21st Century Fox is negotiating the exit of Fox News chief Roger Ailes following a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former network anchor, people familiar with the matter said, in what would be a staggering fall for a titan of cable-TV news.

Fox was discussing an exit package with Mr. Ailes’s legal team as of Tuesday, the people said, and reaching agreement could take some time. He will likely be asked to assist with the transition, given how integral he is to the running of the network, one of the people said.

In a tweet, Fox said, “Roger is at work. The review is ongoing. The only agreement that is in place is his existing employment agreement.”

Mr. Ailes is fighting a lawsuit by former anchor Gretchen Carlson, who claims her contract with the network wasn’t renewed as retaliation for her complaints about a hostile work atmosphere at Fox News and improper advances by Mr. Ailes. Mr. Ailes has denied the charges, saying she was let go because of performance issues.

Mr. Ailes, 76 years old, launched Fox News in 1996 and built it into one of the most powerful news and opinion platforms in the U.S. Fox News’s mix of news coverage and conservative talk struck a chord with viewers, and it easily trounces rival news channels CNN and MSNBC in the ratings.

Pushing Mr. Ailes out in the heat of the U.S. presidential campaign season would be a dramatic step and could be risky, given how crucial election coverage is for cable-news outlets. The Republican National Convention, which got under way in Cleveland this week, is likely to be a ratings blockbuster for Fox News.

The suit by Ms. Carlson doesn’t name Fox News-parent 21st Century Fox as a defendant but has become a distraction for the company. Fox retained the law firm of Paul, Weiss to conduct an internal investigation.

21st Century Fox and Wall Street Journal-owner News Corp were part of the same company until mid-2013.

The controversy surrounding Fox News has been the biggest management test thus far for James and Lachlan Murdoch, who were elevated in the 21st Century Fox media empire last year. James serves as chief executive, while Lachlan and their father, Rupert Murdoch, are co-executive chairmen of the entertainment powerhouse. Rupert Murdoch also is executive chairman of News Corp.

The brothers have made their stamp on the business in various ways—carrying out buyouts to trim costs and restructuring the international channels business. But the claims by Ms. Carlson and the resulting frenzy in the media world have forced them to make a difficult calculation about Mr. Ailes’s future.

The elder Mr. Murdoch has been in touch with his sons about the matter and when he returns from vacation in the south of France next week expects to bring it to a resolution, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

They can’t afford to have management turmoil at Fox News throw the business off course. The network provides about 20% of 21st Century Fox’s profit and is used by the company as a club in broader channel-carriage negotiations with pay-TV providers. Separately, Fox News on Tuesday sued Charter Communications Inc., alleging breach of contract.

Already, news of tension between the company and Mr. Ailes has become a major story during the GOP convention.

New York Magazine reported Tuesday that Fox News star anchor Megyn Kelly told investigators hired by Fox that Mr. Ailes made unwanted advances toward her about 10 years ago. Responding to the report, a lawyer for Mr. Ailes, Susan Estrich, denied that he had sexually harassed Ms. Kelly. “In fact, he has spent much of the last decade promoting and helping her to achieve the stardom she earned, for which she has repeatedly and publicly thanked him,” Ms. Estrich said in a statement.

Ms. Kelly is arguably the network’s biggest star, and her contract is up next year. She couldn’t be reached for comment and her agent declined to comment.

A lawyer for Ms. Kelly, Willis J. Goldsmith, said late Tuesday, “At the request of 21st Century Fox, Paul Weiss is conducting a review of the allegations against Roger Ailes. Megyn Kelly has made no public comment on the matter, nor will she while the review is pending, other than to say she has cooperated with the inquiry fully and truthfully.”

The exit package for Mr. Ailes could include a payout in the tens of millions of dollars, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

There is no obvious successor to Mr. Ailes. Potential candidates as replacements, at least on an interim basis, include Jay Wallace, who is in charge of news programming at the network, and Bill Shine, who oversees Fox’s non-news and opinion content. Another candidate is Michael Clemente, executive vice president of news specials for the network. Some former Fox News executives think the younger Murdochs ultimately would want to hire an executive they are familiar with if they make a change.

Mr. Ailes first rose to prominence as a political operative. He advised Richard Nixon on television strategy ahead of the 1968 presidential contest and later was involved in the campaigns of other Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He returned to TV in the early 1990s, as executive producer of Rush Limbaugh ’s TV show and then as president of CNBC.

Mr. Ailes has an incredibly loyal following at Fox News and Fox Business and has typically operated with little interference from the leadership at 21st Century Fox, in part because of his close relationship with Rupert Murdoch.

However, Mr. Ailes’s dealings with Mr. Murdoch’s sons have been more tense over the years.

When Lachlan Murdoch served as deputy chief operating officer of the company over a decade ago—when it was known as News Corp.—he bumped up against Mr. Ailes over the management of Fox’s local-television stations. Mr. Murdoch ultimately left the company, returning in an executive position only two years ago.

When James and Lachlan Murdoch were given top positions at the company with direct oversight over all its units last year, the transition became awkward. Mr. Ailes said publicly that he would still report directly to Rupert Murdoch. That led to a back-and-forth between 21st Century Fox and Fox News at time when Mr. Ailes was renegotiating his contract.

Ultimately, Mr. Ailes signed on for three years and technically reports to all three Murdochs, making him the only 21st Century Fox executive who still is a direct report to Rupert Murdoch.

Write to Joe Flint at joe.flint@wsj.com

Summary: 21st Century Fox is negotiating the exit of Fox News chief Roger Ailes following a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former network anchor, in what would be a staggering fall for a cable-TV titan.


Renee Graziano may be a little-known name in the UK, but the jewelry designer has earned a niche audience in the US after appearing on a reality TV show called Mob Wives, which has followed the lives of a group of women on Staten Island whose relatives have been imprisoned for the past five years.

She's the daughter of former consigliere Anthony Graziano, and the sister of Jennifer, who launched the programme. Graziano has most recently made the headlines for uploading several photos of her new boyfriend, retired US basketball player Sam Mack.

A source told The Sun: "Renee is set to be an explosive housemate – she takes no prisoners, and she won't stand any nonsense.

"Producers think she'll bring controversy from the get go – and anyone who crosses her will regret it.

"She's one of the most recognisable reality stars in the States, Mob Wives was a huge hit there."

In case you've forgotten already, last year's winner was Geordie Shore's Scotty T. He's appeared in an episode of Neighbours since and is currently the face of boohooMAN.com. All to play for this year then, guys.

Action in the house also saw a romance between Jeremy McConnell and Stephanie Davis. The couple have since split but Davis is expecting their baby later this year.

Summary: This year's Big Brother (you know, the one without the celebrities) is currently still on our screens but excitement is already building for the celebrity version (you know, the one without the celebrities).


A lightning strike has obliterated a US telegraph pole during a ferocious storm late last week.

Chicago resident Anja Englert was on her way home last Sunday, July 24, when she captured the incredible footage of a lightning bolt hitting a wooden telegraph pole.

A white hot blast of fire and electricity rips apart the pole as tiny smouldering pieces of kindling rain down onto the traffic below.

Click through for more high-voltage destruction.

Summary: A lighting strike has obliterated a US telegraph pole during a ferocious storm late last week.


John Lasseter, chief creative officer at Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and DisneyToon Studios, made the announcement with Bob Iger and actor Josh Gad, who provides the voice of Olaf in Frozen.

It was confirmed that Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, the directors of the original Frozen, will continue in their roles for the next film after winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar and the Best Original Song Oscar (for Let it Go) in 2014.

Idina Menzel, the actress who voices Elsa, told the Telegraph last year that a Frozen sequel and a stage musical - in addition to a six-minute short - were "all in the works.”

Frozen: Disney's musical animation picked up Oscars for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song

• Frozen is not a book • The Frozen sisterhood turns men into villains and fools • Ebay is selling seven Frozen toys every second • Meet the actress who is Frozen's Elsa

Frozen has to generated nearly $1.3 billion (£880 million) at the box office worldwide to date, making it the highest-grossing animated film of all time and the fifth highest-grossing film of all time.

A release date and production details have not yet been confirmed.

Disney also used its shareholder meeting to announce details of the future Star Wars films – Gareth Edwards’s standalone Star Wars: Rogue One, starring-Felicity Jones will be on screens in May 2016 and Rian Johnson's Star Wars: Episode VIII arrive in December 2017.

Frozen Fever: Elsa wakes up sister Anna on her birthday (DISNEY)

Walt Disney Animation Studios 55th feature, Zootopia, is currently in production and scheduled for release on March 4, 2016.

• Is Frozen's Elsa anorexic? • Frozen Fever trailer: Anna and Elsa return • Real-life Elsa from Frozen: Toddler has to wear 'magic' gloves • 5 reasons why Frozen’s Let It Go is so addictive

Summary: Walt Disney Animation Studios announce that a sequel to the record-breaking   animation Frozen is in the works


Nike has officially unveiled a new mobile app that the world’s largest athletic gear maker says will help the brand resonate more in the mobile world.

The new Nike+ app, which executives previewed earlier this year at a media event held in New York City, will give users a mix of services (booking one-on-one retail appointments), training and running advice tips, shopping tips, and a form of social commerce that has become increasingly popular in the athletics category. Nike nke is selling the new app by saying it is “the centerpiece for your all-access-pass” to what the brand can offer.

“This is a great time for Nike in the digital space,” Nike Chief Digital Officer Adam Sussman tells Fortune. “We are really coming out with innovative products that will connect to consumers in a seamless and simple way with a consistent experience across all of them.”

Sussman outlines four ways the app can unite the brand with Nike’s most loyal adherents. Those opportunities consist of invites for special products and event, expert advice from pro athletes and trainers, a Nike mobile shopping experience tailored to each user, and access to services like retail appointments.

One feature that will look familiar to users is a “feed” of the latest Nike shoes and apparel, which will remind many of scrolling through Instagram—only in this case, it is all Nike news, all the time. Nike also touts the greater connectivity between the various apps it now offers. Log into any of these Nike apps (Nike+, Nike+ Training Club, etc.), and your fitness and purchasing history will migrate across the apps.

Fortune got an early peak at the app and couldn’t help but wonder: Isn’t this just a glorified shopping app? We had the same thought when reporting on a recently launched app from top rival Under Armour ua , which recently launched a mobile app dedicated to “elevating the consumer shopping experience.”

Nike contends that’s not what the company intended when it built this platform.

“It is not a shopping app,” Sussman stresses. “At its core, it is about serving our consumers and giving them access to the best of Nike brand.” While that could include product suggestions (Training for your first 5K race? Here’s a pair of shoes you should consider), Sussman adds there are a lot of services offered as well.

One notable service I could see myself using: Booking a slot in a Nike event. I’m based in New York City, but let’s say I was planning to travel to Chicago in the next few days. In theory, I could sign up for a Nike-sponsored core strength and conditioning app at 1:30 p.m. local time on August 3 if that fits in with my travel plans.

Users can also opt for their preferred categories of interest if they are in fact looking for shopping tips. Beyond running, there are several other sports, including golf, tennis, and skating. You can also “favorite” specific categories, like the Jordan brand or sneakers.

The launch of Nike+, after several months in beta testing, is one of the first key new offerings under the direction of Sussman, who joined Nike in February. He was brought into the top digital role to develop products and services across Nike.com, Nike+, and other digital platforms. His role is critical to the broader mission at Nike as the company is aiming to expand the e-commerce business to $7 billion in annual sales by 2020, up from $1 billion figure Nike reported last fall. Online sales are a fast-growing channel for Nike: they grew 51% in fiscal 2016 through Nike-owned websites.

Prior to the new Nike+ app, Sussman also oversaw a new Nike+ Training Club app and will relaunch the running-focused mobile app later this month. Sussman also promised a revamped sneakers app will be unveiled this fall.

To help propel the digital evolution, Nike also announced on Tuesday it would open a new digital studio based in New York City. That studio will house a newly acquired team of tech entrepreneurs, which previously worked for tech startup Virgin Mega. Their mission is to make mobile more relevant to the brand’s customers.

Summary: The athletic wear giant stresses its more than just a shopping app.


State and federal authorities are investigating a cyber attack on the Queensland government.

The email account of Annastacia Palaszczuk's director-general, David Stewart, has been hacked and used to circulate bogus emails in his name, The Courier-Mail reports.

A government spokesman told AAP on Friday morning malicious emails had been circulating and Queensland's chief information officer had called in the police.

"The Queensland government is also working with the Australian Cyber Security Centre," the spokesman said.

"Protective measures have been further strengthened within the Queensland Government to ensure the highest security protocols exist."

The spokesman would not say which parts of the government's IT system had been compromised.

Summary: Hackers have targeted the Queensland premier's director-general, circulating emails carrying a malicious virus in his name.


Justin Utley was 25 when he began going to Evergreen, a support group in Salt Lake City, Utah, that helped people “diminish same-sex attractions and overcome homosexual behavior.” After returning from his mission trip as a young Mormon, he’d approached his bishop and told him he might be gay—which led him to seek help using a church-recommended practice.

But what was supposed to be the road to a celestial kingdom became a two-year struggle to change his identity, and he left the program to pursue a relationship with another man. Utley, now 35, describes Evergreen as a “conversion therapy support group” that treated homosexuality as a curable addiction.

“The belief was that you’re only gay if you do something that is gay,” Utley said.

But while Evergreen never resorted to shock therapy or other extreme measures once associated with “reparative therapy,” male attendees would sit through discussions and be given assignments on how to bond better with men as friends. The men were not allowed to spend time together outside of Evergreen, but people rarely followed that rule—often hooking up with one another after leaving group sessions.

Utley and many of the men who attended Evergreen also saw licensed therapists at the same time who had been recommended by both the group and by officials of the Mormon Church, which Utley used to be a member of until he formally left in 2006. To treat the man’s “addiction,” therapists often prescribed medication for bipolar disorders or schizophrenia. Utley never took any medication, but was talked into believing he’d been molested as a child—which provided a reason for his same-gender attraction, he was told.

Utley said the powerful desire to overcome his feelings explains why conversion therapy still existed as a practice despite being denounced by psychologists over the last few years. “I wanted too badly to be a part of this social ideal and doctrinal idea that I’d be married to a woman with kids,” he said. “You just fall in love with that idea, even when it’s not possible. When that’s taken away, it rips your heart out because that’s what you were raised to become.”

California, New Jersey take on the fight

The use of reparative therapy can be traced back to the early 20th century in the United States when homosexuality was widely believed to be a mental condition. In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders, but many people still believed that therapy was a solution for those who wanted to change their sexual orientation. Famed psychiatrist Dr. Robert Spitzer published a controversial paper in 2001 contending reparative therapy could work in some cases—an argument he later retracted in 2012.

But while reparative therapy has been regarded as ineffective, and even damaging, by many licensed therapists, states have been hesitant to ban the practice for minors. In California, a new state law that would have banned conversion therapy for minors was set to take effect at the start of this year, but a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last December that the ban violates the First Amendment rights of therapists and parents.

“This law is an astounding overreach by the government into the realm of counseling and would have caused irreparable harm,” said Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, a right-wing organization that challenged the California law.

New Jersey is currently facing a similar battle after the state Senate’s health committee approved a bill that would ban licensed practitioners from using or recommending reparative therapy on minors, even with parental permission. Gov. Chris Christie has not said whether he would sign the bill if it reaches his desk, but declared Friday that he opposed the use of reparative therapy.

“Governor Christie does not believe in conversion therapy,” spokesman Kevin Roberts told the New Jersey Star-Ledger. “There is no mistaking his point of view on this when you look at his prior statements where he makes clear that people’s sexual orientation is determined at birth.”

‘Wouldn’t you want a second opinion?’

As LGBT advocates in both California and New Jersey continue to fight to outlaw the use of reparative therapy on minors, opponents of banning the practice are arguing government overreach and saying states should focus on educating parents and children on why therapy is harmful instead of outlawing it and creating a network of unlicensed therapists.

“Banning it may simply drive it underground, where it won’t even be subject to state regulation or limited to therapists who are licensed,” Christopher Ferguson, associate professor of psychology and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University, wrote for Time last October. “With gay conversion therapy, the treatment may be worse than the ‘problem,’ but the same could be said for government efforts to intervene.”

But having experienced two years of Evergreen and counseling and meeting men who’d been in therapy for years, Utley said he remains convinced the damage done by the practice should be enough to take the option off the table entirely. ”If you had any other condition, wouldn’t you want to know your other options?” he asked. “If it’s a serious mental disorder, wouldn’t you want a second opinion? Or why not go to a specialist? Why depend on something with such little-documented success?”

He adds that most people resort to reparative therapy to quell any feelings of self-hatred. “When I first went [to Evergreen], I was elated to find people who were on the same boat as me. I wanted to die before I admitted I was gay…When faced with a situation like this, eternal salvation comes into question when you’re religious. And your religious and emotional rationale supersedes anything else, and you’re willing to accept anything to keep yourself in line with your religious beliefs.”

Utley said what saved him was realizing his worth and value to people who weren’t looking to change him. “Wouldn’t it be more healthy to just accept who you are?”

Summary: Justin Utley was 25 when he began going to Evergreen, a support group in Salt Lake City, Utah, that helped people "diminish same-sex attractions and overcome ho


He added: “Of hexagonal outline, it is brilliantly painted in tones of cobalt blue. With boughs of pomegranate and peach alternating with flowering branches, it is a work of art, painted with the Qianlong mark to the base.

“With important Chinese porcelain once removed from China during the 19th century and being bought back by Chinese billionaires today, pedigree and provenance is so important in a market today where later copies can easily deceive the more cautious collector.

“The manner of the vase's decoration was inspired by artists working on porcelain in the Yongzheng period (1723-1735). The design became one of the most favoured designs for all the noble Palaces in the period by his son Emperor Qianlong.”

Summary: A rare Chinese vase uncovered in a West Midland home being used as a doorstop has sold for £650,000.


MY native black cherry tree is covered with little white flowers, and if the bees and other pollinators do their job, I’ll have plenty of sweet black cherries by midsummer.

My Korean spicebushes (Viburnum carlesii) are also in full bloom, their clusters of pinkish-white flowers filling the air with the heady scent of cinnamon and honey. But it’s striking how few bees are sipping nectar from these Asian shrubs compared with my native redbud and sassafras trees, which are literally vibrating with pollinators.

It bears out the research that Gordon Frankie, an entomologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has begun in gardens around that city, where he and his students have surveyed 1,000 different plants, both native and nonnative.

“Only 50 were native plants, but of that 50, 80 percent were attractive to pollinators,” Professor Frankie said. “In contrast, only 10 percent of the 950 nonnatives were attractive to pollinators.”

My spicebushes don’t seem to be among those pollinator favorites, but I would never trade them, or my Asian lilacs and peonies, for natives. So I am adding native plants wherever I can to feed the pollinators — in particular the native bees, because there are so many different species, and far fewer nonnative ones, like the European honeybee (Apis mellifera), which doesn’t seem to be much in evidence around my old farm in Maryland these days.

Douglas W. Tallamy, an ecologist at the University of Delaware, and the author of “Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens” (Timber Press, 2007), inspired my new plantings. “We have 4,000 species of native bees in North America,” Mr. Tallamy said. “If we gave them food — flowering native plants — and a place to build their nests, they would be able to take up the slack from decreasing honeybee populations.”

While some native bees are particular about the plants they like, about half are generalists, scientists say, which explains why I see native bumblebees and mason bees on my pear tree, an Asian plant. And why my unmown yard is abuzz with pollinators, from tiny wasps and flies to solitary native bees, nuzzling the dandelions (transglobal weeds), violets (found throughout the temperate world) and clover (largely European).

So don’t be too quick to mow. Those so-called weeds are important sources of food for pollinators, which need protein and sugar to build up their populations. We need to keep feeding them from early spring to hard frost if we want vigorous, well-pollinated plants.

Crops like tomatoes, peas and beans are self-pollinating, but they still have to be shaken by the wind or bees to release the pollen inside the flowers. Bumblebees and a few other native bees are able to vibrate the flower — something a European honeybee cannot do — shaking pollen from the stamens to the stigma, where it fertilizes the ovules that will become seeds inside a pod (think snap peas or green beans!) or fruit (juicy tomatoes! strawberries!). These bees also travel from flower to flower, cross-pollinating, which improves the vigor of plants and the size of that tomato.

Other crops like the cucurbits — melons, cucumbers and squash — are entirely dependent on pollinators for fertilization, because they have separate male and female flowers.

Both honeybees and natives do an excellent job of pollinating such plants when they are around, but all these pollinators are in serious decline from many stressors, and scientists suspect that habitat loss is key.

David Salman, the founder and chief horticulturist at High Country Gardens, a mail-order nursery in Santa Fe, N.M., said he has noticed a big decrease in pollinators as the fields of wildflowers around his greenhouses have been developed.

“I’m not getting the seed production I used to, because I’m physically cut off from pollinators,” he said. “I am excited beyond words about this resurgence in home food production, but the big thing left out of the equation is bringing pollinators into these gardens, particularly in urban areas.”

In the kitchen garden, where many plants are a mix of European, Asian and American species, I don’t worry so much about whether an herb or flower that attracts pollinators is native or not. I just go for diversity, and it all seems to work out.

So I’m not going to give up my Mediterranean lavender, catmint, oregano or any of the other age-old plants imported to the New World. I’m just packing in more natives.

In a wide border around the kitchen garden, I’ve planted Purple Smoke, a native baptisia or indigo, with charcoal stems and violet-blue flowers the same shape as those of the sugar-snap and snow peas climbing a nearby fence. And I’ve put in two indigo plants, rather than one, to get a good six-foot-wide clump, because according to my “Pollinator Conservation Handbook” (Xerces Society/The Bee Works, 2003), native pollinators are more likely to home in on flowers when they’re in masses at least four feet across.

I’ve put in more native coneflowers, too: Echinacea purpurea, the purple coneflower, and E. paradoxa, the yellow coneflower, as well as black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) and Rudbeckia maxima, the so-called cabbage-leaf coneflower, a six-foot plant with big blue-green leaves and bright yellow flowers.

“I love the purple coneflowers and rudbeckias, the ratibidas, or prairie coneflowers, which are all wonderful for bumblebees,” Mr. Salman said. “If you have melons and squash, plant these right in the patch.”

Other native perennials that provide plenty of nectar and pollen include giant hyssop, coreopsis, larkspur, Joe-pye weed, blanket flower, sunflower, lupine, evening primrose, poppy, penstemon, salvia and sedum. Annual and biennial flowers like milkweed, spider flower, cosmos, poppy, mullein, daisy and verbena also draw pollinators. So do wild roses and blueberry bushes, raspberry and blackberry brambles, elderberry and sumac, and nonnative herbs like lavender, mint, basil, marjoram, rosemary, borage and lantana.

And don’t forget late-summer favorites like goldenrod and asters.

Ecologists are encouraging home gardeners to experiment with all these plants, and to observe what pollinates what. It’s as fascinating as bird-watching.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Come Hither, Bumblebee, and Pollinate. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: If you want vigorous, well-pollinated plants, keep feeding bees and other pollinators from early spring to hard frost.


A year ago today, a man who had spent his life making the world laugh suddenly brought it to tears. It was on Aug. 11, 2014, that the larger-than-life comedian Robin Williams ended his own life.

“Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between,” President Obama said in a statement at the time, adding, “But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit.”

John Lipton once said on an episode of “Inside the Actor’s Studio” that trying to categorize the unpredictable Williams was like trying to catch “lightening in a butterfly net.” Yet, while the diverse cast of colorful characters he played are hard to pigeonhole, these 10 quotes from the late Academy Award winner give an insight into his world view – and offer us a good lesson in the school of life from everyone’s favorite fictional poetry professor:

1. “Comedy is acting out optimism.”

2. “Do you think that God gets stoned once in a while? Look at a platypus. I think so.”

3. “There’s three things in this world that you need: respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.”

4. “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.”

5. “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”

6. “Like so many things, it is not what is outside, but what is inside that counts.”

7. “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.”

8. “If heaven exists, to know that there’s laughter, that would be a good thing.”

9. “Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘Your table is ready!’”

10. “Only in their dreams can men be truly free. ‘Twas always thus and always thus will be.”

Summary: A year after legendary comedian Robin Williams' death, these 10 quotes give an insight into his world view – and offer us a good lesson in the school of life.


Using Wi-Fi on cruise ships can require patience. Servers struggle to connect to satellites and mountains and vast expanses of ocean, not to mention bad weather can all cause web access to grind to a halt.

Recent years have seen big improvements, however. Technology has improved and many cruise lines recognise that the provision of good Wi-Fi is as important to some holidaymakers as a gourmet restauramt, swimming pool or children’s club.

In a poll of 2,109 Britons in April 2015 by Blue Chip Holidays, a third of respondents said Wi-Fi was essential on holiday.

Royal Caribbean International led the way when it signed satellite operator O3b Networks for its ship Quantum of the Seas. The vessel launched in 2014 with more bandwidth than every other cruise ship in the world combined. Fast internet has now been rolled out to all its ships, although they don’t all benefit from the O3b satellite.

The company has also changed its Wi-Fi pricing from a per-minute fee, to a much fairer system based on actual data used.

Cruise lines including Norwegian Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises and MSC Cruises are among those that have upgraded Wi-Fi provision on board, but there is still much room for improvement.

Most companies offer Wi-Fi throughout their ships and information on websites is largely good (look under FAQs), but prices are still high and connection patchy, especially in cabins. Few were willing or able to reveal bandwidth when asked.

As a general rule, the internet café or reception are the best places to go if connectivity is poor, but if you want to browse in the comfort of you own cabin, and you don’t mind passers-by peeking in, it can help to prop the door open.

The website warns that connection on-board is not fast and does not support Skype, VoIP or other high-bandwidth programmes. From $9.95 (£6.75) for 15 minutes. A full voyage package costs $30 (£20) a day.

Faster Wi-Fi is charged per day. Choose between Social, Value or Premium, priced $5, $16 and $25 (£3.40, £11, £17), which allow access to social media, surfing and Skype respectively. None supports video streaming.

The high-speed Xcelerate Wi-Fi being rolled out across Celebrity’s fleet (not on the Galapagos ships) is said to offer four times more bandwidth than previously (there was no indication of what that was), allowing passengers to browse and stream video. Unlimited use costs from $140 (£97) per person for five to nine days and $199 (£138) for 10 days or more.

Passengers receive one hour of free Wi-Fi per day (90 minutes for those in penthouses). Otherwise, the cost ranges from $0.74 (56p) a minute for pay as you go to $220 (£167) for a 10-hour package. Crystal said bandwidth is adequate for social media, email and internet browsing.

Wi-Fi is available in all cabins and public areas. The company said bandwidth is high enough to stream video and Skype. Prices from £13 for 30 minutes to £63 for seven days unlimited use.

Wi-Fi is available in rooms and public areas on all Holland America ships, but bandwidth varies. It is being replaced by a new wifi@Sea programme. Pay as you go costs $0.75 (57p) per minute; packages from $55 (£37) for 100 minutes.

New faster Wi-Fi is said to be “comparable to terrestrial wireless broadband”. It is available throughout all ships but stronger in public hotspots. A seven-day Social Package allowing passengers to post pictures and chat to friends costs from €14.90 (£12). Surfer and Streamer Packages from €29.90 (£23) and €59.90 (£48) respectively for a week.

A multi-million-dollar SpeedNet Wi-Fi network that will quadruple bandwidths will be across all Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ ships (covers NCL, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises) by the end of July. Speeds will not be known until it is installed.

NCL: from $29.99 per day for up to 12 days; pay as you go is $0.95 per minute. Norwegian Breakaway alone has Wi-Fi data plans – $59 (£40) for 300MB; $125 (£84) for 1,000MB.

Oceania Cruises: Free as part of an on-going OLife Select campaign.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises: Free

Wi-Fi is being updated this summer, at which point new packages and prices will be launched. For now, expect to pay from £30 for 100 minutes. Passengers can surf and post but not stream, and this will not change.

Bandwidth on Paul Gauguin is 1Mbps, which is fine for email, browsing and social media. Skype is said to work reasonably well; video streaming is not possible. From $0.55 (42p) a minute for pay as you go to $29 (£22) per day for unlimited access. Free for passengers in Owners or Grand Suites.

Wi-Fi is available across public areas and cabins on all its ships. Bandwidths vary but Princess said passengers can surf, post and stream short videos. Pay as you go costs $0.79 (60p) per minute, packages from $99 (£67) for 200 minutes).

Voom, Royal Caribbean’s Wi-Fi service, is on all ships. O3b is on its Quantum and Oasis-class ships, and also Freedom of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, Enchantment of the Seas and Majesty of the Seas. Other vessels use a combination of service providers. Passengers can surf, post and stream music, movies and TV at speeds enjoyed on land. Surf packages from $12.99 (£10) per device per day ($8.99/£7 for five devices or more). Surf and stream packages from $17.99 (£13) per device per day ($11.99/£9 for five devices or more).

Wi-Fi is free on the company’s two ships. Each has 1.5Mbps bandwidth, which allows browsing, posting and social media. Wi-Fi is accessible from all public areas and some cabins.

The website warns that the Wi-Fi is slower and less reliable than on land. Passengers are requested to refrain from gaming or streaming. From $0.40 (30p) per minute. Package prices were not provided.

Wi-Fi is free for those in Medallion and higher suites. Passengers in lower category rooms received one hour free per person per day (free for all on a full world cruises). From $30 (£20) for one day to $250 (£167) for 1,000 minutes.

Complimentary Wi-Fi is available throughout the ship but can be very slow, and often non-existent, especially in the cabins, which suggests not enough bandwidth.

Summary: In the past, Wi-Fi at sea has been patchy at best, although cruise lines are starting to catch up. Here's a comprehensive guide to what the different companies offer by way of connectivity.


Do you remember your childhood summer job?

I do. I worked in my family business—a funeral home. From the time I was five, my parents found ways for me to "help out." My first responsibility was to collect broken flowers from funeral sprays so my mother could easily vacuum. It might sound morbid—but it was a way for my parents to spend time with me, instead of dropping me off with a baby sitter. And I learned some invaluable...

Summary: This summer, your out-of-school children can gain some valuable experience by working in the family business, writes Susan Solovic Wilson.


Sam Wilkin, economist author of Wealth Secrets of the One Percent, explains to MONEY’s Kate Santichen that having a billion-dollar idea doesn’t guarantee you’ll become a billionaire, or even a millionaire. He uses the example of Bill Gates, who’s worth around $80 billion. Gates isn’t super-wealthy because he’s superhuman, says Wilkin. He’s wealthy because he was able to establish property rights over his software, with the help of his father, a lawyer. His contracts, and his legal protections, insulated him from competition. And that’s how he was able to get on the road to wealth, says Wilkin.

Read Next: How Richard Branson Made His First Million

Summary: Economist Sam Wilkin explains why a billion-dollar idea wasn't enough


One day, Rhino, a Lycra-clad beefcake from the TV show Gladiators, came into the Bella office to deliver some ice lollies on behalf of an ice-cream company. One of the girls fondled his buttocks, which, she observed with enthusiasm, “were as hard as concrete”. We all laughed, and especially Rhino, who seemed happy enough with the attention.

Over two extremely happy years at Bella, the Babes would routinely tease me about my sex life, penis size, and various deficiencies when compared to messrs Clooney, Rhino and a legion of other superior males.

Meanwhile, in the company's post room, “the lads” would conspiratorially smoke Benson & Hedges while ogling posters of Kathy Lloyd from loaded (coincidentally, the magazine I would go on to edit).

When I left Bella, the girls bought me an assortment of novelty gifts, including an oversized chocolate penis and a bath pillow in the shape of a pair of inflatable breasts.

I thought all this tremendous fun, and never for one minute did any of us – men or women -– think of our behaviour as even remotely sexist.

We live in very different times now.

I reflect on those happy days because, late last week, another one of those seemingly inexorable reports came out that “proves” sexism is rife in the modern workplace, when all our common sense tells us that there has never been more equality.

As we are often reminded, modern sexism is always stacked against women – even though this latest report’s female author was speaking about the sexism scandal that destroyed the career of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir Tim Hunt.

Furthermore, writing in the Times Educational Supplement, Paula Nicolson, Emeritus Professor of Health and Social Care at Royal Holloway University, claimed workplace sexism is deployed by men "as a bonding experience”.

Nicholson added that women risk making “powerful enemies” if they object vocally every time their male colleagues make “anti-women remarks”.

She recalled her time as a psychology professor when female students complained of sexual harassment, citing, “Examples included the use of gratuitous images of overweight or underdressed women. Their concerns were rewarded with accusations that they lacked humour, or worse.”

Nicholson, who is promoting a book called Gender, Power and Organisation: A Psychological Perspective on Life at Work, claims there have been “psychological consequences” to the “increased opportunities” women have enjoyed in the workplace.

She added: “At an all-male meeting, the senior male chair started joking about the physical appearance of a female singer, and others joined in.

“They seemed to treat it as a bonding experience. Anti-women remarks and behaviours occur in many such formal situations.”

On the face of it, that seems no worse than the Bella Babes pointing out that I was a poor physical specimen compared to the likes of Rhino and George Clooney.

Often, of course, workplace sexism is no laughing matter, and it can have serious consequences. And all too often, tribunals show us women are more often on the receiving end of sexist abuse. Then, employment law can, should and does protect them.

But to claim that men somehow specifically use sexism against women to control and belittle them, and that sexism is in some way worse than ever, seems questionable.

You don’t need to be a professor to notice that entirely or mostly single-sex groups behave differently than groups where the sexes are split fairly equally. It’s a statement of the bleeding obvious.

You’ve only got to watch Loose Women for proof as they ogle David Beckham’s budgie smugglers or drool over the trailer for Magic Mike XXL. Even the presenters at BBC Women’s Hour swooned over Poldark’s six-pack live on air when I was in the studio recently. Is that sexism, or is it normal human behaviour?

And when such “sexism” emerges in the workplace, what should we do about it?

Professor Nicolson advises: “The question is whether we should object every time, and risk making powerful enemies – or, at the very least, be deemed a humourless troublemaker who will not be invited to key subsequent meetings.

“Or should we, instead, wait until there are potentially serious consequences that may influence a grievance outcome, promotion, or appointment panel?”

Or is there another option? Should women in the face of such behaviour at work, and men for the matter, give as good as they get, rise above it, learn some wit, take no notice of idiots, and – same as it was 20 years ago – if things get dodgy, have a word with a senior colleague?

We cannot allow the aftermath of Sir Tim Hunt’s “the trouble with girls” incident to become “the problem is men”. Yes, some sexism still exists in the workplace, and it needs to be stamped out when it’s serious.

But to suggest that men routinely use anti-women banter as some form of crass workplace bonding exercise is not only insulting, it’s deeply sexist – and this time it’s men who are being taken for a ride.

Summary: An academic has claimed that men use anti-women remarks as a way of bonding   with other males at work. Martin Daubney disagrees


A woman has been charged by police investigating 138 separate reports of tyre slashing over the past four months at Newcastle in NSW.

The 44-year-old was nabbed in a raid of a Mayfield property on Thursday and charged with eight counts of malicious damage as well as drug offences.

She was refused bail to appear at Newcastle Local Court on Friday, with police expected to lay further charges over the spate of tyre slashings.

Summary: A woman has been charged with eight counts of slashing tyres, with more charges expected, by police investigating a string of such offences at Newcastle in NSW.


The Greens have no problem with the Turnbull government's plan to put a $500,000 lifetime cap on non-concessional superannuation contributions, a proposal which has provoked controversy among coalition backbenchers.

But the minor party wants the government to go further in making the super system fairer, such as people earning less than $30,000 paying no tax on their contributions, while those earning $180,000 and above paying 32 per cent rather than 15 per cent.

"We have an opportunity to actually put in place a much stronger, fairer, equitable superannuation system and the Greens will use our leverage in the Senate to try and get that," Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, who has just taken over the Treasury portfolio, told Sky News on Thursday.

Summary: The Greens will use its numbers in the Senate to pursue measures to make the superannuation system fairer beyond what the government is proposing.


Syria’s tourism board is making an attempt to attract travellers to the war-torn nation with the release of a new promotional campaign.

The commercial, which tells viewers Syria is “always beautiful”, focuses on the coastal town of Tartus, a town hit by a series of ISIS suicide bombings earlier this year.

It features jet-skiers and beach-goers, with wide, panning shots across the ocean and nearby seaside villas.

The campaign is the government’s attempt to sell the nation as a luxurious holiday destination as tourism numbers plummet amid the country’s civil war.

Nearly eight million tourists visited the country in 2011, before the fighting began, while only 465,000 travelled to the country in 2013, the Middle East Eye reports.

In 2014 Syria’s tourism minister told Bloomberg the country was relying on the growth of the tourism industry.

“We’re betting on the tourism sector becoming a major support for the economy,” he said.

In a recent post to Facebook the Ministry of Tourism boasted that the number of tourists visiting Syria had increased 30 percent in 2016.

The ad doesn’t mention the bombings or civil war which has been raging in Syria for the past five years, destroying the nation’s economy.

Almost 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and up to 11 million nationals had been displaced from their homes, many fleeing the country, causing a refugee crisis in Europe.

Earlier this month a photograph of a blood-stained boy, caked in dust, went viral online. The boy had been rescued from a building in Aleppo destroyed by an air strike.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


A heartbroken man who was born with no legs has had his specially modified car stolen from a Melbourne mechanic’s garage.

Phillip Micallef’s Holden SS Commodore was in for a service when a cruel thief broke in and stole it at about 2am yesterday.

“It’s taken a lot of my independence away,” Mr Micallef said.

“It’s got specially fitted hand controls and there would have been a disabled sticker as well, so the person that took the vehicle would have known all about that.

“They’d have to be pretty low to do that.”

It took the thief an hour to break through a roller door, using another car to ram it open.

Senior Constable Michael Ditcham from Victoria Police said a white van dropped off the hoodie-wearing thief, and promptly left.

“We believe the same Renault van was used in similar types of commercial burglaries in the last week in the area which were also caught on CCTV,” he said.

Police are appealing for witnesses to come forward.

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

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


NY Police want to speak with two men seen taking a bomb from a suitcase. (NYPD)

The FBI has released an image of two men allegedly seen removing a bomb from a suitcase in New York, following the blast in Chelsea which injured 29 people.

The men - who are being sought as possible witnesses not suspects - were caught on surveillance video on West 27th Street appearing to take the suitcase, leaving the bomb behind.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) have put a call out on social media, requesting the men contact them, ensuring they are not wanted but are needed for "informational purposes only".

"Closed circuit television recordings indicate that these individuals allegedly located a piece of luggage on the sidewalk, removed an improvised explosive device from the luggage, and then left the vicinity," NYPD said in a statement.

Ahmad Khan Rahami was arrested after a shootout in New Jersey.

It comes after federal prosecutors charged the Afghan-born man arrested after weekend bombings in New York and New Jersey with four counts including use of weapons of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use.

The charges were laid out in a federal complaint that said a handwritten journal was found on the suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, that praised Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and accused the US government of slaughtering Islamist fighters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine.

The federal charges come after the father of Rahami said he had reported concerns about his son being involved with militants to the Federal Bureau of Investigations two years ago.

The FBI acknowledged it had investigated Rahami in 2014, but found no "ties to terrorism" and dropped its inquiry.

Ahmad Khan Rahami was arrested after a shootout in New Jersey.

The White House said on Tuesday it appeared that the bombings were "an act of terrorism" as an investigation continued in to whether Rahami had accomplices, or if he picked up militant Islamic views during trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The investigation is active and ongoing, and it is being investigated as an act of terror," US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch said in Lexington, Kentucky.

Rahami, 28, was suspected in the weekend bombings, including a blast on Saturday night in New York City's Chelsea neighbourhood that wounded 29 people, and another on the New Jersey shore that injured no one earlier that day.

Rahami was arrested on Monday in Linden, New Jersey, after a shootout with police that left him with multiple gunshot wounds. Rahami was listed in critical but stable condition, and police had not yet been able to interview him in depth, New York Police Department Commissioner James O'Neill said.

His father, Mohammad Rahami, briefly emerged on Tuesday from the family's restaurant in Elizabeth, New Jersey, about 30km west of New York City, telling reporters, "I called the FBI two years ago."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that it began an assessment of the younger Rahami in 2014 based on comments his father made about his son after "a domestic dispute."

"The FBI conducted internal database reviews, interagency checks, and multiple interviews, none of which revealed ties to terrorism," the FBI said.

Rahami was arrested not far from Elizabeth, where his family lived above their storefront First American Fried Chicken restaurant.

Two US officials said Rahami had a small notebook on him when he was apprehended, which one of the officials said contained "ideological" musings.

The notebook, punctured by a bullet hole and stained with blood, contained references to killing nonbelievers and mentioned American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading al Qaeda propagandist who was killed in a US. drone strike in Yemen in 2011, the New York Times reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement official.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

Summary: Federal charges have been filed against the Afghan-born man suspected of planting bombs in New York and New Jersey on the weekend, with one charge reportedly relating to the possession of weapons of mass destruction.


California has ended the statute of limitations for rape in a measure inspired by accusations against comedian Bill Cosby, some of which surfaced decades after the alleged crimes occurred.

Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into state law on Wednesday.

Cosby, who built a long career on family friendly comedy, including his long-running sitcom The Cosby Show, has denied ever assaulting anyone and has insisted all his sexual encounters were consensual.

He is charged in Pennsylvania with drugging and sexually assaulting a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, at his home in 2004.

In California, he faces a civil suit by a woman now in her 50s who alleges that Cosby plied her with alcohol and molested her in 1974 at the Playboy Mansion when she was aged 15.

Existing California law generally limits prosecution of a felony sexual offence to 10 years after the offence is committed.

Only two in 100 rapists will be convicted of a felony and spend any time in prison, according to the US Department of Justice.

"Governor Jerry Brown's signature of SB 813 tells every rape and sexual assault victim in California that they matter and that, regardless of when they are ready to come forward, they will always have an opportunity to seek justice in a court of law," bill author state senator Connie Leyva said.

"Rapists should never be able to evade legal consequences simply because an arbitrary time limit has expired," she said.

The bill will not work retroactively and will not help some of Cosby's accusers, according to Gloria Allred, an attorney who represents several of the comedian's alleged victims.

The governors of Nevada and Colorado have signed similar bills extending the statute of limitations to 20 years for rape cases into law.

Summary: In a move inspired by accusations against entertainer Bill Cosby, California has ended the statute of limitations for rape.


A Victorian duo will face court after spending two hours dodging police in a stolen car in rural South Australia.

Police say the driver first refused to stop at Monteith just after 7.30pm on Thursday, after which they learnt their car had been stolen from Morwell on Wednesday and was part of a petrol drive off in Naracoorte on Thursday.

Road spikes failed to stop the car several times but it finally stopped in Lameroo, where a 33-year-old woman and 27-year-old man were charged over the incident.

Summary: A Victorian man and woman have been arrested after their stolen car was pursued by police for two hours as it drove through rural South Australia.


The Senate unanimously approved legislation Thursday that extends by 10 years the ability of the United States to hit companies who do business with Iran with economic sanctions.

Retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced long-shot legislation Tuesday to scrap the Electoral College, in the latest protest from Democrats following last week's election ...

U.S. Olympic athletes would be exempt from a so-called victory tax under legislation approved by Congress and sent to the president.

Congress on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected President Obama’s veto of a bipartisan bill letting families of Sept. 11 victims sue the Saudi Arabian government, in the first succes...

The Senate has passed a bill to keep the government running through Dec. 9 and provide $1.1 billion in long-delayed funding to battle the Zika virus.

The Senate vote Wednesday to override President Obama’s veto of a bill letting 9/11 victims’ families sue Saudi Arabia puts Congress one step closer to the first override of Obama'...

A battle over water damage could well determine whether Congress avoids a government shutdown Friday night.

Summary: Bills stories and articles from Fox News Politics


Since the first colonisers landed on the continent, photography has been complicit in creating many of the modern myths about Africa.

But as an increasing number of young artists get behind the lens to tell their own stories, the view of the 54 countries is changing.

In Lagos, Nigeria, a hotbed of art, music and fashion, this week marks the beginning of LagosPhoto, one of the continent’s largest annual photography festivals.

Described as month-long celebration “challenging prevalent images of Afro-pessimism”, the photographers included in exhibition and events across the city defy the global media’s focus on Africa “as a continent of the desperate”.

Launched in 2010, participants say the festival helps showcase the quality of new work emerging from the continent, while allowing artists to meet and support each other.

Fati Abubakar, a photographer working in northern Nigeria, said: “You meet people from all over the world who teach you a lot about cultures, their experience as photographers, [their] challenges,” she says. “It is very necessary for us to not only to support [each other] but to critically assess each other so we can be better.”

Ishola Akpo, from Benin, agrees: “Meetings such as these are essential [...] they really help to nourish our work and develop new perspectives.”

Abubakar and Akpo are among 10 promising young African photographers showing at LagosPhoto, working to change the way the next generation sees Africa.

Abubakar finds stories of beauty and resistance in the most unexpected places. She has taken her camera to some of Nigeria’s most dangerous regions, including Maiduguri, in the northern Borno State, where she grew up, which is now better known as the “birthplace of Boko Haram”.

At Lagos Photo, Abubakar is presenting The Face, a series of portraits from remote, rural locations in Nigeria, where despite poor living conditions, people still “find a sense of integrity and beauty, thriving in the midst of adversity”.

Working in Benin, the photographer and multimedia artist Akpo focuses on the subject of bridal dowries in the Yoruba and Nago communities.

The symbolism of the dowry, originally one of allegiance – seen as a way of joining families, tribes and ethnicities – is now often only a financial exchange, and in his series L’Essentiel est Invisible pour les Yeux, Akpo presents objects given as part of his own grandmother’s dowry – including pearls, mirror and bottles of gin.

Nico Krijno combines photography, performance and sculpture. His abstract compositions made in his studio in Cape Town, which he refers to as “mess aesthetics”, are created using everyday items such as Play-Doh, plastic laundry baskets, fabric curtains, discarded metal and wood.

Though Siwa Mgoboza, 23, graduated only last year, he has already had several solo exhibitions in South Africa, with many works now held in public and private collections. Colourful and carnivalesque, the brightly patterned, lavishly layered Ishweshwe cloths that feature in his photographs come from the artist’s Hlubi heritage.

Mixing the high-gloss luxury of fashion photography and the refined approach of classical portraiture, Lakin Ogunbanwo’s stripped-back portraits blur the line between advertising and art. Born and based in Lagos, the 29-year-old trained as a lawyer but started taking photographs while he was still studying.

The career change paid off, and his work is now part of the new advertising and fashion industry thriving in Nigeria. Internationally, he has featured in Harper’s Bazaar, GQ and Dazed & Confused magazines among others. In 2015, he was named as one of the British Journal of Photography’s top 25 photographers.

Based in Cape Town, the photographer and film-maker Tsoku Maela turned to photography as a way of dealing with depression and anxiety. His series of self-portraits about mental illness, Abstract Peaces, addressed a topic treated as taboo in South Africa.

In Lagos, the artist is presenting works from his series Broken Things, which he says features two characters who learn to love themselves, despite their flaws. For Maela, “the greatest form of acceptance is self-acceptance. But it’s not out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. It’s right here where you stand, and wherever you will go, as it always begins and ends with us.”

Born in Zimbabwe only a year after the end of the white-minority rule of Rhodesia, Chiurai has often focused his lens on racial segregation. At LagosPhoto he presents a new series, Genesis, based on his research into the men who travelled with the missionary David Livingstone to central Africa in the 19th century. It focuses in particular on stone reliefs that were made to mark Livingstone’s various expeditions.

Gyamfi’s photographs shed light on social tensions around gender and sexuality in Ghana. Interested in people who have suffered exclusion or been labelled as minorities in their communities in the past and present, Gyamfi’s work began with self-portraits in which he re-enacted memories from his own childhood as a way to examine his sexual identity and position in relation to the myth of masculinity.

For his series Witches of Gambaga, Gyamfi visited a “witches’ camp” in northern Ghana where 130 women aged between 17 and 90 who have been found guilty of witchcraft live. They can only be freed if a family member pays a ransom of one sheep and three hens to the camp’s chief.

“These women, broken as they were from their individual traumatic experiences, pressed on daily with such resilience and beauty, in the face of all the devastation that engulfed them inside-out. It was this beauty and strength I wanted to paint back to them,” Gyamfi says.

Léonard Pongo’s photographs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are part of a personal journey to connect with his roots: raised in Belgium, he began to take pictures in his father’s homeland during the presidential elections in 2011. His portraits capture events in the DRC – families in their homes, church ceremonies, nightlife and celebrations – that are not often seen in the international media, and confront the photographer’s own perception of the country.

“For us, women, we can’t just make art to look pretty and successfully hang on a wall at home or in a museum. It needs to demand respect, debates, confusion and experiment with tradition,” says Keyezua.

At LagosPhoto, the Angolan artist is presenting a series of works, Royal Generation, in which a model wears clothes made by hand from raw materials using traditional basket-making techniques..

LagosPhoto runs until 21 November

Summary: Event provides a platform for young photographers working to change the view of Africa as a continent of the desperate


A picture of F1 legend Michael Schumacher has been smuggled out of his home by a friend who then tried to sell it for £1 million pounds.

The seven-time world champion suffered a traumatic brain injury in December 2013 and since then no snaps or video footage have emerged.

The image –which was secretly taken – was smuggled out of his home by a money-hungry friend.

The prosecutor’s office in Offenburg said that “an unknown person” had taken “secret” snaps and were offering them for “high amounts of money”.

It is reported the picture shows Schumacher lying in bed at his home in Geneva, Switzerland.

The ghoulish photograph has reportedly been offered to European media outlets for close to £1million.

German prosecutors insist the picture violates the former Ferrari ace’s “personal range of life” and are now investigating the incident.

Read more from The Sun

Summary: Photographer looking for £1 million pounds.


WASHINGTON, June 16 - Dr. Michael D. Griffin, the new administrator of NASA, said Thursday that there was no way the space shuttle fleet would be able to complete the 28 flights now planned before its retirement in 2010.

A reduced schedule will lead to significant changes in how the International Space Station is assembled and supplied, he said. The station depends largely on the shuttle fleet to ferry equipment, supplies and crew members, but the shuttles have been grounded since the loss of the Columbia and its crew in February 2003.

While the space agency is still studying how many missions the shuttles can undertake once they resume flight, as early as next month, Dr. Griffin said there could be as few as 15 and no more than 23, because of the time it takes to process and fly missions.

"I'll be very strong on this," he said in an interview.

Study groups at NASA are looking into alternatives for assembling the station, the shuttle's main job, and will consult with the White House before presenting details to the other partners in the station project, including Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada.

Dr. Griffin, who assumed his post at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration only two months ago, acknowledged that in the past the United States had been accused of making important decisions itself as managing partner in the project and then announcing them to the other partners. During meetings this week at the Paris Air Show, he said, station partners were told they would be consulted once the station-assembly alternatives were vetted by the Bush administration.

"No decision will be made until we've had a chance to discuss options with them," he said. But he continued: "I can't discuss options with them before those options have been aired with my boss. And they understand that. They have the same constraints as me."

Dr. Griffin has been acting rapidly to reshape the upper management of the space program, and letters have gone out to dozens of officials telling them that they will be reassigned or will have the option of leaving NASA.

The first to announce that he would leave was Rear Adm. Craig E. Steidle, who led efforts to develop the next-generation crewed space vehicle; he made his resignation public last week. The Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group, announced on Thursday that he would join it as vice president for international affairs.

William F. Readdy, who heads spaceflight operations, told co-workers in an e-mail message on Monday that he would stay on through the shuttle's return to flight and then decide whether to take a new job within NASA or to retire.

Alphonzo V. Diaz, the agency's associate administrator for science, said in a memorandum to colleagues on Monday that he would retire "in the next several months." J. Victor Lebacqz, NASA's associate administrator for aeronautics research, announced his departure on Tuesday.

In his interview, Dr. Griffin declined to comment "on what I might do on the organizational wiring diagram" but said he was hoping to build a team of officials with "expertise, energy, integrity, the ability to see and to grasp the big picture" and to "work well with others."

Dr. Griffin said he had a tendency to make quick decisions, and he said that this sometimes put people off. So he said he has tried to surround himself with a politically sensitive team, "which by design does not allow me to make the quick decisions that I am prone to."

He also said he wanted people "who are willing to stand up to me."

"I don't want to issue edicts that people salute, say, 'Yes, sir!' and go off and implement."

Dr. Griffin repeated his goal of having a replacement for the shuttle ready shortly after its retirement, instead of allowing a gap of four to five years, as previously planned, before the nation could send astronauts to the space station or the Moon. The United States will develop this vehicle alone to assure that the nation has "unfettered, independent access to space," he said.

Summary: Dr. Michael D. Griffin said that there was no way the space shuttle fleet would be able to complete the 28 flights now planned before its retirement in 2010.


For most kids, nothing beats playing in the snow. But reading about snow may be the next best thing, as USA TODAY found in four new picture books to warm the hearts of young readers in any climate.

Making a FriendBy Alison McGhee, illustrated by Marc RosenthalAtheneum, 40 pp. $16.99, for ages 2-5* * * ½ (out of four)

The problem with snowmen is their lack of stamina, at least in most places between between the North and South poles. Alison McGhee's gentle, reassuring story opens in fall with an unnamed boy dreaming of winter. When it comes, he savors snow on his tongue, then builds a snowman, accessorized with sticks, a carrot and the boy's own red cap. But come spring, the boy asks of the snowman, "Where did he go?" The author's answer: "What you love … will always be with you." That takes on new meaning the next year, when winter dreams are followed once again by the first snow.

Chilly Milly MooWritten and illustrated by Fiona RossCandlewick, 32 pp. $15.99, for ages 3 and up* * *

Milly Moo is one silly and strange cow. Fiona Ross' comedy for the preschool set imagines a cow who vows to "churn out the finest, loveliest, tastiest creamiest milk." But she can't, she tells the frustrated farmer, because it's too hot. Milly is mocked by the rest of the herd until the temperature drops below freezing. Ross' cartoon-like drawings capture Milly's explosion of "the coldest, chilliest, frostiest, iciest…" (Let's leave it there, rather than ruin the barnyard surprise.) The moral, according to Milly: "We're all special!"

Red SledWritten and illustrated by Lita JudgeAtheneum, 40 pp. $16.99, for ages 2-5* * * ½

A mischievous and ecumenical gang of animals, including a bear, a moose and a porcupine, secretly borrow a boy's red sled, which is left outside a lone cabin in the snowy woods. Talk about joy rides. Lita Judge's drawings in pencil and watercolor enliven a simple, nearly wordless tale, but the biggest delights are the sound effects — "whoa," "eeeeeeeee" and "fluoomp…ft." It's a perfect book for reading aloud, especially by expressive readers who can do justice to a walk in the snow: "Scrinch scrunch scrinch scrunch scrinch scrunch."

Over and Under the SnowBy Kate Messner, illustrated by Christopher Silas NealChronicle, 44 pp. $16.99, for ages 4-8* * *

On a cross-country skiing outing in the woods, a girl is told by her dad, "Look. Tracks. Tracks always tell a story." Kate Messner, a middle school teacher, weaves a nature lesson about what the dad in the story calls "a whole secret kingdom where the smallest forest animals stay safe and warm." In an author's note at the end, Messner writes, "There really is a 'secret kingdom under the snow.' Scientists call it the subnivean zone." A network of small open spaces and tunnels between the snowpack and the ground, it allows animals, such as mice, moles and voles, to survive winter.

Summary: During the cold months, new picture books offer indoor entertainment for young readers.


It's election season in the United States, and things are heating up for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Puddles the Duck.

That's right, Puddles the Duck. If, somehow, you missed the announcement last month, we'll fill you in. Oregon's mascot, Puddles, announced that he would be running for President of the United States during a short press conference. Unfortunately, he didn't take any questions and his platform remains unclear.

Things got interesting this week when Arizona State mascot and concerned Pac-12 citizen Sparky the Sun Devil released a video smearing Puddles. The ad mocks Puddles, using footage from his 2007 fight against Houston's mascot Shasta to demonstrate his vulnerability as a candidate. The video ends with a simply question:

"Is this really the bad boy we want representing the Pac-12?"

Unfortunately, voters won't determine the outcome of this race. It will be decided on the field when the Ducks take on the Sun Devils in Phoenix on October 18.

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Summary:
It's election season in the United States, and things are heating up for Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Puddles the Duck.
That's right, Puddles the Du...


Aaron Rodgers, the Chico kid, has been looking forward to playing here against the San Francisco 49ers for a long time, especially after his favorite team while growing up bypassed him in the 2005 NFL draft.

And then, Saturday night, he was off the field for all but eight minutes in the first half. Watching the Colin Kaepernick Show.

"He was running all over the field," Rodgers said. "Big, strong, athletic, throws the ball well, runs the ball extremely well. We didn't really have a lot of answers for him."

Kaepernick finished with 181 of the 49ers' franchise playoff-record 323 yards rushing, and also threw for 263 yards. But it was his third-down runs of 20, 13 and 15 yards in the first half that doubled over the Packers.

"It was a blow to the gut, every time," nose tackle B.J. Raji said.

Rodgers, meanwhile, finished 26-of-39 for 257 yards, two touchdowns and an ugly interception. He threw a deep pass in the second quarter for Jordy Nelson, who thought Rodgers was rolling out so he flattened his route. Niners cornerback Tarell Brown easily ran under the ball, intercepted it and ran it back 39 yards.

That and Jeremy Ross' earlier muffed punt set up two 49ers touchdowns.

"We gift-wrapped them 14 points and we were only down three at halftime," Rodgers said. "We felt good ... and then in the second half, we didn't score any points."

The Packers had six receivers active for the game and were looking to spread things out, but the Niners opened in a nickel defense and their cornerbacks and safeties played well. And, of course, there was the time of possession thing (it ended up 38 minutes to 22 in favor of the Niners).

"I don't think Aaron had enough opportunities tonight," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said.

It's not a fair comparison to Rodgers, but the former Cal quarterback had 28 yards rushing to Kaepernick's 181.

Although it appeared the Packers opted against dedicating a spy to track Kaepernick and prevent big running plays, they actually did.

"We had a couple different combinations of schemes, but we did not get that job done well, obviously," McCarthy said.

The Packers, who faced the fewest amount of read-option plays in the league coming in, knew the 49ers were going to run and couldn't do anything about it.

"The execution for the 49ers on the read-option was excellent, but really our issues were bigger than that with Colin," McCarthy said. "We did not do a very good job of keeping him in the pocket. He was able to get out of the pocket for a number of big conversions, and we weren't able to get off the field in the first half and make some adjustments."

The game simply ran away from Green Bay in the second half.

"He surprised us a little bit," linebacker Erik Walden said of Kaepernick. "I didn't think he was that fast. He made some fabulous plays with his feet and with his arm."

Vic Tafur is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vtafur@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VicTafur

Summary: Aaron Rodgers, the Chico kid, has been looking forward to playing here against the San Francisco 49ers for a long time, especially after his favorite team while growing up bypassed him in the 2005 NFL draft.  Kaepernick finished with 181 of the 49ers' franchise playoff-record 323 yards rushing, and also threw for 263 yards.  Rodgers, meanwhile, finished 26-of-39 for 257 yards, two touchdowns and an ugly interception.  Niners cornerback Tarell Brown easily ran under the ball, intercepted it and ran it back 39 yards.  The Packers had six receivers active for the game and were looking to spread things out, but the Niners opened in a nickel defense and their cornerbacks and safeties played well.


‘Hard time dealing with reality?” asks the off-screen psychiatrist. “Always,” admits the title hero of “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III.” Considering the actor playing him, you might be tempted to take that response with a horselaugh and a large dose of schadenfreude. But that would be a mistake. The actor/walking disaster known as Charlie Sheen gives a perfectly credible performance here. It’s the rest of the film that tries your patience.

Written and directed by Roman Coppola (son of Francis, brother of Sofia), “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III” is exactly the kind of movie you’d imagine a scion of Hollywood royalty might make — sun-drenched, Art Deco, unambitious. It plays, sometimes engagingly, like the work of someone who has never had to work very hard.

Basing his hero loosely on Charles White III, a Los Angeles-based illustrator whose pioneering airbrush work graced countless album covers and movie posters in the ’70s, Coppola fashions a doodle of a character study that initially reels you in. Swan (Sheen) is a graphic-design rock star but his best years are behind him, and behind the ever-present shades he’s stuck in a creative rut. His latest California blonde, Ivana (Kathryn Winnick), has left him. He can’t come up with an album cover for his best friend, a superstar comedian named Kirby (Jason Schwartzman). His business manager (Aubrey Plaza of “Parks and Recreation”) and accountant (Bill Murray) can’t get him to stand still long enough to deliver the bad news.

As the title implies, much of “Glimpse” takes place inside Swan’s head, in fantasy sequences that suggest “All That Jazz” stranded in Malibu. We get dance numbers set in graveyards, bossa nova musical performances (in Portuguese, no less), attacks by Swan’s ex-girlfriends dressed as Native Americans and Nazis. Our first glimpse of Murray is an absolute keeper: He turns up in the western sequence dressed as John Wayne in “True Grit.” But Coppola subsequently wastes this national treasure by giving Murray too little to do, just as he slowly kills his movie’s momentum with poky scenes illustrating Swan’s crisis of confidence.

If the character put me in mind of anyone, it’s the late singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, another LA genius undone by indolence. But Sheen brings the right note of jaded panic to the role — we can assume he knows what it’s like to spin out in La-La Land — and he pitches Swan’s climactic speech to Ivana right on the line between nobility and maudlin self-pity. The movie’s too small to qualify as a comeback, but after Sheen’s public meltdown a while back, it’s nice to see his professional instincts are intact.

If only the movie itself amounted to much. Coppola’s a stylist, and his one previous effort as a dramatic feature film director, 2001’s “CQ,” is a lovely, eccentric riff on “Barbarella” and “8½.” He’s probably better known for co-writing a pair of Wes Anderson movies, “Darjeeling Limited” and last year’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” and already the cliché is that Coppola’s an Anderson without the rigor or emotional depth.

It’s a cliché because it’s true. Yet he has a real eye for resonant moments, like a slow-motion traveling shot of Swan and Ivana silently arguing their way through a car wash. That’s a truly LA image, and the movie is at its best when it captures the city’s airbrushed veneer and the dread that rankles beneath. For better and for worse — so far — Coppola’s one of those grown-up kids who can’t help but make home movies.

Summary: *1/2 A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III The actor/walking disaster known as Charlie Sheen gives a perfectly credible performance as a graphic design rock star coming undone in LA. It’s the rest of Roman Coppola’s film that tries your patience. Sun-drenched, Art Deco, unambitious, it’s what you’d imagine a Hollywood scion would make. With Bill Murray. (86 min., R) (Ty Burr)


Bedridden Ellen -- The Show Must Go On

TMZ grabbed these shots of Ellen DeGeneres from her webcam on

-- rehearsing today's show from bed!

As we first reported, Ellen hurt her back so badly, she'll be interviewing Ryan Seacrest, Lindsay Lohan and others this week in a supine position.

Summary: TMZ grabbed these shots of Ellen DeGeneres from her webcam on Ellentv.com -- rehearsing today's show from bed! As we first reported, Ellen hurt her back…


Jacksonville Jaguars fans may soon get to see lots of high-scoring, exciting action at EverBank Field.

On the video board, that is.

As part of a $63 million renovation to EverBank Field, the Jaguars plan on installing a pair of 55-feet-by-301-feet video boards, the largest in the country.

Here is a glimpse at one of the proposed renovations to the stadium. Press conference will be up later in the day. pic.twitter.com/ERxrXoPfEF

— Jacksonville Jaguars (@jaguars) June 19, 2013

The screens will be so big, in fact, that they can be segmented to show different programs. For example, while part of the screen can run replays from the Jaguars game being played at the stadium, another portion could be dedicated to different programming.

Jaguars president Mark Lamping told the SportsBusiness Journal that the team is considering broadcasting the popular in-game update channel as a service to fans and fantasy football owners alike after the new screens are installed for the 2014 season.

"We know this would be welcomed by the large portion of our fans who are transplants to Jacksonville, as well as all fantasy football enthusiasts," Lamping said.

While their task may be a little more challenging, the Jaguars aren't the only team that is looking for ways to encourage fans to come out to their local stadium. The NFL is trying to help in this regard, and the league recently mandated that teams place cameras in the home locker room for the upcoming season.

All Jaguars jokes aside, this actually sounds like a good idea. Part of the reason football fans are staying home is because they want to have the option to flip through channels and see all of Sunday's scoring plays. The problem with bringing the channel to an actual stadium is that it could lead to divided attention among fans. But if the team played RedZone during timeouts and other stoppages, this could turn out to be a nice service.

Jaguars fans certainly deserve it.

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Summary:
Jacksonville Jaguars fans may soon get to see lots of high-scoring, exciting action at EverBank Field.
On the video board, that is.
As part of a $63 m...


The mystery Rubens portrait at Sotheby's in London today. It will be auctioned next week. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Who the lady with the determined chin is, why the most famous painter of her day never finished her portrait, and where she has been hanging for most of the last 400 years, remain mysterious – but she is now valued at up to £6m, as a previously unrecorded work by Rubens.

"It's a fascinating piece precisely because it is unfinished, so she seems to step into life out of nothingness," said Alex Bell, an expert on old master paintings at Sotheby's, where the painting will be auctioned next week. "Although the face and the hand are finished, you can see how he sketches in the ruff and details of the costume by dragging the paint quickly across the canvas – it gives you a wonderfully immediate feeling of how he worked."

Sir Peter Paul Rubens probably painted the woman in a magnificent Spanish costume around 1603, when he travelled from the Netherlands to Italy and Spain and perfected his technique. It may have been part of a commission from the duke of Mantua, which Rubens mentioned in letters, to add the most handsome women in the Spanish court to his "gallery of beauties", but the canvas was probably a sketch from life intended to be finished later. There is no evidence that the duke ever got her or any other beauties.

The only hints of what happened to the painting come from two red wax seals on the back, one proving that it was in Venice in the early 19th century at a time when many church and private collections were broken up and the other showing it was part of the Hanmer family's collection at their mansion, Bettisfield Park near Wrexham.

Bell believes Sir John Hanmer probably bought it in London in the 1840s, but how and when it left Italy remains one of its many mysteries. Several visitors to Bettisfield recorded their admiration of the wealth of pictures on his walls, but none seems to have spotted a Rubens and Bell does not think it has been exhibited in public before.Another lost Rubens set a record for an old master painting seven years ago, when the newspaper baron Lord Thomson paid £49.5m at Sotheby's for Massacre of the Innocents, which had been wrongly catalogued and kept in store for most of its history because a succession of owners found its blood spattered subject too gruesome for everyday viewing. The Spanish beauty is not predicted to create such a sensation, but "she's causing a lot of interest", Bell said.

Summary: Unrecorded and unfinished portrait by old master up for auction, but who is the lady with the determined chin?


J.J. Watt has said his first love was hockey.

The Houston Texans defensive end, who stands at 6-foot-5 and around 290 pounds, is the star of a new video in which he demonstrates his impressive feel for the sport. His skating and stickhandling skills are top notch, especially for someone of his size.

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Watt has said the reason he stopped playing hockey at age 13 was because it was too expensive. If he hadn't given up the sport, he could have been quite the imposing presence in skates.

"Really, I had to quit. It was financial," Watt told Peter King. "I have two younger brothers and we were all playing on a travel team, and it was extremely expensive. My family is a middle-class family. When I grew up and learned how much it actually cost for us to play hockey, I could not believe that my parents let us play as long as they did. Now I’m forever grateful for my parents even giving me the opportunity, because honestly those were some of the best years of my life."

Watt included this video in a tweet he sent to Chicago Blackhawks and Team USA winger Patrick Kane.

Just in case @88PKane calls from Sochi... http://t.co/vjA0U6mb4y

— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) February 11, 2014

And it is also no accident that Watt wears No. 99. He has said that when he was a kid, Wayne Gretzky was one of his favorite athletes.

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VIDEO OF THE DAY:SI Swimsuit Models In Movies

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Summary:
J.J. Watt has said his first love was hockey.
And it shows.
The Houston Texans defensive end, who stands at 6-foot-5 and around 290 pounds, is the sta...


Americans’ support for legal recognition of same-sex marriages has reached an all-time high, according to a new poll, amid a string of victories for gay rights activists in Pennsylvania, Oregon and other states.

The Gallup poll released Wednesday found that 55% support laws recognizing same-sex marriage, up from 27% in 1996. Nearly eight out of 10 people ages 18-29 support gay marriage. Just 30 percent of Republicans support it.

A federal judge ruled Pennsylvania’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional Tuesday, and on Monday, Oregon became the 18th state to recognize same-sex marriage. In Idaho and Arkansas, recent court rulings have overturned gay marriage bans, only to be put on hold.

The judge who overturned the Pennsylvania ban wrote in his decision that “we are better people than what these laws represent, and it’s time to discard them into the ash heap of history,” CNN reports.

Major legal battles are likely to play out in the South in the coming years, where support for gay marriage is at 44 percent, lower than the rest of the country.

The survey of 1,028 adults, conducted May 8-11, had a margin of error of five percentage points.

Summary: More Americans than ever support gay marriages as a slew of states legalize legal state for same-sex couples


Even if you don’t immediately recognize the moniker, Sia Furler, who uses her first name professionally, is a success by any pop music metric.

The Aussie singer-songwriter has scored a clutch of hits as a writer and co-writer with other artists, including Rihanna’s “Diamonds,” and is a featured vocalist on some of those songs, including “Titanium” with David Guetta.

Luckily, Sia also puts those pipes to good use on her own material, including her dynamite new album, “1000 Forms of Fear.”

The famously shy singer digs into the concept of “fear” early and often, singing frequently of being frightened, afraid, and terrified as her narrators ache for and are repelled by love.

But there is little betrayal of this emotion in her voice, which vaults from a claustrophobic whisper to a full-throated howl. A hint of a rasp and crackle makes her tales of helplessness in the face of romantic entanglements — laid over ticking electro-pop tracks — feel so human.

Among the highs are the piercing piano ballad “Straight for the Knife,” where she sings of still being “hungry for your bad loving”; the pulsating “Fair Game,” which finds her vacillating between fight and surrender; and the fizzy rocker “Hostage.” (Out Tuesday)

Summary: Sia returns with “1000 Forms of Fear,” out Tuesday, in which she puts to good use the pop craftsmanship she has loaned out to folks like Rihanna.


The soldier looks peaceful but alarmingly pale. He has a metal plate lodged in his head. They've patched him up at the military hospital and even given him something to keep his mind off the horrors of the Crimea. He is sitting up in his nightshirt stitching the most startling quilt.

The triangles alternate black and white, black and red, red and yellow in fierce chevron stripes. It is a terrific piece of op-art geometry. The painting that commemorates Private Walker's labours shows not only the quilt and exactly how it is done, right down to the difficulty of keeping each fiddly little triangle from curling up as you stitch it to another, but something else too.

There on the bed lies Walker's uniform, complete with medal. The quilt turns out to be made of his regimental colours, almost literally – a piecing together of the torn clothes, if not the bodies, of the dead.

Are all quilts an act of commemoration, more or less public or private? It seems so from this tremendous exhibition. Quilts 1700-2010 has had more advance bookings than any other at the V&A, with visitors due to fly in from all round the world. It deserves its enormous success.

For what it shows is an art form that takes scraps of the real world and transforms them into visions and images, that shores up the fragments of the past while making something new (and warm) for the future. This is not quilting as commonly imagined – Laura Ashley pre-cut squares machined together for the guest room – but something infinitely more imaginative, idiosyncratic, personal; another way of drawing or painting, another form of narrative or expression.

Look at the unknown 18th-century woman who has stitched her entire world into a coverlet, beginning with the clock at the centre that measures time and life, radiating out through the day's objects – comb, thimble, scissors, the very needle she is using right now – to the emblems of her home and the garden beyond, where the spring birds arrive, then depart for the winter sun. It feels like the whole of an existence, circumscribed, confined and yet rich in the mind, condensed to the visual equivalent of a sonnet.

Look at James Williams's anthology of wonders – a camel, an elephant, a Chinese pagoda, the whale swallowing Jonah; to which he has proudly added a perfect cloth reprise of Thomas Telford's miraculous suspension bridge in Menai. Williams was a Welsh tailor. It took him a decade to piece the quilt together after work, and no wonder, for each vignette is united in a web of tiny shifting mosaics that feels like a dream adrift in the mind.

Ten years, 40 years: the curators have been able to determine from the fabrics themselves how long some of these quilts were under the needle – picked up and abandoned and picked up again. Each quilt is the measure of its own making. And as time passes, relationships and events are both implicit and explicit in the work. The death of a husband is felt in darkening tone and sombre embroidery; the length of a pregnancy apparent as the baby's name is eventually added after the relief of a safe birth. Quilts reflect family history as much as private lives.

Some of these histories turn out to be dark or sorrowful. Miss Nixon's quilt, made in the 1870s, and known as a strippy piece for its bold stripes of turkey-red and white cotton, was stitched in poverty at a miner's quilting club in Northumbria. The painstaking art is all in the patterning of diamonds, roses and leaves described with infinitely small stitches, perhaps compensating in this case for the lack of affordable cloth with which to vary the design.

Even an inexperienced eye can gauge how many long months of patience, skill and eyestrain were involved just by examining a single inch. But such quilts earned for Miss Nixon and her friends nothing more than the equivalent of a miner's wage for a fortnight.

Other quilts tell of lost children, unfaithful husbands, imprisonment and poverty, of persecuted Baptists and women convicts transported to Van Diemen's Land. One of the most dynamic – and vitality, not weakness, remains the dominant characteristic – is the so-called George III coverlet which shows the monarch reviewing his troops in the middle. But this formality is surrounded, and nearly upstaged, by a wonderful border in which official portraits of soldiers alternate with unofficial portraits of women: talking, writing, painting, laughing, walking and – of course – making quilts. There is no sense of Penelope sadly spinning away the war years; this is Homer revised, with women rising to the moment, refusing to waste either life or time.

This coverlet includes fragments of regency petticoat. The condition of life is materially apparent, so to speak, in a quilt. A tiny piece of expensive brocade, a circle of Indian fabric illegally imported during the 19th century trade ban, the lace from a Victorian wedding dress: what's prized is presented like a jewel in the ordinary cloth.

There are quilts made entirely from striped pyjamas, blankets, old coats, black-out curtains. Ingenuity is underpinned by frugality. The curators of this show had their ears to the ground when they first began to gather quilts five years ago, for this is an art that speaks more clearly than ever to our make-and-mend era.

And it does feel like speech. The most obvious (and commonly drawn) analogy is with abstract art: primary shapes, blocked colours, modular non-representational arrangements. Quilts have the shape and form of paintings; museums and collectors like to hang them on the walls. The great Amish quilts look like precursors to the minimalism of Sol Lewitt, Joseph Albers and Frank Stella.

But this is an exhibition of British quilts, and though there is one stunning abstraction, mute in its glowing cobalt and red, the sense is far more of representation, of the power of quilts to make a direct address.

Which is precisely the subject of a piece by Sara Impey, one of 10 works specially commissioned for this show. Impey found a letter in a drawer after her mother's death that breathed a hint of lost love; she has preserved it, like scented air in a bottle, in a most beautiful quilt in which phrases and half-phrases are stitched into the spectral surface of the fabric in broken lines that both imitate the patterns of speech and the motion of sewing itself, piercing the cloth, then drawing the thread slowly away.

We are all familiar with quilts that anthologise a family's old clothes, or commemorate its story through births or marriages; with quilts as complex pixellations of colour, tone and shape, patterned in jockey's cap or sawtooth star. But what this show reveals is the sheer originality that can thrive within such precise parameters. It is a show to enthral and inspire in equal measure, not least because there is such a sense of order in this hardwon art, this creation of a world out of scraps. It is all there in the portrait of Thomas Walker in his bed: the strange peace of making a quilt.

Summary: Lost children, poverty, imprisonment: 300 years of stories are sewn into the quilts in the V&A's fascinating show, says Laura Cumming


W. P. Carey Inc., a New York firm specializing in lease-back financing and other real estate services, said Wednesday that it has paid $47 million to buy a facility leased by Bose Corp. in Westborough Technology Park.

The seller of the nearly 251,000-square-foot office facility was Columbia Property Trust.

Bose is known for its audio systems. The Westborough facility is located about eight miles away from Bose’s corporate headquarters in Framingham. The Westborough facility houses Bose’s sales operations.

“Over the last 18 months, Bose has invested in the facility to construct a state-of-the-art film production space and sound studio used for Bose’s commercial marketing efforts,” W. P. Carey said in its press release.

In a statement, W. P. Carey managing director and co-head of global investments Gino Sabatini said,‘‘The Bose building is a well-located real estate asset leased to a quality tenant; the 11-year lease and recent investment by Bose affirms their commitment to the facility.”

Sabatini added: ‘‘As core Boston submarkets have become saturated, tenants have begun to push further out into suburban Route 128 and 495 locations, searching for higher quality real estate with lower rents and good accessibility. The 495 West/Mass Pike West submarket has demonstrated an increasing level of stability in recent years, along with declining vacancy. Additionally, the submarket is home to a very large base of high-technology space and financial firms, including BNY Mellon Wealth Management, Integrated Genetics, PF PC Inc., Amica Mutual Insurance, Astra Zeneca, and E Clinical Works.’’

Summary: W. P. Carey Inc. has paid $47 million to buy a facility leased by Bose Corp. in Westborough Technology Park.