We have a busy day’s racing on Thursday with flat action from Lingfield Park and Newcastle, live on Sky Sports Racing...
7.24 Newcastle - Exciting pair Spirited Gesture and Angel In My Heart clash
Exciting duo Spirited Gesture and Angel In My Heart clash in a classy edition of this Compare Betting Sites At gambling.com Fillies' Novice Stakes at Newcastle.
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A daughter of Kingman, Spirited Gesture is a sister to the high-class Calyx and made a sparkling winning debut at Newmarket 19 days ago. That was a taking display and she rates a top-class prospect.
Adrian Keatley's Angel In My Heart stepped up on her debut to land a Pontefract novice by just a neck and further improvement cannot be ruled out.
Godolphin's Gold Cup hero Trawlerman retired
Rayif roars back to his best to land Prix Jacques le Marois
Newcomers All I Know and Rubyroo look best of the rest.
2.45 Lingfield - Irish raider One Number faces seven rivals
A deep renewal of this Free Tips On attheraces.com EBF Maiden Stakes sees Joseph O'Brien's One Number bid for a first success under David Probert.
Rated 100 after four starts including when third in a Listed contest at Naas in July, this son of Jack Christopher sets a huge standard for the others to reach and should prove a hard nut to crack as he heads back up to a mile.
The opposition is headed by a host of well-bred individuals with Royal Acclamation catching the eye for Charlie Appleby. This Zarak colt is closely related to Lilt and merits respect under Connor Planas.
Minsmere and Blueabad are others to note in the betting.
8.24 Newcastle - Azuinthejungle bids for a four-timer
In-form Azuinthejungle bids for a four-timer in this Knox Hydrate Handicap at 8.24pm.
The Nigel Tinkler-trained four-year-old capitalised on a sliding mark when rattling off a treble this summer, all under this rider Alex Jary, and could be hard to beat under this 4lbs higher mark.
Too Much scored at Newcastle last month and she must be feared if able to reproduce his all-weather form on the turf.
Copper Knight will be making his 123rd career start for Tim Easterby and might find this easier than his past few runs, while Little Mi Mi is another to note. She arrives seeking a hat-trick after wins at Newcastle and Hamilton and remains of interest up in class.
Best of the rest
2.10 Lingfield - Novice where Birkacre Brow will be fancied for Tate.
6.54 Newcastle - WilliamHaggas' Queen's Home headlines.
7.54 Newcastle - Fair contest with Influencer Man heading six runners. %!s()
Inter Milan have agreed a £30m (€35m) deal with Liverpool for Curtis Jones.
The deal was agreed late on Wednesday night and the player - who had entered the final year of his deal at Liverpool - has been given permission to travel for a medical, which he will have on Friday.
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Jones' move to Inter will bring an end to his 16-year association with Liverpool, having joined the club at the age of nine.
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After making his Liverpool first-team debut in the 2018-19 season, Jones appeared 228 times for the club, scoring 22 goals.
The 25-year-old is also the third England international to move to Inter in this transfer window, after John Stones and Djed Spence.
He won two Premier League titles, two Carabao Cups, the Club World Cup and the FA Cup at Anfield - as well as finishing as a Champions League runner-up in 2022.
How will Jones exit affect Liverpool's midfield options?
Curtis Jones' impending departure from Liverpool leaves Andoni Iraola with some interesting questions over the makeup of his midfield next season.
Image:
Jones was often played at right back under Slot
Jones made 49 appearances under previous head coach Arne Slot last season, 34 of which came in the club's disastrous Premier League title defence, sharing the workload with the likes of Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch, while he was also often used as a makeshift right back.
The new Reds boss, though, has indicated he will utilise Florian Wirtz in his preferred No 10 role going forward in a 4-2-3-1 formation, meaning Szoboszlai, Mac Allister and Gravenberch competing for two midfield spots in front of the back four.
The Basque will also be able to call upon Wataru Endo and Trey Nyoni, who has really caught the eye in pre-season, and with still more than 10 days left in the summer window, do not rule out either the club reinvesting the £30m Jones fee in a replacement. %!s()
St. George is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Utah, United States. Located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona border
Denistangneyjr | Istock | Getty Images
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A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
South Carolina ranks highest among all U.S. states in future potential demand for commercial real estate. That is the finding of a new index from the National Association of Realtors, which aims to be a crystal ball for commercial real estate investors. It uses factors in local economies to indicate future demand.
The index looks at more than 300 metropolitan markets, with separate measures for the office, industrial, retail and multifamily sectors, and measures the economic conditions of each region. The Realtors use government data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau for population and migration, which it says informs the rankings.
For the office sector, specifically, the index looks at growth in professional and business services employment. For industrial, it's manufacturing, transportation and warehousing employment growth. For retail, the NAR measures growth in retail trade as well as leisure and hospitality employment. In the multifamily sector, it incorporates population growth and net migration, both domestic and international. All of that gets combined into a single index.
"It doesn't say, 'OK, go there and just buy property,' but it says … where the data shows that the momentum is building, the demand is building," said Nadia Evangelou, principal economist and director of real estate research at NAR.
It also compares these markets to 2022, the peak of the pandemic migration boom. Raleigh, North Carolina, is the only major U.S. market that is stronger today than it was then, according to the index. Formerly superhot markets like Austin, Miami and Naples, Florida, have all declined markedly since 2022.
The strongest metropolitan market in the index is St. George, Utah, with the strongest office employment growth in the nation.
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"It also has very strong population growth and in-migration, and its industrial demand is above average," Evangelou said. "So St. George, for example, is the No. 1, because one industry happened to have a good year, so there is a broader momentum over there."
While other indices focus on the largest metropolitan markets, Evangelou said small and mid-sized markets could provide some of the best opportunities for investors. She cited Fayetteville, Arkansas; Huntsville, Alabama; and Spartanburg, South Carolina. Fayetteville is seeing broad-based growth, while Huntsville has one of the strongest multifamily scores in the nation, she said.
The index also breaks down where each of the four sectors is seeing the strongest demand. For example, Salem, Oregon, and Fairbanks, Alaska, are ranked highest for industrial.
"When we take a look at New York, San Francisco and the big coastal markets, we see that the large markets are still generally weaker than the fast-growing Sunbelt and smaller markets in this index," said Evangelou. %!s()
From 1980 until 1995, cartoonist Gary Larson wrote and drew the comic strip The Far Side. It was a single panel comic strip filled with non-sequitur, often surreal jokes mostly aimed at adults instead of children, which was unusual for newspaper comics. Also unusual was the fact that, unlike most daily comic strips, there were no recurring characters. Whereas Peanuts had its recurring gang of kids and Garfield has its cast of humans and animals, every panel of The Far Side introduced new characters and scenarios all aimed at delivering that day’s joke.
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That said, Larson did have some themes and types of characters he’d often return to. Dinosaurs, for example, were a big one as Larson would depict them doing normal human things like eating breakfast cereal (with a free kid inside) or smoking cigarettes (the real reason they became extinct, according to Larson). He also liked to explore the domesticity of prehistoric life through cavemen and to lampoon historical figures and moments.
But if one recurring theme of Larson’s The Far Side is a standout, it’s his cows. Over the 15 years he was doing The Far Side, Larson created 4,337 different comics and he returned to cows again and again as a source of humor. He’d depict them doing normal human things or villainous things behind the backs of humans (especially farmers). In an interview with The New York Times, Larson once explained his cow fixations, saying, ''I've always thought the word cow was funny,'' he said. ''And cows are sort of tragic figures. Cows blur the line between tragedy and humor.''
Here, I took a shot at finding the 10 funniest-ever The Far Side comics about cows, though with so many to choose from, there's definitely some room for debate.
10
A big realization
Image: Gary Larson
From October 16, 1981. The beauty of Larson’s The Far Side is that jokes could be very thoughtful and subtle, whereas others could be more basic, silly, and understandable by children. This one, with a cow realizing she’s been eating grass, is a fairly straightforward gag anyone can enjoy.
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No one wants to hear that
Image: Gary Larson
This next cow gag, from July 8, 1982, is a bit more subtle and probably a bit dated too. Back in the day, travelers would need places to sleep and if the farmer didn’t want them or trust them in the house, the person would be sent to the barn instead (or, at least, that’s what happened in movies). This Far Side comic is a simple, yet pretty hilarious role reversal.
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A very famous comic
Image: Gary Larson
This comic is one of the most famous strips in the history of The Far Side, but not because the joke is profoundly funny. If anything, it may be seen as an abject failure, given how the public responded to it.
Running on October 28, 1982, a comic with the caption “Cow tools” simply depicted a cow behind a table, along with some crude-looking instruments on the table. The newspapers running The Far Side ended up getting lots of letters from confused readers complaining that they didn’t understand what the joke was. Many assumed the joke was something subtle or scientific, as many of Larson’s jokes were. The response was so loud and so swift that Larson issued a press release the very next day explaining that the joke wasn’t complicated at all.
“The cartoon was intended to be an exercise in silliness,” wrote Larson. “While I have never met a cow who could make tools, I felt sure that if I did, they (the tools) would lack something in sophistication and resemble the sorry specimens shown in this cartoon. I regret that my fondness for cows, combined with an overactive imagination, may have carried me beyond what is comprehensible to the average Far Side reader”
In other words, the joke was simply “cows are bad at making tools,” proving that people were really overthinking it.
7
Cow gossip
Image: Gary Larson
From July 29, 1987 is yet another cow vs. human role reversal. There was an old expression where someone might say that a bad-smelling house smelled like a barn. So a cow insult must be a barn that smells like a house.
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For indoor cows
Image: Gary Larson
This panel, from September 25, 1986, is simply a wonderful sight gag, impossible to overthink. I love the delight on the face of the woman bragging about her plastic cow ball and that the reaction of the other woman doesn’t even need to be seen to sell the joke. That’s the beauty of Larson’s humor, much of it is just punchline, without need for a setup or a reaction.
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Two of Larson’s favorites
Image: Gary Larson
Aside from cows, dinosaurs were a frequent muse of Larson’s. He combined both of these passions on this panel from February 16, 1983, which depicted dinosaurs as cows, or cows as dinosaurs, depending upon how you look at it.
Interestingly, one of Larson’s dinosaur strips ended up making official dinosaur history. In his comic from May 27, 1982, he featured a class full of cavemen being taught by a caveman professor. The professor caveman was pointing at the pointy structure on the end of a Stegosaurus’ tail and the captain said “Now, this end is called the thagomizer… after the late Thag Simmons.”
The Far Side was so popular and this joke so beloved that, over time, “thagomizer” became the official name for the spiky tail structure on Stegosaurus and other related dinosaurs. Prior to that, the structure had no name.
4
Sneaky cows
Image: Gary Larson
Occasionally, Larson would break his single-panel format for a more traditional joke with a setup and punchline, like this strip from January 6, 1984, featuring cows standing upright when cars aren’t looking. This was not the norm for The Far Side, but the beauty of the strip was its versatile format, whereas most comic strips stuck to a strict structure with a regular cast of characters.
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A valuable lesson
Image: Gary Larson
From January 22, 1983, the cow lesson is a wonderful example of a simple, yet hilarious Far Side comic which is more about just how stupid people are.
2
Proper line etiquette
Image: Gary Larson
While The Far Side could be smart and silly, sometimes it was also really dark in its humor, like this one from May 13, 1983. You never saw these kinds of jokes in The Family Circus.
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Really sneaky cows
Image: Gary Larson
From February 12, 1986. This is another great example of how dark Larson could be, while also being very silly. This might just be Larson’s funniest-ever cow strip. %!s()
Djokovic has won almost everything there is in tennis. No man has more Grand Slam singles titles or Masters 1,000 crowns than him. He will go down in history as one of the greatest players of all time, if not the greatest.
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But even now, at the age of 39, that is not enough for the Serb.
"I cannot say I feel content with what I have and who I am," he says in a new Amazon documentary.
"I am always looking to be more - better, faster, stronger. Oftentimes I feel I am imprisoning myself."
He says later in the documentary: "I'm the number one doubter. I'm trying to prove myself wrong more than anybody else."
Djokovic is level with Margaret Court for the most Grand Slam singles titles in history, having won his 24th trophy at the 2023 US Open.
He has reached at least the semi-finals at six of the past seven Grand Slams and in January became the oldest man in history to reach the Australian Open final.
"He definitely has mixed feelings about his retirement," his wife, Jelena, says.
"'He carries that burden that he's never enough. No matter how much he does, it will never be enough.
"Tennis is a fulfilling place for him - a place where he feels worthy."
The documentary shows footage of a young Djokovic being interviewed on television. Asked how he feels about tennis, he calls it a "responsibility".
"My goal in tennis is to become a champion," he says.
Djokovic's career, from his style of play to his attitude on court, has been shaped by his childhood experiences in a way that few other players can possibly relate.
Born in Belgrade, Djokovic was a young child during the Nato bombings of the Serbian capital between March and June 1999.
He recalls running from his building - which did not have a bomb shelter - to another for safety. On the way, he tripped, and his unaware family continued running. Djokovic turned to look at his building and watched a plane drop two bombs on a nearby hospital.
"Pretty much every day, for years, we had to wait in line for bread and milk," Djokovic told BBC 5 Live in July.
"These are defining moments, something I want to portray as a building block for me as a player and a person.
"There is no regret or resentment. In contrary, it's appreciation and gratitude. Everything in life happens as a reason."
In an expensive and often elitist sport, the young Djokovic was an outsider. Djokovic speaks about his father borrowing money from "wrong people" to fund his early tennis career.
When he broke through, he disrupted the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal rivalry that had come to engross fans. More emotive and more vocal than the pair on court, Djokovic was not universally beloved by fans.
"I had to suppress a lot of emotions which, later on, surfaced on the court," he told BBC 5 Live.
"On the court, that's where I felt safe and comfortable. It was a familiar ground.
"Tennis is much more than a game and competition. It is defining ground for who I am as a person."
Every Djokovic loss at a Grand Slam is followed by questions about his retirement. However his 2026 US Open campaign pans out, Djokovic will be ready for familiar talk about his future in tennis.
Long-time rivals Federer and Nadal ended their careers in 2022 and 2024 respectively, having struggled with injuries in their latter years.
Djokovic has limited his schedule in recent years, playing very few tournaments outside of the Grand Slams.
After losing to Sinner at Wimbledon last year, Djokovic said he was competing at the latter stages of Slams with the "tank half-empty".
However, Djokovic says he does not have "the expiry date of my career" in mind.
"Why would I talk about retirement when I still keep proving to myself that I can still win?" he says in the documentary.
"As long as I have the drive, the passion, but most of all, as long as I feel like I can be one of the best players in the world, I want to keep going."
Winning a long-awaited Olympic gold medal in Paris in 2024 was the pinnacle of Djokovic's career, and he is still aiming for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
"It seems a long way out. I feel like I can make it," he added.
"I would like to end with the Serbian flag on my shoulders.
"It would be a nice way to wrap up something I'm very proud of." %!s()
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson
Image: Gary Larson