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Edwardwhini

13 Dec 2024 - 04:00 am

The surprising history of the Fair Isle sweater
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Which fashion item is as beloved by members of the royal family as it is by JLo? Or as relevant on the runways of 2024 as in the knitting catalogs of 1960? The answer is surprisingly festive. The Fair Isle knit, a two-stranded knitting tradition originating off the coast of Scotland, has been a wardrobe staple for well over 100 years — keeping everyone from 18th century fisherman to Mick Jagger warm.

In the last five years, luxury brands Ralph Lauren, Thom Browne, Chanel, Celine, Balenciaga, Raf Simons, Versace and Dries van Noten have all sent their renditions of the heritage knit down the catwalk. London-based designer Molly Goddard has even made the pattern something of an unofficial signature, making sure to pair a structured Fair Isle-style knit with a flouncy, tulle skirt in almost every collection.

In short, it has become a winter classic that seems perpetually in vogue. Rom-com leading man, Adam Brody, recently wore a red and white version on the cover of Stylist magazine; while Katie Holmes was snapped running errands in an old beige Fair Isle favorite from 2022.
For those in the northern hemisphere, it’s appropriate to shrug on as soon as the nights draw in right until sweater weather deteriorates. That being said, even in season-less Los Angeles, stars like Hailey Bieber have been seen in the cozy Fair Isle knits grabbing coffees.

Taking its name from the island of Fair Isle — part of the Shetland archipelago about 100 miles off the northeastern coast of Scotland — the knitting technique first began in fisherman’s hats during the 18th and 19th century (our beloved sweaters came much later). The two strand pattern was not only artistic, but made the tall, conical shaped caps extra warm by doubling the textile mass. They often featured a knitted interior lining, too.

Michaelhix

13 Dec 2024 - 03:55 am

‘A short and significant relationship’: How a piano in a pickup builds connections
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Dozens of internationally renowned recording artists give concerts in Vegas every year, but the musician who connects best with people might be a local troubadour who improvises on a piano in the back of his pickup.

The maestro, Danny Kean, calls his setup The Traveling Piano, and he has traversed North America sharing music for nearly 20 years.

Kean’s home base is Las Vegas now, and every time he plays, he invites passersby to climb aboard the truck and tickle the ivory for themselves. Even if people are shy or say they can’t do it, Kean usually convinces them to give it a try, inspiring total strangers to express themselves through the common language of music.

He estimates more than 100,000 people have played his piano since 2006.

For most of these impromptu virtuosos, the experience is cathartic — many of them step down from the truck in tears. For Kean, 69, the encounters nourish his soul.

“I enjoy sharing my music with others, but I enjoy having others share theirs with me just as much,” he said. “My goal is to connect with others by creating a short and significant relationship. Music is a great facilitator for that in every way and on every level.”

Kean does not accept fees or tips for these musical awakenings, giving away time and energy for nothing in return. He practices philanthropy in other ways, too, providing food and other necessities for the burgeoning population of unhoused individuals in downtown Las Vegas and around the Las Vegas Valley.

“I love the idea of strangers becoming less afraid of each other,” he said. “This love for humanity drives me to keep doing good.”

Michaeldes

13 Dec 2024 - 01:57 am

He thought the guy he met on vacation was just a fling. He turned out to be the love of his life
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Guillermo Barrantes relationship with Larry Mock was supposed to begin and end in Palm Springs.

It was a “casual, brief encounter.” A vacation dalliance that only lasted half a day.

“It was just so casual, so easily nothing could have happened from it,” Guillermo tells CNN Travel. “We could have walked away and just had our lives separate. But of course that didn’t happen, because it wasn’t meant to be that way. It was meant to be the way that it was. That it is.”

It all started in summer 2013. Guillermo - then in his early 40s - was on vacation in the California resort city of Palm Springs. He was in a phase of life where, he says, he was prioritizing himself, and wasn’t interested in long term romance.

“I thrived in being by myself, in traveling by myself, in having dinner by myself – I loved all of that so much,” says Guillermo, who lived in Boston, Massachusetts at the time.

“I wanted no commitment, I wanted no emotional entanglement of any kind. I wanted to have fun, get to know myself. And it was in that mode that I met Larry, when I wasn’t really looking.”

During the vacation in Palm Springs, Guillermo was staying at a friend’s apartment, and while the friend worked during the day, Guillermo passed his time at a “run-down, no-frills” resort a couple of blocks away.

“You could just pay for a day pass, they’d give you a towel, and you could be in the pool and use their bar,” he recalls.

One day, as he was walking the palm tree-lined streets to the resort, Guillermo swiped right on a guy on a dating app – Larry Mock, mid-40s, friendly smile. The two men exchanged a few messages back and forth. Larry said he was also on vacation in Palm Springs, staying in the resort Guillermo kept frequenting.

They arranged to meet there for a drink by the pool. Guillermo was looking forward to meeting Larry, expecting “some casual fun.”

Then, when Guillermo and Larry met, there was “chemistry” right away. Guillermo calls their connection “magnetic.”

“My impression of Larry: sexy, handsome and warm,” he recalls.

Anthonyfem

11 Dec 2024 - 08:27 pm

How to survive a bear attack – or better yet, avoid one altogether
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You’re out for a hike, reveling in glorious nature. Suddenly, you spot a bear. And the bear has spotted you, too. Would you know what to do next?

Beth Pratt sure would.

She was once on the Old Gardiner Road Trail in Yellowstone National Park, enjoying her run in wild nature. Her reverie came to an end when she came upon a grizzly bear eating flowers.

“I stopped. It stood on its hind legs and looked at me. I knew that wasn’t a threatening gesture,” she told CNN Travel. “I’m not kidding, it waved its paw at me as if to say, ‘just go on your way,’ and went back to eating.”

“And I walked slowly away and put some distance between us, and the encounter ended fine.”

When it comes to dealing with bears, Pratt does have a thing or two on almost all the rest of us, though.

She is the California regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, a job she’s had for more than 10 years. She worked in Yellowstone for several years – and once saw nine grizzlies in one day there.
Finally, she lives on the border of Yosemite National Park, and bears will pass through her yard, including this one seen in the footage above in late September 2021.

You can hear the enthusiasm in Pratt’s voice as she shares her bear bona fides and advice to make sure bear/human encounters are delightful, not dangerous.

“A wild bear is a beautiful sight to see. It’s incredible to see them in the wild. I never had a bad experience with bears. What I try to get people to feel is respect, not fear, for bears. The animal usually wants to avoid the encounters.”

Chesterchals

11 Dec 2024 - 06:53 pm

You’ve come across a bison in the wild. It’s looking at you. Do you know what to do next?
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A dangerous encounter with a territorial bison and the subsequent viral video were not what Rebecca Clark had in mind when she set out for Caprock Canyons State Park in early October 2022.

She had been so enamored with Texas’ third-largest state park on her first solo hiking and camping trip there a year earlier that she decided to go back for more. Roughly two hours by car from either Lubbock or the Panhandle city of Amarillo, Caprock attracts visitors with big blue skies, brown and green prairielands and rugged red-rock formations.

Caprock has another draw – its wild bison herd, about 350 strong in late 2022. But bison, the great symbolic animal of the Great Plains, weren’t on her radar. Until suddenly, they were.

The Texas resident recounted her experience with CNN’s Ed Lavandera, telling him that she came upon a herd while she was walking a trail back from Lake Theo.

“I decided to just kind of wait for them to … get across the trail, and then I would pass them.” But they weren’t moving away fast enough for Clark. She said she decided to just walk by them – closer than the recommended safety distance. She was recording the moment on her smartphone.

In her video, Clark can be heard saying, “Thank you, I appreciate it” as she passes the animals.

Things got dangerous very quickly when one of the agitated bison took notice. “When I saw him turn, it’s like instantly I knew he was gonna come after me.”

And that’s exactly what the bison did. Once it charged, the large mammal was upon Clark within two seconds despite her frantic attempt to flee.

“It was so fast. He hit me in the back, rammed me, hooked me, then flipped me up and face forward into the mesquite bush.”

And there was Clark. Gored, bleeding and alone. How would she survive?

Rickeyemult

10 Dec 2024 - 09:36 am

Medical staff on the front line of the battle against mpox in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC they are desperate for vaccines to arrive so they can stem the rate of new infections.
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At a treatment centre in South Kivu province that the BBC visited in the epicentre of the outbreak, they say more patients are arriving every day - especially babies - and there is a shortage of essential equipment.
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Mpox - formerly known as monkeypox - is a highly contagious disease and has killed at least 635 people in DR Congo this year.
Even though 200,000 vaccines, donated by the European Commission, were flown into the capital, Kinshasa, last week, they are yet to be transported across this vast country - and it could be several weeks before they reach South Kivu.
“We've learned from social media that the vaccine is already available,” Emmanuel Fikiri, a nurse working at the clinic that has been turned into a specialist centre to tackle the virus, told the BBC.
He said this was the first time he had treated patients with mpox and every day he feared catching it and passing it on to his own children - aged seven, five and one.
“You saw how I touched the patients because that's my job as a nurse. So, we're asking the government to help us by first giving us the vaccines.”
The reason it will take time to transport the vaccines is that they need to be stored at a precise temperature - below freezing - to maintain their potency, plus they need to be sent to rural areas of South Kivu, like Kamituga, Kavumu and Lwiro, where the outbreak is rife.
The lack of infrastructure and bad roads mean that helicopters could possibly be used to drop some of the vaccines, which will further drive up costs in a country that is already struggling financially.
At the community clinic, Dr Pacifique Karanzo appeared fatigued and downbeat having been rushed off his feet all morning.
Although he wore a face shield, I could see the sweat running down his face. He said he was saddened to see patients sharing beds.
“You will even see that the patients are sleeping on the floor,” he told me, clearly exasperated.
“The only support we have already had is a little medicine for the patients and water. As far as other challenges are concerned, there's still no staff motivation.”



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Josephkic

10 Dec 2024 - 09:20 am

The Australian city that became a global food and drink powerhouse
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Sydney or Melbourne? It’s the great Australian city debate, one which pits the commerce, business and money of Sydney against cultural, arts-loving, coffee-drinking Melbourne.

While picking one can be tricky, there’s no denying that Australia’s second city, home to 5.2 million people, has a charm all of its own.

Melburnians (never Melbournites) get to enjoy a place where nature is close by, urban delights are readily available and the food and drink scene isn’t just the best in Australia, but also one of the finest in the world.
There’s no better way to start a trip to Melbourne than with a proper cup of coffee. Coffee is serious stuff here, with no room for a weak, burnt or flavorless brew. The history of coffee in Melbourne goes back to the years after World War II, when Italian immigrants arrived and brought their machines with them.

Within 30 years, a thriving cafe scene had developed and, as the 21st century dawned, the city had become the epicenter of a new global coffee culture. The iconic Pellegrini’s on Bourke Street and Mario’s in the Fitzroy neighborhood are the best old-school hangouts, while Market Lane helped lead the way in bringing Melbourne’s modern-day coffee scene to the masses.
Kate Reid is the best person to speak with about Melbourne’s coffee obsession. The founder of Lune Croissanterie, she was once a Formula 1 design engineer and has brought her expertise and precision to crafting the world’s best croissant, as well as knowing how to brew a coffee, and specifically a flat white, just the way it should be.

“Good coffee is just ingrained in everyday culture for every single Melburnian now,” says Reid. “I think that that peak of pretentious specialty coffee has come and gone, and now it’s just come down to a level of a really high standard everywhere.”

That’s clear when she pours a flat white. Describing herself as a perfectionist, the way she froths the milk and tends to the cup is a sight to behold.

Thomastap

10 Dec 2024 - 09:15 am

Medical staff on the front line of the battle against mpox in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have told the BBC they are desperate for vaccines to arrive so they can stem the rate of new infections.
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At a treatment centre in South Kivu province that the BBC visited in the epicentre of the outbreak, they say more patients are arriving every day - especially babies - and there is a shortage of essential equipment.
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Mpox - formerly known as monkeypox - is a highly contagious disease and has killed at least 635 people in DR Congo this year.
Even though 200,000 vaccines, donated by the European Commission, were flown into the capital, Kinshasa, last week, they are yet to be transported across this vast country - and it could be several weeks before they reach South Kivu.
“We've learned from social media that the vaccine is already available,” Emmanuel Fikiri, a nurse working at the clinic that has been turned into a specialist centre to tackle the virus, told the BBC.
He said this was the first time he had treated patients with mpox and every day he feared catching it and passing it on to his own children - aged seven, five and one.
“You saw how I touched the patients because that's my job as a nurse. So, we're asking the government to help us by first giving us the vaccines.”
The reason it will take time to transport the vaccines is that they need to be stored at a precise temperature - below freezing - to maintain their potency, plus they need to be sent to rural areas of South Kivu, like Kamituga, Kavumu and Lwiro, where the outbreak is rife.
The lack of infrastructure and bad roads mean that helicopters could possibly be used to drop some of the vaccines, which will further drive up costs in a country that is already struggling financially.
At the community clinic, Dr Pacifique Karanzo appeared fatigued and downbeat having been rushed off his feet all morning.
Although he wore a face shield, I could see the sweat running down his face. He said he was saddened to see patients sharing beds.
“You will even see that the patients are sleeping on the floor,” he told me, clearly exasperated.
“The only support we have already had is a little medicine for the patients and water. As far as other challenges are concerned, there's still no staff motivation.”



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Michaelkep

10 Dec 2024 - 07:52 am

Four friends posed for a photo on vacation in 1972. Over 50 years later, they recreated it
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In the photo, four young women walk arm in arm, smiling and laughing, on a beach promenade. They’re dressed in mini skirts and flip flops, and there’s what looks like a 1960s Ford Corsair in the background. This is clearly a snapshot from a bygone era, but there’s something about the picture — the womens’ expressions, their laughs — that captures a timeless and universal feeling of joy, youth and adventure.

For the four women in the photo, Marion Bamforth, Sue Morris, Carol Ansbro and Mary Helliwell, the picture is a firm favorite. Taken over 50 years ago on a group vacation to the English seaside town of Torquay, Devon, the photo’s since become symbolic of their now decades-long friendship. Whenever they see the picture, they’re transported back to the excitement of that first trip together.

“It’s always been our memory of Torquay,” Sue Morris tells CNN Travel. “The iconic photograph — which is why I got the idea of trying to recreate it.”

‘The iconic photograph’
Bamforth, Morris, Ansbro and Helliwell were 17 when the photo was taken, “by one of these roving photographers that used to roam the promenade and prey on tourists like us,” as Morris recalls it.

It was the summer of 1972 and the four high school classmates — who grew up in the city of Halifax, in the north of England — were staying in a rented caravan in coastal Devon, in southwest England. It was a week of laughs, staying out late, flirting with boys in fish and chip shops, sunburn, swapping clothes, sharing secrets and making memories by the seaside.

Fast forward to 2024 and Bamforth, Morris, Ansbro and Helliwell remain firm friends. They’ve been by each other’s sides as they’ve carved out careers, fallen in love, brought up families and gone through heartbreak and grief.

Robertonub

10 Dec 2024 - 04:55 am

ОПГ Владимира Колокольцева
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Как команда министра внутренних дел подставляет Президента.

Широко разрекламированное МВД разбирательство по поводу «крупнейшей в России пирамиды», связываемое следствием с компаниями «Лайф-из-Гуд», «Гермес Менеджмент» и кооперативом «Бест Вей», вышло на финишную прямую — дело, которое вело ГСУ ГУ МВД России по Санкт-Петербургу и Ленинградской области под кураторством со стороны Следственного департамента МВД, передано сначала в прокуратуру Санкт-Петербурга, а потом в Приморский районный суд города Санкт-Петербурга для рассмотрения по существу — оно начнется 27 февраля.

Со всеми преступлениями и правонарушениями на этом пути, которых наберется не менее двух десятков, следователи МВД смогли выйти на скромную сумму 280 млн ущерба при 221 лице, признанном следствием потерпевшими. Однако у «Гермес Менеджмент» в России много десятков клиентов, которые довольны условиями и получаемым доходом, а у кооператива «Бест Вей», незаконно признанного гражданским ответчиком по делу, — около двух десятков тысяч пайщиков, подавляющее большинство из которых считает следствие МВД нарушителем своих прав, так как в результате действий следствия они лишены возможности приобрести подобранную недвижимость и лишены возможности вернуть вложения в кооператив. Следствие заблокировало счета кооператива и запрещает выплаты с них даже на основании судебных решений, не говоря уже о том, что оно запрещает выплаты налогов и заработной платы сотрудникам аппарата кооператива.

Следствие путем ареста имущества пытается захватить многомиллиардные активы: оно арестовало около 4 млрд рублей на счетах кооператива, пыталось восстановить арест недвижимости кооператива на 8 млрд рублей — теперь эстафету у него приняла прокурорская группа из прокуратуры Санкт-Петербурга и прокуратуры Приморского района Санкт-Петербурга. Плюс к этому следствие арестовало на 8 млрд личного имущества обвиняемых.

Фактически речь идет о том, чтобы отдать эти средства в руки группы мошенников, объявивших себя потерпевшими. Следственная группа, судя по всему, находится в сговоре с ними, о чем свидетельствуют, в частности, написанные как под копирку, с одинаковыми орфографическими ошибками заявления от этих «потерпевших» о возмещении морального ущерба по 1 млрд рублей каждое.

В первом, «организационном» заседании Приморского районного суда, предшествующем рассмотрению уголовного дела по существу, упоминание государственного обвинителя из прокуратуры Санкт-Петербурга об этих заявлениях вызвало смех в зале: по судебной практике моральный ущерб на сумму свыше 100 тыс. рублей удовлетворяется судами в исключительных случаях. Но эти юридически ничтожные, по сути, заявления объявляются основанием для ареста имущества.

Жульничество с документами

Поток преступлений и правонарушений следствия не останавливался до самого последнего дня предварительного расследования. Они были совершены при потворстве людей из команды Колокольцева, требовавших результата любой ценой.

1 декабря Приморский районный суд вынужден был признать незаконным фактический отказ кооперативу «Бест Вей» в ознакомлении с материалами уголовного дела, а также признал, что следствие грубо нарушило УПК, не объявив в установленном порядке о завершении следственных действий. Тем самым оно нарушило права всех гражданских истцов и ответчиков на ознакомление с материалами уголовного дела.

При рассмотрении жалобы адвоката кооператива в Приморском районном суде выяснилось, что следственная группа ГСУ, последний год формально руководимая замначальника ГСУ полковником юстиции А.Н. Винокуровым, а фактически, как и раньше, подполковником юстиции Е.А. Сапетовой, подделала документы (Винокуров был назначен в качестве «крыши», «тарана», поскольку ходатайства следственной группы в первый период расследования очень плохо проходили в судах).

Жалоба была подана адвокатом кооператива в июле, много раз ее рассмотрение откладывалось и состоялось в декабре. Уличенная адвокатами кооператива в нарушении УПК, следственная группа составила письмо об удовлетворении ходатайства задним числом и попыталась представить дело так, что кооператив не получил письмо по своей вине. Очередная грубая работа, выявленная, как ни парадоксально, в том числе и с помощью системы электронного документооборота самого питерского главка МВД.