Author: The Guardian

Alabama has scheduled its second execution of a death row prisoner using the novel technique of nitrogen gas, brushing aside objections that the procedure is a form of cruel and unusual punishment banned under the US constitution.Barring last-minute judicial moves, Alan Miller, 59, will be put to his death on 26 September, after an execution date was set on Thursday by the state’s Republican governor Kay Ivey. Should it go ahead, the anticipated killing would be exceptional not only as only the second time that nitrogen has been used in the US, but also because Miller has already been subjected…

Worcestershire resume their season against Kent at Canterbury on Friday, less than a week after the tragic death of their young spinner Josh Baker. Pear County is already one of the most resilient—New Road floods every year, resources are scarce, and its brightest minds are often lost to competitors—but that trait is being tested like never before.”Guys are still grappling with this,” said head coach Allen Richardson, who is now trying to guide his team through the worst of it. “Many of them have never experienced grief before. As we reach different milestones along the way, the shock and sadness…

Neuralink’s first attempt at implanting its chip in a human being’s skull hit an unexpected setback after the device began to detach from the patient’s brain, the company revealed on Wednesday.The patient, Noland Arbaugh, underwent surgery in February to attach a Neuralink chip to his brain, but the device’s functionality began to decrease within the month after his implant. Some of the device’s threads, which connect the miniature computer to the brain, had begun to retract. Neuralink did not disclose why the device partly retracted from Arbaugh’s brain, but stated in a blogpost that its engineers had refined the implant…

medium sizeanu Tuilagi arrived in the UK initially thinking he was just taking a short break to visit his brothers, but now 20 years later he has a hint of a northern accent in his voice after spending time in this part of the world A long vacation is finally coming to an end.When Tuilagi’s parents returned to Samoa, 12-year-old Manu chose to stay with his siblings. While his brother Freddie was playing for the then Cardiff Blues, the boy walked into Ramney RFC to kill time before leaving England to become one of English rugby’s greatest players of the…

Apple has faced an online backlash over an advert for its new iPad that features an industrial-sized hydraulic press crushing a collection of objects and gadgets including musical instruments and books.The ad, launched by Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, on Tuesday, shows the machine squashing an array of items – ranging from a piano and a metronome to tins of paint and an arcade game – before a single iPad Pro then appears in their place. A voiceover then states: “The most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest.”Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the…

The shining elephant in the roomConsidering that the best part of his decade was spent with Tottenham Hotspur and more recently Bayern Munich, it’s no wonder Harry Kane lost to Real Madrid in the semi-finals of the German side’s Grand Cup The final stage ended up getting injured. With 90 minutes remaining and the Spanish champions trailing by a goal on aggregate, even Carlo Ancelotti’s eyebrows at Wembley must have reached unprecedented heights as the England captain’s number rose and E Riek-Maximin Choupo-Moting slowly took his place as two underperforming former Stoke players emerged as the leading pair in a…

To lose one pageant queen may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.Two days after Miss USA stepped down from the role citing health issues, Miss Teen USA also bowed out on Wednesday. In an Instagram post, the winner of the Miss Teen USA pageant, UmaSofia Srivastava, said that her personal values “no longer fully align with the direction of the organization”.Srivastava’s resignation, coming so soon after the departure of Noelia Voigt as Miss USA, came as a shock to the world of US pageants. The mystery of the double abdication was heightened by each woman’s…

The leader of a “horrifying and gruesome” extreme body modification network who live-streamed the mutilations on his “Eunuch Maker” website has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 22 years.Marius Gustavson, 46, was a “master manipulator” of vulnerable victims and was said to have been involved in at least 29 surgeries that “almost amounted to human slaughter,” London’s Old Bailey heard “.The four-year “massive, dangerous and extremely disturbing” operation included castration, the use of clamps to crush testicles, the removal of penises, the freezing of limbs and the electrocution of a 16-year-old boy in Gustafsson live…

Kevin, 50, EdinburghOccupation Pensions consultantVoting record Conservative, Lib Dem, and Labour at the next election. The only party he hasn’t voted for is the SNPAmuse bouche Kevin is a scout leader and led his first camp in November, in Fife, in -5C. They had to remove a layer of ice from the inside of the tent to get outSvein, 45, EdinburghOccupation Co-director of a strategic brand agencyVoting record He has voted SNP and Green. Never ConservativeAmuse bouche He’s been on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, got to £32,000, and found Jeremy Clarkson “an enormous … insert your favourite rude word…

AAfter “Blackbird,” the traumatic spy thriller financed by and starring Irish dancer Michael Flatley, moviegoers once thought they were safe from a luxury paradise setting bizarre drama. But now 22-year-old actor and model Damian Hurley has written and directed a soft-core erotic suspense drama set in the Caribbean, starring his sexy mom Elizabeth Hurley. Starring Elizabeth Hurley… he gives her a full-blown lesbian love scene with a nightclub singer, and Mr. Hurley very candidly grabs the camera to film as the woman’s head goes south after a lingering kiss. What can only be described as a coming moment of oral…