The brings together non-profit health organizations across Europe to advocate for policies that improve health through cleaner air. The Coalition’s new infographic sets out the evidence on the health burden of air pollution and the urgent steps needed to address it.
Air pollution is the leading environmental threat to health in Europe. It is linked to all major chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, cancer, and diabetes. Scientific evidence shows that even low levels of exposure can be harmful. Certain groups are disproportionately affected: pregnant women, children, older people, individuals with pre-existing health conditions, and socio-economically disadvantaged populations face the highest risks.
Poor air quality carries substantial health impacts and a significant economic cost, amounting to hundreds of billions of euros each year in healthcare expenditure, lost productivity, and reduced quality of life.
To protect health and reduce these costs, EU and national decision-makers should:
Accelerate the pace of binding emissions reductions
Introduce binding methane reduction targets
End subsidies for fossil fuels and ammonia-emitting practices
Remove the “renewable” designation from biomass that worsens air quality
“The annihilation of the smallpox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice,” Jenner wrote in 1801. And he would be proved right. In 1980, after a decades-long public health campaign that included widespread vaccination, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared smallpox had been eradicated. It remains the only infectious disease where this has been achieved.
A sleugh of other vaccines have been developed against other diseases, from influenza to human papillomavirus infections that cause certain cancers and the Sars-COV-2 virus behind Covid-19. In the past 50 years, an estimated 154 million lives have been saved by vaccines, according to one recent study.
Yet, opposition to vaccines – or hesitancy about accepting them – is widespread and on the rise in many parts of the world, even percolating into the uppermost branches of governments responsible for improving public health. This week, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr was quizzed by the Senate Finance Committee over his vaccine policies, resulting in fiery exchanges. On the same day, the surgeon general of Florida also announced plans to end vaccine mandates in the state. (Read more about why vaccine distrust is on the rise.)
So, is this a recent phenomenon, or has distrust in vaccines been around for as long as the jabs themselves? Why do they face protests from relatively small, but vocal, segments of the public? And how have these arguments evolved? This is a look at the long, and strange history of the anti-vax movement.
Back in the early 1800s, a series of controlled experiments by Jenner and other doctors quickly showed inoculation to be extremely effective, granting immunity against smallpox in well over 95% of those vaccinated. Public health authorities worldwide took action to roll it out. In the UK, a series of Vaccination Acts, passed in 1840, 1853 and 1871, made immunisation for children first free, then compulsory.
Sally Mann is chatty and open about nearly any subject imaginable. The photographer easily gets carried off in conversation, finding it hard to resist sharing stories about anything from her friend’s mother who had a lobotomy, to the time the poet Forrest Gander happened to drop by unannounced (the moment turned into a lifelong friendship).
Her disarming trust belies her 74 years on this planet – and brief moment at the centre of a culture wars storm, which we’ll get to later. Via video call from her beloved farm in Lexington, Virginia, she’s gabbing with me as if we are long-lost friends, breezily dropping one-liners and only occasionally invoking an internal censor that tends to arrive a little too late. All this energy services a profound curiosity, an intense work ethic and a meagre capacity for sitting still that has seen her declared one of the most influential photographers working today.
Born in Lexington in 1951, Mann was, she has said, a “near-feral” child, the last of three children in a bohemian family, who hardly wore clothes until she was five. Her father, a country doctor, gave her her first camera. At school, she emerged from the darkroom “ecstatic” with the results.
She gradually built a respectable following for her atmospheric photos that drip with the soul of the US south. But in 1992, she was catapulted into the centre of the US’s culture wars when she released her third book of photos, Immediate Family. The book was ostensibly a homage to life with her husband, Larry, and three young children on her beloved farm, and was chock full of beautiful black-and-white images capturing family moments shaded with ethereal transcendence, loving intimacy and bracing intrusiveness.
Seeing the photos in Immediate Family can feel like glimpsing private family events. With a wash of overexposed light, an image such as The Perfect Tomato turns her daughter Jessie into a literal angel ballet-dancing naked on the family picnic table. It could rightfully be called a perfect photograph, but it – and others like it – also pushed a lot of buttons. After the book’s publication, Mann faced a torrent of criticism. She was declared an unfit mother, branded a child pornographer, excoriated in the New York Times, and found herself hunted by a stalker. Though criticism has softened as her work has been reappraised in recent years, it’s still a live issue for Mann – The Perfect Tomato was recently among five photos seized by police at an exhibition of her work at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, after it caught the attention of religious conservatives.
Mann doesn’t shrink from controversy, and doesn’t take kindly to having her artistic expression curtailed. “What’s the risk of being honest,” she asks, “other than ridicule, which I’m used to.” But she also says that she probably wouldn’t release Immediate Family today, because parasocial relationships enabled by the internet have changed the equation.
“My family pictures were an unanticipated risk, in that they made people think that they knew us. A lot of people feel like they know you because you’ve made yourself available. I don’t think the family pictures would have been prudent going out in the world now, because there’s so much access to people. That just gives me the willies – what goes on to the internet and how available people are now.”
But as much as Mann says she doesn’t like the spotlight, her oeuvre does indicate a certain willingness to share. In 2015, she published her memoir, Hold Still, an extremely open book that found her airing all kinds of family history, while sharing personal diaries, letters and photographs. The book dives into the dark heart of racism in the US south and considers her immigrant family’s background of desperate poverty and death. It shocked readers with just how macabre and forthcoming she could be, and also featured startling images of personal vulnerability – we see Mann’s spread legs and pubic hair in a photo she orchestrated to capture the moment her third child emerged during delivery. (Sadly, Mann labels the photo a “dud”.)
The memoir was highly acclaimed, labelled the autobiography of the year, and once again brought the photographer into the spotlight. Though for Mann – who has a master’s degree in creative writing and has described writing and photography as her “twin artistic passions” – the move wasn’t easy. “Switching from being a photographer to writing a book felt a little risky to me,” she says. “I thought I was going to get humiliated. Of course I was thrilled when it was well received, but I did spend five years on it, so I would have been gutted if it hadn’t gotten some attention.”
But she hasn’t left photography behind. Her eerie black-and-white landscapes of the American south have been collected in Deep South (2005) and Southern Landscape (2013), and she documented the effects of her husband Larry’s muscular dystrophy on his body in the intimate 2009 series Proud Flesh. (“The pictures are like one big caress,” she has said.) “I get this little frisson of excitement every time I pick up those cameras and head out to take pictures,” she says. “I like risk. I couldn’t take the same pictures over and over again. If it’s not challenging, it’s probably not good.”
Mann’s print room with work on display; proofs and a dustjacket of her new book, Art Work: On the Creative Life; and a stack of filed prints
Now, 10 years on from her memoir, she is releasing her follow-up piece of writing, Art Work, a book of advice for budding artists. “It’s a how not-to, rather than a how-to,” she says in her deadpan, slightly self-deprecating way. Just like her memoir, this book contains personal stories – many of them humiliating and vulnerable. Talking to her, it’s clear that Mann has been telling these stories for a long time and truly enjoys sharing their every twist and turn. “There were so many stories I thought of after Hold Still,” she said. “This new book seems to be all the stories I tell at dinner parties, stories that just stick around in my head that I think are funny. I made a list of all the things that didn’t get in Hold Still that I wanted to write about. It sort of grew on me after a while.”
Mann agrees that some of the tales in Art Work stray from the book’s ostensible purpose of imparting artistic advice in favour of telling a great yarn. This is particularly evident in the aptly titled chapter Distraction, a twisty story of two ne’er-do-wells armed to the teeth, to whom Mann has the misfortune of renting a refurbished trailer. Before long she’s talking with a bomb squad and watching her beloved trailer get demolished into splinters.
As fascinating as the story is, one might ask what it has to do with making art. But Mann says it has a purpose. “It seemed a bit of a stretch at first, but I thought it was really important for people to know that you can lie fallow for a period while your mind processes. The whole time I was dealing with that trailer, I was just furious about it. That incident didn’t immediately redound to good art, but it gave me some sense of perspective. It made me want to get back to my art. Maybe that’s the point of enforced fallowness, that you really want to get back to work. When you get to the point that it’s harder not to work than to work.”
The stories in Art Work frequently sound a little too good to be true. Here’s another: as a cocky young twentysomething in the early 1970s, Mann becomes taken with a man on a plane wearing a pocket square and unceremoniously seats herself beside him. (This was back when air passengers could just saunter up to any empty seat.) After chatting with him, she learns that he is a wealthy astrophysicist named Ron. By the time they land, this stranger is giving Mann the key to his mansion smack in the middle of Manhattan’s choicest real estate. Ron, it turns out, is Ronald Winston, son of the late jewellery magnate Harry Winston.
Wouldn’t we all be so lucky? Reading Art Work, you might be excused for thinking that Mann has lived a charmed life – one moment she’s getting the key to Ronald Winston’s home, the next the emir of Qatar is positively begging her to take his money in exchange for a portrait.
But for whatever dumb luck she has managed to fall into, she has shown an equally intense amount of grit. From her teenage years, she was hustling for every photographic opportunity she could get. Living in the middle of nowhere, the self-taught photographer had to work hard to make her mark. In fact, Mann has folders and folders full of rejection letters on her computer hard drive, which she charmingly shares in Art Work.
Today, Mann still lives on her farm, and spends her days tending her 45 acres of land while keeping up with her art. “I spend enormous amounts of time running a weed eater [strimmer], or taking my chainsaw and cutting trees off my trails,” she says, detailing the impressive work she undertakes in between the equally intense work of shooting and printing photos. “I’m a worker, I’m a peasant, I’m really strong, I can do almost anything.” She’s currently working on two new photography projects: one is digital, a medium she’s never fully explored before, and which represents a huge artistic departure given that she’s known for not only making her own darkroom prints but also for using challenging large-format cameras. The other project uses an archaic form of film rarely employed these days.
Surprisingly, Mann tells me that her favourite piece of advice for younger artists didn’t make it into the book. “I get asked ‘What would you say to artists?’ a lot. If I could say one thing, it’s to always have another body of work waiting in the wings that you’re equally excited about,” she says. “It’s so easy to get discouraged when you finish a body of work, you think you’ll never do anything as good. I always think that I have nothing left, and then I go out and find something.”
It’s this restlessness that probably has her continuing to fret over Art Work. “Just the other day I thought of four things I wanted to add to this book,” she says. “I ran them by my editor and he said: ‘Sally, the book is shipping today. It’s already printed. It’s done.’”
At the end of our time together, Mann seems downright disappointed. As I wrap up by asking if there’s anything else she wants to say, explaining that it’s common practice to do so, because people are usually holding back on something, she promptly declares: “I never hold anything back.” She’s probably very right about that.
Samsung’s Neo QLED QN90F 100-inch TV is impressive to see in person.
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
Cinema-sized TVs have gained a small but dedicated following since brands like Samsung and Hisense unveiled their super-sized models earlier this year. And if you’ve been on the fence about buying one for your own home theater, Samsung is offering a free 65-inch Crystal UHD U8000F TV when you purchase either a 98-inch QN90F or 100-inch QN80F directly from their website. This deal ends Sunday night.
The Samsung QN90F is the latest update to the brand’s flagship Neo QLED TV lineup, with an anti-glare display, AI-assisted picture processing, and a dedicated gaming hub with cloud gaming support. If you love live sports or are a console gamer, you’ll appreciate the 144Hz refresh rate and VRR support for smoother motion and to prevent annoying screen tearing and stuttering. The QLED panel is also Pantone Validated for color accuracy, so you’ll get more lifelike images as well as bolder colors and sharp contrast. And with Dolby Atmos support, you’ll get virtual surround sound to support Samsung’s Object Tracking Sound+ technology for audio that follows the on-screen action.
Read more: The best 98-inch TVs you can buy
The Samsung QN80F is also part of the flagship Neo QLED lineup, offering many of the same features as its sister, the QN90F, but opting for the brand’s Object Tracking Sound Lite technology to work in tandem with Dolby Atmos. You’ll still get virtual surround sound and 3D audio, but it won’t be as robust as the QN90F. The QN80F also features adaptive audio that works with integrated microphones and the AI-assisted processor to analyze the acoustics of your space and automatically amplify dialogue and optimize audio to your room.
Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers.
The Samsung Crystal UHD U8000F is a budget-friendly model that provides a host of smart features and decent audio and picture quality that make it perfect for a second screen. It’s built with a Samsung Knox security chip for enhanced data protection and digital privacy, and it also supports the Samsung TV+ app, which provides access to thousands of free, live TV channels so you can keep up with local news and sports, watch movies on demand, or rediscover classic shows.
Also: I saw Samsung’s deluge of 2025 QLED TVs, and I’ve never been more ready to splurge
To take advantage of this deal, you have to add both the Crystal UHD U8000F and QN90F or QN80F to your cart, and the Samsung website will automatically apply the discount. Samsung is offering this BOGO deal through Sept. 7, but you’ll have to hurry because stock may sell out before the official end date.
Of course, this deal won’t appeal to everyone. But if you’ve been in the market for a 98-inch TV, it’s a great option to get one on sale alongside a second free screen.
Screenshot by Taylor Clemons/ZDNET
How I rated this deal
Everyone loves a free TV, and getting a free 65-inch Samsung is a great value for anyone who is looking to upgrade multiple screens at once or add a second screen to their bedroom, den, or kids’ playroom. While the 98- and 100-inch Samsung TVs are quite expensive, there are financing options available as well as a $620 discount on both the QN90F and QN80F to help ease the sting of that high price tag.
Samsung is offering a free 65-inch Crystal UHD U8000F with the purchase of an eligible 98- or 100-inch Neo QLED TV through Sept. 7, 2025. However, Samsung may end the deal early if it sells out of units.
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The vaulted arches of New York’s Grand Central station are recognisable even to those who have never taken a train into the Big Apple. But they could very easily have been a sight visible in central London.
Shelved 172-year-old architectural drawings by Perceval Parsons show how he envisioned a new London railway connecting the growing number of lines coming into the city to a huge main terminal by the Thames.
The drawings of London’s own Grand Central Station, which are being put on open sale for the first time to mark the 200th anniversary of the first public passenger railway, show a scheme that would have given the capital of the UK a very different look today.
The station was to be located at Great Scotland Yard, close to the modern-day Embankment tube station, and would have boasted an ornamental frontage about 800ft (245 metres) in length.
Multiple entrances would lead to a “spacious hall about 300ft long and facing them would be a range of pay offices with the names of each railway above”, Parsons wrote in his plans in 1853. There would have been eight arrival platforms and eight for departure.
He described the cost of the project as a “comparatively small expense”.
The seven-hectare (18-acre) site of the proposed station contained “only a few sheds and outhouses of inconsiderable value” and was “covered with mud sending forth anything but agreeable or wholesome odours”.
Parsons’ plan for the proposed terminal. Photograph: Jarndyce
“The great desideratum of a connecting link to unite the termini of the various metropolitan railways, and at the same time afford them access to the heart of London, has long been admitted,” Parsons wrote, “and a line that would effect this, and at the same time give a like accommodation to the principal suburbs, would be of still greater importance”.
The proposal was supported by Robert Stephenson, chief engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway and son of George Stephenson, the so-called “father of railways”, but the Crimean war sapped appetite for expensive projects and it was quietly forgotten.
The prospectus, including two large folded maps, has a price of £1,450, and is one of 200 items featuring in a new railway catalogue compiled by Joshua Clayton at Jarndyce antiquarian booksellers that will be on sale at the York book fair this week.
Other items on sale in the catalogue include a letter from George Stephenson to his son in 1834 and another from Isambard Kingdom Brunel dated 1838, as well as travellers’ guides, timetables, original manuscripts and documents dating from the early years of steam locomotives.
The 1840s saw an explosion in the construction of railways, known as the British railway “mania”, but various tentative plans to connect central London were ditched after the banking crisis of 1847.
The new catalogue compiled by Jarndyce antiquarian booksellers. Photograph: Jarndyce
In 1846, a royal commission also recommended that the construction of terminals in central London should be avoided, a warning that ultimately led to the start of the construction of the underground system in 1860.
Parsons proposed a London railway that would follow a route from Brentford in west London to Hammersmith and through Kensington and Chelsea.
From there, he wrote, it would run across Victoria Street and “through a low part of Westminster” before “passing close against the inside of the first pier of Hungerford Bridge and under the first arch of Waterloo Bridge, enclosing all that immense flat comprised in the end of the river between its north bank and the nearest pier of Hungerford Bridge which may now be seen at low water, covered with mud, and sending forth anything but agreeable or wholesome odours”.
“It is on this spot that I propose to place the grand Central Station, the site for it being formed by making a solid embankment of as much of this large area as may be necessary,” he added.
Christian Wolmar, the author of Cathedrals of Steam, a book about London’s great railway stations, said: “In the 1840s, there weren’t many stations that near the centre.
“They were all in places like Bishopsgate or Nine Elms or outside the centre, precisely because building into the centre was too expensive.”
The Stockton and Darlington railway was officially opened on 27 September 1825, making it the world’s first public steam-powered passenger railway.
An estimated 40,000 people witnessed the steam locomotive Locomotion No 1 pull the inaugural train.
The new railway connected coalmines to the port at Stockton and proved the practicality of steam trains for long-distance transport.
Microsoft warns customers of ‘increased latency’ in connectivity and says efforts are under way to resolve the issue.
Published On 7 Sep 20257 Sep 2025
Internet disruptions have been reported in the Middle East and South Asia after multiple undersea cable cuts in the Red Sea, tech giant Microsoft, which has been criticised for its links to Israel as its war on Gaza rages on, said in a statement.
The statement on Sunday did not give further details about what caused the cuts.
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In a status update published to its website, Microsoft said “network traffic traversing through the Middle East may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea”. The global software giant said its Azure cloud computing services, the world’s second largest after Amazon, were affected by the cuts but added that general network traffic was not impacted.
“Network traffic that does not traverse through the Middle East is not impacted. We’ll continue to provide daily updates, or sooner if conditions change,” it said.
Microsoft said the disruptions started at 05:45 GMT on September 6.
The internet connectivity watchdog NetBlocks reported “degraded” internet connectivity in several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and India, “resulting in slow speeds and intermittent access”.
NetBlocks said the connectivity issues were due to failures in the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Pakistan Telecommunications, one of the country’s largest telecoms providers, released a statement on X warning customers that the country “may experience some degradation during peak hours”, adding that its international partners were working to resolve the issue.
Undersea cables form the internet’s backbone, carrying global data traffic. The Middle East serves as a critical hub linking Asia and Europe. They are vulnerable to damage by ships’ anchors, but can also be targeted in attacks, which can cause widespread disruption.
In early 2024, Yemen’s internationally recognised government-in-exile alleged that the Houthis planned to attack undersea cables in the Red Sea. Several were cut, but the Houthis denied being responsible.
On Sunday morning, the Houthis’ Al Masirah TV acknowledged the cuts, citing NetBlocks.
Microsoft’s Azure has been storing information, including intercepted Palestinian phone calls in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip for Israel’s military, according to an investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and Local Call.
Microsoft has denied knowledge that Israel’s cyber-intelligence division, Unit 8200, was using its cloud services for material obtained through mass surveillance, but launched an investigation in August.
Microsoft has fired four employees who participated in protests on company premises over the firm’s ties to Israel.
Birthday wishes go out to Gloria Gaynor, Corbin Bernsen and all the other celebrities with birthdays today. Check out our slideshow below to see photos of famous people turning a year older on September 7th and learn an interesting fact about each of them.
Top celebrity birthdays on September 7, 2025
Gloria Gaynor poses in the press room with the award for best roots gospel album for “Testimony” at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Singer Gloria Gaynor turns 82
Fun fact: Was recently nominated for Kennedy Center Honors.
Chrissie Hynde with The Pretenders perform with Def Leppard at SunTrust Park on Sunday, July 1, 2018, in Atlanta. (Photo by Robb Cohen/Invision/AP)Robb Cohen/Invision/AP
Rocker Chrissie Hynde turns 74
Fun fact: Her middle name is Ellen.
Jen Lilley, from left, Paul Campbell, Drew Seeley, Lacey Chabert and Corbin Bernsen attend Christmas Con at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024, in Edison, N.J. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Actor Corbin Bernsen turns 71
Fun fact: Played Roger Dorn, the starting third basemen for the Cleveland Indians in the film “Major League.”
Michael Feinstein arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 27, 2022, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Singer and pianist Michael Feinstein turns 68
Fun fact: Has been nominated for multiple Grammys and a Daytime Emmy Award.
Leslie Jones attends the SNL50: The Anniversary Special at Rockefeller Plaza on Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Actress Leslie Jones turns 58
Fun fact: Voiced a character named Eunice in the Hulu animated series “Hit-Monkey.”
Jason Biggs, left, and Shannon Elizabeth attend a special Screening of “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot” at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Monday, Oct. 14, 2019, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Actress Shannon Elizabeth turns 52
Fun fact: In addition to appearing together in the “American Pie” films, Shannon and Jason Biggs both appeared in a pair of “Jay and Silent Bob” movies.
Recording artist Al Yankovic, from left, actors Evan Rachel Wood and Daniel Radcliffe, and director Eric Appel attend the premiere of “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown Brooklyn on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)Andy Kropa/Invision/AP
Actress Evan Rachel Wood turns 38
Fun fact: Portrayed the vampire queen of Louisiana on “True Blood.”
Hannah John-Kamen poses at the premiere of the film “Thunderbolts” at the Dolby Theatre, Monday, April 28, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Actress Hannah John-Kamen turns 36
Fun Fact: Played a character on “Game of Thrones” named Ornela.
More celebrities with birthdays today
Jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins is 95. Actor Susan Blakely (“The Towering Inferno,” ″The Concorde: Airport ’79″) is 77. Actor Julie Kavner (“The Simpsons”) is 75. Keyboardist Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is 72. Actor Michael Emerson (“Lost”) is 71. Songwriter Diane Warren is 69. Singer Margot Chapman (Starland Vocal Band) is 68. Actor W. Earl Brown (“Deadwood”) is 62. Model Angie Everhart is 56. Actor Diane Farr (“Numb3rs,” “Rescue Me”) is 56. Actor Monique Gabriela Curnen (“The Dark Knight”) is 55. Actor Tom Everett Scott (“Southland,” ″That Thing You Do!”) is 55. Drummer Chad Sexton of 311 is 55. Actor Oliver Hudson (“Nashville”) is 49. Actor Devon Sawa (“Slackers,” ″Final Destination”) is 47. Actor Benjamin Hollingsworth (“Code Black”) is 41. Actor Alyssa Diaz (“The Rookie”) is 40. Contemporary Christian musician Wes Willis of Rush of Fools is 39. Actor Jonathan Majors (“Lovecraft Country”) is 36. Actor Ian Chen (“Fresh Off the Boat”) is 19.
Other popular or historical birthdays on September 7th
Queen Elizabeth I, English monarch
Grandma Moses, painter
Paul Brown, NFL coach
Buddy Holly, musician
Kevin Love, NBA All-Star (37)
with The Associated Press
Celebrity fun facts
Recent lists: Drew Barrymore fun facts | Kaley Cuoco fun facts | Margot Robbie fun facts | Kevin Costner fun facts | Tom Cruise fun facts | Gal Gadot fun facts | Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson fun facts | Reese Witherspoon fun facts
Popular lists: Robert Downey Jr. fun facts | Emma Watson fun facts | Jason Momoa fun facts | Miley Cyrus fun facts
Check out our full list of more than 40 celebrity fun facts.
Movie and TV fun facts & more
Recent lists: 19 actors recast in the MCU | ‘How I Met Your Mother’ guest stars | ‘Groundhog Day’ fun facts | ‘Yellowstone’ trivia
Popular lists: Canadian celebrities | ‘Friends’ guest stars | Celebs on ‘The Office’
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Inflation data for August comes ahead of a key interest rate decision later this month.
Apple is expected to unveil its iPhone 17 at an event this week. Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft are among the companies presenting at a major technology investment conference.
Financial reports from Oracle and GameStop highlight the corporate earnings calendar.
August inflation data, updates from top tech firms, and earnings from the original meme stock darling are among the events that could move markets this week.
The first look at August inflation—the Consumer Price Index—will show how price pressures are impacting the economy with Federal Reserve officials under pressure to cut interest rates later this month. Investors focused on jobs data to finish last week, during which the S&P 500 and Nasdaq managed gains while the Dow slipped.
Apple is expected to unveil several new iPhone models, while Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, and Meta are among the tech firms set t will deliver presentations at an influential investor conference. Oracle’s quarterly report comes as the cloud provider has closed several big deals, while Adobe’s update will provide a look at AI demand. GameStop’s earnings will show whether momentum remains behind the original meme stock.
Read to the bottom for our calendar of key events—and one more thing.
August Inflation Data Comes as Fed Eyes Rate Move
The Thursday release of the Consumer Price Index will show whether price pressures continued to hover around current levels in August. The same inflation report showed that prices rose less than expected in July.
Federal Reserve officials are broadly expected to make their first interest rate cut of the year after recent jobs data has shown weakening in the labor market—and even as inflation continues to impact the economy. The CPI report will be the last major piece of inflation data before the Fed announces its interest rate decision on Sept. 17.
Apple to Unveil New iPhone; Updates from Nvidia, Oracle, GameStop Due
Apple is expected to unveil the new iPhone 17 at its event on Tuesday, where other models of the phone are likely to be unveiled, including a thin version called the “Air,” along with other “Pro” models.
Several top tech firms will deliver presentations at the annual Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, where investors will hear from Nvidia on Monday, Meta and Broadcom on Tuesday, and Microsoft on Wednesday. Oracle’s earnings report on Tuesday comes as CEO Safra Catz has highlighted the “strong start” to the fiscal year for the tech giant. Graphic software maker Adobe boosted its full-year outlook after its prior earnings report came in better than expected, but investors were looking to see more from the company’s AI offerings.
GameStop’s Tuesday report follows a disappointing quarter for the meme stock after it reported a 17% drop in revenue and announced plans to raise new funding.
Microsoft (MSFT), Workday (WDAY) present at Goldman Sachs conference
More Data to Watch: Wholesale inventories (July)
Thursday, Sept. 11
Consumer Price Index (August)
Key Earnings: Adobe (ADBE), Kroger (KR)
More Data to Watch: Initial Jobless Claims (Week ending Aug. 16), Monthly U.S. federal budget (August)
Friday, Sept. 12
Consumer sentiment – preliminary (September)
One More Thing
McDonald’s is rolling out a new value menu this week, part of its efforts to reclaim its position as a low-cost leader in the fast food marketplace. Investopedia’s Sarina Trangle has more on how the restaurant chain is trimming prices to bring back customers.
Faith Kipyegon has the chance to equal Hicham El Guerrouj’s record gold-medal haul
Her compatriot Nelly Chepchirchir will be buoyed by Diamond League Final win
Diribe Welteji, Jessica Hull and Nikki Hiltz are among the medal contenders
Despite having contested only three official races this year, Faith Kipyegon starts as the big gold-medal favourite at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25, especially after one of those races featured a world record.
The Kenyan star opened her campaign in late April at the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen, just missing the world 1000m record with 2:29.21 – the third-fastest time in history behind her own PB and the world record.
Two months later, she produced the fastest mile performance in history (4:06.42) in an unofficial exhibition event. Shortly after that she competed at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene and improved her own world 1500m record, which now stands at 3:48.68.
She also attempted the world 3000m record at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia in August, but missed it by less than a second. Nevertheless, she was satisfied with the result as she became the only woman to come within five seconds of the long-standing world record of 8:06.11 set by Wang Junxia in 1993.
“It is all about Tokyo now,” she said after the race.
The 31-year-old has won three Olympic and three world 1500m titles – more than any other woman in the history of the event – and remains unbeaten over the distance for four years. If she continues this streak at the World Championships, she will equal the gold medal haul achieved by Hicham El Guerrouj – the only runner with four world 1500m titles.
Her closest pursuer Gudaf Tsegay, who ran 3:50.62 this year, is entered in the 5000m and 10,000m at WCH Tokyo 25. Since the longest track event and the 1500m heats both fall on the first competition day, Saturday 13 September, the Ethiopian has decided to skip the shorter distance. The 1500m semifinals are on 14 September, and the final is two days after that.
Kipyegon’s compatriot Beatrice Chebet – fifth on this season’s 1500m top list – made the same decision as Tsegay. However, if everything goes to plan, the trio will reunite in the final of the 5000m – an event in which Kipyegon is also the defending champion.
In Tsegay’s absence, Ethiopia’s leading contender for a 1500m medal is Diribe Welteji, the world silver medallist two years ago. When Kipyegon set her world record in Eugene, the 22-year-old finished second in a personal best of 3:51.44, which places her eighth on the all-time list.
Three spots ahead of her on that world all-time list stands Australia’s Olympic silver medallist Jessica Hull, who narrowly lost this year’s Diamond League Final in Zurich when Kenya’s Nelly Chepchirchir beat her in a photo finish. Chepchirchir, who also won at the Diamond League meetings in Doha, Rabat, Paris and Monaco, is also among the contenders in Tokyo.
The US team will be led by national champion Nikki Hiltz, who won at the penultimate Diamond League meeting in Brussels in a season’s best of 3:55.94.
Laura Muir has placed in the top six at the last five World Championships. She will be part of the British team again, while her compatriot Georgia Hunter Bell – who is the sixth-fastest woman in the 1500m this year and the Olympic bronze medallist – has decided to focus on the 800m.
Niels Laros is undefeated over 1500m this year after wins in Brussels and Zurich
An unprecedented season has created an unusually wide field of podium contenders
Jakob Ingebrigtsen left racing to be ready to compete after achilles injury
The World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 will begin with no clear favourite in the men’s 1500m.
This season has been characterised by exceptionally fast racing – a record 14 men have run under 3:30 this year – and a multiplicity of winners of the big races as six different men have won Diamond League events over 1500m or a mile.
In the absence of the dominant figure in the 1500m for the last four years – Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who sustained an achilles injury early in the year and has missed almost the entire outdoor season – the event has become unpredictable, and the race for the world title shapes as the most open in years.
The closest thing to a frontrunner is probably the 20-year-old Dutch athlete Niels Laros, who won the Diamond League Final in Zurich, and also had wins in Brussels and Eugene, which boasted one of the deepest fields of the year.
What Laros lacks in experience, he makes up for with a blistering finishing kick which is likely to stand him in good stead in a championship final. He finished sixth at the Paris Olympics but has gone to a new level this year, defeating all the main contenders and lowering the Dutch record to 3:29.20.
His back-to-back wins in Brussels and Zurich means he will go into Tokyo with momentum. If he was to win, he would be the youngest champion in the history of the event.
“I am going into Tokyo with a lot of confidence,” he confirmed in Zurich. “My coach (Tom Lewandowski) and I know that there will be high expectations, we want to be realistic. But of course, I am dreaming about the podium.”
Others dreaming of the podium will include French veteran Azeddine Habz, who has the top time of the year (3:27.49) set when gaining a narrow victory over 18-year-old Kenyan prodigy Phanuel Koech (3:27.72) and Briton George Mills (3:28.36) in the extraordinarily fast race at the Paris Diamond League meeting.
Others who have broken 3:30 this year include defending world champion and Olympic silver medallist Josh Kerr (3:29.37), world indoor champion Ingebrigtsen (3:29.63 indoors in February), 2019 world champion Timothy Cheruiyot (3:29.75) and Australian teenager Cameron Myers (3:29.80), so none of them can be discounted.
Olympic champion Cole Hocker has yet to find his best form this year, squeezing into the US team for Tokyo by virtue of a third place at his national championships in August. Olympic bronze medallist Yared Nuguse, currently ranked No.1 in the world, will not compete in Tokyo after he was caught out in that hotly-contested US final.
Jonah Koech was the winner of that race, and also of the 1500m in Rabat early in the season. His Kenyan namesake Phanuel Koech won in London in July, defeating Kerr, while Portugal’s Isaac Nader won the Dream Mile in Oslo in June and has featured highly in many of the big races this year. All of these athletes have podium potential in Tokyo.
And what of Ingebrigtsen? The Norwegian admitted last week he was still fighting to be fit to compete.
“I’m definitely racing against the clock to make the world championships, but if I’m on the start line, of course, I’m going to try to win and believe that I can win,” he said.
An irresistible frontrunner, Ingebrigtsen’s presence or absence is likely to make a material difference to the early pace of the final, and which other contenders that might suit. Both athletes and fans will need to be ready for anything.
