Emily Gellis Lande is leading an Instagram campaign against Tanya Zuckerbrot, the creator of the F-Factor diet. Photo / Celeste Sloman, The New York Times
Emily Gellis Lande is leading an Instagram campaign against Tanya Zuckerbrot, the creator of the F-Factor diet. Photo / Celeste Sloman, The New York Times
Welcome to the weekend.
For Aucklanders it's the last weekend of lockdown 2.0. To help you with the final push to the finish line we've pulled together some of the best content from our premium international syndicators this week.
Happy reading.
The campaign against the F-Factor diet
Influencer Emily GellisLande has been on a campaign, posting on Instagram dozens of times a day about the dangers of a diet called F-Factor.
Gellis has never been on the diet. She relays anonymous stories from women who say that after beginning the diet they experience long-lasting rashes, intense cramps, even indications of metal poisoning, and that the diet encourages disordered eating.
The stories are anonymous, she said, because the women are afraid to criticise Tanya Zuckerbrot, the Instagram-famous registered dietician who created the diet.
Zuckerbrot has built a substantial business around the diet, with clients who have paid as much as $38,000 for her help
But now, since Gellis' campaign began, Zuckerbrot and her husband have been harassed and defamed, she said. She has brought in lawyers.
Tanya Zuckerbrot, left, on Megyn Kelly's TV show in 2017. Photo / Getty Images
A glimmer of hope for Trump? How Bush mounted a comeback in 1988
George H.W. Bush was in trouble. It was July 1988 and Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate for president, was on a roll after his party's convention. A poll showed Bush trailing by 17 points.
George H.W. Bush won the presidency in 1988 by a margin of 53 per cent to 46 per cent. Photo / Getty Images
'2020 can go to hell': Story behind viral fire photo that said it all
In the sprawling destruction of California's wildfires, one photo became an instant icon for 2020's miseries: On a hillside roaring with flames stood a sign that asked visitors to a senior centre to wear masks, wash their hands and be safe. "Come Join Us," it beckoned creepily.
The virus. Lost jobs. A world aflame. Why this one image sums up 2020. Photo / AP
Is watching reality dating shows healthy?
Our appetite for watching romance — if that's what it's called — unfold is bottomless. So what does this mean for where the genre is heading? And what is behind our addiction?
Sima Taparia on Indian Matchmaking. Photo / Supplied
In China, where the pandemic began, life is starting to look … normal
In Shanghai, restaurants and bars in many neighbourhoods are teeming with crowds. In Beijing, thousands of students are heading back to campus for the fall semester. In Wuhan, where the coronavirus emerged eight months ago, water parks and night markets are packed elbow to elbow, buzzing like before.
While much of the world are still struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic, life in many parts of China has in recent weeks become strikingly normal.
Residents wear masks while walking through the entrance during Wuhan Beer Festival. Photo / Getty Images
Wirecard: Audacious plan that failed to hide billion-dollar fraud
The codename was "Project Panther". Markus Braun, the chief executive of German payments group Wirecard, had hired McKinsey & Co to help prepare his most audacious idea yet: a plan to take over Deutsche Bank.
Work looks different for many people in 2020. Photo / 123RF
'A bit surreal': The lonely plight of the Great Barrier Reef
The pandemic has fast-forwarded a looming reckoning for the tropical city of Cairns, the main gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.
Tour operators there were already fighting a perception that the reef is in its death throes, as warming waters cause repeated mass bleaching. But where climate change has been more of a creeping threat to the reef's survival, and thus to Cairns' tourism lifeblood, the coronavirus has delivered a hammer blow.
Travel bans are keeping thousands of international travellers away from the Great Barrier Reef, endangering the economic future of Cairns. Photo / Natalie Grono, The New York Times
How the UK restarted its restaurant industry: Paying half the bill
When the British government told people they no longer had to stay home, it needed a convincing pitch to get everyone back outside and, crucially, spending money.
The answer: half-price food. For the month of August, the government has been paying for a 50 per cent discount on all meals eaten in restaurants, pubs or cafes, up to 10 pounds per person, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
It's a discount that Britons have taken up with relish. But how long will the resurgence last?
Is it worth sticking at a job you don't like? Or is it time to cut your losses and look for something else? Photo / 123RF
How a photographer cornered the influencer paparazzi market
Fletcher Greene has an encyclopedic knowledge of the internet's dramas and daily displays.
This wasn't always the case. But in recent months, as paparazzi in Los Angeles have worked tirelessly to track down the few masked A-listers in town, Greene has turned his focus to subjects in plain sight: the social media stars of Gen Z.
Fletcher Greene outside one of his usual haunts, BOA Steakhouse, on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California. Photo / David Walter Banks, The New York Times
