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1. Influencers made tens of millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Delivery Society is linked to child deaths around the globe
Final weekend we launched The Delivery Keepers, Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne’s year-long investigation into the Free Delivery Society (FBS), a US-based enterprise that promotes giving beginning with out midwives or medical doctors current. Sirin and Lucy recognized 48 instances of great hurt (together with late-term stillbirths and neonatal deaths) involving moms or beginning attendants who look like linked to FBS, which specialists say provides ladies “harmful” misinformation. (Since we revealed, the FBS which says its content material is for “instructional and informational” functions, quite than medical recommendation, dismissed the criticism as inaccurate “propaganda”.) Hold an ear out for The Delivery Keepers podcast, too, coming quickly on the Guardian Investigates feed.
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2. ‘I nearly all the time play it in hiding, alone’: can anybody get into free jazz, historical past’s most maligned music?
Despite the fact that he’s keen on hideous noise, free jazz – “arguably probably the most difficult and far-out music one can take heed to” – is generally unknown to the Guardian’s pop critic Alexis Petridis. Might a brand new guidebook from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore change his thoughts? (Very a lot so, it turned out.)
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3. ‘It crushed my confidence. I’ve by no means acquired over it’: Karen Carney on on-line abuse – and the way Strictly is rebuilding her
She’s the rising star of this 12 months’s dance present, wowing judges together with her pasodoble. On this revealing interview, the pundit and former footballer spoke to Emine Saner about gentleness, bullying, her love of the Lionesses and why she’s by no means been so completely satisfied.
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4. The dying of the lounge: ‘It’s onerous to ask folks over – not everybody needs to sit down on a mattress’
Dwelling rooms have lengthy been commonplace inside western houses and one thing many people take without any consideration, however in keeping with current analysis, a rising variety of UK leases come with out lounge entry. Virtually half (49%) of all renters surveyed reported that the lounge of their house is now getting used as a bed room. With folks having to eat and socialise in kitchens, bedrooms and stairwells, is it potential, requested Leah Harper, to calm down and construct group and not using a communal space?
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5. Homicide Inc: how my failed try to make a Zodiac Killer movie took me to the darkish coronary heart of the true crime business
“In case you assume true crime is inescapable if you’re looking Netflix or making small speak along with your co-workers,” wrote Charlie Shackleton, “strive working within the documentary business. As you traipse from one commissioning assembly to the following, pitching your ardour challenge on the historical past of mime or the key lifetime of snails, you possibly can nearly hear the phrases earlier than they’re spoken: ‘Bought some other concepts?’ Ideally one thing with a physique depend.” When his quest to make a cliche-free movie about one of many US’s most infamous chilly instances fell aside, Charlie ended up investigating one thing completely completely different – our personal morbid curiosity.
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6. The lengthy and winding highway: why our opinions concerning the Beatles maintain altering
Followers and historians have spent 60 years debating what the band means – and which member is best. Will the returning Anthology challenge and Sam Mendes’s deliberate biopics create new arguments? Stuart Maconie’ mapped out the 4 distinct eras of crucial understanding of the band and requested if these current initiatives might “encourage us to see the Beatles not as mounted historic figures however as topics whose which means continues to evolve with every retelling”.
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