The Louvre Gets Hot, Brisbane Secures Future Bankruptcy, Bezos Got High … and More

This morning, the richest person on Earth boarded a reusable rocket he dreamed up and funded, launched to the edge of space to experience a few minutes of weightlessness, and then came back down. Bezos made the trip with three people who decided they trusted him enough with their lives: his brother, Mark Bezos; Wally Funk, a storied aviator; and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old fresh out of high school. Before today, Bezos’s private space company, Blue Origin, had not flown its rocket with any people on board. By going first, Bezos wanted to prove that his vehicle is safe, and that Blue Origin is finally ready to make its 11-minute suborbital trips an experience people can buy.

Brisbane was picked Wednesday to host the 2032 Olympics, the inevitable winner of a one-city race steered by the IOC to avoid rival bids. The IOC gave Brisbane exclusive negotiating rights in February. That decision left Olympic officials in Qatar, Hungary and Germany looking blindsided with their own stalled bidding plans. The next three Summer Games hosts — starting with Paris in 2024 — are now secured in wealthy and traditional Olympic nations without any of the trio facing a contested vote.

Britain will threaten this week to deviate from the Brexit deal unless the European Union shows more flexibility over Northern Ireland, one UK and three EU sources told Reuters, a move that could thrust the five-year Brexit divorce into tumult. Deviating from the deal's so-called Northern Ireland Protocol is a risky step: its aim was to prevent Brexit from disrupting the delicate peace brought to Northern Ireland by the U.S.-brokered 1998 agreement that ended three decades of sectarian conflict. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who signed the 2020 Brexit deal, has been dismayed by the protocol which has imposed paperwork and checks that London says could prevent British food staples such as sausages going to Northern Ireland.

A woman stole diamonds worth £4.2m from a jewellers by swapping them with pebbles using "sleight of hand", a court has heard. Lulu Lakatos, 60, allegedly posed as a gemologist who examined the stones from Boodles in central London. Ms Lakatos valued seven diamonds at the New Bond Street store before placing them into a bag, a jury was told. But when the bag was opened, inside were seven small pebbles, Southwark Crown Court heard. "The diamonds had been stolen by the defendant by sleight of hand," prosecutor Philip Stott said. "The conspiracy in which she is alleged to have played an integral and central part was one of the highest possible sophistication, planning, risk, and reward."

Two of the earliest employees behind WhatsApp have emerged with a new private social network called HalloApp. Starting Monday, anyone can download and sign up for HalloApp in Apple’s App Store and Google Play on Android devices. There are many parallels between HalloApp and WhatsApp: the app is designed for group or individual chats with close friends and family, the only way you can find people is by knowing their phone number, the messages are encrypted, and there are no ads.

Classic masterpieces from some of Europe’s top museums are recreated by porn stars who then come to life, which in the case of Venus of Urbino—a centerpiece of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence—means Venus will suddenly start masturbating and, in the depiction of Male Nude, Degas’ celebrated dick pic featured at the Met quickly evolves into a full blow job. Each recreation, performed by pornographic actors from the adult entertainment troupe My Sweet Apple, comes with an explanation that you won’t find in any art-history textbooks. “As a handy rule, anything you see in a classic nude painting that isn’t obviously kinky… is still definitely meant to represent something kinky,” the caption under Venus of Urbino claims.