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German anatomist who devised a system of ‘plastination’ to preserve cadavers that were exhibited all over the world

The German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, who has died aged 81 of a cerebral haemorrhage, following nearly two decades of living with Parkinson’s disease, was the creator of the international exhibition Body Worlds, which generated plaudits and revulsion in equal measure whenever and wherever it toured. Frequently accused of showmanship and self-aggrandisement, the theatrical Von Hagens, always seen wearing a black fedora, was known by some sections of the media as “Doctor Death” thanks to his use of a technique called “plastination”, which he had invented to preserve human corpses. Bodily fluids, fats and organs that usually decay after death were replaced with plastics, so tissues remained intact. The corpses could then be put on display, usually with the skin peeled away to reveal skeletons, organs and muscles.

Plastinated corpses remain flexible, meaning they can be manipulated into lifelike poses – a basketball player or a trapeze artist – or sliced into cross sections. But Von Hagens often trod a fine line between scientific exposition and the macabre. Other exhibits included a dead expectant woman with her foetus still in her uterus and a man who had deliberately killed himself by driving into a tree at the place his wife had died previously. Both had donated their bodies for plastination and were exhibited along with the objects that caused their deaths.

To coincide with a new exhibition in London about the Davies brothers, we rate the best of a band who brought a sociologist’s eye to hard rock, gentle pastoralia and so much in between

The quality of Kinks albums declined precipitously from the late 80s: you sensed their hearts weren’t really in it. Even so, Ray Davies couldn’t stop himself writing the occasional gem: from their final studio album Phobia, Scattered is a sweet, sad reflection on the Davies family’s complexities, powered by jangling guitars.

Ferocious flames continue to rage in parts of France and Spain, with no sign of abating. We chart the destruction in graphics and pictures

The hellish infernos that have torn through parts of France and Spain have caused deaths, the evacuation of 330,000 people from their homes, widespread destruction and clouds of toxic smoke. Records have already been smashed and with the fourth heatwave of the European summer setting in, there are few signs of the waves of wildfires ending.

France has already surpassed the worst previous year for the size of the area burned, with August, usually the hottest month, yet to come.

Americans are dying younger than Europeans, despite being the wealthiest people on the planet. Wellness fads won’t change that

I’m just back from my home country, the United States. I always enjoy visiting, but every time I go between the US and my adopted home of Europe, I’m keenly aware of disparity in health: Americans live much shorter lives and spend more of their lifetime in poor health. This is despite Americans earning some of the highest salaries per capita in the world and spending twice as much as comparable countries on healthcare.

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine of 74,000 adults found that even the wealthiest Americans had higher mortality rates than the wealthiest Europeans – and that the richest Americans had mortality rates comparable to the poorest residents of northern and western Europe. Across every wealth category, Americans were more likely to die younger than Europeans, suggesting that even wealth doesn’t insulate from larger factors that impact life expectancy.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Niha Masih’s weekly newsletter about the stories, ideas and news makers of modern India

The economic pain many Americans feel after years of stagnant wages and steep inflation is unlikely to lift before the November elections, and could be a major liability for Republicans, according to experts.

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.

The American economy lost some steam this spring as the war in Iran pushed up energy prices. But don’t let that slower growth, or the downer vibes, fool you: The economy is actually…doing all right.

The latest report out Thursday from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, which covers the months of April, May, and June, finds that consumers and businesses have been feeling surprisingly spendy, despite the drag of inflation.

Inflation does remain well above the Federal Reserve’s annual target of 2 percent. And a surge in imports — largely semiconductors and other gear related to the AI boom — pulled the economy down on paper. Overall, the US gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 1.5 percent, slower than economists expected. 

But imports and exports can swing dramatically from quarter to quarter, and cleaner measures of underlying demand (like the dreadfully named “real final sales to private domestic purchasers,” which filters out some of the noise of quarter-to-quarter swings) showed stronger growth. “It’s an economy that’s doing okay,” summed one economist to the Washington Post.

The US economy is surviving Trump

This raises an obvious question that President Donald Trump somehow has not posted about yet: If the economy is chugging along, does he deserve the credit?

After all, in addition to these GDP numbers, unemployment is pretty low. And wages rose faster than inflation last year, helping offset higher prices. 

But many economists argue that the economy has held up despite Trump’s policies, not because of them. Without Trump’s meddling, today’s “okay” economy might have been fantastic.

Let’s take a closer look at inflation to see how this shakes out. Trump has famously imposed massive and ever-changing tariffs on virtually all of America’s trading partners — including, most recently, a 50 percent levy on many goods from Canada. If I run a liquor store and want to stock Canada’s iconic Crown Royal, each $25 bottle now costs me $37. I either eat that cost, drop the product…or pass some of the increase on to customers. 

Repeated across the economy, these little pass-throughs add up. The Dallas Federal Reserve calculated that, as of March, America’s core inflation rate would have been just 2.3 percent — instead of 3.2 percent — without Trump’s tariffs. Put another way, Yale’s Budget Lab estimates that tariffs cost the average US household $1,100 a year. 

So maybe the economy is doing okay…but it could also be better. Personally I’d like an extra $1,100. And a Canadian whisky, for that matter. 

One link for later

➨ Don’t rent the new iPhone. Apple rolled out a new “upgrade” program a few days ago, partnering with Klarna to offer customers the ability to rent smartphones for $35 a month. The scheme may make sense for diehards who always want the latest phone and switch devices frequently. But for most other people, it’s not worth it. “How do I know people aren’t getting a good deal here?” one law professor said. “If they were, Apple wouldn’t be offering it.”

Before you go…

• Did you know…that stroke patients can sometimes relearn speech by singing their sentences first? The treatment is called melodic intonation therapy, and it grew out of research into how the brain processes music and language.
• Today’s trivia: What kind of fruit is an ugli? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked you for the name of Hercules’s stepmother. That would be Hera, who in Greek mythology — and contrary to her Disney movie portrayal — absolutely hated Hercules and repeatedly tried to kill him.

A delayed vote on Trump's pick for attorney general led the president to suggest he might pull Todd Blanche's nomination for now rather than meet Senate demands.

On June 11, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued an El Niño advisory after temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean remained higher than average for several months. Declaring an El Niño isn’t out of the ordinary, as they happen in cycles every two to seven years. But this one could be extraordinary.

Some are calling it a “super” or “Godzilla” El Niño, and the NOAA predicts an 81 percent chance that it could develop to a “very strong” level, rivaling the historic and devastating El Niños of 1982-1983 and 1997-1998. Experts are predicting it will likely reach its peak this winter and into 2027, bringing heat, rainfall, and other potential extreme weather events.

But even with that foresight and climate models that can confidently predict what might be in store, we still face a test of what could potentially be the strongest El Niño ever recorded and the wild weather that comes with it. We spoke with atmospheric scientists and meteorologists to find out how a super El Niño forms, why it changes global climate, and what we should expect in the coming months.

Read more about El Niño:

• The latest from NOAA about this El Niño: https://www.noaa.gov/topic-tags/el-nino-la-nina-enso 
• Vox podcast The Gray Area covers the possibility of a “Godzilla El Niño”: https://www.vox.com/podcasts/495653/el-nino-climate-change-global-warming-david-wallace-wells
• NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
• World Meteorological Organization’s seasonal outlook for El Niño heat and rainfall: https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/el-nino-forecast-intensify-increasing-likelihood-of-extreme-weather 
• The Guardian’s coverage of California’s shark surge: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/14/california-sharks-el-nino
• New York Times article about powerful El Niños of the past: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/climate/el-nino-history-famine.html

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.

Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee is in trouble.

What’s happening? Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom Trump nominated for the permanent job last month, was set to receive a committee vote on Thursday on his way to being confirmed. Instead, lawmakers are punting on the vote after multiple key Republican senators expressed concerns — and Trump is now threatening to pull Blanche’s nomination until next year.

Why are senators worried about Blanche? Nearly all of Trump’s nominees — even his most controversial picks, like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — have been confirmed by the Senate. 

But Blanche, who is also Trump’s former personal lawyer, has a track record as acting attorney general, where he’s primarily distinguished himself by his unflinching devotion to Trump’s personal priorities: things like indicting former FBI director James Comey, creating a vast $1.8 billion slush fund to reward Trump’s allies, and immunizing the president and his family from scrutiny by the IRS via an unusual settlement deal. 

Not all of those schemes have gone well; the slush fund, for example, went down in flames in June. 

The IRS shield, however, is still kicking, and Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Cornyn (R-TX) — both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee — are pushing Blanche to commit to changes to the settlement before they will support his nomination. So far, that hasn’t happened. 

What happens if Blanche’s nomination fails? It’s a black eye for Trump and a sign that the GOP, facing an increasingly dire midterms outlook, is growing less willing to go along with Trump’s increasingly conspicuous corruption. But a defeated vote or a pulled nomination won’t actually end Blanche’s tenure as acting attorney general — since he was previously confirmed by the Senate for the deputy attorney general job, he can likely stay in the acting role as long as Trump wants to keep him there.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

This story from the Atlantic, about a “tourism fixer” in Rome for whom just about any experience is in reach, was a great read (click here for a gift link). 

As always, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Norway’s striker left his mark, as did Scotland’s fans in Boston, but Turkey’s dark horses fell at the first hurdle

“I played with him on my PlayStation, and now I’ve scored against him,” Livano Comenencia said after converting Curaçao’s first World Cup goal past Manuel Neuer in their opening match against Germany. The smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup went on to lose 7-1 but that goal – their only one of the tournament – will go down in history.

21 июля я сидел, обновлял ленту и ждал Gemini 3.5 Pro – тот самый флагман, который Google пообещала ещё в мае на I/O. «В следующем месяце», – сказали они тогда. Прошло два. Я уже мысленно прикрутил этот релиз к списку «когда-нибудь», но вместо флагмана компания выкатила… три модели тира Flash. Ни одной Pro. Знакомо, да? Как заказать премиум-бургер, а получить три сочных, неожиданно крутых стритфуда.

И вот что интересно: в руки попали не просто «затычки», а модели, которые для 90% реальной работы полезнее ещё одной строчки в таблице интеллектов. Особенно когда выяснилось, что экономия в 17% выходных токенов на самом деле тянет за собой цепочку издержек и способна сделать агентную разработку дешевле почти вдвое. А ещё новая версия местами просела в чтении графиков – и об этом молчат почти все.

Давайте разбираться без корпоративных слайдов: что реально дают эти модели, чем за них придётся заплатить вниманием и как не сломать свой пайплайн, обновляясь на последнюю версию.

Temperatures of 95-105F (35-40C) are expected, spanning Gulf of Mexico coast to the Great Plains and the midwest

About 70 million people in the US are set to face excessive heat advisories as dangerously hot temperatures scorch much of the country’s southern and central states.

The third major “heat dome” event to hit the US in the past month is gathering strength over the weekend, spanning a vast swathe of the country, from the Gulf of Mexico coast to the Great Plains and the midwest.

Алкометр, который сохраняет результаты на веб-сайте в историю, а также позволяет соревноваться с другими пользователями в недельном рейтинге. На проект ушло более 400 евро, один год и несколько ревизий.

В статье расскажу о долгом и затратном пути к финальной версии и о том, какие ошибки были совершены.

Vega made remarks to ABC’s John Quiñones at National Association of Hispanic Journalists conference

Cecilia Vega, the former 60 Minutes correspondent, said on Thursday she felt pressured by CBS News’s executives to incorporate “political bias” into segments for the broadcast program.

Vega made the remarks during an onstage interview with John Quiñones, the ABC News correspondent, at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ annual conference in New Orleans. Her comments were first reported by Status.

Приложение поддерживает 20+ языков. Каждое обновление — это не только новая сборка, но и правки в обоих магазинах: название, подзаголовок, описание, «что нового». Для каждого языка, на каждой платформе, через медленный веб-интерфейс.

При двух десятках языков и двух платформах обновление «что нового» вручную занимает 30–40 минут. При этом легко ошибиться: скопировать не ту версию текста, забыть один язык, перепутать поля между iOS и Android.

В статье покажу, как свести всё это к одному коммиту.

The NBA superstar’s shock move to the Philadelphia 76ers isn’t about money or legacy. It’s about confronting the end of a career and making the most of whatever remains

The most enormous celebrities, those larger-than-life characters with immense cultural impact, occupy a kind of hard-to-quantify space in the zeitgeist. They’re human, of course; that’s what makes them compelling. But they often come to represent something beyond themselves. In LeBron James’ case, for me, he’s become a measure of the passing of time. An aide-mémoire of my own mortality. Yes, his defiance of the aging process has been heartening proof that while Father Time comes for us all, the pace isn’t fixed. But the growing number of gray hairs in his beard, the players born after he was drafted who now meet him in transition, are persistent reminders that time marches on.

On the one hand, as anyone who has experienced it can attest, aging is exhausting. Battles once worth fighting no longer seem worth the effort. An extra 30 minutes of quiet solitude starts to feel like life’s greatest luxury. So perhaps that instinctive understanding clouded all of our assumptions about where LeBron would choose to finish his career. Surely, by now, he had to be tired. Why not golf with Stephen Curry in northern California while playing probably meaningless (but highly entertaining) basketball? Why not head back to Miami, where Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo could shoulder the defensive burden, allowing James to hand over the offensive keys and spend whatever time remained by the pool? Or why not end it in Cleveland, where he’s already beloved, where the stakes are lower, where the narrative is clean and tidy? Wouldn’t that be easier?

• Brazil forward has one year left on contract at Bernabéu

• Vinícius future at Real uncertain after Mourinho arrival

Arsenal are exploring a shock deal to sign Vinícius Júnior from Real Madrid. Arsenal have inquired about the Brazil international, who has one year remaining on his contract at the Bernabéu.

It is believed any move for Vinícius – who scored 22 goals for Real last season and four for Brazil at the World Cup – is at a formative stage as Mikel Arteta seeks a marquee signing to build on the club’s first Premier League title in more than two decades.