Author: The Guardian

Over the last few years more than 120 million posts have appeared on TikTok about the rise of an unexpected trend: self-imposed celibacy.While some predicted a post-pandemic era of “sexual licentiousness”, readers from all walks of life and across generations told us that far from doubling down on hookup culture, they’ve found refreshing clarity in a more austere approach to physical intimacy.While some readers’ forays into sexual abstinence predated Covid, common threads remained. Whether readers had decided to apply the breaks for a few months or the rest of their lives, they all agreed that celibacy had been a positive…

On the docket: Hope Hicks, Trump’s favorite staffer, takes the standHope Hicks spent more time with former president Donald Trump than perhaps anyone else, from the launch of his political career through the end of his time in the White House.On Friday, Hicks took the witness stand to testify against her former boss.Hicks, a former campaign and White House spokeswoman who was constantly by Trump’s side and one of his most trusted advisers until he left office, appeared at his trial under subpoena, and was clearly unhappy about being compelled to testify. After being asked to speak more clearly into…

Donald Trump’s former communications director Hope Hicks provided testimony on Friday that could be helpful both to prosecutors and the former president’s defense, revealing the fallout inside the Trump campaign in the wake of the damaging Access Hollywood tape on which Trump bragged about sexual assault.Here are the key takeaways from day 11 of People of New York v Donald J Trump:1. Hicks suggests Trump was behind money to DanielsHicks bolstered a key part of the prosecutors’ case that Trump was the source of the $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels, when she cast doubt on the description relayed to her…

Pep Guardiola has backed Phil Foden to become a Manchester City great and says the striker can help England become European champions this summer as long as Southgate’s side believe they can win the World Cup.Foden was named Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year on Friday in recognition of his best season of his career, scoring 24 goals and providing 10 assists for Manchester City. The 23-year-old has won five Premier League titles, two FA Cups, four League Cups, one Champions League, one UEFA Super Cup and one FIFA Club World Cup. Guardiola was asked if Foden could become…

Berlin’s government is offering to give away a villa once owned by Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, hoping to end a decades-long debate on whether to repurpose or bulldoze a sprawling disused site in the countryside north of the German capital.Joseph Goebbels. Photograph: CSU Archives/Everett Collection“I offer to anyone who would like to take over the site, to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Berlin’s finance minister, Stefan Evers, told the state parliament, the German Press Agency reported.Berlin has repeatedly tried to hand off the site to federal authorities or the state of Brandenburg,…

The sun’s otherworldly landscape, including coronal moss, solar rain and 6,000-mile-tall spires of gas, is revealed in footage from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft.The observations, beamed back by the European Space Agency probe, reveal feathery, hair-like structures made of plasma and also capture eruptions and showers of relatively cooler material falling to the surface.Scientists say the observations of the sun’s complex surface dynamics could help resolve the question of why the sun’s atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface – a longstanding paradox in solar physics.The brightest regions are about 1,000,000C, while cooler material, which dips below 10,000C, appears darker.…

Hope Hicks, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary, testified during the former president’s New York criminal hush-money trial, describing when a tape emerged of Trump bragging about groping women His staff panicked, she said: “This is his presidential campaign in crisis.Hicks also put Trump at the center of his campaign’s media strategy, telling jurors “we are all following his lead.” The testimony marks a turning point for prosecutors, as she is the first Trump staffer familiar with the Trump campaign to testify about alleged misconduct.Prosecutors accuse him of trying to use bribes to cover up stories that could damage his…

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has ordered Manchester United’s staff to raise standards after describing the level of untidiness in offices as a “disgrace” and some dressing rooms as “not much better”.Ratcliffe, the minority owner who controls United’s football policy, made his comments after a two-day tour of Old Trafford and the Carrington training ground.He wrote: “I had a good tour around the some of the facilities. I am afraid I was struck in many places by a high degree of untidiness. In particular the IT department which frankly was a disgrace and the dressing rooms of the U18 and U21 were…

Billy Vunipola admitted he had problems “knowing when to stop” drinking while explaining the circumstances of his arrest in Mallorca.The England No.8 publicly apologized after being fined €240 (£205) by a fast-track trial for refusing to leave a bar in Parma in the early hours of Sunday morning.Saracens have warned Vunipola, who was tasered twice by Spanish police, over his behavior but the Rugby Football Union could still bring misconduct charges against him.The 31-year-old revealed it was his first drink since August 2022 and is expected to be his last team trip with Saracens after leaving the club this summer.”My…

The protesters who seized Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday swiftly unfurled a banner down the front of the storied building with just one word: intifada.Other students among the pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the heart of the New York campus were sceptical about invoking the Arabic call for an uprising because it has been so widely used by pro-Israeli groups to discredit their cause as support for terrorism and therefore antisemitic.Those students’ fears were swiftly realised when the White House described the use of intifada as “hate speech”. Supporters of Israel at Columbia said it represented a threat to Jewish lives…