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'It's almost like a weapon': How the blonde bombshell has symbolised desire and danger Western culture, she says, has built a whole mythology around female blondeness − from religious iconography and fairy tales, to art and advertising − that has told specific stories about what it means to be blonde. In cinema's early years, comedies such as Platinum Blonde (1931) and Bombshell (1933), starring Jean Harlow, embedded concepts of the dazzling, devastatingly beautiful blonde into the cultural vernacular. "The idea that you're a bombshell, it's almost like a weapon," says Nead. "On the one hand, it is this kind of ideal, but at the same time, it's also threatening."   Before Harlow, there was another − more natural-looking − blonde on the scene: Mary Pickford, whose amber curls helped earn her the moniker of "America's Sweetheart". But while Pickford played the guileless girl waiting to be rescued, Harlow's peroxide blonde ...
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Afghan taxi drivers beat the heat with handmade air coolers


In a sweltering city in Afghanistan, taxis have been spotted with scrubby barrels and exhaust tubes mounted to their roofs.

These are the hand-made air coolers that taxi drivers have cobbled together in their desperate efforts to beat the heat.

Temperatures regularly exceed 40C (104F) in the southern city of Kandahar, but air-conditioning units inside cars often break down, the cabbies lament.

"This works better than [built-in] AC," one driver, Abdul Bari, told AFP news agency. "ACs only cool the front. This cooler spreads air throughout the car."

Gul Mohammad, another taxi driver in Kandahar, says he turned to these customised coolers a few years ago as the weather started getting "extremely hot".

"These cars' AC systems didn't work, and repairs were too expensive. So I went to a technician, [and] had a custom cooler made," he told AFP. The 32-year-old spent 3,000 Afghanis ($43; £32) on it.

Passengers have applauded the creative solution.

"When there's no cooler, it becomes very difficult. I even carry an anti-heat medicine with me," said 19-year-old Norullah, who said he recently had to get an intravenous drip to treat a heat-related illness.

Afghanistan recorded its warmest-ever spring from April to June this year.

A severe drought has also been spreading nationwide, devastating crops and rural livelihoods, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said last week.

Experts have repeatedly warned that the fallout from climate change would deepen Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis.

The country has been left out of United Nations climate negotiations since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, after US-led forces left the country.

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