It’s been an eventful week for Little Mix, who cut ties with their UK label, Syco, over what Simon Cowell says was a dispute over songwriting credits. Thankfully, that bit of drama doesn’t seem to be hindering the rollout of the group’s hotly anticipated LM5, which arrives this week.

On Tuesday (November 13), the girls appeared at an Apple Music event in London celebrating their impending fifth album, and took the opportunity to debut yet another promising buzz single. “The Cure” — which, sorry, is not a Lady Gaga cover — finds the girls reuniting with TMS, the producing team behind early LM singles “Wings” and “DNA.”

“Now it’s me and myself, yeah, don’t need no one else / This happiness was always inside me / But Lord, it took a minute to find me,” the girls sing, before taking flight on the empowering, self-love-championing chorus. “I was a little far gone, but I’m not anymore / Yeah it’s alright now, baby I got the cure.” That’s right — in 2016, Little Mix had the power, and in 2018, they’ve got the cure.

“The Cure” is the fourth full track Little Mix have unveiled ahead of LM5‘s release on Friday. Fans have also heard the Nicki Minaj-featuring lead single, “Woman Like Me,” the sassy and brassy “Joan of Arc,” and the sweet, sentimental “Told You So.” If those four tracks are any indication of the rest of the album, this is shaping up to be some of the group’s finest work yet. Especially since there’s still a song called “The National Manthem” to look forward to!

Ireland suffered their second defeat from two games in the Women’s World T20 with a 38-run loss to Pakistan.

Pakistan captain Javeria Khan hit a brilliant 52-ball 74 not out as her side made 139-6 from their 20 overs.

Clare Shillington got Ireland’s chase off to a quick start with 27 from 25 balls but they struggled to score off Pakistan’s spinners and ended on 101-9.

Ireland remain bottom of Group B after the defeat while Pakistan’s first win of the tournament keeps them third.

The match in Guyana presented Ireland with their most realistic chance of a win in the tournament, which would be their first in a World T20.

Ireland are the lowest-ranked team in the tournament at 10th in the world with Pakistan the next lowest in Group B at seventh.

After winning the toss, Pakistan posted their highest total in a World T20 largely thanks to the brilliance of Javeria. Their next highest scorer was opener Ayesha Zafar with 21.

Ireland were 32-1 after five overs but after Shillington was bowled by Nashra playing across the line Ireland were always behind the required run-rate despite 30 from Isobel Joyce.

Ireland fall well short

Ireland had made a good start with the ball as they restricted Pakistan to 20-1 at the end of the six-over powerplay with seamer Lucy O’Reilly in particular impressing.

But in the ninth over Ireland missed an opportunity to dismiss Javeria which proved crucial.

The Pakistan captain hit a shot in the air to long-on where Shillington should have taken a catch but she misjudged the ball’s flight and ran in, and, despite an attempt to backpedal, the ball bounced once just inside the boundary before going for four.

At that point Javeria had nine from 16 deliveries but she went on to hit the highest score by a Pakistan player in a Women’s World T20 with 11 boundaries.

One positive in the bowling performance from Ireland was the display of O’Reilly who took three wickets in the final over to finish with 3-19.

When Shillington was at the crease in the run chase it looked like Ireland had a chance but the opener fell Ireland lost wickets at regular intervals and failed to find the boundary often enough.

Nashra finished with outstanding figures of 2-8 from four overs while leg-spinner Sana Mir, plus seamers Aiman Anwer and Aliya Riaz all took two wickets each.

‘Good cricket, but only good in patches’ – what they said

Ireland captain Laura Delany: “We are really disappointed. We came here with a lot of belief that we could win this game but we didn’t put up enough to get us over the line. 120-130 was par on this wicket. We just didn’t have a big enough partnership. We need to look at dot balls because we didn’t have enough scoring areas.”

Pakistan captain and player of the match Javeria Khan: “A good win, but still we need some improvement. We can be better in the first six overs. it was a good fielding effort as we can’t afford mistakes in this match.”

Ex-England batter Lydia Greenway on Test Match Special: “Ireland have played good cricket, but only good in patches – such as Lucy O’Reilly’s bowling and Isobel Joyce’s run-out. The batting is a concern as in T20 cricket you want to play all around the wicket – these girls just need to be playing more games.”

Nothing says the future of finance like a good old-fashioned meltdown, and the upcoming bitcoin cash hard fork has that in spades. This is thanks, in no small part, to a man named Craig Wright. 

Wright, derisively known as “Faketoshi” for his dubious claim that he is in fact Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, has gone on a strange rant in support of his version of Bitcoin Cash’s (BCH) future known as Bitcoin SV (Satoshi’s Vision). 

Deep into a rambling, multi-day tweet bender, Wright has taken it upon himself to spew invective at anyone he believes threatens his plans for Bitcoin SV — especially those defending the Roger Ver-backed rival project Bitcoin ABC. 

But before we get too deep in the crypto weeds, some background is in order. 

Those of you whose brains have yet to be rendered functionally useless by cryptocurrency-related inanity may remember that last year Bitcoin itself experienced a so-called hard fork. The split was the result of a disagreement regarding the best way to scale a digital currency on its way to becoming bogged down by increased transactions and associated high fees, and gave birth to Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in the process. 

Bitcoin Cash is now poised to undergo its own Athena moment, scheduled for Nov. 15, with a totally new coin leaping forth from its progenitor’s head. More accurately, the fork will likely result in the creation of two separate coins — each updated from BCH in different ways — as the fight essentially boils down to what specific changes will be made to Bitcoin Cash (not whether to make changes at all). 

With us so far? Oh, and just to make everything more confusing, there are a total of three different proposals for how to best move forward. 

But while the end goal is to improve BCH, no one can quite agree on just what exactly that means. That’s left prominent members of the Bitcoin Cash community all vying for attention with their competing technical solutions. 

And there’s a lot a stake. Bitcoin cash is the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and whichever proposal gets the most support will likely take a majority of mining power with it. Without that power, the left behind coin could potentially wither — dragging its dollar value down with it.

So with both money and prestige on the line, Wright has decided to fully freak out. 

“And, no you ABSOLUTE cuck,” he tweeted on Nov. 13 in response to a defense of Bitcoin ABC. “Bitcoin IS not even close to a soy boy commitee. It is all use hard assed buggers bending you over to show you the light.  It is capitalism. Enjoy”

Reassuring, right? That tweet was just one of many off-the-rails outbursts from the self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator, and definitely displayed the level of maturity you’d hope to find in someone attempting to steer a cryptocurrency to a brighter future. 

And then there’s the supposed email he sent to Roger Ver. Ver, for those blissfully unaware, was an early promoter of and investor in bitcoin, who later became a full on bitcoin cash evangelist. He now supports Bitcoin ABC. In a Nov. 8 YouTube video, Ver shared what he said was an email to him from Wright.

Image: screenshot / youtube

In the supposed email, Wright once again pushes the questionable claim that he is Satoshi, and threatens Ver with “war.” 

Ver, at least, appears willing to admit that maybe — just maybe — he screwed up by aligning himself with Wright in the past. 

“It’s never easy to admit that you’ve been fooled,” he says in the YouTube video. “Maybe I’ve been fooled.” 

The video, embedded below, continues with Ver making a tortured analogy about Bitcoin ABC’s attempt to exist separately from Bitcoin SV.

“If you wife wants a divorce, you don’t lock her in the closet and say ‘no.’”

So, with just a few days to go until the planned hard fork, the Bitcoin Cash community is faced with an embarrassing meltdown and threats of “war.” 

And while whether Bitcoin ABC or Bitcoin SV will ultimately reign supreme is presently anyone’s guess, one thing is for sure: Dogecoin is starting to look a lot more reasonable.

US lawmakers will introduce legislation on Wednesday urging the Trump administration to respond more strongly to China’s crackdown on Uighur Muslims, including possible sanctions.

The bill will also ask President Donald Trump to condemn China’s actions in the Xinjiang region, call for the appointment of a new “special coordinator” for US policy on the issue, and press for a ban on the export of technology that Beijing could use in surveillance and mass detention of the minority Uighurs, according to a copy seen by Reuters news agency.

The lawmakers want the government to consider human rights-related sanctions against Xinjiang Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, who is also a member of the powerful politburo, and other officials “credibly alleged to be responsible” for the security crackdown.

“Chinese government officials should be held accountable for their complicity in this evil, and US businesses should be barred from helping China create a high-tech police state in Xinjiang,” said Chris Smith, a Republican representative and one of the sponsors of the bipartisan legislation that will be presented in both the upper and lower houses of Congress.

Trump’s senior aides have become more vocal recently in their criticism of China’s treatment of its minority Muslims in Xinjiang.

Any decision to impose sanctions, however, would be a rare move on human rights grounds against China, with which the Trump administration is engaged in a bitter trade war.

The White House and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the legislative proposal, which is also being supported by Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Bob Menendez.

Global Magnitsky Act

Beijing has dismissed accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and urged the United States and other countries to stay out of its internal affairs.

China’s top diplomat said earlier on Tuesday the world should ignore “gossip” about developments in Xinjiang and trust the local authorities when asked if Beijing would allow international observers to inspect camps where Muslims are believed to be held.

Western countries – including Canada, France, Germany, and the United States – have urged China to shut down the camps in Xinjiang, where activists say as many as one million members of the Uighur minority and other Muslims are being detained.

The Trump administration for several months has been considering targeted sanctions against Chinese senior officials and companies linked to the crackdown, US officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The measures could be imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, a law that allows the US government to target human rights violators around the world by freezing any US assets, imposing bans on US travel, and prohibiting Americans from doing business with them.

Uighur activists in the US, meanwhile, marked their community’s “independence day” with a protest march in Washington, DC on Tuesday.

American-Uighur Aydin Anwar told Al Jazeera that China was attempting to “wipe out” the Uighur identity.

November 12 is the 74th and 85th anniversary of two short-lived Uighur republics, known as East Turkestan, which were established in territory that is now part of China.

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

We’re still over three months away from the 91st Oscars ceremony — let alone two months out from the nominations announcement — but Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are already thinking about what it would be like to hit that Academy Awards stage with their A Star Is Born hit, “Shallow,” should it be honored with a Best Original Song nomination.

In an interview with Variety, Gaga said that she and Cooper, if asked, would absolutely perform at the ceremony — “one hundred percent.”

Cooper then doubled down on the promise, noting that they’ve already discussed the possibility “because I’m such a maniac,” he said, not at all downplaying the monumental success the film’s album has already seen. Cooper continued, “I started texting her the whole pitch of how we should do it. So we’ll see. There might be a cool, unorthodox way we could perform it.”

What might this “cool, unorthodox” display look like, you wonder? It certainly must top Gaga’s fairytale boat ride entrance at the Venice Film Festival and every other dramatic red carpet display since. Unfortunately, the first-time director failed to elaborate on the details, so we’ll have to patiently wait and see if they’re nominated and asked to perform at the distinguished event. But given Lady Gaga’s history of giving stunning and emotional performances at the Oscars, how could the Academy not want to make this happen?

A referee has been suspended for three weeks for deciding a Women’s Super League kick-off with a game of rocks, paper, scissors instead of a coin toss.

David McNamara made the error before Manchester City’s home game against Reading on 26 October after leaving his coin in the dressing room.

The Football Association said he “accepted a charge of ‘not acting in the best interests of the game’”.

A coin toss to decide kick-offs is a requirement under the laws of the game.

In this case, it involved England and Manchester City skipper Steph Houghton and Reading captain Kirsty Pearce, before the teams shared a 1-1 draw.

FA women’s refereeing manager Joanna Stimpson told The Times that the McNamara’s mistake was “a moment of madness”.

She added: “The referee forgot his coin and in that moment, in a TV game, he was really pushed for time.

“He should have been more prepared, he should have had a coin. It was disappointing, it’s not appropriate, it’s very unprofessional.”

McNamara’s ban will last from Monday, 26 November to Sunday, 16 December.

An FA spokesperson said: “The FA can confirm that referee David McNamara has been suspended for 21 days, starting from Monday 26 November, after accepting a charge of ‘not acting in the best interests of the game’.

“This follows an incident in the FA WSL match between Manchester City and Reading on Friday 26 October when he failed to determine which team would kick off the match by the toss of a coin, as required by the Laws of the Game.”

Wilfred the Chinchilla Persian is simultaneously the most adorable and the most horrifying creature you’ll ever lay your eyes on. 

The internet fell in love with the scraggly white cat when comedian Michael Rapaport posted a video of the cat on Instagram. Horrified, he called out to his mother and warned her of the “weird fucking stray cat outside” threatening Lucy, the family pet. 

“It looks like Grandma, the fucking thing!” he said in the video. 

It turned out to be a dubbed version of the original video, which is surprisingly soothing without the panicked yelling. In the original, Wilfred peacefully basks in his owners’ backyard. 

It appears that Wilfred loves the outdoors, and often ventures to the “bottom of the garden” even though he “knows that he is not allowed to go to the bottom of the garden.” 

He does not enjoy climbing trees, though.

With his flat face, wide set bug eyes, and adorable underbite, Wilfred is now Instagram’s collective gremlin son, whom we all love and cherish.

So here’s a love letter to Wilfred, the “weird fucking cat” who captured all of our hearts. 

Lewis Hamilton has questioned taking Formula 1 to new countries and would like to see more races in places with “real racing history” such as Britain.

The newest addition to the F1 calendar is Vietnam, which is due to host its first race in 2020.

“On the racing side, I don’t know how important it is to go to new countries as such,” the five-time champion said.

“If you had the Silverstone Grand Prix and a London Grand Prix, it would be pretty cool.”

In an interview with BBC Sport, Hamilton also spoke about his future in F1, his quest for self-improvement, and his dream of space travel.

Hamilton on the F1 calendar

F1 bosses have agreed a “multi-year” deal to stage a race on the streets of Vietnam’s capital Hanoi from April 2020.

It is the first new addition to the calendar under the ownership of Liberty Media, which took over the management of F1 in 2017 and has promised to take the sport to “new destination cities”.

Liberty Media’s plans are an evolution of the general trend seen in F1 over the past two decades, with races in Bahrain, China, Turkey, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, India, Russia and Azerbaijan added to the calendar since 2004.

The rise of new venues has come at the same time as historic grands prix in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Belgium have struggled to retain their places on the calendar amid mounting hosting costs.

“We’ve got a lot of real racing history in England, Germany, Italy and now in the States it is starting to grow,” said Hamilton. “But you only have one event per year in those places.

“If it was my business, I’d be trying to do more events in those countries.

“I’ve been to Vietnam before and it is beautiful. I’ve been to India before to a race which was strange because India was such a poor place yet we had this massive, beautiful grand prix track made in the middle of nowhere. I felt very conflicted when I went to that grand prix.

“We had a grand prix in Turkey and hardly anyone came. Cool track, cool weekend but poor audience.”

He added: “If you have the German Grand Prix and you’ve got a Grand Prix in Berlin, I think connecting to cities where a lot of people are is probably a good thing, not necessarily going to countries where they don’t know so much about Formula 1.”

So what about the space travel?

Hamilton has achieved a lot of his ambitions in life but says he still has dreams – space travel among them.

The 33-year-old Briton brilliantly won his fifth world title this season and says a sixth will be top of his ambition list for 2019, along with a few others besides.

“Top of the list every year has been winning the world title. There’s never been anything above that,” the Mercedes driver said.

“Other dreams… I always wanted to meet Ayrton Senna but never got to do that. Try to learn a language, read more books, find some time to go away with the family and do something spontaneous. Just random things.

“I love space. I would love to go to space. That’s a dream that is kind of crazy. I’d love to go in a fighter jet.

“I went to Nasa last year which was awesome so that was one of my dreams. I’m massively into space.

“I don’t have the list on the top of my mind right now but, the one I was aiming on at the beginning of the year, I reached.”

Is Hamilton thinking of retirement?

Hamilton sealed the drivers’ title at the Mexican Grand Prix to become the joint second most successful driver of all time.

He is level with Juan Manuel Fangio’s tally of titles and only Michael Schumacher has more with seven.

“I feel I have still got more years, more days ahead if I am lucky and there are still many mountains to climb,” Hamilton said.

“There will still be difficult times ahead. I don’t know when they will come but I feel better prepared now than I ever have been.

“I have got to look at this season, which has been the best of my career, and think, ‘How can I improve next year?’

“It is easy to point out the areas but it is not that easy to improve on them.”

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Washington, DC – Uighur activists in the US marked their community’s “independence day” with a protest and march in the US capital on Tuesday.

November 12 is the 74th and 85th anniversary of two short-lived Uighur republics, known as East Turkestan, which were established in territory that is now part of China.

Those present at the event organised by the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement included Rebiya Kadeer, one of the world’s most prominent Uighur exiles and the former president of the World Uyghur Congress. 

Carrying both the US and the East Turkestan independence flags, activists outside the White House called on the US to pressure China into stopping its persecution of the Muslim minority.

Though reports of abuse against the Uighurs date back more than a decade, the past year has seen an intensification in the persecution of the Turkic-speaking minority.

The UN has criticised China for holding around one million Muslims in internment camps where they are subject to political and cultural indoctrination. In a report it said around two million people had passed through the camps at some point.

China is also accused of forcing the Uighurs to renounce their Islamic beliefs and drop cultural markers that make them distinct from the country’s ethnic Han majority.

Chinese authorities have banned Ramadan fasting, as well as Quran classes for young children.

American-Uighur Aydin Anwar told Al Jazeera that China was attempting to “wipe out” the Uighur identity.

“China has put at least three million people in concentration camps,” she said, adding, “In these camps they’re forced to renounce Islam, adopt atheism, and pledge allegiance to the Chinese state.”

Turning to the crowd chanting behind her, Anwar said all of those present had at least one relative being held in the camps. 

“My aunt’s husband has more than 70 relatives in camps and prisons, and one of them actually got killed through lethal injection in the camps.

“Even outside these camps life is no better. Practicing Islam is completely forbidden; praying, fasting, wearing a beard, wearing a hijab … even naming your baby with an Islamic name.” 

When asked for comment, a spokesperson at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC directed Al Jazeera to a state media interview with Shohrat Zakir, the chairman of the Xinjiang government.

In the article, Zakir seeks to place China’s treatment of the Uighurs in line with the wider international “War on Terrorism”.

He further described the camps as “vocational training institutions” aimed at, “learning the country’s common language, legal knowledge, vocational skills, along with de-extremisation education, as the main content, with achieving employment as the key direction. “

Relatives imprisoned

Bilal Ibrahim Turkistani claimed asylum in the US in 2011 after securing a visa to enter for a conference organised by Uighur exiles. He told Al Jazeera that the US was one of the few supporters of the Uighur cause and that he hoped legislators would increase support for the Uighur people.

“We’re asking politicians to take action in Congress, to not abandon us,” he said.

The Uighur cause has drawn backing from senior US officials.

Vice President Mike Pence condemned China for its abuses against Muslims and other minorities, as did Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio has also lobbied the US State Department to take action against China for its abuses the Uighurs and described Beijing’s behaviour as “sick”.  

China depends on its trade and countries, including the US, need to impose the economic pressure necessary to stop it from furthering this oppression

Omar Suleiman, Muslim Scholar

Those present at the gathering said countries were reluctant to speak out due to China’s expansive economic impact.

There was a particular anger targeted at Muslim states for their seemingly timid response to reports of China’s oppression of the Uighurs.

American Muslim scholar, Omar Suleiman, described the Muslim world’s response to the Uighur’s plight as “complete abandonment”.

“They’re ironically being tortured for being too Muslim by China while the Muslim world seems to not see them as Muslim enough to fight for,” he told Al Jazeera. 

“China depends on its trade and countries, including the US, need to impose the economic pressure necessary to stop it from furthering this oppression.”