We wanted England to show some fight in their bid to save the third Test against India and we got it in the shape of Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes.

Ironically, it came from the two most aggressive batsmen in the team, as Buttler registered his maiden Test century and Stokes inched to his slowest half-century.

England will lose this match on Wednesday – India only need one wicket to drag the series back to 2-1 – but a positive from this fourth day is the way Buttler and Stokes showed the rest of the team how to play.

Remember, England lost all 10 wickets in the session between lunch and tea on Sunday to be bowled out for 161, the latest in a catalogue of collapses that have blighted their Test cricket in recent years.

We’ve said it over and over again – you have to be able to adapt the way you play to the circumstances of the game if you want to be successful in Test cricket.

That is exactly what Buttler and Stokes did. They deserve great credit for it.

We knew that Stokes was capable of playing such an innings. His first Test hundred against an Australia side including the rampaging Mitchell Johnson was a back-to-the-wall fight on an unpredictable pitch in Perth.

Buttler was the big question. Could the white-ball specialist, the man who hits the ball miles, tailor the way he plays to the longest form of the game?

That Buttler was even recalled to the Test side was a brave decision by Ed Smith, made for his first match as national selector.

The Lancashire man has totally repaid the punt that Smith and the rest of the England management took on him, not only with the recall but also by handing him the vice-captaincy.

His two half-centuries in the series against Pakistan and now his first Test ton are a big pat on the back for Buttler and those who believed in him.

He is a massively talented cricketer and there is no reason why a player with his ability shouldn’t succeed in red-ball cricket, even if the majority of his time in the past few years has been spent playing limited-overs matches.

On Tuesday, with England 62-4 and in danger of falling in a heap for the second time in the match, Buttler knuckled down and played the perfect Test innings.

Yes, we know that he is the sort of player who instinctively will play shots – he still hit 21 fours in his 176-ball stay – but there was not a hint of white-ball slogging in there. There were beautiful cricket strokes played by an immaculate timer of the ball.

It was a controlled, sensible innings that could be a real springboard for Buttler. What makes it all the more exciting from an England point of view is that we know he also has the destructive hitting up his sleeve.

In the circumstances, we could not have asked for much more from Buttler or Stokes, especially when you consider the questions over the latter’s frame of mind for this match after he was acquitted of affray.

For all of the good they did, though, there remains that sense of infuriation that it came too late for England to get anything out of the Test.

If players like Buttler and Stokes can do what they did on Tuesday, why can’t those regular collapses be prevented?

We keep saying the same things about England’s batting fragility, that collectively they must recognise the need for a solid defensive game and not simply say that aggression is “the way I play”.

Now, when we see Buttler and Stokes playing these ideal innings, you want them to keep doing it and drag a few more along with them.

More than anything, it debunks the idea that England’s players only know one way to play. They can find that adaptability we’ve been crying out for.

They might call it old-fashioned, but even attacking batsmanship is built on a solid defensive technique.

Will the others follow the example set by Buttler and Stokes?

We will have to wait for the fourth Test to find out.

Jonathan Agnew was speaking to BBC Sport’s Stephan Shemilt

Inflation has skyrocketed, prices are at an all-time high, and the national currency, the Bolivar, has lost much of its value. Financial devastation has led to mass migration, starvation, and deadly political unrest.

President Nicolas Maduro blames it on what he calls an “economic war” against his country. His critics say widespread corruption and the government’s mismanagement are responsible.

In an attempt to solve the problem, the government has introduced a plan to curb hyperinflation.

There is a new currency, the Sovereign Bolivar, which removed five zeroes from banknotes. It is backed by a cryptocurrency, the Petro, that is pegged to the price of oil.

The government is also raising the minimum wage by 3,000 percent, raising taxes, and increasing petrol prices for some drivers.

How are Venezuelans reacting to the new measures?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

Paul Dobson – journalist
Sonia Schott – Latin America analyst
Charles Shapiro – former US ambassador to Venezuela

Source: Al Jazeera News

There’s a new Tinder in town. It’s a feature called Tinder U, made specifically for users of the dating app who are in college. And the company is rolling it out just in time for the start of the new school year.

To set up Tinder U on an account, users must have an active .edu email address and be geolocated on their college campus. At launch, Tinder U will be available to iOS users who attend a four-year, accredited, not-for-profit school.

Tinder U functions just like regular old Tinder, with swiping and all. You can even toggle back and forth between the Tinder U feature and the original. When toggled on, users will see their school logo depicted as a badge on their profile image. Using this feature brings up college students in the same area, including students on Tinder who attend nearby universities. 

Reaching out directly to college-aged students is a sensible move by Tinder’s parent company, Match Group, Inc., which recently said users between the ages of 18 and 24 make up the single largest age group on the app. 

As Facebook readies its own dating feature, it’s interesting to see Tinder deploy the same strategy Facebook used, albeit in reverse order. In the early years of Facebook, users needed an .edu email address to sign up and use the service. 

Tinder U is also a potential win for the future growth of the service. In addition to tens of millions of free users, Tinder has almost 3.8 million users paying a $14.99 per month subscription for a premium version of the app. If the youngest age group becomes invested early, they could very well grow up to become paying subscribers.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump suffered back-to-back legal blows Tuesday, a whiplash series of court dramas that threatened to consume his agenda and overshadow his efforts to help the Republican Party in the November midterm elections.

As the president flew to West Virginia for a rally, a federal jury in Virginia found his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, guilty of bank and tax fraud. At almost the same time, longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen acknowledged violating campaign finance laws, and said that he did so at Trump’s direction.

With two former aides to the president facing jail time, observers said the outcome of the separate, high-profile prosecutions on Tuesday could represent a turning point in Trump’s presidency in which the months-long investigations into his former dealings begin to leave a mark.  

“The walls appear to be closing in,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican political consultant.

But Mackowiak noted that Trump has been able to glide through difficult news cycles many times before.   

“His legal team will argue that he was protecting his family and he would have done it in the middle of a campaign or if there was no campaign,” he said. 

As the legal developments unfolded on what was arguably the most perilous day of his presidency, Trump boarded Air Force One for the trip to Charleston, West Virginia, part of an all-out political strategy to keep the House and Senate in Republican hands in the midterm elections this year.

The stakes for Trump are now legal as well as political: A Democratic-led House could start impeachment proceedings, which could lead to a trial in the Senate.

More: Michael Cohen said he paid hush money at ‘direction’ of Trump

More: Paul Manafort trial: Jury finds former Trump campaign manager guilty on 8 counts in tax fraud case

It was not immediately clear if the outcome of either case had legal ramifications for the president, who has repeatedly dismissed both efforts. But the conclusion of the two sagas involving men close to Trump nevertheless put the White House on defense politically.

“It’s obviously not a happy day for the president,” said Renato Mariotti, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor. “When you direct someone to commit a crime you are responsible for the underlying crime. Period.”

If Trump was concerned about widening impact from the downfall of his former aides he showed little sign of it Tuesday. After landing in Charleston for the rally, the president said the Manafort verdict didn’t have anything to do with him.

“Paul Manafort is a good man,” Trump said. “It doesn’t involve me, but it’s a very sad thing.”

Trump, speaking to reporters on the tarmac, declined to answer questions about Cohen.

Rudolph Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said there were no allegations of wrongdoing against the president in the Cohen case.

“It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time,” Giuliani said.

Discrediting special counsel Mueller’s investigation as “rigged,” Trump has managed to parry several difficult news cycles during his presidency, maintaining a high approval among Republicans even as Democrats have blasted the president.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty in December to lying to the FBI about his dealings with Russian agents. Deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates took a plea deal in February in exchange for testifying against Manafort.

Robert Strong, a politics professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, said presidents tend to rise above major scandals. The obvious exception was President Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 after fellow Republicans turned on him.

“When is the breaking point for the current Republican political establishment – when will the evidence be so clear, so overwhelming?” Strong said. “I’m not sure that’s today.”      

Cohen’s guilty plea could expose the president to extraordinary legal jeopardy, implicating him in a plot to pay hush money to a pornographic actress to buy her silence on the eve of the 2016 presidential election in violation of campaign finance laws.

The plea was the latest consequence of a stunning break between Trump and his one-time fixer, who once said he would “take a bullet” for the president. The bitter split burst into view last month when Cohen revealed he taped a conversation with then-candidate Trump discussing the payment.  

While Trump continues to criticize the Mueller investigation as a “witch hunt,” the president’s fate will be determined by how the probe proceeds – and that will depend on decisions by Manafort and Cohen. Cohen’s guilty plea on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations did not include a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

Aside from the potential legal impact, Republican operatives noted the outcome means the White House will be forced to continue to respond to the probes rather than discussing an agenda or trying to address the headwinds the GOP already faces as the November midterm approaches.

Several Republican consultants acknowledged that the news Tuesday was not good for Trump, but said it was too early to say how it may affect voters.

Liz Mair, a Republican strategist, said “the good news” is that Trump is accused of a campaign finance violation, and “voters don’t understand campaign finance law nearly as well as they understand, say, burglary or murder or tax fraud, and they are inclined to trust Trump more than a lot of other people.”

Those are just the Republicans, however. 

“I imagine this further damages Trump and Republicans with swing voters, independents, and of course, Democrats,” Mair said. 

Democrats, including Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, were quick to argue that the turn of events Tuesday underscored the importance of Mueller’s work.

 “This verdict makes it absolutely clear that the Mueller probe is not a ‘witch hunt,’” he said. 

 

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WASHINGTON – California Rep. Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret Hunter, were indicted on 60 counts by a federal grand jury on charges that they used more than $250,000 in campaign funds to fund family vacations, school tuition and dental work among other things and then tried to conceal them, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Despite repeated warnings from Hunter’s treasurer the couple plowed forward with lavish spending between 2009 and 2016. Often concealing their purchases by mischaracterizing what they were in Federal Elections Commission filings, according to the indictment. 

Prosecutors charge that the Hunters were aware of when they were using campaign funds because they “discussed how much money was in their family bank.”

Margaret Hunter used campaign funds to pay $6,150 to pay tuition for their kids’ private school. The indictment said, “to conceal and disguise these illegal payments, the HUNTERS provided a number of conflicting explanations, including that the payments were charitable contributions.”

The Hunter’s went on family vacations using campaign cash, according to the indictment, including a $14,000 Thanksgiving trip to Italy and $6,500 jaunt to Hawaii. They spent more than $15,000 on plane tickets and hotel rooms for their children, relatives and friends — and the family rabbit. 

The couple is also accused of using campaign money to fund meals at over a dozen steakhouses and restaurants. But the family also spent large sums of money funding the day-to-day aspects of running a family. They spent over $3,300 at fast food restaurants and $9,000 on beer, wine, alcohol and groceries. 

The 47-page filing lays out in detail the various ways the Hunter’s tried to hide their spending.

In one 2015 instance, Hunter told his wife he wanted “to buy my Hawaii shorts” but had run out of money. She counseled him to buy the shorts at a golf pro shop so that they could falsely describe the purchase later as “some [golf] balls for the wounded warriors.”

A spokesman for Hunter did not immediately respond to request for comment. 

Hunter has been under federal investigation since March 2017 after the House Ethics Committee deferred their probe to DOJ. At the time attorneys for Hunter said he “became aware of expenditure issues confronting his campaign committee … Out of an abundance of caution, he took corrective action in consultation with the FEC and, ultimately, he and his wife personally repaid the campaign approximately $60,000.”

The southern California lawmaker is not the only GOP lawmaker to be indicted this month. Rep. Chris Collins of New York was arrested over charges of insider trading in early August. Collins and Hunter were the first two House members to endorse President Trump’s bid for president. 

California’s 50th Congressional District has been traditionally Republican, Hunter won it by 27 percentage points in 2016. But with the indictment, Democrats are hoping to make the seat competitive in a year Republicans are on defense across the country.

Hunter, a Marine veteran, was elected to represent mountainous district just outside of San Diego in 2008. He replaced his father, also named Duncan Hunter. 

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Steve McClaren insists he is the right man to lead Queens Park Rangers after he was jeered by fans following a fourth successive Championship defeat at home to Bristol City.

Rangers, who lost 7-1 at West Brom on Saturday, have made their worst-ever start to a league season and sit bottom of the table, still waiting to pick up their first league point under the former England boss.

“I knew this was a tough job and it wouldn’t happen overnight,” the 57-year-old said.

“It (being booed) is society now. It’s the reaction and this is normal.

“The message to the supporters, and it’s a difficult one, is patience. Am I determined to put this right? Yes.”

Bristol City registered their first Championship win of the season as Matty Taylor’s opened the scoring four minutes before the break and Andreas Weimann added a second-half brace.

After Robins keeper Niki Maenpaa had denied Conor Washington the opening goal from close range, Taylor cut in from the right and sent a low shot into the bottom corner from a narrow angle.

Weimann was left unmarked at the back post to head in Niclas Eliasson’s left-wing cross five minutes after the break, and Josh Brownhill cut the ball back for the Austria international to tap in a third in the 90th minute.

Lee Johnson’s City were largely untroubled after taking the lead and, after taking two points from their first three games of the campaign, ended a run of seven Championship matches without a win stretching back to April.

Rangers are struggling with Financial Fair Play restrictions, having agreed a settlement of almost £42m with the English Football League for breaking rules as they were promoted to the Premier League in 2014.

But McClaren hopes the expected arrival of loan signings in the coming days will improve results.

“Believe me, if the owners could spend money they would,” he added. “But the restrictions are the restrictions.”

“We’re in the loan market and free market and the owners are very supportive of that.

“We’ve been working behind the scenes to bring signings in and we expect one or two before Saturday. I believe if we get the right players in we’ll be OK.”

Ebere Eze had spurned a glorious chance to pull a goal back with 25 minutes left, seeing his effort blocked on the line by Adam Webster after Washington had rounded Maenpaa and cut the ball back.

Victory at Loftus Road gave the Robins their first win in 16 attempts away from home in all competitions – with their previous success on the road coming at Sheffield United on 8 December last year.

Inmates in prisons across the United States are preparing to take part in a national protest aimed at bringing urgent reform to a system they say abuses and exploits them.

The National Prisoners Strike kicks off on August 21 and is expected to run for 20 days. The strike is being led by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, an incarcerated group of prisoner rights advocates, and is supported by several other pro-reform groups. The action was first called in April, following a riot at a state prison facility in South Carolina in which seven inmates died.

Among the demands of protesters are “immediate” improvements to prison conditions, that fair wages be paid to inmates for their labour, the possibility of parole for all prisoners, and the restoration of voting rights to felons. Those taking part in the strike will hold labour stoppages, sit-ins, hunger strikes and spending boycotts.

Conditions in US prisons have long been criticised by reform advocates. At present almost 2.3 million people are held in various correctional facilities and immigration detention centres in the US. Violence is a daily fact of life for many inmates, with an estimated 19 percent of male prisoners saying they have been assaulted by other inmates. Yet prisons are also a lucrative business; private prison companies routinely sign contracts with local and state authorities, despite research suggesting that inmate-on-inmate violence is significantly higher in privately-run facilities. In 2017, the Justice Department declared it would again use private facilities to hold federal inmates, a volte-face from an Obama administration directive to let existing federal contracts with private companies expire without the possibility of renewal.

Organisers of the forthcoming national strike say it will solidify and refine a spirit of protest that was shown in a national strike two years ago. In that protest, more than 24,000 prisoners in a dozen states took part. But, in the era of the Trump administration, what will be different this time? Join the conversation at 19:30 GMT to find out.

Today on The Stream we speak with:

Chandra Bozelko @ChandraBozelko
Formerly incarcerated writer
prison-diaries.com

Romarilyn Ralston @RomarilynR 
Member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, L.A. chapter
womenprisoners.org

Krystal Rountree @JailLawSpeak 
Outside representative and organiser, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak
facebook.com

Swift Justice @UNHEARDVOICES16
Cofounder, Unheard Voices
unheardvoicesotcj.wordpress.com

Read more:

Do prison strikes work? – The Marshall Project
America’s prisoners are going on strike in at least 17 states – Vox

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Yes, it’s true: The promise of self-driving cars zooming around while their human operators doze off, read, or watch movies is not quite here yet. 

But who said that had to happen right now or we’ve missed our chance at driverless vehicles forever? On Monday, The Outline published an article titled “The self-driving car that will never arrive,” calling self-driving cars “delusional” and part of “our grossest capitalistic dreams.” It’s just the latest from those who believe driverless cars and other artificial intelligence innovations are an unrealistic pipe dream.

But innovation happens incrementally, step by step. Just because it’s not instantaneous doesn’t mean it will never happen. 

And things are happening. Right now, clunky, top-heavy sensor- and camera-loaded vehicles are carefully driving around sunny, wide boulevards of Phoenix, Arizona, or geo-fenced areas of Frisco, Texas, or highly controllable senior living communities in Florida and San Jose. Admittedly, fatal mistakes are a huge, tragic problem that set back the entire industry. But that’s not the end of the line for self-driving advancements.

Waymo is leading the charge here, clocking in 8 million self-driven miles and gearing up for a truly driverless taxi service. It’s been driving around “early riders,” like this Phoenix family, and showing how driverless can work in a world still filled with traditional vehicles. Sure, we’re given access to Waymo’s progress to whet our appetites about what could be, to keep the hope alive about a driverless future. But it’s not entirely baseless.

Lyft’s partnership with Aptiv just hit 5,000 rides in their commercial self-driving program in Las Vegas, where they charge users for a self-driven ride with a safety driver and operator up front.

Autonomous shuttle services in what The Outline reduced to a “carnival ride” — cordoned-off, safe, predictable areas — are ramping up. It’s not a futuristic utopia, but this is how we get there. 

It’s so much easier to test and put this tech on the roads that way. The soon-to-launch Waymo taxi service is a more complex version of those self-contained obstacle courses.

Ford’s self-driving report out last week clearly laid out plans to start offering vehicles for ride-hailing and delivery services in 2021. GM’s Cruise similarly has not-too-soon-but-still-coming-up deadlines. And remember, this isn’t even for mainstream use. 

No researcher, academic, or even “greedy” company spokesperson or executive I’ve talked with has ever predicted everyday consumer use of self-driving cars coming any time soon. But, “I have little doubt that self-driving cars are going to happen,” Washington University in St. Louis computer science and engineering professor Sanjoy Baruah told me last month. It’s just a matter of which company will do it first. 

Startups and researchers are well aware they’re operating vehicles mainly on highways without the complexities of urban areas and other environments.  Situations in downtown Manhattan or snowy Buffalo, New York, make it way too difficult to implement globally. We’re not there yet. We’re seeing the first uses of self-driving in taxi and fleet services. These are very much controlled by the companies themselves; no regular driver is given keys to this expensive equipment and told to drive safely.

That’s what we need to reach a new way of moving around. We’re allowed to aspire and dream big. It’s not delusional even if those aspirations are recalibrated along the way. It happens.

We’ve already got a bevy of semi-autonomous features to help society understand and accept how this tech could eventually work. Eventually. 

A Cox Automotive survey of more than 1,250 Americans released last week found that consumers want autonomous features in their cars. Collision avoidance, lane-keeping, adaptive cruise control, and parking assistance all were considered highly desirable. 

So while almost 50 percent of respondents said they wouldn’t ever buy a driverless Level 5 autonomous vehicle, the appeal of Level 2 — essentially what Tesla’s Autopilot already offers — is up 9 percent from a 2016 survey. 

Just like the naysayers of yore poo-pooing the rise of the internet, the self-driving skeptics are going to look silly as they desperately hold onto their human-controlled steering wheels. Eventually. This takes time.