All posts tagged: facing

Facing the Music

Facing the Music

Published by Sam Flores

My aunt, who in her mild imagination was Ginger Rogers lacking an Astaire, lived to the last a notch above her station, an exiled queen propped up by Medicare. A mirrored sideboard’s porcelain swans and swains (no Meissen, some Limoges, all very late) amount now to the bulk of her remains: even en masse, the daintiest estate. Bring bubble wrap and drive them to the thrift store. It’s not our place to ponder the true worth of fragile imitations, fortune’s gifts for ladies of noble taste and common birth. This poem appears in the October 2026 print edition. Source link

Woman, 29, facing double leg amputation after being ‘dismissed’ by doctors

Woman, 29, facing double leg amputation after being ‘dismissed’ by doctors

Published by Daniella Wilson

A 29-year-old woman is facing the prospect of a double knee replacement and the possibility of a double leg amputation after dealing with severe arthritis for seven years. Phoebe Phillips, who lives in Chester, was diagnosed with psoriatic seronegative inflammatory oligoarthritis in 2019, which has progressed to the point that she has been left with no remaining cartilage in her knees, making it incredibly difficult to walk. She said that treatments offered over the years have targeted the symptoms, but not the cause, leading to pain that was “so severe that my GP had to prescribe tramadol and liquid morphine just so I could survive the days”. Now, her disease is at such an advanced stage that she has been advised a double knee replacement is the only remaining option, which will need to be repeated every ten years, before potentially requiring a double amputation above the knee. Having felt repeatedly “dismissed” by doctors, she is now fundraising to fund her care privately, with the initial double knee replacement surgery estimated to cost upwards of …

On Confessions II, Madonna is (finally) facing her mortality

On Confessions II, Madonna is (finally) facing her mortality

Published by Daniella Wilson

A decade ago, Madonna made a very good speech. She was collecting the 2016 Woman of the Year award from Billboard, and spoke about art, feminism, misogyny, and the mad few years when she was married to Sean Penn. She also spoke about dying. Or, rather, not dying. “People say I’m controversial, but I think the most controversial thing I have ever done is to stick around,” she said. “Michael [Jackson] is gone. Tupac is gone. Prince is gone. Whitney is gone. Amy Winehouse is gone. David Bowie is gone. But I’m still standing.” This snippet of the speech does the rounds every few months on social media, as proof of Madonna’s self-aggrandisement. But in context, it’s quietly brutal: three of the names she mentioned hadn’t stood alongside her during her imperial phase (though she did, of course, date Tupac in the early Nineties), but the rest very much had. In fact, they were a quartet: Prince, Madonna, Whitney and MJ, four icons of the Eighties who invented the modern pop star, all but one …

How to solve the business challenges facing startups

How to solve the business challenges facing startups

Published by Sam Flores

Launching a new business is an exciting time for any budding founder, but it’s also a challenging prospect in a crowded marketplace. And one of the biggest early difficulties for startups can be attracting funding to get plans off the ground. That’s where the AXA Startup Angel competition comes in, giving new businesses the boost they need to get started. The well-established competition, in partnership with The Standard, returned in 2026 for a fifth year, offering £25,000 to kickstart two winning startups, as well as expert mentoring and business insurance for a year, thanks to AXA. Four runners-up will also receive an estimated £18,000 worth of mentoring and media exposure. This year’s competition has now closed, but there is a lot to learn from those who have overcome their own challenge on their journey from startup to success. Below, previous AXA Startup Angel competition winners and two of the competition judges Raphael Sofoluke (founder of UK Black Business Show and UK Black Business Week) and Izzy Obeng (founder and CEO of Foundervine) tell us how …

Apple’s A12 and A13 Chips Facing New Unpatchable Exploit

Apple’s A12 and A13 Chips Facing New Unpatchable Exploit

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Security research firm Paradigm Shift today published details of a new BootROM vulnerability affecting Apple’s A12 and A13 chips, along with a working proof-of-concept exploit named “usbliter8.” The BootROM, or SecureROM, is the first code an iPhone runs when it powers on. Because it is baked directly into the chip at manufacture, any vulnerability found there cannot be fixed with a software update, meaning affected devices will remain vulnerable for the rest of their lives. The last publicly known BootROM exploit of this kind was “checkm8,” released in 2019 which affected devices from the iPhone 4S through to the iPhone X. usbliter8 now extends that history to the next generation of chips, covering the iPhone XS through to the iPhone 11 series. The exploit works by taking advantage of a bug in the USB controller built into Apple’s chips. When an iPhone receives USB data during startup, the controller uses a memory buffer to store incoming packets. Paradigm Shift found that by sending a specific sequence of unusually small packets, they could manipulate an internal …

Contributor: Tom Steyer’s stumble shows the perils facing self-funded candidates

Contributor: Tom Steyer’s stumble shows the perils facing self-funded candidates

Published by Sam Flores

With Tom Steyer all but eliminated from California’s top-two gubernatorial runoff in November, he joins a long conga line of beaucoup-bucks, self-funding candidates who tried to buy their way into elected office in our state and failed miserably. This includes Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Al Checchi and Michael Huffington. Whitman, a former CEO of eBay, was the fifth-wealthiest woman in California when she became the last rich, first-time candidate to try to make the governorship a corporate-takeover target. She reached into her purse for a total of $144 million in the 2010 governor’s race, setting a record for the most ever spent on a statewide race in American history. For her trouble, she was demolished in the general election by Jerry Brown, 54-41. Steyer, for his part, made Whitman look like a piker, breaking all national records by finding $216 million in his spare-change drawer. I had my own first-hand experience with one of these wealthy first-time candidates in the 1998 governor’s race, in which I ran then-Lt. Gov. Gray Davis’ successful campaign. Our chief …

The Two Ugly Paths Now Facing The US Economy

The Two Ugly Paths Now Facing The US Economy

Published by Jenni Sidey

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance I was watching Andrew Ross Sorkin on 60 Minutes last Sunday. Sorkin was on the show to promote his new book, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History — and How It Shattered a Nation. When Leslie Stahl asked him during his interview whether we would have another crash, Sorkin answered: “The answer is, we will have a crash. I just can’t tell you when, and I can’t tell you how deep. But I can assure you, unfortunately, I wish I wasn’t saying this, we will have the crash.” At one point he says “We are either living through some kind of remarkable boom, [or we’re reliving] 1929.” I thought to myself: hell, I can do better than that, and I didn’t even write a book about 1929. Because at this point, the real question is not whether we are headed toward some sort of financial reckoning…the question is what form that reckoning takes. And after looking at the current economic landscape, I increasingly believe there are only two realistic outcomes over the …

DVLA exemption ends with drivers facing new £200 flat fee charge

DVLA exemption ends with drivers facing new £200 flat fee charge

Published by Sam Flores

A DVLA car tax exemption has ended with electric car drivers facing a £200 flat fee. Since last April, EVs are no longer exempt from VED. This change means all EV owners need to pay car tax, with rates depending on the vehicle’s registration date. Electric, zero, or low-emission cars registered on or after 1 April 2025 paid £10 from 1 April 2025. From the second payment onwards, they will pay £195. This is the standard rate. Electric, zero, or low-emission cars registered between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2025 pay the standard rate of £195. Electric, zero, or low-emission cars registered between 1 March 2001 and 31 March 2017 ppay £20 to tax these vehicles. READ MORE MOT warning for popular car which has just 71 per cent pass rate Nearly half of what motorists pay for fuel is tax. The rate of fuel duty is 52.95p per litre, but this is set to rise in September 2026. The average price of petrol at the time of writing is 153.2p per litre. The …

The ‘tough job’ facing first female Archbishop of Canterbury | UK News

The ‘tough job’ facing first female Archbishop of Canterbury | UK News

Published by Sam Flores

The first female Archbishop of Canterbury will be enthroned in a formal ceremony today. Dame Sarah Mullally is the 106th person to take on the Church of England‘s top ministry, but the first-ever woman to become Archbishop of Canterbury in the entire 1,400-year history of the role. “Who could fail to see that there is immense significance,” Sky News’ royal commentator Alastair Bruce said about Dame Sarah’s enthronement. He added: “The fascinating thing about her is that she left school and she decided she wanted to be a nurse. She became a nurse and then England’s top nurse. “Then she left nursing and became a vicar. Now she’s England’s top vicar. I think this is an immense achievement by any judgement.” Read more: Who is Dame Sarah Mullally? Image: Dame Sarah Mullally on the Millennium Bridge in London. Pic: PA Female archbishop previously ‘unimaginable’ The Dean of Canterbury, Very Reverend David Monteith, said the first female archbishop “would have almost been unimaginable even 50 years ago”. Bruce echoed this statement, saying that even at the …