Author: Liam Porter

Returns on Amazon are free and easy for shoppers, but they’re risky and expensive for the small businesses that sell a majority of the goods on the world’s biggest e-commerce site. Returns have driven some sellers to exit the popular Fulfillment by Amazon program, while others told CNBC they’d like to leave the platform altogether.At the heart of the problem is a big rise in returns fraud, which has led to customers mistakenly receiving used products when they ordered something new. In two particularly egregious examples involving baby products described to CNBC, Amazon sent customers used diapers and a chiller…

Illustration: Nathalie Lees/XxxFictionDream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieA rich exploration of female experience, Adichie’s first novel in 10 years charts the lives and loves of four women in Nigeria and the US, from a “dream count” of ex-boyfriends to a section inspired by Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged rape of a Guinean hotel worker in 2011. Magisterial, wide-ranging and delicately done.Flesh by David SzalayThis spare account of the rise and fall of a contemporary everyman, from small-town Hungary to London’s elite, and back again, gains an extraordinary power through what is left unsaid: buried emotion, the silent depths of trauma, the ultimate…

Even Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso couldn’t believe it. After watching Florian Wirtz dance through a crowd of SC Freiburg defenders in October 2023 to give his side a precious lead on their way to the Bundesliga title, the former Spain international simply raised his eyebrows on the touchline.It was a quiet acknowledgment of Wirtz’s brilliance, and Alonso’s sentiments were echoed after the match by Freiburg coach Christian Streich, who simply claimed: “You can’t defend against Florian Wirtz.”That hypothesis will be tested more rigorously than ever before next season following Wirtz’s £100 million move (plus £16m in add-ons) from Leverkusen…

The longest commercial flight in the world is a nearly 19-hour route between New York City and Singapore. All 10 of the longest routes currently operating are over 17 hours long. Ultra-long-haul flights can be uncomfortable, so we spoke with two medical experts for their top tips for surviving—and even enjoying—super-long routes. Thanks to next-gen aircraft, cutting-edge technology, and a surge in demand for seamless international travel, ultra-long-haul flights are pushing the boundaries of modern aviation. Today’s longest nonstop routes top 18 hours and cover nearly 10,000 miles, linking cities like Singapore and New York or Auckland and Doha in…

Iran’s Araghchi says it will be ‘very dangerous’ if US gets involved in warIranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said it would be “very, very dangerous for everyone” if the United States becomes actively involved in the war with Israel, reports the Associated Press (AP).He spoke to reporters in Istanbul on his way home from talks in Geneva.Araghchi said American military involvement “would be very unfortunate”.ShareKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureA senior Iranian official said on Saturday that proposals put forward by European powers at talks in Geneva about his country’s nuclear programme were “unrealistic”,…

How green is this? We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station.Welcome to the scandal of Drax, where Britain’s biggest polluter gets to play climate hero. The reality is that billions in public subsidies has enabled Drax to generate electricity by burning 300m trees. Now the government is trying to force through an extension that would grant Drax an estimated £1.8bn in public subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already pocketed, keeping this circus…

In many ways, Peter Waddell is lucky to be alive, let alone a multimillionaire. His backstory involves him wandering the streets of Glasgow after parental abuse left him in a children’s home during the 1970s.And yet Waddell went on to build a used car empire called Big Motoring World, accumulating an estimated £500m fortune, a historic home on the outskirts of London and a string of performance cars.But now the 59-year-old faces another challenging chapter, which is threatening chunks of his fortune. The used car salesman has brought an employment tribunal claim as well as a high court case against…

Illustration: The Guardian/Charles DesmaraisWith electric cars skyrocketing in popularity around the world – in 2024, 22% of new car sales worldwide were electric vehicles, compared with 18% in 2023 – a growing body of studies and an increasing number of people have found that they feel more motion sick riding in EVs than in traditional petrol or diesel cars. Anecdotes of feeling sick in the passenger or back seat of electric cars litter social media, as do questions from wary prospective buyers.There is a scientific explanation behind why a person might feel more sick in an EV, though, according to…

Josh ParryLGBT & Identity ReporterReporting fromBritish LGBT Awards Red CarpetGetty ImagesIan ‘H’ Watkins is the founder of Cowbridge Pride and received a special award recognising his workSteps star Ian ‘H’ Watkins has been honoured at the British LGBT Awards.Best known for being in the pop band, the singer was recognised for his work organising pride events and his advocacy for same-sex parents. Watkins is the founder of Cowbridge Pride in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, and puts on the annual event to raise funds for local causes related to the LGBTQ+ community. He told the BBC receiving the honour was an…

Classiness and classicism combined at this afternoon’s Brunello Cucinelli presentation in Milan. Classy touches included a comprehensive spread of today’s Italian national newspapers, eight titles in all, laid out by the buffet. The classicism was built into the clothing we were here to contemplate, which included a comprehensive slew of intelligent seasonal twists applied to the canon of archetypically tailored menswear.Because many of the assembled looks were styled for the borderlands between casual and formal, that view also took in the T-shirts upon which many were built. These came printed with contemporaneous English newspaper reports describing the arrival at the…