Rafael Nadal ended his seven-match winless streak against Novak Djokovic with a 6-2, 6-4 win that put him in the Madrid Open final again on Saturday.
Nadal overpowered Djokovic from the start, and converted on his third match point to earn his first victory against the second-ranked Serb since the 2014 French Open final.
It was the 14th straight victory for the fifth-ranked Nadal, and his tour-leading 33rd for the year.
Nadal faced Djokovic for the 50th time, and showed some of his old dominance on clay to put in a powerful, winning performance.
In the final, the four-time Madrid champion will play Dominic Thiem of Austria or Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay.
It was another disappointing loss for the struggling Djokovic, who hasn’t reached a final since winning his first tournament of the year in Doha. This was first tournament since splitting with longtime coach Marian Vajda.
‘Dear Twitter friends, that gum you like is going to come back in style! #damngoodcoffee’. And so, with a couple of famous quotes from the show, director David Lynch sparked a social media meltdown in October 2014 by revealing that his extraordinary TV drama Twin Peaks was returning for a third season.
The first two series caused a sensation in 1990 and 1991. After the first episode, one critic described it as ‘the series that will change TV’. Time magazine declared it ‘the most hauntingly original work ever done for TV’.
Set in a small Pacific Northwest logging town, the show revolved around an investigation into the killing of Laura Palmer, whose body, wrapped in plastic, is found by the river in the pilot episode.
The BBC2 announcer introduced it as an ‘offbeat murder mystery’, but Twin Peaks was about as far away from a conventional crime show as it was possible to get. It was both perverted police procedural and subversive soap opera featuring, among many other things, demonic possession, extra-dimensional locations, an FBI agent who relied on clues given to him in dreams, a dancing dwarf with a disturbing speech pattern and, naturally, a giant.
Lynch, an Oscar-nominated film-maker with The Elephant Man, Dune and Blue Velvet under his belt, brought his unique, surreal sensibility to a show that was funny, frightening, freakish and utterly unlike anything else.
So what can we expect from the new series? Undoubtedly, the unexpected…
President Donald Trump has hinted that Sean Spicer may not retain his position as press secretary in the near future.
The president revealed Spicer’s position on his communications team may be in jeopardy during an interview with Fox News Host Jeanine Pirro – amid claims that he is considering Fox news personality, Kimberly Guilfoyle for the job.
When the host asked Trump twice if Spicer would be the press secretary ‘tomorrow’, he dodged the question on both occasions. The president responded the first time:, ‘Well, he’s doing a good job, but he gets beat up’ .
‘He’s been there from the beginning,’ he said the second time, equally as coy, as he refused to confirm is Spicer is retaining his job.
Scroll down for video
Expanding more about the pressure he says Spicer has faced in communicating with the media, especially amid the controversy surrounding the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Trump said: He just gets beat up by these people, and again you know they don’t show the 90 questions that they asked and answered properly. I’m saying if they’re off just a little bit, just a little bit, it’s the big story.’
The controversy began on Tuesday, when the White House announced that Comey had been fired, apparently because of how he had handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server last November. In the letter, he went on to say he had acted on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Using this thread, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee – the deputy Press Secretary – and even Vice President Mike Pence defended the president’s actions. But Trump later rendered their defense baseless when he said he had already decided to fire Comey before Rosenstein was even appointed.
‘I was going to fire Comey — my decision. There is no good time to do it, by the way,’ Trump told NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt.
‘I was going to fire regardless of the recommendation,’ he said.
His team came under fire and Trump has been on the defense ever since, and has been considering a ‘the most far-reaching shake-up’ of his controversial 113-day term, West Wing officials told the New York Times.
On Friday, he tweeted out multiple times explaining why his interview on the Comey Firing was not in tandem with his team’s and even threatened to end daily press briefings.
PRESIDENT TRUMP INSINUATES SEAN SPICER MAY NOT KEEP HIS JOB FOR LONG
PIRRO: Is he your press secretary today and tomorrow?
TRUMP: Yeah, he is, sure.
PIRRO: Will he be tomorrow?
TRUMP: Well, he’s doing a good job, but he gets beat up.
PIRRO: Will he be there tomorrow?
TRUMP: Well, he’s been there from the beginning.
PIRRO: Is he in the, in the – what do they say — is he in the woods?
TRUMP: He’s getting beat up. No, he just gets beat up by these people, and again you know they don’t show the 90 questions that they asked and answered properly. I’m saying if they’re off just a little bit, just a little bit, it’s the big story.
PIRRO: When will you make a decision as to whether or not you’re gonna keep having him?
TRUMP: And here’s the thing, the difference between me and another president. Another president, I won’t use names but another president doesn’t do what I’m doing. they really don’t.
‘As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!’ he said.
He added in a later tweet: ‘Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future “press briefings” and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy?’
Trump apparently kept the details of the firing secret from his own communication team so as to avoid any leaks. Vice President Pence and a team he created in secrecy were among the few who knew about the President’s plans to oust Comey, the New York Times reported.
Among those reportedly on the president’s blacklist are Sean Spicer, his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and his communications director, Michael Dubke.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, 48, – formerly a prosecuting attorney – is one of the cable news hosts whose names has been circulating as a possible replacement. Trump has also been meeting with other Fox news producers to join his communication team, the Association Press has reported.
Since he took on the position, Spicer has been liable to ridicule, especially on Saturday Night Live. Melissa McCarthy plays a caricature of the press secretary – during skits that have gone viral and propelled the ratings of the NBC show -, which have apparently upset Spicer and Trump.
This hasn’t slowed down the comedienne. Yesterday, she donned suit and paraded around the streets of New York. Earlier this week, SNL released a snippet of its show tonight, showing McCarthy dressed as Sean Spicer while she sang ‘I feel pretty’.
But the press secretary maintained a poker face when asked about McCarthy earlier this week.
‘She needs to slow down on the gum chewing; way too many pieces in there,’ he joked in an interview with Extra.
The World Health Organisation has identified two more suspected cases of the deadly Ebola virus a day after declaring an outbreak in Congo.
The UN agency said on Saturday there are now 11 suspected cases, including three reported deaths, in Likati in Congo’s northern Bas-Uele Province. WHO said one death has tested positive for an Ebola strain seen in the country before.
The UN agency says the first case occurred on April 22 in a man some 1400km from the capital, Kinshasa.
WHO is working with the government to co-ordinate a response.
Congo has had seven known Ebola outbreaks in the past, including one in 2014 with several dozen cases. That outbreak was not connected to the massive epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone that left thousands dead.
Egypt has unearthed an ancient burial site containing at least 17 mummies, most fully intact, in the latest in a string of discoveries that the country’s Antiquities Minister described as a helping hand for its struggling tourism sector.
Key points:
At least 17 mostly-intact mummies discovered in the tomb south of Cairo
Believed to date from Greco-Roman period, after 332 BC
One of a number of ancient discoveries in Egypt this year
The funerary site, uncovered eight metres below ground in Minya, a province about 250 kilometres south of Cairo, contained limestone and clay sarcophagi, animal coffins, and papyrus inscribed with Demotic script.
The burial chamber was first detected last year by a team of Cairo University students using radar.
The mummies have not yet been dated but are believed to date to Egypt’s Greco-Roman period, a roughly 600-year span that followed the country’s conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, according to Mohamed Hamza, a Cairo University archaeology dean in charge of the excavations.
Egypt is hoping the recent discoveries will brighten its image abroad and revive interest among travellers that once flocked to its iconic pharaonic temples and pyramids but have shunned the country since its 2011 political uprising.
“It’s as if it’s a message from our ancestors who are lending us a hand to help bring tourists back.”
Salah Al-Kholi, a Cairo University Egyptology professor who led the mission, said as many as 32 mummies may be in the chamber, including mummies of women, children and infants.
A senior North Korean diplomat who handles the reclusive country’s US affairs has said Pyongyang would have dialogue with the US administration if conditions are right.
Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry Director General for US affairs, made the comment to reporters in Beijing as she was travelling home from Norway, Yonhap said.
“We’ll have dialogue if the conditions are there,” she said.
When asked if North Korea was also preparing to talk with the new government in South Korea, of liberal President Moon Jae-in, Ms Choe said: “We’ll see.”
The comments by Ms Choe, who is a veteran member of the North’s team of nuclear negotiators, came amid stepped-up international efforts to press North Korea and ease tension over its pursuit of nuclear arms.
Ms Choe was in Norway for so-called Track Two talks with former US government officials, according to Japanese media, the latest in a series of such meetings.
A source with knowledge of the latest meeting said at least one former US government official took part but the US administration was not involved.
South Korea’s Moon, elected this week on a platform of a moderate approach to North Korea, has said he would be willing to go to Pyongyang under the right circumstances and said dialogue must be used in parallel with sanctions to resolve the problem over North Korea’s weapons.
The BBC2 announcer introduced it as an ‘offbeat murder mystery’, but Twin Peaks was about as far away from a conventional crime show as it was possible to get. It was both perverted police procedural and subversive soap opera featuring, among many other things, demonic possession, extra-dimensional locations, an FBI agent who relied on clues given to him in dreams, a dancing dwarf with a disturbing speech pattern and, naturally, a giant.
The controversy began on Tuesday, when the White House announced that Comey had been fired, apparently because of how he had handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server last November. In the letter, he went on to say he had acted on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
