Hampton

Hannah Hampton släppte in fyra mål för England.  Efter det kände hon sig tvingad att stänga av sina kommentarsfält.  – Det är fruktansvärt, säger Magdalena Eriksson.  – Jag har också velat begränsa mig på det sättet, säger Stina Blackstenius.

Sveriges damlandslag har aldrig missat två raka mästerskap. Men den mållösa avslutningen på EM-kvalet gör att hotet fortsatt hänger över Blågult. 0–0 i Göteborg innebär att Frankrike och England tar de två direktplatserna till EM nästa år. Sverige, trea i gruppen, får i stället ladda om för playoff i höst. Där krävs det seger i två dubbelmöten – det första i oktober, det andra i månadsskiftet november–december – för att ta sig till Europamästerskapet. Vi hade hoppats på att vinna den här matchen och ta oss till EM, säger Fridolina Rolfö till SVT. Skapade inte tryck För att säkra EM-platsen på tisdagen var seger ett måste. Men Sverige hade svårt att skapa tryck mot de regerande Europamästarna. Den första halvleken var tillknäppt överlag. England ägde mest boll, Sverige försökte förlita sig på omställningar. Inget av lagen lyckades skapa några målchanser att tala om, möjligen med undantag för Georgia Stanway vars distansskott i den 37:e minuten smet tätt utanför Zecira Musovics ena stolpe. Madelen Janogy kom inte till sin rätt som central anfallare och byttes ut i paus. Evelyn Ijeh, som gjorde landslagsdebut mot Frankrike så sent som i fredags, ersatte. Men 22-åringen hade också svårt att lösa upp knutarna. Med halvtimmen kvar testade förbundskapten med ytterligare två byten, in med såväl Hanna Bennison som Rosa Kafaji. Nytt publikrekord Några minuter senare rann den sistnämnda igenom det engelska försvaret och när Leah Williamson kastade sig in med en glidtackling hade Kafaji lätt kunnat falla och argumentera för straffspark. Men 21-åringen stod på benen och fick nöja sig med en hörna. Anfallet fick ändå fart på Sverige och på Gamla Ullevis fullsatta läktare – 16 789 var nytt publikrekord för en damlandskamp på arenan – började de gulklädda fansen känna vittring, väl medvetna om vad ett sent ledningsmål troligen skulle innebära. England backade hem allt mer, Sverige forcerade men hade svårt att skapa mer än några halvfarliga hörnor. Filippa Angeldahl testade från distans i den 83:e minuten, men Englands målvakt Hannah Hampton kunde med vissa möda rädda det tunga skottet. I slutminuterna gjorde Peter Gerhardsson ett sista drag: in med Sofia Jakobsson och Nathalie Björn. Men inget hjälpte. Sverige lämnar kvalet med två oavgjorda resultat mot de regerande EM-guldmedaljörerna. Ett fint facit, men ingen större tröst den här tisdagskvällen. På fredag lottas vilka Sverige ställs mot i höstens playoff.

En tur i The Hamptons slutade abrupt för Justin Timberlake.  Under natten till tisdagen greps han misstänkt för rattfylla, rapporterar ABC News. Efter gripandet har artistens mugshot blivit offentlig.

Gripandet ska ha skett i Sag Harbor, som ligger i lyxiga semesterorten The Hamptons i delstaten New York. Sångaren greps på måndagskvällen amerikansk tid. Justin Timberlake har två konserter inbokade i Chicago till helgen och två i New York City nästa vecka, uppger ABC.

Norrköping har fortfarande inte förlorat i SBL. Nu vill Jämtland sätta stopp för regerande mästarnas segersvit. – Vi är kända för att spela fysiskt och vi ska trötta ut dem, berättar nyckelspelaren Pierre Hampton.    Se seriefinalen under fredagskvällen gratis här på Expressen

Glöm betjänter. För att se till att maximera sin hälsa och prestation knyter dagens miljardärer och techentreprenörer till sig en mindre armé av specialister. Det kan vara alltifrån personliga kemister, dietister och tränare till psykologer, schamaner och doktorer, skriver The Washington Post. Att mikrodosera olika droger eller läkemedel uppges också vara populärt bland eliten. Vissa går så långt som att använda sig av matchmaking-specialister för att hitta partners med högt IQ i förhoppning om kunna att skapa ”superbarn” som ska rädda planeten. – Det här är erfarna businesspersoner, och de styr sina privata liv på samma sätt de skulle styra ett företag eller en verksamhet, säger författaren och entreprenören Richard Kirshenbaum till tidningen. (Svensk översättning av Omni). The wealthy are employing an army of niche specialists — from shamans to hospitality directors — to optimize their lives in the name of self-improvement By Christopher Cameron October 12, 2023 Jag Gill is a New York-based banker turned tech CEO. She has an MBA from MIT. She's a serial start-up founder. In 2021, she launched an artificial intelligence-powered tech company, Vertru Technologies, focused on climate and human rights impacts in supply chains. Her demanding job means that she travels about every month of the year between New York City and places such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Stockholm and India. She sits in on roughly 25 meetings per week. And she has a monk in her life. "There are areas I want to work on," says Gill, who would prefer not to name the monk she met while at Tibet House US in New York, a cultural center established at the behest of the Dalai Lama. "There's professional growth, being a better CEO and a better founder. So he helps me by organizing meditations, where we just sit in noble silence, or we may talk about things." To deal with stress and practice mindfulness, she joined a breathwork community with Angell Deer, a shamanic healer, mystic, medicine man, teacher, permaculturist, beekeeper and international speaker, according to his website. In July, she traveled to Esalen, the storied Big Sur retreat known for its connections to the Human Potential Movement of the 1960s. "I'm there exploring breathwork and these new modalities, but it's all very steeped in Silicon Valley tech culture. There's a guy from Google there," she says. Ben Tauber, a former Google product manager, was CEO at Esalen until 2019. The popularity of metaphysical practices in an industry otherwise founded upon the strict mathematics of algorithms has become a well-known facet of life among the tech elite. Founders are under immense pressure to alchemize start-up ideas into palpable profits for investors. Who better to guide you on that journey than a shaman? But while Gill engages with a well of inspirational figures, she also seeks out experts with a more science-based perspective. To conquer stressful deals, she works with "CEO whisperer" Sharon Melnick, PhD, a business psychologist and executive coach focused on women's success with a decade of research at Harvard Medical School under her belt. "When I have big negotiations, or when I need tactics and strategies, she's on the other end of the phone," Gill says. "We've been doing a program together with some other women on power and pleasure. We are learning how to use dance, movement, flirting and self-talk to just be more alive in the world." Gill and her peers are pursuing the optimization of everyday life, supported by entourages of experts - often managed by a single power assistant - who help the hyper-successful live longer, do more and pursue a fleeting and intangible perfection in every aspect of their existence. Personal chemists now help CEOs hack their psyches with psilocybin chocolates, ayahuasca retreats, microdoses of LSD and IV drips of ketamine. (Elon Musk is one alleged user.) Teams of private doctors, dietitians, scientists, wellness practitioners and trainers help aging executives search for the Fountain of Youth - with occasionally gruesome techniques (such as tech mogul Bryan Johnson's "blood boy"). Shamans guide board room bosses through difficult decisions. Mixed martial artist Khai "The Shadow" Wu trains Mark Zuckerberg. "Pro-natalists" tap matchmakers to secure high-IQ partners to produce elite super children for a world they agree is doomed to societal and environmental collapse. At the $100 million homes of these masters of the universe, vast teams of niche connoisseurs make sure that the right furnishings are in the lounge, the right cars are in the garage, the right toys are on the yacht, the right wines are in the cellar and the right works of art are on the walls - even if the owners of those Veblen goods aren't always sure what it is exactly that they are buying. "Amenity floors" - sprawling underground playpens that have become de rigueur in mansions - create a need for additional specialists. Even a starter estate now comes with a home gym, a movie theater, a wine-tasting room, a cigar room, a treatment room, a styling room, a swimming pool, a game room and, of course, a panic room. Each of those rooms represents an outside expert to hire, whether it's the projectionist or the home security adviser who makes sure that you'll be able to sit out a home invasion in comfort. Real estate agents are traditionally one of the most omnipresent and trusted hired guns to the world's rich. After going through decades of deals, they become like family, discussing markets over dinner at Per Se and showing up at birthday parties. Now, even the family broker is faced with competition from a more optimized expert. "If one of my clients is interested in purchasing a property, I will assist by narrowing down which properties are better suited for them energetically," says Wendi Eckstein, a Los Angeles area-based Reiki master practitioner who harmonizes the energy of individuals and the real estate holdings of wealthy families. "Or if a client feels that there is an uneasiness to the home, I will go in and balance the house." The economy of experts swirling around the super rich has to varying degrees existed for decades, perhaps centuries, but the motivations for hiring them and the roles they play have changed. As the straightforward materialism of the flash 1980s gave way to the holistic self-help perfectionism of the new millennium, tennis coaches and feng shui gurus began to look old hat. Faced with ever-less-ignorable wealth inequality and the hyper-visibility brought on by social media, a moral justification for conspicuous consumption was necessary. A holiday to a $20,000-a-night villa in Polynesia - with the nannies and PA in tow - could look out of touch. But add a marine biologist, an Indigenous healer and an environmentalist to talk to you about coral bleaching, and you are a step closer to being a better you. Their expertise gave your experience purpose. Today, that pursuit of ethical, moral and professional optimization is being pushed toward its logical conclusion afresh by the rise of artificial intelligence, the creation of Scrooge McDuck swimming pools of lucre and a boiling over of existential angst. "During the pandemic, a lot of people had a brush with their own mortality," says Melnick, whose 2022 book, "In Your Power: React Less, Regain Control, Raise Others," attempts to explain why CEOs, politicians and tech moguls often feel "out of their power," unheard, reactive and held hostage to others, despite their material advantages. "It motivated many to want to optimize their lives. 'Do I really want to live like this?' 'Is that all there is?' A lot of factors not within our control prompt us to want to maximize what we can control - which is ourselves. Because of this, many embarked on a journey to 'optimize' what they eat, heal their mental health and get fit. We saw a lot of emphasis on this on social media." Although the pandemic caused most of us to confront our own powerlessness, the already rich were better rewarded for their introspection. Between 2020 and 2022, a fresh billionaire was minted every 30 hours. Billionaires as a whole saw their wealth blossom in the first 24 months of the pandemic more than it had in the period from 1987 to 2010, according to an Oxfam report analyzing Forbes estimates. Post-pandemic, those steeped in the capitalistic efficiency of, say, Silicon Valley or Wall Street, and self-improvement culture of curanderismo healers in Mexico and cryotherapy in the Swiss Alps now had the impetus and resources to apply the logics of those ideologies broadly. "These are seasoned business people, and they run their personal lives the way that they would a corporation or business," says Richard Kirshenbaum, the CEO and founder of NSG/SWAT (a boutique branding agency), an author and a frequent commentator on living life among the wealthy. As a consequence, their homes are frequently operated like five-star resorts, according to Aimée Moreault, a Los Angeles-based personal assistant to ultrahigh-net-worth (UHNW) families, which are defined by the accumulation of at least $30 million, according to Knight Frank, a London-based real estate company. If you were lucky enough to be invited to the Malibu home of a person worth several hundred million, she says, you might be greeted by a personal hospitality director. Like at a luxury resort, the director is there to help plan guests' daily activities, advise them on which trails to hike and set up the surfboards. "They make sure there is consistency throughout their homes," she says. "It's about creating a lifestyle experience. It's more of a younger, tech industry thing." The littoral locations often inhabited by the super rich are hubs for sport fishing, kite boarding, surfing and wakeboarding - sports that have boomed in popularity with a class that prefers its excitement to be imbued with an aura of health and fitness. It has led to demand for full-time water-sports specialists, who manage board sports and an array of watercraft, or who take the family tubing, fishing and jet skiing, according to Forrest Barnett, the president of Hire Society, a staffing agency with locations in New York, the Hamptons, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. He adds that exotic pets, exotic cars and exotic trips often get their own single-hat micromanager. And just as a Fortune 500 company might tap a consulting firm, those with unlimited means seek out experts who can sharpen a dull facet. "I placed a full-time, permanent gaming expert," says a person working for an UHNW family who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement. "My client wanted someone who was the best at all of the best games." Astaple of life among the 1 percent - and pop culture moments from "The Devil Wears Prada" to Naomi Campbell's infamous phone-throwing tantrum (not to mention the recent arraignment of Donald Trump's body man Waltine "Walt" Nauta) - the power PA is also evolving. With dozens to hundreds of specialists working for a single family, the title of personal assistant is giving way to chief of staff, an appellation borrowed from politics. Combining business with pleasure, the CoS not only manages home life - the fitness instructor, dietitian, the watch adviser and Savannah cat tamer - but they also attend their "principal's" business meetings, taking minutes, advising and facilitating high-level requests. Yet unlike executive assistants of yore, the chief of staff is less burdened with planner keeping. AI assistants can now handle the more transactional tasks of scheduling. The more general aspects of travel have become a breeze for those who are not price sensitive thanks to online booking. Exclusive WhatsApp groups help execs like Gill quickly crowdsource needs and arrange last-minute meetings. But rather than put the assistant out of work, advances in technology have created more time to focus on the intimate aspects of the job, according to Bethany Burns, first mate to the captain (a title she created in lieu of chief of staff). Her captain is James Watt, the embattled chief executive of Scottish beer giant BrewDog and the subject of a 2022 BBC documentary alleging inappropriate behavior, claims that Watt has denied. "The assistant role has become more specialized and more personal," she says. "You're a force multiplier. You are a key decision-maker. You are a partner in strategy. You are an influence, a project executor, an integrator. You are making sure that everything flows like qi." In a Wodehousian twist, the power assistant has also been saddled with an even more personal role worthy of the wardrobe-conscious Jeeves: tastemaker. "It's changed," says Nahla Bee, a Los Angeles-based personal assistant to UHNW families. "It used to be that people who had a high net worth had a certain provenance and came from a certain type of family. And generally, they understood luxury from birth. Now, many people are becoming wealthy midlife, or early in life, for the first time." Moreault adds that, when young people become hundred-millionaires or billionaires "overnight," they face a steep learning curve. "The East Coast has much more of that traditional, old-school money that gets handed down. They are a little bit more used to having help around," she says. "On the West Coast, they're not always used to having people around. They're not used to how much staff it takes to run the estates that they're buying. So there is a lot of up educating people as to what it takes to live this lifestyle that they've seen on TV. You have to educate them and train them about what it means to collect art and what it means to collect cars." The nation's 100 largest private landowners - billionaires such as telecom baron John Malone - own a slice of the United States roughly the size of New England, and that's not even counting their properties overseas. Anyone who devoured "Downton Abbey" has a rough idea of what it takes to manage just one of those estates. Housekeepers, butlers, chefs, nannies, chauffeurs and gardeners, even those traditional staffing roles, are being optimized beyond the recognition of a stalwart Carson. "Today it's not just being able to find a nanny, but a ski nanny or a nanny that specializes in Montessori, Waldorf or Reggio Emilia philosophies," says Samantha Lloyd-Gordon, founder and CEO of the SLG Group, a staffing agency serving UHNW individuals. "It's not just holding a child and burping them. It's about how you're engaging with a child in a way that makes them a better person. It's not that this stuff wasn't always there, but there's more of it because of social media and because we are all talking about this stuff more than we did in the past." Lloyd-Gordon adds that other now-common domestic jobs with hyper-specifications include drivers with a police background, firearm training and a concealed-carry permit; a housekeeper who is also an illustrious laundress; a chef capable of cooking for a family of four with four different dietary requirements; and, perhaps, an architecture tutor who can travel with a precocious child. Even the butler is getting a remix, trading in his morning coat, white gloves and "G'evening, Sirs" for an iPhone and a business-casual nonchalance. "When I first started my agency, a lot of my clients were sort of old-school with formal service and formal butlers," says Philippa Smith, the founder and managing director of Silver Swan Recruitment. Founded in 2013, her company staffs the ski chalets, mansions, yachts and private jets of the global 1 percent, placing butlers on $170,000 to $200,000 per year salaries with benefits. Housekeepers make about $120,000, while chefs can make as much as $400,000, she says. "Now, there is a younger generation of UHNW [individuals], and they don't want a 60-year-old butler. They want a butler who can pack a suitcase but who can also handle personal assistant duties. They want a cool, good-looking 30-year-old butler." But the pursuit of excellence also has its more suburban side. "People just want the best," Smith says. "Some of that is for show. Some of it is about keeping up with the Joneses. If their mate down the road has a Russian-Mandarin-French-speaking nanny, they think, 'Why the hell don't we have a Russian-Mandarin-French-speaking nanny?' It's very competitive in the elite world, and everyone wants more. We're a greedy species." © 2023 The Washington Post. Sign up for the Today's Worldview newsletter here.

I sängen, i duschen och vid matbordet. För många av oss är mobilen en ständig följeslagare – oavsett vad vi gör eller var vi befinner oss. Samtidigt som vi är mer uppkopplade än någonsin kräver allt fler världsartister att konsertpubliken lägger bort sina telefoner. Bland dem finns Madonna, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars och Billie Eilish. Även Bob Dylan krävde vid sina Sverigekonserter i höstas att alla telefoner skulle låsas in för en bättre upplevelse, men sannolikt även för att ha ensamrätt på bilder och filmer från konserten. Men hur får man publiken att släppa telefonen? Ett sätt är att använda ett specialdesignat fodral som bara kan öppnas vid speciella upplåsningszoner. Bakom fodralet – som även används av ståuppkomiker som inte vill ha sina framträdanden tillgängliga på nätet och i omkring 1 500 skolor världen över – står det amerikanska företaget Yondr som grundades 2014 av entreprenören Graham Dugoni. Ett amerikanskt bolag tillverkar mobilfodral med ett magnetiskt lås som bara kan öppnas i speciella upplåsningszoner. Det används bland annat av artister som inte vill att publiken ska använda sina telefoner under konserter. Enligt bolaget är den mobilfria trenden tydlig i musikbranschen. — Vi har många anhängare i artistvärlden eftersom artisterna upplever det väldigt annorlunda att göra en konsert om alla använder sina telefoner. Det skapar en vägg mellan artisten och konserten, berättar Mia Ljungberg Nevado, som representerar Yondr i Skandinavien. — Det är förstås också störande för de få som inte använder sina mobiler. Om en telefon ringer eller om någon börjar filma tar det bort en del av upplevelsen. Skapar distraktion Bilden av att vår upplevelse kan påverkas om vi ser en konsert via mobilens skärm delas av Sissela Nutley, författare och hjärnforskare som är kopplad till Karolinska institutet. — Det mobilerna i det tillfället gör är att skapa en distraktion från att ta in upplevelsen här och nu. Det blir ytterligare en sak vi ska fokusera på. Fångar vi rätt grejer på skärmen, hur ser det ut, är det skärpa och rätt inzoomat? säger hon. — Allt det här tar av vår tankemässiga bandbredd och stör vårt arbetsminne. Då har vi inte lika stor möjlighet att fokusera och uppleva det som vi kanske var där för. Sissela Nutley, författare och hjärnforskare som är knuten till Karolinska institutet. Inom socialvetenskapen talar man om "technoference", en sammansättning av ”technology” och ”interference”, teknik och störning. Det syftar på att tekniken kommer emellan och stör vår närhet till varandra och våra relationer. Det gör att vi upplever relationens kvalitet som sämre, enligt Nutley. — Vår koncentration blir störd bara av att mobilen ligger framför oss. Tittar man på relationsbiten ser man att vi kommer ihåg mindre av samtalen om det ligger en mobil på bordet och vi tycker att personen som vi pratar med är mindre pålitlig. Triggar gamla drivkrafter Men varför är det så svårt att hålla fingrarna borta från mobilen – trots att vi ser vår favoritartist framträda, äter en efterlängtad middag med vänner eller redan borde ha gått och lagt oss för att orka upp till jobbet nästa morgon? Enligt Nutley beror det på att vi har jobbat in vanor där vi får känslomässiga belöningar via telefonen. — Det gör att vi känner oss smått beroende av att hela tiden ha den nära. Det triggar gamla drivkrafter i hjärnan som hör till det limbiska systemet, strukturer vi delar med reptildjur och dinosaurierna som levde för 150 miljoner år sedan. Det handlar om nyfikenhet, rädslor och sökande efter belöningar. Allt det får vi numera i de här gratisapparna. Kväver obehag En av våra viktigaste drivkrafter är att känna oss socialt ihopkopplade och att hålla koll på om vi får social bekräftelse. Vi vill underhålla vår sociala status genom att kolla om någon hört av sig eller hålla oss ajour med omvärlden. Dessutom kväver mobilen effektivt obehagskänslor som tristess eller jobbiga tankar, enligt Nutley. Hon menar att ingen annan enskild innovation har bidragit till så stora beteendemässiga förändringar hos oss som den smarta telefonen. — Det har påverkat vår sömn, vårt stillasittande, vår möjlighet till fokus – och det är ju för att den är tillgänglig hela tiden. Vi hade inte så här stora effekter när exempelvis tv:n kom, för vi kunde inte ta med den överallt. Fyra timmar om dagen I Mia Ljungberg Nevados fall var det när hon bodde i Hamptons utanför New York som hon lade märke till att många tycktes mer intresserade av att ta den perfekta bilden till sociala medier än av tillställningarna de var på. Mia Ljungberg Nevado, Yondrs representant i Skandinavien samt grundare av rörelsen Lookup, som vill inspirera människor att lägga bort mobilen och vara mer närvarande. Insikten fick henne att grunda Lookup, en rörelse som vill inspirera människor att stänga av mobilerna och vara mer närvarande. Den har hon fortsatt driva även efter att familjen flyttade till Sverige under pandemiåret 2020. Enligt Ljungberg Nevado använder en vuxen person sin telefon i snitt fyra timmar per dag till saker som inte är arbetsrelaterade. — Det är två hela månader om året. Om jag kan få de här personerna att en eller två dagar äta en måltid med sin familj eller sina vänner utan mobil, gå en mobilfri promenad eller inte börja dagen med sin telefon, så är jag glad. Har "mobildetox" Själv har hon förändrat sina mobilvanor. När hon reser låser hon in telefonen på hotellet de första 24 timmarna på en ny plats, för att vara mer uppmärksam på sin omgivning. Hon har också infört "mobildetox" varje vecka, där hon är bortkopplad i ett dygn från fredag till lördag. — Om jag tar samma morgonpromenad på söndagen med min telefon stannar jag och fotar. Jag älskar att fota, men jag är inte lika pigg och närvarande som när jag är utan min telefon. Smyger in i sovrummet Hennes råd till den som vill minska mobilanvändandet är att våga släppa konceptet om att ständigt vara tillgänglig, att stå emot impulsen att ta upp telefonen när man exempelvis sitter på bussen. — Det går av gammal vana även för mig. Jag sätter ibland ett gummiband runt min telefon för att påminna mig, "behöver du verkligen ta upp den just nu?" Jag kämpar med det också. Ljungberg Nevado betonar att hon inte är emot smarta telefoner, men hoppas att vi kommer reflektera mer kring hur vi använder dem. Att världsartister uppmanar publiken att lägga bort mobilerna tror hon kan inspirera fler att göra det även i vardagen. — Vi har nog alla sett hur telefonen smyger in i sovrummet eller till och med i duschen, för det finns människor som inte ens kan vara borta från den då. Jag tror vi börjar inse att den definitivt gjort våra liv mycket lättare, men att vi måste lägga undan den ibland.

Chaufförer, privata kockar och miljoner att leva på. Trots prat om tuffa tag har brittiska sanktioner mot ryska oligarker varit fulla av undantag. Det visar dokument som The New York Times tagit del av. Förra året godkändes 82 undantag, kallade ”licenser”. Den ryske bankpampen Mikhail Fridman fick exempelvis lov att betala för 19 anställda, inklusive städerskor och hantverkare. Andra har tillåtits årliga omkostnader på så mycket som 1 miljon dollar. Av den brittiska regeringen beskrivs Fridman och hans tidigare affärspartner Petr Aven som pro-kremlska oligarker med tajta kopplingar till Rysslands president Vladimir Putin – något de själva förnekar. – Vi är neutrala affärsman, det är allt, säger Aven till tidningen. Despite tough talk, Britain’s new sanctions program against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proved shaky. Some oligarchs have received generous exemptions. Officials have at times overreached. By Jane Bradley July 27, 2023 LONDON — The British government has allowed Russian oligarchs to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on perks like private chefs, chauffeurs and housekeepers, despite ostensibly having their bank accounts frozen, documents show. The exemptions, known as licenses, are an example of how the United Kingdom’s new financial sanctions system, put together after Brexit, has proved shaky. In some cases, oligarchs were allowed more than $1 million a year in living expenses. In others, officials had to abandon criminal investigations and remove sanctions after legal battles. “We will keep increasing the pressure on Putin and cut off funding for the Russian war machine,” the British foreign secretary said last spring as she announced Russian sanctions in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine. In the months that followed, Britain was quietly more welcoming. It granted Russian banking tycoon Mikhail Fridman a license to pay for 19 members of staff, including drivers, private chefs, housekeepers and handymen, during the first year of the war, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and people directly familiar with the licenses. The payment came to 300,000 pounds (almost $400,000) over about 10 months. Fridman also received a roughly 7,000-pound monthly allowance to cover his family’s basic needs. Officials permitted his former business partner, Petr Aven, a monthly allowance of 60,000 pounds. The majority went to a security company owned by Aven’s financial manager, who has been under investigation for potentially helping Aven evade sanctions, court records show. It is unclear what checks the government carried out before approving the transactions. Fridman and Aven are described by the British government as “pro-Kremlin oligarchs” who are closely associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an allegation they both deny and are challenging in court. “We are politically neutral businessman. That is all,” said Aven, reached by phone in the Hamptons. The former business partners are among several Russians who have had sanctions imposed in public since the war, only to see those restrictions eased in secret. The British Treasury granted at least 82 licenses last year and many more applications are pending, according to official figures seen by the Times. Law enforcement agents, who deal with potential criminal breaches of the financial blacklist, have at times been frustrated with those decisions and by a licensing system that they see as undermining the sanctions. Treasury officials allowed Aven, for example, to spend more than 1 million pounds while technically cut off from the British economy. At the same time, law enforcement officers investigated him for possible sanctions evasion and raided his countryside mansion last year. Some of the people who described details about the licenses did so on condition of anonymity because the matters are confidential. A spokesperson for the U.K. Treasury declined to comment on specific cases but said licenses were granted to allow payments for “basic needs” and are “strictly monitored.” A National Crime Agency spokesperson said it would not be appropriate to comment because it is investigating Aven and Fridman. Licenses are part of sanctions systems across the world, including in the United States. But while Washington typically grants licenses for humanitarian reasons or to cover basic living expenses and legal fees, Britain’s criteria are broader. Among the considerations, according to interviews with lawyers and former Treasury officials, is whether a license will keep money flowing into the economy. A recent government report says that licenses are “issued to protect individual and U.K. business needs.” The Russian sanctions were the first high-profile challenge for a new, untested sanctions system set up in 2021 following Britain’s departure from the European Union. More than a year later, the government’s ambitious pledges have proved challenging to meet. Just as politicians overpromised, financial investigators at times overreached. The National Crime Agency sent around 50 officers to raid Fridman’s mansion last year and announced an investigation into fraud, perjury and money laundering. This spring, it dropped all but the money laundering inquiry. Last week, following a legal fight, the British government was forced to remove Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov from the sanctions blacklist. Tinkov argued he was wrongly included: He is an outspoken critic of Putin and has renounced his Russian citizenship. On Thursday, Fridman will appear in one of Britain’s highest courts to challenge the measures against him. Several other Russian tycoons will take to court in coming weeks to argue, like him, that they have been unfairly targeted simply for being Russian. The government is yet to approve a license, applied for six months ago, allowing Fridman to pay for legal representation in these proceedings. Fridman is also expected to argue in a later case for the right to keep his household staff, which the government allowed him to maintain during the first 10 months of the war. As in Aven’s case, the National Crime Agency raided Fridman’s mansion on suspicion of money laundering. After that, the government denied Fridman’s request to maintain his staff. The licensing figures highlight a persistent tension as the government joins with the United States and Europe to freeze the assets of Kremlin-connected oligarchs. Britain has been a safe haven for Russian wealth for decades. The anti-corruption group Transparency International estimates that Russians accused of financial crimes or linked to the Kremlin own 1.5 billion pounds’ worth of British property. Sanctions against these Russians might send a message to Moscow, but they hurt British businesses, too. Law firms, accountants, real estate agents, art dealers and many others have benefited as Russian money flowed through a capital that has been derisively nicknamed Londongrad. So while Britain has all but declared the end to the Londongrad era, oligarchs are finding ways to keep the country open for their business. “It’s an indication of why this country has been so bad at curbing dirty Russian money,” said William F. Browder, a former major investor in Russia who has led a yearslong human rights campaign against Putin. “There seem to be loopholes everywhere you look and here is the government giving oligarchs its full support to get around its own sanctions.” This tension is not unique to Britain. Belgium, for example, lobbied to allow its diamond industry to keep selling to Russians without violating European Union sanctions. The Telegraph in London was the first to report details of Aven’s license and his monthly allowance. Documents obtained by the Times add new details to that report, including that more than two-thirds of his allowance, about 45,000 pounds, went to a security firm owned by his financial manager, Stephen Gater. Gater himself has been under scrutiny by the National Crime Agency, which suspects him of helping Aven evade sanctions. Neither has been charged. The agency froze accounts connected to Gater last spring. HSBC, which held the accounts, believed that they were “ultimately funded and controlled” by Aven, according to court documents. The Times is the first newspaper to detail the lavish spending permitted by Fridman’s licenses, as well as the national licensing data. The British government denied requests from the Times for information on who received licenses, for how much money, and why. A Labour lawmaker, Stephen Kinnock, obtained some records through Parliament and shared them with the Times. The figures show that, in the year before the war in Ukraine, the government received 11 license applications related to Russian sanctions and approved nine. Since the war, the number of applications has surged to just over 1,000. By the end of last year, the government had approved 82, with many awaiting a decision. It was not clear how many were rejected, so it was impossible to calculate an approval rate. Comparable numbers in the United States were not immediately available but, as in Britain, applications for licenses have spiked in the past year, a senior U.S. Treasury official said. Washington has received thousands of requests and has approved around 17%, the official said. “U.S. licenses are very specific. They would never do what the U.K. does with letting people just get access to big swathes of money for broad needs,” said David Slim, an international lawyer who has worked on American and British sanctions cases. But Britain is home to many more blacklisted Russians than the United States, and they represent a larger share of the economy. “It is in the best interests of the U.K. to be more lenient with the people who have invested billions and billions of dollars,” Slim said. Some of those people, like Fridman, are angry that Britain so readily accepted their billions, then turned its back on them. He and Aven founded one of Russia’s largest private banks, Alfa Bank. The two have undoubtedly profited from the bank’s relationship with the Russian state. But the Ukrainian-born Fridman has not lived in Russia since moving to Britain in 2015. The United States has not followed Britain and the European Union in placing sanctions on either man but has imposed light restrictions on Alfa Bank. Before 2016, sanctions compliance in Britain was mostly left to the European Union. After Brexit, the government established an Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation, with a team of about 45, to help businesses comply. Russia’s invasion catapulted it to political prominence and the team has since grown to about 100. Licensing can save taxpayers money, because once the authorities seize an asset, they are responsible for its upkeep. Yachts and mansions carry eye-watering maintenance costs, and a license can keep the target of the sanctions paying for commitments that could otherwise fall to the state. That would not explain exemptions allowing people to keep their chauffeurs and chefs. © 2023 The New York Times Company. Read the original article at The New York Times.

Polisen har skjutit ihjäl den man som jagats i över ett dygn misstänkt för att ha mördat fyra personer i den lilla staden Hampton i delstaten Georgia.

Fyra personer har dödats i en skjutning i Hampton utanför Atlanta i Georgia, rapporterar amerikanska medier. Polisen jagar fortfarande den misstänkte gärningsmannen, 40-årige Andre Longmore. Han tros vara beväpnad och anses vara en fara för allmänheten, enligt polisen. Den lokala sheriffen har utfäst en belöning om 10 000 dollar, motsvarande drygt 100 000 svenska kronor, till den som lämnar uppgifter som leder till att Longmore grips. Motivet till skjutningen är ännu oklart och polisen är förtegen. Händelsen inträffade vid 11-tiden på lördagsförmiddagen och polisen undersöker minst fyra brottsplatser nära varandra i samma bostadsområde.