Anna Burns won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday with Milkman, a vibrant, violent story about men, women, conflict and power set during Northern Ireland’s years of Catholic-Protestant violence.

Burns is the first writer from Northern Ireland to win the 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize, which is open to English-language authors from around the world. She received her trophy from Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, during a black-tie ceremony at London’s medieval Guildhall.

Milkman is narrated by a young woman dealing with an older man who uses family ties, social pressure and political loyalties as weapons of sexual coercion and harassment. It is set in the 1970s, but was published amid the global eruption of sexual misconduct allegations that sparked the #MeToo movement.

“I think this novel will help people to think about MeToo, and I like novels that help people think about current movements and challenges,” said philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, who chaired the judging panel. “But we think it’ll last — it’s not just about something that’s going on in this moment.

“I think it’s a very powerful novel about the damage and danger of rumor,” he added.

Burns beat five other novelists, including the bookies’ favorites: American writer Richard Powers’ tree-centric eco-epic The Overstory and Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, the story of a slave who escapes from a sugar plantation in a hot-air balloon.

The other finalists were U.S. novelist Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room, set in a women’s prison; Robin Robertson’s The Long Take, a verse novel about a traumatized D-Day veteran; and 27-year-old British author Daisy Johnson’s Greek tragedy-inspired family saga Everything Under.

Founded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize was originally open to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers. Americans have been eligible since 2014, and there have been two American winners — Paul Beatty’s The Sellout in 2016 and George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo in 2017.

A third consecutive American victor would have revived fears among some U.K. writers and publishers that the prize is becoming too U.S.-centric. But Appiah said neither the nationality nor the gender of the authors was a factor in the judges’ deliberations.

“If we had been drifting towards thinking that one of the men on the list was the best one, I wouldn’t have said ‘No, guys, we’re going to get in trouble for this’ — any more than if we’d been drifting towards an American,” he said. “We picked the one … most deserving of the prize.”

The Man Booker is always subject to intense speculation and lively betting, and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy and Hilary Mantel.

It’s likely to bring a big boost to Burns, who is 56 years old and has published two previous novels, but is hardly a household name.

Milkman appears on the printed page as a continuous torrent with few paragraph marks, which has led some to label it experimental and challenging. But Appiah said the vivid, distinctive Belfast language in Burns’ book was “really worth savoring.”

“If you’re having difficulty, try reading it out loud,” he said. “The pleasure of it really has to do with the way that it sounds.

“It’s challenging in the way a walk up (mount) Snowdon is challenging. It’s definitely worth it, because the view is terrific when you get to the top.”
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Former Congresswoman Mary Bono has announced she is resigning as interim president and chief executive officer of USA Gymnastics after just five days on the job.

“My withdrawal comes in the wake of personal attacks that left undefended, would have made my leading USAG a liability for the organization,” Bono said in a statement Tuesday.

Bono’s selection to lead USA Gymnastics had almost immediately come under fire by several high-profile gymnasts, including Olympic gold-medal winners Simone Biles and Aly Raisman.

Raisman objected to the choice of Bono, pointing out the former GOP lawmaker’s association with a law firm that advised USAG during the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.

Both Biles and Raisman were among the hundreds of girls and young women molested by the physician.

“My teammates & I reported Nassar’s abuse to USAG in 2015,” wrote Raisman. “We now know USOC (the U.S. Olympic Committee) & lawyers at Faegre Baker Daniels (Bono’s firm) were also told then, yet Nassar continued to abuse children for 13 months!? Why hire someone associated with the firm that helped cover up our abuse?”

Nassar is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to federal child pornography charges and state charges of sexual abuse.

“Survivors, current gymnasts, families, coaches, gymnastics community & fans deserve better,” Raisman wrote Monday.

Biles, meanwhile, took issue with Bono’s response to Nike’s advertising campaign featuring former American football player Colin Kaepernick, who was the first to kneel during the playing of the national anthem to draw attention to injustice, social inequality and police brutality.

Bono posted a photo of herself blacking out a Nike logo on a golf shoe. Biles tweeted in response: “mouth drop … don’t worry, it’s not like we needed a smarter usa gymnastics president, or any sponsors or anything.”

Bono’s departure is another blow for USA Gymnastics, which has struggled to rebuild in the aftermath of the Nassar scandal.

Bono served as U.S. Representative from Southern California for 15 years. She won her first term in a special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of her husband, former pop star and lawmaker Sonny Bono.
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Pippa Middleton, the sister of Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, has given birth to a baby boy.

A spokeswoman for Middleton and her husband James Matthews said Tuesday that their first baby had been born the day before.

Kensington Palace says that Prince William and Kate are “thrilled for Pippa and James.”

The new baby will be a cousin to William and Kate’s three children – George, 5, Charlotte, 3, and 5-month-old Louis.

The baby was born on the day the palace announced that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their first child.

 
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Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who visualized the indispensability of the personal computer more than 40 years ago, died Monday at 65.

Allen’s family said he died in Seattle of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer he had been battling off and on since 2009.

After persuading high school friend Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard in 1975, the two teamed up to develop a rudimentary software that hobbyists used to operate home-built computers. 

“I expect the personal computer to become the kind of thing that people carry with them, a companion that takes notes, does accounting, gives reminders, handles a thousand personal tasks,” Allen wrote in Personal Computing magazine in 1977.

Allen and Gates called their company Microsoft and spent the next several years developing the software that revolutionized the world.

Allen and Gates split in 1983, but Allen kept his share of Microsoft, making him a billionaire.

Gates issued a statement on Allen’s death late Monday.

“I am heartbroken by the passing of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Paul Allen,” he said.

According to Forbes magazine, Allen was worth nearly $22 billion at the time of his death, making him the world’s fourth wealthiest person.

Allen was also owner of the National Football League’s Seattle Seahawks, and the Portland Trail Blazers professional basketball team.

He also used his wealth to refurbish a crumbling neighborhood of his native Seattle, turning it into a headquarters for Amazon.
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The Russian Orthodox Church announced Monday it would break ties with the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople over the latter’s recognition of a new Ukrainian church, the latest development in a major restructuring of the world’s second-largest Christian denomination.

Unlike Catholicism, which has a centralized hierarchy of authority, Orthodox Christianity has several churches spread out across the world, each with their own jurisdiction and leaders. However, the Patriarch of Constantinople is considered a “first among equals” in the Church leadership. 

Traditionally, Orthodox churches in Ukraine have fallen under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow. But the 2014 annexation of Crimea and Russia’s continued support for separatists fighting against Kyiv in the east drove a wedge in relations that led Ukrainian clerics to declare their own autonomous church.

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople officially recognized  the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Ukraine on Oct. 11, sparking celebration in Kyiv and outrage in Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church’s cutting of ties with Constantinople is a direct result of that decision. 

Now priests from the two churches will be barred from serving together, while worshippers of one will not take communion in the other.

The schism is the most significant Orthodox Christianity has experienced since it split from Catholicism almost a thousand years ago. About 100 million of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians live in Russia, according to the Pew Center. 
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American rapper Kanye West and socialite wife Kim Kardashian are visiting Uganda and bringing some much-wanted, positive attention to the East African country. Deadly election-related violence in August caused many tour groups to cancel trips, dealing a blow to the economy. Uganda’s tourism body is hoping the couple’s stay will attract more visitors.

A cartoon in a Ugandan newspaper depicts Kanye West sipping a local beer and thinking “Uganda is gold,” while wife Kim Kardashian, in a red bikini, takes a selfie under the sunset.

Meanwhile, in a reversed Safari, wild African animals compete to get a good look at the celebrity couple.

The sketch underscores the attention West and Kardashian’s visit is bringing to Uganda, where the rapper says he will record a new album.

Amos Wekesa of Great Lakes Safari said the couple’s superstar presence can be used to boost tourist numbers.

“So we need to be able to exploit that. If 100,000 people came here because of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, we would probably expect over $200 million and that would probably create not less than 2,000 jobs in the country. Whatever they are filming right now will stay online for a very long time and it will continue to market Uganda as a key destination.”

Tourism groups canceled planned visits to Uganda after violence erupted in August in relation to a local election.

Clashes broke out between security forces and youth supporters of the musician-turned-politician known as Bobi Wine. Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, was arrested and charged with treason for allegedly throwing rocks at President Yoweri Museveni’s car.

West on Monday met Museveni, who has ruled Uganda for three decades, and gave the president a new pair of white sneakers.

Social media posts made fun of the gift, noting the president is known for wearing odd-looking shoes.

Echoing opposition calls for Museveni to step down, one post read, “We hope that this pair of sneakers can inspire him to sneak out of power.”

It was not clear if West would meet fellow musician Wine, who is trying to get permission from authorities to hold a concert while on bail.

West made headlines last Thursday when he met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House Oval Office. The rapper stunned reporters by giving Trump a big hug, pounding the president’s desk, and using profanity.

On the streets of Kampala, not everyone was aware of the celebrity couple’s visit to Uganda, but, Leah Kahunde voiced excitement.

“Kim Kardashian herself has a following bigger than Uganda’s population. So imagine a whole country’s population is eyes on Uganda. That means a lot for my country. And also the tax base and maybe more revenue, that way they might stop milking us and trying to tax us just to make up for expenditure. So it’s a plus for our tourism industry.”

While in Uganda, West and Kardashian are staying in the country’s largest national park, Murchison Falls.

John Ssempebwa is the deputy executive director for Uganda’s Tourism Board. He offered an explanation as to why he thought the couple chose Uganda.

“The Murchison Falls National Park is where the River Nile squeezes into the narrowest of rocks. And makes this thundering sound that can be heard kilometers away. It’s the only place in the world, where it’s actually raining fish. Fishes coming in pushed by this speed of water, so huge, falling. And guess what’s down there waiting for them? The fattest crocodiles in the world.”

Posting on her snapchat, Kardashian wrote, “Dear world, there is another heaven in Uganda.”
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More Americans are moving to smaller cities in search of a better quality of life.

They’re leaving places like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York for mid-sized cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Dallas, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

A huge draw for these second-tier cities is that the cost of housing consumes a much smaller chunk of people’s salaries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of the people who move do so for housing-related reasons. They’re looking for a new or better home, cheaper housing, or to buy a home rather than rent.

It costs about $4,100 a month to rent a place in Manhattan. That’s almost two-thirds of New York City’s median household income of $83,500. Buying a home is even more out of reach. The average cost of a home in the area is $1.1 million.

More than half a million people left the New York boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens over a five-year period between 2012 and 2017.

In Los Angeles, the metropolitan county with the largest outbound net domestic migration, rent costs about $2,100 a month — about 38 percent of average income. Houses cost around $630,000, almost 10 times the average annual salary of $66,000.

LA County lost about 381,000 people over a five-year period.

According to the report, the cost of living can be a lot less expensive in the Phoenix area, which welcomed more net domestic newcomers over the past five years — 221,000 people — than any other part of the country.

The average household income in Phoenix is about $63,000, rent is about $1,100 a month, and the median price of a house is $280,000 — that’s $350,000 less than in the LA metropolitan area.

In the Las Vegas area, the rent ($1,000) will only consume 21 percent of the average salary ($57,000) and purchasing a house would set a buyer back about $273,000.

The analysis found that housing is about two times cheaper in the top markets that attracted people than in the areas that are losing the most in terms of population.

Chicago appears to be an exception. People are leaving the Windy City to get away from high taxes. Property taxes are higher there than almost anywhere else in the United States.

It is not as though the places that are losing people are suffering due to the exodus. Eight of the 10 counties with the biggest net population losses are still growing overall because of births and immigration.
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