Kate and William take in Canada views from a sea plane

William and Kate.

Telephost - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge flew from Victoria to Vancouver. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were left mesmerised by the stunning views of Canada's coastline when they took a trip in a sea plane.

William and Kate spent much of the 30 minute journey looking out of the window as they flew from Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, to the nearby bustling metropolis of Vancouver.

The royal couple and their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte received a rapturous welcome from Canadians on Saturday when their eight-day tour of the Commonwealth country began.

And they spent Sunday in Vancouver visiting organisations and projects to learn how the country is dealing with a range of issues, from the refugee fallout from the Syrian conflict to drug and alcohol addiction among mothers.

Thousands of people turned out to welcome the royal couple throughout their day but there was one dissenting voice - a small group of republicans who had made a replica guillotine and a placard saying "No Kings No Landlords".

Kate wore a striking red and white Alexander McQueen outfit decorated with broderie anglaise for the flight in the sea plane while William looked smart in a jacket, shirt and tie.

A one-way ticket for the trip on the Otter aircraft costs around 210 Canadian dollars (£125) and the Duke and Duchess would have seen British Columbia's coast line, the Gulf Islands and the .

Later a royal aide said of the flight: ''It was very smooth flying.

''They spent a lot looking out of the window and talking to the pilot. The duke was very interested in the landing and the different conditions they work in.

''They spent a lot of time looking at the incredible views from both sides of the plane.''

The sea plane is the easiest way to travel from Victoria to Vancouver, but it is also the noisiest, which meant William and Kate were given earplugs for the journey in the 18-seater plane.

Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau was on the waterside to greet the couple as were thousands of wellwishers who had gathered at the nearby Jack Poole Plaza.

The Plaza is named after the late Jack Poole, who was a key player behind the success of the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2010 Winter Paralympics held in Vancouver.

People packed the plaza, standing 10 deep behind the barriers with cameras and phones held aloft as William and Kate shook hands with the wellwishers.

Wolf whistles and cheers rent the air as people thrust forward flowers, children's books, a teddy bear and, bizarrely, a book on the royal family.

Introducing the motorised ridealong suitcase - for adults

The Modobag will be available from January 2017.

Telephost - We have all been there, attempting to make our way through a crowded airport, late for our flight – only to have our paths blocked, or our heels clipped, by the sight of a small child being pulled towards the gate by their parents on their own wheel-along suitcase.

Depending on whether or not you have procreated and are escorting offspring of your own, you may decide that this particular vision is cute and heart-warming. You may even find yourself idly wondering whether the animal this be-wheeled luggage is designed to resemble is an elephant, a rhinoceros, a giraffe or perhaps a dragon – it can be hard to tell.

One thought that won’t pop into your head – probably – is: “I wonder if anyone has ever thought to make one of those things for adults, and would I look good while riding one?”.

Happily, if you have entertained this daydream, nirvana is almost at hand.

An American entrepreneur has come up with the “Modobag” – a piece of carry-on which is designed to convey grown-ups through busy airports with the minimum possible effort.

On the down-side (when compared to ridealong bags for junior travellers), the Modobag does not look like a creature from the African savannah or a medieval fairytale. On the plus side, it does come with a motor, a steering pole and brakes – meaning you can drive it all the way to your flight’s last call without working up a sweat or a shortness of breath.

The Modobag can even reach speeds three times faster than walking – an indoor setting of 5mph; an outdoor setting of 8mph – making missed connections a thing of the past.



Better still, once the battery has been charged for an hour, the Modobag will run for a full nine kilometres (five miles) – ideal if you find yourself at a particularly enormous airport where your gate is at the furthest possible point from security. Even better that this, it is fitted with USB ports, so you can charge your phone or other devices as you trundle past your fellow passengers like some 21st century Lancelot or an ultra-modern Don Quixote.

It was designed by Chicago-based Kevin O’Donnell, who was inspired by ride-on suitcases for children – and created the Modobag with the help of a motorcyclist friend.

“From the first-time traveller to the veteran flight attendant, there is widespread agreement that Modobag will help make travel more functional and fun," O’Donnell says.

The only problems for would-be purchasers is that this revolution is not available until January, that it can only be bought from the crowd-sourcing website Indie Go Go, and that it comes with the not inconsiderable price tag of US$1095 (£845) – plus shipping.

Oh, and the slight issue that it may make you appear ridiculous.

“Why can't we ride our luggage and get to where we're going faster with less stress?”, O’Donnell asks.

Because it will make you look silly, Kevin. It will make you look silly.

Then again, O’Donnell is not the first visionary to offer something just a little outlandish as a way to improve the lives of the average traveller.

Other recent "innovations" include the "b-tourist", a length of elasticated fabric meant to be stretched between two aircraft seats to create a sleep-friendly headrest of sorts – and the "ostrich pillow", a fluffy full-head encasement which reputedly allows "power naps anytime anywhere", but may also cause mirth in others.

Colorado Man Surprises Girlfriend With Proposal and Wedding in the Same Day

Zach Baldwin, 24, surprised his now wife Catie Bossard Baldwin, 25, by proposing to her and then asking her to get married immediately.

Telephost - Catie Bossard was thrilled when her boyfriend of a year proposed while they were atop a mountain during a visit to Vail, Colorado.

But when, seconds later as the couple's family and friends started running toward them, Zach Baldwin asked Bossard if she wanted to get married that same day, well, she couldn't contain her emotions.

"That was when it kind of hit me," she told ABC News. "I'm like, 'Yes! Yes! Let's do it.'"

The Denver, Colorado, couple's surprise wedding was actually two months in the making. Baldwin, 25, told ABC News that he "got this idea one day having dinner with a co-worker."

"He was joking about having our family all in town and knocking it all out in one day," Baldwin said. "When I thought about it more and more. It just seemed too perfect."

So Baldwin planned that the two would drive from their shared home in Denver to Vail. He then dropped to one knee on the top of a Vail mountain after a scenic gondola ride.

"I can honestly say absolutely everything fell into place as I had envisioned it from the beginning," Baldwin said.

Bossard, 24, recalled that as their family and friends came over to congratulate them, her fiancé had a second question. "He said, 'My second question is do you want to get married today?'"

After the bride-to-be was on board with the whirlwind plan, the two popped open a bottle of champagne and returned to their hotel to prepare for the wedding set for four hours later.

Bossard was thrilled when she found out that her best friends along with her sister and mother had thought of everything -- from her wedding dress and undergarments to her makeup and hair accessories.

Her mother had even brought her great-grandmother's handkerchief, which she tied around the bouquet. She also wore her grandmother's pearls.

As far as decorations, well Mother Nature took care of that.

"It was simple but beautiful," Bossard said. "With the scenery, you don't need much up there. There's no need for any flowers. The entire view of the mountains behind you: that alone takes your breath away."

The couple is now looking forward to their honeymoon. Bossard said they plan to backpack through Costa Rica in November.

For now, they're looking forward to living as husband and wife.

"I am looking forward to experiencing everything life has to offer with Catie," Baldwin said. "She brings a light into every situation that cannot be contained and inspires me everyday to be the best husband I can be."

"He makes me a better person," Bossard said. "I love being around him and I love enjoying life with him, whether its traveling, being at the house, working out. I’m excited to spend my life with him."

What's the real deal with coconut water?

Is pink coconut water as good for you as the cloudy stuff? (Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Alex Brannian, Food Styling by Kat Boytsova)

Telephost - The first time I noticed pink coconut water, I was in a mildly run-down neighborhood grocery store. It was an unfamiliar bottle and the color of the liquid was near magenta. I didn't know if I was looking at a flavored variety of coconut water, or if something horribly wrong had happened during delivery. All I know is I did not buy it.

Since then, I've seen coconut water in varying shades of pink everywhere from Whole Foods to gas stations. A quick perusal of the one of the bottle's labels revealed that the rosy hue is naturally-occurring, caused by a reaction that happens when the drink's antioxidants are introduced to light.

So what's the real deal?

Since coconut water is one of my go-to beverages whenever I need an energy or hydration boost, I wanted to know more. So I turned to Dr. Josh Axe, who has written extensively on why he loves coconut water for its potential to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, as well as work as a gentle detoxifier for the body.

Dr. Axe explained that, just like an apple that's been sliced and sits oxidizing on the counter, untreated coconut water will start to turn change color once extracted from the fruit. "Oxidation doesn’t change the health benefits of the apple, or the taste. It just makes it look different," Axe says. "The same is true about pink coconut water."

But what about those coconut waters that aren't pink?

Those waters are either very fresh—or highly processed using high heat or extraneous chemicals to keep the water clear. Dr. Axe is against the latter, pointing out that you don't actually reap the aforementioned benefits from coconut water that has been processed.

What you want to drink, he notes, is coconut water that is as close to its natural state as possible—and short of cracking open a fresh young coconut, that just may mean the pink stuff. Which, it turns out, should also taste better. High-heat processing causes many commercial coconut waters to loose their natural flavor.

Pink coconut water, on the other hand, has a noticeably more robust taste which highly processed brands try to mimic with additives. In my personal taste tests, there's no comparison.

How do you find the best coconut water?

When choosing what coconut water to drink, Dr. Axe has a few guidelines: First check the ingredients label and avoid any brands that list citric acid or natural flavors. "This purposefully ambiguous labeling can refer to any number of ingredients," he says, "and we as the general public have no idea what it means." Second, avoid coconut waters from concentrate, which have undergone extensive processing.

For pink coconut water specifically—which will be held in the refrigerated section—Dr. Axe suggests checking the best by date printed on the bottle. Because of the gentle processing, these waters have a shorter shelf life than their counterparts. A small price to pay, because for me—and for Dr. Axe—the gains are far greater.

Miss America contestant’s classy response to Trump question

Miss Arkansa Savvy Shields was named Miss America 2017. Picture: Noah K. MurraySource:AP

New York (Telephost) - MISS New York Camille Sims may not have won the Miss America crown, but her response to a particularly blunt political question did win the night.

After singing her way into the top seven, Ms Sims continued vying for the coveted 2016 crown in the Q&A round. The 23-year-old was then asked a question each of the ladies had probably prepared for in some form or another — what she thinks of her own state’s most colourful character, Donald Trump.

Ms Sims had 20 seconds to answer. Here’s how she responded: “I think that he’s a bright reminder of how our country needs to come together. If you don’t agree with his message, then it’s time to decide where you stand in this debate.”

At first, it appeared as though Ms Sims was throwing her support behind the Republican presidential candidate. But she wasn’t done just yet.

“As Americans, we need to make sure that we come together,” she continued. “Represent what it means to be American, which is celebrating all people from all backgrounds, whether you’re an immigrant, or a Native American, or an African American, or an Asian American.”

The finalist’s eloquent answer, complete with ever-so-subtle shade thrown at the billionaire businessman, is arguably what contributed to her being named second runner-up out of 52 contestants.

Nearly every question during Sunday night’s interview portion was about politics, Hollywood Life reports, which many contestants opted to duck and dodge without really forming an opinion.

Miss Maryland Hannah Brewer claimed she was supporting both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Miss Arkansas Savvy Shields, who eventually took home the crown on Sunday night to become Miss America 2017, was asked what she thinks of Clinton.

“If you’re trying to be leader of the free world, everything you say and do matters and all of your actions are held to a higher standard,” Shields responded. “Both of the contestants have done a good job, but they also need to watch what they’re doing.”

Speaking to reporters after the pageant, Miss America 2017 elaborated on her answer.

“What I want both candidates to focus on is compromise,” she said. “Our country was founded on compromise. We’re in a state now where both parties just seem to be yelling at one another. I hope that at the end of my year, we’re starting to reward politicians for compromise.”

Ms Shields topped a field of 52 contestants to win the crown, succeeding the outgoing Miss America Betty Cantrell.

High Hitler: how Nazi drug abuse steered the course of history

Adolf Hitler awards the Merit Knight Cross to his private doctor, Theodor Morell, in February 1944. Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

Telephost - German writer Norman Ohler’s astonishing account of methamphetamine addiction in the Third Reich changes what we know about the second world war.

The German writer Norman Ohler lives on the top floor of a 19th-century apartment building on the south bank of the river Spree in Kreuzberg, Berlin. Visiting him there is a vertiginous experience. For one thing, he works – and likes to entertain visitors – in what he calls his “writing tower”, a flimsy-seeming, glass-walled turret perched right on the very edge of the roof.

(Look down, if you dare, and you will see his little boat moored far below.)

For another, there is the fact that from this vantage point it is possible to discern two Berlins, one thrusting and breezy, the other spectral and grey. To our left, busy with traffic, is the Oberbaum Bridge, where there was once a cold war checkpoint, and beyond it the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall, its doleful length rudely interrupted by the block of luxury flats that went up in 2013.

As for the large building immediately opposite, these days it’s the home of Universal Music. Not so very long ago, however, it was the GDR’s egg storage facility.

Does all this press on Ohler as he sits at his desk, the light bouncing off the screen of his laptop? Is it ghostly sometimes? “Yes, it is strange,” he says, smiling at my giddiness. But then he has long believed in a certain kind of time travel. “I remember the 90s.

The wall had just come down, and I was experimenting with party drugs like ecstasy and LSD. The techno scene had started up, and there were all these empty buildings in the east where the youth [from east and west] would meet for the first time. They were hardcore, some of those guys from the east – they didn’t understand foreigners at all – and the ecstasy helped them to lose some of their hatred and suspicion.

Sometimes, then, you could step into a room, and you could just see the past. Of course, it’s not like that now. I don’t take drugs any more. But I can remember it, and maybe that was why I was able to write this book.”

The book in question is The Total Rush – or, to use its superior English title, Blitzed – which reveals the astonishing and hitherto largely untold story of the Third Reich’s relationship with drugs, including cocaine, heroin, morphine and, above all, methamphetamines (aka crystal meth), and of their effect not only on Hitler’s final days – the Führer, by Ohler’s account, was an absolute junkie with ruined veins by the time he retreated to the last of his bunkers – but on the Wehrmacht’s successful invasion of France in 1940.

Published in Germany last year, where it became a bestseller, it has since been translated into 18 languages, a fact that delights Ohler, but also amazes him.

It’s not only that he is – as Der Spiegel helpfully pointed out – a non-historian (the author of three novels and the co-writer of the Wim Wenders film Palermo Shooting, this is his first work of nonfiction). It’s that there was anything new to be said at all. Arrange all the books that have been written about the Nazis end to end and they’d be longer than the Spree.

“I guess drugs weren’t a priority for the historians,” he says. “A crazy guy like me had to come along.” Still, crazy or not, he has done a remarkable job. If Blitzed is gripping, it is also convincing. Ian Kershaw, the British historian who is probably the world’s leading authority on Hitler and Nazi Germany, has described it as “a serious piece of scholarship”.

Brangelina Breakup: What Social Science Says About Divorce

Angelina Jolie Pitt and Brad Pitt attend the WSJ Magazine 2015 Innovator Awards at the Museum of Modern Art on Nov. 4, 2015 in New York City.

Telephost - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fans were left reeling Tuesday morning after news broke that the couple is getting divorced. According to the Associated Press, in the divorce papers she filed, Jolie Pitt cited "irreconcilable differences," a vague term that could apply to any number of reasons.

The most common cause for divorce, however, comes down to communication differences, said Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah.

Communication problems are a huge predictor of divorce, Wolfinger told Live Science.

For example, women may not communicate their emotional needs, or men may not hear them, Wolfinger said. Indeed, after a divorce that was initiated by a woman, men will often say that they don't know what happened, Wolfinger said. Women initiate divorce about two-thirds of the time, he added.

Early reports on the reasons for Jolie and Pitt's divorce announcement cited their different approaches to parenting as a reason for the split. Pitt and Jolie have six children.

But there isn't much evidence that shows having different parenting styles is a common cause of divorce, Wolfinger said. Every couple has differences about parenting, he added. The question is how they communicate these differences, he said.

Other factors that may mean a couple is more likely to get divorced include if they get married young or if they are less educated, Wolfinger said.

In addition, people who divorce and then remarry also have higher divorce rates, Wolfinger said. If a person has already shown that they're willing to resort to divorce, they're more likely to do it again, he said.

Both Pitt and Jolie were previously married. Before their own wedding in 2014, the couple had been together for nearly a decade.

Interestingly, research has shown that couples who live together before marriage have higher divorce rates than those who do not, Wolfinger said. The findings seem counterintuitive, because living together before getting married can seem like a "trial marriage," he said.

Indeed, experts disagree about why this is, but one possible explanation is that people who are more likely to live together out of wedlock are also more likely to get a divorce, Wolfinger said. For example, very religious people are less likely to divorce, and also less likely to live together before marriage, he said.

Brangelina's breakup, however, doesn't mean that marriage is dead in America.

Divorce rates have actually been decreasing over the past 35 years, Wolfinger said. And surveys have shown that Americans do value marriage and disapprove of adultery, he said.

It's also important to keep in mind that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's actions don't represent trends in America, Wolfinger added. The lives of celebrities such as Pitt and Jolie are fundamentally very different from those of the average American, he said.

Pop-up shoppers of the world unite as Morrissey store opens in New York

Morrissey - 'World Peace Is None Of Your Business.

Telephost - Fans stock up on T-shirts and dog bandannas before eagerly awaited Brooklyn gig as Mporium, last seen in Manchester, raises funds for animal shelter.

Lovers of Morrissey, animals and merchandise were treated to an exhibition of all three on Saturday, as the singer hosted a pop-up store at the Sugar Mutts animal shelter in New York.

Morrissey announced details of the store, which is selling limited edition T-shirts, posters and dog apparel, on Facebook. He wasn’t actually manning the “Mporium”, but that didn’t stop people lining up outside.

Matt Gross, 35, had been there since 8am, two hours before opening time. “I’m a pit bull advocate and I also volunteer at a shelter,” he said. “So I feel like this is tailor made for me.”

Gross, who said he had two Morrissey tattoos, was due to see the former Smiths singer at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on Saturday night. He emerged from Sugar Mutts with a dog-sweater bearing the legend “Be kind to Morrissey or I’ll kill you” and a human-T-shirt that said: “All over Brooklyn some hope and some despair”.

The T-shirt carried a picture of Morrissey with a dog superimposed over his face, and a cat superimposed over the dog’s face.

Morrissey is donating a percentage of sales from the Mporium to Sugar Mutts, which rescues dogs from “high-kill shelters”. His representatives approached the shelter ahead of his New York show, having held a similar pop-up in Manchester in August. By happy coincidence, Amy Marciano, the founder of the shelter, turned out to be a longtime Morrissey enthusiast.

“I was a fan ever since I was a teenager,” she said. “I had Morrissey all over my walls in high school. I love his ethics and his quirky personality. I’ve always loved his music, of course, so I was just thrilled.”

Marciano said she regularly plays Morrissey’s music in the shelter. It is “perfect for dogs”, she said, “because it’s that great mix of upbeat alternative rock’n’roll and melancholy introspection. It’s a good mix.”

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg pledges $3bn to wipe out 'all disease'

Zuckerberg pledges funds to battle diseases.

Telephost - The tech billionaire and wife Priscilla say the goal is to "cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children's lifetime". Mark Zuckerberg and his wife have pledged more than $3bn towards an ambitious plan to rid the world of disease.

The Facebook founder and his wife, paediatrician Priscilla Chan, said the goal was to "cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children's lifetime".

Investment will go towards research into cancer and infectious disease as well as heart and neurological disease, the couple said.

The plans were revealed during an event in San Francisco for their philanthropic group, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, on Wednesday.

Dr Chan said they had launched the initiative following the birth of daughter Max last year, with the goal of dramatically improving the lives of all other children in her generation.

She recalled experiences of telling parents their child had an incurable disease or could not be revived, and said she hoped to spare parents the pain she had seen while delivering difficult news in her role as a pediatrician.

She explained: "In those moments and in many others we're at the limit of what we understand about the human body and disease, the science behind medicine, the limit of our ability to alleviate suffering. We want to push back that boundary."

Her role as a doctor, she said, had made her determined to work with scientists to help save lives.

Zuckerberg said the funding would bring scientists and engineers together, build tools and technology needed to help fight disease and also grow the movement to fund science.

The tech billionaire said 50 times more is spent on treating people who are ill than finding cures.

"We can do better than that," he said.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative mission statement states: "We want every child to grow up in a better world. "Our hopes for the future centre on two ideas: advancing human potential and promoting equality.

"We'll focus first on personalised learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.

"We will make long-term investments over 25, 50 or even 100 years because our greatest challenges require time to solve."

The couple announced in December 2015 that they planned to give away 99% of their Facebook shares to fund good causes.

Dr Jeremy Farrar, of global charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust, said later: "I'd like to congratulate Mark and Priscilla for starting such an ambitious venture to understand health and disease, which resonates strongly with Wellcome's mission.

"Science and research are critical to the challenge of better health, and need the support and stimulus that philanthropic initiatives like this bring.

"Wellcome aims to spend £5bn over the next five years on our mission of improving health by helping great ideas to thrive, and welcome the fresh impetus to science and research that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will bring."

Iceland opts out of FIFA 17 game after cash row with EA

Marketing experts fear Iceland may have scored an own goal with the move.

Telephost - The country's football association is accusing EA of "bad treatment" following on from the team's success during Euro 2016. Iceland has opted out of the latest FIFA video game following a row over money with Electronic Arts.

The manufacturer was willing to pay about two million Icelandic krona (£13,315) in exchange for the team featuring on the long-awaited FIFA 17 game.

But the Icelandic Football Association (KSI) accused EA of showing a lack of respect given their sensational quarter-final finish in Euro 2016.

KSI president Geir Thorsteinsson said: "We don't accept bad treatment. We made them a counter-offer, which they did not accept."

Icelandic marketing consultants have said they are dismayed with the decision - claiming KSI has missed a golden opportunity for exposure as smaller, cult teams are popular with players.

Their squad gained an enthusiastic following during the European Championships, humiliating England with a 2-1 defeat in the last 16.

France even copied Iceland's "Viking Thunderclap" on their journey to the tournament's final.

FIFA 17 is slated for release on 27 September in the US, and will go worldwide two days later.

Twitter shares surge 21% on reports that it is in takeover talks

Twitter illustration.

Telephost - The social media company is said to have held talks with companies including Google over a possible bid by the end of the year. Twitter shares have surged by a fifth after reports that it was the target of a possible takeover.

Google and cloud computing company Salesforce were among those in talks with the social media company, according to US broadcaster CNBC.

The report said Twitter could receive a formal bid by the end of the year.

It comes as the business grapples with its slowest revenue growth since going public three years ago and a sluggish rise in users.

Reuters quoted sources confirming that the company had started talks with several technology companies to explore a sale.

Shares climbed as much as 21%, giving the company a market value of close to $16bn (£12bn).

It was the biggest rise since Twitter's stock market launch in 2013.

There was no immediate comment from any of the companies.

Twitter has been the focus of much takeover speculation amid disappointing results.

In its latest earnings statement, for the second quarter, revenues rose 20% to $602m (£464m) but fell short of Wall Street estimates.

It added three million users, just 1% up on the first quarter.

Twitter's co-founder, Jack Dorsey, returned to the company as chief executive last year.

It faces a battle for users and advertisers with rivals such as Instagram and Snapchat.

Yahoo hit in worst hack ever, 500 million accounts swiped

Yahoo

Telephost - The internet company, being bought by Verizon, says a state-sponsored actor stole email addresses, passwords and birth dates. Change your passwords. Now.

Hackers swiped personal information associated with at least a half billion Yahoo accounts, the internet giant said Thursday, marking the biggest data breach in history.

The hack, which took place in 2014, revealed names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and, in some cases, security questions and answers, Yahoo said in a press release. Encrypted passwords, which are jumbled so only a person with the right passcode can read them, were also taken.

The internet pioneer, which is in the process of selling itself to Verizon, said it's "working closely" with law enforcement. It called the hackers a "state-sponsored actor," though it didn't identify a country behind the breach.

Yahoo urged users to change their passwords if they haven't since 2014. The company has 1 billion monthly active users for all its internet services, which span finance, online shopping and fantasy football. Its mail service alone has about 225 million monthly active users, Yahoo told CNET in June.

The hack serves as a reminder of how widespread hacking is and highlights the vulnerability of passwords. Cybersecurity specialists recommend using a different password for each account you have on the internet. Other experts are working on alternatives to passwords, such as biometrics like your fingerprint or retina.

"Cybercriminals know that consumers use the same passwords across websites and applications, which is why these millions of leaked password credentials are so useful for perpetuating fraud," said Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance, an organization that vets the security of password alternatives. "We need to take that ability away from criminals, and the only way to do that is to stop relying on passwords altogether."

Verizon, which is paying $4.83 billion for Yahoo, said it was notified of the massive breach within the last two days. The telecommunications giant had "limited information and understanding of the impact," according to a statement.

"We will evaluate, as the investigation continues, through the lens of overall Verizon interests, including consumers, customers, shareholders and related communities," Verizon said.

B. Riley & Co. analyst Sameet Sinha told The Wall Street Journal the breach was unlikely to affect the sale to Verizon.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a member of the newly formed Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, criticized Yahoo for not discovering the breach when it originally happened in 2014.

"While we have seen more and more data breaches in the private sector in recent years, many of them affecting millions of consumers, the seriousness of this breach at Yahoo is huge," Warner said.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit organization that tracks cybersecurity breaches, said the hack was the largest-ever publicly disclosed breach.

Yahoo has taken steps to protect its users, including invalidating security questions and answers, but the real risk lies in hackers using the passwords on other websites.

"We typically see a 0.1 percent to 2 percent log-in success rate from credential stuffing attacks, meaning that a cybercriminal using 500 million passwords to attempt to take over accounts on another website would be able to take over tens of thousands of accounts on most websites," said Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's former click-fraud czar and CTO of Shape Security.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's Twitter account was hacked using a similar method after the passwords of more than 100 million LinkedIn members were leaked.

It will take Yahoo at least several months before it starts regaining users' trust, according to research from Alertsec. The encryption provider did a study that found about 97 percent of Americans lose trust in companies like Yahoo after massive data breaches.

"When a company has allowed their customers' data to fall into the hands of criminals, the resulting lack of trust is difficult to repair," CEO Ebba Blitz said in a statement.

On August 1, a hacker named "Peace" claimed to have breached 200 million Yahoo usernames and passwords from a hack in 2012, and offered to sell them on the dark web after trying to do the same with MySpace and LinkedIn accounts.

A person familiar with the situation said Peace's assertion prompted Yahoo to initiate an internal investigation. That investigation found no evidence that substantiated Peace's claim, but the investigating team found indications that a state-sponsored actor had stolen data in 2014.

Former Yahoo information security officer Jeremiah Grossman, now chief of security strategy at SentinelOne, said that internet companies, especially giants like Yahoo, face challenges protecting enormous computer networks because the networks offer so many points of entry to attackers.

"It's unsurprising when breaches, even of this magnitude, take place," Grossman said. "Yahoo certainly isn't the first. And they won't be the last."

Pep Guardiola's side maintain perfect start by routing Cherries

Pep Guardiola kicked off his Manchester City reign with a friendly defeat.

Telephost - Manchester City 4 Bournemouth 0: Kevin De Bruyne, Kelechi Iheanacho, Raheem Sterling and Ilkay Gundogan each scored to secure an eighth successive win for the Catalan's charge.

They kill quickly do Manchester City. This was their fifth straight win in the Premier League under Pep Guardiola and the longest any team has held out before conceding was Stoke’s 27 minutes at the Britannia Stadium.

Here, Bournemouth might have gone behind after nine seconds, they did so after a quarter of an hour and by the end they would have been grateful to have only lost by four. The only stain on the game was Manuel Nolito’s dismissal for needlessly grinding his forehead into Adam Smith’s face when the result was long since decided. The Bournemouth defender retaliated with a shove for which he was shown a yellow card. Nolito’s was red.

This is not by a long way Guardiola’s best start – last season he won his first 10 matches at Bayern Munich. However, for those who are looking to block what already seems a relentless advance, it is extremely ominous.

If Manchester City were to stumble, they appeared likely to do so early on before Guardiola’s squad became used to the intricacies of his tactics. In all competitions, they have won eight straight games and scored 25 times. As a fan of Manchester United, Usain Bolt would not appreciate the comparison, but even he could not have come out of the blocks any more swiftly.

In terms of ego, Kevin de Bruyne, is Bolt’s polar opposite. There is a modesty about him that seems to belong to another age but he and Raheem Sterling, men who returned to Manchester after the a European Championship that was by turns disappointing and disastrous, have responded fabulously to the new regime.

The last time Bournemouth came to the Etihad, they were four down before 45 minutes were up and Sterling had scored three. This time only the alertness and reflexes of Artur Boruc in goal kept it to one.

De Bruyne, facing a defence in full retreat a bare three minutes after the restart, appeared to have delayed his pass a fraction too long but it fell perfectly for Kalechi Iheanacho, who pulled the ball back for Sterling. The second goal had involved precisely these three men and it had finished with the young Nigerian finishing off Sterling’s pass. This time the favour was returned.

Not long afterwards, Sterling might have scored one of the great goals, wriggling past four defenders from one side of the 18-yard box to the other. Only the finish fell short of what had gone before.

De Bruyne was in his way even better. It was his shot that Boruc was forced to save before 10 seconds were up. After Jack Wilshere, making his first league start for Bournemouth, had conceded a foul on the edge of the area, De Bruyne drilled it through the wall to open the scoring. Fifteen minutes had elapsed and for the Bournemouth manager, Eddie Howe, the remaining 75 would have stretched out into the far distance, a desert to be crossed.

For the fourth, De Bruyne delivered another geometrically accurate pass to Ilkay Gundogan, who on his debut strolled towards the ball like a fun runner in the park. His finish was a long way from the standards of the average park.

For Wilshere, this was not an occasion to remember. He lasted longer than Jordon Ibe, who was removed during the interval, but not much longer. However, for those who argued he should have chosen Roma over Dorset, it is hard to imagine he would have endured a sterner test of his ability than this anywhere in Serie A.

Bournemouth continued to attack gamely long after the result was obvious with Callum Wilson striking the crossbar when they were four down. Much earlier, Junior Stanislas had dispossessed Nicolas Otamendi with Claudio Bravo out of position. The opportunity appeared to gape for Joshua King until Fernandinho, captaining the side, swept the ball from the striker’s feet. Everywhere, in defence, in attack, Manchester City were utterly unforgiving.

Manchester City (4-1-4-1): Bravo; Sagna, Otamendi (Stones 52), Kolarov, Clichy; Fernandinho; Sterling, De Bruyne (Garcia 75), Gundogan (Sane 72), Nolito; Iheanacho.

Substitutes not used: Caballero, Kompany, Zabaleta, Navas.

Bournemouth (4-5-1): Boruc; A.Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels; Ibe (Wilson ht), Wilshere (Gosling 68), Arter, Surman, Stanislas (Gradel 74); King.

Subsitutes not used: Federici (g), Ake, Afobe, Gradel, B.Smith.

Andy and Jamie Murray dig deep to keep defence alive with crucial doubles victory

The Murray brothers needed every bit of their stamina to prevail Getty

Telephost - Having battled it out for five hours and seven minutes in the opening match on Friday, Andy and Juan Martin del Potro found themselves on opposing sides again.

Andy Murray dug into his depleted energy reserves to partner brother Jamie to a crucial doubles victory in Great Britain's Davis Cup semi-final against Argentina.

Having battled it out for five hours and seven minutes in the opening match on Friday, Andy and Juan Martin del Potro found themselves on opposing sides of the net once again at Glasgow's Emirates Arena.

This time it was the home hero who came out on top, thanks in no small part to the performance of Jamie, who won his third grand slam title at the US Open last weekend and was the stand-out player on the court.

The 6-1 3-6 6-4 6-4 victory kept Britain in the tie at 2-1 and means a second successive final is still achievable if they can win both singles matches on Sunday.

The pair were given a huge ovation as they prepared to do an on-court interview, and Jamie's voice cracked as he said: "It's not going to get better for me than to play with him in front of a Scottish crowd."

Jamie left the arena on Friday to attend his grandfather's funeral, with Andy forced to miss it to take on Del Potro.

The main question mark going into the second day was whether Andy would deem himself fit enough to play having been unsure how he would pull up.

The back-up option was third singles player Dan Evans, which, for a match Britain had to win, would have been a major gamble.

The big surprise was the presence in the Argentinian team of Del Potro alongside Leonardo Mayer.

With the luxury of a 2-0 lead, the visitors had been expected to rest their best player but his selection was a statement of intent.

The advantage still seemed to be with Britain given the experience of the Murray brothers and Jamie's status as one of the very best doubles exponents in the world.

The 30-year-old was clearly brimming with confidence after his US Open triumph alongside Brazil's Bruno Soares and effortlessly put away a succession of volleys as the brothers raced into a 3-0 lead, winning 10 points in a row.

They wrapped up the opening set after just 26 minutes but a poor game from Andy, including two double faults, gave Argentina the advantage at start of the second.

The brothers were playing together for the first time since a heartbreaking first-round defeat at the Olympics, and a loss on home soil was certainly not a double they wanted.

They pushed again at the start of the third set but failed to convert two chances each on the Del Potro and Mayer serves.

Andy was well below his best level and urged the crowd to provide some much-needed energy.

The world number two is renowned for his passion even in straightforward matches and ironically it was going a break down that proved the catalyst for the brothers to turn things around.

When Del Potro landed a return on the line to break Andy's serve for the second time in the match, alarm bells were ringing, but the 29-year-old roared as they broke straight back.

Momentum was with them and a set point on the Del Potro serve was duly taken with a return winner from Andy.

The fourth set was extremely tight, with Jamie needing some treatment on a neck problem that had bothered him since the US Open final.

But the British pair seized their chance with Mayer serving to stay in the match, taking the first of three match points.

Andy will take on Guido Pella in the first match on Sunday, where victory would send the tie into a decisive fifth rubber, probably between Evans and Del Potro.

Lewis Hamilton only third as Nico Rosberg on Singapore Grand Prix pole position

Lewis Hamilton

Rio de janeiro (Telephost) - Nico Rosberg took a stunning pole position at the Singapore Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton was demoted to third by Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.

Hamilton was a massive 0.704 seconds slower than Rosberg after a difficult qualifying session, befitting what has been a troubled weekend throughout.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen took fourth ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

The Finn's team-mate Sebastian Vettel will start last after a technical problem as Jenson Button starts 13th.

What happened to Hamilton?

Rosberg's was a remarkable performance - he has surely never been as superior to Hamilton when both have been gunning for pole.

For his part, Hamilton has looked out of sorts all weekend, missing half of the second practice session on Friday because of a technical problem and struggling to get a good lap in before that.

He failed again to do a qualifying simulation lap in Saturday's final practice session, locking his brakes heavily and going straight on at Turn Seven.

First qualifying went better for Hamilton - he was fourth quickest, 0.15secs quicker than Rosberg but the German was faster in the second session, again on the first runs in the top 10 shoot-out and then he made a mistake on the entry to Turn One on his final lap.

It was in some ways reminiscent of Hamilton's weekend at the European Grand Prix in Baku in June, when he crashed out of qualifying and lined up 10th.

However, it later emerged that his car may have had a problem - Mercedes' data was showing it was producing less aerodynamic downforce than Rosberg's, which would explain the lack of grip.

At least this time he starts close to the front, but unless Rosberg makes a poor start - a Mercedes weakness at times this season - Hamilton will find it difficult to beat his team-mate, whom he leads by two points in the championship.

"Definitely happy with that one," said Rosberg. "For sure one of my top three laps ever. At times it wasn't clear where we would stack up against Red Bull so I knew I had to pull one out of the bag."

Hamilton said: "It has not been my weekend so far. Not many good laps. Just not been able to string them together."

A threat from Red Bull

Ricciardo's superb performance - 0.531secs behind Rosberg and 0.213secs quicker than Verstappen - gives him a strong chance to fight for victory, after he pipped Hamilton with his last lap of the session.

Red Bull had better pace on the race simulation practice runs on Friday than Mercedes, and Ricciardo and Verstappen will start the race on the super-soft tyre rather than the ultra-soft Mercedes will use.

It remains to be seen which strategy is advantageous - Red Bull will be able to do a longer first stint, but Mercedes then have two sets of softs available for remainder of the race while Red Bull only have one.

Oh, Ferrari, not again

Hamilton at least did better than Vettel, who hit trouble almost as soon as he left the pits. He radioed the team to say he felt something wrong at the front of the car but was told to stay out and try to do a lap.

But he was not able to do a time quick enough to get him through into second qualifying and he said over the radio: "This is stupid, we are losing time."
The team said that the problem was a broken rear anti-roll bar. Vettel added: "There was no time to fix it. I wanted to come in but we decided to stay out."

Bad luck for Button

The top 10 was completed by the impressive Toro Rossos of Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat, with McLaren's Fernando Alonso in ninth, splitting the Force Indias of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.

However, race stewards penalised Perez a total of eight grid positions for offences committed while yellow caution flags were out during second qualifying.

He was dropped three places for passing Haas driver Esteban Gutierrez and a further five for not slowing sufficiently for the flags, dropping him to 18th on the grid.

Perez was also given three penalty points on his licence.

The yellow flags were out after a crash by McLaren driver Jenson Button.

The 2009 world champion had looked stronger in qualifying after struggling throughout practice but qualified 13th after hitting the wall in Turn 14 and breaking a wheel on his final lap.

"I tapped the wall with the left rear," said Button, who may be taking part in Singapore for the last time after deciding not to drive in 2017, with no certainty about his future beyond that.

"I didn't think I hit it that hard but it broke the wheel and I got a puncture.

"It has been a tough weekend for me. I hadn't found the pace in the car and Fernando had. Then I got to qualifying and I found it but there you go."

Jolyon Palmer will line up 19th in his Renault, two places and 0.135secs behind team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

Rio Paralympics 2016: Iranian Para-cyclist dies following crash

Bahman Golbarnezhad - here competing on the track in 2012 - crashed during the C4-5 road race on Saturday

Rio de Janeiro (Telephost) - An Iranian Para-cyclist has died after a crash during the men's C4-5 road race at the Rio Paralympics.

The International Paralympic Committee said Bahman Golbarnezhad, 48, suffered cardiac arrest after the incident on a "mountainous stretch" of circuit.

"The ambulance then diverted to the nearby Unimed Rio Hospital in Barra where he passed away soon after arrival," a statement added.

Golbarnezhad also competed at the London Paralympics in 2012.

An investigation into the circumstances of the accident has been launched.

"We're looking to gather as much information as we can and as quickly as possible - it should take a matter of days," said Piers Jones, sports director of cycling's governing body UCI.

The Iranian flag has been lowered to half-mast in the Paralympic Village and a period of silence will be observed during Sunday's closing ceremony.

Masoud Ashrafi, the secretary general of Iran's National Paralympic Committee, said they have requested the body of Golbarnezhad is flown back to Iran on Sunday. The Committee also asked for a full report of the incident from the IPC.

He added: "He had been cycling for 12 years and he was our best cyclist. He was married and has a wife and one son.

"He was the kind of man who was a family man. He loved his family."

Golbarnezhad's death is the first in-competition fatality at a summer/winter Olympics or Paralympics since Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen in the 100km team time trial at the 1960 Rome Games.

What details are known about the accident?

Saturday's race began at Pontal and included the Grumari circuit used in the Rio Olympics road races.

The Vista Chinesa circuit - which included a treacherous descent where Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands crashed and sustained concussion during the Olympics - was not part of the Paralympic course.

According to the IPC, Golbarnezhad was involved in a crash at around 10:35 local time on the first section of the Grumari loop, a mountainous stretch of the course, on a curved descent.

He received treatment at the scene and was in the process of being taken to the athlete hospital when he suffered cardiac arrest.

IPC president Sir Philip Carven said: "This is truly heartbreaking news and the thoughts and condolences of the whole Paralympic movement are with Bahman's family, friends, and team-mates as well as the whole of the National Paralympic Committee of Iran.

"The Paralympic family is united in grief at this horrendous tragedy, which casts a shadow over what have been great Paralympic Games here in Rio."

This was Golbarnezhad's second race at the Rio Paralympics, after finishing 14th in the C4 time-trial race on Wednesday.

Golbarnezhad, from the city of Shiraz in southern Iran, also participated in the London 2012 Paralympic Games, having taken up the sport in 2002.

He competed in events for athletes with lower limb impairments or amputations.

Tributes paid to 'exemplary sportsman'

Iranian Paralympic Committee: "He was an exemplary Paralympic sportsman who, with love and energy, tried his best to promote the name of Iran and to make all of us proud and at the end he gave his life for this.

"All members of the Iranian cultural and sports camp here express condolences to his family and the Iranian nation. The name of Bahman Golbarnezhad will be inscribed in the proud history of Iranian Paralympics."

Carlos Nuzman, president of Rio 2016: "This is very sad news for sport and for the Paralympic movement. Our hearts and prayers are with Bahman's family, his team-mates and all the people of Iran."

Brian Cookson, UCI (cycling's governing body) president: "I am devastated to hear about the death of Iranian rider Bahman Golbarnezhad. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, and the NPC of Iran to whom we offer our most sincere condolences."

ParalympicsGB (via Twitter): "We are devastated by the news of Bahman Golbarnezhad's passing. Our thoughts are with our friends and colleagues from NPC Iran."

United States Olympic Team (via Twitter): "Our thoughts are with the friends, family and team-mates of Team Iran's inspirational cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad."

'I was sat opposite him in the pits this morning'

Dame Sarah Storey, Britain's most decorated female Paralympian, also paid tribute to Golbarnezhad in an interview with BBC Sport.

"I'm absolutely devastated to hear of a colleague who hasn't made it home from the Games," said Storey, who had earlier won Britain's 60th gold medal at the Rio Paralympics.

"Everyone expects to come home from a Games and it's no real condolence that he died doing something he loved.

"It's just an horrendous thing. It couldn't be any worse. There are no words that can make it feel better.

"When you lose someone you don't even know but they are in the same world… I was sat opposite him in the pits this morning. I know who he is but I've never spoken to him. It still hits you really, really hard."

JD Sports shows a clean pair of heels to stumbling Sports Direct

Beyoncé’s Ivy Park range being advertised outside Topshop in London. Photograph: Matthew Chattle/Rex/Shutterstock

Newcastle (Telephost) - Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley once promised to finish off JD Sports, but now finds himself being trounced by his rival.

JD Sports, the self-styled King of Trainers, is not only valued at a cool £1.1bn more than the Newcastle United owner’s chain, but last week revealed its sales and profits growth were a well-shod leap ahead of the rest of the UK fashion market.

While other clothing retailers have spent the last two years moaning about unsuitable weather and claiming that shoppers are more interested in holidays and gadgets than the latest fashion, JD has powered on. Sales at stores open more than a year rose 10% in the six months to the end of July.

Even executive chairman Peter Cowgill sounded surprised by the group’s 66% rise in underlying profits, revealed on Tuesday, saying they “exceeded reasonable expectations.”

But the performance should not be a shock. The sportswear market is generally less weather-dependent than the rest of the clothing market and JD is at the centre of the catwalk-led “athleisure” trend for sportswear as fashion.

Major brands such as Nike and Adidas have been expanding their ranges to include the kind of sportswear meant to be worn outside the gym. Celebrities such as Beyoncé – whose athleisure line, Ivy Park, is sold in JD – have given a boost to the trend, which is drawing more women into sport stores.

Sales in JD’s womenswear are soaring, having traditionally made up less than 30% of the chain’s sales compared with 60% for the whole UK clothing market.

Of course trends come and go, so there is some debate whether JD’s mini-boom will drop off once young people move on to something new. Cowgill argues: “We can never predict the future but I don’t think it’s a trend. I think it’s a culture, a lifestyle situation. Not long ago you couldn’t go into a bar with trainers on: now it is more acceptable.”

And it’s not only bars. Sales of trainers are rising around the world as casualwear becomes the norm in offices as well as at social events.

Richard Hyman, the veteran independent retail analyst, says: “Trainers have become shoes and the key beneficiary has not been traditional footwear retailers or apparel retailers with footwear departments. This market is highly branded, whereas mainstream fashion is very own-label. People want the credibility of a brand and JD has built a business on that.”

Of course, Sports Direct has also benefited from that trend, but to a lesser extent, as JD has a much stronger relationships with the key brands. This gives it access to more exclusive products, and launches of sought-after new designs.

Cowgill says fostering those relationships through investment in the look and ambience of stores has been key to keeping such brands on board.

Kate Calvert, an analyst at JD’s house broker Investec, says: “Sports Direct has had quite a turbulent time with the two major suppliers, Nike and Adidas – they’re always falling in and out of love with each other.” In that environment, JD has been able to get access to premium products at premium prices, insulating it from some of the wider market deflation.

Sports Direct has cottoned on to this and is trying to woo the brands back with investment in stores, alongside efforts to tackle the employment and governance practices that have drawn so much bad publicity. Fiona Paton, an analyst at Verdict Retail, says: “[JD] has benefited from Sports Direct’s mass of bad publicity and the distractions that has caused its senior management.

“However, this will not go on indefinitely, and Sports Direct has announced plans to target more premium brands with investment in its Flannels fascia, so JD Sports is likely to face tougher competition in the near future.”

Cowgill counters: “All our competitors worry us. We’ve got to keep an eye on various parts of the market.” He adds with a smile about Sports Direct: “It remains to be seen if they get their act together. We try to avoid being in direct competition. We see the market as huge enough for the two of us.”

That market increasingly includes Europe, where JD is expanding its main chain in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and, most recently, Portugal. It also owns Sprinter in Spain, Chausport in France and has taken its trendy Size? footwear chain into five countries over the channel. Further afield, it has bought outlets in Malaysia and Australia. Revenues are up 38% in Europe and 14% elsewhere, although the profitability of these operations is not yet clear.

Last week, Cowgill was in a bullish mood. “We never rest on our laurels and we are gutted if there’s even a day when our numbers are negative. We drive as hard as we possibly can.” It could be a speech from a professional sportsman.

Bake Off shows how TV’s indies have learned the art of the deal

The (former) Great British Bake Off team: Paul Hollywood, Mary Berry, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc. Photograph: Love Productions/BBC

London (Telephost) - Television programmes have been switching channels for years – from Men Behaving Badly to Big Brother, University Challenge to The Voice. Yet none have met with quite such an outcry as the poaching of The Great British Bake Off from the BBC.

After all, it’s not every day that the UK’s favourite TV show switches channels. GBBO’s maker, Love Productions, has been pilloried in parts of the press, especially since it did the Channel 4 deal without securing the show’s current presenters, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, or judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.

The company turned down an offer of £15m a year from the corporation – and higher bids from ITV and Netflix – to take the hit baking show to Channel 4 for around £25m a year.

However, beyond the brouhaha about whether Love Productions was right to take a hit that had been nurtured by the BBC to a rival, does the headline-grabbing move also signal a shift in the balance of power between broadcasters and producers?

New terms of trade introduced more than a decade ago, which allowed producers to hold on to more of the intellectual property rights to their programmes and gain a greater share of revenues from overseas sales and merchandising, helped tilt the balance away from broadcasters. This has also been a factor in the UK production sector’s growth, with revenues up from £2.2bn annually seven years ago to £3bn.

The other key change in the sector has been consolidation of ownership, with many of the more successful UK independent producers bought by bigger companies or merging to create so-called “super-indies” – providing access to international distribution networks, more investment to develop ideas, and, in theory, more muscle in dealings with broadcasters.

Love Productions, founded by husband and wife Richard McKerrow and Anna Beattie in 2004, is now 70% owned by Sky.

Media analyst Claire Enders explains: “The overall long progression over the last 25 years, through a number of phases, into a flourishing production sector has created extraordinarily viable businesses that can actually get an extraordinary change of deal for a programme; an extra £10m a year is an awful lot more.

“The power has moved to the super-indies and they are in a position to call the shots and extract deals that would be unimaginable five years ago, let alone 10. That’s also because the BBC’s commissioning structure was fundamentally changed, and is continuing to change, in favour of independents.”

Enders thinks Love “made a completely commercial decision, which was totally the right decision”, as did the BBC in not topping C4’s offer, as its enemies would have had “a field day”.

The BBC wants to be more than just an incubator of shows for other broadcasters and plans to create more of its own intellectual property. It has set up a new, soon-to-be-commercial production arm, BBC Studios, which was created in large part to stem the brain drain of producers to the independent sector.

However, in exchange for allowing BBC Studios to make shows for rival broadcasters, the government says even more of the corporation’s shows now have to be put out to tender. On Wednesday, around 300 independent producers will meet at the BBC in London to find out how many more of the corporation’s commissions they will be able to bid for.

Apple tax ruling must be overturned, says US business group

Apple was ordered to pay €13bn in back taxes to Dublin. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Washington (Telephost)- Business Roundtable warns of ‘grievous self-inflicted wound’ for EU and its people after Brussels’ ruling that Apple must pay back Ireland €13bn in taxes.

US businesses have warned European leaders they risk a “grievous self-inflicted wound” unless they overturn Brussels’ demand that Apple pay the Irish government €13bn (£11.4bn).

In an open letter to the leaders of the 28 European Union countries, the Business Roundtable group defended Apple over its tax dispute with the European commission.

The US tech giant was ordered to pay €13bn to Ireland last month, after Brussels ruled that the tax breaks it was given between 1991 and 2015 amounted to unlawful state aid.

But the group of US chief executives, who between them run companies with $7tn of revenue and 16 million employees, said the decision “must not be allowed to stand”.

“The precedent set by this decision, if upheld, would increase uncertainty significantly with a consequent adverse effect on foreign investment in Europe, making this decision a grievous self-inflicted wound for the European Union and its citizens.”

It said that non-EU countries would interpret the ruling – if left unchallenged – as a signal that companies could have their assets seized by states “seeking extra revenue or seeking to punish a successful foreign competitor”.

Business Roundtable said the 185 chief executives who it counts as members were particularly aggrieved by the retrospective nature of the ruling on a tax deal reached in 1991.

“Commercial success is uncertain for any business endeavour but companies should have complete confidence that sovereign countries are committed to honouring their laws and have the authority to do so,” they wrote.

“The retroactive nature of the EC decision means that business can never have certainty even on its past tax liability unless or until the EC chooses to decide accordingly.”

Apple chief executive, Tim Cook, has previously labelled the multibillion pound demand “total political crap” and warned that it could affect investment in the EU.

The letter from Business Roundtable, which was also sent to senior politicians including the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, the European Union president, Donald Tusk, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, echoed the threat.

It said the commission’s actions “promote tax uncertainty – and unless overturned they will disrupt trade and investment, with the most direct consequences to be borne directly by EU countries and their citizens”.

The letter called on member states to “put an end to the use of state aid investigations that will hamper economic growth by undermining cross-border investment”.

The group has previously lashed out against what it perceives as Europe’s “new and dangerous form of protectionism” amid tax investigations into American firms such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Amazon.

The commission’s ruling against Apple was based on its objection to an agreement allowing Apple to pay a maximum tax rate of just 1%. In 2014, the tech firm paid tax at 0.005%. The usual rate of corporation tax in Ireland is 12.5%.

The commission said Ireland’s tax arrangements with Apple between 1991 and 2015 had allowed the US company to attribute sales to a “head office” that only existed on paper and could not have generated such profits.

The result was that Apple avoided tax on almost all the profit generated from its multibillion-euro sales of iPhones and other products across the EU’s single market. It booked the profits in Ireland rather than the country in which the product was sold.

How Zara's founder became the richest man in the world - for two days

Zara

Browsing the rails at Zara, you might not be aware of this: but there's an 80-year-old grandfather in northern Spain who helped pick out what you're taking to the till.

Amancio Ortega stepped down as chief executive at Zara's owner, Inditex, five years ago.

But he didn't give up work. Not at all.

Even this week, when the company's rising share price made him the richest man in the world for two days, he wasn't ready to retire.

Every day he still makes the 10km journey from his town centre house to the Inditex headquarters, based just outside the coastal town of A Coruna where he first launched the Zara brand.

Sometimes he sits down with the Zara Woman design team and they kick around ideas for the coming weeks and months - the new layout for a store, a new design for the upcoming winter collection. And if Mr Ortega has a hunch, they listen. After all, he has 60 years' experience in fashion retail, built up from humble beginnings.

According to Forbes magazine, experts in estimating the bank balances of the world's wealthiest, Mr Ortega's fortune overtook that of Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Wednesday and Thursday this week, before fluctuating share prices pushed it back into second place.

This was not Mr Ortega's first time at the top of the tree. In October 2015, he was the world's wealthiest man for a few hours. It was hailed as a milestone in Spain.

Yet compared to the world's other richest people, he has chosen to keep a low profile, avoiding interviews and media appearances whenever possible.

The son of a railway worker, he was born in 1936, just before the outbreak of Spain's civil war. The family struggled to make ends meet, which made a lasting impression on him as a boy.

"One day [he and] his mother went to pick up some groceries," according to Covadonga O'Shea, author of a biography of the Zara founder.

"From below the counter, he heard someone tell his mother, 'Senora… we can't give you any more credit.'"

Ms O'Shea, launching her book in 2012, said Mr Ortega still felt shame at the family's inability to pay.

"When Amancio was telling me this, he was terribly emotional. And he said to me: 'I was deeply hurt and humiliated.'"

He vowed never to let his family suffer poverty again, left school, and went to work in a shirt shop.

He gradually gathered further experience with other retailers and by the early 1960s was ready to set up in business with members of his family and his future wife, Rosalia Mera. They launched first a textile manufacturing company, then later, the Zara brand.

What gave him the edge, and made Zara and its parent company Inditex such a success, was one particular insight.

Shops were taking too long to bring people the fashions they craved. By the time a product arrived, fashion-conscious shoppers wanted something different. He decided he would radically shorten that turnaround time.

"[Amancio Ortega] did something quite unique," says Michelle Wilson, retail analyst at Berenberg.

"He set up with the ambition to give the customer what they want.

"A lot of retail is [the company] deciding what they'll want, manufacturing it and pushing it on the consumer."

Instead, at Zara and sister brands the company listens to what its shop managers tell them - asking what are customers saying, what are they buying?

And because Inditex manufactures, not predominantly in Asia, but in Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Morocco, it can react quickly, ordering more of popular products or changing styles.

"It's a pull model from the consumer rather than pushing the product onto the consumer," says Michelle Wilson.

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The music you are listening to and enjoying is actually by Dean Evenson and Tom Barabas from the album WINDDANCER. You can learn more about their music at http://www.soundings.com. It is important to know who it is really by

Hillary Clinton's lead declines among likely voters

During an interview that aired on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show” Thursday, Hillary Clinton declined to weigh on Colin Powell’s hacked personal emails: “I’m not going to start discussing someone else’s private emails.”

Tennessee House expels lawmaker accused in harassment case

Republican Rep. Jeremy Durham, R-Franklin, addresses the House in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, from the well of the camber to urge his colleagues not to expel him from the Tennessee General Assembly. The move to expel Durham follows an attorney general's investigation that detailed allegations of improper sexual contact with at least 22 women over the course of his four years in office.

Nashville, Tenn. (Telephost) — The vote to expel a sitting Tennessee lawmaker for the first time in 36 years was overwhelming, even though House members had argued vehemently about whether a series of sexual harassment allegations were enough to boot one of their own.

The state House voted 70-2 on Tuesday to remove Rep. Jeremy Durham. He surprised his colleagues by showing up in the chamber and contending that he shouldn't be ousted. Then he abruptly left in mid-debate.

The vote to remove Durham, who represented the Nashville suburb of Franklin, followed an attorney general's investigation that detailed allegations of improper sexual contact with at least 22 women during his four years in office.

The investigation uncovered allegations that Durham plied a 20-year-old college student with a cooler full of beer and had sex with her in his office in 2014. Another woman interviewed was a lobbyist who nicknamed Durham "Pants Candy" after she said he rummaged in his pocket before suggestively offering her a dirty, unwrapped mint.

House Speaker Beth Harwell effectively quarantined Durham from other lawmakers, staff and lobbyists after preliminary investigation findings were released in April, moving his office across the street and barring him from entering the main legislative area other than for official business. The move came after state Attorney General Herbert Slatery said Durham could pose a risk to "unsuspecting women" at the Capitol complex.

The expulsion vote prevents Durham from qualifying for lifetime pension benefits once he reaches retirement age. He lost his re-election bid in the August primary.

Durham had told colleagues in a letter that he wouldn't attend the proceedings because of concerns that he wouldn't be allowed to mount a defense. Then he showed up anyway, took to the well of the chamber and read a long statement. When questioned by colleagues, he denied most of the allegations.

"This is an expulsion proceeding — the idea that I would have due process right now is ridiculous," Durham said. "If somebody wants to let me confront accusers, let me present my own evidence, that's fine. But this is not the forum to do it."

Durham said he had assembled materials about each incident outlined in the report, but the open floor session wasn't the proper venue to bring them up.

"I assure you, you do not want me releasing some of the things that are in this binder," he said.

Fourteen Republicans abstained from the vote and two voted against it. Many of them agreed with Durham's due-process argument, noting that the lawmaker hadn't been charged with a crime and that alleged victims and witnesses weren't interviewed under oath.

When disagreements grew heated during a Republican caucus meeting before the session, Durham's supporters tried to throw the media out of the meeting. That motion failed.

Durham later abruptly left the chamber, causing an uproar among other lawmakers who wanted to pose more questions. Democrats tried to get Harwell to order Durham to return to the chamber, but the motion was voted down by Republicans.

Democrats have criticized Harwell for not moving sooner or more aggressively to address sexual harassment allegations against Durham.

Several women who spoke to the attorney general for his investigation said they felt unable to say no to Durham because he held a position of power over them. None of them ever filed a formal complaint against him, and many told investigators they felt that doing so would hurt their careers.

An initial call for a special session to expel Durham fell well short of the required 66 House members' signatures last month. They got another chance to address the issue when Republican Gov. Bill Haslam hastily called an unrelated special session to repeal an underage drunken driving law that threatens to cost the state $60 million in federal road money.

The governor, who had joined other GOP leaders in calling on Durham to resign in recent months, praised the House's ouster vote.

Durham's actions have been a major focus of attention all year, beginning with reports that prosecutors had sought fraud charges against him for falsifying prescriptions, only to see the grand jury in his home county decline to indict him.

Durham's colleagues also questioned why he had written a letter on House stationery on behalf of a former pastor who pleaded guilty to child porn possession and statutory rape of a 16-year-old parishioner.

Palestinian rocket strikes Israel, Israel strikes CAIR-linked Hamas positions

Palestinian rocket strikes Israel, drawing Israeli reprisal

Gaza (Telephost) - Note the marked pro-Palestinian bias of the AP report: the focus on the Israeli retaliation, the mentioning of the 17-year-old wounded boy (what was he doing?), implying that the Israeli strikes were disproportionate, indiscriminate, and targeted at civilians, etc.

Only way down in the story do we hear that the rocket struck in an Israeli residential area — because the jihadis do actually target civilians. Nonetheless, it is clear from the report which side was the aggressor, as always.

The Israeli military carried out a series of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip late Sunday, targeting Hamas positions in response to a Palestinian rocket attack that hit an Israeli border town earlier in the day.

Palestinian Health Ministry official Ashraf al-Qidra said two Palestinians, including a 17-year-old boy, were lightly wounded.

Palestinian officials said nearly all of the airstrikes took place in northern Gaza, near the Israeli border. While most of the attacks targeted Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, one struck a military camp used by the smaller Islamic Jihad group.

Lt. Col Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said the operation was meant “to bring quiet to the people of southern Israel.” He accused Hamas of trying to “inflict pain, cause fear and to terrorize” Israelis in the middle of the summer vacation period.

Sunday’s rocket attack struck the Israeli border town of Sderot in the middle of the day and disrupted what has been a quiet summer in the volatile area. The rocket landed in a residential area, exploding next to a house. There were no injuries.

Israel responded quickly with airstrikes and tank fire, and then carried out a second round of airstrikes shortly before midnight….

Syrian army says it shot down Israeli warplane, drone

An Israeli tank takes part in a military exercise in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria

Damascus (Telephost) - Syria's military said Tuesday it shot down an Israeli warplane and a drone in response to an attack on Syrian army positions -- a claim denied by Israel.

"Our air defences blocked the attack and shot down the military aircraft in (the southern province of) Quneitra and a drone" in the province of Damascus, said the Syrian army statement carried by state news agency SANA.

It accused Israeli forces of supporting "armed terrorist groups" in the country's south.

The Israeli army said none of its aircraft had been downed overnight on Monday, as claimed by Syria, and it carried out fresh strikes against Syrian artillery positions on Tuesday night.

Both raids were in response to what appeared to be stray fire from fighting in Syria landing on the Israeli-held zone of the Golan Heights.

"At no point was the safety of (Israeli) aircraft compromised. Nothing true about what they claim," military spokesman Arye Shalicar said Tuesday.

He said that two surface-to-air missiles had been launched at Israeli aircraft overnight Monday.

An Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP that Monday's projectile was most likely spillover from "internal fighting in Syria."

It was the fourth such incident in nine days, and came as a new Syrian ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States came into force on Monday.

The initial 48-hour truce does not apply to areas held by jihadists such as the Islamic State group.

Israel has sought to avoid being drawn into Syria's complex war which is now in its sixth year, but it has attacked Syrian military targets when fire from the conflict spills over.