Deal with Thai and Austrian firms includes the four UK stores and raises hopes for Oxford Street redevelopmentThe family owners of Selfridges have sold out to a Thai retailer and an Austrian property company for an estimated £4bn ($5.36bn) in a deal which sees the return of the luxury department store’s former boss Vittorio Radice.Thailand’s Central Group and Austrian real estate company Signa Holding already jointly own major department stores in Italy, Germany and Denmark via a division run by Radice, who left Selfridges in 2002, the year before Canada’s Weston family bought it for £628m. Continue reading...
Survey also finds a third think the pandemic will never be over, as ONS records highest anxiety in 11 monthsPeople are less likely to shake hands and hug people they do not live with than they were before the pandemic, a poll suggests, while separate research indicates that anxiety levels have increased markedly in the run-up to this Christmas.Data collected by YouGov and the PA news agency suggests that nearly two-thirds of people shake hands less now than they did before Covid-19 and more than half have cut down on hugging people they do not live with. Continue reading...
Gentile said the Sex and the City actor threatened to ruin her career if she ever came forward about the alleged assaultA fourth woman has come forward to accuse Chris Noth of sexual assault, days after the actor best known for his character Mr Big on Sex and the City was fired from the CBS TV drama The Equalizer.Singer-songwriter Lisa Gentile gave an account on Thursday that Noth had forcibly kissed and groped her in her New York apartment after she met him at Da Marino, a restaurant in midtown Manhattan where another of Noth’s accusers has said she was assaulted by the actor. Continue reading...
Picture of Queen recording Christmas message at Windsor Castle also made public, featuring a photo with the Duke of EdinburghThe Duke and Duchess of Sussex have released the first picture of their daughter, Lilibet, with Meghan holding up the laughing child in an image on their Christmas card.The photo, which also shows Prince Harry with curly haired Archie on his knee, was taken by Alexi Lubomirski this summer at the couple’s home in Santa Barbara, California. Continue reading...
Protest at property near Newcastle follows video of former England football captain urging people to get Covid boosterAnti-vaccination protesters who attempted to serve spurious legal papers to the former England football captain Alan Shearer delivered the documents to the wrong house, it has emerged.The former Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers striker had encouraged people to get a Covid booster jab in a video promoted by the Premier League last week. Continue reading...
Long-awaited scheme for 20,000 opens as charities seek clarity on how it will workThe government has announced that the long-awaited Afghan citizens resettlement scheme will start in January 2022.The programme will provide support for up to 20,000 Afghans, prioritising women, children and others at risk. Continue reading...
The designer’s salary rose to £2.7m last year while her company claimed almost £850k in government supportStella McCartney took a near £2.7m salary from her fashion company last year, up more than £220,000 on the year before, while the business claimed almost £850,000 in support from the government’s furlough scheme.The designer’s pay went up despite a 26% fall in sales to £28.4m in the year to 31 December 2020, as sales in the UK more than halved, while the company recorded a pre-tax loss of £31.4m, according to accounts for Stella McCartney Limited filed at Companies House. The group made a £33.4m pretax loss the year before. Continue reading...
Analysis: As Ukraine drifts from the control he desires, disdain for potential negotiating partners leaves the option of forceVladimir Putin has deployed his troops to the border with Ukraine, delivered impossible demands on Europe and appears ready to launch a new offensive to establish his domination over Kyiv.Putin is said to feel a “historical mission” to reverse Ukraine’s drift towards the west, despite his own role in creating a rift by annexing Crimea and fuelling a war in Ukraine’s south-east. But his current fast pace raises questions of why he appears to feel the moment to act is now, as if he is running out of time. Continue reading...
Unsparing observer of national politics and her own life, she won enormous acclaim for her memoir of grief, The Year of Magical ThinkingJoan Didion, the eminent journalist, author and anthropologist of contemporary American politics and culture – a singularly clear, precise voice across a multitude of subjects for more than 60 years – has died at her home in Manhattan, New York. She was 87 years old.The cause of death was Parkinson’s disease, according to Paul Bogaards, an executive at Didion’s publisher Knopf. Continue reading...
Premiered in Cairo 150 years ago, set in an exoticised ancient Egypt and written by a man who refused to visit the country for fear of ‘being mummified’, the beloved opera has left a complex legacy in the country its drama is setIn the middle of downtown Cairo is an anonymous-looking concrete building that stretches along one side of a huge landscaped roundabout. If you peer upwards, you’ll see it labelled, between rows of air-con units, in Arabic and English: “Opera office building and garage.” As monuments to past cultural glories go, it’s not a thing of beauty. But this block marks the site of the Khedivial Opera House – a venue erected in 1869 – and which, on 24 December 1871, staged the first performance of a new opera by the world’s then most famous composer: Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida.Today, Aida is one of the most regularly performed operas across the globe. Its just-add-pyramids ancient Egypt setting is as beloved by directors and audiences as Carmen’s Spain or Madama Butterfly’s Japan, almost always preserved as a spectacular backdrop for its conventional Italian-opera love story. Yet in recent decades Aida’s overt exoticism has attracted controversy. The Palestinian intellectual Edward Said argued that it was just another product of European imperialism – an opera that has had, he wrote in 1993, “an anaesthetic as well as informative effect on European audiences”. Continue reading...
by Rhoda Kwan in Taipei and Vincent Ni, China affairs on (#5T9TT)
Site of the Pillar of Shame at city’s oldest university under guard after workmen cut up statueHong Kong’s oldest university and the territory’s authorities have been accused of rewriting history after cutting up and removing a statue mourning those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.The erasure of the memorial from where it had stood for nearly 25 years came as Beijing has intensified its targeting of political dissent in Hong Kong since the Covid pandemic. Continue reading...
Chris Martin says band will continue to tour in interview with Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2Fans have reacted with dismay to the news that Coldplay will stop recording music as a band in 2025, although quiet glee was also detected among some detractors.The band’s frontman, Chris Martin, shared the “huge revelation” with the BBC Radio 2 presenter Jo Whiley on a special show to be broadcast on Friday from 7pm. Continue reading...
by Maya Wolfe-Robinson and Diane Taylor on (#5TADV)
Figures reveal child refugees who arrived on their own are waiting longer than adults for Home Office decisionChildren who have arrived in the UK on their own to seek asylum are at risk of self-harm and dying by suicide, according to 25 child and migrant rights organisation, as figures reveal they are waiting longer than adults for a decision on their claim.The warning, in a letter to safeguarding institutions, including the children’s commissioner and the chief social worker, said the risk was “exacerbated by Home Office failures to decide the children’s asylum claims”.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. Continue reading...
Competition planned as part of Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations will also include Cayman Islands and FalklandsYou could forgive the good burghers of Goole for being a bit put out: what chance do they have against Gibraltar?Old feuds have been dusted off and battle lines drawn, as the competition to decide which town will be awarded city status as part of the Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations begins in earnest – with the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar and the Falklands included for the first time. Continue reading...
Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?Two days until Christmas, eh? Why not put aside your last-minute panic-buying, your anxiety about whether the day will go well, and your distress that nothing seems as magical as it did when you were a kid by doing the Thursday quiz? Fifteen questions on topical and general knowledge, with a few of our beloved regulars like Kate Bush, Ron from Sparks and Ding dong merrily on high the anagrams are back. Let us know how you get on in the comments, and we are sure this week you will definitely all spot the hidden Doctor Who reference.The Thursday quiz, No 35If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and you don’t want him sneaking down your chimney late at night. Also he is on holiday so isn’t looking at his email. Continue reading...
The island imports 85% of its food but three farms are part of the agroecology movement seeking food sovereignty and climate solutionsPuerto Rico was once a thriving agricultural hub thanks to its tropical climate, rich biodiversity, and sustainable farming traditions.Today, less than 2% of the workforce is employed in agriculture and tens of thousands of acres of arable land sit idle. Meanwhile 85% of the food eaten in Puerto Rico is imported, grocery prices are among the highest in the US and last year two in five people experienced food insecurity. “Unemployment is brutal, prices are brutal, migration from the island is brutal,” said Denise Santos, who runs Puerto Rico’s food bank.It involves a set of farming principles and practices that can be adapted to any ecosystem, microclimate and culture – a way of life practiced for thousands of years by indigenous people and peasant farmers. Farmers often integrate crops, livestock and trees (agroforestry) in order to maximize ecological conditions, such as a fruit orchard that aids water retention and provides shade for crops and grazing animals who in turn fertilize the earth to improve the yield.Crop rotation and crop cover are fundamental to this holistic approach, that takes into consideration the well-being of the Earth, those who produce the food as well as the local communities who eat it. Like in nature, every part of every ecosystem – which includes the farmers – help and depend on each other in some way. Contrast this to intensive industrialized farming which guzzles water, depletes the soil and burns fossil fuels (for fertilizers and powering machinery) to control the environment for genetically identical monocrop production.Advocates say agroecology offers locally driven solutions to a myriad of interconnected crises including food insecurity, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation and global heating.Agroecology is a social and political movement seeking to influence public policies so that sustainable farming benefits from government support (tax breaks, subsidies, and bailouts) currently propping up the dominant industrial agriculture system which is a major cause of biodiversity loss and accounts for more than a quarter of global greenhouse gases. Continue reading...
Operators of Melbourne Covid-ravaged nursing home will have to give evidence despite claim it could incriminate themThe operators of a Melbourne nursing home ravaged by a Covid-19 outbreak will have to give evidence to an inquest despite their argument it would be a “dress rehearsal” in any potential future prosecution.Kon Kontis and Vicky Kos last week faced the Victorian Coroners Court and formally requested to be excused from testifying at the inquest into the fatal outbreak at St Basil’s Home for the Aged on the grounds they may incriminate themselves. Continue reading...
Psychologist Ratnaboli Ray’s recovery from a mental health crisis inspired her to fight for women suffering in ‘abysmal’ conditions in West Bengal’s state institutions
What was the sorcerer thinking? Has Sony marked its turf? And where does Green Goblin rank among the great villains?When is a movie that’s only good, rather than great, the best thing you’ve seen all year? When it’s a fan event on the scale of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which unites everyone who ever loved the big-screen franchise (going back to 2002’s Spider-Man) for a gorgeously nostalgic feelgood romp.This is the climax to Jon Watts’ “Home” trilogy, following the excellent Spider-Man: Homecoming and its 2019 sequel Far From Home. But while it nicely rounds off the character arc of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, it also restores a sense of wellbeing to the Sony-owned Spider-flicks that came before it, and may just turn out to be the future. So what did we learn from our latest trip into Spider-Man’s rapidly expanding world? Continue reading...
The Guardian and Observer’s 2021 charity appeal is fighting for climate justice. In this video, we meet some of those on the climate frontline, and the charities helping them. This year we are supporting four charities - Global Greengrants Fund UK, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Environmental Justice Foundation, and Practical Action - that fight to protect the rights and livelihoods of communities hit by extreme weather events caused by the climate emergency. Continue reading...
The star of one of 2021’s biggest TV hits, Mare of Easttown, talks about weepy reunions with Leonardo DiCaprio, binging Ted Lasso and middle-aged women taking over our screensKate Winslet will be ready in a sec. “I’m just going to put some more eyedrops on my stye,” she says. Blame her intense crime drama Mare of Easttown, one of the TV hits of the pandemic. “It was quite a stressful job, and about nine weeks in I got three styes in my left eye, the third of which turned into a solid little marble and had to be cut out. But I pushed on. On with the show!” In it, she plays DS Mare Sheehan, who is raising her grandson, coping with her son’s suicide, and trying to solve the murder of a young mother in a working-class Philadelphia suburb. All without makeup: Mare is more likely to reach for a Cheeto topped with a squirt of spray cheese than anything in the Max Factor range.“The discussion about how Mare looked blew my mind,” says Winslet. The 46-year-old actor is speaking by phone from the West Sussex home she shares with her husband, Ned Abel Smith, and their seven-year-old son Bear, as well as her two children from previous marriages: 21-year-old Mia by her first husband, Jim Threapleton, and 17-year-old Joe by her second, the director Sam Mendes. “People were asking, ‘Did she gain weight? Didn’t she look frumpy? Wasn’t that brave of her?’ But why should that be brave? I suppose because it’s not how leading actresses are represented. Maybe Mare will be the tipping point, and we’re going to stop scrutinising women on screen quite so much.” Continue reading...
by Cait Kelly (now) and Caitlin Cassidy and Matilda B on (#5T9YZ)
WA to introduce mask mandate after community case; SA records 484 new Covid cases; fires break out at Melbourne hotel housing refugees; NSW records 5,715 cases and one death; Victoria records 2,005 cases and 10 death; Queensland reports record 369 casess. Follow all the day’s news live
The off-the-leash cop archetype was cemented with Don Siegel’s taut, provocative thriller that neither condemns or condones extreme measuresHarry Callahan is the cop we’ve been warned about. Though this week marks fifty years since Don Siegel’s genre-defining thriller Dirty Harry busted into cinemas with Smith & Wessons blazing, the general profile of dangerous, off-the-leash law enforcement solidified over the last half-decade of public discourse sounds like it could’ve been traced from the film’s example. Played with a scowl of blanket disgust by Clint Eastwood – Paul Newman had passed on the role as “too right-wing” – San Francisco PD’s top inspector is more than your standard-issue misanthrope. He’s an equal-opportunity bigot, contemptuous of every ethnic group rattled off by a fellow officer in a laundry list of slurs. He’ll readily resort to violence in his work, not above a bit of crude torture to extract information from a perp with a bullet wound. And most hazardous of all, he believes himself unanswerable to anyone but God, who he’d probably just meet with the same glowering frown.From its earliest stages of development, the script conceived by husband-and-wife team Harry and Rita Fink made clear that Harry’s no boy Scout, but partisans on either side of the ideological aisle looking for affirmation in their stance will be disappointed. Those with hopes for an out-and-out denunciation of this brutish approach to policing have another thing coming, the coarser methods often validated by necessity, as if Harry’s the last line of defense for a society teetering on the brink of anarchy. (The guy can’t even get a hot dog without a bank robbery demanding his attention.) Any gung-ho types walking away as converted Calla-fans have also missed something crucial, however, blind to his placelessness in the city he’s sworn to protect. Neither condemning nor condoning his actions, the film offers what may be the clearest image of the archetypal cop’s self-perception as the only one willing to do the dirty jobs holding America together, even if it means getting dirty yourself. Continue reading...
Whether you’re driving a supercar through Mexico or simply unpacking a cardboard box in an utterly engrossing way, the year offered plenty of gaming joy. Our critics pick the top titles
Donor profiles sparked long conversations about the values we wanted for our child. The guys who wanted to ‘spread their genes’? Definitely outSurrounded by glittering Christmas lights, in between sips of red wine, my friend made me a very decent proposal. “My sperm,” he said. “You can have it if you like.” We’d been catching up over festive drinks and the topic of kids came up, as it does when you are in your 30s. My partner – now wife – and I had started thinking about having a family, I’d told my friend. We had two wombs and a bunch of eggs; we just needed to figure out the rest of the baby-making equation. So he offered to sort that bit out for us, no strings (or body appendages) attached.My wife and I thought about that offer a lot over the next few months. No offence to heterosexuals (some of my best friends are straight), but I don’t envy you most of the time. However, I am jealous of the fertile straight couples who don’t have to do anything more complicated than jump into bed when they decide they want kids. Instead of getting undressed, my wife and I went online. We researched, researched, researched. Should we go for a known donor such as my friend? Or would it be better to go to a sperm bank? Continue reading...
The artist’s management have issued a clarifying statement after the singer attracted criticism over the David v Goliath winEric Clapton has waived the legal costs that a German court ordered a 55-year-old woman to pay, over a single CD containing a bootleg copy of a 1980s concert she attempted to sell.The musician’s management has also issued a clarifying statement in response to widespread social media criticism over Clapton’s decision to take legal action in the first place, saying Clapton was not involved in the specifics of the case and she “is not the type of person Eric Clapton, or his record company, wish to target”. Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe and Nhung Nguyen in Saigon on (#5TA5M)
Migrant workers ate and slept in factories swarming with Covid, sealed off from outside worldFor weeks, Hoang Thi Quynh* worked and slept inside a garment factory in Tien Giang province, in southern Vietnam. She would start her shift at 7.15am and then, after a day spent sewing sportswear garments, enter an empty hall of the factory complex and settle down for the night.Each worker had a tent, set one or two metres apart, containing a foil mat, pillow, blanket and a box to store their belongings. No workers were permitted to meet anyone from outside the factory; even speaking to a visitor over the gates was forbidden. Continue reading...
New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet has announced that masks will be mandated inside as Covid cases surge ahead of Christmas celebrations. ‘As of midnight tonight, we will be requiring that masks are worn in indoor settings’, Perrottet says. New density limits for venues will will also be brought in. Perrottet addresses the long queues at testing clinics, saying if you are not unwell please don’t get a PCR test but use a rapid antigen test. NSW will be moving towards providing free RAT, says Perrottet► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
Keith the cat is known locally for making off with everything from live eels to tradesmen’s bootsA New Zealand cat with a reputation as a talented thief has taken his habit to new lows by bringing home drugs and a pair of lacy black knickers, according to his owners.Keith’s crime wave started three years ago, when he began stealing bras from nearby clothes lines and bringing home live eels from the local Heathcote river in Christchurch. Continue reading...
by Jem Bartholomew (now), Léonie Chao-Fong , Tom Amb on (#5T935)
Latest updates: German health minister says ‘offensive booster campaign’ needed to fight variant; WHO official says it is too early to draw conclusions on severity
Actor gives first extended comments about accusations that came nearly four years agoJames Franco has acknowledged sleeping with students of an acting school he previously ran, saying he struggled with a sex addiction and has been working to improve his behavior in recent years.In excerpts from The Jess Cagle Podcast made public on Wednesday, Franco, 43, said that while teaching, he “did sleep with students, and that was wrong”. He said he had not started the school to lure women for sexual purposes. Continue reading...
While French politicians are hailing the result of the referendum as ‘final’, indigenous Kanaks say their future is anything but settledIn the wake of the third New Caledonian referendum on independence from France, French president Emmanuel Macron declared that “France is more beautiful because New Caledonia decided to stay.”The vote in the 12 December referendum – supposedly the finale of a 30-year process of preparation and consultation – was an overwhelming 96.5% against independence. Continue reading...
Serge Gelle, the country’s secretary of state for police, reached land in the seaside town of Mahambo, having swum about 12 hours to shore after his helicopter crashed off Madagascar's north-east coast. 'It's not my time to die,' the 57-year-old said, lying exhausted in a deckchair in a video shared on social media
Julie Morris, who was head of safeguarding at primary school, admitted 18 child sexual abuse offencesA deputy headteacher and her partner have been jailed for child sexual abuse offences after they filmed themselves abusing and raping a girl.Julie Morris, a teacher who was also head of safeguarding at a primary school in Wigan, was sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison after she pleaded guilty to 18 child sexual abuse offences, including two counts of rape. Continue reading...
by Presented by Laura Murphy-Oates and Michael Sun. P on (#5T9WN)
Laura Murphy-Oates and Saved for Later host Michael Sun look at the best and worst moments on the internet in 2021 – from senator Jacqui Lambie dancing on a table, to shitposting comedians and the Instagram accounts bringing joy and community during lockdown Continue reading...
Backing is also given to UN resolution exempting most aid from threat of sanctionsThe US has eased its restrictions on mainstream humanitarian aid reaching famine-stricken Afghanistan and backed a UN security council resolution exempting most aid from the threat of sanctions.The US Treasury followed up the UN resolution by broadening the definition of permitted humanitarian assistance to include education – including salary payments to teachers – and to permit a broader use of US funds received by aid organisations working inside Afghanistan. Continue reading...
by Andrew Roth in Moscow, David Smith in Washington, on (#5T9RZ)
If confirmed, talks would begin a contentious effort to avert a Russian offensive in Ukraine this winterRussia claims it has agreed to begin talks with the US early next year to discuss Moscow’s demands for “security guarantees” in Europe, including a ban on Ukraine’s entrance into the Nato military alliance.If confirmed, the talks would begin a contentious effort to avert a Russian offensive in Ukraine this winter, as Kyiv and eastern European governments have demanded not to be left out of any deal with Moscow that affects their interests as well. Continue reading...
2021’s death toll from central Mediterranean crossings likely to hit 1,500 as coastguard says survivors unlikelyGreek authorities have said dozens of refugees are believed dead after a boat carrying as many as 50 people, according to one witness, sank off the island of Folegandros, in the second major loss of life in the Mediterranean within days of people desperately trying to reach Europe.Almost 24 hours after the rescue operation was launched late Tuesday, coastguard officials said it was unlikely that survivors from the shipwreck would be found. Continue reading...
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