Mass clearout of England leadership not in ECB plans after Ashes failure
The England and Wales Cricket Board is eager to avoid a mass clearout of England’s senior leadership in the wake of another humiliating away Ashes series defeat,England’s hopes of winning the urn were expunged inside 11 days for just the fourth time in the contest’s 143-year history with Sunday’s 82-run defeat in Adelaide, and a fourth Ashes whitewash is on the cards in Melbourne and Sydney, unless the tourists can arrest a dismal 18-match run without a win in Australia that stretches back to 2011,A full review of the tour’s planning and execution will take place following the final Test next month when jobs could be on the line, with Brendon McCullum’s position as head coach expected to come under the most scrutiny,The Guardian has been told that the ECB do not want to repeat the mass cull that followed their 4-0 defeat in Australia four years ago, however, when coach Chris Silverwood and director of cricket Ashley Giles were sacked the following month, with Joe Root resigning as captain following another series defeat in the West Indies two months later,While changes could still be made depending on the outcome of the rest of the tour, the ECB believes that mass sackings would be a mistake and leave England less well-placed to learn the lessons of the tour.
Rather than appointing a completely new leadership team, there is a desire at Lord’s to retain what one source described as some “institutional muscle memory” of an Ashes tour, which, given England’s dismal record of one series win since 1987, is in danger of appearing an insurmountable challenge.McCullum is likely to be under the most scrutiny, as he is the architect of the ultra-positive Bazball approach that has been found wanting in Australian conditions, and he admitted following the defeat in Adelaide that their long-term planning for the tour had been inadequate.For the first time McCullum conceded that a white ball tour of New Zealand and a single intra-squad warm-up match at Lilac Hill in Perth was insufficient preparation for the first Test, while he repeated his claim following the second Test that England trained too hard before the defeat in Brisbane.McCullum’s position is complicated by the fact that in January he took on a dual role as England’s white-ball coach, with his contract running until the home Ashes series in 2027 and 50 over World Cup in South Africa the following autumn.While England’s white-ball record under McCullum is poor, with his side knocked out of the Champions Trophy without winning a game in February and losing a home one-day international series to South Africa in September, the fact that the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka begins on 7 February could earn him a reprieve.
Stokes said in the immediate aftermath of the Adelaide defeat that he “absolutely” wants to stay on as Test captain after the Ashes, which is likely to come as a relief to the ECB, who will certainly be desperate to retain his services as a player for as long as possible.The 34-year-old signed a new two-year central contract before the Ashes which will expire at the end of the 2027 World Cup.Rob Key’s position as director of cricket will also be the subject of internal discussion given he appointed McCullum and wholeheartedly backed his attacking approach, as well as also giving him the white-ball job at the end of last year, which has not worked out.The former Kent and England batsman had been behind the decision to split the Test and white-ball roles when he replaced Giles following the last Ashes tour, initially appointing Australian Matthew Mott as the limited-overs coach before sacking him last summer following poor performances in 50 over and T20 World Cups in 2023 and 2024.Key’s own decision-making is likely to be scrutinised as a result, including his seemingly dismissive approach to the County Championship, which has left many including players including Jamie Smith and Jacob Bethell short of red-ball practice coming into the Ashes.
Elon Musk’s massive 2018 Tesla pay package restored by Delaware court
Elon Musk’s controversial $56bn pay package from Tesla was reinstated by the Delaware supreme court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the vast compensation deal as “unfathomable”.The reinstated pay package could be worth as much as $139bn today, according to the New York Times. The decision comes less than two months after Tesla shareholders approved a new plan that could be worth $1tn to Musk, already the world’s richest person, in a decade’s time. Musk’s fortune currently stands at an estimated $600bn.Rescinding the pay deal would be “inequitable”, and would leave Musk “uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years”, the Delaware supreme court justices wrote, echoing arguments from Tesla board members earlier this year
‘A black hole’: families and police say tech giants delay investigations in child abuse and drug cases
Max Osterman was 18 when he connected with a drug dealer on Snapchat who used the handle skyhigh.303. Max would message him whenever he wanted to buy Percocet, and they would meet. After about a year, and just days after their last exchange, Max collapsed. The pills he ordered had been laced with fentanyl
The Com: the growing cybercrime network behind recent Pornhub hack
Ransomware hacks, data theft, crypto scams and sextortion cover a broad range of cybercrimes carried out by an equally varied list of assailants.But there is also an English-speaking criminal ecosystem carrying out these activities that defies conventional categorisation. Nonetheless, it does have a name: the Com.Short for community, the Com is a loose affiliation of cybercriminals, largely native English language speakers typically aged from 16 to 25. Its activities run from crippling the IT systems of British retailers to phoning in bomb threats to schools and encouraging teenage girls to harm themselves
Sony collars Snoopy in £340m deal to take control of Peanuts franchise
Sony has taken control of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts franchise including Snoopy and Charlie Brown in a deal worth C$630m (£340m).The Japanese conglomerate has bought 41% of Peanuts Holdings, which owns the intellectual property Schulz created, from the Canadian children’s entertainment company WildBrain.The deal raises Sony’s total stake, which it began building in 2018, to 80%. The Schulz family owns the remaining 20%.Peanuts, which first appeared as a comic strip in seven newspapers in 1950 and ran daily until the cartoonist’s death in 2000, has gone on to become a global franchise spanning TV, toys, films and theme park attractions
TikTok signs Trump-backed deal to avoid US ban
TikTok has reached a deal to form a joint venture that will allow it to continue operating in the US, five years after Donald Trump threatened to ban the social media platform over privacy and national security concerns, a move that further strained relations with China.ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, has signed a deal with Larry Ellison’s Oracle, the private-equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi’s MGX that will allow it to retain control of its core US operations.Under the arrangement, the joint venture will take over part of TikTok’s US business, including data protection, algorithm security and content moderation.However, TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, told employees in a memo that ByteDance would continue to run US operations, including its main revenue drivers such as e-commerce, advertising and marketing.The deal ends five years of uncertainty over the future of TikTok in the US, where the platform has more than 130 million users
What will your life look like in 2035?
“Does it hurt when I do this?”“You seem to have dislocat…”A Eye: “NOOOO! The problem is a sprain in the brachial plexus due to you lifting that 10kg carton on Wednesday at 2.58pm and not eating enough blah blah”“Wow, err, thanks”In 2035, AIs are more than co-pilots in medicine, they have become the frontline for much primary care. Gone is the early morning scramble to get through to a harassed GP receptionist for help. Patients now contact their doctor’s AI to explain their ailments. It quickly cross-checks the information against the patient’s medical history and provides a pre-diagnosis, putting the human GP in a position to decide what to do next
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