LeBron James and Kobe Bryant were friends and the apparent heirs to Michael Jordan's throne. Photo / AP
LeBron James and Kobe Bryant were friends and the apparent heirs to Michael Jordan's throne. Photo / AP
Welcome to the weekend. Summer is well and truly here with some areas of the country seeing temperatures into the 30s.
So make sure you slip, slop, slap and wrap while you're out there in the sun this weekend. And while you're doing that, check out some of the bestpieces of premium content from our international syndicators this week.
The bridge between Michael Jordan and LeBron James: Kobe Bryant
Late Saturday night, after he had passed Kobe Bryant for third place on the NBA's career scoring list, LeBron James got a phone call from Bryant, who had already tweeted his congratulations but wanted to reach out anyway.
For two iconic figures who had mastered their craft in the shadow of Michael Jordan, their conversation was warm and celebratory.
The next day, Bryant and eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles. It brought to an abrupt end a friendship between icons.
Mourners visit a mural of Kobe Bryant in downtown Los Angeles. Photo / AP
How to get over a boy
She is one of the most outspoken and controversial young feminists on social media, and now she's publishing a guidebook to dating men.
"I was with my family and realised I didn't like the way I tolerated things from guys. How I was passive in certain areas of my life, yet the opposite in others."
Brexit is finally happening, but the complicated part is just beginning
The biggest question has now been answered: Yes, some kind of Brexit is going to happen. That much became certain in recent days, as lawmakers in London and Brussels officially blessed Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan to take Britain out of the European Union at the end of this week.
MEP's wear banners and react after a vote on the UK's withdrawal from the EU, the final legislative step in the Brexit proceedings, during the plenary session at the European Parliament. Photo / AP
How I stopped being a middle-aged problem drinker
Last July, six months ago, just shy of my 55th birthday, the penny finally dropped that I needed to stop drinking. Shortly before the penny dropped, so did I, face first, in our back garden.
Had I, I asked myself, levering myself unsteadily upright out of the rockery, become an alcoholic? Probably, yes.
Like increasing numbers of Brits, Robert Crampton had a guilty secret: he was drinking more, the older he got. Way more.
Alcohol addiction experts say the amount doesn't matter - it's the need to drink that counts. Photo / 123RF
Anatomy of a lie: How Iran covered up the downing of an airliner
When the Revolutionary Guard officer spotted what he thought was an unidentified aircraft near Tehran's international airport in Iran, he had seconds to decide whether to pull the trigger.
The officer tried to reach the command centre for authorisation to shoot but couldn't get through. So he fired an anti-aircraft missile. Then another.
The plane, which turned out to be a Ukrainian jetliner with 176 people on board, crashed and exploded in a ball of fire.
Within minutes, the top commanders of the Guard realised what they had done. And at that moment, they began to cover it up.
Debris at the scene where a Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr southwest of the capital Tehran. Photo / AP
'The more I got to know Warhol, the sorrier I felt for him'
Bob Colacello was Andy Warhol's confidant. He partied with him at Studio 54, hung out with his friends – everyone from Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and Bianca Jagger to Grace Jones and the Rolling Stones – and helped him recover from a near-fatal shooting.
Bob Colacello, left, with Andy Warhol in New York, 1979. Photo / Getty Images
Coronavirus outbreak tests world's dependence on China
The world is quickly learning how much it depends on China.
Ford and Toyota will idle some of their vast Chinese assembly plants for an extra week. Apple is rerouting supply chains. Starbucks has closed thousands of stores and is warning of a financial blow.
Hotels and tour operators across Asia are watching fearfully as the world's largest source of tourism dollars tightens its borders.
A car manufacturing plant jointly operated by Honda and the Chinese automaker Dongfeng in Wuhan, China. Photo / Getty Images
How food-delivery apps could change the way we eat out
What Netflix has done for movies, food-delivery apps are starting to do for our dining habits. The rapid rise of Uber Eats and many others around the world, shows that it never pays to underestimate the appeal of laziness.
But though we gain in convenience when our dinner is handed to us from the back of a scooter, we lose in other ways.
The rapid rise of food delivery services shows that it never pays to underestimate the appeal of laziness. Photo / 123RF
Harry and Meghan's big funding source is private. Sort of
Prince Charles' fortune, long shielded from scrutiny by parliamentary indifference and obscure accounting, spilled into public view this month when his younger son, Prince Harry, announced that he and his wife, Meghan, were quitting their royal duties.
In trying to prove that they would renounce taxpayer money, Harry and Meghan gave Britons a peek at the shadowy world of ostensibly private finance that bankrolls the family and its mansions, gardens and considerable staff.
St Mary's island in the Isles of Scilly. The archipelago off the southwestern coast of England is part of Prince Charles's Duchy of Cornwall. Photo / Tom Jamieson, The New York Times
Framing the impeachment case: Inside look at opposing legal teams
For the third time in US history, the Senate has convened as a court of impeachment to consider whether to remove a sitting president, and two teams of lawyers are facing off in a confrontation with heavy political and constitutional consequences.
Hakeen Jeffries, one of the seven House Democratic impeachment managers and Jay Sekulow, President Trump's personal attorney. Photo / Erin Schaff, The New York Times
What's it like to feel old? Testing the ageing suit
The goggles dim your eyesight, the weights imitate muscle loss, the shoes make you feel like you might trip. I'm wearing a contraption that transports you into old age. It is called the Age Gain Now Empathy System, or Agnes.
