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Shawn Stockman acknowledges Britney's devoted fan base but emphasizes that love may not be sufficient in these tough times

China Evergrande, the property developer whose woes helped bring about a slump in the country’s vitally important real estate market, has reported its debts rose further to about $340 billion by the end of last year

Girls consistently are outperforming boys, graduating at higher rates at public high schools around the country

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By Steve Keating TORONTO After being hit with a couple of LIV Golf bombshells, COVD-19 and even forest

Dua Lipa has shared behind-the-scenes footage of the making of her hit song 'Dance The Night' for the Barbie movie, but eagle-eyed fans have noticed a major detail that makes it even more impressive. In the clip posted to TikTok, the singer could be seen working on the lyrics and melody to the song with Mark Ronson, however, the iconic dance scene the track plays over could be seen already-filmed. "I need to know HOW they did the choreo before the song was made like???" one user commented. "What were they rehearsing to?? What song fits this choreo??" Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

The Atlanta Braves' latest roster move is all about getting a suitable replacement for Jesse Chavez for the rest of the summer in Daysbel Hernandez.Although seeing Jesse Chavez go on the 60-day IL is a tough pill to swallow, have you seen the stuff Daysbel Hernandez has coming out of the bu...

Pope Francis has made a quick trip to a hospital for tests and returned to the Vatican, two months after he was hospitalized with an acute case of bronchitis

The event may still be two months away, but things are certainly heating up for YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul’s fights against Tommy Fury and Dillon Danis respectively – to the extent Fury’s father John Fury flipped tables and brought Tuesday's (August 22) press conference to a dramatic halt. Things were already tense in the build-up, as Paul took to Instagram Live to claim Danis “lodged himself in his [hotel] room” and is “not showing up” for their filmed face-to-face, before Danis finally arrived 40 minutes late. And Danis couldn’t help but clap back on Twitter in relation to the delay, joking he “had a surprise in the hotel room for my birthday”, sharing yet another picture of Paul’s fiancée Nina Agdal. However, the real drama started when Danis walked on-stage with the same Toy Story alien hat worn by Paul in his infamous 2017 video from Japan’s Aokigahara forest in which he filmed a person who had died by suicide, and then launched Prime bottles into the audience. Paul, meanwhile, had his own surprise props, beginning with a poster appearing to show Danis in an altercation together with text saying “real fighter”, and ending with a birthday cake depicting a bloodied Danis knocked out on the floor. “Dillon Danis, the ‘real fighter’ who got choked out by a boxer in a club,” Paul said, while holding up the poster. Danis immediately retorted: “Your girl got f***ed by 75 other guys before you married her, shut the f*** up.” Elsewhere, Tommy Fury insisted “YouTube boxing will be done” if he wins, while KSI – real name Olajide “JJ” Olatunji – claimed “people are going to look at me differently” if he is victorious, joking that he is “the one that can see John Cena”. Though it was Fury’s father John, who was sat on stage with his son, who arguably stole the show, when he escalated things considerably. As the fighters trash talked each other, he intervened and said: “Can we stop this s***e? This is getting me down. “Let’s talk some proper stuff. People’s come here today to hear fighting talk, let’s hear it. “It’s not kindergarten stuff, it’s serious business – men’s gonna get put to sleep in a few weeks’ time, so let’s talk about how it’s gonna happen!” As he got increasingly agitated about wanting to get the “ball rolling”, Fury fumed: “Get the cake and shove it up you’re a***hole, before I do it.” Then, as he complained about the “antics” between the fighters, he was seen punching a table before flipping them over. As chaos ensued, Paul got the head of Danis from his cake and lobbed it at his opponent. The conference was then brought to a sudden pause, with a break in proceedings before the event resumed for a face-off between KSI and Fury – one which saw KSI push Fury away from him. No face-off took place between Danis and Paul. The boxing match involving all four fighters takes place in Manchester on 14 October. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A father will ask a judge Monday to dismiss his case in which authorities say he helped his son obtain a gun license three years before the younger man fatally shot seven people at a 2022 Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago

How do you define “cool”? Maybe it’s ostentation. Maybe it’s exclusivity. Maybe it’s a 250-year-old orthopaedically inspired German shoe. In 2023, odds are it’s the latter. This week, it was announced that Birkenstock had landed on the US stock market with a $7.5bn (£6.1bn) valuation, more than double its worth in 2021. If you’re unfamiliar with these absurdly comfortable sandals, the classic “Arizona” Birkenstock features a layered sole made of jute fibre and moulded cork, offering your foot some serious support, with two thick suede straps coming in some sort of earthy hue. The brand itself dates back to 1774, when founder Johann Adam Birkenstock started making shoes near Frankfurt. But for a long time, the shoes themselves were the pinnacle of dorkiness. There was nothing chic about the geek connotations, either. They were just, to put it bluntly, a bit lame – often associated with exceedingly earnest, granola-eating American liberals, and dubbed everything from “Geekenstocks” to “Flintstone feet”. You get the idea. Today, though, Birkenstock sells roughly 25 million pairs of shoes a year, and the brand is seen on and celebrated by stars such as Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Katie Holmes and Sienna Miller. Some have even been spotted wearing them with socks, demolishing decades of jokes about a look once considered fashion’s cardinal sin. It all adds up to form the greatest redemption arc in footwear. But how has one company managed to pull off a complete 180, as if transforming a pumpkin into Cinderella’s glass slipper? “The German engineering that has gone into this product actually speaks for itself,” says fashion analyst and author of Look at the Labels, Jennifer Walderdorff. “There are no gimmicks: the shoe does what it says on the tin. Its reliability is what [makes it] a fashion staple.” It has not been a quick turnaround, though, its reappraisal starting – sort of – in the 1990s. Fashion fans may recall the famous photos of Kate Moss taken in 1990 by Corinne Day. They show Moss, then 15, posing topless on a beach in Camber Sands, smoking a cigarette in a series of shots that would later make her one of the most influential models and faces of her generation. But there is a small fact about the photos that often gets forgotten: Moss is wearing Birkenstocks in them. It took a little longer for the trend to catch on properly. In 2013, Oliver Reichert became the first person outside the Birkenstock family to run the company, and it’s his leadership that’s helped steer the brand’s perception. It was that same year, for example, that Birkenstock began making appearances on runways: Céline models wore blue fur-lined sandals inspired by the German shoe, while A-list stars including Naomi Watts and Ashley Olsen started wearing them out and about. That summer, American Vogue declared that its staffers had, against all odds, “fallen for the Birkenstock”, noting how “a bulky shoe is actually more flattering on the leg than you would think”. In the world we live in today, there is so much more room for fashion and function, hence the appeal of the Birk Jennifer Walderdorff, fashion analyst It’s from here that the humble Birkenstock began its ascent into the heart of the fashion zeitgeist. By 2017, there were designer collaborations, with Barneys New York partnering with the brand to release a limited edition line of pink fur-lined sandals. Collaborations followed with other brands including Opening Ceremony, Rick Owens, and, most recently, Valentino. But as the latest valuation shows, the brand found a new lease of life this summer. You could barely step outside your house without spotting a pair. As for what’s fueled this recent surge, we can look to the pandemic, when we forwent shoes entirely and got accustomed to putting our comfort above all else. When lockdowns were lifted, all of us re-emerged with a shifted set of sartorial priorities, with high heels falling further down the totem pole in terms of stature and status. Today, there is nothing trendier than having your feet close to the ground. What is particularly interesting about Birkenstock as a brand is that despite the constant movement of fashion trend cycles, the design of its signature shoe hasn’t changed. “Birkenstock has lasted so long and grown to be the super giant it is because of the awareness and availability of information on its benefits,” adds Walderdorff. “There are lots of clothing items that are no longer worn due to their detrimental effects on the body, like corsets, which realign your internal organs to no gain. Similarly, overwearing high heels contributes to foot deformities. In the world we live in today, there is so much more room for fashion and function, hence the appeal of the Birk.” The rise of “normcore” can also be attributed to Birkenstock’s popularity. Characterised by unpretentious, utilitarian and functional clothing, the trend lends itself to the aesthetic of an orthopaedic shoe. “Normcore” also provide Birkenstocks the air of new wave edge, the shoes slotting neatly into a look that has become particularly popular among east London hipsters – take one look at the Instagram meme account Real Housewives of Clapton (which parodies a very specific type of natural-wine-drinking, Perello olive-eating, east Londoner) and you’ll see what I mean. Fashion has also generally seen an exponential rise in flat shoes. According to the Lyst Index, the industry’s quarterly report ranking fashion’s hottest brands and products according to Google searches and social media mentions, the season’s must-have is the Maison Margiela Tabi, a split-toed Japanese-inspired loafer. In fourth place is the Nike x Martine Rose Shox MR4 Mule, a pair of Tory Burch mules came in sixth place, New Balance trainers in eighth. And what was in fifth place? None other than the Birkenstock Arizona, of course. Perhaps the final hurdle for Birkenstock was to align itself with the feminine ideal – a space previously occupied by stiletto heels. Now, though, changes in attitudes around feminism and how feminist ideologies can be expressed through a woman’s clothing and appearance – yes, feminists can wear makeup! – has created a space for Birkenstock after all. In fact, this formerly frumpy shoe is now being perpetuated as the bastion of femininity. Don’t believe us? Simply take a look at the hottest film of the summer. At the end of Greta Gerwig’s stellar Barbie, our hero (played by Margot Robbie) has undergone a major emotional transformation that has seen her find a sense of purpose and identity. Gone are the feet once permanently raised so that they were perfectly positioned for a pair of heels. By the film’s conclusion, Robbie’s Barbie is an autonomous figure, a woman epitomising everything about contemporary feminism. And that includes having feet that are flat. Her footwear of choice? Why, a pair of pink Arizona Birkenstocks. Read More The grown-up guide to getting ‘balletcore’ right The Barbie press tour has finally rescued Margot Robbie’s red carpet reputation Birkenstock sandals are Barbie-approved – these are the pink styles to buy now Taylor Swift’s jacket from Chiefs game hints at Travis Kelce romance From choppy bobs to fox red, 5 celebrity-approved hair trends for autumn How Taylor Swift’s style has evolved over the years