Table of contents for V. 1305 in The Week

Chris Mills, an 18-year-old engineering student from Surrey, who won the Rubik’s Cube World Cup. In the “rescrambling” contest, which took place remotely this year, Mills managed to solve the puzzle in just 17.6 seconds. The Falkland Islands, which were finally declared mine-free, 38 years after the conflict ended. At the end of the ten-week war in 1982, British troops removed all the mines they had planted, but stopped looking for others after several of them were injured. Efforts to clear the remaining mines only restarted in 2009. British wine, after a vineyard in Herefordshire announced that it is producing the first British Beaujolais Nouveau. The Sixteen Ridges estate’s quick-fermented wine – paler, lighter-bodied and sweeter than non-nouveau wines – will go on sale this month.…

The Government suffered a heavy defeat in the House of Lords on Monday when peers voted by 433 to 165 to remove clauses in the Internal Market Bill designed to allow ministers to overrule parts of the EU Withdrawal Agreement. However, Boris Johnson vowed to reinstate them when the bill returns to the Commons next month. Labour has warned that the bill risks making the UK an “international pariah” – and that it will undermine UK relations with the new US president-elect, Joe Biden (see page 25).…

Leipzig, Germany Covid demonstration: As many as 20,000 people gathered in Leipzig last week to protest against Germany’s new lockdown restrictions. So-called Querdenken demonstrations, organised by self-described “lateral thinkers”, have been a feature of life in Germany for months; but they appear to be growing bigger, and angrier. Last week, demonstrators chanted “Merkel must go!” and “Peace, freedom, no dictatorship”, and many refused to comply with a police dispersal order, leading to violent clashes and numerous arrests. The media reported that far-right elements were involved, and that journalists reporting on the demonstration had also been attacked. Germany’s four-week partial lockdown, which began last week, does not prohibit public protests; however police said most of the demonstrators in Leipzig were not wearing masks, or complying with social distancing rules, despite being…

“What I hope for from this vaccine – and even writing these words feels a terrible tempting of fate – is nothing short of the whole world. I want to escape my country, my life, my stupid fretful self. I’m sick of nesting, brooding, cooking, overthinking, trying to mine novelty from the mundane. I long to be a foreigner, when not even going to the supermarket is dull, because in Reykjavík they sell vacuum-packed sheep’s heads, in Amsterdam cake sprinkles are a breakfast dish. There is no greater pleasure on Earth than a new city. Travel is not about bucket lists, but setting off after breakfast in a strange place not knowing what you’ll find.” Janice Turner in The Times…

A government obsessed with keeping secrets Ed Conway The Times Was it right to shut down England a second time? Maybe, says Ed Conway, but how can we tell? Boris Johnson said a lockdown was essential because the virus was “spreading even faster than the reasonable worst-case scenario of our scientific advisers”. Yet have they published that scenario? No. Those advisers don’t even seem to agree on what the worst-case scenario is. Imagine if the Bank of England failed to disclose the basis for any big decision it was making: there’d be hell to pay. Yet this government’s line seems to be: “suppress the scary data, provide occasional glimpses without full disclosure, then cite that murky data as the very basis of policy”. It beggars belief that, even now, the…

Has the Moon got a sibling? An asteroid spotted behind Mars could be the Moon’s long-lost “sibling”, scientists have claimed. The two-kilometre-wide body is a “Trojan” – a celestial object that shares a stable orbit with a larger body. This one is trapped in a “Lagrange point”, an area where the gravitational pull of two large bodies (Mars and the Sun, in this case) cancel each other out. It was first spotted 22 years ago, but astronomers have now examined it using data from the Very Large Telescope, in Chile’s Atacama desert – and found it looks remarkably like the Moon. “We looked at how it reflects light from the Sun... and what’s interesting is that the colour is more similar to the colour of the Moon than the colour…

Nothing in this Covid-affected football season has been business-as-usual, said Alyson Rudd in The Times. Just look at England’s top two sides. Such has been the dominance of Manchester City and Liverpool in recent years that nearly every match they’ve played has felt like a potential title-decider. Yet this season, their form has been “wobbly”, so when they met at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, the occasion felt a lot “less momentous” than normal. The “blisteringly enjoyable” first half soon put that to rights, said David Hytner in The Guardian. Liverpool came out “all guns blazing”, and took an early lead through Mohamed Salah. But with Kevin De Bruyne an increasingly influential presence, Pep Guardiola’s team “surged back into it” and drew level when Gabriel Jesus slotted the ball past…

Tennis Daniil Medvedev won the Paris Masters, defeating Alexander Zverev of Germany 5-7 6-4 6-1 in the final. The victory took the Russian to No. 4 in the rankings, overtaking Roger Federer. Golf Sergio García withdrew from the Masters in Augusta, Georgia, after testing positive for Covid-19. The Spaniard won there in 2017. Football Leicester went top of the Premier League after beating Wolves 1-0. Spurs are second, after a 1-0 victory over West Brom. Sheffield United are bottom of the table after losing 4-1 to Chelsea.…

Boris Johnson joked to aides last week that he felt upbeat about developing a special relationship with Joe Biden, as he was “one of the few world leaders I haven’t insulted”. The officials laughed, said Tim Shipman in The Sunday Times, but there is actually real concern in No. 10 about what Biden’s victory might mean for Britain. America’s new president-elect is no great fan of Johnson, whom he described last December as a “physical and emotional clone” of Donald Trump. Biden hasn’t forgiven the PM for writing, during the EU referendum, that his old boss Barack Obama’s decision to remove a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office was a “symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”. His vice-president-elect Kamala Harris apparently feels much…

Lethal home truths To The Times The Law Commission’s proposal to extend the jurisdiction of hate speech to private homes has unhappy parallels. In 1932, Soviet propaganda had it that a 13-year-old dedicated Young Pioneer, Pavlik Morozov, did the “right thing” by denouncing his father, Trofim, to the Stalinist authorities. Trofim was said to have been executed as a result. Members of Pavlik’s family, somewhat unhappy with this, then murdered the youth. In turn they were themselves executed. Pavlik was lauded in the USSR as a martyred hero, an example for Soviet youth to follow. Michael Olizar, London The devil in the details To the FT In your article “Tribal nature of contest leaves nation scarred”, you either betray a bias, or unwittingly play into the universal American media bias…

Book reviews don’t tend to go viral – but one published recently proved an exception. In The Irish Times, Barry Pierce subjected Dolly Alderton’s debut novel Ghosts (Fig Tree £14.99) to what “might just be one of the most brutal critiques ever written”, said Claire Toureille in the Daily Mail. Alderton’s tale of a 32-year-old food writer venturing into the world of online dating was dismissed by Pierce as a “rehashed version” of Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail, “without the charm, wit or timelessness”. The prose, he wrote, was “thick like mayonnaise”, while the “barbs and biting observations” were “as succinct as the tweets they were all recycled from”. Alderton’s skewering of dating apps, said Pierce, made Ghosts the “most culturally relevant novel of 2014”. The review prompted vigorous debate…

The drama of train travel, with its power and speed, sweeping landscapes and claustrophobic interiors, has long attracted film-makers. Here are five of the best films about trains currently available to stream online: The Lady Vanishes Leavening high tension with comedy and romance, Hitchcock’s 1938 thriller hinges on the disappearance of an old lady (May Whitty) on a train from eastern Europe. Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood are the plucky passengers trying to solve the mystery; Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne are hilarious as cricket-obsessed Englishmen abroad. Murder on the Orient Express Sidney Lumet’s star-studded 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel is the best of several versions. Albert Finney takes the part of Hercule Poirot, while the suspects include Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave.…

Tips of the week... keep children happy in lockdown ● Tell your children which rules are in place and why they are there. ● When plans are suddenly cancelled, it can be unsettling. If you involve children in planning new activities, it will help them feel more in control of events. ● Don’t breeze over their disappointment. Listen to how they feel, then try to help them find something positive to focus on. ● If children are stressed, breathing games can help. Try “finger breathing”: use the index finger on one hand to trace up and down the fingers on the other hand, breathing in and out as you go up and down. Do it with eyes closed several times. ● When children are worried, it is more important than…

John Sessions 1953-2020 John Sessions, who has died aged 67, came to prominence in the 1980s as one of the stars of the wildly popular comedy improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, said The Daily Telegraph. Audience members were invited to suggest themes, and the panellists would improvise skits around them. A man of astonishing erudition, Sessions excelled at visiting the dentist in the manner of Ernest Hemingway, or describing a day at the seaside in the style of James Joyce. But while some were awed by his wit, versatility and learning, others simply found him “insufferable”. In one episode, the panellists were asked to appear as the worst person to get stuck in a lift with, at which point Paul Merton stepped forward and, with a smirk, said:…

Markets globally celebrated news of the Pfizer-led Covid vaccine. The Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices – buoyed by the US election result – hit new all-time highs, as did the MSCI All-Country World Index on hopes this would mark a sea change for the global economy. The FTSE 100 enjoyed its best day since March. Brent crude jumped by 10%, its biggest intraday rise since May, as traders bet on a rebound in global demand. Prices of safe havens dropped: gold fell by 5% and yields on UK and US treasuries rose as investors sold safe government debt to move into riskier assets. In Britain, Chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the jobs furlough scheme until the end of March in response to the second national lockdown. The UK’s unemployment rate…

● Positive outlook “As the US election headed for a nail-biting and drawn-out conclusion” last week, “there was a decisive shift in financial market sentiment”, said Michael Mackenzie in the FT. In the lead-up to the vote, investors had been bullish about the prospect of a Democrat “blue wave” – winning both the White House and Congress. When that prospect receded, there was initial angst about a stalemate. But it didn’t last long. Markets were soon embracing the likelihood of a divided US government with gusto – focusing on the “positives for companies”, which include probable “constraints” on higher taxes and a reduced chance of “tougher regulatory threats” for Big Tech, banks, healthcare and energy companies. Overall, the major US indices put in their “best week since April”, reported The…

Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci When the founders of BioNTech picked a street called An der Goldgrube (At the Goldmine) in the German city of Mainz for their HQ, they little knew “how prophetic” the address would become, said Philip Oltermann in The Guardian. Following this week’s Covid vaccine breakthrough, the married scientists may now be worth £3bn: BioNTech’s US-listed shares shot up 23.4% on Monday, taking the company’s total value to $21.9bn. Since Dr Sahin (below left), 55, and Dr Türeci, 53, are both children of Turkish “guest workers”, their success, as the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel noted, was “balm for the soul” of Germans with Turkish roots – after decades of being stereotyped as lowly educated greengrocers. Still, the couple – who met at Homburg’s Saarland University Hospital, and…

Controversy of the week Trump fights on “Count all the votes. This shouldn’t be a remotely controversial proposition in a representative democracy,” said The New York Times. But in what was “one of the lowest, most disgraceful moments” of his four ignoble years in power, President Trump demanded that the counting stop. In the middle of election night last week, as his lead began to disappear, Trump asserted in a “rambling” speech that the election was being stolen, and that no more votes should be counted (except in states where he seemed to be catching up with Joe Biden). For years, the president has “fanned the flames of rage among his supporters and flooded American society with disinformation”. In his final act as president, he risks doing terrible damage to…

Kate Bingham, the venture capitalist appointed to head the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce, who was criticised for racking up a £670,000 bill with a PR firm. Bingham – who is married to the Treasury minister Jesse Norman – has also been criticised for allegedly disclosing “sensitive” information about the vaccine programme to a virtual conference of private equity managers (she denies this). She is due to stand down from the unpaid post next month. Johnny Depp, who revealed that he had been dropped from the J.K. Rowling-scripted Fantastic Beasts film franchise. The Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen is reportedly in talks about taking over the role of Gellert Grindelwald in the third instalment of the Harry Potter spin off.…

70% of Republicans do not believe the presidential election was “free and fair”. Before the election, however, only 35% thought it would not be free and fair. 90% of Democrats now say they feel the election was free and fair, up from 52% before the election. Politico/Morning Consult/ The Guardian Only 7% of British workers want to return to the office full-time after Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. 18% say they would now choose to work from home every day, and 32% say they’d like to be at home most days. YouGov/The Times 42% of 25- to 34-year-olds in Britain believe there is “a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together”. Hope not Hate/The Guardian…

Salem, Oregon Drug possession decriminalised: Oregon has become the first US state to decriminalise the possession in small quantities of hard drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. Citizens of the state voted for the amendment, known as Measure 110, at the same time as they cast their vote in the presidential election. Rather than face a year in jail and a maximum penalty of $6,250, those caught in possession will now pay a $100 fine and attend a free addiction programme – a penalty akin to that handed out for a speeding ticket. Those found with larger amounts of the drugs will face misdemeanour charges; those with commercial quantities will continue to face felony charges. The new treatment centres will be funded by tax revenues from marijuana, the use…

Japanese engineers have developed a new robotic hand that, say its creators, lets you “experience holding your girlfriend’s hand more easily than finding a girlfriend”. The Osampo Kanojo (“My girlfriend in walk”) device, created at Japan’s Gifu University, is covered with a soft pliable gel which feels like human skin. It responds in kind if you squeeze it, and gives off the fragrance of a woman’s shampoo. It can even sweat, emitting moisture through small pores, while the sounds of your virtual girlfriend’s steps and breathing play through an accompanying smartphone app. A father of six has paid homage to his children in a uniquely unsavoury way: by tattooing their names and pictures of their faeces down the back of his leg. The unnamed man proudly shared a picture of…

TANZANIA A brutal blow to African democracy Daily Maverick (Johannesburg) Democracy has been dealt a blow in what was, until recently, one of Africa’s most stable nations, says Phillip Van Niekerk. Tanzania has long been a peaceful outlier on a continent plagued by ethnic and political violence: a “high-growth economy” and a major tourist destination. But when President John Magufuli was elected in 2015, it began its descent into authoritarian rule. Five years of ruthless repression of the opposition culminated in October’s election, in which Magufuli claimed an implausible 84.4% of the vote. This was more than the “usual gripe about ‘irregularities’”. Ballots came pre-marked, boxes pre-stuffed. Police fired tear gas at supporters of Chadema, the opposition party led by Tundu Lissu – who was banned from the campaign trail…

There is evidence that native populations in North America once wove clothing from dog hair. In the early 19th century, a diarist described dogs travelling with members of the Cowichan tribe in British Columbia as “resembling [lambs] shorn of their wool”. Now, a study has suggested the practice dates back millennia. Researchers examined data on 170,000 ancient canine bones dug up from sites across the Pacific northwest, and found that the most common type of dog was a fluffy-haired, spitz-like variety that would have been about knee-high to a human. Since these dogs would not have been much good for hunting or pulling loads, the team has concluded that they must have been bred for their woolly coats. Arriving in North America from Eurasia some 11,000 years ago, the first…

Can anyone explain the Government’s decision to ban grass-roots sport during the second lockdown – and in particular, the vast majority of organised sport for children, asked Tom Morgan in The Daily Telegraph. For many, the regulations seem illogical and confusing. Why allow PE lessons to continue, for example, yet prohibit virtually all extracurricular sporting activities? As Alan Watkinson, part of the Active Movement scheme, puts it: “Schools are either safe environments or they are not.” It’s the poorest children who’ll be most harmed by these bemusing restrictions, said Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield in the same paper. The benefits after-school activities deliver, physical and mental, are needed more than ever in this strange and unfamiliar Covid world. Yet now many children “will be denied the opportunity to let off steam…

“If it happened today, we’d call it gaslighting,” said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian – manipulating a vulnerable person by playing on their “darkest suspicions”. Twenty-five years ago, Martin Bashir, a young reporter for BBC’s Panorama, secured a bombshell interview with Princess Diana, in which the most famous woman on the planet admitted in front of 23 million viewers that her marriage was over. “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” she said, referring to Prince Charles’s affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. It was a career-making scoop, but it seems Bashir won the interview by subterfuge. He’d been introduced to her by her brother, Earl Spencer, after showing him fake bank statements supposedly “proving” that Diana’s aides were being paid to spy on…

To The Times Your report “Guidance for care home visits could end them” spells out the disgraceful attitude of the Government. Residents in care homes have been deprived of the physical presence of family members for more than eight months. To maintain visits as they are now, at a distance through a glass screen, is to impress upon these people that they are no longer worthy of love. Many residents are bed-bound, suffer from end-stage dementia and are only comforted by the gentle, tender touch of those they know best. It seems extraordinary that the Government can introduce fast, universal Covid-19 testing for a whole city when it will not consider it universally, now, for care home visitors. As the wife of a seriously unwell resident, I and many others…

Grayson Perry’s “dead wood” “Has Grayson gone mad,” asked Artlyst. The cross-dressing celebrity potter is apparently pleased that the pandemic may clear away a bit of “dead wood” from the beleaguered art scene. “I think every part of life has probably got a bit of fat that needs trimming,” he told the Arts Society magazine in a recent interview. “It’s awful that the culture sector has been decimated, but I think some things needed to go.” With Covid, he said, “it’s been like turning a computer off and on again, and seeing which files reappear. Some of them we don’t really give a damn about.” His words provoked fury, in light of the “bleak picture” facing the art world, said Oliver Basciano in The Guardian. The Southbank Centre is cutting…

Eddie’s sure there’s more treasure at Brookfield and drags Will along to help him look with a metal detector. Disgusted to see others doing the same, he tells Ruth that word is out online about Brookfield. Lily enlists Johnny to suggest a Christmas show idea to Freddie, but Freddie figures out the ruse. Still, the idea has got the go-ahead and now he just needs volunteers. Ruth blames Ben for the treasure-hunting trespassers. To make amends, Ben says he’ll keep watch and later spots a suspicious-looking pick-up. Kirsty tells Shula that she and Philip want to move to Wales, but she’s still worried about Gavin; Shula advises giving Gavin some responsibility. Later, Philip forces Gavin to go to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting with Kirsty. Outside, Gavin admits he doesn’t have…

Salt & pepper: a condimental error? We tend to think of salt and pepper as natural allies, says Sue Quinn in The Sunday Times. When a recipe calls for “seasoning”, it usually means that both should be used. On dining tables, S&P shakers couple up “like a condimental Rogers and Astaire”. Salt’s central place in the kitchen makes sense: it’s a seasoning that “unlocks aromatic compounds in food”, making virtually everything taste better. But pepper is a spice, like cumin or coriander, with a “sharp, hot bite” that can easily overwhelm delicate flavours. Although it’s perfect in certain contexts – ground over spaghetti carbonara, for instance – it shouldn’t be used as a “generic seasoning”. So why has it come to be seen as “salt’s consort”? Food historians trace this…

Top Gear The Formentor is the first stand-alone model from Cupra – Seat’s new “sporty and electrified offshoot marque”. A suave “coupe-SUV”, it is striking to look at, and built from many of the same ingredients as the Seat Ateca and even the VW Golf, it’s an impressive and pretty powerful machine too. “Crossovers have become the same-iest cars ever. Why not go for one that’s a bit more left-field?” The Daily Telegraph It’s hard to think of an SUV out there with a more “aggressive” look than the Formentor – barring perhaps the Lamborghini Urus. It has “brooding” LED lights and is covered in chiselled vents and grilles. Inside, there is “real flair and class”, with gold-stitched, blue-grey leather panels in the doors and very comfortable seats. There is…

James Randi 1928-2020 James Randi was a magician and escapologist known as The Amazing Randi. An otherworldly figure, with piercing eyes and a bushy beard, he decapitated the rock star Alice Cooper on stage, and escaped from a straitjacket while being suspended upside down over the Niagara Falls. But Randi did not claim to practise magic, and he devoted much of his career to debunking the faith healers, psychics, mind readers and others who did purport to have supernatural powers. Randi showed that with preparation and dexterity, anyone could bend spoons like Uri Geller, and he exposed the tricks used by the TV evangelist and healer Peter Popoff. Popoff’s wife, it turned out, was feeding him information about congregants via a device hidden in his ear. A scientific rationalist, he…

After a two-year investigation, the European Union has filed antitrust charges against Amazon for “distorting competition in online retail markets”, said Alexander Martin on Sky. com. The move could well result in a hefty fine and further calls for a corporate break-up, but that will do little to assuage the fury of British high street retailers, who are “up in arms about the lockdown advantage gifted to the tech giant this Christmas”, said Sam Chambers in The Sunday Times. As one retail consultant put it: “Jeff Bezos has just had this season handed to him on a silver platter.” Amazon’s soaring numbers during the pandemic (profits in Q3 tripled to $6.3bn) are an affront to a sector that is hurting badly. Last week, Marks & Spencer, which is cutting 7,000…

New research suggests that 18- to 24-year-olds are the “most likely to feel uncomfortable talking about their finances with family and friends”, said Kevin Peachey on BBC Business. Around 71% of them worry about money at least “once a week”, according to a new survey by the government-backed Money and Pensions Service. Yet 37% don’t like airing their concerns, reporting “feelings of shame” as their biggest reason for avoiding the topic. As 19-year-old Tekisha Henry puts it: “We aren’t taught to be open about money” – but “it’s a relief” when we are. The survey also reveals some disturbing news about “money secrets” in relationships, said Fiona Hamilton in The Times. The most secretive age group is 25-34: nearly 60% of those surveyed admitted to hiding money products – particularly…

The number of “virtual influencers” – computer-animated characters designed to look like real people, with their own social media platforms – has soared in the past year. There are now at least 125 with substantial followings, and they are making big money. Lil Miquela, a freckled “19-year-old” with 2.8 million Instagram followers, is set to make her creators $12m this year. Police and local councils have warned that “porch pirates” are exploiting the rise in online shopping during the pandemic. Both career thieves and opportunists are stealing packages from doorsteps, leading to a surge in complaints about non-deliveries – and the problem is likely to get worse in the run up to Christmas, police said.…

For the second time this year, Boris Johnson has performed a U-turn on extending the free school meals scheme through the holidays in response to a campaign by England footballer Marcus Rashford. A £170m Covid winter grant scheme will now be distributed through councils to help vulnerable families in England from December to March, and £220m has been put aside to keep the holiday food and activities programme until Christmas 2021. Following a phone call from the PM, Rashford, 23, welcomed the decision, but said his campaign to improve the lot of Britain’s poorest children would continue.…

Edinburgh Smacking ban: A legal ban on parents smacking their children has come into effect in Scotland. The legislation, passed by the Scottish parliament last year, removes the defence of “reasonable chastisement” from Scots law, giving children the same protection from assault as adults. Scotland is currently the only part of the UK where smacking is now banned, but smacking is due to become illegal in Wales in 2022, under a law passed by the Welsh Assembly in January. No such legislation has been mooted for Northern Ireland or England, however. A spokesperson for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children described the law coming into force in Scotland as a “sad reminder that England is behind the curve” on the issue. Scotland is the 58th country…

Stanley Baxter’s secret For decades, Stanley Baxter delighted TV audiences with his comic sketches and pin-sharp impressions. But all the while he was harbouring a secret he feared could destroy his career, said Brian Beacom in the Daily Mail. Now, at 94, he has finally come out as gay. He was in his teens when he had his first gay affair: “It was like a 3,000-volt electric current going through me,” he says. “In that moment, I thought the world had changed.” He tried to suppress his feelings, but on the day of his wedding to the actress Moira Robertson, he realised he had made a terrible mistake. “Thankfully, Moira was very understanding. If there were someone I was interested in, I could bring them home,” he says. Moira, who…

When he was preparing to start work as a senator, in 1972, Biden received devastating news. His wife, Neilia, had been in a car crash while taking their children to buy a Christmas tree. Neilia and the couple’s baby daughter, Naomi, had died; his sons, Beau, three, and Hunter, two, were seriously injured in hospital. Biden almost didn’t take up his Senate seat – he was sworn in at Beau’s hospital bedside – and later said he had contemplated suicide. He’d only stay in politics, he said, if he saw his children every night. Thus was born “Amtrak Joe”, a nickname derived from his twice-daily 90-minute rail journey between Wilmington and Washington. In 1977, Biden married Jill Jacobs, an English teacher, and they had a daughter, Ashley, together. In 2015,…

No ifs, no buts – make Puerto Rico a state Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus The New York Times Like all Americans, the people of Puerto Rico went to the polls last week, says Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus. But they weren’t voting for a president, or for a member of Congress – as residents of an unincorporated US territory, they don’t get a say on such matters. Instead, they were voting in a referendum on whether their Caribbean island should become the 51st state of the Union. The answer of the majority? Yes, it should. Any such move is sure to encounter stiff resistance in Washington (not least because it’s thought Puerto Rican voters would favour the Democrats), but there’s no excuse to block it. It’s wrong that the three million American citizens…

The first drug that has been shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s could be used on patients in America in just a few months, after regulators there said the evidence that it works was “highly persuasive”. The drug, known as Aducanumab, is designed to attack the build-up of amyloid proteins in the brain, which have often been posited as a cause of the condition. Its impact is not dramatic: when taken in high doses, it appears to slow the mental decline of some patients by up to 25% over 18 months. But given the lack of other drug treatments for Alzheimer’s, experts have welcomed the news. Dr James Pickett, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said the drug had “the potential to be a transformative discovery”. Aducanumab’s backing by US regulators…

Few sportsmen of the modern age have had such an unrivalled claim to be the bad boy of their sport as Nick Kyrgios, said Daniel Davis in the Daily Mail. The Australian tennis player is notorious for his angry clashes with umpires; every so often appearing to “throw” a match; and for his Twitter feuds with other players and his broadsides against the game’s authorities. But this year, all of a sudden we’ve had a different view of him. In January, he hosted a fundraising event for victims of Australia’s bushfires; and during this pandemic he has “remained in Canberra and helped deliver food and supplies to families unable to leave their homes”. Most endearing of all, he has just given an “incredibly touching” interview to an Australian newspaper in…

When Donald Trump tweeted that his legal team would hold a press conference at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia on Saturday, it was assumed they meant the hotel. In fact, the briefing took place in a retail park on the outskirts, at Four Seasons Total Landscaping – a small horticultural business adjacent to a sex shop and a crematorium. The gardening firm was mercilessly mocked online over the apparent mix-up, but by Monday morning it had bounced back, and was selling patriotic merchandise, including T-shirts and a $5 sticker bearing the catchphrase “Make America Rake Again”. With his drooping jowls and heavy eyes, Geoffrey Palmer, who has died at 93, tended to play long-suffering husbands. But he insisted he wasn’t as lugubrious as he looked. “I am laughing,” he once…

“Progress would be wonderful – if only it would stop.” Robert Musil, quoted on The Browser “You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood. What mood is that? Last-minute panic.” Cartoonist Bill Watterson, quoted in Men’s Health “Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilisation.” Rebecca West, quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly “So many of our problems are the consequence of affluence rather than poverty.” Rod Liddle in The Spectator “Fun is like life insurance: the older you get, the more it costs.” US humorist Kin Hubbard, quoted in Reader’s Digest “There is nothing more pathetic than a former president.” John Quincy Adams, sixth US president, quoted in The Observer “A true music lover is a man who…

Elvis Costello: Hey Clockface Concord £10 “I don’t spend my time perfecting the past. I live for the future, because I know it won’t last.” So sings Elvis Costello on his new solo album, Hey Clockface. But for all the singer-songwriter’s talk about being future-facing, said Roisin O’Connor in The Independent, this latest release is really “an old curiosity shop” – one of his most “evocative” albums yet, offering a melange of “quirky memorabilia and his typically eccentric cast of characters”. Costello “mixes styles and moods to often brilliant effect”, agreed Kitty Empire in The Observer. The “crowning glory” of the album is No Flag, a “farewell to love whose overdriven churn mirrors Costello’s eloquent anomie”. The title track, by contrast, is an “old-time jazzy flail that quotes Fats Waller…

This Star Wars spin-off (on Disney+) succeeds by ditching the lamer parts of the movies and focusing on the action, said Jack Seale in The Guardian: “No to windy philosophising, yes to punch-ups against bipedal reptiles in bars.” But it’s not just gun-spinning machismo. The title character, a helmeted bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal), has the task of caring for Baby Yoda until he can return him to his tribe, creating a potent mixture of toughness and “attentive-dad sexiness”. In a homage to the western, the second series opens as our hero teams up with the marshal of a small town (Timothy Olyphant) to combat a terrifying man-eating worm. Series one was the best thing to emerge from the Star Wars franchise in decades, said Ed Power in The Daily Telegraph,…

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, 1930 (Penguin £9.99). I love Waugh’s funny novels – there’s a surreal scene in Scoop where Mrs Stitch drives her car into the men’s toilets because she suddenly sees a man she knows – but this story of the London party scene after the First World War is my favourite. It’s a funny, anxious and resonant book. I even called a pig of mine Lady Metroland in its honour. It can’t all be classics, though. A constant toilet-side companion is Potty, Fartwell and Knob by Russell Ash, 2007 (Headline £8.99), an anthology of people’s real names that turn out to be unexpectedly rude, like Mary Trimbush and Fanny Wig. It’s a bit puerile, but no less enjoyable for that. Messing Up the Paintwork: The Wit…

Back in June, Hay was one of the first major festivals to go fully online; it now returns with the Hay Digital Winter Weekend, streaming events from 26 to 29 November. Highlights include Antony Gormley with Martin Gayford; Dawn French with Miranda Sawyer; Benjamin Zephaniah reading from his latest collection for children, and the yet-to-be-announced winner of the 2020 Booker Prize. The weekend draws to a close with Elton John and Arsène Wenger in conversation about their respective autobiographies. Register for events at hayfestival.com.…

The pastry for this tart is a bit different, says Danielle Alvarez: it incorporates both butter and sour cream and it just makes the most delicious, delicate, flaky, buttery tart you’ve ever tasted. The recipe is inspired by my friend Martin, who made a version of this tart at a lunch we were cooking at. He told me it was his grandmother’s recipe, which didn’t surprise me: it’s old-fashioned and I love it. Serves 6-8 Leafy salad, to serve for the pastry: 250g plain flour, plus extra for dusting 150g cold unsalted butter, diced ½ tsp salt 125g sour cream 1 egg for the filling: 300g large heirloom tomatoes (approx. 1-2) 400g white onion, thinly sliced 2 tsp chopped thyme 50g unsalted butter 100g sour cream 100g grated cheddar cheese…

Kärcher LTR 18-30 cordless grass trimmer A grass trimmer like this is useful for tackling parts of the lawn that a mower can’t reach. This one has a pivoting head for awkward angles, and a telescopic handle. It is cordless, and should run for as long as 30 minutes on one charge (£150; kaercher.com). Husqvarna 120iB  battery blower kit Great for clearing a large open lawn, this leaf blower has a wide tube and plenty of power. But you can easily and quickly reduce the power by switching to a different mode (£209; husqvarna.com). Bosch Advanced Hedge  Cut AHS 70-34 Especially easy to use, this corded trimmer can easily cut through substantial branches and leaves neatly sliced stems behind. It has a long 70cm blade, so is best for larger…

Ant Group: counting the cost “For years, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has had a safe spot at the top table of Chinese business,” said Henny Sender in the FT. No longer. According to people close to events, it was Xi Jinping himself who pulled the plug on the $37bn listing of Ma’s Ant Group last week, after regulators warned that the disruptive fintech was in danger of becoming a “monster”. Ant, which has come to dominate mobile payments in China, was “always a threat to the vested interests” of the country’s financial industry – particularly after branching out into areas such as lending. Even some Western analysts have described it as a “parasite”, taking advantage of its freedom from “heavy regulation imposed on deposit-taking banks”. And so “the world’s…

How will we pay for more handouts? David Smith The Sunday Times I don’t know about you, says David Smith, but “I am missing the Budget”. It has, together with the Treasury’s three-year spending review, been ditched. With mini-budgets now coming as thick and fast as government U-turns, there’s a growing sense that “policy is rudderless” even as the bills mount. And the increasingly pressing question is how we’re going to pay for it all. The Bank of England is getting close to its own self-imposed limit for quantitative easing, and the “familiar dilemma” of choosing whether to fill a large fiscal hole with higher taxation or spending restraint is looming. The hope is that we can “grow our way out” of this year’s plunge. But although the economy “should…