Colbert on Nunberg’s threat to Mueller: ‘You know he can arrest you, right?’

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9 Marzo 2018

Late-night hosts on Monday discussed former Trump aide Sam Nunberg’s bizarre appearances on cable news, the fallout from Trump’s tariffs and the 2018 Oscars.

Stephen Colbert

“Right before we taped the show the entire news cycle jumped on the bus to Crazy Town,” said Stephen Colbert. “At the wheel: former Trump campaign aide and guy-telling-the-stripper-how-much-he-loves-his-kids Sam Nunberg.”

“Here’s what happened: Robert Mueller issued a subpoena to Nunberg to get him to testify about the Russia investigation,” Colbert explained. “And not only did Nunberg say he won’t show up; he was planning to go on Bloomberg TV and tear up the subpoena.”

But before that happened, Colbert explained, Nunberg called into MSNBC’s Katy Tur for a strange interview in which he explained he would not comply with Mueller’s subpoena because he does not want to take the time going over his emails with Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and Hope Hicks. Nunberg added that it “would be funny” if he was arrested or held in contempt of court for his refusal to comply.

“Nunberg seemed to acknowledge how far he was flying off the handle here,” Colbert added, showing a clip from the interview in which Nunberg says “my lawyer’s gonna dump me”.

Colbert went on: “Nunberg took over cable news like a car chase. He was on MSNBC at 2.45, CNN at 3.30 and CNN again at four o’clock. I believe at five he called into HGTV to incriminate himself on Flip or Flop. I’m pretty sure after Mueller gets through with him, it’s gonna be flip.”

The host also showed footage of Nunberg saying the Russia investigation was caused by Donald Trump “because he’s an idiot”, and then showed a statement Nunberg made to the Washington Post that read, “Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me.”

In one of his final cable news appearances, Nunberg said defiantly, “I’m not cooperating; arrest me.”

“You know Mueller can arrest you, right?” Colbert asked. “That’s like saying ‘Eat me’ to Hannibal Lecter.”

Trevor Noah

Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah addressed the Republican pushback to Trump’s idea of imposing tariffs.

“Unsurprisingly, a lot of people were against Trump’s idea to impose tariffs on every nation in the world,” Noah said. “But the strongest opposition came from within the president’s own party.”

Noah showed footage of senators Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham voicing their opposition on cable news.

“Am I the only person who still thinks it’s weird that lawmakers have to go on TV just so they can speak directly to their president?” Noah said. “It’s only a matter of time before lobbyists start planting their agendas inside Happy Meals. Because you know Trump will find it.”

The host went on to explain that economists warn starting a trade war could increase the cost of living for Americans. “The problem is that when America imposes a tariff like this, other countries could retaliate and then things escalate,” Noah said, explaining that other countries have already stated plans to tax US goods like Harley-Davidson, Levi’s jeans and Jim Beam.

“It starts with steel and aluminum, and now we’re up to whiskey and jeans,” the host quipped. “You’d think Trump getting all these bad Yelp reviews on his tariffs idea would make him think twice, but joke’s on you. He doesn’t think once.” The host then showed Trump’s tweet, in which he says “trade wars are good and easy to win”.

“The truth is, trade wars aren’t easy to win,” Noah said, mentioning the pitfalls of George Bush’s steel tariffs and Barack Obama’s tire tariffs. “Even if it’s bad policy, America could be headed for a trade war. To be honest, of all the wars we thought Trump could get us into – nuclear war, race war – a trade war is the least bad option.”

Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted Sunday night’s Oscars, discussed the show.

“We had a long night last night,” he began. “The show is a lot of work. It’s a monster production.”

Kimmel went on to thank a multitude of people who helped the show come to life, “especially … my amazing and talented writing staff who put in months of hard work and late nights to write not only the Academy Awards but this over-congratulatory statement I am currently reading”.

Kimmel went on to share various anecdotes from the show, about the jet ski awarded to the winner with the shortest acceptance speech and the hot dog cannon built for Kimmel’s mid-show visit to a movie theatre across the way.

“Best picture went to The Shape of Water. Shape of Water, if you have not seen it, is a love story between a mute woman who eats a lot of hard-boiled eggs and a fish man with magic powers who also eats hard-boiled eggs,” the host explained. “And the most remarkable thing is Guillermo del Toro wrote this movie before marijuana became legal in California for recreational use.”

Kimmel then brought up best actress winner Frances McDormand, whose Oscar was reportedly stolen after she set it down on a table at an after party. “After the guy snatched it, he did the smart thing,” Kimmel joked. “He immediately made a video of himself and posted it on Facebook.”

“So then he was arrested for grand theft, which is a felony,” the host concluded. “I would rather steal from Mike Tyson than Frances McDormand. She’ll beat your ass.”

Source https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/06/colbert-nunberg-mueller-investigation-trevor-noah-kimmel-round-up

Minimum wage: football clubs and Wagamama among worst underpayers

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Nimda

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9 Marzo 2018

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Wagamama, TGI Fridays, Marriott Hotels and Karen Millen are among the companies named and shamed by the government for failing to pay the legal minimum wage.

The latest list, published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, names 179 employers for failing to pay a record 9,200 workers £1.1m collectively.

Underpayers also include the football clubs Stoke City and Birmingham City, the rugby union club London Irish, as well as hairdressers, cafes and car wash firms. The restaurant groups Wagamama, TGI Fridays and the fashion retailer Karen Millen, all said the underpayments related to uniform costs.

Wagamama, which had to repay £133,212 to 2,630 workers, making it the worst offender in the latest naming and shaming list, said there had been an “inadvertent misunderstanding” of how minimum wage regulations applied to uniforms.

“In the past we didn’t realise that asking our front-of-house staff to wear casual black jeans or a skirt, with their Wagamama branded top, was considered as asking them to buy a form of uniform and so we should have paid them for it. Lots of other businesses were also unaware of this regulation around casual wear,” a spokesperson said. “We have gladly made payments to current and previous employees who missed out, dating back from 2016 to 2013. We have also updated our uniform policy and we now pay a uniform supplement to cover the black jeans.”

TGI Fridays, which recently faced criticism over a proposal to redistribute card tips from waiters to kitchen staff in lieu of a wage increase, repaid £59,348 to 2,302 workers in relation to asking them to purchase black shoes as part of a uniform.

Karen Millen, which had to repay £9,847 to 28 workers, or nearly £352 each, said an HMRC audit in 2016 had revealed that a number of staff were paid less than the minimum wage because they were required to wear the fashion brand’s clothing, purchased at a discount.

It said: “We acted quickly to remedy the situation, including arranging to reimburse affected staff and updating our wardrobe policy to ensure there could be no reoccurrence of the issue.”

Marriott Hotels was the second-worst offender on the government list, having to repay £71,723 to 279 workers. It said some hotels had deducted charges for live-in accommodation or late-night taxis from wages, taking their pay below the minimum wage. “We have since updated our payroll system so that this cannot happen again and reimbursed all impacted associates,” a spokesperson said.

The worst non-payer per member of staff, according to the government list, was Hazelwood House, a bed and breakfast near Kingsbridge, in Devon, which underpaid three workers by an average of £16,096 each. The company was not available for comment.

Stoke City, which repaid £1,103 to seven workers, said the underpayment related to an historic practice of allowing staff to pay for tickets and club merchandise via deductions from their monthly salaries.

It said an HMRC audit had found it complied with national minimum wage regulations between 2012 and 2017, apart from these voluntary deductions which are no longer permitted. “As a result, the reported breach will not recur and the club is confident that we are now fully compliant with all current regulations,” a Stoke City spokesperson said.

The business minister, Andrew Griffiths, said: “There are no excuses for short-changing workers. This is an absolute red line for this government, and employers who cross it will get caught – not only are they forced to pay back every penny but they are also fined up to 200% of wages owed. Today’s naming round serves as a sharp reminder to employers to get their house in order ahead of minimum wage rate rises on 1 April.”

The legal minimum wage for over-25s will rise from £7.50 to £7.83 an hour next month, and the business department is aiming to publicise the new rates to workers and employers.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/09/minimum-wage-marriott-hotels-and-wagamama-among-worst-underpayers

‘All that, for that?’ – PSG and Emery digest another Champions League exit

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Nimda

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9 Marzo 2018

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“All that, for that?” read L’Équipe’s damning headline on Wednesday morning. On a night when the team’s fans had done their best to create a raucous, fiery atmosphere, evincing their belief in a comeback for their side, Paris Saint-Germain unequivocally let their supporters down. Overturning Real Madrid’s 3-1 lead from the previous leg was always going to be a tall order, and the loss of Neymar to injury was also a not inconsiderable obstacle, even if his replacement, Ángel Di María had been in form of late. However, it was not the elimination itself that stung the most, even after a summer in which the club had spent the better part of €400m, but rather its insipid manner.

The most expensively assembled team in the history of football collapsed with barely a whimper, unless Marco Verratti’s dismissal for dissent shortly after the hour can be considered. Much like the first leg, there was a chaotic feel to the match, particularly in its opening moments, but unlike three weeks ago, this was never an encounter decided by fine margins, even as most of the players and Unai Emery stumbled over themselves to take the blame in the aftermath.

Thiago Silva, back as captain after having been dropped in the first leg, offered a frank statement to redouble his belief in Emery and emphasise that haste was not the necessary response, even at such a frustrating juncture.

“It is a shame after the competition we had produced up until now. It is hard for us and the fans,” he said. “We need to concentrate on coming out of this situation. Changes, now is not the right time to talk about that. But it is not the manager’s fault. Those who play are the players. He had to make difficult choices. It is not his fault. We stand together with him. We need to continue, to pick ourselves up and continue.”

Silva’s words may sound like toeing the company line, and to a large extent, the Brazilian’s thoughts echoed those of his manager, who was similarly both elusive and lugubrious when pressed on his own future after the match. “Today, I’m not thinking about that. We all want to win the Champions League quickly. PSG need to digest this disappointment but it’s certain that we will continue with patience to build a team that will win in the future. It’s a process in time but I’m sure PSG will win it.”

Julian Draxler offered a dissenting opinion, with the German winger telling ZDF after the match: “When we equalised, we needed to bring something else in. We needed to continue to push, to go forward. I do not know what happened, I was surprised and a bit annoyed. The goal at 1-1 changed nothing for us. I felt like we needed to continue to press and play attacking football. Real Madrid were playing slowly, calmly. We moved the ball around but you cannot win by just doing that.”

The opinion of Draxler, who would have been nailed on to start this match had it been played a year ago, must surely be taken with a grain of salt, but parsing these various views to get at the heart of what ails PSG is nevertheless important. Silva, in saying it was not the manager’s fault, was correct, even as there have been raised eyebrows over Emery’s decision to drop Layvin Kurzawa, and his substituting of Kylian Mbappé in the match’s waning stages.

But Draxler’s comments have some merit even if his own selfish metrics do not apply. Given the attacking propensity of Marcelo, was it really wise to start the 34-year-old Dani Alves against him? Could Emery really not rouse a more determined and focused performance from his squad? After Real Madrid had weathered an intense start to the match, PSG, having not scored, dropped their heads, losing the determination necessary to succeed in a match of this magnitude.

That loss soon became mixed with frustration after they conceded, and if Verratti’s dismissal was the most readily apparent manifestation of that, the Italian was far from alone. PSG’s players by and large reverted to individualistic displays, seemingly lacking confidence in their team-mates and their manager’s tactics.

Perhaps each player wanted to turn in the sort of heroic individual display that Neymar has offered so often in the past, but they would have been better served by remembering that all of his step-overs and feints had amounted to next to nothing in the first leg.

While a show of unity may not have been enough for them to progress, a resolute performance would have warded off the excoriation the team now face. Despite the (mostly) united front afterwards, it was a lack of that same quality on the pitch that undid PSG. No matter the manager, the transfer fees, or the personnel, until this side learn the value of playing together, success will continue to elude them against the world’s best sides.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/mar/07/psg-emery-champions-league-exit-real-madrid-paris-saint-germain

Condition of police officer who helped Russian spy Sergei Skripal improves

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Nimda

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9 Marzo 2018

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The police officer who first came to the aid of the former Russian spy and his daughter after they were suspected of being poisoned by a nerve agent is talking to the authorities after his condition improved.

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said he remained in a serious condition in hospital in Salisbury. Speaking after getting a morning briefing from the counter-terrorist police chief in charge of the investigation, Rudd said she was “more hopeful” about the officer’s health than the principal victims: the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33.

In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Rudd said: “I’ve spoken to Mark Rowley this morning. The two targets are still in a very serious condition. The policeman is talking and is engaging, so I’m more optimistic for him. But it is too early to say. This is a nerve agent. We are still treating it as very serious.”

Speaking later on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Rudd said the officer was not in intensive care, but his condition was serious.

She also suggested that experts had identified the substance involved in what she described as a “very, very serious attack”. But she refused to be specific. “For now all we are going to say is that it is a nerve agent … It is very rare,” she said.

On Wednesday Rowley said all three victims were suffering from “exposure to a nerve agent”.

Detectives believe the Skripals were specifically targeted in a deliberate act, Rowley added.

Rudd said detectives had divided the investigation into three separate sites: the Skripals’ Salisbury home; the city’s Mill pub, where they had been drinking; and the Zizzi restaurant where they had eaten before collapsing on a park bench.

Unlike in the case of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned with a slow-acting radioactive cup of tea, detectives got to the scene in Salisbury quickly. Hundreds of officers were now working around the clock, Rowley said. They were examining CCTV footage from the city centre and building a detailed timeline of events, he added.

Rudd, who is due to give a Commons update on the incident later on Thursday, refused to be drawn on whether Russia was responsible.

She said: “Whatever attribution takes place in the future we have to make sure we have all the evidence. The key thing is to have a cool head and allow [those investigating the incident] to continue that job, which they are doing with speed and with detail and with the support of professionalism we can expect.”

Asked if she believed if this was a Russian assassination attempt, Rudd said: “I’m determined to wait before any attribution [is made] until we have the facts. I’m completely confident that the police will be able to get that.”

Asked if the government was considering expelling Russian diplomats, Rudd said: “The government has a range of options, including people, including sanctions, including other things it can do, but at the moment we are not really speculating on what those are.”

She added: “There were lessons to be learned from Litvinenko … One of the things that has been learned from that particularly nasty incident is that we have to be absolutely meticulous about collecting the evidence, not responding to rumour but to fact. There is nothing soft about this approach, it’s about being absolutely clear about getting the evidence.”

Asked how the nerve agent was manufactured and brought into the UK, Rudd said: “These are all questions that I will want answered.”

The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, told the programme that Russia was “becoming an ever-greater threat”.

He added: “Russia’s changing the way they actually fight and raise the level of conflict. We are seeing this in the north Atlantic as well – the amount of submarines that are operating, there’s a tenfold increase in the last seven years.

“Russia’s being assertive, Russia’s being more aggressive, and we have to change the way that we deal with it because we can’t be in a situation in these areas of conflict where we are being pushed around by another nation.”

But Williamson declined to say whether he held Russia responsible for the attack in Salisbury, saying only: “What’s happened is absolutely disgusting and it is so important we give the police the space and opportunity to do a proper and thorough investigation.”

He paid tribute to the police officer who went to the Skripals’ aid as “someone who is doing their public duty, keeping Britain safe and has become a victim of this dreadful, dreadful attack”.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/08/russian-spy-condition-of-police-officer-who-helped-sergei-skripal-improves

Ghouta aid convoy postponed amid chemical attack fears

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Nimda

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8 Marzo 2018

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An aid convoy planned to bring assistance to besieged civilians in eastern Ghouta has been postponed, as monitors said a suspected chemical attack had hit the Syrian rebel enclave amid heavy fighting.

“The convoy for today is postponed as the situation is evolving on the ground, which doesn’t allow us to carry out the operation in such conditions,” Ingy Sedky, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said.

The joint convoy between the ICRC, UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent was expected to deliver aid to the main town of Douma on Thursday.

The trucks were instead parked on the edges of eastern Ghouta, at the government-controlled Wafideen checkpoint, Agence France-Presse reported.

Syrian government forces on Wednesday in effect divided the besieged enclave in two, further squeezing rebels and the tens of thousands of civilians trapped inside. Syrian state media said troops took control of the town of Beit Sawa and most of Misraba, both rebel-held communities in the heart of the enclave.

The government, determined to wrest the suburbs from the control of rebels after seven years of war, has resorted to extreme levels of shelling and bombardment to clear the way for its troops to advance on the ground.

At least 87 civilians were killed on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Dozens of people were also treated for breathing difficulties after airstrikes hit eastern Ghouta late on Wednesday, the monitor said, with medics reporting symptoms consistent with a toxic attack.

The observatory said at least 60 people in the rebel enclave were left struggling to breathe after airstrikes and barrel bombs hit the towns of Saqba and Hammuriyeh.

Doctors at one medical facility said they treated at least 29 patients with signs of exposure to chlorine, according to the Syrian American Medical Society (Sams). It did not report any deaths but said it was likely that more victims were being treated at other clinics.

“Due to chlorine attack in EastGhouta, patients are struggling w/symptoms such as severe dyspnea, sweating, congestion of mucus membranes, severe runny nose, wheezing & conjunctival erythema,” Sams wrote on social media.

“The emotional trauma from these attacks can not be measured.”

Regime forces have been repeatedly accused of using chlorine on eastern Ghouta in recent weeks, which the government and its ally Russia have denied.

UN investigators say government forces used chlorine as a weapon at least three times between 2014 and 2015, as well as sarin gas in 2016.

The postponement of the aid convoy marks the second time this week that desperately needed aid operations to eastern Ghouta have been disrupted by military developments.

On Monday, 46 trucks of assistance entered the area in the first aid provision since a new offensive against the enclave began on 18 February – but they had to cut their deliveries short and leave due to heavy bombardment.

Nearly half of the food aid could not be delivered while the UN said Syrian authorities removed some medical and health supplies from the trucks.

Eastern Ghouta has been besieged since 2013, making food, medicine, and other daily goods difficult to access. Aid deliveries into the area require permissions from all warring sides.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/ghouta-syria-aid-convoy-postponed-chemical-attack

Italy’s voters ditch the centre and ride a populist wave

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Nimda

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5 Marzo 2018

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About 50% of Italians who voted in national elections on Sunday supported populist parties that were once considered fringe, according to preliminary results released by the interior ministry.

The most likely result of the national election seemed either a win by the centre-right coalition headed by Silvio Berlusconi, the 81-year-old former prime minister, or a hung parliament in which populist parties – the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the xenophobic Northern League – would have considerable influence in the creation of a new government.

The ruling centre-left Democratic party has already admitted defeat after coming in third according to projections. “This is a very clear defeat for us,” said minister Maurizio Martina. “We are expecting a result below our expectations … This is very clearly a negative result for us.”

Andrea Marcucci, one of the party’s senators in the outgoing parliament, wrote on his Facebook page: “Voters have spoken very clearly and irrefutably. The populists have won and the Democratic party has lost.”

The preliminary results showed Berlusconi’s coalition – which includes the Northern League – winning about 37% of the vote, a result that could potentially help the billionaire media magnate clinch a fourth election victory under a complicated Italian election law.

Analysts were also poring over early data that suggested another potential political upset: Matteo Salvini, the firebrand head of La Lega – as the Northern League is now known – beating out Berlusconi within the centre-right coalition.

Under a “gentleman’s agreement”, whoever emerges as the winner between the two will choose the next prime minister, if the coalition were to win a majority.

Berlusconi is not eligible to serve personally because of a previous tax conviction, but said he would choose Antonio Tajani, the European parliament president, as prime minister.

Two facts seemed indisputable: that Italian voters, who have traditionally been risk-averse, were ready to ditch the big mainstream parties, and that the centre-left party headed by Matteo Renzi had an abysmal election.

“The results are still very unclear,” said Giovanni Orsina, a politics professor at Luiss University in Rome. “The odds are still that there is no majority in parliament. But what is clear is that the centre left were punished. Italians didn’t buy the story of Italy getting better. At least the majority of them did not.”

The Italian economy has significantly improved in since the dark days of the 2011 economic crisis and the PD has taken strong – and controversial – measures to try to stem the flow of migrants into Italy in recent months, but the party was hammered regardless – in part because of the prevailing view that Renzi is out of touch, untrustworthy, and that change has not happened fast enough under his leadership.

Whatever the final outcome, exit polls and partial results appeared to reveal a monumental shift in a majority of Italian voters.

If the centre-right fails to clinch a majority, then the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party that was founded nine years ago by former comedian Beppe Grillo, will emerge as the single most powerful party in Italy and decisive in a future coalition, having won up to 31% of the vote, according to early results that were not yet final.

Among other controversial views, the Five Star has expressed deep reservations about the euro – until recently it promised to call a referendum on Italy’s participation in the eurozone – questioned Italy’s role in Nato, and does not support mandatory vaccinations.

In the likely event of a hung parliament, there are several parliamentary combinations that could be cobbled together to win a majority of seats, many of which would pair unlikely bedfellows.

Under some scenarios, the Five Star Movement could combine with the Democratic party to get to above 50%.

“Building a majority in parliament will be hard if not impossible. An extended period of horse-trading among the parties is next,” said Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst at Teneo Intelligence. Parliamentary maths could also allow a majority to emerge through a combination of the Five Star Movement and the Northern League.

But Piccoli said chances of such a coalition deal were “very low”. While both parties are eurosceptic, pro-Kremlin, and anti-free trade, the Northern League’s view are far to the right, particularly on the migration issue, while many Five Star voters identify with the Italian left.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/italys-voters-ditch-the-centre-and-ride-a-populist-wave

Shockwaves in Paris as Riccardo Tisci named new Burberry designer

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Nimda

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1 Marzo 2018

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Imagine the Queen announcing that the palace corgis were being retired in favour of a pack of rottweilers, and you get an idea of the surprise at Paris fashion weekas news travelled down the front row that Riccardo Tisci would take over design duties from Christopher Bailey at Burberry.

Burberry is best known for its classic trenchcoats. Riccardo Tisci made shark teeth and nose ring motifs at Givenchy, the label which he designed for 12 years until January 2017. At Givenchy, Tisci took a Parisian house best known for its links with Audrey Hepburn and put smoking, burnt-out wrecks of cars on the catwalk, Kardashians in the front row, and emeralds dangling from the septums of models.

Burberry champions British traditions, and dressed a smiling Duchess of Cambridge for last year’s Vogue cover. Tisci is known for darkly subversive, unapologetically sexual, deeply urban, boundary-pushing fashion and talked Kanye West into wearing a black leather kilt during his 2011 Watch the Thrones tour.

The announcement indicates Gobbetti intends a root and branch overhaul of Burberry’s brand image. He has an impressive track record: after the re-energisation of Givenchy alongside Tisci, he moved to Celine, where he masterminded the transformation of that brand into a profitable and agenda-setting star of Paris fashion week.

Gobbetti has already jangled shareholder nerves at Burberry by indicating that he intends to reposition the brand to be more upmarket. “By reenergising our product and customer experience to establish our position firmly in luxury, we will play in the most rewarding, enduring section of the market,” he said in a statement. The appointment of Tisci to a role where many were expecting a British appointment is a bold move, but analysts cannot fail to be impressed by Tisci and Gobbetti’s joint history of commercial success at Givenchy, where stores did a brisk business in crisp modern tailoring and sleek black leather handbags during their tenure.

Tisci will bring a mass audience, and a youthful following, to Burberry. He was the designer of Kim Kardashian’s wedding dress for her marriage to Kanye West, of the leather hot pants and thigh-high boots worn by Rihanna on her Diamonds world tour in 2013, and of Beyonce’s latex gown at the 2016 Met Gala. He will be based in London, where he last lived during the 1990s as a student at Central St Martins.

Tisci has been ahead of the curve in almost all of the most important ways fashion has shifted over the last decade. He has a longstanding love of streetwear. He pioneered the sweatshirt as a statement fashion piece during his tenure at Givenchy, and is a respected designer of trainers, partnering with Nike for a long-running collaboration.

When Tisci began putting the Givenchy slogan onto sweatshirts, critics sniped that it was moving a storied brand downmarket, but now that streetwear brands are power players – the New York based skatewear label Supreme was recently valued at $1bn – the alignment looks impressively prescient.

One standout line from Burberry’s announcement notes that Tisci’s “skill in blending streetwear with high fashion is highly relevant to today’s luxury consumer”. His spring/summer 2013 collection was one of many Givenchy shows which experimented with religious imagery, a theme which has stayed in the fashion consciousness since. In two months’ time, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination will open at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Androgyny and gender fluidity are also recurring themes in Tisci’s collections, and he has championed the career of Lea T, who became the first transgender model to land a major beauty contract when she signed for Redken in 2014. Tisci employed Lea as an assistant and fit model, and cast her in a Givenchy advertising campaign in 2010.

In the year since Tisci left Givenchy, rumour had persistently linked him with Versace. His close friendship with Donatella, and the fierce, unapologetically sexual aesthetic which he shares with her, led many to believe he was being lined up as her successor.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/01/burberry-names-riccardo-tisci-to-replace-star-designer-christopher-bailey

What is the best Oscar-winning film of all time?

By

Nimda

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1 Marzo 2018

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The best film! Of all the awards, this is the one most drenched in glory – and hubris. It comes at the end of a long night, and it’s the one most keenly anticipated by the producers themselves who now have their moment of glory as the people for whom this award represents years of agonising work and instances of what Jerry Maguire called the “up-at-dawn pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about”. For the winner, it is a moment of euphoria and exhaustion, which last year Warren Beatty did his best to make as chaotic as possible, with Faye Dunaway, by accidentally awarding best picture to La La Land, when it should have gone to Moonlight. It is a measure of the suppressed hysteria that Oscar night engenders that this egregious cockup is the subject of its very own “truther” conspiracy – a theory that it was deliberately contrived to boost ratings. Looking down the list, it is disconcerting to see how many favourites and classics were not in fact rewarded with the best picture statuette. But there are quite a few that are, and here are some mouthwatering examples.

Rebecca

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca was the great man’s Hollywood debut; he was brought to the US by the shrewd David O Selznick, who effectively placed a crown on his head. The movie is stylishly adapted from the Daphne du Maurier novel by Robert E Sherwood and Joan Harrison. It is a gripping romantic mystery with superb performances from Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier — and an influence, incidentally, on Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film Phantom Thread. Olivier is the saturnine widower Max de Winter who marries Fontaine’s shy and mousy lady’s companion and brings her back to his magnificent Cornish home, which is all but haunted by his first wife: Rebecca. There is a terrible secret in this house, connected to the creepy housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, unforgettably played by Judith Anderson.

Casablanca

Virile, passionate, patriotic: these adjectives apply to the male lead of Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, as well as to the movie itself. It is that rare beast: a second world war picture that came out in the middle of the war, when the outcome of the war in Europe was far from clear. Humphrey Bogart is Rick, the tough American bar-owner in Vichy-controlled Morocco, secretly nursing a broken heart. Of all the gin joints, she has to walk into his – Ilse, played by Ingrid Bergman, the resistance leader’s wife he fell in love with in Paris, when the Nazis were moving in. The movie’s fierce anti-Nazi ethic is glorious, the dialogue crackles along and the romance is gorgeous. Find yourself watching the opening moments on TV and you have to stay to the end, no matter how often you’ve seen it before.

On the waterfront

With its sheer artistry, muscular idealism, and the passionate intensity of the acting — along with Leonard Bernstein’s bright, clamorous orchestral score — Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront is a true classic. Marlon Brando’s wonderfully uninhibited performance set a gold standard for the new method style of acting. He and the movie in general are an obvious inspiration for Scorsese’s Raging Bull. Brando is Terry Malloy, a washed-up boxer now casually employed at the docks – a crooked closed shop controlled by mobster union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J Cobb). Terry has a cushy deal taking pay for no work, because he’s the kid brother of Friendly’s top consigliere, Charley Malloy (Rod Steiger). But people who talk to the cops get whacked and Terry is secretly sickened by the murders that he has connived at – and at the way his brother betrayed him at the beginning of his boxing career. Hollywood history has given this film a patina of tragedy and irony: Terry wonders if he has the moral courage to name names for the authorities and later, Kazan would be pilloried for doing that during the McCarthyite era. At any rate, On the Waterfront is an operatic masterpiece.

The apartment

Romantic comedy is a genre now synthesised and commodified into something very predictable. But Billy Wilder’s The Apartment is a masterly mix of material that is both funny and romantic – with a uniquely charming and accessible male lead in Jack Lemmon. He is the put-upon salaryman in New York who has been bullied by his boss into lending out his apartment for this sleazebag’s extramarital liaisons. Meanwhile, he is falling in love with a heartbreakingly pretty elevator operator, played by Shirley MacLaine. It’s a smart and sophisticated big-city satire with a heart of authentic gold.

The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather was the high point of the American new wave and revived the reputation of Hollywood itself. Like Spielberg’s Jaws, it brilliantly took a pulpy format and supercharged it with meaning and intensity. Brando is the ailing Vito Corleone, presiding over a postwar mafia clan; his sons are coming to terms with what their own destinies are to be when he goes. Al Pacino is Michael Corleone, the decorated war veteran who appears to want nothing to do with his toxic family inheritance. The secrecy, the dysfunction, the fear and self-hate which is transformed into fanatical dedication – it is all here. The mafiosi behave like soldiers in a war movie, only it is peacetime and the battle is on home soil. A magnificent achievement, aspiring to an almost Shakespearean grandeur.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Kirk Douglas played the role on Broadway, but when it came to the movie version, his producer son Michael took the decision to cast the young hotshot Jack Nicholson and the rest is film history. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was directed by Milos Forman and adapted by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman from the Ken Kesey novel. Nicholson plays Mac McMurphy, a small-time crook sent down for statutory rape who by playing up his natural craziness gets what he thinks is a cushy transfer to a psychiatric facility, where he leads a revolt of the patients against the system. A fascinating film, soaked in the anti-establishment zeitgeist. Louise Fletcher gives a great performance in the chilling, but complex role of Nurse Ratched.

Annie Hall

This is a difficult time to be remembering the brilliance of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Objection to his personal life has reached a critical mass, largely due to the recent TV interview that Dylan Farrow gave, effectively introducing a new generation to her original abuse allegations from 1992. However, no legal proof has been established, and Moses Farrow has crucially offered his own complicating testimony. It could be argued that, whatever we think, the reputation of Allen has now been so clouded that, like it or not, Annie Hall has ceased to be funny. I personally think it would be absurd now to airbrush this film out of history and behave as if we never had time for it. It is his fictionalised account of his lost romance with Diane Keaton, and it is a film that pretty well invented the relationship comedy, as well as giving birth to Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Girls. And it’s an ancestor of the work of Charlie Kaufman. Annie Hall has lost its innocence, but not its brilliance.

Schindler’s List

Schindler’s List was a powerful and deeply honourable film for Steven Spielberg, an adaptation of the Thomas Keneally book, and an intensely felt attempt to find the possibility of hope in the very heart of darkness itself: the Nazi concentration camp. It is the true story of the German businessman Oskar Schindler, played with dignity and presence by Liam Neeson, a mercenary cynic who entered a mysterious state of grace and saved over a thousand Jews from death. The young Ralph Fiennes plays the unspeakable camp commander Amon Goeth and Ben Kingsley is Schindler’s bookkeeper Stern. The emotionally exhausting three-hour-plus movie is throughout (mostly) in black-and-white, often using handheld shots with Spielberg in personal charge of the camera.

No country for Old men

Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic western thriller No Country for Old Men was filmed with passion and style by the Coen brothers: a dark and disquieting Texan movie to compare with their debut, Blood Simple. Tommy Lee Jones is the impassive sheriff, who sets off on the trail of the good ol’ boy (Josh Brolin) who has chanced upon and fled with a bag of $2m of criminals’ money. On his trail also is the deeply creepy killer tasked with recovering this loot for the bad guys: the bizarre Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem. It’s bleakly funny and exciting, but also terrifying in its presentiments of pure evil.

Moonlight

Bizarre announcement cockups from Beatty and Dunaway to one side, Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight is a remarkable Oscar achievement: a film of real artistry and form, combined with emotional power. It’s a triptych portrait of a young gay black man, played by three different actors as a kid, a teen and then a young man: an almost Tolstoyan sense of childhood, boyhood and youth. Moonlight is about the nature of masculinity, conditioned by the determinant factors of race, class – and sexuality. Its rendering of time and the vicissitudes of identity are complex and enigmatic, but deeply moving at the same time.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/01/what-is-the-best-oscar-winning-film-of-all-time-casablanca-the-godfather-moonlight

European parliament rejects UK’s Brexit transition proposals

By

Nimda

-

1 Marzo 2018

0

The European parliament has issued an embarrassing snub to Theresa May’s concessions over EU migrants, rejecting the UK’s offer in a move that casts fresh doubt on the prospect of reaching an agreement on the transition period by March.

Despite previously insisting during a trip to China that she wanted to treat EU nationals arriving during the transition period differently from those already in the country, the prime minister appeared to have responded to pressure to backtrack in the hope of sealing an agreement on the terms of the 21-month cushion after Brexit.

But at a meeting of the European parliament’s Brexit steering group on Wednesday evening, led by the former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, MEPs concluded that the UK had not gone far enough.

Verhofstadt said in a statement that the UK’s position was unacceptable to the parliament, which will have a right to veto any withdrawal agreement.

The body was unhappy with the UK’s revised proposal, under which EU migrants who come to live and work in Britain during the transition period would still not have the same rights once it ends to bring family to join them as EU nationals already resident in Britain who have secured “settled status”. They would instead have to pass a minimum income threshold test.

The announcement will cast doubt on the prospects of reaching an agreement on the transition period by a European council summit at the end of March, as desired by the UK. The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has already warned in recent weeks that that goal is in doubt because of differences between the two sides.

Verhofstadt said: “We have taken note of the UK government policy statement and the clarification it provides for EU citizens who will go to the UK during the Brexit transition period and will in principle have the right to settle permanently in the UK.

“However, we cannot accept that there will be any form of discrimination between EU citizens who arrive before the start of the transition and after.

“The full European Union acquis [the accumulated legislation, legal acts and court decisions of the EU] must apply during any transition, including for citizens, and no differentiation can take place.”

However, the British government’s paper says EU migrants arriving during the transition period who wish to stay for the long term will also have to register within three months of arrival and their rights will only be enforceable in UK courts, and not through the European court of justice.

Verhofstadt said: “It can certainly not be the case that EU citizens arriving during any transition period are forced to accept a lower standard of rights, in particular those relating to family reunion, child benefits and access to judicial redress via the European court of justice.”

According to the UK’s paper, the concessions had been made because “it is important to provide certainty to business and those EU citizens who wish to move to the UK during the implementation period as to the terms under which they will be able to remain in the UK and make a life here once the period is over”.

The development, however, makes it less likely that the differences between the UK and the EU over the terms of the transition period can be settled in the next few weeks.

The UK has also not agreed with the proposed end date of 31 December 2020 or the EU’s proposals to keep the status quo on fisheries.

The government also wants a right to prevent new EU laws applying to the UK during the transition period if they could be shown to be harmful, something that is being resisted by Brussels.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/01/european-parliament-rejects-uks-brexit-transition-proposals

Common human skin bacteria could protect against cancer, say researchers

By

Nimda

-

1 Marzo 2018

0

A type of bacteria commonly found on human skin produces a substance that may help protect against skin cancer, researchers have revealed.

The scientists say the surprise discovery regarding a strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis highlights the importance of the community microbes found on and in the body in preventing disease.

While it is not clear whether the absence of this strain could increase the risk of skin cancer in individuals, the team say that it is possible the findings might one day lead to preventive treatments for patients.

“The presence of this strain may provide natural protection, or it might be used therapeutically to inhibit the growth of various forms of cancer,” said Prof Richard Gallo, a co-author of the research from the University of California, San Diego.

The finding was somewhat serendipitous. With previous research showing that chemicals produced by Staphylococcus species commonly found on healthy human skin can kill off certain harmful bacteria, the team looked at numerous strains to explore their antimicrobial powers.

Writing in the journal Science Advances, Gallo and colleagues describe how among their results, they discovered a strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis which produced a substance that killed off a type harmful bacteria responsible for infections such as strep throat. While it was not the only strain to do so, the chemical these microbes produced was unusual, boasting a structure similar to one of the key components of DNA, called adenine.

“The strain was originally detected in a screen for antimicrobial activity, but when we identified the nature of the chemical produced by this strain we proceeded with experiments to determine if it might have activity against tumours,” said Gallo.

The researchers found that the chemical, called 6-N-hydroxyaminopurine (6-HAP), hindered the production of DNA, with work in cell cultures revealing that 6-HAP prevents several types of tumour cells from growing and multiplying.

By injecting mice with this substance, the team found that 6-HAP is not toxic. However, when melanoma cells were introduced to mice, animals which had received 6-HAP intravenously ended up with tumours that were more than 60% smaller than those that had not received the substance.

The team also found application of the 6-HAP-producing strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis to the skin of mice appeared to greatly reduce both the number of pre-malignant skin tumours formed when the creatures were exposed to ultraviolet light, and number of mice affected, compared to those exposed to a strain that did not produce the substance.

While Staphylococcus epidermidis is commonly found on human skin, the team say about 20% of the healthy population is likely to have a strain which produces 6-HAP. “Our study found that it is common, but not on everyone,” said Gallo.

Julian Marchesi, professor of human microbiome research at Cardiff University who was not involved in the study, welcomed the findings.

“[This research] further adds to a growing understanding of how important the human microbiota, and in this case the skin microbiome, is to health. We have evolved to need these microbes and desperately need to understand all the roles they play in human biology and start to think more about what it is to be a human being,” he said. “The next stage of this exciting work, will be to translate it to human clinical trials and show that this bacterially produced chemical can protect the host from skin cancers.”

Source https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/28/common-human-skin-bacteria-could-protect-against-cancer-say-researchers

Stephen Colbert

Trevor Noah

Jimmy Kimmel

Rebecca

Casablanca

On the waterfront

The apartment

The Godfather

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Annie Hall

Schindler’s List

No country for Old men

Moonlight

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