issues in schools. the bill will now head to the desk of the republican state governor. manchester united fans all over the world have been reacting to the appointment of erik ten hag as manager. the man who's currently in charge of the dutch champions, ajax, will take over from interim boss ralf rangnick at the end of this season. natalie burrell, superfan, and host of the only one united podcast, says he'll have his work cut out. i think we've been waiting for this appointment to be made for a long time. when he was first announced, quite excited. he's done great things at ajax, so now i'm excited to see what he can do at manchester united. i think we've had a lot of issues well documented, players unhappy. so i think him sorting out the players, getting players in, having a good style of play, we've not had that at manchester united for a while, so if you can bring an attacking style of play, that will be the first job for him as manager. i don't think fans should expect the world. i don't think we're going to challenge for the premier league title, but if we could maybe get a cup, even a league cup, and then qualify for europe in fourth place, i think just seeing a good style of football, consistent football, i think we haven't seen that for a while, and i think if we do get consistent football and results and performances, people will be happy. now on bbc news, a prominent designer who has been at the forefront of fashion since the 1970s, vera wang has expanded the business under her name from bridal—wear to fragrance, and more. vera wang is one of the fashion industry's true visionaries. she invented wedding dresses. she re—invented wedding dresses. celebrities have all worn her designs, her business empire continues to expand to home, fragrance, and even vodka. at 72, she is continuing to push boundaries, and in this special 100 women interview, we spoke about appealing to a new generation, conflict between sustainability and fashion, and the rise in anti—asian hate. welcome to 100 women, vera wang. you are a woman who needs no introduction, fashion icon, entrepreneur. thank you for sitting down with us. thank you so much for having me. you now run a fast business empire, ready to wear, fragrance, alcoholic spirits. you are a woman who needs no introduction — fashion icon, entrepreneur. thank you for sitting down with us. thank you so much for having me. you now run a vast business empire, ready to wear, home, fragrance, alcoholic spirits. yep. you really did make your name and were synonymous with the white dress. i wonder if you could tell us more about how you got your unlikely start in bridalfashion. my unlikely start is pretty fair and pretty true. i was the girl least expected to get married, and i waited till the ripe old age of a0. but in all honesty, i think my life, or i, was very much defined by what my career path was. when i finally got engaged, there weren't very many dresses that i found was suitable for a ao—year—old bride, which perhaps today doesn't sound as old. but most of the brides i was shopping for dresses with were 25, and i said there's got to be something for someone my age. not only that, i came from vogue magazine, where i was a senior fashion editor, so my experience at vogue, with the entire world of fashion at my disposal, made me a little bit more, ithink, careful about what kind of dress i wanted to wear, more knowledgeable. and so there really wasn't anything out there that made me feel it was the right dress for me. and that's sort of what prompted this whole business. it's been almost, in a weird way, random, but nonetheless, amazing things have happened because of the way i live my life. today it's even harder for someone to start their own label. what challenges do you think come with that pressure, that your label is very much based on you? i think it's enormous. i think that's an incredibly valid question, when you are very much defined by who you are as a brand, and people know your brand for you, there are always issues that come up, related to, you know, the next generation and what are the plans for the company, what do you intend to do as a strategy going forward, and when you are that identifiable with the brand, and perhaps a bit of that kind of celebrity, it does add more pressure, there's no doubt about it. i think, for me, there have been good parts about it, and parts about it that have been frustrating. iam my brand, and i represent my brand, but i have an incredible group of people that support me behind my brand. you have to function together. it's impossible, otherwise. it's a high—pressure industry, for sure, the reviews aren't always glowing, and you had yourfairshare, when there was the black bridal collection. i don't know if it wasn't glowing, i have always been a bit of a rebel. and i think that, i think that even as a rebel, ijust am a creator. and i think when you spend 30—plus years on wedding gowns, you've sort of got to change it up a little bit. ijust saw, you have to give brides a certain freedom, and a certain opportunity to shake it up a little bit. and girls, today, we encourage so much diversity, but women have always been diverse, it just hasn't been acknowledged, and it hasn't been accepted, and i like to think that when i came to bridal, i wasn't a bridle designer, i was a fashion insider, who happens to design wedding dresses, so there were no rules for me, and ijust said, you know what? i want girls to have a choice, they want to wear a mini, or a bathing suit, it's not about that, it's about who they are. so i think diversity has always been part of my own nature as a woman, and i have lived my own life. once again, i lived the life that i wanted, so for me it's very natural it's very organic and i hope it's very authentic. the reason i brought that up is, for a woman who prides herself on breaking the rules, how do you deal with failure? i think most of my life has been defined by failure. i mean, i was a very serious elite athlete, and i devoted 16 years of my life to trying to qualify in the olympics as a skater. and never quite made the cut. so, for me, when i saw that my career was going nowhere, i really had a nervous breakdown. i was lost. and fashion was the thing that really took the place for me of skating, it really gave me all those components, you know, shows, and music, and editing, and design and creativity, and storytelling, all the things i loved about skating, i took with me into fashion. my fashion has not been limited to two—dimensional sketches, or evenjust draping, it's been about story, emotion, it's been about, perhaps, romance, in many ways, and, i think, a lot of daring. i think i've been fairly fearless. and thatjust, sort of having been an athlete, and part of having been a woman, i think, who has lived my life, i think on my own terms, pretty much. you consider yourself very much a feminist? i am a realfeminist, from way back when it was called feminism. i think it came very naturally for my generation. that woodstock was not, well, perhaps it's been interpreted as a fashion statement, at coachella, burning man, and some of these festivals, glastonbury, the real truth is that, in my era, it was a political statement as well, it wasn'tjust about styling yourself, it was about a sense that you were young, and we believed that we should have a say in what goes on in the world, and we bought a different view point to what had come before. so it wasn't raised purely from a fashion point of view, it was embraced from an intellectual and emotional point of view. so, while i wasn't a hippy, per se, i very much understood, that people were questioning their lifestyles, and their life choices, and was this the only possibility? and that has been one of the little steps, or major steps, that has gotten us where we are today. bit by bit, step by step. and about fashion, i've always said, does fashion define lifestyle? in other words, do live a life as defined by how you dress? or, do you wear clothes that reflect the life you are living? and, for me, in the past, you dressed to suit your lifestyle, and what was dictated to you in the past. but, now, including the pandemic, and everything that has gone on in our world, i think that fashion is defined by how people live, it's the reverse. you've been an insiderfor over 50 years, do you feel like there finally is a real thought of resetting, when it comes to diversity, and fashion, of different ethnicities, on the catwalk, in production, body shapes, all types of diversity? i think, women have always been diverse, that's the beauty of women. but i think now people accept so many different kinds of beauty. it's a global vision, rather than these thoughts of what beauty is, or how beauty is defined, even within the united states. and i think that is incredible. and it changes your eye as a creator, it changes — i'm constantly viewing women, even men, in a different context. i name a few icons, jackie kennedy, grace kelly, marilyn monroe — these are various icons that brought something to fashion, and today, you do see variations on some of that. i mean you really do, but in a new way, in a more personal way. it's notjust your movie stars or first ladies, or princesses. it's kind of democratised now, and that's kind of great. one of the big issues that came up in this pandemic is that of sustainability. yes, no question. do you think the two can ever go hand—in—hand, fashion and sustainability, is that something you as a designer are thinking seriously about, now more than ever? i think we have always thought about it. i don't think it was ever a subject we could tackle as an industry, globally, because by its very demand for speed and delivery, that, by its very definition, makes sustainability very difficult on every level, and then factor in what's going on with the planet, and what's going on with the techniques needed to develop fabric. now that we are working with fabrics like plastics and moulded rubber and things like that, that we take them for granted, but it's going to take a lot of technology and a lot of investment to find ways to produce that kind of forward—thinking, and new way of lifestyle dressing, and yet not pollute our environment. so i don't think it's that simple a question. do we all wish we were more sustainable? absolutely. but the demands prior to the pandemic were unbelievable pressure on fashion industry. i mean, it was faster and faster, newer and newer. i don't know how the two can go together. one has to be way more, i think, scientific, in a weird way, and way more thoughtful, and these changes are not going to happen within a day. you know, just flip a switch and suddenly silk doesn't involve a certain kind of water, and whether it is made in italy or france or china. these are global questions forfashion. have you reflected during the pandemic over what the future of fashion, then, might look like? i think the future of fashion, for me, is exciting because the future of the world and life is exciting. i mean, peoplejust went into outer space — and people who aren't even astronauts can go? civilians? i think it's really exciting, and it, too, will affect how we dress. once again, i'm going to say it — lifestyle, possibilities, unlimited boundaries — that will affect fashion. well, you have certainly lived through some amazing milestones, and i think what has been so interesting during this pandemic is people really getting to see a lot of your personality on social media. yes, maybe too much actually! and commenting on how great you look. i mean, a photo of you in a sports bra went viral. and i was just wondering how do you think about that — what you think about that attention? it was really shocking. i have never been to a gym and seen women necessarily not in sports attire — i mean, bicycle pants, short shorts, sports bras. so i didn't think that was so risque. i was just trying to show some barrettes in my hair that were, you know, sort of large, and i thought if i started getting very dressed up, you'd never notice what was in my hair. and so, i was really a bit shocked. i don't know, i have sort of pretty much been the same person for quite a long time. you can look at my history on the red carpet at the met. i just sort of was astonished, actually. ithought, "god, people must be really bored! "have nothing to do at home." i mean, it is nice that people thought that about me, it is very complimentary and i'm very grateful for that but, you know, i've been asked, "what are my secrets? right? and i've got to be really honest — one of them is sleep. i value sleeping enormously. i value having a vodka cocktail at the end of the day because it helps me to transition from a very intense work schedule to a bit of a private life. another — well, the real — the real answer to why i think i may be perceived as being youthful is more about perhaps my energy, and i think it really has to do with my passion for what i do — work. i have been in fashion since i was 19 years old — not in front of the camera, behind it. i never thought about youth. i never thought about going way out of my way to preserve youth in a fanatical, obsessive way — probably because i work with the most beautiful women in the world on a daily basis, and because of that, i am more envisioning them as my muses. and i think when you don't think about ageing in that way, maybe it is, in a way, better. maybe, i don't know, it is healthier, or maybe it's, i don't know, a way of dealing with ageing that is productive, if that makes any sense. so, i always said that vodka cocktail, a lot of sleep, but work. work is the magic elixir, it really is. it keeps your mind occupied. and when your mind is occupied, i think everything else follows. well, you are certainly changing the perspective of what it means to be 72, and how age influences... well, i — i don't think any woman is thrilled by that, in a way, but at the same time, i'm kind of proud of it because i think it speaks to other women — and i don't meanjust women, i think it speaks to men. ageism has always existed. i see it in a child, who wants — in my goddaughter, val. i see it that she wants to do more, she wants to be an adult. "why can't i go out with you guys for dinner? "why can't i wear what i want to wear? "why can't i?" "because you can't, because mommy says no." i see what a lot of my godchildren are going through, and my own daughters. i see how hard it is, so there is ageism there. "you're not old enough. "you're not old enough to be ceo. "you're not experienced enough. "you don't have enough knowledge". so there is ageism there, there is always an ageism somewhere, all the way along the way. and then, as you get older, you have to find your own relevancy and your own reason and your own hopes and your own happiness and your own desire for how you are going to spend the rest of your life. these are not small issues. at every step of the way, ageism today is only associated with people who are chronologically at a certain age — a number. it's a number. but in many cases, i see people doing their very best work because they have the confidence. whenever i feel like i'm lost before a collection, i tell myself this — even today — "well, i've "been here before. "this is not my first time at the rodeo". and i've come through. so, i talk myself into the fact that "i can do this". and i know that may sound odd at my stage of my career, but experience stands for a lot, too. knowledge, wisdom, patience, care. these things — you grow every day in your life, you have to try and continue to grow in one way or another, and that is why i find ageism so old—fashioned. you've used your platform on social media to speak out about anti—asian hate. yes. we have seen a rise of this during the pandemic. how personal was this for you, and to be able to have a platform to speak out about this? well, first of all, it was very shocking because i began to hear stories that people that were just going grocery shopping were being knocked down on the ground and their groceries stolen. and ijust couldn't understand that — well, i can't understand any kind of cruelty, whether it is on a personal level or whether it is on a global level or whether it's targeted at any group of people. i couldn't understand how you could hit a woman who is in her 80s with her groceries. i don't understand that. because she's asian? i grew up in an asian household in america and although i like to think i'm extremely american, i also know that i bring that part of my asian culture with me into everything i do. it is always present as a part of me. and i think we are encouraged to behave, we are encouraged to toe the line, to respect elders, to be kind, to work hard, to achieve and to stand on our own two feet, and that is part of, you know, particularly chinese culture. i, myself, have always been a little bit of a rebel — just a bit — but nonetheless, i hope, respectful. and that is why it is particularly painful. i just feel that if you're trying to live your life and be a good citizen and make contributions as well and bring your culture into that melting pot that is the united states that you are not going to be punished for it or hurt or attacked. so, it has been very troubling for me. i think for that, and so many other reasons, women are now saying that they really feel there's a need for a reset after the pandemic, that things can't go back to the old way. do you think that that is an important thing for you right now in your life? well, i had to reset, for so many reasons. i mean, i had employees that had worked for me faithfully for two decades or more and with everything that happened in the fashion industry, i tried to hold on for as long as i could, and when many stores — you know, retail, bricks and mortar — were shut down for eight months to a year and offices were closed, some have not been opened and they are operating through zoom, it had to affect our industry. i see myself as a hamster in a wheel, or the treadmill is speeding up and i can't keep up, and i think the pandemic allowed me time to think. the pandemic made us all slow down. it forced us to confront the speed at which we were functioning. it forced us to confront our own value system, our own ambitions, life and death, family, politics, and we now see we're all vulnerable to the exact same things. and hopefully, the sooner we can all work together and help each other and try to save, in an obvious sense, the planet but, in a more intellectual and essential way, our lives, i think the better. —— existential. vera wang, thank you very much for having this discussion with 100 women. i'm just so honoured to have been asked. thank you. vera wang is one of the fashion industry's true visionaries. hello. 0ur weather's going to be pretty settled over the next few days. it's fairly quiet out there right now and not much change on the way for friday. one thing that we will notice is that cool breeze strengthening day by day, particularly noticeable on the north sea coast, and this often happens when we have high pressure close to iceland there over the norwegian sea, low pressure to the south, and that basically shunts quite a strong airstream from scandinavia across the north sea and cuts through the uk. particularly chilly on those north sea coasts. it'll also drag in some cloud, some moisture, particularly to central and eastern parts of england, so a slow grey, breezy, chilly start to the day here, whereas out towards the west, there'll be sunshine. also, a few showers developing anywhere from london into the south midlands, southern wales, maybe salisbury plain, perhaps the west country but elsewhere, it should be sunny. so, cold on the north sea. 0n the actual coast, it could be ten degrees, but warmer spots, maybe southwestern parts of scotland, perhaps as high as 19, most of us somewhere in between. also worth noting the tree pollen levels will be generally moderate to high on friday. so, the weekend, then, that pattern continues, so the high across the north, low pressure to the south. we can see the rain across spain and france, so the bad weather's to the south of us, but we still have that strong breeze and, again, a few showers. perhaps a little more widespread, maybe, spreading into northern parts of england during the course of saturday. again, chilly on the north sea coast, maybe 12 in newcastle, typically 16 there in plymouth and not far off that in belfast as well. here's sunday's weather forecast — more of the same — cold wind out of the north sea and all the bad weather staying way to the south of us and similar temperatures, perhaps not even making double figures there in aberdeen. so, let's have a look at the outlook into monday. slight change in the wind direction, so you could see the high pressure builds down again across the uk, the wind switches direction — it will be more of a northerly. so, temperatures will actually drop as we go through the course of next week, maybe making around 10, 11, 12 degrees across some northern towns and cities. bye— bye. welcome to bbc news. i'm nuala mcgovern. our top stories: president biden announces another $800 million of military help for ukraine in what he calls a critical phase of the war. all to modernise teddy roosevelt's famous advice, sometimes you will speak softly and carry a largejavelin because we are sending a lot of those in as well. as president putin claims to have taken control of mariupol, we report on how some have managed to leave the besieged city. dozens of people are killed in four bomb attacks across afghanistan. a shia mosque was among the targets. bonjour! ca va!

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