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How do you keep wasps away from your picnic? Readers of the seminal work of children’s literature The Giant Jam Sandwich will know that the most effective approach is to bake a loaf of bread the size of a village, use a tractor to spread jam across one of its enormous slices and then charter a fleet of helicopters to drop a second slice on top, thereby squashing the pests that have gathered in your sweet trap.
Obviously, though, scale is an issue here. These days, most of us just don’t have communities willing to pull together on such an operation or the budgets to make it happen. Fortunately, there are more cost-effective and realistic tactics for warding off insects, and you don’t even have to kill them. So make this article part of your pre-picnic plan. It will show you that you can sacrifice a few morsels from one of your lesser dishes, turning it into an offering for wasps that will keep them off your favourite picky bits. You can then picnic in peace.
When a massive earthquake hit Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula earlier this week, it triggered tsunami warnings around the world. The threat has now passed, leaving us thankful that we have such an advanced system of alerts in operation. Things were very different when an even bigger earthquake struck the same peninsula in 1952. That quake triggered a tsunami that killed thousands of people – but almost no one outside the region heard about it because it was covered up by the Soviet regime.
Relations between Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are tense, to put it mildly, now that the former is suing the latter over claims made in the Wall Street Journal in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. But the two men weren’t always so cool towards each other, as the latest episode of our podcast reveals. The author of a forthcoming book on Murdoch spills the beans on a decades-long association (and you’ll hear why we can’t really call it a friendship) that has served both men in their own way.
Trump hopes to distract attention from the Epstein scandal with a fresh round of tariffs, including huge hits on Canada, China and Brazil, among others. Is this confrontational and chaotic approach to global trade actually paying off for the US? We asked an expert to assess the situation.
Also this week, a hideous wakeup call about the fungus in your socks, a reality check on ‘fibremaxxing’ and a historical clapback against all the tired (and tiresome) criticisms some pundits still level against women’s sports.
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