London, United Kingdom | Critics on accused London's iconic Victoria & Albert Museum of compromising its role as a source of inspiration for artists after forbidding visitors from sketching exhibits from its new underwear show.

The world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, which houses over 4.5 million objects, said it had erected signs forbidding photography and sketching due to "temporary loan restrictions" imposed by contributors to "Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear".

Rachel Campbell-Johnston, chief art critic of The Times, said that the ban was "like telling a reader to go to a library but telling them they can't read the book."

Twitter user Phil Dean posted: "As a dedicated Sketcher I find this ruling completely unfathomable."

The 164-year-old museum stressed on its own Twitter account that the ban only applied to some temporary exhibitions, and that "we continue to support and encourage sketching in our seven miles of permanent galleries".

A spokesman for the gallery had earlier told the Guardian newspaper that the restrictions -- first introduced for its 2013 David Bowie exhibition -- were to prevent congestion at busy shows, but later clarified that it was also due to loan conditions.

The show, which opened April 16, explores three centuries of underwear in Europe, focusing on Britain's relationship with its most intimate garments through more than 200 pieces.

The ban also applies to the "Botticelli Reimagined" exhibition which contains around 50 paintings by the Italian Renaissance master, as well as works by the many artists who were inspired by him.

Rome, Italy | Italian designer Antonio Marras is joining fashion giant Gucci in combining its womenswear and menswear collections into unified catwalk shows from next year -- in a second blow to Milan's Men's Fashion Week.

"I think it's time, to present men and women collections in a single moment," the designer said in a statement in English.

"The two collections are becoming more and more the two faces of the same soul, that together can complete each other," he said

The first unified show by the Sardinian will take place at Women's Fashion Week in the Italian industrial capital in September 2017.

Gucci announced last month that it was taking its recent embrace of androgynous looks to its natural conclusion by combining shows.

Fashionistas said the move by Alessandro Michele, the creative director credited with putting Gucci back at the top of the fashion tree, could herald the end of the current system of separate menswear and womenswear weeks in the style capitals of the world.

The moves come as fashion's established calendar is under pressure from the "see now, buy now" trend which has seen some leading brands start releasing their clothes immediately they appear on the catwalk rather than at the start of the season they are intended for.

Antonio Marras said it would not be joining that trend and instead would "keep the choice of following the production schedules in full consideration of the needs of creative and manufacturing processes of the industry".

Washington, United States | Uber unveiled its first self-driving car, announcing it had begun testing an autonomous vehicle on the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"If you're driving around Pittsburgh in the coming weeks you might see a strange sight: a car that looks like it should be driven by a superhero," said a statement from the ride-sharing giant.

"But this is no movie prop -- it's a test car from Uber's Advanced Technologies Center (ATC) in Pittsburgh."

Uber said it was "still in the early days of our self-driving efforts," and was "focused on getting the technology right and ensuring it's safe for everyone on the road -- pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers."

While Uber has said little up to now about its plans in the sector, the California group last month was among the founding members of an industry group called the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets which also includes Alphabet unit Google, Ford, Volvo and Lyft.

Uber will be using a hybrid Ford Fusion that will gather mapping data as it tests the autonomous driving capabilities.

The car will have multiple sensors including radars, laser scanners, and high resolution cameras to map details of the environment.

Uber said that even when the vehicle is in autonomous mode, "a trained driver will be in the driver's seat monitoring operations."

Like others involved in autonomous driving research, Uber said this could avert accidents, save lives and reduce congestion.

"Self-driving cars have the potential to save millions of lives and improve quality of life for people around the world," the company statement said, adding that "94 percent of (road) accidents involve human error."

Uber has a research center in Pittsburgh and said it chose the city because it "is an ideal environment to develop and test our technology across a wide variety of road types, traffic patterns and weather conditions."

Alphabet earlier this month announced an alliance with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) in a major expansion of its fleet of self-driving vehicles.

An array of automobile makers including Audi, Ford, Mercedes, Lexus, Tesla and BMW are working on building self-driving capabilities into vehicles.

New York, United States |Millennial US winemakers have established what they call the first commercially viable rooftop vineyard in New York, hoping wine harvested from the Brooklyn Naval Yard will hit the market next year.

The young wine enthusiasts intend to produce 300 bottles a year from 50 specially commissioned urban planters installed on the roof of an industrial building overlooking the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

The first harvest will be picked in the fall in the latest headline grabbing venture at a Naval Yard that has played host to Lady Gaga, fashion shows and the last presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

"The idea was really to re-purpose urban space in a sustainable manner," one of the founders, Devin Shomaker, explained to AFP.

The vines are planted in 36 inches (0.9 meters) of soil, 40 percent of which is crushed, recycled glass that works as a sand element to make what Shomaker calls a "sustainable light-weight soil" similar to a traditional vineyard. 

They include grape varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec.

Shomaker launched the business with brother Thomas and a friend, Chris Papalia, after studying business and viticulture. They went live after doing a test run in 2013 on the roof of Thomas's apartment to assess the air quality in Brooklyn.

They are financing the project with help from a wine grower in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

Alongside their vines, their rooftop hosts private events and tastings, kitted out with a large bar, tables and hammocks, and sells three wines produced in the Finger Lakes.

Shomaker said his inspiration was Brooklyn Grange, a successful start-up created in 2010 which produces fresh herbs, vegetables and honey on New York City rooftops.

"New York State is the third largest (wine) producing state in the United States. But a very small percentage of New York City's consumption actually supports New York State wines," he said.

And the future? He dreams of expanding his vineyard to other Brooklyn rooftops.

Oakland, United States | Numbers attached to the 70th NBA Finals between the defending champion Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers:

0 - The number of NBA titles won by the Cleveland Cavaliers since being founded in 1970. Also the number of major sports crowns won by Cleveland teams since the 1964 NFL Browns.

1 – Golden State's Anderson Varejao is the first player ever to compete for both NBA finalists in the same season. The Brazilian big man was traded by Cleveland to Portland in February, released by the Trail Blazers and signed by the Warriors.

2 – Golden State's Steve Kerr could become only the second coach to win NBA titles in each of his first two seasons, matching John Kundla, who guided the 1948 and 1949 Minneapolis Lakers to the second and third crowns in league history.

4 - The number of NBA championships won by the Warriors franchise, with last year's crown coming 40 years after their 1975 title. The 1947 and 1956 titles came when the club was based in Philadelphia before making the move to the San Francisco area in 1962.

5 – Cleveland's Tyronn Lue can become the fifth coach over the last 60 years to win a title in his first season, following Golden State's Steve Kerr, who did it last year.

6 - The number of consecutive finals for LeBron James, the most by any player in 50 years.

7 - The overall number of NBA Finals this makes for James, who is 0-2 with Cleveland and 2-0 with Miami.

9 – The number of players from outside the United States in the NBA Finals. The Cavaliers feature Matthew Dellavedova (Australia), Kyrie Irving (Australia-born but plays for USA), Sasha Kaun (Russia), Timofey Mozgov (Russia) and Tristan Thompson (Canada). The Warriors feature Leandro Barbosa (Brazil), Andrew Bogut (Australia), Festus Ezeli (Nigeria) and Anderson Varejao (Brazil).

10 - The record number of consecutive NBA Finals appearances set by Bill Russell. He and five Boston Celtics teammates played in seven or more consecutive NBA Finals in the 1950s and 1960s.

14 - The number of times that teams have met in the NBA Finals in consecutive years, the first time since 2014 when San Antonio beat Miami after the Spurs lost to the Heat in the 2012 final.

73 - The NBA record number of wins the Warriors produced this season.

215 - The number of nations where fans can watch the NBA Finals live on television, and in 49 languages.

1,077 – The NBA record number of 3-point baskets made by Golden State this season.

75,000,000 - LeBron James has almost this many followers on social media, making him the league's most followed player.

Sydney, Australia | Virtual reality porn, a giant penis-shaped amusement ride and an artist dubbed Pricasso, Sexpo, Sydney's adult entertainment and lifestyle show is celebrating its 20th year but is just as hot as ever.

The four-day show in Australia's largest city features big-name porn stars, numerous sex-toy stores, a giant ride named "Shafter" and moved further into the digital age  with virtual reality porn.

"Twenty years is a long time in this game," Sexpo Australia's event manager Bentleigh Gibson told AFP.

"I think it is terrific that Sexpo can be operating through this period of time and it's still so well-supported by the industry and the populations of the countries and the states that we go to."

The show has been franchised to South Africa and Britain bringing with it favourites such as artist Tim Patch, also known as Pricasso, a former Australian builder who uses his penis to paint.

While Sexpo draws thousands of Australians through its doors, it is also attracting young Asian fans keen to get a glimpse of Japanese adult internet star Mao Hamasaki, as well as an inaugural cosplay, short for costume role-play, contest.

Cosplay -- where enthusiasts dress up as characters from anime series, comics and video games, mostly from Japanese pop culture -- has been growing in popularity in Australia and around the world, with Sexpo organisers keen to tap into the fantasy craze.

"Sexpo came to me and said we are doing this thing and we'd like for you to be involved," avid cosplayer and Australian adult star Lucie Bee told AFP.

"We've got so amazing mainstream (cosplay) conventions in Australia... but this is like a place where you are so free from judgement, everyone's here to kind of lose their inhibitions a bit, discover something new."

Also making an appearance is virtual reality porn, with the fully immersive technology promoted as more than just a gimmick.

"We are trying to keep up with the industry trends as well, especially in terms of health, education and technology," Gibson said.

"Virtual reality, VR, porn is a big one at the moment. Obviously when the internet... came on board in the '90s, that was a competing factor, so we had to embrace that onto the floor with our exhibitors.

"(VR) technology is going to be the next step in this industry I think."

San Francisco, United States | In a Silicon Valley culture known for brilliant ideas boiling up in coffee shops, Gaurav Chawla is pouring his heart into chai.

Chawla was on a break from his job as an engineering manager at San Francisco-based cloud-computing star Salesforce when he began lamenting how tough it was to find a cup of chai as good as he makes it at home.

That frustration, and echoed complaints by other natives of India, where the blend of spiced tea and simmered milk is woven into daily lifestyles, prompted him to start tinkering.

"I took a rice cooker apart and reconfigured it to make chai," Chawla told AFP.

"It made good chai, and I realized this process could be automated."

While his background is in software engineering, Chawla went to work developing a chai machine as simple to use as a coffee maker.

He told of giving his second prototype a test run at Google offices, where it was used daily until it broke. Another prototype got a workout in offices of sound and image specialty firm Dolby, according to Chawla.

Feedback from those and other tests led to a first-generation chai machine to be funded by pre-orders at a freshly launched www.brewchime.com website at a temporarily discounted price of $249.

Chime machines aren't slated to ship until March of next year.

- Chai is chai -Chime machines brew one cup of chai at a time, using tea and spices pre-mixed in caps sold by the startup.

"Essentially, you want to brew black tea and spices, add milk then bring it to a boil again," Chawla said of the chai brewing process.

"Because you are adding milk, you can't just let it sit by itself or you get a big mess -- which I do almost every day."

Chai has been growing in popularity in San Francisco and nearby Silicon Valley, with coffee shops large and small adding it to menus.

Helping drive the trend are ranks of people drawn to the region from India by jobs at technology companies.

Chawla said his friends at Microsoft have told him of the US software giant having people with chai-making skills come in to prepare the tea for employees.

"The Silicon Valley influence of Indians moving here is huge," Chawla said.

"Even if there is great coffee, chai is chai. It is one of the things of your upbringing."

A co-founder at Chime is a design engineer who ran product development at Williams-Sonoma, a retail chain specializing in kitchen and home items.

- Chai carts -The popularity of chai has climbed in the United States over the past 20 years, with even major chain Starbucks adding it to the menu, according to Chai Cart founder Paawan Kothari.

Kothari earned a masters degree in business from the INSEAD business school in France and spent more than a decade working with technology firms in Silicon Valley before turning a hobby started in 2009 into a startup that sells chai from carts on San Francisco streets.

"I wanted to give people a taste of what homemade chai tastes like," said Kothari, who started out making the spiced tea in her home and peddling it in the Mission District from a bicycle trailer.

"I was surprised at how many people were looking to have good chai; not just in San Francisco but everywhere."

She quit her job as an IBM marketing strategist and launched Chai Cart, which she said has been growing steadily.

Kothari estimated that while some 40 percent of her customers are hankering for a taste of chai that harkens back to native countries in South Asia, more than half grew up in households without chai.

"It brings me great pleasure to share a part of my culture and give a taste of the traditional chai that’s enjoyed every day across India," Kothari said in a post on the website thechaicart.com.

Moscow, Russia | A museum of Russian impressionist art opened in Moscow amid efforts to promote the country's little-known art movement to a global audience. 

Housed in a historic former chocolate factory, the private museum features a permanent exhibition of some 70 works by Russian artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries including Konstantin Korovin, Valentin Serov and Pyotr Konchalovsky. 

It is based on the personal collection of entrepreneur and philanthropist Boris Mints, who invested some $20 million into a project seeking to help both Russians and foreigners learn more about Russia's contribution to a movement which originated in France in the 19th century.

"Up until now, only the icons of Andrei Rublev and the works of avant-garde artists (Kazimir) Malevich or (Wassily) Kandinsky were known all over the world," said museum director Yulia Petrova. 

"However, between these two periods there is an artistic movement which deserves to be discovered."

Designed by British architects, the museum, housed in a new circular building boasting ultra-modern lines, has been built on the site of an old sugar silo of a famous Soviet-era confectionery factory, the Bolshevik.

The move is hugely ironic: the Bolsheviks, who glorified Soviet realism, shunned impressionist art up until the political thaw of the 1960s. 

The works of some well-known Russian impressionist artists including Valentin Serov, the author of The Girl with Peaches, are now experiencing a popular revival.

This past winter, an exhibition of paintings by Serov, renowned for his society portraits, broke attendance records at Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery, with visitors queing for hours in the snow and even breaking a door. 

"The Russians are drawn to impressionist artists because their works are joyful," said Petrova. 

But "in the West, the works of Russian impressionist artists are strangely undervalued and often cost 10 times less than those of their French counterparts," she added.

Impressionism is arguably the most famous French painting movement. 

It originated with a group of Paris-based artists in the 19th century and has become known for the artists' innovative techniques, their bold use of colour and loose brushstrokes.

Some of the most famous impressionist artists were Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir.

Washington, United States | "Big data" could play a huge role in the 2016 US election, even if Donald Trump doesn't think so.

Trump, who sailed through the Republican primaries using unconventional campaign rallies and Twitter messages, has indicated that he sees little use for popular data analytics tools to help target specific voters.

But analysts say he may be at a disadvantage in the general election if he stays on that course.

"In the primaries, he was only looking for Republican voters, and in the general he needs all voters," said Alan Rosenblatt, a digital political strategist.

"Unless he starts to be more sophisticated in how he targets his message, he's not going to have a good sense of where he's going to win and not win and where he should put his resources."

Trump's rise appeared to take the wind out of the sails of data crunchers and the techniques that helped the 2012 re-election campaign of President Barack Obama.

Trump is defying the traditional wisdom in both political parties, which have been ramping up the way they use data to help candidates and their backers personalize their pitch to raise funds and get out the vote on election day.

Jordan Cohen at the digital marketing firm Fluent, which works with candidates, said the Trump campaign "has exhibited the least amount of digital sophistication or interest" and that this could hurt his efforts.

Cohen said email fundraising, which has become a staple for candidates, requires considerable work to build a supporter base.

"Now that the Trump campaign wants to raise funds from the public they are certainly at a disadvantage by not having spent the past year building up a big database," Cohen said.

- Better data crunching -The 2016 campaign could see more sophisticated data efforts thanks to advances in computing technology.

Campaigns have been speeding up how they collect and analyze data to form the so-called predictive models that can help determine tactics and strategy.

Consulting firms boast of having as much as 1,500 "data points" or bits of information about voters, and dozens of "voter models" that categorize individuals for targeted messages.

The data ranges from voter registration databases to public records on hunting or fishing licenses or gun ownership, to online "cookies" or small programs which track Web browsing and purchase activity.

"This is 'Moneyball' for politics -- it's about running smarter, more efficient campaigns, and the more data you have, the more effective you can be," said Tom Bonier, chief executive of TargetSmart, a political consultancy, referring to the book and subsequent hit movie using data to build a winning baseball team.

Because the campaigns can't reach everyone, they want to find the most "persuadable" people, according to specially designed formulas or algorithms.

"In 2012 for the first time we were able to successfully model persuadability," said Dan Porter, a member of the Obama data team who co-founded BlueLabs, a consulting firm now working with the Hillary Clinton campaign.

"We've had four years now and we think we are able to develop a persuasion model with more precision."

Contacting the most persuadable voters is critical for campaigns. Reaching out to those opposed may backfire by making them even more committed to an opponent.

- Beyond 'cookies' -TargetSmart, which works with the Democratic party and political action groups, said it has begun working with Facebook data that eliminates the need for tracking cookies.

The consultancy has matched 191 million voter file records to Facebook users to be able to deliver targeted messages to people on whatever device they are using, said Bonier.

Bonier said this is more accurate than using tracking cookies because it is based on user log-ins regardless of the device.

He noted that Facebook's platform provides important clues because it uses people's "likes," which can be important for political campaigns.

"We have a lot of our own data, but what Facebook brings to the table is the 'likes,' the attitudinal information." 

Some Republican candidates have used predictive models from a firm called Cambridge Analytica, which offers profiles of voters for so-called behavioral microtargeting.

Chris Wilson, a consultant for Republican Ted Cruz's campaign which used the Cambridge scores, argued that using this data is positive for the democratic process.

"You have so many people who have become disenfranchised because they do not believe the political system speaks to them," Wilson told a recent Washington forum.

"Once we are able to understand what an individual voter cares about and we are able to talk to them about that issue, it creates a level of connection between the voter and the candidate, and that is what politics should be about."

Wilson said Cruz -- who dropped out of the White House race -- effectively used these tools, but that Trump prevailed because he was able to reach more people with media coverage, which he equated to "$2 billion in free advertising."

But while better data can help campaigns operate more efficiently, the growing use of these tools also raises privacy issues, says Jules Polonetsky, who heads the Future of Privacy Forum think tank in Washington.

"There is a lot of data sloshing around the system that, if breached, could put the system at risk," Polonetsky said.

"Every piece of information tied to your name is available to these groups."

Miami, United States | The first DNA analysis of 2,500-year-old remains from one of the great early civilizations of the Middle East, the Phoenicians, has shown the man had European heritage, researchers said

The mitochondrial DNA -- or genetic information from his mother's side -- came from a man known as "Young Man of Byrsa" or "Ariche," whose remains were uncovered in the Tunisian city of Carthage.

The findings in the journal PLOS ONE suggest his maternal lineage likely came from the north Mediterranean coast, on the Iberian Peninsula, perhaps near what is modern day Spain or Portugal.

Phoenicians are known as the creators of the first alphabet, and inhabited the coastal cities, Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Arwad, in what is now Lebanon and southern Syria.

However, since their writings were made on papyrus, little remains except what has been written about them by Greek and Egyptian scholars.

According to lead study author Lisa Matisoo-Smith, a professor in the department of anatomy at New Zealand's University of Otago, the remains reveal the earliest known evidence in North Africa of a rare European genetic population, or haplogroup, known as U5b2c1.

"U5b2c1 is considered to be one of the most ancient haplogroups in Europe and is associated with hunter-gatherer populations there," she said.

"It is remarkably rare in modern populations today, found in Europe at levels of less than one percent."

The matriarchal DNA of the man, whose remains were found by gardeners working outside the National Museum of Carthage in 1994, "most closely matches that of the sequence of a particular modern day individual from Portugal," she added.

The discovery sheds some new light on the history of the Phoenicians, who are thought to have originated in Lebanon and spread across the Mediterranean. 

Carthage was a prominent Phoenician port and trade center established by colonists from Lebanon.

However, researchers were unable to find any links between the ancient man's mitochondrial DNA and that of 47 modern Lebanese people who were analyzed for the study.

"Hopefully our findings and other continuing research will cast further light on the origins and impact of Phoenician peoples and their culture," said Matisoo-Smith.