Prime Minister Theresa May has chaired the first meeting of her new cabinet.

Mrs May told her ministers she did not want the UK to be "defined by Brexit", but to "build the education, skills, and social mobility to allow everyone to prosper from the opportunities of leaving the EU".

Chancellor Philip Hammond updated cabinet on the post-referendum economy.

Only a handful of the 27 members of Mrs May's top team are in the same jobs as under David Cameron.

Others are in the cabinet for the first time.

During the 90-minute cabinet meeting Mrs May repeated her call, made on the steps of Downing Street, for the government to focus on the interests of working people and not just "the privileged few".

She told ministers they all had a duty to make a success of Brexit - and that it was not just the responsibility of those directly involved in the negotiations.

The cabinet was told to "get to it and get on with the job" and that "politics is not a game" as she insisted quitting the European Union presented a "huge opportunity".

It was also revealed Mrs May would chair three new Cabinet committees - on the economy and industrial strategy, exiting the European Union and international trade, and social reform.

The new PM has fundamentally reshaped the government since entering Downing Street less than a week ago, getting rid of a host of senior figures such as Mr Osborne, Michael Gove and Oliver Letwin who were key allies of Mr Cameron.

Of the 22 full members of the cabinet and five who have the right to attend, only five - Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns, Scottish Secretary David Mundell and Attorney General Jeremy Wright - retained the roles they held previously.

Key appointments included Philip Hammond as chancellor of the exchequer, Amber Rudd as home secretary and Justine Greening as education secretary while David Davis was put in day-to-day charge of the process of taking the UK out of the EU.

Labour's Jon Ashworth said: "Changing the faces at the top of the Tory Party will do nothing for working people let down by this government. We need a change of direction to put ordinary people first."

Mrs May, who has already held talks with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones, received a boost on Monday when MPs overwhelmingly voted by a majority of 355 to proceed with the full renewal of the UK's Trident nuclear weapons system.

The prime minister will face her first Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, after which she will travel to Germany for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. On Thursday, she will meet French President Francois Hollande.

Mrs May has said she does not expect the UK to officially notify the EU of its intention to leave before the end of the year, while making it clear there can be no going back on last month's referendum result.

She is under pressure from some EU countries to trigger Article 50 - the first step in the formal legal process of leaving - as early as possible, with some EU officials suggesting there can be no official negotiations before this happens.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will emphasise the UK's determination to continue playing a major role on the global stage, despite the vote to leave the EU, by holding a series of high-profile meetings in London.

The former mayor of London has been holding talks with US counterpart John Kerry later before going to Washington on Thursday to discuss the threat posed by so-called Islamic State and other Islamist militant groups.

He will also meet foreign ministers from France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, to discuss the humanitarian situation in Syria and Yemen and diplomatic efforts to bring the long-running conflicts in both countries to an end.

"We must be more active, more engaged and more outward-looking so I am delighted to have this early opportunity to welcome my international counterparts to London for important meetings on the conflicts in Syria and Yemen," Mr Johnson said.

On Monday, after attending his first EU meeting in Brussels, Mr Johnson said the UK's exit from the 28-nation organisation did not mean it would be leaving Europe or "abandoning" its friends.

Former chancellor George Osborne, meanwhile, has given his full backing to the new prime minister and Mr Hammond while urging them to maintain the "closest possible" ties with European partners on the economy and security.

"She (Theresa May) has the strength and the integrity to do the job, as she faces up to the great challenge that lies ahead," he told a think tank in central London.

"We have been - and we should always remain, in my view - a global power: interested in shaping the world rather than being shaped by it.

"As we negotiate our exit from the EU, I hope we seek the closest possible new ties with our European neighbours. They are, on the economy and on security, our friends not our foes."

Summary: Theresa May chairs her first cabinet meeting since becoming PM, telling her ministers she does not want the UK to be "defined by Brexit".


An increasing number of companies that need to make job cuts at around the 100 mark are capping redundancies at 99 or fewer, according to employment lawyers. Why? Because it allows them to make those job cuts faster – without three long months of consultation – and save a huge sum in wage costs during the process.

It's all to do with the way UK employment law is structured. Under the rules, employers shedding 100 or more jobs must start consulting with trade unions or employee representatives at least 90 days before any dismissals take effect. The consultation process itself does not need to last the full three month period, but no redundancies must take place until the 90 days is up.

Those businesses cutting between 20 and 99 staff need only take 30 days before dismissing anyone – enabling them to push through job cuts faster.

Geoffrey Mead, an employment partner at Eversheds, said: “You come across employers who will keep the number of redundancies below 100 in order to have a period of 30 days rather than 90 days. You might say that is a bit sneaky but it is structuring your decisions so as to comply with legal requirements.”

He said employers who typically needed to reduce headcount by about 100 were increasingly trying to get the numbers below the 100 threshold, so as to be able to consult faster and get those employees out faster. Those employers who think they need to cut about 105 roles may consider reducing this by six, for example.

He said Lotus could save significant wage costs – “60 days’ pay for up to 99 people” – by doing this.

Lotus would not comment on the number of job cuts it plans to make, confirming only that up to 99 roles were at risk. Nor would it comment on whether it was deliberately keeping job cuts capped at 99 to avoid lengthy consultation processes. The car maker plans to make a final decision on the number of employees affected by June 17.

Mr Mead said critics could view any organisation's move to cap redundancies as "sneaky" as it enables the company to push through cuts faster with less consultation. However, he added it was "perfectly lawful" and "not uncommon" for employers do this.

But employers which had to make signficantly more job cuts – anything from 150 upwards – were unlikely to use this tactic, Mr Mead said. That is because an organisation can only consult on one set of redundancies during any three-month period.

If a company had to shed about 600 roles, spreading those redundancies into six seperate bouts (fewer than 99 at a time) would actually take a year-and-a-half – far longer than the 90 day period required for substantial job cuts. Where's the benefit in that?

Job vacancies and career advice at Telegraph Jobs

Summary: News that Lotus is planning "up to 99 job cuts" could mean the   company is hoping to make redundancies fast.


BEIJING — A scholarly journal backed by liberal-minded retired Communist cadres has ceased publication after 25 years, according to a statement by its ousted publisher and senior editors.

“From now on, if any periodical comes out with the name Yanhuang Chunqiu, it has nothing to do with us,” reads the statement, released on Sunday.

The announcement comes after the dismissal last week of Yanhuang Chunqiu’s founding publisher, Du Daozheng, and the demotion of its chief editor by its sponsoring institution, the Chinese National Academy of Arts, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Culture. The academy also assigned four of its own staff members to important editorial positions.

Employees at Yanhuang Chunqiu said the move violated a contract under which the academy had agreed not to interfere with the journal’s editorial or personnel affairs. They also said the academy had sent in several of its own employees to occupy the journal’s offices and had changed the passwords of the publication’s website and internet accounts, making it impossible to continue working.

The academy did not respond to an email requesting comment, and telephone calls went unanswered.

“I protest,” Mr. Du said by phone on Tuesday from his home in Beijing. “I’m angry.”

The journal’s printers had also stopped accepting copy, he said. “So we’re paralyzed,” he said.

“As a cadre, a Communist Party member, I absolutely can’t understand this. It resembles methods used in the Cultural Revolution,” said Mr. Du, who once oversaw the General Administration of Press and Publication, a state regulatory agency. “Does this mean that we, the Communist Party, want another Cultural Revolution?”

Yanhuang Chunqiu, whose name roughly means Chinese Annals, was founded in 1991 and has carried articles advocating political change and examining delicate issues in Chinese Communist history. Its departures from the official party narrative have landed it in trouble before.

In 2008, it published a series of articles extolling the achievements of Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party general secretary who fell from power in 1989 because he opposed the use of military force to crush the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Jiang Zemin, who succeeded Mr. Zhao as party chief, pressed for Mr. Du’s removal from the journal, but he was able to retain the position with the support of other retired party officials who favored a more liberal political system.

In an interview in 2009, Mr. Du said, “I am old enough and tough enough that if there is any pressure from the government, I can hold on here.”

But this time is different, he said on Tuesday.

“The situation is more serious now,” he said. “I can only think of the Cultural Revolution.”

During that tumultuous political movement initiated by Mao Zedong in 1966, Mr. Du lost his job as editor of a Communist Party newspaper.

“I was in my office, and the rebels came,” he said. “They declared that I was a capitalist roader and a counterrevolutionary. They said, now we’ve seized power. You should leave.”

“Now that the journal’s office has been occupied, I am feeling this again,” he said.

Mr. Du, 92, said he suspected the academy might have moved against the journal when it did because he was hospitalized for high blood pressure after the death of his wife of 68 years last month. He returned home from the hospital on Tuesday morning.

“This is so low,’’ he said. “To some extent, this is inhumane and is taking advantage of my misfortune.”

“These old cadres don’t surrender,” said Qiao Mu, an associate professor of journalism at Beijing Foreign Studies University. “Yanhuang Chunqiu has been a relatively moderate voice within the party system. It’s about restoring truth to the party’s history.”

Mr. Qiao said that when Mr. Jiang and his successor as party chief, Hu Jintao, were in power, there was greater tolerance for a publication like Yanhuang Chunqiu.

“For years, there have been controversies about the magazine, but the people who founded it had ties to senior leaders,” Mr. Qiao said. “Now, the old cadres and former party officials don’t have that sort of influence anymore.”

Mr. Du expressed a similar thought. He said that he had contacted several people he hoped could intervene on behalf of the journal but that those efforts had been unsuccessful so far. “Ministerial-level officials I asked — I don’t know why they’re not willing to say something,” he said. “They’re shying away.”

Last Friday, Yanhuang Chunqiu’s lawyers filed a complaint with the Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing accusing the academy of violating its contract with the journal. Ding Xikui, one of the lawyers, said the court would decide this week whether to accept the case.

Mr. Du said that, given China’s current political climate, he was not optimistic that Yanhuang Chunqiu would be able to resume publication with its original editorial staff. But he would not exclude that possibility should the lawsuit against the academy succeed.

“Right now I’m feeling helpless,” he said. “We appeal to heaven, but it doesn’t respond. We appeal to earth, and that doesn’t work. We can only pursue the legal channel now. It’s difficult to say whether we’ll win. We’re hoping for victory but are prepared for defeat.”

An earlier version of this article misstated Du Daozheng’s age. It is 92, not 93.

Summary: The journal, Yanhuang Chunqiu, has carried articles advocating political change and examining delicate issues in Chinese Communist history.


“A BBC World interview with the Dalai Lama…” The penny finally dropped. “Oh, I get it!”

If someone had just told me about the intrusive censorship before I went to China then I wouldn’t have wasted so much time worrying about defective televisions.

In the West we are usually at our indignant and argumentative best when criticising government policies and the politicians behind them. You should be aware, however, that criticising the Chinese government goes down like a lead balloon in the PRC.

• Expat problems: how to cope with the biggest ones

The indoctrination in school and from the state media is very strong so if you are foolish enough to embark on a political conversation take care to remember the following:

Following on from above, you really do need to reconsider how appropriate your favourite throwaway lines are, now that you’ve moved to China.

One of my favourite retorts on being told that I couldn’t or shouldn’t do something was to say “Why not? It’s a free country!” A few months into my China posting I was persuaded to abandon this line and find a new, more appropriate retort. Unfortunately, “I acknowledge the need for a socially harmonious society and accordingly, I shall therefore temper my instinct to selfishly pursue my own interests,” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Chinese demonstrators shout slogans near the Japanese consulate in Shanghai in 2010 Photo: Getty

"Due to government decree, there is no central heating in public buildings south of the Yangtze river"

I wish someone had told me that, due to government decree, there is no central heating in public buildings south of the Yangtze river. This policy was intended to bring about huge savings in energy costs, though of course the realities of this diktat are ridiculous. For example, just a few miles to the north of Shanghai, the public buildings are toasty warm throughout the winter. However, in Shanghai itself, people are expected to happily shiver through freezing winter temperatures.

We tend to think that the repressed British are hardly a demonstrative bunch. Well compared with the Chinese we are almost French. As a foreigner in China, it is best to keep your behaviour as formal as possible, at least until you know someone really well.

• The perils of French kissing

I remember on arriving in Shanghai my wife, recognising a close colleague of mine, greeted him with a peck on the cheek. He was dumbfounded and just didn’t know where to look. Remember, an overly friendly greeting might make your Chinese friends and colleagues feel uncomfortable and could even cause offence.

"China makes the racist, sexist 1970s look like afternoon tea with Polly Toynbee"

You’ll need to put your Western liberal sensibilities to one side and “man up”. China makes the racist, sexist 1970s look like afternoon tea with Polly Toynbee. For example, a colleague once showed what appeared to be genuine sympathy for the poverty suffered in many African countries. “It’s not their fault,” she exclaimed. “They’re just not as clever as us.”

To the Chinese, humility is a puzzling, alien concept. I used to enjoy the two-mile walk from my house in Honqiao to my office in Gubei. To my surprise I was confronted about this apparently harmless practice by several of my colleagues who chided me: “If you walk, people will think you are poor. They will think that you cannot afford a car.”

The overwhelming majority of Chinese people don’t do manners. I am unsure as to the reason behind this. Someone once told me that when the Communists came to power, Mao labelled manners as bourgeois and consequently those with good sense dropped their manners overnight for fear of being perceived as a class enemy.

• Are you an offensive expat?

Whatever the real reason, the sheer rudeness on display can take the breath away. Be prepared for spitting, queue-jumping and being barged out of the way.

A pedestrian walks past a signboard reading 'please do not spit, do not litter' in Beijing in May 2007. The city outlawed spitting, queue-jumping, littering and other conduct likely to tarnish its image ahead of the 2008 Olympics, with fines for the offences, but the habits remain rife across the country according to our writer Photo: Getty

Most expat postings, particularly in China, come complete with a car and driver. Some expat employees even have to sign a contract stating that they will never drive themselves. On the roads here, it’s every man for himself and whatever you do, you should never show consideration and never give way to any other driver. It shows weakness. Any outsider wanting to drive in such an atmosphere of anarchy would surely need his head examined. I am that man. I went out on the roads no more than seven or eight times. These proved to be terrifying experiences. After just a week or so, I hung my keys up for the duration and threw my newly acquired licence away.

You may arrive in China with noble thoughts about the family of man, with your liberal certainties intact and a Guardian folded under your left arm. Unfortunately, experience soon corrects you. After a few months subsumed in a society where nobody says please or thank you, people routinely slam you out of the way in their hurry to get out of the lift, drivers beep furiously and try to run you down if you foolishly think the zebra crossing gives you some sort of right of way, where the loud rasping clearing of the throat is inevitably followed by the well directed spit… well, you get the picture.

Before you know it, you are a committed cultural imperialist, clinging to the humane comfort blanket that is the expat bubble. You will gather in all the Western bars, and compete with others as to who has suffered the worst ‘China moment’ - the one that causes the usually calm and collected expat to 'lose it'.

Some people hate the China experience and long for the day when they can get away. Others are seduced and want to stay forever. But one thing is certain: every expat experiences a China moment.

Richard Fowler spent eight years living in Shanghai with his wife, Heather, and their children Isabel, 14, Tommy, 12, and Jack, 10. They moved back to Britain in 2012 and now live in Solihull. Read more articles by Richard about expat life in China at shanghairecollections.wordpress.com.

• Moving guide: 10 things to know before relocating to Qatar

• What makes expats grumpy?

• The Chinese government did everything in their power to destroy me

Summary: Living in a Communist country with drastically different social and moral   conventions proved a bumpy ride for Richard Fowler. Here's his advice   based on lessons learnt ...


A former al-Qaeda fighter who later became a spy for the British secret service says ISIS views the Britain’s European Union referendum in June with “great interest” , and is likely planning an attack in the U.K. which would persuade voters to leave the E.U.

Aimen Dean—who once swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden in person—tells TIME in an interview in London that Islamist extremists in al-Qaeda and ISIS would see the U.K.’s departure from the E.U. as a first step in the destruction of the union, which they see as a successor to the Roman Empire.

Much of the ideology of ISIS and al-Qaeda is rooted in theories of a clash of civilisation between Muslims and the non-Muslim world, which were formulated in the 7th century when Muslims fought for supremacy with the Byzantine (Roman) Empire and the Persian Empire.

Dean says that recent attacks in Brussels and Paris are also part of a strategy to destroy non-Islamic institutions and states and provoke conflict between Muslim and non-Muslims in the Middle East. This final battle, they believe, has been foreseen in religious writing and will herald the end of the world.

Whatever they [ISIS] can do to break up that empire is justifiable to them, says the former jihadist who became disillusioned with al-Qaeda in 1998 and acted as double agent until 2006, when his name was revealed in a book.

If the referendum result leads to the U.K. leaving the E.U., ISIS will take credit for having struck the first significant blow against the E.U., which it sees as representing the nations that carried out crusades against Muslim states for control of the Holy Lands between 1089 and 1390.

Dean,38, was brought up in Saudi Arabia but embarked on his first jihad in 1994 to fight with Bosnian Muslims against Serb nationalists in the former Yugoslavia. From there he went to Afghanistan where his Islamic education impressed aides of bin Laden.

Dean’s transformation came after the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which left 224 dead—all but 12 were local civilians. He disagreed with al-Qaeda’s justification for killing civilians and went from al-Qaeda activist to betrayer, with the help of the secret services of Qatar and then the U.K.

Dean, who advises both public and private sectors on terrorism from his base in Dubai, also claims that a civil war within Islam is driving the west towards further Middle East conflict.

He says Muslim communities worldwide are in conflict, similar to the wars of the Reformation in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Militant Sunnis are against aginst Militant Shias, he explains, and Sunnis are engaged in internal conflict, such as ISIS versus al-Qaeda, ISIS and states such as Jordan and Egypt versus the Muslim Brotherhood. “The West is the side casualty,” says Dean.

Foreign Fighters from the U.K., U.S., France, Belgium and other countries suffer from a “deep identify crisis,” says Dean. He says such Muslims who find themselves looking to ISIS don’t relate to their countries of birth, and cling to Islam as an “identity rather than a religion,” which provides them a set of rules and regulations which they chose to obey zealously.

Dean says it is naive to believe that Islamic extremism has been caused by hawkish western foreign policy in the Middle East although the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq played in to the jihadists’ hands. The US-led coalition “didn’t plan enough” for what would happen after the Iraqi invasion. “They went in blind and left even more blind,” he says.

When al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, “they were hoping that there would be an Iraqi and Afghanistan invasion,” he says. By having more “ungoverned spaces they could gain a greater foothold.” ISIS is continuing the tactics of al-Qaeda in trying to provoke the West to deeper involvement in the Middle East in order to create chaos which will help them thrive, he says.

Dean says bin Laden’s influence is not as potent or as relevant as observers would once have predicted. “When you look at the jihadi literature, you don’t see him as revered,” says Dean. He is “one of many” jihadist leaders that lived and will ultimately be killed, “like Musab al-Zarqawi (the founder of ISIS) was killed and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—the current leader of ISIS—will also be killed.”

One of Dean’s major messages to the West is that leaders can be killed all the time, but it is the grass roots that provide the momentum for an organization and its next leaders.

Summary: ISIS may also try to influence referendum with U.K. terror attack


The widely-condemned tests - personally monitored by the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un - were aimed at simulating possible attacks on South Korean ports and airfields hosting US military targets, the North's state-run media said.

North Korea has threatened "physical action" in response to the recent agreement between Seoul and Washington to deploy the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD missile system in South Korea.

The recent missile tests were greeted with anger by activists who launched propaganda balloons at the South’s heavily-fortified border carrying 300,000 anti-North Korean leaflets.

The launches, which are guaranteed to rile Pyongyang, came as new figures from South Korea estimated that the North’s GDP had contracted at its sharpest rate for eight years on the back of a slump in commodity exports.

A photo provided by the activists showed a banner attached to one of the balloons reading: "All humanity condemns the nuclear-obsessed Kim Jong-un who squeezes the blood of his own people to fire rockets!"

Summary: North Korea is constructing a massive underground facility capable of sheltering ballistic missile submarine at a location on its east coast, new satellite images have shown.


When making the pitch for criminal-justice reform last year, President Obama emphasized just how unique the issue is: partisans and ideologues may not agree on much in these divisive times, but there’s broad agreement on overhauling the costly and ineffective status quo.

Sen. Tom Cotton on Thursday slammed his colleagues’ efforts to pass sweeping criminal justice reforms, saying the United States is actually suffering from an “under-incarceration problem.”

Cotton, who has been an outspoken critic of the bill in Congress that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences, smacked down what he called “baseless” arguments that there are too many offenders locked up for relatively small crimes, that incarceration is too costly, or that “we should show more empathy toward those caught up in the criminal-justice system.”

Speaking at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, the Arkansas Republican argued, in all seriousness, “Take a look at the facts. First, the claim that too many criminals are being jailed, that there is over-incarceration, ignores an unfortunate fact: for the vast majority of crimes, a perpetrator is never identified or arrested, let alone prosecuted, convicted, and jailed. Law enforcement is able to arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes.”

“If anything,” Cotton argued, “we have an under-incarceration problem.”

The GOP senator went on to argue against letting Americans vote after they’ve served their time, and against the “Ban the Box” campaign. He also boasted that the bipartisan criminal-justice reform legislation, co-sponsored by members of the Democratic and Republican leadership, “is dead in this year’s Congress.”

This status quo is brutally expensive; it does lasting damage to countless families; and it undermines communities nationwide. Many policymakers – in both parties – hear numbers like these and believe it’s time to change direction. There’s nothing so unique about Americans that necessitates the United States locking up so many of our fellow citizens.

But then there’s Tom Cotton, who sees these numbers as little more than a good start towards an even larger prison population.

Summary: The U.S. accounts for 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its inmates. One Senate Republican is committed to making this much worse.


LENOX — Richard Strauss’s “Himmelsboten,” which opened “Strauss and His World,” Wednesday’s Tanglewood recital by baritone Thomas Hampson and pianist Wolfram Rieger, is one song, but might as well be six: Each stanza gets its own musical milieu. As Hampson impishly asked a sunbeam to enter his beloved’s window and kiss her breast, the melodic surge shuffled the harmonies through an entire deck of keys. Some composers create musical order as a refuge from the world’s messiness; Strauss fled into excess.

Commemorating this year’s Strauss anniversary (the composer’s 150th birthday), Hampson and Rieger fashioned eight of his disparate songs into a convincing cycle: young to old, love to loss, light to dark to light again. Among occasional drama — Hampson reached ringing, heroically hopeful heights in “Heimliche Aufforderung,” as well as “Sehnsucht,” with its similarly grand (if more equivocal) trajectory — the dominant mood was lush and languorous, a “velvet thread through the graying dusk,” as “Traum durch die Dämmerung” put it.

Hampson’s is a detailed art, every note, every word considered and interpreted. He is also a risk-taker, making decisions on the basis of poetic immediacy rather than vocal safety. Most moments worked, often breathtakingly: the sudden, ghostly shudder on the final note of “Die Nacht,” or the sustained fragility of “Morgen.” (Rieger matched Hampson for closely attentive polish, producing crystalline, delicate precision throughout.)

The second half placed Strauss among contemporaries (Alexander Zemlinsky; pre-atonal Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern; Alma Mahler, giving Strauss the most run for his money, with her splendidly atmospheric “Die stille Stadt”), all setting poems by the quintessentially late-Romantic Richard Dehmel. It was another opportunity to appreciate Strauss’s extravagance — in this case, in the service of Dehmel’s “Befreit,” Hampson journeying from smooth, sonorous epiphanies to pealing, hall-filling power, then all the way back to startling intimacy.

Strauss’s closest colleague, Gustav Mahler, closed the concert: four of his five songs to texts by Friedrich Rückert. (The outcast, “Liebst du um Schönheit,” was restored, along with Mahler’s “Rheinlegendchen,” as an encore.) Mahler’s comparatively classical restraint was, again, a contrast. But “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (“I am lost to the world”), sung and played with uncanny, exquisitely controlled hush, might have been a portrait of Strauss himself, his decided (and, as in his dealings with the Nazis, sometimes dismaying) diffidence recast as pure musicality. “I live alone in my heaven,” Rückert concludes, “in my love, in my song.”

Summary: Matthew Guerrieri reviews “Richard Strauss and His World,” a themed recital program by baritone Thomas Hampson at the Tanglewood Music Festival on Wednesday evening.


07/26/2016 AT 10:00 PM EDT

For those who haven't seen Tuesday's

viewers who were shocked by

– Fletcher herself was surprised by the

on her final two suitors

"I almost lost my cool," Fletcher tells PEOPLE exclusively. "It was disappointing."

The 25-year-old real estate developer says she had to hold back from reacting to the show's belligerent bad boy.

"There were so many things that I could have said in that moment, but I think I realized that would have been giving him what he wanted," says Fletcher. "He loves the attention and I think that's why he's continued to act the way he does. So it was in my best interest to not give him the time of day."

And for now, Fletcher says she's much more interested in her quest to find The One. "I'm not angry," she says of Johnson, 28. "I'm not bitter. In fact, I hate saying this, but it sadly is entertaining."

's finale airs Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Summary: JoJo Fletcher reacts to Chad Johnson's comments about her final two suitors


The Food and Drug Administration has asked all blood banks in Miami-Dade County and Broward County, Florida to stop collecting blood immediately until all individual donations can be tested for the Zika virus.

In a statement posted on its website late Wednesday, the FDA said it was taking this precaution because the counties are investigating four cases of the Zika virus that are not related to travel and may be the first instances of transmission by local mosquitoes in the United States.

The agency recommended that the two South Florida counties halt donations until they can test each donation for Zika or until they use an approved method to inactivate the virus. The FDA also recommended that “adjacent and nearby counties” implement the precautions. For blood collection centers outside the area, the agency suggested that people who have traveled to Miami-Dade and Broward Counties in the previous four weeks be deferred.

Blood banks in the area are scheduled to begin testing for Zika on Aug. 1, the Miami Herald reported. Experts have said they expected transmission of Zika within the continental U.S. this summer. There have been 1,658 cases of Zika in the U.S. and 4,750 cases in the U.S. territories as of July 27, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite Florida’s Zika concerns, the CDC said Thursday they are not adding South Florida to the list of restricted travel areas for pregnant women.

Zika is primarily spread by mosquitoes and can cause birth defects if women are pregnant while they have the virus. It has also been linked to other brain and autoimmune problems, including Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disorder that can cause nerve damage.

Summary: The FDA wants the counties to test each donation for the virus


Certain wines, I believe, should only be consumed in close proximity to the place where they're made. Prosecco, the sparkling wine from Italy, is at the very top of my list.

A light, simple, fruity wine, Prosecco is possessed of charms that I've found to be fleeting at best. And yet Prosecco is one of the most popular wines in this country. Its sales have grown exponentially in the past several years; in fact, the U.S. is the third most important export market (after Germany and Switzerland) for the 160 million or so bottles of Prosecco produced in Italy every year. In other words, most Americans don't feel as I do. But are the wines that these Prosecco lovers are drinking actually any good?

With a few exceptions, I've pretty much avoided Prosecco over the years, finding it often too flabby or too sweet or simply over the hill. The only place that I've regularly enjoyed it is Venice, where Prosecco is poured in every restaurant and bar. Prosecco in Venice is like beer in Milwaukee—the (un)official beverage of the town. It's where I think Prosecco tastes best: fresh and lively, straight from the source. Prosecco is made, in most cases, less than an hour away.

One of the reasons Prosecco needs to be consumed as soon as possible has to do with the way it's produced. Champagne, the greatest of sparkling wines, is always fermented in the bottle and is a blend of several vintages of wines. It's aged at least a year and a half, and often much more, gaining in complexity, richness and ageability.

Prosecco, on the other hand, is fermented in huge tanks (usually glass) by a much cheaper—and much faster—process known as the Charmat method. (Only about 1% of Prosecco is made by the Champagne method.) Unlike with Champagne, there is no aging time. The Charmat process is particularly suited to producing large quantities of wine whose most important characteristic is freshness. Prosecco, as even its producers acknowledge, is a wine best consumed in its youth.

And yet it can be quite difficult to determine just how long a particular bottle of Prosecco has been on the shelf. Some producers print dates on the backs of their bottles to show when the bottles were shipped, but as managing director Enore Ceola of Mionetto Prosecco USA, the best-selling brand of Prosecco in the U.S., explained to me, it's all done in code. For example, the bottle of Mionetto Prosecco that I purchased came with the number L39204. But what did it mean?

Mr. Ceola furnished the following translation: L stood for lot; 3 meant bottling line 3; 9 stood for the year 2009, and 204 meant the bottle was shipped 204 days into the year. In other words, the wine had been in the market since last July. This isn't common knowledge: Not a single retailer that I spoke with knew what the codes on the backs of any of the Prosecco bottles meant. And yet Mionetto's numbers are comparatively easy to figure out, said Mr. Ceola: "We don't scramble our numbers like a lot of producers do. Some of them change their code every year."

Clarifying the freshness of a particular bottle isn't the only challenge when it comes to Prosecco (and many producers don't date their bottles at all). There's also the matter of deciding what constitutes "real" Prosecco. Because Prosecco is the name of the grape as well as the wine, Italian Prosecco producers, especially those in the prestigious Conegliano-Valdobbiadene zone in the Veneto, feared that their name might be co-opted by would-be Prosecco makers all over the world. "There could be Prosecco from Argentina!" Mr. Ceola exclaimed, making an Andean Prosecco sound positively apocalyptic. This is of course, much like what happened to the Champenoise before they forced sparkling-wine makers all over the world to stop calling their wines "Champagne." Thus, as of this year, Prosecco is now officially attached to a few particular growing zones in Italy such as Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, and the Prosecco grape now grown anywhere else must be called by its Latin moniker glera—a name so ugly it's hard to imagine even those Argentine winemakers will want it.

Prosecco is more popular than ever in the U.S; according to a Nielsen report, sales rose 32% in 2009. Wine retailers told me much the same thing, though Gerald Weisl of Weimax Liquors in Burlingame, Calif., thought that Champagne producers were partly to blame. "We've been selling tons of Prosecco in the past three to five years because producers of Champagne and California sparkling wines ask such ridiculous prices," Mr. Weisl said. At Garnet Wines & Spirits in Manhattan, sales associate Martin Granne summed it up rather succinctly: "Champagne sales are way down and Prosecco sales are way up." This was especially true at the $10 mark, said Mr. Grenne, who called it the "break-off" point (aka maximum price) for most buyers.

Women are apparently doing most of the buying. Peter, a bartender at Five Points restaurant in Manhattan, said (as he poured me some slightly flat Prosecco), "There is a machismo about not ordering Prosecco if you're a man." Peter, however, drank Prosecco: "I'm sufficiently confident in my masculinity."

Was it possible that Peter and thousands—or maybe even millions—of American women knew something I didn't? Could there be some Proseccos out there that were good, that actually traveled well? I decided to find out.

As I began scouting for bottles, a friend confided to me that she and a group of her women friends had a Prosecco club—they got together in Brooklyn, N.Y., every month specifically to drink Prosecco. The club, she said, would be happy to help me with my tasting. As much as I liked the idea of tasting wines with the club, I wanted someone with a more critical perspective. I knew the perfect man: Aldo Sohm, the wine director of the esteemed Manhattan restaurant Le Bernardin and the reigning best sommelier in the world (named by the Worldwide Sommelier Association). He's also a man whose sparkling wine of choice is Champagne. When I telephoned Mr. Sohm, he was leaving for Austria but wanted to join us on his return. "I almost never get a chance to taste Prosecco," he said.

By the time Mr. Sohm returned, I'd amassed almost 20 bottles of Prosecco ranging from sweet to dry. They included well-known names like Zardetto and Mionetto as well as more obscure labels like Drusian and Bisol. Most cost between $10 and $15.

When we finally convened for the tasting, the women of the Prosecco club quizzed Mr. Sohm about his profession. "Do you have to come up with new adjectives all the time?" asked one member. "Or is there a finite number of words? I read somewhere that there were 26 words to describe wine."

Mr. Sohm assured them he had a few more words in his vinous vocabulary, though he never employed fruit descriptors when talking about wine. "What if you name a fruit that someone doesn't like?" he asked. "Like you say cherries and they only like strawberries?"

Then we got down to the business of tasting the wines. Almost all Prosecco is sparkling. The wines come in a range of styles: dry wines are labeled "brut," while off-dry wines are, somewhat confusingly, designated "extra dry" or "dry."

Mr. Sohm began with a group of brut wines. "This is very clean, correct and elegant," he said of the Nino Franco Rustico ($15), which was overwhelmingly the group favorite. The second favorite: Enrico Brut, a bottle that had a cheap-looking label but turned out to be remarkably good. It was bright, crisp, lively—as a fresh as any wine I've consumed in Venice—and priced at the Prosecco break-off point of $10.

Other favorites included the Lunetta from Cavit ($12), a Pinot Grigio producer of no particular distinction whose Prosecco was a delightful surprise. "This tastes the most like Champagne to me," said Mr. Sohm, offering his highest praise. He also liked the Zardetto Prosecco ($15), explaining that "it has a slight bitterness on the finish that makes you want to keep drinking it." And he liked the very dry and minerally Col Vetoraze ($15), a personal favorite of mine, noting that it had "excellent tension on the palate." The club, however, deemed it too austere.

The off-dry wines received a more mixed reception, though many Prosecco producers believe that an off-dry wine is the classic Prosecco type. The club found them "a bit sweet," though Mr. Sohm liked the "crowd-pleasing" qualities of two: the La Marca Extra Dry, which was citrusy and "creamy on the palate," and the Mionetto Frizzante, which had "explosive floral aromas" that everyone liked.

The evening ended on a note of collective satisfaction. The Prosecco club had learned some new tasting terms, and I'd found a few wines that I'd drink far from Venice. As for Mr. Sohm, he wasn't putting any Proseccos on his list just yet, but was pleased to discover there were women in New York who could be actually made happy by wines that cost $10—or less.

These wines were particular favorites.

This was one of the fruitiest and one of the most aromatic of the group—marked by notes of melon and citrus. "A good breakfast Prosecco," said Le Bernardin wine direcctor Aldo Sohm.

A traditional Prosecco, made Frizzante style (slightly less sparkling than other versions), this Mionetto bottling (it makes several types) is clean, bright and slightly fruity, marked by notes of pear and melon.

This clean, bright, fairly light-bodied and very dry Prosecco is elegance in a glass. It's as close to Champagne—at this price—as Prosecco will get. A unanimous favorite.

The American importer of this wine named it "Enrico" after owner Enrico Martellozzo, although it's actually made by the well-regarded Bellussi estate. A light, fairly delicate wine with a lovely persistence and a fairly dry finish, it's a very good value.

While the producer of this Prosecco is best known for turning out large quantities of basic Pinot Grigio, this crisp, refreshing Prosecco, made in the Trentino region from hand-harvested grapes, is an excellent buy.

Although few outside of Italy probably realize this, there is a small amount of (higher-priced) Prosecco made in the prestigious Cartizze zone of Prosecco-Valdobbiadene. This wine is well balanced, showing lots of lively fruit coupled to a long, minerally finish. Proseccos from Zardetto, Drusian and Col Vetoraze were also quite good.

Summary: Lettie Teague looks at Mionetto, Enrico, Nino Franco Rustico and other Prosecco wines.


Deutsche Bank AG’s €5.8 billion ($6.5 billion) write-down and bonus warning to employees are positive signs that executives are digging in to cut costs while managing tougher regulatory constraints, analysts said Thursday.

But analysts also warned that uncertainty over legal bills and the long-term effectiveness of a companywide restructuring still weigh on Germany’s biggest lender.

The moves are “painful steps in the right...

Summary: Deutsche Bank’s $6.5 billion write-down and bonus warning are positive signs that executives are digging in to cut costs while managing tougher regulatory constraints, analysts said.


Designed and hand-built by Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the Apple I was Apple's first product, and went on sale in July 1976 at the distinctly unsettling price of $666.66. Only 200 units were produced, and unlike many other computers of the day, the Apple I came as a fully assembled circuit board containing around 30 chips.

Summary: From Apple I to  the Macintosh to the iMac; a brief look at Apple's computer   range.


Captain Mehmet Karabekir’s body was not washed before burial. Nobody recited prayers from the Koran before he was laid to rest in a hastily dug hole near an animal shelter, denied all Muslim rites.

He is among the dozens of Turkish soldiers accused of trying to overthrow President Tayyip Erdogan and the government in a failed military coup this month, his fate a sign of the fury felt over a night of bloodletting that killed more than 240 people.

Karabekir lies with no tombstone next to three other two-meter deep holes prepared with a mechanical digger. He was the first to be buried in a plot of land of about a quarter of an acre sectioned off last weekend in a disused part of a construction site on the eastern outskirts of Istanbul.

Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas called it “The Traitor’s Cemetery”—established, he said, specifically for coup plotters in the military.

Turkey Releases 758 Detained Soldiers as Erdogan Drops Lawsuits

The government of Turkey—a predominantly Muslim country—has detained, removed or suspended tens of thousands of people in the civil service, military judiciary and elsewhere over their suspected links with perpetrators of the attempted putsch.

While the crackdown has drawn concern and criticism from Western capitals, rights groups and some domestic opponents of the government, most Turks have shown unity in their opposition to the coup attempt, with regular rallies of solidarity.

But, for many people, the retribution across the country has gone too far with the “Traitor’s Cemetery”.

There has been widespread criticism this week, not just from rights groups, but also from Turks who took to social media to express their opposition.

This reaction has led officials to distance themselves from the cemetery.

Turkey’s Anti-Gulen Crackdown Ripples Far and Wide

Even though Turkey’s religious authority has said it will not provide Islamic funeral services for coup soldiers, a spokesman told Reuters that top cleric Mehmet Gormez did not support the establishment of a burial ground for traitors, saying it was hurtful to the families of the dead.

On Thursday Mayor Topbas, who was among the local officials who came up with the idea, told broadcaster TGRT Haber that he had ordered the removal of its “Traitor’s Cemetery” signage – though it was unclear if the plot would continue to be used for the same purpose.

A spokesman for the mayor did not return repeated phone calls.

There is no suggestion that Erdogan or the central government had any link with the municipal decision to establish the Istanbul burial ground.

Local media reported that Karabekir’s family refused to claim his body, prompting the authorities to bury him in the makeshift grave on Monday. His sister-in-law, when contacted by Reuters, said the family did not want to make any comment and requested privacy.

“Nobody should go to God with such darkness,” said a resident in the Acibadem area of Istanbul, where officials and newspapers said Karabekir shot dead a local administrator as he and a group of soldiers tried to seize a building. She declined to give her name due to the sensitive nature of the issue.

Turkish President Gains Upper Hand in Power Struggle

On July 15-16, rogue soldiers commandeered fighters jets, helicopters and tanks to close bridges and try to seize airports. They bombed parliament, police headquarters and other key buildings in their bid for power.

Erdogan blamed his ally-turned-foe Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Islamic cleric, for orchestrating the attempted power grab and warned the perpetrators would pay a heavy price.

Gulen denies the accusations, but authorities have launched a crackdown on his vast network of followers, removing or suspending more than 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, teacher, diplomats and journalists.

Almost two thirds of Turks believe Gulen was behind the coup attempt, according to a phone poll of 1,496 people released on Tuesday. The Andy-Ar survey showed nearly 4% blamed the United States or foreign powers and about 2% blamed Erdogan.

The extensive purges that have followed have been internationally contentious. Erdogan’s critics fear he is using the events to crack down on all forms of dissent.

Turkey Ruling, Opposition Parties Rally Together After Coup

Rights group Amnesty International has said it had received credible evidence of detainees being subjected to beatings and torture, including rape, since the coup attempt—accusations roundly rejected by Turkish officials and the justice ministry.

The cemetery, guarded by private security guards and located inside the gated building site around 50 km (31 miles) east of Istanbul’s city center, has won some approval from some Turks but has largely drawn criticism.

“This practice is not right and our president Gormez has expressed his disapproval of it to the relevant authorities,” the spokesman for the Religious Affairs Directorate said.

Following the criticism, Karabekir, buried on Monday, may be the only person put to rest there.

“We have been told more people might be brought here but that hasn’t been the case,” said a security guard at the site.

Summary: "Nobody should go to God with such darkness," said an Istanbul resident.


In 2004, Christopher Churchill began a personal journey with his vintage Deardorff 8×10 camera, driving thousands of miles across the country to photograph what he describes as “an America that felt divided” and “caught in the middle of a cultural tension.” It was three years after the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the photographer was noticing a palpable intolerance in the country. “Questions of what or who was considered American were very prevalent,” Churchill says. “And religion was in the middle of this debate.” This feeling led him to start asking people about their faith, and the resulting journey is the subject of his Chuchill’s first monograph, American Faith, published this month by Nazraeli Press.

In the introduction of the book, Churchill says, “I had assumed that in order to have faith in your life you must be religious. However, when I would ask individuals I encountered through my travels what they placed their faith in, their responses would be something much more universal and simple than religion.”

Churchill had no specific plan when he set out on the road, but followed an intuitive journey where one subject led to the next. How does someone document a faith or an idea that’s invisible? Churchill began by making formal yet intimate portraits of his subjects. Then he carefully weaved in recorded responses from his subjects to his questions about their beliefs. Thomas Putman of Ponca City, Oklaholma, who was photographed holding his young son, told Churchill, “I believe in God. But everybody has a different belief, and as long as it furthers you in life and gives you a better perspective on the things you do in life, then I don’t really care what you believe in.” The response is one of tolerance mixed with independence that feels intrinsic to American culture.

In the book, portraits are interspersed with landscapes and documentary photographs, adding contemplative spaces. In a photograph of tourists looking out at the majesty of the Grand Canyon, Churchill conjures ideas of American transcendentalism, which holds the idea that one must find themselves thought self reflection, which often takes place alone in nature. An image of such idyll could feel slightly ironic or trite, but not in the style of Churchill’s work. He creates a tableau in soft black and white, where the viewer is gently presented with a space to ponder the majesty themsleves.

Churchill himself was not raised with religion. “I find my faith these days is in my family, the kindness of strangers and or course photography,” he says. “I’ve found that if I can get my brain past the obstacles of any given day and think about time from a larger perspective, there seems to be a path that is perfectly sequential and beyond coincidental. And I find great faith in that.”

American Faith was published this month by Nazraeli Press.

Christopher Churchill is a photographer based in Massachusetts. See more of his work here.

Summary: In 2004, Christopher Churchill began a personal journey with his old  8x10 camera, driving thousands of miles across the country to photograph an America that felt divided and caught in the middle of a cultural tension.


This time of year, movie studios send critics and theater owners and just about anyone who works in the film industry "screeners" of their top releases. They hope the recipients will vote for the films in the various awards contests. Or at least talk about them.

People love getting screeners because they can sample movies they might not otherwise pay to see. Movies about folk singers, for example. Or charismatic butlers. Or...

Summary: What other industry does this stuff? Imagine teddy-bear and chocolate makers issuing threats over piracy.


Isn’t it amazing how one difficult person can turn a harmonious working environment into a toxic one in just a few weeks? I was once in a similar position. I worked with a bully, and I remember the feeling of dread I had going into the office each day. We all walked on eggshells around him, wondering who would be the next target for his frustration or the recipient of the worst put-down of the week.

In my case the bully was my boss; in yours she is a colleague. Unfortunately, many work places have them – particularly companies that are competitive or ones that are going through a period of organisational change like yours. That is because bullying is often a front for inadequacy, and in times of uncertainty the bully can feel even more threatened by people he or she perceives to be more capable or popular than themselves.

So what can you do? I can sum up your options like this: you can leave, you can bury your head or you can take a stand. It doesn’t sound like you want to leave, and nor should you have to. Hiding under the duvet may be tempting but it won’t help you solve the problem. That leaves you with the last option: facing up to your colleague and addressing the issue.

In my book, Authentic – Relationships From the Inside Out, there is a chapter on how to handle difficult conversations, which may be of help to you. But let me also give you a few pointers here.

First of all, be prepared. Keep a diary of things that she has said or done, gather a group of friends and family around you to bolster you with encouragement and support, and then take a deep breath and get ready to meet her, preferably on your own and face-to-face.

Second, choose a moment when you are feeling calm and have time to talk properly. Be clear with her about what she has done and why you find her behaviour unacceptable. Give her an opportunity to explain or apologise (but be prepared that this might not happen).

Third, tell her how you want things to be different and what the consequence will be if things don’t change. (For example, you could say something like: “I would appreciate it if we could work more productively together as colleagues rather than as adversaries. I hope after this conversation things will improve but if you continue to belittle me in meetings, I will have no choice but to refer the matter to our boss and to consider making a formal complaint.”)

Fourth, follow through on your consequences. If her behaviour does change for the better, respond positively. But if there isn’t a change, do what you threatened to do and go to your boss. If your boss doesn’t do anything, then file a formal complaint. Remember, bullies are a bit like the wizard in The Wizard of Oz; they dread being exposed or revealed as frauds. They don’t want anyone drawing back the curtain and seeing the insecure little person behind it.

Regarding my ex-boss, I discovered from someone who knew him as a child that he grew up with very controlling and abusive parents. Learning that didn’t in any way excuse his behaviour but it helped me to understand him a little better and to fear him a little less.

I am not going to pretend that having a conversation with your colleague will be easy. But if you can do it, you will not only be helping your own situation, you will be helping others who are suffering as a result of her behaviour.

* HOW TO CONTACT SARAH

Please send your questions on relationship and emotional problems to Sarah Abell, The Daily Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT, or email sarah.abell@telegraph.co.uk. Please indicate if there are any details you would NOT want included in print. Sarah will read every letter but regrets that she cannot reply to them individually.

* Each week, I will be answering your questions on relationship and emotional issues in the newspaper, and extra questions online. I will also be posting on comments submitted by other readers. Feel free to contribute to the debate on any of the topics covered in the column.

* 'Authentic: Relationships From the Inside Out’ by Sarah Abell (Hodder & Stoughton) is available from Telegraph Books for £10.99 plus £1.25 p&p. To order a copy, please call 0844 871515 or visit www.books.telegraph.co.uk

Summary: InsideOut: relationships expert Sarah Abell advises a reader on how to   approach a toxic situation at work.


CANBERRA, Australia—Australia selected French military shipbuilder DCNS Group to build a $38.6 billion submarine fleet, adding to an Asia-Pacific arms race driven in part by China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.

The Shortfin Barracuda design—offering stealth technology developed for French nuclear submarines—was chosen after a lengthy evaluation against rivals from Germany and Japan. The decision, announced by Australia’s...

Summary: Australia selected French military shipbuilder DCNS to build a $38.6 billion submarine fleet meant to counter an undersea arms race among nations in the Asia-Pacific region.


For a result which seemed to knock the major parties for six, you didn't need to spend too long on the ground in Bradford to see that George Galloway was capable of giving Labour yet another black eye in Thursday's byelection.

The clues were all there. The first-time voters shimmying up trees to hang Respect banners at the perfect height for anyone sitting on the top deck of a bus. The taxi drivers competing to see who could cancel their Labour party membership first. The queue of students waiting patiently to have their picture taken with their arms around his shoulders as if he was Brad Pitt. All this and more suggested that writing Galloway off as a narcissistic has-been would be a dangerous mistake in this particular electoral contest.

And so it proved, just after 2.30am on Friday, when the returning officer at the Richard Dunn sports centre announced the result Labour had never really accepted could become a reality: seven years after humiliating Oona King by demolishing her 10,000 majority in Bethnal Green and Bow, Galloway had done it again, and by no small margin. He called it the "Bradford spring". The Respect politician had annihilated the Labour vote, winning a 10,140 majority. More than 18,000 people in Bradford West put a cross next to his name; more or less the same number who voted for the incumbent, Marsha Singh, at the last general election. It made Friday one of the most difficult days of Ed Miliband's leadership. Labour had held the seat since 1974.

When Galloway eventually emerged from the leisure centre at 3am, he was greeted by more than 100 supporters who had been waiting out in the cold for hours for a glimpse of their new MP. After loudly booing anyone wearing a Labour rosette, they scooped up Galloway – whose small stature belies his enormous personality – and carried him aloft like a football captain who had taken his team to an FA cup triumph.

"RE-SPECT! RE-SPECT!" chanted his patient fans, adding, "George for prime minister!"

He was then driven into town in a Hummer – the armoured car favoured by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was governor of California – where hundreds of supporters had been waiting for him since the polls closed at 10pm. Car horns honked to celebrate his arrival at the campaign HQ in Grattan Road. Galloway climbed on top of a grey car and was handed a megaphone to preach to the assembled faithful.

"All praise to Allah!" he yelled, to jubilant cries of "Allah Allah!" And on it went. "Long live Iraq! Long live Palestine!"

Those who voted for Galloway tended to have a number of things in common. They were either a first-time voter or a disaffected Labourite, and all wanted to congratulate him on his robust stance against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many said they watched him on Press TV, the English language Iranian-controlled channel – until it was taken off air by the government earlier this year.

More still had watched YouTube clips of Galloway ripping into his detractors, whether in front of the US senate in 2005 or in a classically adversarial interview with Sky News about Gaza. Galloway proudly refers to these as his "greatest hits". Only a handful recognised him primarily from his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, when he dressed in a red unitard and pretended to be Rula Lenska's pussy cat.

"He is the only politician who tells the truth and fights for justice," said Saeeda Naz, a trainee teacher who was one of the army of Muslim women who worked around the clock for three weeks to persuade their "sisters" to vote. It was thanks to them that a stream of veiled, headscarved women could be seen heading into polling stations across the city, many voting for the first time.

"Yes, he is a professional politician and yes, he is not from Bradford," said one man waiting outside the count. "But they all are. The difference is that this man will represent the views of the ordinary people here. He will address corruption and impotence in Bradford – cynics, thieves, robbers like you get in cowboy films."

As his victory sank in on Friday morning, Galloway said his triumph was a sign of "massive dissatisfaction with the political system in this country and the main political parties and their leaders".

Using a metaphor he employed repeatedly during the campaign, he said: "If a backside could have three cheeks then they [the main parties] are the three cheeks of the same backside. They support the same things, the same wars, the same neoliberal policies to make the poor poorer for the crimes of the rich people. And they are not believable. Nobody believes what they say. Whether people agree with me or not, I have all of my life said the same things. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. I think people are looking for political leaders like that."

A common theme on the stump was frustration at clan politics in Bradford, known by the Urdu word Bradree or Biradiri, meaning brotherhood or family, which here has become a byword for exclusivity.

Many felt that too many important decisions were taken in Bradford by a small number of Pakistanis who came from Mirpur, a small town in Kashmir, who had carved up the most important Labour party positions between them over the years.

The Labour candidate in the byelection seemed to many to fit exactly into that mould. Imran Hussain, a 34-year-old barrister from Bradford with Mirpur heritage, was following in his father's footsteps when he became involved in the local Labour party, rising two years ago to become deputy leader of the city council.

When the Guardian joined him on the stump in the Allerton ward last week, the contrast between the reception he received and the way Galloway was hailed on the university campus could not have been starker. He didn't appear to be converting any voters but was instead preaching to the converted: those who had voted Labour all their lives and always would.

Galloway, meanwhile, was unleashing all the charm in his substantial armoury to win the hearts and minds of Bradford, lavishing particular care and attention on the younger voters, especially those who had never bothered going to the ballot before. Outside the count, dozens of men told the Guardian they had voted for the first time that day. "I've never voted in my life – I'm 32. I didn't believe in 'em. They're just after the cheque. They just want the cash. End of," said one, as his friends yelled, "He didn't know how to vote!" and "He didn't even know whether to put a cross or a tick." The man nodded. "It's true! But George said, here you go, put a cross by number 2 [on the ballot paper]."

While Galloway turned up to every hustings, guns blazing, his Labour counterpart shied away. The Labour spin machine swore blind it was because they felt Hussain could shore up support better wearing out his shoe leather on the streets of Bradford. But, like almost anyone else in the world, their man, far from your typically silver-tongued barrister, would be no match for Galloway in a debate. The one time the two did meet, on the Sunday Politics show, Galloway wiped the floor with his opponents. "Do you want a local councillor, or an MP?" he asked.

The 57-year-old repeatedly denied he was a divisive figure stirring up racial and religious tensions – "It was Labour who put up a Pakistani Muslim candidate, not us," he said after his victory. He told anyone who dared suggest that he opportunistically targeted Muslims that they were being racist, or at least discriminatory.

"To suggest all Muslims vote for me is to suggest they are second-class citizens who vote like herds of sheep," he said. But he clearly played to the 38% of Muslims who made up the constituency at the last count (in the 2001 census). He caused outrage by sending out a letter addressed to "voters of the Muslim faith and Pakistani heritage in Bradford West" appearing to suggest he was somehow a "better" Muslim than Hussain. "God KNOWS who is Muslim. And he KNOWS who is not. Instinctively, so do you. Let me point out to all the Muslim brothers and sisters what I stand for," he wrote, giving a series of four reasons which included "I, George Galloway, do not drink alcohol and never have. Ask yourself if the other candidate in this electioncan say that truthfully." Galloway has never converted to Islam, though lots of his supporters in Bradford West appeared to be under the impression he had.

Yet in the early hours of Friday morning as he celebrated in the street with hundreds of young supporters, Galloway made a slip-up which would suggest to any practising Muslim that he was not one of them: he invited them to join him at noon for a tour of Bradford on an open-top bus. It was only when someone called out "what about Jumu'ah?" that Galloway realised his victory parade clashed with Friday prayers. The tour was duly postponed until 2.30pm.

But he never held back on the religious imagery. Reflecting on his victory in the early hours of Friday morning, he said we had witnessed something "miraculous" – in the biblical sense of the word. "And as a religious man, I have to believe that there is some divine intervention in this – the retribution of the main parties for the treason against the country and against their supporters that they have visited is something sacred. Justice has been done."

Galloway may have won 56% of the vote, but a sizeable minority of the city viewed his victory with horror. As he was about to board his victory bus on Friday afternoon, one young white man pelted him with eggs. He missed his target but could be heard denouncing Galloway as a "parasite in this city".

Another of his new constituents, an unemployed white woman called Sally, gave him the finger as his bus passed her stop by the town hall. "I think he is more interested in raising his own profile than helping Bradford," she said.

She admitted to taking drastic measures to register her disgust at the ballot box: she was one of 111 Bradfordians who voted for Howling Laud Hope of the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Summary: Helen Pidd, the only national newspaper reporter at the Bradford West count, explains how the former MP defied all expectations


It’s a bittersweet wedding story a decade in the making: Nearly 10 years after Jeni Stepien’s father was killed, the man who received her father’s donated heart traveled from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to walk her down the aisle.

“The murder and the wedding happened within a three-block radius” in the town of Swissvale, Pa., Ms. Stepien, an elementary schoolteacher, said in an interview on Monday, as she was about to board a plane for her honeymoon. “And I was just thinking, ‘My dad is here with us, and this man is here with us because of us.’ ”

This story began in September 2006, when her father, Michael Stepien, was walking home from his job as head chef at a restaurant. Mr. Stepien, 53, was cutting through an alley when he was robbed at gunpoint by a 16-year-old, who shot him in the head at close range, she said. Leslie L. Brown was convicted of second-degree murder in the killing and is serving 40 years to life in prison, according to news reports.

As her father lay dying at a hospital, Ms. Stepien said, her family “decided to accept the inevitable” and donated his organs through an organization called the Center for Organ Recovery and Education.

The organization allows donor families and the recipients to keep in touch with one another after the transplant. Mr. Stepien’s heart went to Arthur Thomas, a father of four who lives in Lawrenceville, N.J., and who Ms. Stepien said had been within days of dying.

Given a diagnosis of ventricular tachycardia about 16 years before receiving the transplant, Mr. Thomas, 72, said in an interview on Monday that he was in congestive heart failure when word arrived that his doctors had found a heart.

“In order to get to the top of the transplant list, you have to be really hurting,” Mr. Thomas said. “Once I had my transplant, I, of course, decided I would write a thank-you to the family.”

From there, a relationship was forged through monthly phone calls, emails and letters. Ms. Stepien’s mother, Bernice, kept in touch with Mr. Thomas, even swapping cards on Christmas and flowers on birthdays. At times, they compared parenting tips. But the families had not thought about meeting in person until Jeni Stepien, 33, became engaged to Paul Maenner, a 34-year-old engineer, in October.

“One of my first thoughts in that following week was, ‘Who will walk me down the aisle?’ ” Ms. Stepien said. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, it would be so incredible to have a physical piece of my father there.’ ”

At her fiancé’s suggestion, Ms. Stepien wrote Mr. Thomas, whom the family calls Tom, asking him to walk her down the aisle. Mr. Thomas said yes, but only after running the proposition by his 30-year-old daughter, Jackie, he said.

“She said, ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ ” Mr. Thomas said of his daughter, who also recommended that he start practicing walking down the aisle. (He said he practiced once before the wedding.)

Mr. Thomas, a retired college adviser who formerly worked at a boarding school in Lawrenceville, warned Ms. Stepien that his emotions might get the best of him.

Ms. Stepien said she felt the same, and told him, “I’ll be right there with you.”

The wedding took place on Friday in the church in Swissvale where Ms. Stepien’s parents were married. Mr. Thomas and the bride formally met one day earlier, when he suggested she grip his wrist, where his pulse is strongest.

“I thought that would be the best way for her to feel close to her dad,” Mr. Thomas said. “That’s her father’s heart beating.”

At the church, the bride was photographed touching Mr. Thomas’s chest. At the reception, they danced together, and guests mingled with Mr. Thomas and his wife, Nancy. The two families say they want to keep in touch and will plan a get-together somewhere down the road — maybe an event with a little less pressure.

“I felt wonderful about bringing her dad’s heart to Pittsburgh,” Mr. Thomas said. “If I had to, I would’ve walked.”

Summary: Arthur Thomas, who received the donated heart of Jeni Stepien’s father, traveled from New Jersey to a town in Pennsylvania for her big day.


Authorities are continuing their search for the killer of a 27-year-old Massachusetts jogger who was found dead over the weekend.

Read: Cops: Jogger 'Put Up a Ferocious Fight' Against Attacker Before Her Death

The body of Vanessa Marcotte was discovered in the woods near her mother's Princeton home on Sunday. Marcotte, who lived and worked in New York City, had gone for an afternoon jog while staying with her mother but she never returned.

Police say her body had been burned. Authorities are trying to determine if she was sexually assaulted.

"I must stress that we do not know if this was a random act," Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early said at a news conference Monday. "We are asking residents of Princeton and surrounding areas to use an abundance of caution. We are asking the public to be careful and to be vigilant."

Marcotte worked as an account manager for Google in Manhattan.

"Vanessa was a much-loved member of the Google team," the company said in a statement. "We are deeply shocked and saddened."

No arrests have been made in the case, which comes a week after Queens, New York jogger Karina Vetrano, 30, was discovered in the marsh near her home in the Howard Beach section of the borough.

There are eerie similarities between the murders of Vetrano and Marcotte. Both women, who lived in New York City, were found in undergrowth after going missing while jogging alone in broad daylight. One obvious dissimilarity is that the crime scenes are 190 miles miles apart.

Police say there is "nothing at this point" to connect the killings, but they are said to be "comparing notes."

At a church meeting Monday night, concerned Howard Beach residents were updated on the investigation into Karina Vetrano's murder

Several of the residents demanded that the thick bush along the jogging path where she was killed be cleared.

Missing NYC jogger, Katrina Vee, found dead

THIS IS SPARTAn RACE! ⚔ Such an awesome experience at the #SpartanRace @ #CitiField 🏅🏃🏼💪🏼

happy 6⃣0⃣th birthday to my hero. im so blessed to have a father I can call my best friend. 💙

c̶o̶o̶l̶ blonde for the #summer 👩🏼 #cooltoothough 💁🏼

G̶R̶E̶E̶T̶I̶N̶G̶S̶! BONJOUR from #FRANCE! 🇫🇷 #KVsDirtyThirty

Read: Jogger Found Dead by Her Own Father After Failing to Return From Evening Run

The path is lined with shoulder-high weeds, in which the killer may have hidden as he lay in wait for a victim.

Karina's mother, Cathy, could barely contain her fury as she ripped into the killer Sunday in a profanity-laced news conference outside their home.

She promised the killer that they would "be reckoning with that force not only for the rest of your pathetic life, but for the rest of eternity as you f***ing burn in hell."

The distraught mother added: "The whole world knows what a pathetic, puny, weak piece of filth you are. Soon, we're going to have a face to the d***less piece of garbage that you are."

Watch: After the Grisly Death of Jogger, How You Can Stay Safe During a Run

More from Inside Edition: After the Grisly Death of Jogger, How You Can Stay Safe During a Run Cops: Jogger 'Put Up a Ferocious Fight' Against Attacker Before Her Death Jogger Found Dead by Her Own Father After Failing to Return From Evening Run

Summary: Police say they are currently 'comparing notes' over their deaths.


Cannabis is enjoying a major public-image improvement. After all, we’ve learned that the THC in marijuana has medicinal uses, while the plant fibers in hemp have countless uses in manufacturing. The legitimacy of marijuana is growing as states legalize it and corporations invest substantial resources in cannabinoid research and development.

No matter your stance on cannabis, you should get to know the world’s most high-profile plant. So here are some facts and figures on marijuana that may surprise or impress you:

In Colorado, (legal) sales of recreational and medical marijuana totaled nearly $1 billion in 2015 Marijuana is a bigger business than many people realize. Although some are worried about the long-term health effects of marijuana use, it’s clear that legalization comes with some benefits to society — namely, more jobs and tax revenue. In 2014, Colorado collected $76 million in total marijuana-related taxes, and it had collected an additional $87 million from January through August of 2015 — and much of that revenue went to schools. Indeed, the state collects more from marijuana taxes than from alcohol taxes. Personal-finance website NerdWallet estimated that full nationwide legalization could bring in more than $3 billion in annual tax revenue to our 50 states.

Read More: How 1 Man Made 100 Times His Money After Age 50

About 700,000 people are arrested annually on marijuana-related charges That’s a lot of people — and most of them are not dangerous drug kingpins or even local distributors. Fully 88% of those arrested in 2014 were arrested for possession of marijuana, often in small amounts. In fact, a whopping 40% of all drug-related arrests in 2014 were for marijuana possession and not production or sale. That’s a huge drain on our criminal justice and penal systems, suggesting that there could be substantial taxpayer savings if restrictions on the drug were relaxed or the drug were legalized.

Read More: Forget Apple! Here’s a Better Stock to Buy

There are more than 25,000 product applications for industrial hemp — and countless more Hemp is often thought of as another word for marijuana, but it’s actually a different member of the cannabis family with far lower levels of THC — the ingredient that delivers the drug’s high. Hemp as a crop has vast potential, but the widespread farming of it is not currently legal — even though it was brought to America in 1645 by the Puritans and was grown by George Washington, too. Per the North American Industrial Hemp Council, hemp is very fibrous and can be used to make high-quality paper; it’s resistant to many pests, reducing the need for pesticides; and it can be processed with fewer pollutive chemicals. Indeed, hemp can yield four times as much fiber per acre than the average forest.

Read More: Shark Tank Just Revealed a Trillion-Dollar Idea

The first e-commerce transaction was a marijuana sale That’s one tidbit in John Markoff ‘s 2005 book What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry:

In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory engaged in a commercial transaction with their counterparts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before Amazon or even eBay, the seminal act of e-commerce was a drug deal. The students used the network to quietly arrange the sale of an undetermined amount of marijuana.

E-commerce has clearly grown like gangbusters since then, expected to top $300 billion in 2016. The more legalized marijuana becomes in America, the more it will be sold by retailers — perhaps even online eventually.

You needn’t be a marijuana user to be interested in the contentious plant. Cannabis is sure to have an interesting few decades as we explore its benefits, research its risks, and draft laws that maximize the former and minimize the latter. Stay tuned.

Summary: These 4 stats pretty much sum it up.


Eman A, a UK-based photographer and artist behind the photo, took the picture of three friends posing near a rustic fireplace in drag. One man wears fake bunny ears and smokes a cigarette; the other has low-cut shorts and a halter top; the subject in front is wearing a gown called a jalabiya and face mask with decorative gold ornaments, striking a fierce pose with their hands placed in front of their hips.

It's a shot that embodies strength, resilience, beauty and complexity. And it was the perfect backdrop for writer Salem Haddad's heartfelt Facebook post on the Orlando massacre, who wrote, "My heart goes out to the victims of the homophobic attack in Orlando. So here is a photo of three Arab men in drag. Because f*** homophobia and f*** Islamophobia, and f*** the hypocrites who use one to justify the other. You all have blood on your hands."

"And if this photo offends you, you have blood on your hands too," he concluded. The photo has received over 9,000 likes and shares.

Eman didn't realize his photo, taken the same night of the shootings, would have such an enormous impact online.

"Woah, I came out of the cinema and all hell has broken loose on social media," the photographer wrote in an Instagram post. "This is a photo of my beautiful friends that I took on Saturday night expressing themselves openly and freely and not a staged one of them 'posing in solidarity'. I'm dizzy. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the families of the victims. So much hate in people's hearts it makes me sick. When will the ethnic, religious and sexual hate and prejudice stop?"

Sunday morning's early shooting Orlando gay nightclub left at least 50 dead and another 53 wounded. Omar Mateen was identified by authorities as the suspect behind the shooting, a 29-year-old whose father said the sight of two men kissing once enraged him, and that "this had nothing to do with religion," he said.

Mateen has reportedly claimed allegiance to ISIS, which has claimed responsibility for the attack.

See more Pride events in the wake of the tragic Orlando shooting:

This photo of Muslims in drag is going viral for the best reason after the Pulse shooting

Mourners gather under a LGBT pride flag flying at half-mast for a candlelight vigil in remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, from San Diego, California, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies are seen behind a girl riding in a bus at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, after a gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/David McNew

A man carries a sign supporting both the Orlando shooting victims and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, following the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/David McNew

Chris Hemming (L) and Tristan Davison join in a moment of silence for the victims of the mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub during a Pride Month block party in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

People take part in the March of Equality, organized by LGBT and human rights activists in Kiev, Ukraine, June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 12: Women hold onto each other during a brief moment of silence to kick off the annual DC Pride Festival on Pennsylvania Ave. June 12, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 12: James Sharif, 24, of Alexandria, VA, said about the Orlando shooting, 'I think its a shame that people are doing this to wonderful people Hopefully people will begin to love wholly and all this hate will stop' at the DC Pride Festival June 12, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

KIEV, UKRAINE - 2016/06/12: Participants take part at the Gay Pride parade in Kiev, Ukraine. Representatives of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) organizations and their supporters took part in the peaceful 'Equality March'.The purpose of the parade is to overcome discrimination and achieve equality for all social groups and minorities in Ukraine. (Photo by Vasyl Shevchenko/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A large LGBT pride flag flies at half-mast during a candlelight vigil in remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, from San Diego, California, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Kristen Jaeger holds a sign of remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/David McNew

Brandon Joyce carries a sign of remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/David McNew

A woman looks out her window with the Gay pride flag hanging during a vigil for the Orlando massacre victims in the Queens borough of New York, U.S., June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Ciaran Lithgow of Washington, DC holds a sign of condolence for victims of the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida early this morning in Washington June 12, 2016. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

A parade marcher holds a sign in memory of the victims of the attack on a gay night club in Orlando, Florida at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/David McNew

A man waves a rainbow flag in front of two Boston Police vehicles outside a Pride Month block party in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. June 12, 2016 the same day as the mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

A Boston Police Officer stands behind flowers left at a Pride Month block party, the same day as the mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Read more: • Orlando Mass Shooting at Pulse Gay Nightclub Leaves at Least 50 Dead, 53 Wounded • Hundreds Line Up to Donate Blood in Wake of Pulse Nightclub Massacre • In One Tweet, Trump Just Made the Tragic Mass Shooting in Orlando All About Him

Summary: Artist Eman A took a picture of three friends posing near a rustic fireplace in drag -- and in the wake of Sunday's tragic shooting it's going viral.


Atlantic City has so little money left that it could miss a $1.8 million bond payment due Sunday, a step that would make it the first New Jersey municipality to default on debt since the Great Depression.

The Jersey Shore gambling destination has endured years of strain as a third of its casinos shut down. But now its cash levels are low enough...