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Here’s a look at what roughly $750,000 buys in the resort communities of Palm Springs, La Quinta and Idyllwild in Riverside County.

PALM SPRINGS: A double-height living room with a stacked-stone fireplace anchors this contemporary two-story home in a gated community.

Address: 445 N. Avenida Caballeros, Palm Springs, 92262

Listed for: $749,000 for two bedrooms, three bathrooms in 2,426 square feet (3,000-square-foot lot)

Features: Tile floors; lofted office; master suite with clerestories; community pool and spa

About the area: In the 92262 ZIP Code, based on 57 sales, the median price for single-family homes in August was $578,000, up 12.2% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

LA QUINTA: More modern than others in the area, this single-story spot boasts an expansive open floor plan brightened by glass walls and clerestory windows.

Address: 57600 Salida Del Sol, La Quinta, 92253

Listed for: $749,999 for three bedrooms, four bathrooms in 2,856 square feet (9,583-square-foot lot)

Features: Living room with built-in fireplace; master suite with backyard access; spacious covered patio; mountain views

About the area: In the 92253 ZIP Code, based on 99 sales, the median price for single-family homes in August was $442,000, up 3.9% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

IDYLLWILD: Perched on over an acre, this three-story cabin with a newly added wing enjoys views of Lily Rock and Suicide Rock from a glass solarium and wraparound deck.

Address: 54790 Forest Haven Drive, Idyllwild, 92549

Listed for: $749,000 for four bedrooms, three bathrooms in 3,212 square feet (1.37-acre lot)

Features: Bamboo floors; wood-beamed ceilings; stone fireplaces; wing with two master suites

About the area: In the 92549 ZIP Code, based on 15 sales, the median price for single-family homes in August was $362,000, up 16.8% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

PALM SPRINGS: Solar panels and an electric car charger help with bills for this modern home with bright splashes of color and porcelain tile floors.

Address: 767 E. Twin Palms Drive, Palm Springs, 92264

Listed for: $760,000 for three bedrooms, two bathrooms in 1,793 square feet (5,227-square-foot lot)

Features: Gated entry; living room with freestanding fireplace; modern kitchen; swimming pool and spa

About the area: In the 92264 ZIP Code, based on 26 sales, the median price for single-family homes in August was $905,000, up 37.1% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

LA QUINTA: This Spanish-style home in the Haciendas at La Quinta community sits right on the fairway, soaking in mountain and golf course views.

Address: 77925 Laredo, La Quinta, 92253

Listed for: $739,000 for three bedrooms, 2.75 bathrooms in 2,329 square feet (6,970-square-foot lot)

Features: Rotunda entry; tan-toned living spaces; arched doorways; swimming pool and spa

About the area: In the 92253 ZIP Code, based on 99 sales, the median price for single-family homes in August was $442,000, up 3.9% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

IDYLLWILD: Voluminous living spaces with brick walls and beamed ceilings take in sweeping views throughout this private retreat on 2.6 acres.

Address: 55001 Forest Haven Drive, Idyllwild, 92549

Listed for: $749,000 for four bedrooms, four bathrooms in 4,225 square feet (2.68-acre lot)

Features: Vermont oak floors; living room with oxen yoke mantle; master suite with lookout tower; two hillside decks

About the area: In the 92549 ZIP Code, based on 15 sales, the median price for single-family homes in August was $362,000, up 16.8% year over year, according to CoreLogic.


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Google lured billions of consumers to its digital services by offering copious free cloud storage. That’s beginning to change.

The Alphabet Inc. unit has whittled down some free storage offers in recent months while prodding more users toward a new paid cloud subscription called Google One. That’s happening as the amount of data people stash online continues to soar.

When people hit those caps, they realize they have little choice but to start paying or risk losing access to emails, photos and personal documents. The cost isn’t excessive for most consumers, but at the scale Google operates, this could generate billions of dollars in extra revenue each year for the company. Google didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

A big driver of the shift is Gmail. Google shook up the email business when Gmail launched in 2004 with much more free storage than rivals were providing at the time. It boosted the storage cap every couple of years, but in 2013 it stopped. People’s in-boxes kept filling up. And now that some of Google’s other free storage offers are shrinking, consumers are beginning to get nasty surprises.

“I was merrily using the account and one day I noticed I hadn’t received any email since the day before,” said Rod Adams, a nuclear energy analyst and retired naval officer. After using Gmail since 2006, he’d finally hit his 15-gigabyte cap and Google had cut him off. Switching from Gmail wasn’t an easy option because many of his social and business contacts reach him that way.

“I just said, ‘OK, been free for a long time, now I’m paying,’” Adams said.

Other Gmail users aren’t so happy about the changes. “I am unreasonably sad about using almost all of my free google storage. Felt infinite. Please don’t make me pay! I need U gmail googledocs!,” one person tweeted in September.

Some people have tweeted panicked messages to Google in recent months as warnings about their storage limits hit.

One self-described tech enthusiast said he’s opened multiple Gmail accounts to avoid bumping up on Google’s storage limits.

Google has also ended or limited other promotions recently that gave people free cloud storage and helped them avoid Gmail crises. New buyers of Chromebook laptops used to get 100 GB at no charge for two years. In May 2019 that was cut to one year.

Google’s Pixel smartphone, originally launched in 2016, came with free, unlimited photo storage via the company’s Photos service. The latest Pixel 4 handset that came out in October still has free photo storage, but the images are compressed now, reducing the quality.

More than 11,500 people in a week signed an online petition to bring back the full, free Pixel photos deal. Evgeny Rezunenko, the petition organizer, called Google’s change a “hypocritical and cash-grabbing move.”

“Let us remind Google that part of the reason of people choosing Pixel phones over other manufacturers sporting a similar hefty price tag was indeed this service,” he wrote.

Smartphones dramatically increased the number of photos people take — one estimate put the total for 2017 at 1.2 trillion. Those images quickly fill up storage space on handsets, so tech companies, including Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google, offered cloud storage as an alternative. Now as those online memories pile up, some of these companies are charging users to keep them.

Apple has been doing this for several years, building its iCloud storage service into a lucrative recurring revenue stream. When iPhone users get notifications that their devices are full and they should either delete photos and other files or pay more for cloud storage, people often choose the cloud option.

In May, Google unveiled Google One, a replacement for its Drive cloud storage service. There’s a free 15 GB tier — enough room for about 5,000 photos, depending on the resolution. Then it costs $1.99 a month for 100 GB and up from there. This includes several types of files previously stashed in Google Drive, plus Gmail emails and photos and videos. The company ended its Chromebook two-year 100-GB free storage offer around the same time, while the Pixel free photo storage deal ended in October with the release of the Pixel 4.

Gmail, Drive and Google Photos have more than 1 billion users each. As the company whittles away free storage offers and prompts more people to pay, that creates a potentially huge new revenue stream for the company. If 10% of Gmail users sign up for the new $1.99-a-month Google One subscription, that would generate almost $2.4 billion a year in annual recurring sales for the company.

Adams, the Gmail user, is one of the people contributing to this growing Google business. The monthly $1.99 is a relatively small price to pay to avoid losing his main point of digital contact with the world.

“It’s worked this long,” Adams said. “I didn’t want to bother changing the address.”

De Vynck writes for Bloomberg.


MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif.  — 

The lout in the next motel room is up early, so I guess we’re all up early. Our neighbor is stomping around, coughing, sputtering, showering.

This is the kind of motel you end up at when you have a pet in tow: cheap compromises made of rice paper and matchsticks.

One guest showers, we all shower.

When the maid service knocks, the workers don’t say “housekeeping.” They yell, “Get out while you can!!!”

Listen, I don’t mind bargain lodging. For we are back in my forest primeval, the Eastern Sierra, a range of snow and pine that stretches up the 395, California’s slender neck.

Lone Pine. Big Pine. No Pine. Highway 395’s timeless little towns are roadside attractions. I could make a weekend stopping in every bait and tackle shop along the way, bumming the free coffee in the back.

And finally, at the top of it all: Mammoth Lakes, a snowy masterwork, land of wood smoke and heavy socks.

I am probably too easily charmed, yet I am smitten by the ski village’s pre-winter stacks of pine outside almost every cabin. Think of the labor that goes into that, the anticipation, the Puritan spirit. A good wood pile, split and properly stacked, is the triumphant afterlife of trees. It is Longfellow with a whiskey chaser.

With me I have a boy, a pet wolf and a phone full of photos. It’s our second day here, and the Sierra aspen are turning to gold bullion. Radiant is too weak a word.

White Fang is a magnificent wolf-dog, by the way, blue-eyed and with the hint of an upper-crust upbringing. That’s a false front, but I’m fond of those as well.

Pretense has always been strangely alluring to me, almost a puzzle to be solved. It reveals a tender spot in my character, I’m sure, a soft, mossy flaw. But bony and pretentious Gwyneth Paltrow would be, like, my dream date.

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Yet this wolf is a far better person. For one, White Fang doesn’t talk about wellness. She’d never scold me for eating a Slim Jim and leaving the wrapper on the dash. She’s good company that way, as is my son, who is my sidekick and merely my entire life.

Like him, the temp is in the teens this morning. A mug of coffee feels good against the hand. The boy, legally married now to his cellphone, shudders as we head off for a hike.

As you know, Shakespeare was like an undertaker — he saw death everywhere, including autumn’s gasping, quivering trees.

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

He was pretty good, Shakespeare. He called autumn, “Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.” But I see it as a roaring aria.

On days like this, I wish October were 90 days long.

Some Saturdays, you just need someone to knock around with, and that’s this boy. We are the oddest couple ever, a before-and-after cautionary tale. He is tall and handsome as timber. I am what happens when you spend too much time in your car.

The dog bonds us. As you may remember, she belonged to my late son, and now — as if an angel, as if on some sort of mission of mercy — she splashes across mountain streams, tugs playfully on her leash, bounds along these trails she once shared with him.

Dogs do God’s work, and they never ask for much — a bowl of the most awful food, a scratch behind the ears.

The young dog is our jester — heck, they’re both jesters. You should see her giggle when the boy checks her for ticks. Turns out she’s a little ticklish just about everywhere.

By late morning, the three of us have threaded our way through the trails of June Lake, down by a lake called Silver, one of California’s most magnificent playpens.

At Silver Lake, long corridors of aspen ring the shoreline, and a dark little stream empties out amid some campsites set in high grass.

Campsite No. 18 is the most splendid, but really you can’t miss here, if you like to fish or kayak or ponder the freckles on your wrist. It is good for all of that.

On the north shore are these sprawling summer places; legendary director Frank Capra once kept a cabin there. It has the feel of rural Pennsylvania, a Bedford Falls set against the backdrop of Carson Peak, a close cousin of Half Dome (they share the same movie-star chin).

To be sure, it’s a cinematic setting that Capra must’ve loved. The sunlight — California’s famed butterscotch beams — flatters everything it touches here.

The trees, the pumpkins, our raw and stubborn souls.

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KYIV, Ukraine — 

More than two months before the phone call that launched the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, Ukraine’s newly elected leader was already worried about pressure from the U.S. president to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Volodymyr Zelensky gathered a small group of advisors on May 7 in the capital of Kyiv for a meeting that was supposed to be about his nation’s energy needs. Instead, the group spent most of the three-hour discussion talking about how to navigate the insistence from Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, for an investigation and how to avoid becoming entangled in the American elections, according to three people familiar with the details of the meeting.

They spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, which has roiled U.S.-Ukrainian relations.

The meeting came before Zelensky was inaugurated but about two weeks after Trump called to offer his congratulations on the night of the Ukrainian leader’s April 21 election.

The full details of what the two leaders discussed in that Easter Sunday phone call have never been publicly disclosed, and it is not clear whether Trump explicitly asked for an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter.

The three people’s recollections differ on whether Zelensky specifically cited that first call with Trump as the source of his unease. But their accounts all show the Ukrainian president-elect was wary of Trump’s push for an investigation into the former vice president and Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Either way, the newly elected leader of a country wedged between Russia and U.S.-aligned NATO members knew early on that vital military support might depend on whether he was willing to choose a side in an American political tussle. A former comedian who won office on promises to clean up corruption, Zelensky’s first major foreign policy test came not from his enemy Russia, but rather from the country’s most important ally, the United States.

The May 7 meeting included two of his top aides, Andriy Yermak and Andriy Bogdan, the people said. Also in the room was Andriy Kobolyev, head of the state-owned natural gas company Naftogaz, and Amos Hochstein, an American who sits on the Ukrainian company’s supervisory board. Hochstein is a former diplomat who advised Biden on Ukraine matters during the Obama administration.

Zelensky’s office in Kyiv did not respond to messages on Wednesday seeking comment. The White House would not comment on whether Trump demanded an investigation during the April 21 call.

The White House has offered only a bare-bones public readout on the April call, saying Trump urged Zelensky and the Ukrainian people to implement reforms, increase prosperity and “root out corruption.” In the intervening months, Trump and his proxies have frequently used the word “corruption” to reference the months-long efforts to get the Ukrainians to investigate Democrats.

Trump has said he would release a transcript of the first call, but the White House had no comment Wednesday on when, or if, that might happen.

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After news broke that a White House whistleblower had filed a complaint about his July 25 call with Zelensky, Trump said that the conversation was “perfect” and that he had asked his Ukrainian counterpart to do “whatever he can in terms of corruption because the corruption is massive.”

During the call, Trump asked Zelensky for “a favor,” requesting an investigation into a conspiracy theory related to a Democratic computer server hacked during the 2016 election campaign. Trump also pushed Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. Trump then advised Zelensky that Giuliani and Atty. Gen. William Barr would be contacting him about the request, according to a summary of the call released by the White House.

Within days, Giuliani flew to Madrid to meet privately with Yermak, Zelensky’s aide who was in the May 7 meeting.

Trump has denied that an investigation of the Bidens was a condition for releasing military aid. But on Tuesday, the senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, William Taylor, starkly contradicted the president, saying that Trump had demanded that everything Zelensky wanted, including the aid and a White House meeting, was conditional on a public vow that he would open an investigation.

Taylor also detailed previously undisclosed diplomatic interactions between Trump’s envoys and senior Ukrainian officials in which the U.S. president’s demand to investigate the Bidens in exchange for American aid was clear.

The continued flow of high-tech U.S. weaponry is seen as essential to the survival of the Ukrainian government, which has been locked in a long-running civil war with Russian-aligned separatists in the east of the country. In 2014, Russian troops took control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Russia later annexed it, provoking Western sanctions against Moscow.

In a joint Sept. 25 news conference with Trump at the United Nations in New York, Zelensky denied that he felt pressured to investigate the Bidens.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved, to democratic, open elections of U.S.A.,” the Ukrainian leader said. “We had, I think, good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I think, and you read it, that nobody push it. Push me.”

Trump then chimed in: “In other words, no pressure.”

Before Zelensky was elected, however, a public campaign to initiate investigations into the Bidens was already underway.

For weeks, conservative media outlets in the U.S. had trumpeted unfounded accusations that Biden, the Obama administration’s top envoy to the war-torn former Soviet republic, had sought the removal of the country’s top prosecutor in order to stymie an investigation of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that had hired his son to serve on its board.

Both Trump and Giuliani made public comments and tweets referencing the Biden accusations, with the president’s lawyer suggesting in a Fox News interview on April 7 that the U.S. Justice Department should investigate the matter.

One day before Zelensky’s May 7 meeting with his advisors, the U.S. State Department recalled its ambassador in Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat with a reputation for combating corruption. Yovanovitch had been the target of a yearlong campaign by Giuliani and his associates to discredit her.

When Trump called Zelensky on July 25 to congratulate the Ukrainian president on “a great victory” after his party won control of Ukrainian parliament, Zelensky downplayed his discomfort.

“The first time, you called me to congratulate me when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election,” Zelensky said, according to the rough transcript. “I think I should run more often so you can call me more often, and we can talk over the phone more often.”


Here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

‘Something Very, Very Special’ in Syria

President Trump has ordered an end to economic sanctions against Turkey that were imposed just over a week ago after that country’s invasion of Syria.

With that, Trump declared his moves in the region to be a success — “something very, very special” — despite widespread criticism from fellow Republicans and foreign policy experts that the U.S. withdrawal from the region has been a victory for Turkey and Russia.

“Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand,” Trump said of that heavily populated part of the Euphrates River valley. Trump added that a small number of U.S. troops would remain in Syria to secure oil fields.

Storming the SCIF

It was a made-for-TV (and social media) moment: About two dozen Republican members of Congress stormed a secure hearing room — known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF — in the U.S. Capitol basement. Those who walked in not only delayed the deposition of Defense Department official Laura Cooper but also entered with cellphones and appeared to tweet from the room, a violation of security protocols.

The uninvited legislators’ complaint? That the depositions being held in the facility as part of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry are secretive and partisan.

But the reality inside the closed-door hearings is more complex: Forty-seven Republican lawmakers from three House committees have been allowed to attend and participate in all of the depositions so far, though their role is constrained by the Democratic majority.

More Politics

Career diplomats who are reviled by Trump are providing the evidence that could be used to impeach him.

— Rep. Katie Hill, a Democrat from Santa Clarita, is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee after allegations that she engaged in an affair with a congressional aide were made public last week.

— Three judges on a federal appeals panel appeared inclined to reject arguments that Trump’s tax returns can’t be given to a state grand jury, with Trump’s lawyers suggesting that local authorities should even let the president get away with shooting someone.

Today’s Fire Lesson: Be Prepared

Large swaths of California once again will be without power today amid concerns that hot weather and strong winds could lead to wildfires. (See the maps for PG&E and Southern California Edison customers.) Overnight Wednesday, a rapidly spreading wildfire driven by strong winds exploded in Sonoma County, prompting evacuation orders for some residents.

Should the worst happen, a new report on last year’s Woolsey fire has this advice: Take responsibility for your own preparedness and safety. (Here’s one way to start.)

The report details how the most destructive fire in L.A. County and Ventura County history overwhelmed the region’s emergency response institutions. A Times investigation in January found that the first critical hours of the firefighting were hampered by communication breakdowns and a lack of air tanker support, equipment and firefighters.

A Curious Case

Last year, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide detective was temporarily banned from the jails after posing as a deputy and bringing contraband for an inmate, according to county records and interviews. This year, Mark Lillienfeld was rehired by Sheriff Alex Villanueva to investigate public corruption. What’s going on here? Read on — and watch the video.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

He played in six World Series and six All-Star games. He stole 197 bases. He played every infield and outfield position. His career average was .311. And as the first African American major league baseball player in the modern era, Jackie Robinson endured threats on his life.

On this date in 1972, Robinson, 53, “succumbed of a heart attack in the 25th year since his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers shattered baseball’s color barrier,” as The Times’ obituary noted.

Read more about “the grandson of a slave, a man who emerged from a small house on Pepper Street in Pasadena to become one of the nation’s greatest athletes and a symbol of hope for Black America.”

CALIFORNIA

— In a move that is raising questions about the future of Yosemite National Park, the National Park Service has announced that it is reassigning park Supt. Mike Reynolds, a 34-year park service veteran who grew up in Yosemite.

Jane Buckingham, a Beverly Hills marketing executive who wrote a book on parenting before she was arrested and charged with conspiring to rig her son’s ACT exam, has been sentenced to three weeks in prison.

— After The Times reported last week that nearly 300 drinking water wells and other water sources in California had been contaminated with toxic chemicals linked to cancer, readers have been looking for answers. Here’s a look at what you can and can’t do at home.

— Actress Rose McGowan has filed a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and his team of high-powered lawyers and covert investigators, accusing them of carrying out a plot to discredit and silence her.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

— Film critic Justin Chang calls “Terminator: Dark Fate” the best “Terminator” sequel in more than 20 years.

— After finally breaking her silence on a songwriting dispute surrounding her summer smash “Truth Hurts,” Lizzo has filed a lawsuit against the Raisen brothers, the L.A.-based songwriters who claim they deserve credit on the track.

— HBO Max is reviving Cartoon Network’s “Adventure Time” with new specials that will head back to the Land of Ooo.

NATION-WORLD

— The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked vaping to 1,479 cases of a mysterious lung disease over the last six months. At least 33 people have died since the outbreak began. The recent deaths are tragic, but research shows that the toll of vaping — with or without THC — will be far worse over the long term.

— In Chile, protests over social injustices and curfews have spread to most of the country, resulting in at least 18 deaths and an unprecedented state of emergency.

— British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to be pushing for an early general election after Parliament blocked a fast-track plan to approve his Brexit deal before Britain’s scheduled departure from the European Union on Oct. 31.

— A century after gray wolves were all but eradicated from Washington state, it is trying to encourage the return of the predators. But it’s also killing them.

BUSINESS

— Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg struggled to convince Congress of the merits of the company’s plans for a cryptocurrency in light of all the other challenges the company has failed to solve.

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— For the first time ever, a quantum computer has performed a computational task that would be essentially impossible for a conventional computer to complete, according to a team from Google.

WeWork is planning to cut as many as 4,000 jobs as part of an aggressive turnaround plan put in place by Japan’s SoftBank after it took control of the co-working business this week.

SPORTS

— The Galaxy and LAFC will meet in tonight’s much-anticipated MLS Western Conference semifinal at Banc of California Stadium. It could come down to stars Zlatan Ibrahimovic versus Carlos Vela. (And while you’re at it, sign up for our weekly soccer newsletter.)

— The Washington Nationals have taken a commanding 2-0 lead in the World Series with a 12-3 win over the Houston Astros.

OPINION

— Faced with the most damning impeachment testimony yet, Republicans have gone into full clown mode, writes Jon Healey, our deputy editorial page editor.

— Why American poultry — and Trump — have loomed large in the Brexit debate.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

— Rare visits to two prisons for former residents of Islamic State-held territory in northeastern Syria, including many children, show a growing legal and humanitarian crisis. (New York Times)

— A funeral for a melted glacier in Iceland suggests new ways to think about climate change. (The New Yorker)

ONLY IN L.A.

Tomy’s Hamburgers. Tom’s Number 5 Chiliburgers. Tam’s Burgers. Tommy’s Famous Drive-Thru. Thomas Hamburgers. Tom’s #1 World Famous Chiliburgers. Tomboy’s Famous Chili Hamburgers. Tom’s Jr. Famous Chili Burgers. Tom’s Original Super Burger. Tommy’s Charbroiled Hamburgers. Tommy’s Burgers. All of them are Los Angeles area fast-food spots that sell chili burgers. And none of them is Original Tommy’s World Famous Hamburgers. According to an analysis by The Times, there are 67 restaurants in and around Los Angeles County that appear to be Tommy’s knockoffs.

If you like this newsletter, please share it with friends. Comments or ideas? Email us at [email protected].


Inside the 2019 Australian Fashion Laureate Awards

October 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

On October 23, Vogue Australia creative director Jillian Davison (above) was crowned 2019’s Outstanding Creative at the 2019 Australian Fashion Laureate Awards, which took place at the iconic Café Sydney. The honour, which served to highlight Davison’s achievements and creative contribution to the Australian fashion industry, was accompanied by eight other awards across categories including womenswear, menswear, retailer, accessories, modelling, and emerging talent.

Davison returned to the Vogue Australia family as the publications’s creative director just last year, after an impressive run internationally as the fashion director of Glamour US, fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar US, and contributing editor at Teen Vogue, Vogue China, Vogue Germany and Vogue Japan. The ceremony also saw Vogue Australia cover star, Charlee Fraser, take home the award for Model of the Year.

After being judged by a panel of more than 30 industry leaders, the finalists from each category gathered together with fellow members of the Australian fashion industry at Café Sydney for a celebratory luncheon, where the winners across all nine categories were revealed and formally recognised for their achievements by IMG and the New South Wales Government. 

This year, perhaps symbolising an appetite for change, IMG introduced a new category for Sustainable Innovation, which aimed to recognise the Australian brands demonstrating leadership for best practices in sustainability. Husband and wife duo, Marnie Goding and Adam Koniaras of Elk, an Australian brand that is locally designed, independent and ethically sourced, took home the honour. 

“The introduction of the Sustainable Innovation award category allows our industry to acknowledge the efforts and accomplishments of individuals and brands who are dedicated to lessening fashion’s impact on our environment, and to celebrate the most noteworthy innovations shaping our industry and its future,” Natalie Xenita, the executive director of IMG’s fashion events group for the Asia-Pacific region, explained via a press release.

For more, scroll on for the complete list of winners and a sneak peek at their portraits from the 2019 Australian Fashion Laureate Awards.

Marnie Goding and Adam Koniaras (not pictured) of Elk won the Sustainable Innovation award, presented by GlamCorner.

Charlee Fraser won the Model of the Year award.

Ilona Hamer (not pictured) and Peta Heisen of Matteau won the Best Australian Emerging Talent award, presented by Etihad Airways.

Lee Mathews won the Best Australian Womenswear award.

Mikey Nolan and Toby Jones of Double Rainbouu won the Best Australian Menswear award.

Sarah Gittoes (not pictured) and Robert Sebastian Grynkofki of Sarah and Sebastian won the Best Australian Accessories award.

Deborah Sams and Mary Lou Ryan of Bassike won the Best Australian Retailer award.

8 sustainable stores to shop in Sydney

October 24, 2019 | News | No Comments

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24th Oct 2019

Sustainable shopping is more accessible than ever with the City of Sydney’s urban guide to local hubs. Here’s a look at three inner-city neighbourhoods offering feel-good retail therapy that will set you ahead of the pack.

Sydney CBD
Whether it’s finding the perfect T-shirt or the best beachwear, hit the CBD for your sustainable fashion fix. Citizen Wolf is a Vogue Codes fave, this ethically certified brand uses its Magic Fit technology to locally produce custom-made T-shirts within 10 days of your order. All you need to do is pick your T-shirt style, fabric and colour, and you’ll have a T that fits you, well, to a tee. Then there is Tigerlily. Fashion with a conscience is at the heart of this label’s DNA. In addition to its signature boho beachwear, Tigerlily offers a range of swimwear styles using recycled materials that will make you feel as good as you look.

Newtown
This inner-city neighbourhood is brimming with ethically driven shops with a bohemian edge. The Social Outfit is here to brighten up your wardrobe, and the brand provides jobs to new migrants and refugees in production, design, retail and marketing. To go vintage shopping or swap your clothes to do your bit for the circular fashion economy and end waste, be sure to visit Swop, or stop by You, the Earth & Me and indulge in guilt-free shopping with this carefully curated selection of unique, handcrafted, eco-conscious clothes and accessories.

Paddington
If you’re looking for a high-end designer hub with an ethical mindset, these three brands will not only satisfy your shopping instinct but also your inner eco warrior. Kit Willow’s KitX label uses natural and upcycled materials and age-old artisan techniques to create luxurious ready-to-wear fashion with an ethical focus. Similarly, with its Ethical Clothing Australia accreditation, Viktoria & Woods’s pieces are largely made in Australia using certified-organic cottons, merino wool and bamboo blends. Each garment is designed to last for years, so it’s a good place to pick up classic wardrobe essentials. Bassike has also been sustainably made since 2006, so be sure to visit the store for go-to cotton jersey staples with longevity.

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The street demonstrations in Hong Kong these past few months have been, in a way, a dramatic payoff in the political fight that Joshua Wong has been waging since childhood. The biggest protests in Hong Kong’s history, they are daily proof of a profound popular defiance against Beijing. But even as the battle for democracy in Hong Kong has surged to a new degree of seriousness Wong has often hovered above the action or worked on the edge of the crowd.

Wong, who rose to international fame as a skinny, bespectacled, teen-age figurehead of Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement, spent the first weeks of summer serving a prison sentence for earlier acts of civil disobedience. When he got out, in June, he made his position plain: the new generation of leaderless demonstrators didn’t need him at the helm.

Besides, Wong had other plans. Now a twenty-three-year-old university student, he’s been taking part in the protests but saves most of his energy for projects away from the streets. He travelled last month to Taiwan, Germany, and the United States to shore up international support and ask trade partners to use ongoing negotiations to pressure Beijing. He testified in Congress as lawmakers prepared to vote on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which passed the House last week. He wrote opinion pieces in foreign newspapers. He also announced a campaign for local office, telling supporters that grassroots community activism was crucial to reshaping the political landscape.

Wong’s evolution from defiant teen-age protester to international lobbyist and emerging politician is more than an interesting biography. The struggle over Hong Kong’s fate runs through Wong’s life, and Wong’s life runs through the struggle. He was born in October of 1996, a year before the former British colony was handed back to China in a deal that guaranteed the “special administrative region” half a century of relative autonomy. He will be fifty when that time runs out and Hong Kong enters an unpredictable era. Nobody knows whether, come 2047, Hong Kong will maintain its unique freedoms or be forced into closer alignment with mainland rules. This year’s demonstrations are the latest outbreak of a fundamental clash that will keep flaring in different forms, shaping the lives and possibilities of Wong’s generation into old age. Wong is the child of past spasms of unrest and a likely architect of those to come.

“As long as Xi”—Jinping—“rules China, we don’t see the endgame. We don’t see the end of Xi,” Wong told me this summer. “It seems to be an infinity war. It’s our infinity war.”

I first met Wong on a rain-dark afternoon in August. He slouched against a wall outside a diner in CITIC Tower, the eponymous waterfront landmark housing China’s largest state-run conglomerate, and typed intently on his phone. A slight and unassuming young man wearing baggy shorts and a backpack, he reminded me of a shy teen-ager waiting to get picked up from chess club. We went into the diner, where Wong hardly glanced at the menu before telling the server, “I want everything.”

“You do?” I asked.

Wong laughed, and I realized that I was his unwitting straight man, playing my part just as he’d hoped. “Here,” he said, pointing to a menu choice of beans, eggs, and various breakfast meats.

Having landed his moment of levity, Wong got serious and stayed that way. He frowned in concentration as he moved deliberately from one topic to the next, in a manner that suggested he was checking off a mental list of points he didn’t want to forget. “We now have a sugar-coated rule of law,” he said. “I mean, it seems like we have a certain system, but the reality is that the national system of China can interpret or override any law they want.”

Wong’s first large-scale political fight came when he was still in high school. The Hong Kong government had moved to impose mandatory national-education classes into the schools that would, among other things, praise the Communist Party of China. Wong considered the proposed curriculum reform a naked effort to brainwash the youth of Hong Kong. He and a couple of other students took to the streets and passed leaflets to commuters. Their movement mushroomed until Wong found himself at the head of a powerful citywide outcry against the proposed education reform. The students occupied the national-government headquarters, and, after a ten-day sit-in, the government relented and shelved the new curriculum.

Next came the Umbrella Movement, the 2014 protests in which crowds staged long-running sit-ins, demanding the right to vote in elections free from Beijing’s interference. By that time, Wong had secured his place as one of the most influential leaders in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, with all attendant perks and indignities. He was arrested and imprisoned on charges of illegal assembly, accused on the mainland of being a U.S. agent, and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since then, Wong has undergone a peculiar inversion: as his fame and influence grow overseas, some say his sway on the street has diminished. Much of Wong’s work these days is aimed at an international audience with the hope of winning badly needed support from abroad. “Whereas during previous campaigns he was seen by many as a leader, this time he’s not been seen that way by protesters on the ground,” Antony Dapiran, a Hong Kong-based writer who researched the demonstration movements for his book, “City of Protest,” said. “He’s seen that way by the international community. He’s taken on this role as a sort of statesman or international spokesman.” Dapiran added, “He’s filling a need.”

The city’s perpetually fragile calm began to crack anew this past winter, when the Hong Kong government proposed a bill that would have allowed fugitives to be extradited to mainland China. The prospect of Hong Kongers vanishing into the mainland’s opaque network of courts and jails loomed as a galvanizing threat. People took to the streets, subway stations, and airport by the hundreds of thousands. They have vowed to keep demonstrating until the government meets a list of demands, which include an investigation into police brutality; the resignation of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam; and the right to vote in elections without the meddling of Beijing.

As weeks turned to months and frequent clashes broke out between demonstrators and riot police, resolve hardened on both sides: Lam and her allies complained of “rioters” marauding through the streets; demonstrators accused her of presiding over a thuggish police state. By September, when Lam announced the withdrawal of the extradition bill, it was already too late to calm the streets.

Wong used to talk about “our summer of discontent,” but summer is long gone. Weekends in Hong Kong are now characterized by sporadic and unpredictable street battles. Police have deployed choking clouds of tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons against demonstrators, and attacked subway commuters who looked like they might be protesters. On one particularly awful day, police fired a live round straight into the chest of a demonstrator. For their part, front-line protesters have set fires, vandalized businesses, tossed Molotov cocktails, and beaten up both police and people they suspected of being Beijing-backed agents.

When I asked Wong about this fall’s growing violence, he bristled. “That’s the incentive of self-defense and self-protection,” he said. “I think how the Hong Kong police attempt to murder people and to attack journalists and first-aid workers, and the arbitrary arrest, search, and crackdown on people, is far worse than anything done by protesters.”

Lam recently invoked emergency powers in an effort to control what she called “extreme violence.” Availing herself of authority that has gone untouched for half a century, she outlawed the face masks used by demonstrators to shield their identities—part of the ethos of the anonymous, leaderless movement.

A few days after Lam’s announcement, I spoke to Wong by phone as he rushed through the streets, heading to a demonstration. He was worried the government would cancel the election, he said, or even shut down the Internet. He sounded distracted and upset. I asked if he was in a hurry.

“Of course! Every day we’re in a hurry now,” he said. “We already announced the emergency state, and the banks closed already, and people are storing food in their home, and there are people lining up just to get cash from the A.T.M. machine. It’s really hard for me to connect with you.”

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Even if street fighters no longer regard him as their organizer, the authorities still treat him like a threat. Wong was arrested, most recently, in August. He was walking to the metro station when he was grabbed off the street by men in plain clothes, stuffed into an unmarked car, and taken to the police station, where he was charged with unlawfully organizing a rally and released on bail. A week later, on his way to Germany, he was detained at the airport for violating the terms of his bail and held overnight before continuing his journey.

His conflicts with officials have also followed him abroad in recent years. A trip to Thailand, where Wong was scheduled to speak to university students about democracy, was thwarted by Thai immigration officials, who stopped him at the airport and put him back on a plane to Hong Kong. He was also turned away at the border of Malaysia, where the national police chief explained to reporters that the government didn’t want to anger China. In Singapore, a social worker was convicted and fined for organizing an event where Wong—speaking from abroad—gave a live speech via Skype.

Wong’s candidacy for district council, like most of his moves, is partly designed as a provocation. He’s testing officials in Beijing and Hong Kong—will they let him run, or will he be disqualified? “Just let them disqualify me, and then see how many people will come into the streets,” he said. “If they disqualify me, they need to pay the price.”

The district-council elections, scheduled for November, are shaping into another volatile arena in which aggrieved Hong Kongers will battle for the city’s future. Pro-democracy candidates like Wong have launched campaigns across Hong Kong, and young people have been eagerly signing up to vote. The number of registered voters between eighteen and thirty-five is now up more than twelve per cent from last year, according to figures released by Hong Kong’s electoral officials.

Election officials last week dispatched a pair of letters to Wong, demanding that he clarify his position on Hong Kong’s independence from China. The government has argued that candidates who argue for separation or independence from the mainland should not be allowed to run for office, since the region’s status as a part of China is integral to Hong Kong’s Basic Law. Wong has insisted that he’s asking for universal suffrage, not independence, but some of his political foes remain skeptical.

Perturbed by the letters, Wong and other pro-democracy candidates have prepared replacement candidates to take over their campaigns in case they are disqualified. Meanwhile, Wong has repeatedly taken to Twitter to warn that Lam might use emergency law to cancel the election. “Gov is planning to postpone or to suspend the election, under the pretext of ongoing social unrest,” he tweeted on Friday night.

Wong knows that time is not on his side. He argues that China, under Xi, is already starting to unravel the arrangement known as “one country, two systems”—Hong Kong as a part of China, yet governed by a more lenient set of rules. He points to Lam invoking emergency measures as a sign that Beijing will continue to seek greater control over Hong Kong in coming years.

There is every reason to believe that, as long as he stays in Hong Kong, Wong will get old along with this fight. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he will get old inside of this fight. “If we do nothing, things will be even worse,” Wong said. “They’re already winning, so we have nothing to lose. That’s why we say, ‘If we burn, they’ll burn with us.’ ”

The Frenchman scored twice to see off Young Boys, much to the delight of his Manchester United team-mate

Luke Shaw has described Paul Pogba as “one of the best midfielders in the world” after his two-goal display in Manchester United’s 3-0 Champions League win over Young Boys. 

Pogba handed Jose Mourinho’s side the lead 10 minutes before the interval with a superb finish into the roof of the net before coolly slotting home a penalty soon after. 

He then teed up Anthony Martial for United’s third after a marauding run through the middle. 

The French midfielder was far and away the star on the day, as he lifted his side after an otherwise frustrating start. 

Shaw – making his first start since suffering concussion on international duty – hailed his captain’s display and believes he is up with the very best in the game. 

He told BT Sport: “He gets some stick sometimes but we know what quality he has. 

“For me, he is one of the best in the world. He is important as captain. He shows on the pitch what kind of leader he is. 

“Hopefully he can carry that on.”

Shaw admits that United started sluggishly and were indebted to Pogba’s fine strike to help them settle into the opening Group H game. 

“It was extremely difficult in the first half,” he added. 

“We didn’t start bright. The pitch was difficult but we got to grips with it. Paul Pogba came up with a bit of magic for the first goal and that calmed us down a bit.

“It is always tough. The crowd, the pitch and the atmosphere. They were up for it. It is all about the points though and we got them.”

With the three points in hand, the Pogba, Shaw and the Red Devils now look ahead to matches against Wolves, Derby County and West Ham before resuming group play against Valencia, who fell to 10-man Juventus on Wednesday despite a Cristiano Ronaldo red card.

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