following Iman, Christy Turlington and Lauren Hutton, to introduce a cosmetics collection.

WHAT is the latest accessory for your decolletage? Designer sparkle sprays, which scent your skin and veil it in a golden sheen. Ralph Lauren has introduced Glamourous Shimmer Eau de Toilette ($55), while Donna Karan has unveiled Cashmere Mist Lustre Spray ($55), a limited-edition product. Spritz one on your shoulders and legs before your next holiday party.

HOW can you light up a room, other than by smiling broadly? Carry a Regine Basha handbag trimmed with "radiant" piping. Each purse is fitted with a battery and an on/off switch, which allows the user to decide when she wants to shine. The compact suede and leather bags start at $200, and are available at Henri Bendel.

Summary: WHOis introducing a skin-care line? Supermodel Christie Brinkley (above) is putting the finishing touches on anti-aging products. She's the latest cover girl, following Iman, Christy Turlington and Lauren Hutton, to introduce a cosmetics collection. WHAT is the latest accessory for your decolletage? Designer sparkle sprays, which scent your skin and veil it in a golden sheen. Ralph Lauren has introduced Glamourous Shimmer Eau de Toilette (


BERLIN, Sept 30— Gunter Grass, whose epic first novel, ''The Tin Drum,'' tackled the theme of Germany's agonized identity, which he has examined from various angles throughout his life, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature today by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.

Uncompromising in his political stances, often headily evocative in his rhythmic prose, Mr. Grass, 71, has probed the development of Germany from Nazism through cold-war division to unification with a relentlessly vivid eye. He became the first German to receive the prize since Heinrich Boll in 1972.

In its citation today, the Swedish Academy said Mr. Grass's ''frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history.'' It praised his gift for ''reviewing contemporary history by recalling the disavowed and the forgotten: the victims, losers and lies that people wanted to forget because they had once believed in them.''

Of all the 20th century's fictional characters, perhaps few are as memorable as Oskar Matzerath, the boy with the tin drum and glass-shattering voice who stopped growing and so passes largely unnoticed as he observes the horror of the Nazi years with an unwavering gaze.

''An entire credulous nation believed, there's faith for you, in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really the gasman,'' Oskar observes in ''The Tin Drum'' as he contemplates Germany's pious infatuation with Hitler.

The raw power of such writing propelled the book, published in 1959, to worldwide fame and helped revive German literature after what the Swedish Academy today called ''decades of linguistic and moral destruction.''

Mr. Grass was en route to the dentist today in Lubeck, his hometown in northern Germany, when informed of the prize. Later, he said, ''It's a great joy for me, not just for myself but for all German literature, which is honored with me.''

It was an uncharacteristically patriotic remark from a man who was bitterly critical of German unification in 1990, describing it as another Anschluss and insisting that Auschwitz should have made a united Germany forever impossible because it demonstrated that such a country was a danger to the world.

Solidly built, his face dominated by mischievous eyes and a drooping walruslike mustache, Mr. Grass has never shied away from challenging what he has often seen as his country's bourgeois complacency.

He explored his anger, and angered many of his countrymen, in his major novel of the 1990's, ''Ein Weites Feld.'' Published in 1995 and translated as ''A Broad Field,'' the book was widely criticized in Germany for its portrayal of ignorant and avaricious business tycoons taking over the ''people's property'' of the former East Germany.

But the work, whatever the criticism, captured the mutual incomprehension that had plagued Germany's attempts at integration throughout the 1990's, and the academy said that it confirmed ''the author's position as the great prober of the history of this century.''

Mr. Grass, whose passionate engagement in German society is utterly removed from the minimalist introspection of some modern literature, said today: ''A writer must not only fulfill literary obligations, but also those of a citizen by being involved politically. I hope that young writers remember this in the future.''

The admonition came from a man who has repeatedly found inspiration in the turbulence and tragedy of 20th-century German life. Among Mr. Grass' best-known books, all published in the United States, are ''Cat and Mouse'' (1961) and ''Dog Years''(1963), which with ''The Tin Drum'' made up ''The Danzig Trilogy.''

In 1977 came ''The Flounder,'' a bustling and mischievous yarn woven from world history in which the destructiveness of men is contrasted with the achievements and sanity of women. This year Mr. Grass published ''My Century: A Novel of Stories,'' which is a running commentary on his times.

''The prize was long overdue,'' said Martin Walser, a prominent German writer. ''Grass deserved to win the Nobel Prize for 'The Tin Drum' alone.'' In a speech last year Mr. Walser said that he was impatient with constant reminders of the Holocaust, remarks that prompted debate in Germany and revealed the uneasy conscience and uncertain national identity so often examined by Mr. Grass.


The legacy of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies is their generosity. There’s so much beneath the usual considerations of plot, pace, and performance that each encounter erases the ones before. All my repeat viewings have accumulated into a rich familiarity but never complete or complacent knowledge. Hitchcock allows for dozens of interpretations and a diversity of devotion: Lots of people adore these movies but not always in the same way or for the same reasons. The richest of them – “Suspicion,” “Notorious,” “Rear Window,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “The Birds,” “Marnie” – are like cities: There’s always some side street, some building, …

This is an article preview. The full story is available to BostonGlobe.com subscribers.

Summary: *1/2 Hitchcock The best way to better understand the man who made some of our greatest movies is simply to see them. There’s no case to be made for a mangy shortcut like this. All surface and formula, it takes Stephen Rebello’s invaluable 1990 account of the making of “Psycho” and implodes as it tries to turn the book into camp. Anthony Hopkins plays the director as a creepy parade float. Helen Mirren is his long-suffering wife (98 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)


Guardian Brand Partnerships by Seven Plus to a brief agreed with Andrex Eco

by Andrex Eco. All editorial controlled by the Guardian, except those articles labelled as advertisement feature

From time to time the Guardian offers companies and organisations the opportunity to partner with us on specially commissioned sections on subjects we think are of interest to our readers. For more information about how we work with commercial partners on customised publications, please visit

Summary: Andrex green living


They are forward-looking individuals who are curious about the world and embrace change and technology.

Progressives are Curious Connected Consumers. Learn more about Curious Connected Consumers here.

Our aim at GNM is to grow our 'Progressive' audience through open journalism and product innovation.

So why are Progressives valuable to advertisers?

Sources: GNM Total Audience research 2012 wave 1, GNM Word of Mouth research 2009

Summary: A unique opportunity to reach forward-looking individuals who are curious about the world


Rachel Heller, 29, sits at the table surveying colour photocopies of her pictures - the originals are being hung for the solo exhibition of her work which opens today at Flowers East gallery in London. She wants to show me the one she likes best from the strong charcoal and pencil drawings of people in repose with sleepy, pensive expressions; the soft-coloured elliptical oils and several detailed drawings of an olive-skinned woman with well-defined breasts, in a coral pink dress. She points to one of these and speaks - something she does not do much: "My favourite!"

Placing a hand tenderly on her daughter's arm Angela Flowers, 70, smiles at her. The exhibition, at the gallery her mother opened 33 years ago, is to commemorate Rachel's 30th birthday. Angela murmurs: "Rachel is so excited about this show. She's really happy in a way that isn't always so obviously the case."

Rachel was born on September 15, 1973 with Down's syndrome and into circumstances that were far from simple. Angela had left her husband, Adrian Flowers, for Robert Heller, a management consultant and author, enraging and distressing the four children aged eight to 20 she already had, feelings that were compounded when she unintentionally became pregnant.

Angela was 40 at the time but amniocentesis had not been suggested. The day after Rachel was born the young doctor in charge asked when her husband would be visiting - in fact, Angela and Bob were not even living together at the time. When Bob arrived at 8am, Angela watched the young doctor fumbling for a way to tell her. "I realised something was wrong so I shouted at him, 'Cut the cackle and tell me', which he did. I would like to believe things are done better now, but you still hear some very similar stories."

Almost immediately after the diagnosis of Down's syndrome, a genetic condition caused by an unusual cell division that produces an extra chromosome, Angela recalls: "A very haughty sister strode in saying, 'You'll now have to make a decision whether to keep her.' I was appalled."

Not long afterwards, a social worker called at her house and said, presuming it would comfort: "They don't live long, you know."

It was an introduction to a world that could only see a baby for whom she felt as much love and delight as she did for her other children, as a disaster. But Angela and Bob were determined it didn't have to be seen that way, although Bob says: "When we got the news I was deeply shocked. I went away and howled." However, next day, when he returned to hospital, "I just saw this stunning baby and thought, so what's the problem? We would bring her up just like any other child and see if there was a problem."

Fortunately, Angela adds, wryly: "We never felt Rachel was the judgment of God or that we had done something wrong to have an imperfect child."

Even so, she was glad of support from a young Cambridge graduate who was following Rachel's progress for a study on Down's development: "She clearly thought Rachel wonderful and helped me feel confident. She did tests on mobility, and showed me how to do exercises with the baby and stimulate her. I think organisations for Down's children offer much more of that kind of support these days."

Rachel, one of 60,000 people in the UK with Down's, was born at a time when children like her were frequently put into institutions and seen as "freaks" if out in public. And it was difficult dealing with the looks and comments. On one occasion when Bob overheard a German woman telling her daughter, "That little girl is ill", he turned and shouted, "No, she's not."

Campaigning over the past decade on behalf of people with special needs has made a big difference, Angela thinks, "There's far less of the 'Does she take sugar?' behaviour," while Bob thinks that a high-profile case of a paediatrician accused of ill-treatment leading to the death of a Down's syndrome child in the late 70s was a turning point. "Before that, Rachel attracted negative reactions but after the case, when we went out together, it was as though she were a pin-up. People smiled and talked. I really think it made people stop and think."

Rachel spends every day at college doing art, goes to the Victoria and Albert museum with a friend at weekends to draw and goes on courses in her holidays. Her parents shared, from the start, a "can-do" rather than "can't-do" approach, encouraging her to do anything that she wanted to. They took her out with them whenever possible to social events and on holidays organised to suit Rachel, which usually meant the seaside, swimming pools and friendly hotels.

She also accompanied her parents to exhibition openings at the Flowers galleries, which are both in London: "She learned very young how to behave at these events and is friends with many of the artists, aren't you, Rach?" says Angela, turning to her daughter who is beaming and nodding. "Friends," she says. Angela makes a mock grimace: "The greatest problem we have with her is talking. She has never developed good speech with us and Bob sometimes finds it frustrating not to be able to have a conversation when they go out a deux for dinner."

The art that has shaped and filled Rachel's life from an early age began when she was at a special primary school. She produced notebooks full of stick figures playing football or dancing. When Rachel was 13, Angela took two she particularly liked into the gallery. The broadcaster Jeremy Isaacs and the artist John Bird came in and started quarrelling about who would buy one. "I realised then that we should start taking her art seriously."

When she was 16, Rachel went to Hammersmith and West London College on a course which included art for special needs and her ability flourished. She was invited to sit an A-level by her inspirational teacher, Max Ellis, and did a foundation year at the Byam Shaw art school. At 20, she was offered a show by John Jones who had a small gallery. It was a sell-out and since, she has participated in some 20 shows, mostly at the Flowers galleries. Her work is bought regularly by artists, including Anthony Caro and Maggie Hambling.

You see the passion and tenderness that Angela and Bob feel for Rachel at their home in Highgate, north London, where they pop into her bedroom to listen to one of her vast collection of CDs, or Bob delighting in Rachel's "communication" with him through her work. You can't help feeling that Rachel's "serenity", of which Bob talks, comes from this.

Yet it hasn't all been easy. Fifteen years ago, Rachel walked out of school, disappeared for a day, and was found only after a big police hunt having taken up with some homeless people. After that, Angela had to accept, that "being a hands-on parent there to protect her is an unending job".

Now the big issue is what will happen to Rachel when they die. Both are in their 70s and Angela knows they can't avoid thinking about it. Recently she had a meeting with her other children, who are all close to their half-sister. Her eldest son, Adam, and his wife, Jane, have said they would like her to live with them. Even so, Angela's breezy joviality fades: "I find it very difficult to contemplate leaving her and how she will cope. That's when having a child with special needs is tough."

But for now they delight in Rachel and this summer, when they were married, Angela and Rachel both wore deep pink Vivienne Westwood dresses. Rachel pauses from the list of pop songs she is writing and listens to Angela say: "I'm with Rachel as much of the time as I can be. She and I spend a lot of time talking about how we are best friends."

Then she sees tears in her daughter's eyes and gives her a big hug.

· Rachel Heller's exhibition is at Flowers East, 82 Kingsland Road, E2, until September 20. Tel: 0207-920 7777

Summary: For her 30th birthday, gallery owner Angela Flowers is giving her artist daughter Rachel a special present - a solo exhibition. Angela Neustatter talks to Rachel's parents about the delights of bringing up a child with Down's syndrome.


A dispatch to the Commercial from Catlettsburgh, Ky., dated the 19th inst., says:

Capt. PATRICK has arrived here with over 100 prisoners, captured at the battles of Paintsville and Half Mountain, on the Licking River.

HODGE's rebel brigade attacked Col. GILLESPIE's force at Paintsville on Tuesday, but was repulsed.

GILLESPIE pursued the retreating rebels with 800 men of the Fourteenth and Thirty-ninth Kentucky, and surprised them on the 14th inst., in camp, at Half Mountain, capturing 70 prisoners, 200 horses, 400 saddles, 300 stand of small arms, and all their camp equipage.

Eighty-five rebels were killed and wounded.

A large amount of stolen property was recovered and returned to the citizens.

A rebel wagon train was also captured and burned.

Our loss was one killed and four wounded.

The rebels were commanded by Cols. CLAY, PRENTICE, MAY and JOHNSON.

Col. CLAY is among the prisoners.