By Kane Wu, Julie Zhu and M. Sriram HONG KONG (Reuters) -U.S. venture capital giant Sequoia plans to split off

As Manchester City became only the second English team in history to complete the treble last season, the remarkable feat somewhat passed Phil Foden by. Arguably the most gifted player to ever come through the City academy, the very definition of a generational talent, had little impact as his boyhood club blew everyone who dared step in their path away last term. Remarkably, given all he has achieved on our shores, there are some who have remained critical of how Pep Guardiola has underused Foden, insisting a young, English magician needs to be centre stage. This season, with several big personalities in the City dressing room having departed in the summer, Foden’s role in Guardiola’s squad has been catapulted from peripheral figure to integral leader, with only two players featuring in more games since the new campaign got under way. Like the rest of his City side, Foden faded badly in the second half of the champion’s edgy 2-1 win over Brighton, but the damage had been done in the first half at the Etihad. Furthermore, in such a dazzling first-half showing, as the world waits for Foden to morph into a David Silva incarnate, the 23-year-old instead showed, in glimpses, that the wide role Guardiola continues to deploy him evokes more Lionel Messi feels than Silva. When you are born with possessing your own gravitational pull over a football, just as the Argentine has, where Foden plays on the pitch is almost irrelevant. Like Messi, Foden had quite the stellar support act elsewhere on the pitch on Saturday to give him the freedom to leave supporters aghast with some of the mazy runs he went on against a Brighton side set up to go toe-to-toe with the champions. Another surprisingly regular starter this season, Julian Alvarez, got the ball rolling with a fortunate finish early on as City went in front, looking to avoid slipping to three successive league defeats for the first time since 2016. The impressive Jeremy Doku had a huge hand in the opener and kept Brighton pegged back right from the off. Much had been made of the heir apparent to the Guardiola throne, Roberto De Zerbi, planning to upset the apple cart further at the Etihad, but his team were not allowed any time on the ball to do their thing, such was the hunger among the City ranks to get back to normality – winning games at a canter. One such player desperate for his own turnaround in fortunes was Erling Haaland, without a goal in his previous two games – very much drought territory for the Norwegian goal machine. His booming finish that proved decisive in the end was as emphatic an answer to his deluded critics as he could have possibly mustered, sweeping home an arrowing finish to make it two 19 minutes in. While the game was being settled around him, Foden was busy picking out passes with the outside of his boot, sashaying past defenders as if they weren’t there, while bursting in the box at every given opportunity. Most importantly, a trait that often goes unheralded at City, Foden possessed that breathless desire in the first half that has enabled City to dominate the Premier League in recent years. No player in blue completed more sprints in the match than Foden, while only Doku had more touches in the Brighton box than Foden. So many recent losses are proving hard to shift psychologically for City, even with Rodri back at their heart of the midfield, with Kaoru Mitoma twice denied by Stefan Ortega in the City goal after the break, before Ansu Fati made one count and got the visitors into the match with 17 minutes left. There were some nervy moments late on for City, especially after Manuel Akanji’s late red card, but the champions stood firm to see out the victory to, temporarily at least, go back top of the pile. If they are to stay there this season, on the evidence of the early part of the campaign, Foden is going to have a much more prominent role in further glory. Consistency remains an issue, as his second half decline suggested. But what he did in the first half? Few, other than Messi, are capable of. Read More Pep Guardiola hails ‘exceptional’ Brighton after Man City return to winning ways Pep Guardiola believes both Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi deserve Ballon d’Or These are great times for England, says Phil Foden Gary O’Neil insists Wolves win at Bournemouth not about revenge over former club A true gentleman – David Beckham pays tribute to ‘national hero’ Bobby Charlton Erling Haaland back among the goals as Manchester City return to winning ways

This Friday is arguably the best day of the year: It's National Coffee Day.

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ELK GROVE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 17, 2023--

YouTube star MrBeast said Sunday that he had been invited to join a submersible trip to the Titanic wreckage but declined.

BERLIN & SALERNO, Italy--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 26, 2023--

There are still three weeks to go before anyone gets to actually see Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, but it’s already completely monopolised pop culture, from music to fashion to furniture. Google “Barbiecore” and you’ll find the film’s pink-plastic aesthetic infiltrating everything you can imagine, with TikTok clips offering detailed outfit suggestions to viral Twitter threads praising individual looks from the film’s characters. But nothing is getting quite as much attention as Barbie herself. Or, more specifically, the red carpet wardrobe of the actor playing her. Across social media, Margot Robbie has been the subject of endless posts, threads and reels as a result of her chosen ensembles. “Margot Robbie had the chance to do the greatest fashion press tour ever and lord did she take it,” reads one tweet. “Margot Robbie just absolutely slaying all her Barbie press tour looks,” adds another. Meanwhile, British Vogue recently described her as an “unstoppable fashion force”. In typical Hollywood, none of this would be particularly remarkable. Robbie is, after all, an A-list star with an entire entourage of people whose job it is to make sure she looks her best all of the time. The fact that she keeps knocking it out of the park on the Barbie press tour, then, should just be par for the course. But, for Robbie, this carries special significance. Rewind just a few months, and Robbie’s red carpet presence had become something of a political issue. In January, social media was alight with derision for her red carpet wardrobe, mostly due to her long-standing partnership with Chanel. According to Robbie’s fans, the actor’s sense of personal style had been neutered by the luxury Franch conglomerates, with many insisting – albeit without any real evidence – that she was being forced into wearing garments she didn’t actually like. Celebrity stylist Elliot Garnaut labelled Robbie the “worst-dressed” celebrity in Hollywood, adding that someone at Chanel “obviously hates her”. Of course, nobody knew how true or false such claims were. But fans noticed a marked difference in Robbie’s demeanour whenever she stepped out in a designer ensemble that wasn’t Chanel. There was an entire Bottega Veneta phase, for example, where photos of the actor went viral alongside speculation that she was entering her “new fashion era”, finally unshackled from Chanel’s chains. What all of this taught us was that people quite clearly care quite a lot about what Robbie wears. Now it seems they care more than ever. The actor truly hasn’t missed a beat with her press tour wardrobe, tapping into cult vintage looks and recreating actual Barbie doll outfits. As is expected, there is a lot of pink. But it’s not just happening on the red carpet. Remember the iconic tweed blazer originally worn by Claudia Schiffer on the spring/summer Chanel 1996 runway? Robbie was spotted wearing it with jeans and a white crop top when she landed at Sydney airport last month. Her luggage was also pink, naturally. Another Chanel moment came via a sunshine-yellow tweed suit that looked like it had been plucked straight out of Cher Horowitz’s wardrobe. Speaking of co-ords, we’ve seen plenty. There was the pink gingham Prada set Robbie wore to CinemaCon 2023, and the bespoke Bottega Veneta pleated skirt and crop top that the label made especially for the press tour (the exact shade of pink matches that of Barbie’s car). Elsewhere, we’ve seen Robbie wearing the iconic pink polo neck and metallic skirt by Versace from its autumn/winter 1994 collection – fashion fans will remember photos of Kate Moss wearing this on the runway. She paired the look with white platform sandals and lilac socks: a perfect way to accessorise like a doll. Another standout vintage Versace look from the same collection came at a Barbie event in Sydney, where the star wore a pink sequin minidress complete with a corseted bodice. But the undisputed highlight has been the moments in which Robbie directly references Barbie herself, with looks taken from 1950s dolls. At a press conference in Seoul, Robbie dressed in a pink sparkling skirt suit covered in crystal studs, complete with a heart-shaped bag and a pillbox hat. Then there was the “day to night” doll look from 1985 that Robbie recreated – courtesy of Versace – in a pink pencil skirt suit with white lapels and matching high heels. The actor referenced another look worn by the same doll later that night, in a tulle Versace dress complete with a sparkling bodysuit. Over in Sydney, we saw the actor don a striped bodycon minidress by Hervé Léger that paid homage to a swimsuit worn by a Barbie doll from 1959. And at a photocall in LA, Robbie wore a pink polka dot cutout dress from Valentino that referenced a similar frock worn by another original Barbie doll. And in a double whammy of references, it was also a remake of a similar gown worn by Karen Mulder on the brand’s spring 1993 runway. All of this has been the work of celebrity styling mastermind Andrew Mukamal, who has worked with everyone from Zoe Kravitz and Billie Eilish to Kieran Culkin and Irina Shayk. “We’re always thinking about risks to take,” Mukami once told Vogue of his long-standing partnership with Kravitz. “We want to make an impact and create iconic moments that people will remember and be drawn to.” It seems he’s taken this exact modus operandi and applied it to Robbie, too. And thank goodness, because Barbie is nothing if not defined by what she wears. In 2023, that might sound reductive. But given Gerwig’s esteemed reputation and what we know about the film so far, we have every reason to believe that fashion, much like everything else, will prove to be an important and meaningful platform in the script. Robbie’s archival wardrobe also marks the latest sign that red carpet fashion is leaning increasingly backwards. The only outfits that matter are those that we’ve seen before. At least, that’s how it seems when you consider the fanfare surrounding celebrities any time they get their hands on a cult vintage look. This taps into the sartorial zeitgeist of shunning fast fashion in favour of sustainable alternatives. But it also suggests a slightly less exciting prospect that fashion is running out of new ideas. Even at the Met Gala, fashion’s greatest global stage, some of the most talked-about looks were vintage. Is this the death knell for originality? And what of Robbie’s own style progression? Once the Barbie press tour is over, will she go back to grinning weakly in Chanel pastels? Nodding to fashion history is a worthwhile cause. But it’s something the Queen of fashion herself, Vogue’s Anna Wintour, famously despises: “Fashion’s not about looking back. It’s always about looking forward,” she once said. Try as she might, Robbie can’t dress like a doll for the rest of her life. So perhaps this marks the start of a new costume-orientated era for the actor, one where fashion will be taken more seriously than ever before. Funnily enough, it’s a modus operandi that puts her more in sync with Barbie than anyone could have anticipated. ‘Barbie’ is in cinemas from 21 July Read More Hostage to fashion: Margot Robbie’s Chanel problem speaks to a wider red carpet crisis Walk this way... but not like that: How men’s walks became sexualised Plastic fantastic: Barbiecore is the fashion movement turning hyper-femininity on its head

By Christopher Bing and Zeba Siddiqui Researchers at digital watchdog group Citizen Lab said on Thursday they found spyware they