The latest figures indicate that UK economic growth has halved in the three months to the end of March, continuing a slowdown that began six months ago (Report, theguardian.com, 28 April). This is further evidence of how unsustainable the recovery – which is heavily reliant on consumer spending and levels of household debt relative to income – actually is.

The general election campaign has, however, been dominated by the major UK political parties looking at how they can impose further austerity, cutting the deficit and the debt through public spending cuts, rather than doing so by investing in the economy to stimulate economic growth.

When it comes to total private- and public-sector investment, the UK’s record is appalling, coming in 32nd position out of the 35 most advanced economies in the world, a significant concern when it comes to the future prospects of the economy.

There needs to be a radical change in mindset and a focus on increasing both public- and private-sector investment, through modest public spending increases and additional borrowing. This will see the deficit and the debt being cut, but on the back of sustainable economic growth.

Without such an approach the fragile foundations on which the economic recovery is currently based will quickly crumble.Alex OrrEdinburgh

• James Meek’s analysis (Why privatisation is the key to this election, G2, 28 April) is well argued. It seemed obvious from the start of this government that the top priority was not to save the economy but to use the recession as a front for budget cuts to destroy a large part of our public services and replace them with “cheaper” privatised companies and so lower taxes. This cheapness is achieved by re-employing public sector workers to do longer hours for worse pay and conditions – hence the poison felt by so many. And with much more to come.SJ ClossEdinburgh

He is the Daffy Duck of politics – confident and self-satisfied, leading to calamity; then he pops up again, unabashed

• As a fellow economist I fully endorse Larry Elliott’s demolition of Tory party assertions that all is well for the UK’s growing economy, and that Britain is paying its way (The Tories’ ticking economic timebomb, 20 April). There is a key word that has been virtually absent from current debates on the economy: productivity. If people’s rising spending power is not matched by rising production per head, we will suck in more imports without an offsetting rise in exports to pay for them. This is what is happening; the UK’s productivity record in recent years has been dismal by historical and international standards; we have a rising balance of payments deficit with the rest of the world of £100bn a year; we are certainly not paying our way.

This cannot be sustained for long. Otherwise we will have to pay for the shortfall by selling off income-earning capital assets to foreigners, thereby further reducing our overseas earnings. This in turn will weaken sterling, leading to depreciation and/or devaluation. The effect of this in real terms is to hand over chunks of our national income to other countries. Lawrence LockhartBath

• Is George Osborne really clever? Well, no and yes. After the banks had precipitated the 2008 financial crisis, by 2010 there was the beginning of a recovery – only to hit the brick wall of Osborne austerity. This was not an evidence-based policy. It was an experiment which, he promised, would reduce the deficit to zero by 2015. It has failed, to the extent that in the last five years the national debt has doubled.

Meanwhile the bankers, cabinet ministers and other millionaires have been able to sit in comfort while watching the rest of the nation suffer – especially the disabled, the poor and the vulnerable. There has been desperation. A few have killed themselves; about 1 million have had to resort to food banks; 1.4 million have taken zero-hours contracts; around 4.5 million have become self-employed, many of them just trying to scratch a living. That is the background to the much-vaunted fall in unemployment.

Osborne points to a date in the future when the deficit will be eliminated. Another promise! The additional cuts would pile yet more suffering on to those who least deserve it. Osborne is the Daffy Duck of British politics – enormous confidence and self-satisfaction, leading to calamity; and then he pops up again, unabashed, ready for his next adventure. And yet he has convinced many people that he is competent. Now that is clever!Frank HibberdCoventry

• Rafael Behr argues for the continued survival of the Lib Dems (Opinion, 22 April). Here in North Norfolk the very ambitious Norman Lamb speaks proudly in support of the coalition’s economic policies but expresses no views on the causes of the economic crisis. He seeks to distance himself from the consequences of austerity – the cuts in social services and welfare provision.

Sadly, the only conclusion is that it doesn’t matter to him what direction the bus is heading so long as he has a seat on the top deck. Not surprisingly, participation in a future coalition has immense appeal.Professor Martyn SlomanKingston Business School

• And so – as Larry Elliott records –there were three deficits: a budget deficit, a balance-of-payments deficit and a productivity deficit, but the greatest of the three was the productivity deficit. If we don’t raise industrial productivity (through higher levels of investment and skills training, even a state bank and an industrial policy), we will never close the balance-of-payments deficit (and will thus remain a credit-fed, import-led economy), or raise living standards through higher real earnings (regardless of Ed Miliband’s plans). And without higher earnings there will be no higher levels of revenue with which to pay off the budget deficit. A depressing catechism? Or a plan of action, perhaps?Peter LythHockerton, Nottinghamshire

• Markit chief economist Chris Williamson’s pronouncement that the Bank of England is forecasting UK economic growth “fuelled by consumer spending rising on the back of higher real employee earnings”, albeit with the worry “that weak pay growth means the economy is reliant on ultra-low inflation to boost consumer spending power”, leaves much unsaid. He mentions “consumer spending rising” but not that it would be debt-fuelled; the average UK household owing close to £10,000 in non-mortgage debt by the end of 2016, a new high in cash terms, according to a PwC report. Given their election boasts, the fact that coalition cuts have almost doubled public sector debt, saddling future generations with debt repayments, is bad enough, but the coalition’s and the Bank of England’s total failure over five years to deal with private-sector debt is worse. As John Hawksworth, PwC’s chief economist, said in 2010: “The UK’s addiction to debt has reached alarming levels during the past decade”, adding that “deleveraging will be a painful process for the UK”. Given such a prospect, the headline on Heather Stewart’s piece (Low pay rises persuaded Bank of England to hold interest rates, 23 April) looks less convincing than that the Bank is holding interest rates down because of the coming election.David MurrayWallington, Surrey

Summary: Letters: George Osborne is the Daffy Duck of British politics – enormous confidence and self-satisfaction, leading to calamity; and then he pops up again, unabashed, ready for his next adventure


Dominic Utton finally caved in to his kids pestering him to sign up to Netflix. It has changed the way his family watch TV, while peace has broken out in the Utton household

Netflix has always been one of those things we thought might be nice to have… but never got around to setting up. Friends would rave to my wife Heidi and me about shows they had seen, express amazement that we were still getting by on the usual channels – and still, the whole process just seemed too much bother to deal with.

“If there’s nothing on, we’ve always got a DVD box set to watch,” I’d shrug. And then they’d laugh – because I was still buying DVD box sets.

Finally, peer group pressure became too much. Not only were we beginning to feel we were missing out on some of the best television being made, but the pleas from our children (Albert, seven, and Eithne, nine) to take out a subscription were getting increasingly frequent.

And once it was pointed out that many of the films we were paying to rent from Apple TV were also available free on Netflix, last Friday afternoon I finally logged on and took the plunge.

Joining was as simple as opening a social media account. A few personal details, as well as some information about how I was planning to watch Netflix shows (smart TV, Apple TV, tablet, laptop… wait, you can watch on your laptop, too?), and suddenly I was through to the exciting bit – choosing the sorts of programmes and films I like, so that similar shows can be recommended to me.

All at once, I realised just what I’d been missing: House of Cards; Better Call Saul; Making A Murderer. With every potential viewing option I highlighted, more appeared in the “recommended” section.

Profiles were also set up for Heidi and the children – the advantage of giving the kids their own profiles to click on was twofold: not only would they automatically be shielded from unsuitable material (and be recommended only age-appropriate shows), but, to be honest, I knew they’d be excited simply by the idea of seeing their names on the TV screen.

Every new show we watch throws up more recommendations – and we’re already building up a list of must-see programmesDominic Utton

The best bit? The first month was free, with no obligation to continue after then – and a promise that I’d be warned when that free trial period was coming to an end.

The next thing that happened was unexpected. I “accidentally” didn’t do any work for the rest of the afternoon – and watched The Wolf of Wall Street on my laptop instead.

The following afternoon I broke the news to the kids: they were almost as excited as on Christmas morning, when they unwrapped their (joint) Kindle Fire tablet.

After the initial argument over whose profile they were going to use first, they got stuck in. If accessing Netflix on the laptop was as easy as simply logging on to the website, doing so on the TV was even simpler – it was already there in the EPG (electronic programme guide). Barely a minute later and they were rapt in front of Power Rangers: Super Megaforce, and not another word could be heard from them until teatime. Bliss.

In the meantime (and seeing as it was pouring with rain outside), I took the opportunity to instal the app on our iPad – and Heidi and I worked our way through a couple of old episodes of The Office as we set about redecorating the kitchen.

The following evening, as is tradition in our house, we all settled down to watch a film together. Except, instead of paying £3 or so to rent one, we scrolled through Albert’s top recommended picks – and watched Kung Fu Panda 2 – free.

Since then – and barring a few exceptions, Netflix has become almost the first channel we turn to. Every new show we watch throws up more recommendations – and we’re already building up a list of must-see programmes.

It’s Heidi’s birthday later this month: I had been planning on getting her the Better Call Saul box set. I’m going to have to rethink that one now – we’ve already watched most of season one in the last week alone.

Start your one-month free trial now and watch exclusive series anytime, anywhere »

Summary: Dominic Utton finally caved in to his kids pestering him to sign up to Netflix. Find out how it has changed the way his family watch TV forever


The scientists have also genetically engineered the cartilage so that it releases anti-inflammatory molecules when the patient takes a drug.

“When there is inflammation, we can give a patient a simple drug, which activates the gene we've implanted, to lower inflammation in the joint," said Dr Guilak, also a professor of developmental biology and of biomedical engineering.

“We can stop giving the drug at any time, which turns off the gene."

That gene therapy is important because when levels of inflammatory molecules rise in a joint, the cartilage is destroyed and pain increases.

Dr Franklin Moutos, vice president of technology development at biotech firm Cytex, which has been working with Washington University on developing the implant, said the living tissue had been shown to withstand the stresses placed on the joints.

“The implants are strong enough to withstand loads up to 10 times a patient's body weight, which is typically what our joints must bear when we exercise,” said Dr Moutos.

Summary: Arthritis sufferers have been offered new hope after scientists grew a ‘


Actually, you would like Meghan Trainor when she’s angry. The “All About That Bass” singer, who picked up the award for Best New Artist at last month’s Grammy Awards, says she recorded her surprising new single, “No,” after a disagreement with her record label. The 22-year-old thought she had her upcoming album, Thank You, in the can; label boss L.A. Reid thought she needed more time to find the next big single.

So a “fired up” Trainor hit the studio with producer Ricky Reed (Jason Derulo, Fifth Harmony), and within 24 hours they wrote and recorded “No”—an in-your-face, ’90s-inspired track about shutting down would-be suitors that departs dramatically from the retro pop sound of “Dear Future Husband” and “Lips Are Movin.”

Below, TIME chats with Trainor about what inspired her new direction, her karaoke preferences and why she’s crossing her fingers for a Missy Elliott remix. You can listen to “No” right here:

TIME: Congratulations on your Grammy win. Where are you keeping your trophy?

Meghan Trainor: It’s so embarrassing I have to say this, but I don’t know how to get it. I think we have to order it? Or ask the Grammys to give it to me? I haven’t gotten it yet.

“No” is a huge change for you. How important was it for you to find a new sound and show people that this new album isn’t the Meghan Trainor they think they know?

It was definitely a war with my label and my management because I was handing in songs, and I did the doo-wop. I was like, “Yeah, I killed it, I took it to a new level of funk!” They would say, “That’s exactly what everybody’s expecting, Meghan. Hit us with your songwriting skills, hit us with something no one would expect Meghan Trainor to do.” That pissed me off and fired me up, so I went into the studio and was like, “Ugh! We need an angry song! More hip hop, more urban! Let’s go!” We did that in one day and they loved it.

(Read next: Even Meghan Trainor’s Mom Is Tired of Hearing ‘All About That Bass’)

So you were going to continue the vibe of your last album until your label suggested mixing it up?

Yeah, because the label has heard more Meghan Trainor songs than anyone’s heard, and they know what I’m capable of. They’re like, “Outdo yourself! Don’t quit here, don’t stop writing, keep going until you feel in your stomach, ‘Oh, this is it, this is the new era of Meghan Trainor.’”

Before that, were you ever worried about getting pegged as the “retro” girl or getting pigeonholed in a particular style of music?

No. I always knew I’m very good at writing the retro stuff, so I always want to keep that with me, and on this new album you will hear that on the deluxe version. But I know that I’m capable of doing more. I know it’s tricky to put out an album that may sound different, like how Bruno Mars tried to do all these different genres and got called out for that. I thought that was crazy. I thought, if anything, let’s praise him for being so talented that he can pull off these different genres. He’s one of the only ones getting away with it. So that’s what I want to try to do, to be the female version who’s going to do all these genres—but successfully do them all.

There’s a lot going on in this song: you have the late-90s, early-2000s pop and R&B vibes, then you have those guitars. How did you settle on this direction?

We built this track in one day from scratch. I remember we kept saying, “What’s weirder?” You hear the breakdown, the doo-wop intro—we did that when the song was almost done. We were like, “No, we need a bizarre intro that people won’t expect, we can’t just come in with these drums.” I remember I was like, “Let’s try to put guitar on this verse,” this crunchy, synth-y guitar. It was random, like, “Let’s break every rule we can find.”

The intro is a little sneaky—you hear it and think you know what’s coming, then it turns into something else entirely. Were you hoping to fake out listeners?

Yeah. When you hear the song without that intro, it was too much, “Who is this? Who is this new artist?” So I thought, let’s give them a taste of what they know, and then let’s slap ‘em in the face. [Laughs] In the nicest, sweetest way! A polite slap.

Listening to this song, I get some TLC vibes, some NSYNC vibes. It probably could have been a Britney Spears song 15 years ago. Were there any artists you were thinking about as reference points while creating this song?

Obviously we wanted that ‘90s feel that everybody loves and recognizes and misses. I generally miss that on the radio. I wanted it to feel hard, as if Missy Elliott could be on it.

Have you thought about getting a rapper to remix the song? You mentioned Missy—I can totally imagine her jumping on the track. Call her up!

If you could get me Missy Elliott, I would totally do that. I’m always open to features. I love features. I love collaborating with other artists. It’s a great opportunity to meet them. I’m a huge Missy fan. I would cry if she did that.

“No” has a very empowering message for women. With your last record, there was a lot of discussion about whether some of your songs had messages that were anti-feminist or bad for women. Did that conversation influence what you sang about on this album?

I didn’t really think about my last record while going into this record, but I did know that I had a few good women anthems, and I have even more now too. I have a song called “Woman Up.” Like man up, but woman up. I love women anthems, and I know the world likes hearing them—even guys. “Single Ladies,” I always see guys singing that at karaoke.

I feel like that’s a hard song to sing at karaoke.

Yeah, but when you’re drunk, you sing just like Beyoncé.

What is your go-to karaoke song?

That’s a great one. Recently I did karaoke and they had throwback night: I was doing Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder.

What’s the “No” video going to be like?

We’re shooting it the day the song’s released, and it’s going to be the opposite of “All About That Bass.” It’s going to be dark and very cool and hopefully just as awesome as “All About That Bass,” but literally the opposite feel. It’s going to be a place they’ve never seen Meghan Trainor in before, and I can’t wait to jump into that world.

Summary: "Let’s give them a taste of what they know…then let’s slap ‘em in the face."


At a time when student protests are sweeping across university campuses, McCullough’s advice to high school grads offers a reminder to embrace selflessness.

Dr. Wong, Dr. Keough, Mrs. Novogroski, Ms. Curran, members of the board of education, family and friends of the graduates, ladies and gentlemen of the Wellesley High School class of 2012, for the privilege of speaking to you this afternoon I am honored and grateful. Thank you.

So here we are… commencement… life’s great forward-looking ceremony. (And don’t say, “What about weddings?” Weddings are one-sided and insufficiently effective. Weddings are bride-centric pageantry. Other than conceding to a list of unreasonable demands, the groom just stands there. No stately, hey- everybody-look-at-me procession. No being given away. No identity-changing pronouncement. And can you imagine a television show dedicated to watching guys try on tuxedos? Their fathers sitting there misty-eyed with joy and disbelief, their brothers lurking in the corner muttering with envy. Left to men, weddings would be, after limits-testing procrastination, almost inadvertent… during halftime… on the way to the refrigerator. And there’s the frequency of failure: statistics tell us half of you will get divorced. A winning percentage like that’ll get you last place in the American League East. The Baltimore Orioles do better than weddings.)

But this ceremony… commencement… a commencement works every time. From this day forward… truly… in sickness and in health, through financial fiascos, through midlife crises and passably attractive sales reps at trade shows in Cincinnati, through diminishing tolerance for annoyingness, through every difference, irreconcilable and otherwise, you will stay forever graduated from high school, you and your diploma one, ’til death do you part.

No, commencement is life’s great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism. Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue. Normally, I avoid cliches like the plague, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field. That matters. That says something. And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits all. Whether male and female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic Xbox assassin, each of you is dressed, you’ll notice, exactly the same. And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.

All this is as it should be, because none of you is special.

You are not special. You are not exceptional.

Contrary to what your U-9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special.

Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs. Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman! And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…

But do not get the idea that you’re anything special. Because you’re not.

The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher can’t ignore. Newton, Natick, Nee… I am allowed to say Needham, yes? … that has to be two thousand high school graduates right there, give or take, and that’s just the neighborhood Ns. Across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more an 37,000 high schools. That’s 37,000 valedictorians… 37,000 class presidents… 92,000 harmonizing altos… 340,000 swaggering jocks… 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs. But why limit ourselves to high school? After all, you’re leaving it. So think about this: even if you’re one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you. Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty- eight hundred yous go running by. And consider for a moment the bigger picture: your planet, I’ll remind you, is not the center of its solar system, your solar system is not the center of its galaxy, your galaxy is not the center of the universe. In fact, astrophysicists assure us the universe has no center; therefore, you cannot be it. Neither can Donald Trump… which someone should tell him… although the hair is quite a phenomenon.

“But, Dave,” you cry, “Walt Whitman tells me I’m my own version of perfection! Epictitus tells me I have my own spark of Zeus!” And I don’t disagree. So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus. You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken but no so subtle Darwinian competition with one another—which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality—we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement. We have come to see them as the point—and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole. No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it. Now it’s “So what does this get me?” As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of Guatemalans. It’s an epidemic—and in its way not even dear old Wellesley High is immune… one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide, Wellesley High School… where good is no longer good enough, where a B is the new C, and the midlevel curriculum is called Advanced College Placement. And I hope you caught me when I said “one of the best.” I said “one of the best” so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition. But the phrase defies logic. By definition there can be only one best. You’re it or you’re not.

If you’ve learned anything in your four years here I hope it’s that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration of learning. You’ve learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness. (Second is ice cream… just an FYI.) I also hope you’ve learned enough to recognize how little you know… how little you know now… at the moment… for today is just the beginning. It’s where you go from here that matters.

As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance. Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in any more than you would a spouse you’re not crazy about, lest you too find yourself on the wrong side of a Baltimore Orioles comparison. Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of your advantages. And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principal, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life. Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it. Dream big. Work hard. Think for yourself. Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might. And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you’ll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon.

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that fell into your lap because you’re a nice person or Mommy ordered it from the caterer. You’ll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—quite an active word, pursuit—which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots roller-skate on YouTube. The first President Roosevelt, the old Rough Rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow. The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil. Locally, someone… I forget who… from time to time encourages young scholars to carpe the heck out of the diem. The point is the same: get busy, have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself and grab hold with both hands. (Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression—because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life. Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter.)

None of this day seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence. Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilling life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct. It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things. Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly. Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion—and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.

Congratulations. Good luck. Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and ours, extraordinary lives.

David McCullough Jr. is an English teacher at Wellesley High School and the author of You Are Not Special: … And Other Encouragements.

Alan Alda to Grads: Everything in Life Takes Time

Bernard Harris to Grads: You Are an Infinite Being With Infinite Possibilities

Bill Nye to Grads: Change the World

Chris Matthews to Grads: ‘Make Them Say No. Never Say No to Yourself’

Colin Powell to Grads: Learn to Lead

Darren Walker to Grads: Build a Bridge to a Better World

Ed Helms to Grads: Define Yourselves

Eric Schmidt to Grads: You Can Write the Code for All of Us

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel to Grads: ‘This Is the World We Were Born Into, and We Are Responsible for It’

Gwen Ifill to Grads: If You See Something, Do Something

GE CEO Jeff Immelt to Grads: Become a Force for Change

Ian McEwan to Grads: Defend Free Speech

Joe Plumeri to Grads: Go Out and Play in Traffic

Jon Bon Jovi to Grads: Lead By Example

Jorge Ramos’ Message for Journalists: Take a Stand

Joyce Carol Oates to Grads: Be Stubborn and Optimistic

Katie Couric to Grads: Get Yourself Noticed

Ken Burns to Grads: Set Things Right Again

Kenneth Cole to Grads: Find Your Voice

Madeleine Albright to Grads: The World Needs You

Mark Ruffalo to Grads: Buck the System

Matthew McConaughey to Grads: Always Play Like an Underdog

Maya Rudolph to Grads: Create Your Own Destiny

Mellody Hobson to Grads: Set Your Sights High

Meredith Vieira to Grads: Be the Left Shark

Michelle Obama to Grads: Shape the Revolution

Mitt Romney to Grads: America Needs You to Serve

Natalie Portman to Grads: Carve Your Own Path

President Obama to Grads: We Should Invest in People Like You

President Obama to Cadets: Lead the Way on Fighting Climate Change

Salman Rushdie to Grads: Try to Be Larger Than Life

Samantha Power to Grads: Start Changing the World By ‘Acting As If’

Stephen Colbert to Grads: You Are Your Own Professor Now

Tim Cook to Grads: Tune Out the Cynics

Summary: Read this before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo


Australians have been left fuming after the census proved itself every inch the debacle it was billed to be.

A crimson-faced Australian Bureau of Statistics has apologised for the bungled deployment of the survey, and is now claiming that hackers were responsible for the shutdown.

But cyber-attack or no, punters who had already endured a week of at-best patchy access to the poll used the spare time they found themselves with to congregate under the hash tag "census fail " to vent their fury.

"Yeah right...where can I send my invoice for all that wasted time...if it's crashed it should at least lock you out, not tell you at the end when trying to submit!!" a nine.com.au reader raged.

"Well from my perspective this website doesnt exsist any more so census you have a 1/3rd of my families unsubmitted details the other 2/3rds i think i will update you that information next census. What a joke," said another.

Others still were even less kind.

"What a bunch of wankers lol 10 million people using it at the same time of course it's going to crash lol bring back pen & paper lol," one reader wrote.

But technical difficulties only comprised one aspect of the brouhaha surrounding the formerly-beloved national snapshot, with many – including a troupe of high profile politicians – questioning why the ABS needs to retain respondents' data for four years.

"It seems the ABS has failed to make a compelling case why names must be provided and stored for four years, and unlike any other census in this nation's history since that first census on the 2nd of April 1911, all names will be turned into a code that ultimately can be used to identify you," Senator Nick Xenophon told the press earlier this week.

Mr Xenophon is heading a clique of politicians, including Jacqui Lambie and Sarah Hanson-Young, who are risking $180-per-day penalties for refusing to identify themselves on their forms.

Damningly, the former NSW deputy privacy commissioner Anna Johnston is following suit, but refusing to fill in the census at all. In the meantime, Labor Senator Sue Lines has called on the overseeing minister, Michael McCormack, to resign.

But Mr McCormack insists that the data will be safe thanks to encryption processes – the ABS earlier this week claimed its cyber security record is spotless – and says Aussies aren't giving up any more information than they would voluntarily on social media.

"I note with some humour really that many people are going on Twitter and Facebook making various comments about the Bureau of Statistics, about the census, and about me as well, when in fact wherever they go, it tracks you, on your Facebook account, so I can't really see what the big deal is. I think sometimes it's much ado about nothing," the small business minister said.

Those who have not filled out the census will not be fined and have until September 23 to complete the survey, while ABS head statistician David Kalisch says he expected the site would be back online by this morning.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


Both sides in the conflict have been accused of killing civilians and violating international law. But the UN has said the vast majority of civilian deaths have been caused by airstrikes from the coalition, which is supported by the US.

Saudi Arabia has fought hard against criticisms of its attacks in Yemen and earlier this year allegedly pressured the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, to remove the coalition from a blacklist of groups that kill children during war.

A report released this week by the Saudi-led coalition largely cleared itself of wrongdoing during eight high-profile bombings and concluded that all "safety procedures implemented by coalition forces adhered to international humanitarian law".

The report looked at a number of cases when the UN or humanitarian organisations have accused the coalition of killing civilians or bombing hospitals and humanitarian structures.

The report argued that in six of the eight cases the bombings had been totally justified because of military targets hiding in civilian areas, including hospitals.

In one of the bloodiest incidents, coalition aircraft struck a crowded market in March, killing 106 civilians, according to the UN. The coalition report concluded that there were "huge numbers" of Houthi rebels in the market, making it a justified target.

The UN said there was "no evidence" of military personnel inside the market and called the coalition's distinction making between civilians and military targets "at best woefully inadequate".

Summary: Aircraft from a Saudi-led military coalition have resumed bombing in Yemen's capital Sana'a for the first time in months after peace talks aimed at ending the country's civil war broke down over the weekend.


The emotional climax of Terence Blanchard’s SummerStage concert on Friday night, at Clove Lakes Park on Staten Island, arrived precisely one hour in, like a timed detonation. It was the title track of his most recent album, “Breathless” — an elegy for Eric Garner, who died at the hands of police officers on Staten Island just over two years ago. Mr. Blanchard, in his trumpet solo over the plaintive theme, struck a careful tonal balance, sounding haunted but unflinching.

Mr. Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry soon after his death, which was caught on video and viewed by millions. The phrase served a blunt, potent role at protests and on social media, bolstering the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. It has been printed on T-shirts, signs and buttons, like the one worn on Friday by Mr. Garner’s 2-year-old daughter, Legacy, as she distractedly took in Mr. Blanchard’s performance near the foot of the stage.

The saying also surfaced, pluralized, in “Breathless,” via a recorded spoken-word recitation by Mr. Blanchard’s son, who goes by JRei Oliver. “Am I wrong for believing that one day black and blue would not equal pain?” he said. Then, a moment later:

These black roses grow from cracked pavementsFreshly watered with the tears of the voicelessAs we’ll emit a muted scream to the heavens:We. Can’t. Breathe.

During a long, hard season of activist urgency in black popular music — among artists like Kendrick Lamar, D’Angelo and now Beyoncé — jazz has by no means lagged behind. Mr. Blanchard’s album, released on Blue Note last year, is just one recent statement of many, driven by indignation, the push for justice and the urge to bear witness.

Of course, there’s deep lineage for this in jazz, stretching even further than Louis Armstrong’s 1929 recording of “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue,” which inspired a crucial early passage in Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.” Any discussion of this topic would have to include Billie Holiday’s bloodcurdling lynching anthem, “Strange Fruit” (1939); Charles Mingus’s “Fables of Faubus” (1959), about the fight for school integration; Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln’s “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite” (1960), a civil rights cri de coeur; and John Coltrane’s “Alabama” (1963), a lament made in response to the notorious church bombing in Birmingham.

The current upswell has been built on this granite foundation: Jazz musicians are nothing if not self-conscious about their forebears. But the dimensions of today’s moment have also shaped the music. When the pianist Vijay Iyer began a 2014 performance in Brooklyn with a “die-in,” dancers lying on the stage, he was bringing Black Lives Matter into the concert hall. When the keyboardist Kris Bowers performed his song “#TheProtestor” in Harlem two years ago, it featured a bracing topical digression by the vocalist Chris Turner.

Last year another singer, José James, released an album in centennial tribute to Holiday, inevitably closing with “Strange Fruit.” He sings it as an a cappella dirge, with a looping, multitracked moan. It flew mostly under the radar, but Mr. James also collaborated around the same time with the artist Talia Billig for “Peace Power Change,” a video set to his acoustic cover of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Part of the power of that song, in its original context, was a yearning faith in the great sweep of history. “Peace Power Change” embraces a more intimate premise: A succession of musicians look into the camera, serious or smiling, and hold up handwritten signs bearing the names of victims of police violence, or “#blacklivesmatter,” or simply “Justice.”

One of the artists in the video is Keyon Harrold, a trumpeter born and raised in Ferguson, Mo., where the most wrenching confrontations between protesters and the police have taken place. Mr. Harrold tells his story in brief on one track of “Nihil Novi,” a new album by the multireedist Marcus Strickland; he begins by stating his name, as in a testimony.

Names are central to this era of jazz protest, partly because of the influence of social media: When another African-American falls victim to violence by the state, his or her name becomes a hashtag, a trending topic, a tragic new meme. It’s a bulwark against the dehumanizing mode of the opposition, and a way of keeping injustice from glazing into an abstraction. The trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire grasped this idea when he put “My Name Is Oscar” on his major-label debut five years ago. The track features a spoken-word poem read by Mr. Akinmusire in the voice of Oscar Grant III, who was shot and killed by a transit officer in Oakland, Calif. (and later inspired the film “Fruitvale Station”). In 2014, Mr. Akinmusire released a more chilling and expansive follow-up, “Roll Call for Those Absent,” consisting of the names of casualties sounded out by a child, over a darkly unsettled synthesizer hum.

You can find more outright fury elsewhere, as in “K.K.P.D.” (for “Ku Klux Police Department”), a 2010 track by the trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, which he performed recently the Newport Jazz Festival. Mr. James could be seen at the same festival covering the outspoken hip-hop group Dead Prez, segueing from “Police State” into “Behind Enemy Lines.”

Mr. Blanchard, who has long been the composer of Spike Lee’s film scores (including “Chi-Raq” and “Malcolm X”), has a more mournful disposition. Even when he has mobilized behind his social statement, his natural mode is reflection: The most telling word in his 2007 album “A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina),” inspired by events that literally hit home, is “requiem.”

On Staten Island he led his fusionesque young band, the E-Collective, in a set that often bounded toward turbocharged dynamism, with tragedy seemingly far from the picture. But near the concert’s close, after he delivered his most pugilistic trumpet solo on a tune called “Cosmic Warrior,” to cheers and applause from a crowd with an obvious stake in the moment, Mr. Blanchard leaned into the microphone with a message.

“We hope we are a small part of the healing process,” he said. “Love triumphs over hate, every time.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 8, 2016, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Cri de Coeur for Black Lives Taken Away. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: On Friday, the jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard performed an elegy for Eric Garner in Staten Island. Other artists have been equally expressive in the age of Black Lives Matter.


And the new policy’s numerical parameters are too conservative. According to the Fed’s own assessments, normal unemployment over the longer run is well below 6.5 percent. If inflation remains low and unemployment gets down to 6.5 percent, there’s no reason to rush to raise interest rates.

The most pressing problem, though, is that the Fed’s commitment to its new policies appears shaky. Soon after the December meeting, some members of the policy-making committee spoke out against the action — killing some of the positive buzz created by the policy statement and by a spirited news conference by the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke. Also, the minutes of the December meeting showed that some who had voted for the new guidance on the fed funds rate were skeptical about the complementary action on bond-buying.

No one of the Fed’s recent actions is particularly powerful on its own, but together they create a sense of aggressive expansion and commitment to recovery. If the Fed now stops some of them, giving the public a mixed message, the positive effect on expectations could easily evaporate.

So why has the Fed moved slowly, and why are some policy makers threatening to undo the recent actions? In a recent paper, Prof. David Romer of the University of California, Berkeley (my husband), and I found that pessimistic views about the effectiveness and costs of expansionary actions have played a major role in limiting Fed moves over the last few years. Policy makers worry that such actions will do little good and that they could cause inflation, distortions in financial markets and losses on the Fed’s portfolio.

I can’t say for sure that those views are wrong today. We just don’t have enough experience with situations like the current one to have conclusive evidence one way or the other.

But our paper shows that in two periods when the Fed made terrible errors, the same kinds of pessimistic views were present. Faced with the Great Depression of the early 1930s and the high inflation of the early and late 1970s, monetary policy makers did little because they were convinced that action would be ineffective.

Subsequent events proved both decisions wrong. In the 1930s, a propitious gold inflow allowed the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt to conduct monetary expansion without the Fed. Real interest rates plummeted, expectations improved and investment spending and consumer purchases of durable goods took off — jump-starting the recovery. At the end of the 1970s, a new Fed chairman, Paul A. Volcker, concluded that monetary policy absolutely could reduce inflation, and he led the Fed to raise interest rates to historic highs. The recession that followed was painful, but inflation did come down — and it has been low ever since.

WHEN monetary policy makers meet again at the end of this month, they should keep these historical lessons in mind. At the very least, the Cassandras on the committee might want to reread the policy record from the 1930s. The degree to which some of them sound like their Depression-era counterparts might shock them — and give them pause.

The Fed’s new more aggressive policy shows every sign of being helpful, and there are no indications that the feared costs are materializing. So rather than trimming the policy before it can bear fruit, why not give it a chance?

Even better, why not give it some extra oomph? Rather than just continuing the bond-buying program, accelerate it somewhat. Instead of just reiterating the numerical guidelines on the funds rate, policy makers could follow the suggestion of Narayana Kocherlakota, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, that they lower to 5.5 percent the unemployment level at which the Fed starts to consider raising interest rates. And if Mr. Bernanke wanted to be truly aggressive, he could broach the idea that in a weak economy, a strong dollar isn’t necessarily desirable.

The important thing is that hypothetical fears shouldn’t stop the Fed’s evolution. History is on the side of doing more, not standing on the sidelines.

Christina D. Romer is an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and was the chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

A version of this article appears in print on January 20, 2013, on page BU6 of the New York edition with the headline: The Fed Drives Best At Higher Speeds. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: The Federal Reserve’s new, more aggressive monetary policy has opponents within the central bank, but they don’t have history on their side.


Warwickshire all-rounder Chris Woakes has told BBC Midlands Today that playing at his home ground for England will be a "huge honour".

The Birmingham-born 27-year-old looks set to feature in the third Test match against Pakistan at Edgbaston which gets under way on Wednesday.

Woakes is England's leading wicket-taker in the series so far, with 18 wickets in two matches.

Summary: Warwickshire and England all-rounder Chris Woakes tells BBC Midlands Today playing at his home ground Edgbaston is a "huge honour".


Wales's Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark were beaten to 470 class gold after a disappointing final day at the Olympic test event in Weymouth.

The pair led by a point going into Friday's last medal race but could only finish fourth.

Their nearest rivals, Japan's Ai Kondo and Wakako Tabata, were second, which meant they secured gold ahead of their British opponents.

Englishman Paul Goodison took bronze in the Laser class.

Clark was sixth at the 2008 Olympics and this is her first season with Mills, who replaced Sarah Ayton.

But she was disappointed not to have emerged victorious at the 2012 Olympic venue.

"We are pretty gutted not to take gold but I'm sure that in a few hours I will be happy." she said.

"We wanted to win our first regatta together, but obviously that hasn't happened.

"Expectations rise and you want to deliver on that. We are going to do all we can to not be in this position next year."

Mills added: "It was close and we were always catching up, putting on pressure. But it didn't quite come off in the last leg and it is all a bit disappointing really.

"We had a couple of unlucky shifts but overall we did a good job."

Goodison, who won gold in Beijing, could not finish worse than fourth in his category going into the medal race, which he won, to earn bronze.

"I am a little bit relieved and a little bit disappointed," said the 33-year-old.

"When there is a chance of winning heading to the final race you always want to win the gold.

"When there is a chance of finishing first, second, third and fourth, finishing third is probably only halfway.

"So I am a little bit disappointed but happy to have medalled again here in Weymouth."

Summary: Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark claim sailing silver in the 470 class at the Olympic test event in Weymouth.


Home Depot (NYSE: HD) has dominated retail like almost no other company in recent years. The home-improvement leader continues to put up strong comparable sales and profit numbers while its brick-and-mortar cousins in department stores, electronics, and apparel struggle. Through a combination of smart management and a booming housing industry, shares have soared over the last five years.

Who's been driving Home Depot's strong growth? Let's take a look at some of its key customer groups.

Home Depot's customer base can be broken down into roughly three categories.

Generationally, baby boomers are Home Depot's most important customers. The generation born after World War II accounts for about half of Home Depot's revenue, which is unsurprising considering about 40% of the nation's homeowners are boomers, and they own about half of the total home value in the country.

Still, like other retailers, Home Depot's realizes the fastest-growing segment in home ownership is younger people, namely millennials. Home Depot sees the younger generation as more interested in do-it-for-me services and as particularly value-conscious.

Home Depot and Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) are far and away the leaders of the home-improvement sector. Stereotypically, Home Depot is seen as catering more to men, while Lowe's is favored among women, but the reality is that both companies cater to almost identical customer groups. Home Depot, the larger of the two, counted as the favorite home improvement/hardware shop for about 33% of men and women, according to Prosper Insights & Analytics, while Lowe's counted 28% of women and 25% of men who said it was their favorite home improvement store.

Men are more desirable customers than women as they spend, on average, 30% more at such stores. Another study found that 55% of customers at both stores are male, while 45% are female. The average age of a Home Depot shopper is 50, and 49 at Lowe's, and Home Depot's customers' average income of $60,800 was higher than Lowe's number of $54,000, though that could be more of a function of geography than anything else.

Overall, Home Depot and Lowe's seem to be more similar than different in their customer demographic, though the two may have different strategies for marketing to them.

Finally, it goes without saying that Home Depot's most valuable customer is the one interested in spending money to improve her home. Since home values bottomed out in 2011, Home Depot's profit has about doubled as Americans have become more interested in upgrading their residences.

Big-ticket items have seen a particularly spike in sales, indicating that consumers are feeling more confident in rising home values, which, combined with low interest rates, has allowed many Americans to refinance, giving them additional income to spend on their homes. Other research shows that home-buying among millennials is finally beginning to pick up, after a delay, which will be a further boon for Home Depot. Finally, the hot housing market has meant that inventory is low in much of the country, meaning home owners interested in upgrading to bigger homes may have more luck simply investing in their current house. In March, housing inventory across the country was 4.5 months, meaning it would take that long to sell through what's currently on the market. That's below what analysts consider a healthy balance at five or six months.

As long as the housing market remains tight and growing, and it looks like it should remain that way for the foreseeable future as mortgage rates are near record lows, Home Depot should continue to thrive.

Something big just happened I don't know about you, but I always pay attention when one of the best growth investors in the world gives me a stock tip. Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner (whose growth-stock newsletter was the best performing in the U.S. as reported by The Wall Street Journal)* and his brother, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner, just revealed two brand new stock recommendations. Together, they've tripled the stock market's return over the last 13 years. And while timing isn't everything, the history of Tom and David's stock picks shows that it pays to get in early on their ideas.

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Who is Home Depot's favorite customer?

Summary: Home Depot's realizes the fastest-growing segment in home ownership is one group, who it sees as more interested in its services.


The surname “Cooper” might not mean much to you other than the name of that popular British city car, but to MINI, the name is everything. It has adorned every MINI model since the marque’s resurrection in 2001 at the hands of parent company BMW, and has largely become synonymous with the brand.

But the name is a tribute to John Cooper, and Mr. Cooper was famous for one thing in particular: racing.

From 1961 onwards, former Formula One team owner John Cooper bored out the engine of a Morris Mini-Minor to 997-cc, fitted it with twin carburetors, and upgraded the brakes and gearbox, and went rallying. The car went on to win the World Rally Championship, as well as several Touring Car races through the years.

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Fitting, then, that the MINI tuning house founded by his son Michael in 2001 was dubbed “John Cooper Works,” and eventually folded into the company.

So you’d imagine any car fitted with the JCW badge would be a hardcore, rip-snorting hot hatch that goes toe-to-toe with competitors that have it outgunned in terms of power and size, right? I’m afraid the answer might not be so clear cut after all.

MINI lent us a 2015 John Cooper Works Hardtop for a week, and we put it through its paces as a backroad bomber and city slicker.

READ MORE ABOUT THE 2016 MINI JOHN COOPER WORKS HARDTOP.

Fitted with a 2.0-liter twin-scroll 4-cylinder turbo, the JCW puts out a respectable 228-horsepower and 236 lb.-ft. of torque. Purists bemoan the recent trend of “Maxi-MINIs,” but make no mistake, this is still a very small car.

Powering the front-wheels through a 6-speed manual transmission or optional 6-speed automatic, the JCW can pass 60-mph in less than 6-seconds on its way to a top speed of 153-mph. That’s territory that was reserved for supercars just a few decades ago, now found at your local MINI dealership.

Speaking of the 6-speed manual, the transmission fitted to our JCW tester was a peach to use, and made driving in the city as little of a chore as we’ve ever seen. With clever electronic gizmos that automatically rev-match on downshifts and make it seemingly impossible to stall, the JCW might be home to the world’s most accessible row-your-own transmission.

While this feature delighted us in traffic (and gave us an inflated sense of our own driving abilities), it almost feels out of character with the rest of the car, or at least what the rest of the car should be. Nevertheless, if you intend to take this MINI on the track more often than not, seek out the older, more intense GP model instead. We’ll take this gearbox for everyday driving, thank you.

Suspension tuning is certainly harder than the base Cooper or S models, but not back-breaking in the pothole capital of the world. MINI has also worked wonders with sound deadening, as this little bulldog is quiet as a mouse on the highway.

Steering feel is extremely responsive, with just the right amount of weight and feedback from the electronically-controlled unit. The JCW truly feels like a go kart in a lot of ways as MINI claims, just without the intense arm workout that usually corresponds.

Three driving modes are selectable with a shift-boot toggle switch, and drivers can choose between Normal, Sport, and Green modes. Why Green mode even exists on this model is beyond me, but you can probably guess which setting we spent the majority of our time in.

Sport mode firms up the suspension and steering and alters throttle response, but almost more importantly, it changes the exhaust tuning from a low burble to a crackling howl. We had way too much fun laying on the accelerator in low gears and abruptly letting off, listening to the turbo spool up and exhale, and giggling at the pops and bangs that emanate from the dual exhaust. If the JCW doesn’t always feel like a hardcore hot hatch, it certainly sounds like one.

The JCW looks the part as well, with scoops and flares galore, as well as the handsome 5-spoke black and silver wheels and the $1,000 “Rebel Green” paint with black roof and stripes. That’s a decent amount of money for a dark green paint job, but we wouldn’t want it in any other color.

Inside, the JCW truly embraces MINI’s commitment to building “premium small cars,” as Alcantara seats, soft touch plastics, and high-quality trim pieces line the cabin. Our tester was fitted with the BMW iDrive-based MINI infotainment and navigation system, and we’d go as far as to say that it’s one of the very best on the market today.

Buyers can also opt for a heads-up display, which we’d highly recommend. Keeping your eyes on the road is invaluable, and having speed information right in front of you is a blessing in the turmoil of New York rush hour.

Overall, the MINI was a blast to drive for a week, and we had a hard time giving the keys back by the end. But like any brand-driven, German-built product, you pay to play, and the JCW is no different.

Starting at $31,450 (before destination charge), the JCW is the most expensive vehicle in a very competitive hot hatch class. At nearly $6,000 more than a base Volkswagen GTI and Ford Focus ST, it’s hard to justify opting for the MINI over its larger rivals, let alone the respectable Cooper S. Our tester came out to a total price of $41,800 (after $850 destination charge), and for that money, the VW Golf R, upcoming Ford Focus RS, and even the Audi S3 start to look mighty fine. 300-horsepower and all-wheel-drive are hard to pass up in favor of the JCW.

If you’re a hardcore MINI fan that doesn’t mind a helping of sticker shock, we wager you’ll be very satisfied with the JCW. But if you’re looking for a no-frills, throwback hot hatch on a budget to match, it would be wise to look elsewhere.

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Summary: John Cooper Works is responsible for MINI’s most hard-hitting models, but have they lost their edge with the new Hardtop?


09/08/2016 AT 10:45 AM EDT

has remained largely out of the public eye since the death of husband

, but on Wednesday the supermodel made an appearance at New York Fashion Week with a sweet reminder of the love of her life.

Iman told fashion stylist and journalist Joe Zee for

at the Tom Ford show that she's adjusting to life after losing her husband and

in a span of just three months.

"It's just been a tough year, but I'm holding up," she said.

The 61-year-old model and entrepreneur also revealed she was wearing a gold necklace in memory of Bowie.

"I'm wearing this until my death. [Fashion designer] Hedi Slimane made it for me," she revealed. "It just says 'David.' "

"You're a survivor," Zee told Iman.

"Not as much as you think," she replied.

The star-studded Tom Ford fashion show marks Iman's first night out since the music icon

at age 69 in January.

She documented getting ready for her "first night out since last year" on Instagram with a selfie featuring her own line of cosmetics. Iman also snapped a photo with fellow supermodel

"Made it my first night out!" she captioned an Instagram photo showing off her blue velvet suit when the night was over. "Thanks @tomford for a very glam but intimate presentation."

Bowie and Iman met in October of 1990, and "they were inseparable" ever since, the couple's friend, hairstylist Teddy Antolin,

"They really knew each other because they had come up and traveled in the same circles. They were great together," Antolin added at the time. "She was a real force and he needed a woman by his side to keep him focused."

The model and the rocker married in Tuscany after two years together. In 2000, they welcomed their daughter, Alexandria "Lexi" Zahra Jones.

His widow and Lexi have remained largely out of the public eye since his death. In February, Iman was photographed for the first time since the the news of the music icon's death broke when she stepped out in New York City to

they raised together; then, just days later, she

to express her "love & gratitude" for the outpouring of support she received.

In April, just three months after losing her husband, Iman

her mother, Maryan Baadi, had also died.

Summary: Iman said she's "holding up" after losing her husband and mother within just months of each other


updated 09/15/2016 AT 03:05 PM EDT

•originally published 09/15/2016 AT 01:45 PM EDT

may have come to an end, but the exes' relationship rearing their son seems as contentious as ever.

The pop icon flew to London because she was "concerned" about Rocco, 16, when his father and stepmother,

, allegedly "left him alone" to take a trip to L.A. just days after news of their resolved custody battle, a source tells PEOPLE exclusively.

The source adds the Ritchies' trip overlapped with Rocco's first day of a new term at school.

"Her kids' education is the most important thing to Madonna," says the source. "She takes their schooling very seriously."

Ritchie's rep is not commenting.

Ritchie sources told PEOPLE back in January the British filmmaker

"He wants Rocco to have the confidence he lacked growing up and thinks Madonna's stern parental style is counterproductive," a Ritchie source

. "The welfare of Rocco is Guy's priority."

Madonna was photographed arriving at London's Heathrow Airport on Monday, and she's been spotted out and about the U.K. capital throughout the week.

for about an hour and "was very friendly with the teachers and was very relaxed," a source told PEOPLE of the visit.

Later that night, the mother-son duo enjoyed a quiet dinner at nearby Notting Hill hotspot Farmacy with family friend Benjamin Khalili, a museum curator.

"There was just a really good vibe. Everyone was smiling and laughing the whole evening. It was a very nice evening for them all,"

at the time, adding Rocco "was just loving life and spending quality time with his mum."

On Thursday, Madonna got back to work, making an appearance at the star-studded premiere of the Ron Howard-directed

while she was in town.

Madonna and Rocco's reunion came less than a week after the pop star's custody dispute with Ritchie ended; last week, Ritchie's lawyer told the Associated Press Rocco will remain predominantly in his father's care in London.

The bitter eight-month-long battle over Rocco began in December when Ritchie, 47, refused to return Rocco to his mother for the holidays,

from a New York Supreme Court order to do so.

in March, and the pair

, when all parties forwent a scheduled court appearance and court documents showed a motion pending on the case.

Summary: A source tells PEOPLE Madonna flew to London to take care of son Rocco after ex Guy Ritchie left him "alone" upon settling their custody dispute


Australia's second most senior law officer says Attorney-General George Brandis's "radical change" to his role is unlawful and threatens his independence.

Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson says he wasn't told about the new legal services direction which rules no one in government, including the prime minister, could seek his advice without the attorney's permission.

Mr Gleeson described it as a "radical change in practice" after 100 years of the solicitor-general's position having existed.

"Do I lie awake at night and think, reading this direction literally, the attorney-general could seek an injunction against me to restrain me performing my office? I do," he told an often heated senate inquiry on Friday.

But Senator Brandis rejected claims he was undermining the solicitor-general.

"Far from being a grab for power, it merely gives effect to existing law," Senator Brandis told the inquiry.

Mr Gleeson said he had not seen the new direction until May 4, after it was issued by Senator Brandis, and said "the more and more I studied it ... was an unlawful direction."

"The change was introduced without the attorney-general telling me about it," he told the inquiry.

"The change is one which is making the function of my office exceptionally difficult."

Mr Gleeson said he had asked Senator Brandis to withdraw the order - which amounted to a "threat" to his office - and engage in proper consultation.

But Senator Brandis says the dispute is a minor "housekeeping" matter which could be resolved in minutes.

He said he consulted Mr Gleeson on November 30 last year on the "substance" but not the form of the legal services direction, which the attorney-general described as a "mere formality".

The attorney's office had sought a meeting with the solicitor-general in April but was informed he would not be available for six weeks.

Senator Brandis said Mr Gleeson had not responded to a further request to discuss the issue in August.

"Had the solicitor-general sought to engage with me ... this issue could have been sorted out in a matter of minutes and at no cost to the taxpayer," Senator Brandis said, adding that he respected Mr Gleeson's independence.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is confident the stoush between the attorney-general and the solicitor-general will be resolved eventually.

"They support each other," he told reporters in Canberra as the hearing got under way.

"I am sure whatever differences or misunderstandings will be resolved."

Mr Gleeson, in answer to a question from Liberal senator Ian Macdonald, said he had spoken about the issue to shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus in June while the government was in caretaker mode during the election campaign.

Mr Gleeson said he wanted to ensure Senator Brandis' statement to parliament, in which he said Mr Gleeson had been consulted, did not go without correction.

Senator Brandis said he had been unaware of the Gleeson-Dreyfus conversation until Friday and had been "shocked" to hear of it.

Coalition senator Barry O'Sullivan questioned why Mr Gleeson had not told Senator Brandis of his conversation with Mr Dreyfus.

Mr Gleeson told the hearing he thought the right thing to do was honestly answer Mr Dreyfus' questions.

Mr Dreyfus said Senator Brandis had misled parliament and should resign.

"Everyone in Australia should be concerned by the grab for power we are seeing from this very destructive attorney-general," he told reporters in Canberra.

Summary: George Brandis has rejected a former solicitor-general's claim that his new guidelines on how government legal advice is sought is like a "dog on a lead".


For companies in the crowded online advertising sector it’s been a bumpy ride in the past few years.

Many publicly-traded ad technology firms have seen their share prices plummet, while for private ad tech companies venture capital funding has become much harder to find.

According to Terence Kawaja, chief executive of digital media advisory firm Luma Partners, there are valid reasons for investor concern -- most notably, the growing dominance of Google and Facebook , and an otherwise fragmented online advertising supply chain.

“There are, by our count, more than 4,000 companies, most of which are venture backed, seeking to eke out a living by playing as an intermediary somewhere between a marketer and the consumer. That feels like it’s not sustainable,” Mr. Kawaja said on the latest episode of the WSJ Media Mix podcast.

Although the U.S. online ad market is growing rapidly Mr. Kawaja highlighted that, according to some estimates, Google and Facebook are the only companies benefiting from it, leaving a shrinking pool of dollars for which other online ad companies can compete.

Mr. Kawaja said he sees opportunity in the growth of targeted or “addressable” TV advertising, however, describing its widespread adoption as “inevitable.”

Given the rise of online ad blocking, that technology will need to be implemented carefully to avoid alienating consumers, he added,

“The digital ad channel promised all these great things. You were going to have relevant ads that mattered [to people]. But what did we get? Retargeted ads for something we’ve already bought. It’s no wonder the whole ad-blocking phenomenon; it’s a construct of the crappy consumer experience and we have to be really careful of that. We don’t want to screw up a good thing, or a tolerable thing, by turning consumers off to advertising.”

For more with Mr. Kawaja on his outlook on advertising technology and digital media, check out the episode and subscribe to the WSJ Media Mix podcast on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify or Stitcher.

Write to Jack Marshall at Jack.Marshall@wsj.com

Summary: Chief executive of digital media advisory firm Luma Partners says there are valid reasons for investor concern.


A Victorian mother allegedly had to be subdued with capsicum spray before being arrested for questioning over the stabbing death of her partner, who has been remembered as a "lovely boy".

Authorities responded to phone threats being made from a property in Fulford Court, Swan Hill, in the state’s north-west, about 8pm yesterday.

Triple Zero operators allegedly received a call from a woman threatening to kill her partner.

Police said when they arrived, the woman allegedly stabbed 31-year-old Michael Power in the back of the neck three times.

The woman then allegedly ran into the street and had to be subdued with capsicum spray.

Police said Mr Power ran out of the home screaming for help before collapsing on the footpath.

He was taken to hospital but was later pronounced dead.

Family members visited the home this morning to pay tribute to Mr Power, who they said loved footy and motorcycles.

"I just can't believe it's happened to our beautiful son he was such a lovely boy," his mother, Bernadette Power, said.

"We’ve just got to think of Michael as he was," she said.

The woman remains in police custody as detectives question her.

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

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


The public agency responsible for analyzing data about the Massachusetts health care market is eliminating dozens of jobs to contend with $45 million in planned budget cuts.

The Center for Health Information and Analysis, or CHIA, will reduce spending over five years, part of a political compromise struck earlier this year to avoid a ballot question about hospital payments. The deal allowed the state to take money from CHIA to help fund community hospitals.

Backers of the initiative had proposed raising payments for those hospitals by taking money from Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest and most expensive health network.

CHIA serves as a clearinghouse for data and tracks how well the state is controlling health spending. The agency’s payroll reached a high of 197 in 2015. Agency officials said that will shrink to 132 by next July — a loss of 65 jobs over two years. They said the reductions will be made by not filling vacant jobs and discontinuing contracts. The eliminated positions include data analysts and technology professionals, many of whom were hired on contract.

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The smaller head count is part of a budget plan CHIA developed with consultants from the firm Accenture. With a smaller staff, the agency will produce less-frequent reports, but it will continue its core work of analyzing hospital and insurance market data, a spokesman said.

It also will move ahead with a long-delayed plan to build a health care cost transparency website for consumers. It will ask for bids this month and expects to hire a vendor in January to build the website.

“We feel confident about the plan that we have put forward,” agency spokesman Andrew Jackmauh said.

Some health experts and lawmakers have questioned the budget cuts, arguing that a smaller CHIA might hurt the state’s efforts to understand and control rising health care costs.

House Majority Leader Ronald Mariano, at a meeting about health costs earlier this week, said he found CHIA’s budget cuts “extremely troubling.”

Governor Charlie Baker’s health secretary, Marylou Sudders, said the administration is committed to making sure CHIA has the resources it needs but said the agency must act in the “most efficient and cost-effective manner.”

The agency’s staff cuts were reported earlier by the State House News Service.

Summary: The Center for Health Information and Analysis must reduce its budget by $45 million over five years.


Isabella and Bronte Watter, who were abducted by their mother after school over two year ago (Image: Australian Federal Police)

A Queensland father facing the prospect of a third straight Christmas without his twin daughters has issued a renewed national appeal for information on their whereabouts.

Bronte and Isabella Watter were abducted by their mother Catherine Watter, 42, from their school in Townsville in April 2014.

Police have generated images of what the girls, now 9, would look like today, and their father Michael Watter is urging anyone with information on their whereabouts to contact police.

"It's been nearly three years since my heart stopped beating, the day I found out they'd been taken," Michael said.

"I'm hoping that by being here today and getting these pictures out to the public my heart can start beating again."

It's been more than two and a half years since the girls were abducted, and police hold concerns for their welfare.

Mr Watter said he doesn't believe any harm has come to the girls because his estranged wife's relatives aren't acting like anything is wrong.

"There's people who were supporting her (Catherine) in the lead-up to the abduction who aren't particularly concerned about her now, so they must know she's okay and not truly missing."

The girls' abduction was the culmination of a long and bitter custody dispute between the couple, following claims the girls were being abused.

A police investigation found the girls were being coached by their mother, and Mr Watter was awarded full custody in 2011

Mrs Watter's phone was found in Strathpine north of Brisbane shortly after the girls were abducted; however there's been no sign of her or the girls since.

Mr Watter said they're asking people across Australia to speak up if they see his Bronte and Isabella

"We're relying on public to be the eye and ears for police. If you think you know something and think 'it's none of my business', make it your business," he said.

Summary: A Queensland father has issued a nation-wide plea for information on the whereabouts of his twin daughters, abducted by their mother over two years ago.


One Nation will field candidates in at least 36 seats in the Queensland election in an attempt to outperform its 1998 election result, in which 11 One Nation MPs were elected to the state parliament.

Pauline Hanson was set to formally announce the candidates at an event north of Brisbane on Sunday afternoon.

Included on the list was the party’s Queensland and national secretary, Jim Savage, running for the marginal seat of Lockyer, which Hanson contested in 2015. She secured a 14.7% swing against the sitting Liberal-National Party MP Ian Rickuss.

The former Liberal-National party MP Neil Symes is running in Mansfield, another marginal seat held by the LNP. The Courier Mail reports that internal LNP and Labor polling shows One Nation is eating into their base.

A recent Galaxy poll put One Nation support at 16%. They won 22% of the vote in 1998, during Hanson’s first rise.

Savage told Guardian Australia he expected their actual support to be higher than shown in polls, saying that the same phenomenon that saw polls underestimate support for the US president-elect, Donald Trump, and for Brexit was at play with One Nation.

“I think what the Trump experience has done and the Brexit experience has told people [is], ‘It’s OK, you can change your vote. The world won’t come to an end,’” he said.

The federal finance minister, Mathias Cormann, said the Liberal and National parties would be directly competing with One Nation in Queensland and in Western Australia, which is set to go to the polls on 11 March 2017.

One Nation faces difficulties in WA due to a stoush between One Nation WA, formerly registered as a political party, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, which is yet to be registered as a party for the state election.

“One Nation is a competitor of ours and we’ll do everything we can to explain why people should put their trust in us to provide good government, whether that is in Queensland, or nationally, or in any other [jurisdiction],” Cormann told Sky News.

“Obviously it’s not a matter of being worried, it’s a matter of focusing on the task at hand, and that is to explain what we intend to do to put our respective jurisdictions on the strongest possible foundation for the future.”

Savage said the party would take a “calm and methodical approach” to the Queensland election, scheduled for 2018, and said while Sunday’s announcement would not cover their full state election team, they were unlikely to endorse candidates in all 93 Legislative Assembly seats.

“If we find a good candidate for every seat, we will. If we can’t find a candidate that’s going to be good enough in every seat, then we won’t,” he said. “We’re not just in it to run the numbers.

“When we find good people who really, really are true believers in our cause and our policies who we feel will be good for the people then we will run them.

“The last thing that we want to do is get somebody who is not good enough elected to parliament.”

Among those already endorsed is Jane Truscott, a US-born nurse with a PhD in rural health who was appointed chairwoman of the $36m Rural Locum Assistance Program in June.

Truscott migrated to Australia 13-years ago and has been endorsed for the seat of Bundaberg, held by Labor’s Leanne Donaldson. She is reportedly a strong supporter of Trump’s methods.

“While some of what he has said and done is considered socially inappropriate, he has nonetheless provided a political force which gives the American people a voice,’’ Truscott told the Courier Mail.

“Many say the silent majority, the disaffected voters, can now be heard. Populist and nationalist politics, such as that of Donald Trump, brings a level of patriotism and pride which is clearly being manifested in Queensland.’’

Summary: Pauline Hanson’s party says support expected to be higher than in polls after surprise election of Donald Trump


Thank you for reading Love Letters in 2016. I very much appreciate it.

This is a list of the top 10 most popular letters of 2016, based on page views (the letters with the most comments aren’t always the most popular with readers).

For those who don’t know how Love Letters works, the column starts with a Q&A on Boston.com. I take the question, my answer, and a list of the best reader comments of the day (as selected by me), and run it in the print version of the Globe, and on bostonglobe.com.

Thanks to this year’s data, I know that the column is extra popular in April and May. Also, it seems that if I put “sex” or “slept with” in the headline, readers like it. I’ll do more of that in 2017.

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The Globe's top picks for what to see and do each weekend, in Boston and beyond.

If your favorite letter wasn’t on this list, please let us know what it was in the comments section.

Here’s to more love (and letters) in the new year.

10. I (Almost) Found Proof That He Cheated

9. I Want More Sex

8: Falling For My Work Husband

7: Should I Call It Off Before She Gets Hurt?

6: He Didn’t Tell Me He Had A Son

5: Sent A Sext And Overreacted

4: He Wants His Own Bedroom

3: Should I Tell This Woman I’ve Been Dating Her Fiancé?

2: Slept With His Best Friend

1. She Had Sex With 10 Men In 1 Year

Summary: Which of the love problems addressed by Meredith Goldstein was the most popular of the year?


Kim Kardashian West gave a bombshell interview last month claiming Taylor Swift approved of Kanye West‘s “Famous” lyrics about her, and the reality star took to Snapchat Sunday night to provide the proof.

After Sunday night’s episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (in which Swift’s feud with Kardashian West and West took center stage) aired, Kardashian West shared a series of videos on her Snapchat account of a phone call between West and Swift discussing the rapper’s lyrics about the singer.

“It’s like a compliment,” Swift is heard saying in the video after West reads the lyrics – “For all my Southside n—– that know me best / I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex” – to her.

“What I give a f— is you as a person, and as a friend, I want things that make you feel good,” says West, who also thanks Swift “for being like, so cool about it” after she tells him she appreciates the “heads up” on the lyrics.

“I never would’ve expected you to like tell me about a line in your song,” says the singer. “I mean, I don’t think anybody would listen to that and be like, ‘Oh, that’s a real diss.’ You gotta tell the story that way that it happened to you and the way you experienced it.”

After the song was released in February, Swift’s rep told PEOPLE the singer “declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyrics, ‘I made that bitch famous.'”

In her GQ cover interview last month, Kardashian West claimed video of Swift and West’s phone call existed in which the singer had told her husband she would “laugh” and tell media she was “in on it the whole time.”

“If people ask me about it, look, I think it would be great for me to be like, ‘He called me and told me before it came out . . . Joke’s on you, guys. We’re fine,'” Swift is heard saying in the footage Kardashian West posted on Snapchat.

After Kardashian West released the phone call on Snapchat, Swift took to Instagram to defend herself.

“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that bitch’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened. You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that bitch’ in front of the entire world,” the singer wrote on her social media account. “He promised to play the song for me, but he never did. While I wanted to be supportive of Kanye on the phone call, you cannot ‘approve’ a song you haven’t heard. Being falsely painted as a liar when I was never given the full story or played any part of the song is character assassination.”

Swift’s rep was quoted in the GQ article as saying that “much of what Kim is saying is incorrect. Taylor has never denied that conversation took place. It was on that phone call that Kanye West also asked her to release the song on her Twitter account, which she declined to do. Kanye West never told Taylor he was going to use the term ‘that b—-‘ in referring her. A song cannot be approved if it was never heard. Kanye West never played the song for Taylor Swift. Taylor heard it for the first time when everyone else did and was humiliated. Kim Kardashian’s claim that Taylor and her team were aware of being recorded is not true, and Taylor cannot understand why Kanye West, and now Kim Kardashian, will not just leave her alone.”

Swift and West have had a complicated relationship since 2009, when the rapper interrupted the singer’s Best Female Video acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs. Last year, the duo appeared to have patched up their differences and were seen buddying up at the Grammy Awards before Swift presented an award to West at the MTV VMAs in September.

Summary: The reality star shared multiple videos on Snapchat Sunday night of Swift allegedly supporting West’s lyrics about her


ATICAN CITY, April 18 - Black smoke pirouetted from a chimney over the Sistine Chapel today, signaling that the cardinals electing the 265th pope had taken a first and inconclusive vote two and a half hours after locking themselves in their tradition-laden conclave.

Tens of thousands of people filled St. Peter's Square, their necks craned toward the chapel's roof and binoculars trained on the chimney. The 115 cardinals had retreated behind its heavy wooden doors in the afternoon, deliberating under Michelangelo's frescoes to choose a successor to John Paul II through secret balloting.

Several minutes after 8 p.m., a wisp of smoke wafted out from a smokestack, and many thought it was white, meaning a pope had been elected with lightning speed. A roar erupted and people surged forward, shouting, "It's white! It's white!" But as the smoke thickened, it became obvious that it was black.

"What a shame," said Erica Barocco, 26, of Rome when she finally figured out the color. "I would have preferred it to be white because I want to see a new pope."

Huge television screens in the square made that clear, along with silence from the bells of St. Peter's Basilica. Vatican officials have said they would ring simultaneously with white smoke to confirm that pope had indeed been chosen .

"Let's wait for tomorrow," said the Rev. Crispinus Barasa of Kenya, who is studying in Rome.

Scores of priests in black and nuns in brown and blue robes were in the square for the first such spectacle since 1978, when John Paul was elected. There was also a polyglot mix of tourists and parents with children in their arms, hoping to ingrain a lifelong memory. Already, the crimson curtain hung on the central balcony of the basilica facing St. Peter's for the new pope's traditional first appearance in public.

Despite the confusion over the smoke's color, an election on the first ballot was considered highly unlikely. It is extremely difficult for a candidate to receive the needed two-thirds majority so soon, and the first vote has traditionally been a time to gauge the relative strength of leading contenders and to cast ballots for friends.

The cardinals, after spending the night sequestered in the St. Marta residence behind Vatican walls and probably attempting to reach some consensus, return to vote Tuesday morning at 9 a.m.

The drama in the square followed a day of pageantry and pointed theological discourse by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the dean of the College of Cardinals and John Paul II's doctrinal watchdog.

Considered a possible pope, but more likely a kingmaker for another candidate, Cardinal Ratzinger celebrated a Mass before the conclave today, and in his homily delivered an uncompromising warning against any deviation from traditional Catholic teaching.

"A dictatorship of relativism is being built that recognizes nothing as definite," the cardinal said, "and which leaves as the ultimate measure only one's ego and desires."

For 25 years, Cardinal Ratzinger served as John Paul's theological right hand as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In his writings and public statements, he has often sought to uphold the primacy of Catholicism, saying no other religion offered a path to salvation. "Relativism," he has said, implies - wrongly - that other faiths are equally valid.

In his homily, Cardinal Ratzinger, 78, said that Christians were tossed on the waves of Marxism, liberalism and even "libertinism;" of radical individualism, atheism and vague mysticism. He also decried the creation of "sects" and how people are seduced into them, using a term church leaders often employ to refer to Protestant evangelical movements.

"Having a clear faith, according to the Credo of the Church, is often labeled as fundamentalism," he said. "Yet relativism, that is, letting oneself being carried 'here and there by any wind of doctrine,' appears as the sole attitude good enough for modern times."

Many of the cardinals watched intently as Cardinal Ratzinger spoke. Several others among them - two-thirds of the cardinals voting for pope are septuagenarians - appeared to doze.

Summary: The smoke indicated that the cardinals had voted inconclusively in their first attempt to elect a successor to Pope John Paul II.


Chris at the Lister Park weather station

Of course, it's a British tradition - if there's nothing else to talk about, there's always the weather. But Chris, who's a Parks Gardener at Lister Park, takes this to a whole new level. After all, he's the man who has one hundred years of Bradford's weather at his fingertips! If you're in the park at nine o'clock in the morning - any morning - he'll be the figure you'll see purposely striding towards a little fenced-off enclosure full of strange looking devices. He's been doing this for over three decades but shows as much enthusiasm for the job as ever!

Chris tests the wind direction

"This looks like a beehive," says Chris pointing to a slatted wooden box on legs in Lister Park's weather enclosure. "A lot of children think it's a beehive, but it isn't. It's a 'Stevenson's screen' and inside it houses some thermometers. There are four of them in there. There's a maximum and a minimum thermometer - obviously your maximum is a day behind because it's yesterday's maximum - and the minimum is for the same day as you're doing the readings. Then there are two upright thermometers - a 'hygrometer' and from that you can work out the humidity in the air."

It's from this box of tricks that Chris takes some of his weather readings, much as his predecessors have done every single day since 1st January 1908. Whatever the weather, somebody's been out in Lister Park to take note of what, meteorologically, has been going on. Come rain or shine, it's all been noted down and sent off to the Met Office - on paper and more recently online. The technology might have changed, but it's all still about the one thing that gets us all talking - the weather!

On the ground nearby are some more odd-looking things - easy to trip over, in fact, if you're not looking! Chris explains that they're more thermometers: "These go underground and are called earth thermometers. One of them is four feet deep and the other one is one foot deep. That one [the one foot earth thermometer] can get quite cold, near freezing, but if the other one gets freezing then it's the Ice Age!"

Simon checks the underground temperature

While Chris takes today's readings from the earth thermometer, his colleague Simon Drake appears. He's the Assistant Parks and Landscape Manager for Bradford and knowns a thing or two about the weather station too. Simon points out that taking note of weather at Lister Park isn't all about technology. Sometimes, he says, you have to rely on simpler ways of measuring the weather - like gauging wind speed and direction, for instance: "It's a matter of facing north and throwing something in the air and looking which way it falls! Also it's the observation of clouds, the direction the clouds are going. We also have a gauge for windspeed, the Beaufort Scale. You look at that with respect to flags extending, leaves and twigs in constant motion, trees bending. You can gauge it from that." Finished with his thermometers, Chris adds: "The Beaufort Scale goes right up to twelve although we don't get twelve inland as that's a hurricane. The most you'll get here is force eight or nine. I recorded force six this morning which is a strong breeze, but you don't record the gusts, you record the constant wind speed."

There are also some things that just can't really be measured properly by anything else than the human eye. Over 34 years, Chris has developed a few tricks of his own - including how to measure visibility, another important aspect of recording the weather: "You can tell if it's going to be a clear day or if it's going to be misty or foggy. What we have is six or seven different points. The first one is Hollins Hill, a few miles away, and it's the clearest point we can see today...Then we have, through the trees, a church spire and that's Heaton Church. If you can [only] see the church then it's fog. Then, you come back from looking there and there's Listers Mill chimney, the park boundary and the bandstand. If you can't see the bandstand then you'll be lost, basically!"

Chris looks at recent readings

Of course, all these readings have to go somewhere to be compiled with those from other weather stations across West Yorkshire, the UK and the world! Simon explains: "This is a Met Office station so all the information goes there. Now, the readings go electronically on a daily basis, but we used to send them on a monthly basis on a large sheet of paper...Then there's other stuff we put in the diary like cloud cover and so on...But the Met Office does get all our information. I also used to send a monthly record to Paul Hudson at the BBC but because he's got access to the Met Office site now, he just gets the information from there. But any observations that are out of the normal, like the lowest October temperature, I e-mail to Paul and sometimes he mentions that during his TV appearances."

Lister Park's very own weatherman Chris says he feels that the work he does at nine o'clock every morning really does help to build a picture of what's going on weather-wise in West Yorkshire: "Stations like this do help Paul Hudson and the Met Office to find out what the average temperatures are for an area. No matter what part of England you go to, the forecasters will say, 'The average temperature will be...' and it's little stations like this that help them know what that average temperature is, or the average rainfall."

Rainfall being one of this country's - and this county's - favourite talking points, this is a good chance for Chris to reveal some of the meteorological high and low points from the past 100 years. As far as rain's concerned, Chris doesn't have to look far through the records: "The wettest month we've ever had was June 2007. You'll remember all that flooding we had, well we had just over ten inches of rain that month. It outdoes any other month by two inches or so - ten and a quarter inches fell in one month. Quite a lot! Over the year, the highest rainfall we've had was 44.85 inches and that was in the year 2000, not so long ago either." And what about temperature? Well, it was in the 1950s that the mercury rose the highest: "The last warmest maximum was 31.1 degrees Celsius [88 degrees Fahrenheit] and that was on 12th August 1953 so you're going back a long time. A more recent one, well there aren't any really. They all go back to the 1940s and 1950s for warm temperatures. The past really was a lot warmer. As far as the coldest minimum temperatures are concerned, obviously they'll be night temperatures and it was -13.9 Celsius on 21st January 1940, that's only seven degrees Fahrenheit. Very, very cold for a night temperature."

Weather symbols surround the equipment

During his time taking the weather readings at Lister Park, Chris has also noticed certain trends: "We're getting warmer winters and they're a lot wetter. I've noticed over the years that the monthly averages are getting slightly warmer, especially in winter." Chris also echoes what many of us have noticed - snow seems to be increasingly a rarity: "We don't seem to get the falls like we did 20 or 30 years ago. I can remember when I was a kid going out and you were up to your neck in snow. These days it comes one day and it's gone the next!"

With that, it's time for Chris to return to his other tasks around Lister Park. Over three decades since he started taking the daily readings, he still clearly relishes his part in making sure that West Yorkshire's weather is noted down for posterity. No wonder, then, that he was recently presented with a plaque marking the weather station's centenary. And who better to present it than BBC Yorkshire's very own weatherman Paul Hudson! So, next time you're in Lister Park at nine o'clock in the morning, why not keep a weather eye out for Chris just like he's been doing for the past 34 years?

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Summary: "Every day is different," says Chris Russell. It's the one thing he can be sure of as he collects today's weather readings at Bradford's Lister Park, just like he's done for the past 34 years. As we discover, he's continuing a century-long tradition!