Latest from Koora Sudan
Daily Mirror
8 minutes ago
- General
- Daily Mirror
Pink hydrangeas will turn blue if fed 1 kitchen scrap ingredient
The more alkaline the soil is, the pinker the blooms will be - but a simple kitchen scrap ingredient that is acidic can help turn pink blooms into mesmerising blue and purple shades Hydrangeas are among the most coveted flowering shrubs for their stunning blossoms and adaptability. The truly captivating aspect of these plants is the colour transformation potential they possess, particularly the switch from pink to entrancing hues of purple and blue. On days graced by sunshine, or when the sky is clear, those blue and purple tinges can elevate your garden's charm, creating an exquisite vista. In particular, it is the hydrangea macrophylla variety, commonly referred to as the "bigleaf hydrangea", that is celebrated for its colour-changing prowess. Bigleaf hydrangeas are recognised for flowering in pink, blue, purple, or white – each shade an invitation to splendour. While the white will stay true to its hue, impervious to alteration, the other colours are at the behest of their growing medium. The true alchemy behind transforming a hydrangea's flower colour isn't in treating the petals; instead, it lies within the soil's chemistry, reports the Express. Pink blooms flourish amidst alkaline soil, whereas flowers may still blush pink or begin to adopt a hint of blue along with delightful lavender shades in neutral pH environments. Acidic soils, with a pH value less than 5.5, set the stage for blue hydrangeas, while soils hovering around a pH of 6.5 to 7 coax out the lilac and indigo tones of purple hydrangeas. Hitting up Facebook, a lady revealed how she transformed her hydrangeas from plain pink to a mesmerising mix of blue and purple, crediting the magic to her leftover coffee – an effortless trick that only snatches 15 seconds from your day. With a snapshot for proof, Christina Edwards exclaimed: "Apparently, my hydrangeas appreciate my morning coffee grounds. The multicoloured hue is due to the extra acidic soil from the coffee!". Curious commenters wanted the lowdown on her method, prompting her to explain: "Yes, coffee is acidic. The colour of the hydrangeas is correlated to the pH of the soil, and more acidic soils produce bluer blooms. "I don't add coffee every day, it's at most three times per week. "There are three bushes and they're all outside, and eventually the coffee grounds decompose into fertiliser, and the rainwater dilutes the coffee." Describing her ultra-simple approach, Christina said: "I brew my coffee in a coffee press, so the grounds left at the bottom of the coffee press, I just pour them onto the soil! I don't mix it in, I just let Mother Nature take care of the rest." It's not just Christina reaping these rainbow rewards; other green-fingered folks chimed in with snaps of their own blossoms turning tantalising tones of blue and purple, thanks to the humble coffee ground hack.
Daily Mirror
8 minutes ago
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Alexander Isak as 'Liverpool's No9' gets two-word response and X-rated gesture
Liverpool are interested in Alexander Isak as they look to add to their impressive line of summer transfers already, but Newcastle United legend Alan Shearer has weighed in on the rumours Alan Shearer insists there is "no chance" that Alexander Isak will line up as Liverpool's number nine this season. The Reds are reportedly interested in bringing the Newcastle United forward to Anfield this summer, with some impressive transfers having already been confirmed by Arne Slot's side. Slot could see Isak as a straight replacement for the potentially departing Darwin Nunez, who has received interest from reigning Serie A champions Napoli. However, Liverpool are not the only ones keen on tempting Isak into a transfer, with Premier League rivals Arsenal long-term admirers of the Swede. The Magpies aren't keen on letting Isak depart St James' Park either, with the Carabao Cup winners said to be valuing his services north of £150million. Eddie Howe isn't ready for his most dangerous attacker to leave, and Isak has shown no signs of forcing an exit to another high-profile club. However, the Reds have showcased their own transfer pull this summer, bringing in some serious talent to join the squad for the 2025/26 season. During an episode of the Rest is Football podcast, Gary Lineker ran through Liverpool's latest signings for the future. He said: "Liverpool have been very impressive so far, I think, with the signings that they've done. They've just completed Florian Wirtz for £116million, so it's a lot of dough for Bayer Leverkeusen. But he's a wonderfully talented player." Rather prematurely, he then included Bournemouth left-back Milos Kerkez in the list, despite a transfer not yet being completed. Lineker continued: "Kerkez, Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth for around £40million, they join Jeremie Frimpong who signed a couple of weeks ago. All three are worth just under £200million." The conversation moved on to where Wirtz would fit into Liverpool's front line, where Shearer chimed in: "I think he'll be floating between the two. I think you'll have obviously Salah on one side and whoever on the other side, and it'll be him that'll be the 10, the forward or whatever, and they'll just sort of rotate and do what they have to do. I think that's where he'll play." Lineker then spotted an opportunity to tease the Newcastle icon about Isak potentially swapping black-and-white for red this summer, as he quipped: "And Isak as the nine? Right?" The 54-year-old made an X-rated gesture, putting up his middle finger on both hands while grinning, as he emphatically replied: "No chance!" Shearer is likely not ready or willing to part with Isak's services at his beloved Newcastle United, as the Swede helped the side to their first major trophy since 1955 – beating Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final – and then helped them qualify for the Champions League this upcoming season. Isak contributed 27 goals and six assists in 42 appearances for Newcastle in the 2024/25 season, and is regarded as a key part of Howe's squad. However, Liverpool have already broken the British transfer record once this season with Wirtz, and could be looking to flex that financial muscle in order to continue their recent success in the Premier League. Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
Barnama
8 minutes ago
- Business
- Barnama
Only One Out Of 10 Premises Licensed At Masai Fire Location
JOHOR BAHRU, June 22 (Bernama) -- The Johor Bahru City Council (MBJB) has identified 10 premises operated by different companies within the site of a fire at a lorry and engine oil storage facility in Jalan Cenderai, Taman Kota Puteri, Masai, covering an estimated area of 64,664 square metres. Johor Bahru Mayor Datuk Mohd Haffiz Ahmad said investigations found that only one of the premises, a palm oil storage facility, had been licensed by the council and the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB). He said the remaining businesses, including a car wash, vehicle parking, a used items dealer, and workshops, were found to be operating without valid licences, and the council would take further action against those involved.
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
2 High-Yield Healthcare Dividend Stocks to Buy Hand Over Fist in June
The average healthcare stock has a yield of just 1.7%. Medtronic's dividend yield is 3.3%. Alexandria Real Estate Equities' yield is 7.4%. 10 stocks we like better than Medtronic › The healthcare sector isn't exactly known for offering huge yields, with Health Care Select Sector SPDR (NYSEMKT: XLV) offering a yield of just 1.7%. If dividend investors take some time to dig into the sector, however, they can do much better. For example, Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) has a 3.3% yield today, and Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE: ARE) is offering a yield of 7.4%. Here's what you need to know about each of these high-yield healthcare stocks. Medtronic makes medical devices. It is one of the largest competitors in the space, making products across the cardiovascular, neuroscience, medical surgical, and diabetes categories. It has a leading position in each of the areas in which it operates, and it operates on a global scale. That said, the last few years haven't been the best ones for the company. Innovation, which is highly important in the healthcare space, can be lumpy. And given Medtronic's size, the business has become a little cumbersome. Growth has stalled out, and profitability has come under pressure. Investors have focused on the negatives pushing the shares lower and the dividend yield up toward the high end of Medtronic's historical yield range. If you are a dividend investor that thinks in decades and not days, however, this is likely to be an investment opportunity. The company's innovation pipeline is starting to turn into new-product introductions. As new products gain traction, financial performance is likely to improve. And management has been working to streamline the business with cost cuts and a move to refocus on its most profitable operations. To that end, the company is set to spin off its lower-margin diabetes division in 2026. The move is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings, and the dividend policy isn't expected to change. All in, Medtronic is doing what it needs to do to get back on the growth path. And that should support continued dividend increases; the medical device maker only has two years to go before it hits Dividend King status (50+ years of annual dividend increases). June could be an opportune time to buy the stock hand over fist. Alexandria is a real estate investment trust (REIT), which seems pretty far away from healthcare. Its primary focus is on office properties, which also seems a bit removed from healthcare. The key here is that the REIT owns biomedical research facilities, which combine research space and office space in one property. Both are important to each other since the research takes place in specialized space, while the analysis of that research takes place in a normal office environment. Alexandria is one of the largest pure play medical research REITs you can buy. Alexandria counts some of the largest and most important medical research groups as tenants, from both the private side of the equation and the government side. However, like any landlord, the REIT's revenues will be impacted by the occupancy levels of its properties. And those rise and fall over time. Right now, occupancy is relatively weak, dropping to 91.7% at the end of the first quarter of 2025 from 94.6% at the end of 2024. Swings like this happen from time to time, but Wall Street is treating Alexandria as if its dividend is at a material risk of being cut. Only the funds from operations (FFO) payout ratio in the first quarter was a fairly strong 57%. There's room for adversity before a dividend cut would be in order. To be fair, office properties, and particularly highly specialized office properties, tend to have higher operating costs than other real estate assets. But it seems highly likely that Alexandria will manage its way through this weak patch and continue to extend its 15-year streak of annual dividend increases. For income lovers, this healthcare REIT is worth a deep dive in June. The average healthcare stock has an uninspiring dividend yield. But the average is made up of many different companies, some of which actually have very attractive dividend yields. That list includes industry-leading companies like Medtronic and Alexandria Real Estate. You might just want to pick up shares in one, or both, of these high yielders before June is over after you get to know them a little better. Before you buy stock in Medtronic, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Medtronic wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $664,089!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $881,731!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 994% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Reuben Gregg Brewer has positions in Medtronic. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alexandria Real Estate Equities. The Motley Fool recommends Medtronic and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $75 calls on Medtronic and short January 2026 $85 calls on Medtronic. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 High-Yield Healthcare Dividend Stocks to Buy Hand Over Fist in June was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Why Volkswagen is convinced Waymo and Tesla are vulnerable in the $500 billion robotaxi race — ‘not a winner take all market'
The German carmaker is preparing to enter the market for autonomous ride-hailing services next year with its Volkswagen ID. Buzz AD. But instead of competing against existing transportation providers, it aims to work with them as a partner. The different approach comes amid continued popular resentment towards robotaxis. When Big Tech first began deploying self-driving cars to San Francisco two years ago, companies encountered something unusual—popular resistance. Angry residents would sabotage the robotaxis with the help of traffic cones, while the city's fire department chief herself would regularly malign them as a dangerous nuisance. Even today, during the recent outbreak of civil unrest in Los Angeles over mass deportations, protesters caused hundreds of thousands of dollars when they deliberately torched Waymo cars. One old economy company preparing to enter the autonomous ride-hailing space is taking a completely different approach when it launches next year. Germany's Volkswagen is wagering society at large is increasingly fed up with the collateral damage left behind by Silicon Valley's move-fast-and-break-things mentality. 'Our approach is different—we deliberately want to act as partners that build upon existing infrastructure,' VW Group executive Sascha Meyer told Fortune during a test drive of its robotaxi. 'A key point for social acceptance we believe is being a service provider whose presence is desired precisely because we will not be competing with systems already in place.' This week, VW revealed the series production version of its autonomous ride-hailing cab based on its retro-styled VW ID. Buzz EV microbus. Packaged together with the requisite fleet management software and digital customer booking platform, it wants to offer local transportation authorities and other commercial fleets a turnkey solution that can be integrated effortlessly into their service. While a Waymo or a Tesla plan to compete with existing providers, the German carmaker aims to be an equal partner working hand in glove with communities that want their help. Even if the first roughly 500 vehicles won't be deployed to Uber for use in Los Angeles until next year, VW believes the race for market share is only just beginning. It's convinced there will be more than enough demand to grab a bite out of the €350 billion-€450 billion in revenue McKinsey projects for autonomous ride-hailing services in North America and Europe by 2035. That's more than half a trillion dollars worth of growth over the next 10 years, potentially. Meyer runs MOIA, the mobility services subsidiary of the VW Group which will offer a high-tech version of the zero-emission Volkswagen ID. Buzz electric minivan complete with the backend software ecosystem around it. Fortune had a chance to ride along with Meyer in one as the robotaxi navigated its way—with a safety driver behind the wheel at all times—through the busy streets of Hamburg. Here in Germany's second-largest city, Volkswagen has quietly been testing the technology for several years now thanks to the active support of city officials. The white label service Volkswagen has in mind means all customers need to do is slap their logo on the vehicle and adorn the customer-facing front end with their respective corporate identity and they are ready to go. The group's go-to-market strategy heavily incorporates public transit authorities, an approach influenced by its European roots. With their extensive wealth of well-built mass transit networks, these mainly state and municipal-owned companies play a role in urban, suburban and ex-urban mobility so crucial it would be difficult to displace them. Take for example the BVG authority operated by the German capital of Berlin, with whom VW Group already has signeda letter of intent. Three million people entrust their everyday transportation needs to its fine meshed web of buses, streetcars, subways and commuter trains to get back and forth in the greater metropolitan area every day. A BVG-branded robotaxi integrated into its service should see far faster adoption than were Volkswagen to compete alongside it. In a way, VW's partnership approach to the market is a natural fit. Carmakers have decades of experience working closely with regulators from various agencies, state and federal, to ensure their cars conform with traffic safety and environmental standards. In Silicon Valley, however, regulators are often viewed with suspicion—at best an irritant, at worst the enemy. The debacle around robotaxi developer Cruise proved that: following a fateful October 2023 accident in San Francisco, the tech startup deliberately withheld crucial information from crash investigators, shattering what trust was placed in them by the state of California only weeks earlier. When Cruise owner General Motors found out, it acted swiftly to sideline the CEO, but by then it was too late and the reputational damage was done. Cruise ceased all operations and GM pulled out of the autonomous ride-hailing race in December. With crosstown rival Ford already giving up even earlier, only Volkswagen and Hyundai, through its Motional subsidiary, still remain in contention from the legacy car industry. The rest are AI tech companies like Waymo, Tesla, Amazon subsidiary Zoox as well as their foreign equivalents like China's Baidu and Wayve in the UK. Of course, Meyer knows that the competition has a head start they won't hand over willingly. 'Waymo has an indisputable lead, that's clear, and I don't believe they're going to slow down in any way,' he told Fortune. Then there's Tesla, which is gearing up to launch its own pilot in Austin due to launch Sunday. While Meyer readily admits it's likely only a matter of time until Tesla can graduate to a full commercial robotaxi service, he believes all is not lost. For one, neither is present in Europe, a market known for being far more risk-averse towards unproven technologies and quick to regulate against threats towards public safety. Tesla's vaunted Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature, a software stack that will imbue its robotaxis with the requisite intelligence, hasn't yet been approved for use anywhere on the continent. In fact, it's not even available as an advanced driver assist. This offers enough of an opportunity for Volkswagen to greenlight the production of at least 10,000 robotaxi vehicles, potentially more. And even if Waymo and Tesla do retain their lead by the time VW is ready, Meyer believes communities will demand some degree of healthy competition among autonomous ride hailing providers in order to ensure an optimum service for a low cost. 'No one, not even in the United States, will be happy if there's a monopoly,' he said. 'We don't believe it will be a winner-takes-all market.' This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
