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© Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
© Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Football news and analysis from the around the world
Thomas Frank and Spurs are a good fit on paper but the north London job will be a tough one for the Dane. Frank is tactically flexible but can be a slow starter and has limited experience in managing sides competing in Europe. Plus he arrives as the love still lingers for Ange Postecoglou after the Australian delivered Tottenham’s first trophy since 2008 and the club’s first European trophy since 1984.
Frank has limited experience of balancing the domestic league and Europe, the furthest he ever took Brøndby being the fourth qualifying round of the Europa League. His European record is notably poor: played 10, won three, and two of those were against Juvenes/Dogana of San Marino. His record in domestic cups, similarly, is dismal; his past history makes it unlikely a poor league season could be redeemed by other silverware – although the depth of the Spurs squad perhaps means the cups will not be such a low priority.
There is one further doubt, which is more to do with Spurs than with Frank. He is leaving an exceptionally well-run club, at which every component worked together to a coherent philosophy. There can be no certainty that any one cog from that system, however important, can achieve success in a different environment, something Chelsea have found as they accumulate more and more parts from Brighton without ever looking like replicating the efficiency of the Brighton model. It may be that such efficiency is not even possible at bigger clubs.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Marvin Ibo Guengoer/GES Sportfoto/Getty Images
© Photograph: Marvin Ibo Guengoer/GES Sportfoto/Getty Images
Worried that he didn’t understand the continent of his heritage, Femi Elufowoju Jr challenged himself to visit all 54 of its nations. His trip took him from bustling Ghana to the tranquility of Tanzania – and sparked the idea for a play
At 53, I made myself a promise. Having built a reputation as the go-to authority on African culture in UK theatre, I realised with uncomfortable clarity that my knowledge barely scratched the surface of the continent’s vast complexity. What followed was an extraordinary seven-year quest to visit all 54 African nations before my 60th birthday – a journey that would ultimately transform into my ambitious new theatrical project, 54.60 Africa.
The catalyst came during a 2015 world tour with theatre company Complicité that took me to Cape Town. Standing in the shadow of Table Mountain, I confronted a paradox that had long troubled me: despite my Nigerian ancestry and theatrical expertise, my understanding of Africa remained frustratingly limited. Cape Town offered me an opportunity to begin addressing that knowledge gap, and one I was determined to seize.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Femi Elufowoju Jr.
© Photograph: Femi Elufowoju Jr.
© Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
GCSE biology a distant memory? Here’s how plants reproduce, and how to encourage them
If you’re growing any plants for fruit, getting your head around pollination is key to ensuring a bountiful harvest. Thankfully, the plants and the pollinators – whether that’s bees, beetles or a summer breeze – have a system for making this happen. Still, any grower should be familiar with the pollination needs of their crops in case intervention is necessary.
If GCSE biology is a distant memory, here’s a quick refresher. Pollination is the reproductive process whereby a flower’s pollen is transferred from the stamen to the stigma before travelling to the ovule, where fertilisation takes place. Seeds start to develop and, for those crops that coax a creature into dispersing their seed, a fruit will form and swell around them.
Continue reading...© Photograph: IKvyatkovskaya/Getty Images
© Photograph: IKvyatkovskaya/Getty Images
Exclusive: Lidiane Vieira Frazão, a black woman from Rio, was repeatedly denied appropriate treatment as President Bolsonaro downplayed the pandemic, lawsuit says
In the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lidiane Vieira Frazão, 35, was expecting her second child but, even at 40 weeks pregnant, she was unable to obtain a doctor’s note to start her maternity leave.
Her job as a funeral agent – at times handling the bodies of people who had died from the virus – was on the long list of “essential services” that could not be suspended during lockdown, according to a decree issued by Brazil’s then-president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Leonardo Carrato/The Guardian
© Photograph: Leonardo Carrato/The Guardian
Like bar-hopping, but for browsing books: this trend, popularised on TikTok, makes for a great day out – and can help you discover unique literary spots
We’ve all heard of bar crawls, but what about a bookshop crawl? The premise is essentially the same – you hop from venue to venue – but instead of drinking beers you browse books. Having begun as a trend among TikTok users, mainly in the US, the idea has begun to be adopted across the globe.
There are a few “official” ways to try it out for your yourself: Bookshop Crawl UK organises the London Bookshop Crawl, as well as crawls across the country, Bristol Walkfest has organised a walking tour of the city’s numerous indies, and in April, the Chicagoland Bookstore Crawl ran an event for Independent Bookstore Day which rewarded participants who visited 10 shops on the day with 10% discount on books for the rest of the year. And the Global Book Crawl runs an annual event with 17 participating countries, from Ireland to Fiji.
Continue reading...© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Tait posted on Instagram days ago that for 20 years he lived a ‘double life’ but is working on ‘repentance and healing’
The Christian music legend Michael Tait, whose hit song God’s Not Dead became an anthem for Donald Trump’s Maga movement, has been accused of sexually assaulting three men, two who believed they were drugged by the rock star in the early 2000s, according to a months-long Guardian investigation. Four other men have alleged that Tait, a founding member of DC Talk and later a frontman for the Newsboys, engaged in inappropriate behavior such as unwatched touching and sexual advances.
The Guardian is publishing these allegations days after Tait posted an extraordinary confession on his Instagram account, admitting that for 20 years he had been “leading a double life”, abusing alcohol and cocaine, “and, at times, touched men in an unwanted sensual way”, according to his statement.
Continue reading...© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
Protest actions like ‘Hands Off’ and ‘No Kings’ are sweeping across the US. But the media is barely paying attention
When hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered across the US on 5 April for the “Hands Off” events protesting Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s governmental wrecking ball, much of the news media seemed to yawn.
The next day, the New York Times put a photograph, but no story, on its print front page. The Wall Street Journal’s digital homepage had it as only the 20th-most-prominent story when I checked. Fox News was dismissive; I stopped counting after I scanned 40 articles on its homepage, though there was a video with this dismissive headline: “Liberals rally against President Trump.”
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Continue reading...© Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images