Kennie MacCarthy rummages through a knee-deep pile of clothes, pointing out their flaws: sweat stains, overstretched collars, holes and rips. They belong to a vendor in one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing markets, who plans on selling these clothes for a small profit. But MacCarthy estimates that only 20% can be sold.

“(The vendor) says it feels really bad,” MacCarthy said. “It doesn’t feel good to be holding very stained clothes or really dirty clothes, but they have to do that … to see what they can sell and what they cannot sell.”

Kantamanto Market in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, has long been a destination for used clothes, but the volume being imported today far exceeds the space. Approximately 15 million garments arrive in the country weekly – most of it at Kantamanto – and about 40% will eventually end up as waste.

MacCarthy is a product development coordinator for the Or Foundation, a non-profit registered in the US and operating primarily in Ghana, that’s tackling this problem on multiple fronts. Using research, advocacy and innovation, the foundation draws attention to textile waste and finds ways to reuse it.

“Every single one of us is a part of the problem in some small way,” MacCarthy explained. “And so every single one of us can be the solution to the problem as well.”

From donation bins to trash bins

The bulk of Kantamanto’s clothes come from the global secondhand clothing trade, a market that was valued at $5 billion in 2021.

Many of these garments begin as donations in places such as Europe and North America. Charities collect clothes, which will either be given away to those in need or sold to raise money for their cause. But these organizations only sell about 10% of items they receive.

The rest go through a journey of sales, where each party buys what they can reuse or resell – until the last buyer is essentially left with the bottom of the barrel.

Merchants at the end of this chain often work in markets like Kantamanto. They purchase used clothing by the bale, without knowing what’s inside, in hopes of selling it for profit. MacCarthy says these bales are usually mislabeled and filled with items in terrible condition.

“I’ve heard somebody who used to sell in Kantamanto say that Kantamanto is for the brave … because not many people would go and buy something that they don’t know the contents of,” she explained. “It is a gamble for many people.”

Because the quality is so poor, the majority of clothes that can’t be sold litter the market’s floor or end up on nearby beaches and in makeshift landfills, according to MacCarthy.

Upcycling waste

To prevent this waste from winding up in landfills, the Or Foundation is remanufacturing it.

MacCarthy works with a team of young women who used to be “kayayei” – female head porters – at Kantamanto, who now make mops from unsold t-shirts.

They start by sorting through retailers’ unsellable clothes and purchasing shirts that are 100% cotton. Back at the organization’s workshop the team gets to work cutting, sewing and assembling. MacCarthy said she deliberately simplified the manufacturing process in hopes that others will replicate it to create mop-making businesses of their own.

MacCarthy’s mission is twofold: diverting waste from landfills while creating employment opportunities for her team. Kayayei carry up to 55 kilos of clothing and earn less than a dollar per trip. Today, about 15 former kayayei have paid apprenticeships at the Or Foundation as part of a program that aims to help them find alternative types of work.

“The goal … is to see whether this is a viable business. And if it is, then we would hand it over to the apprentices … to empower them,” MacCarthy explained. “It’s a business that they can – if they choose to – move forward and make a living out of.”

The team has made several hundred mops and is now working on ways to scale up production.

As they continue refining the manufacturing process, a separate team at the Or Foundation will train the apprentices on the basics of running a business.

A multi-faceted approach

MacCarthy’s team is dedicated to dealing with waste already in Ghana, but other workers at the Or Foundation focus on preventing clothes from arriving in the first place.

The European Commission recently proposed new rules to hold retailers accountable for the life cycle of their textile products.  Ahead of this announcement, the foundation met with policymakers in Europe. The regulations will make the collection of textile waste mandatory in 2025, but the organization says these changes won’t be enough.

In the meantime, through MacCarthy’s mop program and similar waste innovation efforts, the foundation says 28 metric tons of clothing have been diverted from Accra’s landfills in the past year.

Successes like these inspire MacCarthy – and she hopes they inspire others as well.

“Whether it’s by signing a petition, whether it is by adding your voice, whether it’s by deciding to upcycle something, whether it is by talking to people about the problem – do something,” MacCarthy said. “Everybody can have a hand in helping to correct this thing in their own little way.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired his top general amid a shakeup of the country’s military leadership and wants his army to “gird for a war,” state media reported Thursday.

Gen. Pak Su Il was dismissed as chief of the General Staff and Vice Marshal Ri Yong Gil was appointed in his place, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Other “leading commanding officers” were dismissed, transferred or appointed during a meeting of the Central Military Commission on Wednesday, KCNA reported, without going into details.

North Korea regularly revamps its military leadership. Some military leaders later reemerge in different positions, while others disappear from public view.

And the career of the new top general Ri – who assumed the No. 2 job in the North Korean military hierarchy as recently as December 31 – reflected that, analysts said.

“Ri Yong Gil is a longstanding member of North Korea’s military elite, who before making it to the top, experienced ups and downs during his career. Seven years ago, he was even rumored to have been executed after a personnel reshuffle,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute private think tank near Seoul, said there may be a range of reasons behind Kim’s military reshuffle and it was not necessarily punitive.

“Since Kim Jong Un has frequently promoted, demoted, and dismissed executives according to their ability to perform duties, dismissal of executives may be holding them accountable, but it is inappropriate to consider them as punishment,” Cheong said.

Easley said the North Korean leader may simply be trying to ensure that no one below him becomes too powerful.

“Kim Jong Un frequently rotates leadership posts below him to prevent the emergence in North Korea of anyone like [Wagner Group founder] Yevgeny Prigozhin, who challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority after amassing personal control of financial assets and loyalty among armed forces,” Easley said.

‘Grave military situation’

The shake-up of the military leadership was mentioned only near the end of the KCNA report, which focused more on what it said was the “important issue of making the army more thoroughly gird for a war given the grave political and military situation prevailing in the Korean Peninsula.”

South Korea and its chief ally, the United States, were not mentioned by name in the report. However, it appeared to refer to them obliquely, saying the meeting “analyzed the military moves of the chief culprits of deteriorated situation” on the peninsula.

“Making full war preparations” was the top agenda item for the meeting, the KCNA report said.

“The present situation, in which the hostile forces are getting ever more undisguised in their reckless military confrontation with the DPRK, [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] requires the latter’s army to have more positive, proactive and overwhelming will and thoroughgoing and perfect military readiness for a war,” it said.

North Korea has ramped up its military rhetoric this summer, threatening to shoot down US reconnaissance planes and retaliate for the port call of a US nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine to South Korea for the first time in four decades.

Pyongyang has also showcased its advances in ballistic missile technology, last month testing what it said was a Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a flight time that suggests it has the ability to strike the US mainland.

That weapon was among a slew of others shown off at what North Korea called its “Victory Day” parade last month, a commemoration of the armistice that ended the fighting in the Korean War 70 years ago. Technically, the two Koreas remain at war as no formal peace treaty was ever signed.

At Wednesday’s meeting in Pyongyang, Kim signed orders for war drills involving the country’s newest weapons.

Kim late last week toured arms and munitions factories and gave “important directions” regarding “capacity-building for the serial production of new ammunition,” a KCNA report said.

Amid the tension on the peninsula, South Korea announced this month it would hold a nationwide civil defense drill on August 23.

Most of the country’s 51 million residents are expected to practice evacuating to shelters or underground safe spaces during the 20-minute exercise, which Seoul says is in response to “provocations” from Pyongyang.

Kylian Mbappé has been reinstated into the Paris Saint-Germain first-team after being frozen out of the squad during its preseason tour of Japan, amid his ongoing transfer saga.

The Frenchman watched from the stands as his team drew 0-0 against Lorient in its first league game of the season Saturday.

The 24-year-old has been training separately from the first team while his standoff with the club rumbles on.

“Following very constructive, positive talks between PSG and Kylian Mbappé before the game vs Lorient, the player has been reinstated into the first team training squad this morning,” PSG said in a statement on Sunday.

Despite publicly declaring he wanted to stay in Paris for the upcoming 2023/24 season, Mbappé was said to be unhappy in the French capital and, according to multiple reports in June, he informed PSG that he would not be extending his contract earlier this year.

In July, PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi said that the club would not let the superstar leave for free and, as a result, PSG issued Mbappé with an ultimatum; sign a new contract or be sold.

Mbappé then spurned a meeting and contract with Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal, after it was reportedly ready to smash the world record transfer fee and pay $332 million (€300 million) for the French striker.

The proposed deal would reportedly have included a staggering $775 million salary packet.

Mbappé has also continued to be heavily linked with a move to Real Madrid. He was on the verge of signing for the Spanish giant last year before rejecting a move in favor of a contract extension at PSG.

American star Jessica Pegula shocked world No.1 Iga Świątek 6-2 6-7(4) 6-4 in the semifinals of the Canadian Open in Montreal on Saturday, but perhaps the biggest shock of the day came when a classic song began blaring through the on-court speakers midway through a point.

With Pegula 4-3 up in the second set tiebreak and having just wrongfooted Świątek with a lob, “Cotton Eye Joe” began playing on court, forcing the umpire to call a let while the song continued, and the crowd murmured in disbelief.

“I just thought it was funny,” Pegula said afterwards, according to Reuters.

“I’ve never had that happen, let alone with ‘Cotton-Eye Joe.’ I was like: ‘Is this really happening right now?’ Of all the songs. It was just like: ‘What is going on?’

“Yeah, it was a bummer because I hit a really good lob and she barely got it, and I had a really good play on the ball, and she was kind of out of position from the lob that I hit.”

The point was replayed and that seemed to derail Pegula’s second set tiebreak, as Świątek won the next 12 points in a row, a run that included leveling the match at a set apiece.

Świątek continued to ride this momentum, taking a 4-2 lead in the deciding third set but Pegula won the last four games, and 16 of the last 19 points of the match, to seal victory.

“She really pushed me, so I needed to change something up,” Świątek said afterwards, according to the WTA’s website.

“It was working, but in the third, I don’t really know what happened when I was leading. I’ve got to watch the match and analyze it, because for sure she was fighting for every point and I did as well. It was a tricky match.”

It was Pegula’s second victory over Świątek this year, and she will now advance to her third WTA 1000 final where she will face either Elena Rybakina or Liudmila Samsonova, as she seeks to become the first American to win this tournament since Serena Williams in 2013.

American star Lilia Vu sealed an impressive victory at the Women’s Open on Sunday, as she remained unyielding under the pressure of the final round while her rivals dropped shots along the way.

The 25-year-old began the day on nine-under par, sharing the lead with England’s Charley Hull, and carded six birdies along with a bogey to finish the day 14-under par, and win her second major of the year at the Walton Health Golf Club in Tadworth, England.

“It sounds almost unreal,” Vu said afterwards. “I had a pretty tough run the past couple of months. I didn’t feel like myself these past couple of months, I came into this tournament and sat down with my team and just wanted to be in contention, that’s all we wanted and somehow this happened.”

Hull, meanwhile, conjured up some magical shots including a hole out from a bunker for eagle on the 11th, but ultimately proved too inconsistent as four bogeys hampered her title challenge and she finished six strokes back.

South Korea’s Jiyai Shin finished third a further stroke back while her compatriots Amy Yang and Hyo Joo Kim tied for fourth on six-under par.

Victory marked a comeback of sorts for Vu who has endured a rollercoaster few months. In April, she won the Chevron Championship after a playoff win against Angel Yin to seal the first major of her career, but she then failed to make the cut in four LPGA events, including the Women’s PGA Championship and the U.S. Women’s Open.

“After the Chevron, how I felt afterwards and honestly thinking that those wins were a fluke, and just to be here today I can’t thank my family and my team enough for really believing in me,” an emotional Vu added.

“It was really hard those past couple of months and somehow they believed in me and helped me get this win here.”

Vu became the first American winner of the Women’s Open since 2014.

It was a remarkably consistent tournament for Vu who hit five birdies in her second round of 68, sunk seven more on Saturday to take a share of the lead going into the final round, and another six on Sunday.

Her only real wobble of the day come on the 15th hole when her drive landed in the rough, and her third shot found the bunker but she rescued a bogey and Hull was unable to take advantage.

Vu’s compatriot Ally Ewing, who had been the runaway leader ahead of the final two rounds, eventually finished in a tie for sixth, four-under par.

An ancient skull dating back 300,000 years is unlike any other premodern human fossil ever found, potentially pointing to a new branch in the human family tree, according to new research.

An international team of researchers from China, Spain and the United Kingdom unearthed the skull — specifically the mandible, or lower jaw — in the Hualongdong region of eastern China in 2015, along with 15 other specimens, all thought to originate from the late Middle Pleistocene period.

Scientists believe the late Middle Pleistocene, which started around 300,000 years ago, was a pivotal period for the evolution of hominins — species that are regarded as human or closely related — including modern humans.

Published in the Journal of Human Evolution on July 31, a study by the research team found that the mandible, known as HLD 6, is “unexpected” and does not fit into any existing taxonomic groups.

Many Pleistocene hominin fossils discovered in China have been similarly difficult to classify, and were previously perceived to be anomalies, according to the study. However, this discovery, along with other recent research, is slowly changing what people know of the evolutionary pattern in the late Middle Pleistocene.

HLD 6 and a mosaic of features

By comparing the HLD 6 mandible to those of Pleistocene hominins and modern humans, the researchers found it has features of both.

It is similarly shaped to the mandible of Homo sapiens, our modern human species that evolved from Homo erectus. But it also shares a characteristic of a different branch that evolved from Homo erectus, the Denisovans. Like the Denisovans, HLD 6 does not appear to have a chin.

“HLD6 does not present a true chin but has some weakly expressed traits that seem to anticipate this typically H. sapiens feature,” said study author María Martinón-Torres, director of the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Spain.

“Hualongdong are thus the earliest fossil population known in Asia to present this mosaic of primitive and H. sapiens-like features,” she added.

The researchers theorize that HLD 6 must belong to a classification that hasn’t yet been given a name, and that modern human characteristics could have been present as early as 300,000 years ago — before the emergence of modern humans in east Asia.

The researchers also considered the age of the individual that the jawbone belonged to, as skull shapes can differ between children and adults.

HLD 6 is thought to have belonged to a 12- to 13-year-old. While the researchers didn’t have an adult skull of the same species to compare with, they looked at Middle and Late Pleistocene hominin skulls of similar and adult age and found their shape patterns remained consistent regardless of age, further supporting the scientists’ theory.

According to Martinón-Torres, more work is needed to properly place HLD 6.

“More fossils and studies are necessary to understand their precise position in the human family tree,” she said.

A cosmic object in the shape of a glowing question mark has photobombed one of the latest images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope — and scientists think they know what it might be.

The original near-infrared image, released July 26, depicted a pair of young stars named Herbig-Haro 46/47. Found 1,470 light-years away in the Vela constellation within the Milky Way galaxy, the stars are still actively forming and closely orbiting each other.

The two have been observed and studied by space and ground-based telescopes since the 1950s, but the highly sensitive Webb telescope allowed for the highest-resolution and most detailed image yet. It has the capacity to observe the universe with longer wavelengths of light than other space telescopes.

The Webb telescope illuminates information about the origins of our universe, but the appearance of this mysterious object in the background of this image leaves more questions than answers. The cosmic question mark hasn’t been closely observed or studied, so scientists aren’t exactly sure about the object’s origins and makeup.

But they do have a few ideas based on its shape and location.

“The very first thing you can rule out is that it’s a star in the Milky Way,” said Matt Caplan, assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University. “Stars always have these really big spikes, and that’s because stars are point-like. It’s called diffraction from basically the edges of the mirrors and the struts that support the sort of camera in the middle.”

The Webb telescope usually allows you to see six or eight stellar “prongs” if you look closely, Caplan added. “It tells you immediately that it’s not a star,” he said of the question-mark-shaped phenomenon.

It could be a merger of two galaxies that, at probably billions of light-years away, are much farther away than Herbig-Haro 46/47, said Christopher Britt, education and outreach scientist in the office of public outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which manages the Webb telescope’s science operations.

There are “many, many galaxies outside of our own Milky Way,” Britt said. “This looks like the kind of thing that you get fairly frequently — as galaxies grow and evolve over cosmic time — which is that they sometimes collide with their near neighbors.

“And when that happens, they can get distorted into all kinds of different shapes — including a question mark, apparently.”

Cosmic questions

It is likely the first time this specific object has been seen, experts said, but the merging of galaxies into a question mark-like shape has happened before — including a backward version formed by the Antennae Galaxies in the Corvus constellation. Additionally, most galaxies have had multiple interactions such as this over the course of their history, Britt said, but they don’t last very long.

“There’s no way to nail anything down (in) space,” Caplan said. “The sun is moving as it orbits the galaxy, and the galaxy, being made of stars, is moving whichever direction gravity pulls it.”

This integration is also the eventual destiny of our own galaxy, which will merge with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years, Britt said — but the shape they’ll take is unknown.

The question mark shape could also be “indicative of a merger where these two galaxies are interacting gravitationally,” Britt said. “That hook of the question mark on the top looks a lot, to me, like what we call a tidal tail, where the stream of stars and gas has been kind of ripped off and has flown out into space.”

Gathering more spectroscopic data about the object would reveal more details such as its distance and chemical compositions, Britt and Caplan said.

“Nobody’s going to do this, though, because this is very much ‘a local man finds a chicken tender that looks like George Washington,’” Caplan said. “But there (are) observations you could make if you were motivated enough.”

An Italian cheesemaker died on Sunday after being crushed by thousands of rounds of Grana Padano cheese in the aging room of his factory in Bergamo, northern Italy, local authorities said.

Giacomo Chiapparini, 74, had entered the aging room to check the automatic robot used to clean the cheese rounds during the aging process in his company’s warehouse, according to the Bergamo Carabinieri.

At the time of his death, there were about 10 corridors of floor-to-ceiling shelves with approximately 1,600 rounds per corridor.

It is unclear how the initial collapse that led to what authorities describe as a “domino effect” occurred, leading to the cheesemaker’s demise.

Carabinieri officials, along with the fire brigade and two ambulance services and other local authorities, say they were called to the scene around 9 p.m. local time on Sunday (3 p.m. ET).

It took more than 11 hours to find Chiapparini’s body under the cheese rounds.

He was identified by his family, who live and work in the cheese factory, the Carabinieri spokesperson said. His funeral will be held on Thursday.

Chiapparini’s factory was founded in the late 1970s and produces around 15,000 wheels of Grana Padano cheese each year using milk from the cows raised at the factory, according to the company website. The cheese is aged between 12 and 70 months.

The Miss Universe Organization said Saturday it was cutting ties with its Indonesian franchisee and canceling this year’s Malaysia pageant after contestants accused local organizers of sexual harassment.

The US-based organization said in an emailed statement late on Saturday it had decided to sever its contract with PT Capella Swastika Karya and its national director Poppy Capella, who also holds the license for Miss Universe Malaysia.

Six Miss Universe Indonesia contestants filed complaints with police accusing organizers of sexual harassment, saying they were subjected to topless “body checks,” their lawyer said on Tuesday.

“It has become clear that this franchise has not lived up to our brand standards, ethics, or expectations as outlined in our franchise handbook and code of conduct,” the Miss Universe Organization said, adding that providing a safe place for women was its utmost priority.

Jakarta police did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday. Spokesperson Trunoyudo Wisnu Andiko said on Tuesday the report would be investigated.

Capella said in a statement on Instagram she does not condone any form of sexual harassment.

“I emphasize that I, as the national director and license owner for Miss Universe Indonesia, was not involved at all and have never known, ordered, requested or allowed anyone who plays a role and participated in the process of organizing Miss Universe Indonesia 2023 to commit sexual harassment through body checking as reported,” she said.

The Jakarta contest was held to select Indonesia’s entry for the annual Miss Universe competition, to be held in El Salvador late this year.

The Miss Universe Organization said it was evaluating its policies and procedures to avoid similar occurrence in the future, adding that there are no measurement or body dimensions requirement to join their pageant worldwide.

An attack on Chinese engineers in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan was thwarted by Pakistan’s military, leaving two militants dead and the Chinese workers unharmed, police say.

Pakistan’s armed forces said at least two militants were killed and three others were injured in an exchange of fire with security forces.

The military said that security forces have cordoned off the entire area and launched a search operation.

The Chinese Embassy in Pakistan said it strongly condemned the attack and urged the Pakistani authorities to punish the perpetrators and do all it could to prevent further attacks.

“China will continue to work with the Pakistani side, to jointly counter the threats of terrorism and earnestly protect the safety of Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in Pakistan,” the statement said.

Bordering Afghanistan and Iran, Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but least populated province. It is fundamental to the country’s massive multibillion-dollar infrastructure deal with Beijing, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

China is a close partner of Pakistan and its biggest source of military and economic support. But in recent years terrorist attacks targeting Chinese nationals and their interests in Pakistan have alarmed Beijing.

In April 2022, three teachers from China and a driver were killed in a suspected suicide bombing near the University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute. The Baloch Liberation Army also claimed responsibility for that attack, saying that it targeted the Confucius Institute because it is a “symbol of Chinese economic, cultural and political expansionism.”

Meanwhile, the last major attack on Chinese engineers was in July 2021 in the north of Pakistan. More than a dozen people were killed after a bus carrying Chinese engineers fell into a ditch following a “fiery explosion,” according to local police.