EXCLUSIVE Inside Michael Jordan's Italian getaway as he puffs a cigar on $115m superyacht... and a surprising confidant is revealed
Michael Jordan began his annual grand European tour in style at the weekend when he swapped his private jet for his lavish superyacht in Sardinia - despite fears over his Los Angeles flagship store.
The NBA legend, 62, touched down on the picturesque Italian island with his cohort of nearest and dearest Sunday afternoon as the family kickstarted their summer vacation.
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Times
3 hours ago
- Times
The pretty Portuguese city perfect for an affordable family holiday
With the end of term in sight, summer holiday fear may have set in if you haven't yet booked a getaway. Look beyond the Med's best-known resorts and it's still not too late to book, especially if you prefer to break away from the beach for history, culture and shopping. Often overlooked in favour of crowded Lisbon, Portugal's second city Porto makes the ideal summer week away, with its brightly coloured old town, peaceful parks, vibrant street art and child-friendly museums. Temperatures in the mid-20s and a cooling Atlantic breeze mean you'll also be able to enjoy boat cruises on the Douro River or spend lazy days on beaches just outside the city. For a little more space and much lower prices, swerve the historic centre for Vila Nova de Gaia, just south of Porto on the opposite bank of the Douro. Seven nights' room-only at Gaia Residence, including flights from London Gatwick, costs £371pp with easyJet, based on a family of four, departing on August 2; you can add breakfast for £59pp for the week. An underseat cabin bag is included and a 15kg suitcase costs an extra £80pp return. A taxi from the airport takes less than half an hour and costs about £28 one way ( The modern apartment building is a 30-minute walk to the 19th-century iron Luis I Bridge, which crosses directly into Porto's Unesco-listed old town, Ribeira. Alternatively, Joao de Deus metro station is a ten-minute walk away, where you can jump on the yellow Line D to Trindade station, five minutes' stroll from Ribeira, for about £2. You'll stay in a roomy one-bedroom apartment with wooden floors, plenty of storage space and a kitchenette for whipping up picnics. A separate living area has a sofa bed for children. There are bikes for rent, a small spa and an indoor pool, but this does cost an extra £17pp per day. A stylish but informal restaurant serves brunch, classic Portuguese dishes like prego no prato (beef with fried egg) and child-approved favourites like burgers and pizza. You're already on the right side of the river for the Gaia Cable Car, which has the best view of higgledy-piggledy Ribeira (adults £6, under-12s £3; or see it from the water while cruising on a rabelos, a traditional wooden boat (£17; From the river, most sights are within walking distance including the Sao Bento train station with its decorative blue and white tiled interior, the 249ft bell tower of Clerigos Tower (£9 adults, under-10s free; and the magical Livraria Lello bookshop, said to have inspired the one-time Porto resident JK Rowling to write the Harry Potter books (£9 entry redeemable against book purchase; • Read our full guide to Porto Snoop round the cobbled back alleys looking for street art, then call by interactive museum World of Discoveries (adults £15, under-12s £10; or the 3D Fun Art Museum (adults £11, under-12s £8; If the sea is calling, the sandy Lavadores and Madalena beaches are about three miles from the hotel and are lined with seafood restaurants to watch the sun go down over the Atlantic with a glass of local port. This article contains affiliate links, which can earn us revenue • Return Gatwick-Porto flights, departing on August 2 • Underseat cabin bag allowance• Seven nights' room-only at Gaia Residence ( Feeling flush? If you're inspired but you've got more cash to splash, you could try: Over the river in Porto itself and 20 minutes' walk from the heart of Ribeira, the newly refurbished four-star Room Select Porto is in Praca da Republica, close to the city's cathedral. Forty-three rooms have a Scandi-chic feel with chestnut oak floors, wooden room dividers and minimalist furniture including a desk. Many have views over the rooftops towards the river. Downstairs, there's a small 24-hour fitness centre and a bar with a terrace, which serves a good buffet breakfast for an extra cost. City tours can be arranged at the front desk and a paid-for shuttle to the city centre is Seven nights' room-only from £781pp, including flights ( • 16 of the best hotels in Porto for 2025 One of Porto's most luxurious hotels, the five-star Pestana Palacio do Freixo is in a baroque 18th-century palace in the riverfront suburb of Freixo and is classified as a national monument. Rooms are in the adjacent former flour mill and contemporary shades of chestnut and gold, complete with mosaic-tiled bathrooms and abstract art. In summer, there's an outdoor infinity pool with a bar and river views, while the spa has an indoor heated pool and Turkish bath. The fine-dining frescoed restaurant Palatium serves upmarket Portuguese dishes made with local ingredients but also has a menu of children's favourites for peaceful Seven nights' B&B from £1,229pp, including flights (
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Defence spending is increasing. Do we get bang for our buck?
B uckle up: the British state is about to commit a lot of money it does not really have to restore defence spending to levels last seen in the 2000s. Indeed it may have to go further: at the Nato summit this week the organisation's secretary general, Mark Rutte, will push member states to commit themselves to spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence. For years the fall in defence spending was used to pay for a rise in healthcare and welfare costs — the peace dividend — but defence has come calling again, and that transfer cannot be reversed. Instead, by squeezing a few years of the foreign aid budget, the prime minister has managed to raise defence spending to 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027-28. We will learn a bit more about where that money will be spent in a national security strategy to be published this week. But will 2.6 per cent make much of a difference? Will a 0.3 percentage point rise in spending over the next few years really result in a meaningful expansion of our armed forces?
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Dogma cares little for the state of Britain's economy
This country's economy is now in serious peril. This is not only because the Government is nudging at the very outer limits of what it can raise in tax and borrowing – though it is. It is also because that government is increasingly driven by ferocious dogma which cares little for such concerns. It may be that some in the Cabinet can see the danger, yet others do not even view it as a danger, but as an opportunity for yet more upheaval and dramatic change. The extraordinary developments of last week, in which the current very large Labour majority in Parliament brought about revolutions in abortion law and in assisted dying, are a warning that we are now in uncharted waters. It may possibly be that we have never had a government whose parliamentary forces are so radical. And the uncrowned queen of those forces is the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, increasingly influential and remarkably effective in the Commons and in Whitehall. It is true that there has always been a role for disruptive and troublemaking men and women near the top of the Labour Party. In the Tony Blair years, a similar position was filled by the late John Prescott, a majestic steam-powered Dreadnought originating in the (now remote) days of real class war. Let nobody underestimate Lord Prescott's considerable influence on the government he served. But Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the apparatus of New Labour kept him under control. In this case, it looks very much as if a confident and popular Ms Rayner has slipped free of any restraint by the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. Her Employment Rights Bill, which is alarming businesses all over the country, would have been strangled at birth in the days of Blairism. The unions would have been told – rightly – that the public had grown heartily sick of their overmighty antics in the past, and did not want to see them given back the unrestrained power they had rightly lost. And while Sir Keir and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves must know this, they seem either powerless to act, or surprisingly untroubled by the danger of it. Speaking to The Mail on Sunday last week, Ms Reeves simply evaded the question of Ms Rayner's plans. When a successful businessman such as Sir James Dyson accuses you of being 'vindictive' and of 'waging a war on aspiration', you really ought to listen. It is on the success of such businessmen that any future economic growth must be based. Without that growth, where are the taxes to come from to pay for the advanced welfare state in which we live? So we must applaud the open letter to British businessmen sent out by Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith, in which he does what Sir Keir and Ms Reeves will not do, and makes it plain just how dangerous Ms Rayner's plans are. He warns those business chiefs that they are being sleepwalked into disaster, that the Rayner Bill will fundamentally change the balance of power in workplaces, at huge cost. Coming after the idiocy of the National Insurance increase, this a grave threat to the jobs of trade union members, as well as to the economy as a whole. We can only hope that the Prime Minister and his Chancellor will listen and act, for the nation's sake as well as their own.
