A collection of photographs taken by Paul McCartney when the Beatles were on the brink of global stardom are to be shown in an exhibition that sheds light on intimate moments as the group first experienced fame.
Paul McCartney: Rearview Mirror, which opens at the Gagosian gallery in London on 28 August, features more than 30 shots taken by the singer-songwriter during late 1963 after the release of the Beatles’ first album, and early 1964 as they travelled to the US.
Self-portrait at the Asher family home, London, December 1963. Photograph: Paul McCartney
Joshua Chuang, the Gagosian’s director of photography, said the images captured the Beatles before the all-consuming fame of a few months later. “When Paul is most prolific when using his camera parallels the time in which they actually had time. When they weren’t so overwhelmed by being so overexposed and in demand,” Chuang said.
“It was a really precious few months in which they’re realising who they are, who they are to other people, and want to participate in that image formation.”
The Beatles released their first two albums in 1963: Please Please Me and With the Beatles, which catapulted them into the limelight, powered by what the Guardian called “a different and heavily northern-flavoured sound of their own”.
The band followed that up in 1964 with singles including A Hard Day’s Night and two more albums that helped them break America and become a global phenomenon.
The Beatles at a London airport (with Brian Epstein, Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall) for a flight to New York on 7 February 1964. Photograph: Paul McCartney
In autumn 1963, McCartney decided to pick up a camera, long before he and the group became some of the most photographed people on the planet. He bought a simple Pentax and used mostly black and white Kodak and Ilford film, and took a small selection of colour images in early 1964.
“I think they knew that history was happening,” said Chuang. “They wanted to capture it, and do it themselves. They picked a camera for the same reason anyone does, to have your own view.”
The colour shots mostly capture the frantic first steps into the world of American light entertainment, with behind-the-scenes rehearsal shots at The Ed Sullivan Show and relaxed poolside moments before they played live for Sullivan at Miami Beach.
McCartney also snaps fans as they wait outside hotels and captures stills of paparazzi swarming around the band. There are also more reflective self-portraits taken before live shows and interviews. One of the self-portraits is taken in the attic of McCartney’s then girlfriend, the actor Jane Asher, which is where he wrote the melody for Yesterday.
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Chuang said: “When life is happening so quickly and changing so quickly, you don’t often have a chance to stop and look at yourself in the mirror. And I really think that’s exactly what he’s doing: looking at himself in the near and wanting to crystallise that moment, not knowing what was going to happen next.”
John Lennon on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, 1964. Photograph: Paul McCartney
The images cover the era when the band were well known in the UK but could still get the cold shoulder when they ventured abroad. McCartney’s photos from Paris hint at a less-than-rapturous response in the French capital. He captures the modest crowds outside the Olympia – where they had a three-week run – and a stroll down the Champs-Élysées where John Lennon could still walk freely.
Some of the images were shown in 2023 at Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm, an exhibition of the photos he rediscovered during the pandemic.
Paris 2024 anniversary: How defiant Kharlan inspired Ukraine to fencing gold
Kharlan cemented her status as Ukraine’s most decorated Olympian by leading her team to the women’s sabre team gold medal match. For ‘Olya’, it wasn’t about individual applause — it was about something far greater: her homeland.
“Honestly, our story from Tokyo to Paris was like a movie because after Tokyo, I was close to quitting because I didn’t succeed and I couldn’t handle it in the right way,” she recalled. “Half a year later, I said to myself, ‘This is not you, you are a fighter, and you have to try’.
“With the war in Ukraine, you hear the news, terrible news, all the time, every day. It was tough to force yourself to do something, because you don’t know what the future holds, you don’t know what will happen to your family. Of course, the thoughts, they are just eating you [up].”
Ukraine’s athletes demonstrated the bound spirit that has motivated them through these unprecedented times at Paris 2024, meeting the Republic of Korea in the final.
Kharlan, 33, opened proceedings by putting Ukraine ahead, but the team trailed by three points going into the final bout. As a teenager at Beijing 2008, she had led her nation to gold – the question was whether she could do it again, the answer never in doubt.
“To be at the Olympic Games since I’ve been at five of them,” she said, “it’s always like the first time. It’s four years’ work to qualify and go through all the ups and downs.”
Emotion and disbelief poured out on the strip as Kharlan sealed the gold medal for Ukraine, demonstrating the fighting spirit that encapsulated an entire population.
Watch the Personal Best: Paris 2024 film now on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and on the Olympics mobile app.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day BTS Image Teases Peter Parker’s Struggles, MJ Reunion & Possible Plot Direction(Photo Credit –YouTube)
Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the fourth film starring Tom Holland as the titular web-slinging superhero, is slated for a theatrical release on July 31, 2026. After a string of underperforming titles like Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* (The Fantastic Four: First Steps is still playing in theaters), all eyes will now be on the next Spider-Man movie to end the box office jinx and deliver a major blockbuster for Marvel.
As of now, there are no specific plot details about Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but a new behind-the-scenes set photo of Tom Holland has got fans speculating about the film’s storyline. According to a report by Collider, the 29-year-old English actor was seen wearing a shirt from Delmar’s Deli. For the unversed, it is a grocery store in Queens that Peter Parker has frequented since Spider-Man: Homecoming.
For those who have seen the star-studded 2021 film Spider-Man: No Way Home, it ended with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker erasing himself from everyone’s memory, including MJ and Ned. A few days later, Peter visits them but decides not to talk to them for some reason. The new set picture suggests that in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker will try to make ends meet and might start working at Delmar’s Deli as his day job. At least, this is what fans are speculating.
And since the BTS pic also features Zendaya’s MJ, Peter’s former girlfriend, he will likely try to rekindle his relationship with her, with or without revealing who he really is.
Brand New Day’s New Set Pic Reminds Us Of An Early Spider-Man Movie
The new set pic of Tom Holland from Spider-Man: Brand New Day brings back fond memories of an earlier Spider-Man movie starring Tobey Maguire — Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 (2004). In that film, Peter Parker struggles financially and tries to juggle different jobs, including working as a pizza delivery boy, and even fails to pay his rent on time.
In that respect, the underlying plot of Brand New Day feels similar to the opening scenes of the critically acclaimed 2004 film, in which Spider-Man battles street-level crimes while dealing with everyday personal struggles.
— Spider-Man Perfect Shots (@Shots_SpiderMan) October 4, 2024
Spider-Man: Brand New Day – Expected Plot
The upcoming Spider-Man movie is expected to pick up right after the events of No Way Home, where the world no longer knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Since the film reportedly also features Jon Bernthal as the violent vigilante, the Punisher, and Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, it’s not far-fetched to assume that these heroes might team up to neutralize a serious threat.
The Ivy faces legal action from a waiter who claims he was refused details about how the upmarket restaurant chain calculated his share of tips and service charges, despite a new law aimed at ensuring they are shared more fairly and transparently.
The waiter, who asked not to be identified, quit the Ivy in June, claiming that he had been given an “totally unfair” share of tips and service charges, and is claiming constructive dismissal against the Ivy’s owner at an employment tribunal.
The Ivy said it “absolutely refute[s]” the waiter’s allegations and will challenge them at the tribunal.
The case could shine a light on how diners’ gifts are shared out at the Ivy, which is owned by the tycoon Richard Caring. It could also clarify what level of detail businesses should provide to their workers on the allocation of service charges, such as how their share compares with others’ and how their allocation was decided.
The waiter, who worked part-time, claims he was allocated £46.34 in gratuities and service charges for 43 hours’ work in March, a sum that was later increased to £97.45. He claims that that share, which came from a total pot of £31,562 handed over by diners that month in his branch of the Ivy, was far lower than it should have been.
The waiter estimates that he was one of about 43 employees at the branch – including waiting staff, the kitchen team and management – meaning that his hours would have equated to about 2% of the total worked by staff that month. Yet he received less than a 300th of the service charge and tips collected. The Ivy disputed his calculations, arguing they were inaccurate and misleading. It said it used an independent consultancy to calculate how tips and service charges were shared. Lawyers working for the chain said he was a “disgruntled and discredited” former employee.
Under the law implemented last October, employers in Britain must share out 100% of service charges collected in a venue to workers there. It must be done in a “fair and transparent manner” and employees have the right to know “how tips are allocated and distributed”.
Diners at the Ivy, which was spun out of the London celebrity haunt and operates nearly 40 restaurants in the UK and Ireland, pay about £21 for fish and chips and £4.50 for a cup of coffee. Caring is attempting a £1bn sale of the business, which is owned by his Troia (UK) Restaurants parent company.
The Ivy said it had complied with the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 and operated “a fair and transparent” scheme for distributing tips and service charge,which was “overseen by employee representatives and an independent, third-party business used by many restaurants in the hospitality industry”.
A spokesperson for Troia (UK) Restaurants said: “We absolutely refute all the claims that are being made and will provide all the evidence necessary to disprove these allegations to the employment tribunal.
“We introduced a fair and transparent scheme after consultations with staff that has been well received and is overseen by employee representatives and an independent, third-party business used by many restaurants in the hospitality industry.”
The Ivy said it shared out service charges via a system called a “tronc”, with different team members allocated “tronc points” that determine their share of the service charge each month. However, employees are not given an explanation of exactly how their tronc points are determined or how they compare with other team members’. Diners at the branch of the Ivy where the waiter worked pay an optional 12.5% service charge, with some adding tips on top. The firm says card and cash tips go directly to the individual who was given them.
The Ivy claimed that it was unable to give details on how tronc points were allocated because doing so would breach its employees’ rights.
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The law states that gratuities must be shared out with regard to a code of practice and says there should be a written policy available to workers explaining “how tips are allocated and distributed and what steps the employer takes to ensure tips are handled fairly and transparently”.
Michael Newman, an employment law expert at Leigh Day, said: “This legislation was introduced to try and make the system fairer and the company has either managed to avoid it or the legislation hasn’t achieved its purpose. This case could clarify if employers need to provide more detail on how they distribute the service charge.”
The Ivy waiter’s payslips do not make clear which payments relate to personal tips and which to service charges and the company does not disclose how its waiters’ share of the service charge compares with kitchen staff, managers or other workers. It also does not reveal to workers how many individuals at a restaurant have shared the service charge. The Ivy has said that the worker “was provided with full details of his tronc allocation and how it was calculated, which included information which went beyond what he was entitled to receive pursuant to the relevant legislation”.
The waiter had worked on and off for the Ivy since November 2023 and said he sought clarification of his service charge and tips from last autumn and into this spring. He was given a warning about behaviour in April, which he claims included forgetting guests drinks and not emptying ice buckets. The business disputes those claims. He said that at about the same time he filed a formal demand for information on his service charge allocation, before resigning in June.
Italians appear to be snubbing beaches this summer, amid claims they are rebelling against the high prices charged by the owners of private beach concessions.
Going to the beach and renting cabins, loungers and parasols – usually at the same location – has long been an ingrained habit of Italian summer holiday culture.
But this year’s season began with a notable fall in beachgoer numbers after private resorts along Italy’s two long stretches of coastline recorded a decrease of between 15% and 25% in June and July compared with the same period in 2024.
The problem is not so much the weekend, when beach resorts are often congested, especially those close to cities such as Rome, but during the week. Those who do go are also spending less on food and drink.
Fabrizio Licordari, the president of Assobalneari Italia, an association representing beach clubs, blamed the decline on the high cost of living and its consequences on spending power.
“Even with two salaries, many families struggle to reach the end of the month,” he told Ansa news agency. “In such circumstances, it’s natural that the first expenses to be cut are those for leisure, entertainment and holidays.”
The drop in attendance, however, also coincides with increases in the cost of private beach resorts and the growing rebellion against their dominance of Italian shorelines, which has left very little space for free beaches.
The cost of renting a sunlounger is a recurring topic of discussion, and rightly so – on average, it costs 17% more than it did four years ago, according to figures this week from the consumer group Altroconsumo. On beaches in the Lazio region, for example, it is difficult to rent two loungers and an umbrella for less than €30 (£26) a day. That rises to about €90 in the popular resort of Gallipoli in Puglia.
The actor Alessandro Gassmann stoked the debate after sharing a photo of a beach with deserted loungers on his Instagram page and writing alongside it: “I read that the season is not going well. Maybe it’s because the prices are exaggerated and the country’s economic situation is forcing Italians to choose free beaches? Lower the prices and maybe things will get better.”
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Maurizio Rustignoli, the president of Fiba, the Italian beach resorts federation, argued that reports of high price rises were “misleading” and that, where they occurred, it was by only a small percentage. He added that people in return benefited from services including security and lifeguard supervision.
But the consumers association Codacons said going to beach resorts had become “a drain” on people’s finances and accused the concession owners of “shedding crocodile tears”.
The beaches might be losing custom, but areas in the mountains, especially the Dolomites, have had a significant rise in visitor numbers, with some areas fearing overtourism. According to a report this week in the newspaper Il Messaggero, more Italians are venturing to the mountains for their holidays, partly as a way to escape increasingly hot summers caused in part by the climate crisis.
CANBERRA, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) — Australian researchers have developed a sunlight-activated material that transforms toxic “forever chemicals” (PFAS) in water into harmless fluoride.
The innovation offers a low-energy approach to tackling toxic PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) contamination, which has been linked to cancer, infertility, and developmental disorders, according to a statement released Friday by the University of Adelaide in South Australia.
PFAS are synthetic chemicals in cookware, firefighting foams and water-repellent fabrics that resist breakdown and build up in the environment and the human body, with over 85 percent of Australians carrying them in their blood, it said.
New drinking water guidelines have cut safe PFAS limits to mere nanograms per liter, researchers said.
“PFAS contamination continues to pose a global health risk, and this research represents a critical step toward safer communities and cleaner ecosystems,” said the study’s lead researcher Cameron Shearer from the University of Adelaide.
The team redesigned a catalyst to target PFAS fluorine atoms, achieving complete breakdown and enabling recovered fluoride to be reused in products like toothpaste or fertilizers, according to the study published in Small, a nanoscience & nanotechnology journal in Germany.
The new materials could be integrated into treatment systems that capture and concentrate PFAS in water, which can then be degraded through exposure to the light-activated materials, the authors said, adding that work is now underway to improve the material’s stability for large-scale applications. ■
Fatal Influence’s Fallon Henley & Jazmyn Nyx Face Xia Brookside & Léi Yǐng Lee on Xplosion
Preview / August 8, 2025 / by TNA Wrestling Staff
Watch on TNA+
TNA Xplosion is must-see! A new episode premieres every Friday exclusively for TNA+ subscribers, then airs for FREE on YouTube the following Tuesday. Witness all-new matchups you won’t see anywhere else, as well as exclusive content like Around the Ring with Gia Miller, the Don West You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me Trending Topics of the Week, From the Vault presented by TNA+ and more.
With both teams set to challenge for the TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Championship in a four-way match at Emergence, momentum is up for grabs as Fatal Influence’s Fallon Henley and Jazmyn Nyx battle Xia Brookside and Léi Yǐng Lee. Plus, TNA International Champion Steve Maclin sits down with Gia Miller on Around The Ring.
Watch a brand-new episode of TNA Xplosion every Friday, exclusively for TNA+ subscribers—then catch it for FREE on YouTube the following Tuesday.
