There is “blood in the water” at Manchester United amid apparent discord behind the scenes, says Ian Wright.

United manager Jose Mourinho said his side made “incredible mistakes” as they lost 3-2 at Brighton on Sunday.

Wright suggested executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward was also unhappy.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 live’s Monday Night Club, former England striker Wright said: “Ed Woodward’s unhappy, the manager’s unhappy, the players are unhappy and the fans are unhappy.”

Mourinho warned in the summer that his side faced “a difficult season” if they did not strengthen before the transfer window closed.

He had highlighted his team’s defence as an area that needed bolstering, but deadline day passed without any new arrivals.

Former Arsenal striker Wright said he feared for the Old Trafford future of Mourinho, who signed a contract extension in January, committing him to United until 2020.

“Something is going to have to give somewhere along the line,” he added.

“If it carries on like this for Manchester United, I don’t care how much money they are making, they are going to slip way out of it.

“I cannot see any other outcome than unfortunately Jose Mourinho will probably lose his job if it carries on like it is.”

‘There are big splits at Man Utd’

Former Chelsea forward Chris Sutton, speaking on the same programme, said Sunday’s display suggested United’s players “were not playing for their manager”.

“There are big splits. They don’t seem committed to the manager or the cause,” added Sutton.

“They are Manchester United in name only. The worst thing is it didn’t seem like a one-off yesterday, and it could happen time and time again.

“The fans are angry and fed up.”

‘Man Utd should have backed Mourinho’

United were linked with several defenders during the close season, including Leicester’s Harry Maguire, Tottenham’s Toby Alderweireld and Bayern Munich’s Jerome Boateng.

Speaking on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football, former United defender Gary Neville said the club should have supported Mourinho in the transfer window.

Neville added: “The minute that he [Woodward] gave Jose Mourinho a contract extension – which some would say was unnecessary part way through a season – but believing in a manager, showing the faith, he had to then buy him the centre-backs.

“Irrespective of the manager, Manchester United need new centre-backs.

“My view is that Maguire and Alderweireld would have been good options. If they cost £120m to bring them in, then that’s what you have to do.

“My view would be that he’s got to stay until the very end of that contract and be backed until the end of that contract if you’re going to give a contract extension as the CEO of the club.

“At the moment, there is definitely an angst there between the club and the manager.

“Don’t get me wrong – the club has supported him. But you can’t three quarters build a house – you have to finish the job.

“United need serious football people to guide what they are doing.”

As nice as it is to see smartwatches like the Apple Watch, Fitbit Versa, and upcoming Samsung Galaxy Watch push health and fitness features as core to ownership, it turns out many people still prefer a simpler and cheaper fitness tracker.

That’s why Fitbit’s still making them. Its newest fitness tracker is the Charge 3 and it improves on the Charge 2 in every way.

Available in October for $149.95 ($169.95 for the Special Edition), Fitbit says it focused on three key pillars: a more premium design, improved health and fitness tracking, and smartwatch functionality.

Comfier and more stylish

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

At first glance, the Charge 3 looks similar to the Charge 2, but Fitbit’s tweaked the design so that it’s more gender neutral, fashionable, and comfier.

Rubber silicone isn’t the only band option anymore. In addition to the sporty bands, some of which now have perforations so that they’re more breathable, there’s a variety of woven heathered ($35) and Horween leather bands ($50). My favorites are the casual, but stylish woven heathered straps because they don’t scream fitness to everyone. 

These bands, unlike the ones for the Fitbit Versa, are much easier to swap out. The single button mechanism is smooth and struggle-free.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

I’ve never been a fan of how Fitbit’s fitness trackers feel — I’ve always found them too stiff and uncomfortable on my small bony wrists — but the Charge 3 is really comfy. It’s 20 percent lighter than the Charge 2 and the aluminum body is better contoured to wrap around wrists.

The OLED display is now a touchscreen (Charge 2 wasn’t) and is almost 40 percent larger than than on the Charge 2. It’s also made of a more durable and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Additionally, the screens’s also brighter and more visible outdoors. 

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Adding to the Charge 3’s more premium construction is a new inductive side button. It’s not a mechanical button — pressing it initiates a vibration much like the faux home button on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus and the haptic buttons on the HTC U12+. It’s sensitive and I had no issues with it during my brief hands on with the Charge 3; Fitbit says it’ll work fine even if your fingers are wet or sweaty.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

7-day battery life, water-resistance, blood oxygen levels tracking

The Charge 3 has many of the same features as the Charge 2, including a 24/7 PurePulse heart rate monitor and connected GPS, but Fitbit says its users wanted more.

So the Charge 3 has even longer battery life: up to 7 days on a single charge (up from the 5 days of power on the Charge 2). 

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

The fitness tracker’s also fully water-resistant up to 50 meters and comes with new swim-tracking features.

The Charge 3’s also Fitbit’s first fitness tracker with an SpO2 sensor (same one as on the Fitbit Ionic and Versa smartwatches) for monitoring blood oxygen levels.

New sensors, however, aren’t the only new features on Fitbit’s new fitness tracker. Like with the Versa smartwatch, the software’s also capable of female health tracking (for logging period and ovulation data) and will show this information on the tracker as opposed to only in the Fitbit app.

Additionally, Fitbit’s launching a new Sleep Score beta feature later this year that uses the PurePulse heart rate tracking to help users get a better idea of their sleep quality. The score’s based on a number of factors: sleep duration, sleep composition (i.e. light, deep, REM), and revitalization (heart rate levels and breathing quality during sleep compared to reseting levels).

The goal with this Sleep Score is to help detect early signs of allergies, asthma, or sleep apnea, the company says.

Fitbit’s also made the software a little more personal with better guidance prompts, which should help users stay motivated.

More smartwatch-like

Image: raymond wong/mashable

Though the Charge 3 isn’t a smartwatch, it has inherited some features from Fitbit’s smartwatches.

Charge 3 users can see all of their phone notifications right on the wearable’s screen, as well as answer and reject calls (coming soon).

Android users will have access to quick replies for text messages. iOS users won’t get such functionality because Apple doesn’t allow other wearables to do so. 

On the Special Edition Charge 3, there’s built-in NFC for Fitbit Pay. Fitbit says

The Charge 3 also features several lightweight apps that make it more smartwatch-like. There’s a more robust alarm, calendar, time, weather, and even a Fitbit leaderboard app (coming soon). 

Fitting into the family

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

If you’re looking for a full-featured fitness tracker that also has some smartwatch features, the Charge 3 has a lot to offer. 

It’s really light, comfy, and it costs less than the Versa smartwatch ($200). However, you really have to weigh what you get and don’t get. For just another $50, you can get the Versa.

Fitbit’s been blurring the lines between its fitness trackers and smartwatches and it’s definitely tricky to figure out which wearable is right for you. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference. Maybe you don’t want a larger square screen with more smartwatch features. Or maybe you prefer the longer battery life on the Charge 3. Fitbit’s offering choice. It’s up to you to figure out which of its wearables fit into your lifestyle.

WASHINGTON – Twenty years ago this month, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh urged fellow investigators in the independent counsel’s office to ask President Bill Clinton extremely graphic questions about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The point, Kavanaugh said, was to help Congress “decide whether the interests of the presidency would be best served by having a new president.”

While the general nature of Kavanaugh’s memo was previously reported, the National Archives and Records Administration on Monday released the two-pager following a Freedom of Information Act request from the judicial transparency group Fix the Court.

Kavanaugh wanted colleagues preparing to interview Clinton to ask about such details as oral sex in the Oval Office, vaginal stimulation, masturbation and phone sex, all as a way of determining if the president would deny what Lewinsky had told investigators.

“The president has disgraced his office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles – callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle,” Kavanaugh wrote.

Kavanaugh saw things differently when it came to issuing independent counsel Ken Starr’s final report, urging that it not be so salacious. And more than a decade later, he wrote that presidents should be spared from responding to civil lawsuits or criminal investigations while in office. 

“A president who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as president,” he wrote in the Minnesota Law Review.

More: Abortion, race, gay rights, death penalty: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh could make the difference

More: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s role as ‘president’s protector’ remains shrouded in secrecy

More: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s views on executive power may stir controversy

 

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It’s always the right time to celebrate Betty White.

On Tuesday, the beloved 96-year-old actress – an engaging personality whose fan base crosses many generations – gets a PBS tribute, “Betty White: First Lady of Television” (check local listings).

The documentary, filmed over 10 years by the team behind the series “Pioneers of Television,” tracks White’s historic entertainment career and includes interviews with friends and colleagues Mary Tyler Moore, Valerie Bertinelli, Ryan Reynolds, Tina Fey, Valerie Harper, Gavin MacLeod, Georgia Engel and Carl Reiner.  

As “First Lady” illustrates, the five-time prime-time Emmy Award winner’s accomplishments are legion. Here are a few reasons that fans hold her in awe:

She’s the ‘first lady’ in more ways than one

The title fits as an honorific, but literally, too.

Over her eight-decade career, White was there for the infancy of television. Her first performance came in 1939 on an experimental broadcast, followed by a co-hosting gig on “Hollywood on Television” in the 1940s and a sitcom, “Life With Elizabeth,” which she starred in and produced in the early 1950s.

In 1954, White produced her own national TV show (“The Betty White Show”), assuming a role that had been the domain of men, and hired a female director, a move that stood out in the prefeminist era.

She stood firm against racial pressure, even though it could have hurt her career

Her daytime variety show featured Arthur Duncan, a talented young singer and dancer who credits White with giving him his start in show business. According to a PBS biography, Duncan was the first black series regular on a talk/variety show.

However, as White’s show expanded nationally, she faced a potential boycott from stations in the South, which threatened to pull it from the schedule if White didn’t remove Duncan. “I said, ‘I’m sorry. Live with it,’ ” White says in the film. 

More: Betty White’s legendary cake-riding skills, as told by Gavin MacLeod

The funniest Super Bowl ads of all time: Betty White, Terry Tate and avocados

During a panel in July at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Duncan said he wasn’t aware of the matter until White wrote about it years later. “She just stood up for her beliefs. That solved everything at the time.”

She showed her comedic genius and a bawdy side on ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ 

Many actors might have been intimidated about succeeding Valerie Harper, whose wisecracking, self-deprecating Rhoda Morgenstern was the best friend of Moore’s Mary Richards.

But White, who guest-starred before taking a full-time role in 1974, created her own icon in Sue Ann Nivens, winning two Emmys as the character whose cheerful Happy Homemaker veneer barely concealed the cutting, sexually voracious schemer underneath.

Sue Ann’s naughtiness was at odds with White’s wholesome persona, illustrating her acting skills. At a time when most female characters weren’t allowed the personality flaws that created great comedy opportunities for their male counterparts, White luxuriated in Sue Ann’s peccadilloes, playing them to the humorous hilt.

She showed her range on ‘The Golden Girls,’ playing against the Sue Ann type

Rose Nylund was the opposite of Sue Ann. Of all the “Girls” characters, worldly Blanche (played delightfully by Rue McClanahan) was the closest to White’s “Mary Tyler Moore” character, but she counterintuitively chose sweet, naïve Rose, winning an Emmy during the run of the much-loved comedy (1985 to 1992).

At an age when most people are well into retirement, White enjoyed a career resurgence

Over the years, America’s love for White – the actress and the person – deepened, and a grass-roots fan campaign led to White hosting “Saturday Night Live” at age 88 in 2010, resulting in another Emmy. She also appeared in a fan-favorite Super Bowl commercial the same year.

She followed that up with fun guest turns on “Community” and another successful sitcom, TV Land’s “Hot in Cleveland,” where her hometown Elka held her own verbally jousting with glamorous L.A. arrivals played by Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick. She stayed with “Hot” for the six-season run, which included a reunion episode with her “Mary Tyler Moore” castmates, and finished work on the show at 93. But she wasn’t done, making a couple of guest appearances on “Bones” in 2015 and 2017.

She’s deeply devoted to animals

White long has had a love affair with animals, working as an advocate and donating money to animal-related causes. In “First Lady,” she’s shown sitting next to a huge, very tame grizzly bear.

“I’m the luckiest old broad on two feet,” she says, feeding marshmallows to her giant companion.

Viewers who have enjoyed White’s career feel pretty lucky, too.

 

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England face a huge challenge to save the third Test after a century from India captain Virat Kohli on day three at Trent Bridge.

Kohli’s exemplary 103, added to 72 from Cheteshwar Pujara and Hardik Pandya’s unbeaten 52, allowed the tourists to declare on 352-7, setting England a notional 521 to win.

The home side were given nine overs to bat, Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings battling to the close on 23-0.

That was something of a positive end to a difficult day for England, who dropped each of Kohli and Pujara and lost wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow to a fractured finger.

Bairstow injured the middle finger on his left hand when trying to take a delivery from James Anderson, with Jos Buttler donning the gloves for most of the day.

England say Bairstow is likely to bat in their massive task of making the largest fourth-innings score to win a Test or surviving for two days to save it.

However, the most likely outcome is that England will be bowled out at some point and India will reduce their series deficit to 2-1.

India’s lesson to England

England find themselves in this hopeless position after being rolled over for 161 in their first innings on Sunday.

In losing all 10 wickets in a session, the hosts’ inadequate defensive technique against the moving ball was exposed.

On Monday, they were given a lesson in watchfulness, patience and judgement by an India team that accumulated without fuss on a good pitch, albeit against reduced movement.

It has been a fine improvement by the tourists, who were bowled out for 107 and 130 in the second Test at Lord’s to extend a run that had seen them pass 200 just once in nine innings in England.

Kohli, Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, who took 94 balls over his 29, were all determined, with expansion only coming from Pandya’s run-a-ball hitting as India moved towards a declaration.

Even if they are beaten, England’s shot-makers need to show similar application in the remainder of this match.

Kohli does it again

Although Kohli endured a miserable tour four years ago, averaging only 13.40, he said before this series that he did not feel the need to prove himself in English conditions.

Still, this second, almost inevitable, century took his tally to 440 runs at an average of 73.33 this summer.

From 124-2 overnight, Pujara and Kohli extended their stand to 113.

Pujara – solid in defence – played cuts, wristy flicks and punches down the ground. Kohli, who left the ball with care, drove on both sides of the wicket and cashed in any time leg-spinner Adil Rashid dropped short.

Pujara was denied what seemed a certain century when Ben Stokes found extra bounce to take the edge, while Kohli enjoyed luck in the 90s – he edged James Anderson through Keaton Jennings and, from the next ball, nicked short of first slip.

In the next over, he guided Chris Woakes to third man to complete his 23rd Test ton, celebrating by blowing a kiss towards wife Anushka Sharma.

It was Woakes who had Kohli play around his pad to be lbw, the skipper disappointed not to see a review go his way, but still able to leave to a standing ovation.

England’s tough day

Though the day belonged to India, little blame can be attached to the home bowlers, who performed admirably throughout.

However, England’s catching remains substandard – Buttler was slow to move to his left at second slip when Pujara, on 40, groped at Anderson.

Soon after, Buttler was required to take the gloves when Bairstow was struck on the end of the finger attempting what looked like a regulation take off Anderson.

In obvious pain, he left the field with a cap covering his hand and an X-ray revealed what England described as a “small” fracture.

Later, Anderson should have been rewarded in his duel with Kohli only for Jennings, at fine gully, to not even get a hand on the chance presented.

Jennings and Cook at least came through a difficult spell against the new ball at the end of the day, supported by a crowd that loudly cheered every run.

The left-handed pair faced two overs from off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who appeared to be struggling with the hip injury which restricted his contribution in the first innings.

‘India played proper Test match cricket’

Former England captain Michael Vaughan: “It’s been quite a slow day but India have done exactly what a professional team should have done.

“They knew the only way back for England was to blow them away and they played the old fashioned way, I prefer to call it the proper Test match way.

“I thought they could have pulled out 45 minutes or an hour before they did but they are still massive favourites.”

On the dropped catches: “Today was the first time I have seen Jimmy Anderson drop to his knees with his head in his hands because of the dropped catches.

“It must be very difficult to see outside edges go down when you are creating opportunities and bowling beautifully.

“They do lots of catches in practice but there has got to be something else they can do. Peter Moores made catching competitive in practice, he’d have machines firing at you from close range and it became a competition in the dressing room.”

French energy giant Total confirmed it is withdrawing from a multibillion-dollar gas project in Iran after it failed to obtain a waiver from US sanctions.

Total signed a deal worth $4.8bn in July 2017 to develop a field off Iran’s southern coast as the lead partner alongside the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Iran’s Petropars.

“Total has notified the Iranian authorities of its withdrawal from the contract following the 60-day deadline for obtaining a potential waiver from the US authorities,” the company told AFP news agency on Monday.

“Despite the backing of the French and European authorities, such a waiver could not have been obtained.” 

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the company had notified authorities of its decision to exit the deal.

“Total has officially left the agreement for the development of phase 11 of South Pars,” Zanganeh said, emphasising the dire state of Iran’s oil-and-gas facilities, which he said were “worn out” and in need of renovation that Iran could not afford.

The deal was meant to bring in state-of-the-art technology to tap the gas field, which Iran could then replicate on surrounding ones.

The United States said in May it was abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and other nations, and reimposing sanctions on Tehran in two phases in August and November, with the second targeting the country’s vital oil-and-gas sector.

Total has $10bn of capital in US assets, and US banks are involved in 90 percent of its financing operations, meaning it would have been highly vulnerable to US penalties for remaining in Iran.

Technology missing

Zanganeh said the process to find a replacement for Total was under way.

But it is unlikely that CNPC or Iran’s own firms can take over the project, said Homayoun Falakshahi, an energy analyst for Wood Mackenzie in London.

“The technology Total was hoping to implement would have been world-first, using electricity to compress the gas,” he said.

“The other complication is that it needs huge platforms. Iran can build 5,000 to 7,000-tonne platforms. This would have been 20,000 tonnes.”

The urgent need for investment to upgrade Iran’s dilapidated energy infrastructure was a key motivator behind its decision to join the 2015 nuclear deal.

Some conservatives in Iran oppose foreign involvement in the strategic energy sector and have frustrated plans to develop attractive investment contracts.

As a result, the Total deal was the only major investment project finalised after the nuclear deal came into force.

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