Alongside cutting ties to the monarchy, new PM believes the region represents an untapped civilisationA republic has been proposed and postponed by Barbadian prime ministers for decades. Battling a pandemic that has devastated the country’s tourism economy, Mia Mottley, the country’s first female leader, had ample excuses to again kick the constitutional can down the road.Instead, at the stroke of midnight on Monday, she oversaw the transition of the Caribbean island out of the realm of the British monarchy – the country’s first local head of state, also a woman, Sandra Mason – and in case that were not enough, bestowed the title of national hero on the Barbadian megastar Rihanna in one of the new republic’s first acts. Continue reading...
The object is simple but the mission is impossible – avoid hearing Wham’s ubiquitous 1984 classic, Last Christmas, at any point between the start of December and Christmas EveName: Whamageddon.Age: Eleven years old. Continue reading...
by Mark Brown North of England correspondent on (#5SMQM)
People from younger and more diverse demographics are exploring area amid boom in nature tripsThere are still plenty of lean, grizzled oldies in well-worn gear zipping effortlessly up Lakeland hills like it’s a walk to the corner shop. But there are also younger and more diverse communities exploring the area as hiking, climbing and enjoying nature become “fashionable and trendy” again.“It is absolutely fantastic,” said Richard Leafe, the chief executive of the Lake District national park. “This is what it is all about.” Continue reading...
Grab your Manolos! Carrie and the gang are finally returning in And Just Like That. But, with a more diverse cast and writers’ room, could this reboot be even more radical?
As tensions with Russia and China increase, the prime minister meddles in foreign policy to distract from domestic woesRelations between the world’s great powers are tenser than ever since the cold war. Troops are massing along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Chinese ships and planes are openly threatening Taiwan. Japan is rearming in response. Turkey is renewing its belligerence towards its neighbours. Russia is backing east-west fragmentation in Bosnia.Where Britain stands in all this is dangerously unclear, drifting on a sea of Boris Johnson’s gestures and platitudes. The Royal Navy currently has a £3.2bn aircraft carrier waving the union flag in the South China Sea, completely unprotected. China could sink it in an hour. In the Black Sea, a British destroyer provocatively invades Russian waters off Crimea, showing off to the world’s media. Last week, the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, advanced her bid for her party’s leadership by sitting astride a tank in Estonia and warning Russia that Britain “stood firm” against its “malign activity” in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Britain’s outgoing defence chief, Sir Nick Carter, estimates that the risk of accidental war with Russia is now “the highest in decades”.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
by Libby Brooks Scotland correspondent on (#5SMNQ)
Local metal detectorist on Western Isles ‘flabbergasted’ to find missing ring on former potato patchA single-minded metal detectorist has reunited a woman with the wedding ring she lost in a potato patch in the Western Isles 50 years ago.
Just how lucky will the guests who get to stay at the McCallister house later this month be? I foresee troubleIn the interests of public service, I need to make you aware of a trap. Yesterday, a property became available on Airbnb. It is a large home in the Chicago area, available for one night only and it is suspiciously cheap. Look, it’s the Home Alone house.Apparently, for $18 (£13.50), you and three friends can stay overnight in the iconic McCallister residence. You will be greeted by the actor who played Buzz McCallister. There will be pizza and other 90s junk food. There will be a mirror for you to scream into. There may well be a tarantula. It all seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? This is why I am convinced that whoever ends up staying there will be robbed. Continue reading...
Experts applaud Biden’s plan to expand testing but wonder if the effort goes far enough to stop the spread of the virusUS infectious disease experts largely agree with the Biden administration’s newly announced emphasis on Covid-19 testing in the wake of the emergence of the Omicron variant, but questions remain over whether the president’s plan goes far enough to ensure that testing stops the spread of the virus.President Joe Biden announced new actions to combat the coronavirus in the US on Thursday, including a nationwide campaign encouraging vaccine boosters; a forthcoming rule requiring private insurance to reimburse the cost of at-home testing; a pledge to provide 50m free at-home tests to health centers and rural clinics for those not covered by private insurance; and a requirement that travelers to the United States, regardless of nationality or vaccination status, provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test within one day of boarding flights. Continue reading...
He came back and sunk his teeth in again. The pain took my breath away as I felt his fangs in my fleshI was backpacking in Panama over Christmas in 2018, and planned to climb Volcán Barú. At 3,474m, it is the highest peak in the country and one of the only places on earth from where you can see the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans at the same time. It is an active volcano, but last erupted around 1550.I set off before sunrise. It was a little chilly, so I had pulled on tights under my trekking trousers. I intended to reach the top by midday, then return before dark to get a lift to my hostel. Continue reading...
The writer-director talks about his new film, co-starring Denzel Washington, and reveals how it felt to work without his brother, Ethan, for the first time in nearly 40 yearsIt might be the unlucky play for British theatre rep types. But for movie directors, Macbeth has been a talisman, a fascinating and liberating challenge – for Akira Kurosawa, with his version, Throne of Blood; for Roman Polanski; and for Justin Kurzel. Even Orson Welles’s once-scorned movie version from 1948, with its quaint Scottish accents, is admired today for its lo-fi energy.Now, Joel Coen, the co-creator of masterpieces such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, A Serious Man and No Country for Old Men, has directed a starkly brilliant version entitled The Tragedy of Macbeth, shot in high-contrast black and white, an eerie nightmare of clarity and purity, with Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances McDormand (Coen’s wife) as Lady Macbeth. Continue reading...
Dozens of people were trapped in an Ikea showroom when a storm dumped 30cm of snow in northern Denmark.After the Aalborg showroom closed, it turned into a vast bedroom after six customers and about two dozen employees who had been left stranded by the snowstorm were forced to spend the night in the store
Ukhoo village in Kashmir supplies 90% of wood used in the country’s pencils, but the industry, a major employer in the area, has seen a dramatic drop in demandSchool closures in India during the pandemic have left their mark on more than the children who have seen delays to their learning. In one Kashmiri village the impact has been catastrophic on employment.Pick up a pencil anywhere across India and it is likely to come from the poplar trees of Ukhoo. Continue reading...
Journalist permitted to receive peace prize in person after judge eases travel restrictionsThe Philippine journalist Maria Ressa will be allowed to travel overseas so she can accept her Nobel peace prize in person after a court gave her permission to leave the country to visit Norway this month.Ressa, who is subject to travel restrictions because of the legal cases she faces in the Philippines, shared the prize with the Russian investigative journalist Dmitry Muratov, amid growing concerns over curbs on free speech worldwide. Continue reading...
by Aubrey Allegretti Political correspondent and Arch on (#5SMCK)
Louie French becomes MP for suburban London seat, but Tories’ majority of nearly 19,000 cut to 4,478The Conservatives have held the safe seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in the first in a series of closely watched parliamentary byelections.Louie French was elected as the new MP, replacing the well-liked former cabinet minister James Brokenshire, who died in October from lung cancer. Continue reading...
Laudably released for charity, the favourite for this year’s Christmas No 1 leaves no musical cliche untwinkled – and its exhortation to forget the pandemic is crassGiven recent government advice to avoid kissing strangers under the mistletoe this Christmas, there’s a sense in which the long-trailed festive hook-up between Ed Sheeran and Elton John counts as a reckless incitement to anarchy. For his part, Sheeran wants nothing more than a relentless tonguing beneath those poison berries this December: “Kiss me,” he sings; then later, “just keep kissing me!” (To be fair, this noted Wife Guy is unquestionably singing about his wife. Did you know he has a wife? He might have mentioned it.)In every other respect, however, Merry Christmas – in case the perfunctory title didn’t make clear – is the very exemplar of avoiding unnecessary risk during this perilous season. There are sleigh bells. Church bells. Clattering reindeer hooves. A kids’ choir. Sickly strings. The full selection box, and delivered with about as much imagination as that staple stocking filler. Old friends Sheeran and John encourage us to “pray for December snow”, and the overall effect is a blanketing avalanche of plinky-plonky schmaltz rich in bonhomie and derivative in tune. Continue reading...
In the musician’s new memoir, he aims to tell the true, uncensored story of one of the greatest bands of all time while dispelling some long-running mythsThis year marks half a century since the storied singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison, met his untimely death. Or at least that’s what most reasonable people believe happened. Due to a combination of denial, wishful thinking and some eagerly promoted conspiracy theories, however, some people actually believe that Morrison still lives. According to the Doors’ guitarist, Robbie Krieger, that’s just one of many outrageous myths, misconceptions or outright lies that have clung to the band’s story. “To me, what happened to the Doors was pretty damn cool just the way it was,” Krieger told the Guardian from his home in Los Angeles. “This wasn’t a story that needed to be hyped.”In order to represent his version of setting the record straight, then, Krieger has just published a memoir, Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying and Playing Guitar with the Doors. It’s a doorstop-thick attempt to retell an oft-told tale, this time informed by a desire to suck the hot air out of the more inflated earlier versions, aided by a hilariously flip tone that makes this late-arriving history perhaps the most reliable, and certainly the most entertaining, of all. The witty prose, fashioned by co-author Jeff Alulis, stands in marked contrast to the bitter tone of the two memoirs penned by the band’s drummer, John Densmore – the second of which focused on his protracted lawsuit against the two other surviving members of the band – as well as the pedantic, and at times pretentious, tone of the published reminiscences of keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Continue reading...
by Caitlin Cassidy (now) and Mostafa Rachwani (earlie on (#5SM0N)
Anthony Albanese says Labor’s climate policy will cut power bills and create 600,000 jobs; Northern Territory woman dies of Covid; NT shuts border to SA; no changes to booster shot rollout as NSW fears first local transmission of Omicron; Victoria records 1,188 Covid cases and 11 deaths; 337 new cases in NSW; four in ACT. Follow all the day’s developments
Study of the superhero’s Jewish influences beats off stiff competition to come first in this year’s Diagram prizeIs Superman Circumcised?, a study of the superhero’s Jewish influences, has resoundingly won the competition to be named “oddest book title of the year”.The Diagram prize, which is run by The Bookseller magazine and voted for by the public, pitted six titles against each other this year, from Curves for the Mathematically Curious to Hats: A Very Unnatural History. Despite competition from second-placed The Life Cycle of Russian Things: From Fish Guts to Fabergé, Is Superman Circumcised? took 51% of the public vote to win the award. More than 11,000 people cast a vote in this year’s competition. Continue reading...
Studies show implementing WHO air guidelines would have drastic impact on health outcomesImproving the air that we breathe is an opportunity for our politicians to save lives and for each of us to have better health.In September the World Health Organization (WHO) revised its guidelines for air quality. Following this announcement, two studies have estimated the health benefits from implementing these guidelines across Europe. Continue reading...
He acts, he directs, he even does the washing-up – is he the perfect man? Here, he discusses marriage, raising twins and his new film, The Tender BarGeorge Clooney is smoother than a cup of one of those Nespresso coffees he has advertised for two decades and for which has earned a highly caffeinated £30m-plus. With that, on top of the tequila company Casamigos, which he co-founded then sold four years ago for a potential $1bn (£780m), the ER juggernaut and – oh yeah! – the hugely successful film career as an actor, director and producer, it seems safe to assume that Clooney could, if he were a bit less cool, start every morning by diving into a pile of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. So, George, I ask, do you ever think: “You know what? I think I have enough money now.”Unruffled as the silver hair on his head, Clooney leans forward, as if he is about to confide in me. “Well, yeah. I was offered $35m for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal [Clooney, the human rights lawyer he married in 2014] about it and we decided it’s not worth it. It was [associated with] a country that, although it’s an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought: ‘Well, if it takes a minute’s sleep away from me, it’s not worth it.’” Continue reading...
For the first time in a decade deaths from TB are rising, with the curable disease killing 20,000 Kenyans last year. Now testing ‘ATMs’ and other innovations are helping to find ‘missing cases’One day in May last year, Violet Chemesunte, a community health volunteer in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, got a call from a colleague worried about a woman she had visited who kept coughing.She asked if Chemesunte could go round and convince the 37-year-old woman, a single mother to three young children, to seek medical help. She suspected tuberculosis (TB), and feared it might already be too late. Continue reading...
In first on-camera interview since accidental film-set shooting, actor says there is only one question: ‘where did the live round come from?’Alec Baldwin has questioned how the bullet that accidentally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins ended up in a gun on the set of the film Rust, speaking out about the fatal shooting in a lengthy and emotional interview.The actor said he did not pull the trigger on the gun that killed Hutchins, 42, and injured director Joel Souza, 48. The gun he was holding, which Baldwin believed to be safe, went off during rehearsals for the western, in an incident that shocked Hollywood and prompted a reckoning over production safety and the use of weapons on set. Continue reading...
Vaccinated people in New Zealand’s largest city can now go to the pub for the first time in over 100 daysIn Auckland, nature was healing. The ungroomed lined up for their eyebrow appointments. Bars flung open their doors with the promise of free drinks. Locals posted photos of their flat whites and brunch menus. The city’s sky tower was lit up for the first day of the “traffic light” reopening. And, in perhaps the truest sign that the gridlock-plagued city was on its pathway to normalcy, four lanes of the southern motorway were bumper to bumper.The traffic light system, announced by prime minister Jacinda Ardern in late November, ends lockdowns in favour of restrictions on the unvaccinated. The red, orange and green levels depend on vaccination rates and the level of strain on the health system, but even at red – the strictest level – businesses are fully open to the vaccinated, with some restrictions on gathering size. Continue reading...
Magazine becomes the first major publication to ban fur content across all of its pages, saying it is rejecting animal crueltyElle magazine has announced it will stop using fur in all its editorial and advertising content worldwide, becoming the first major publication to do so.The monthly lifestyle magazine, which originated in France and is owned by French media group Lagardère, has 45 editions around the world. It has about 33 million readers from Mexico to Japan, with 100 million monthly online visitors. Continue reading...
Boris Johnson proposal rebuffed with suggestion he offer legal alternatives to reduce risky Channel crossingsFrance has formally rejected Boris Johnson’s proposal for British forces to conduct joint border patrols around Calais to deter migrants from crossing the Channel.In a letter to Johnson, Jean Castex, the French prime minister, suggested the UK should instead focus on reforming its own systems to offer “legal immigration paths” for people wishing to come to the country instead of risking the perilous crossing. Continue reading...
Javiera Rojas remembered as ‘an emblematic activist who was dedicated to the process of resistance’Environmental activists in Chile have called for justice after a 42-year-old land defender was found dead with her hands and feet bound.The body of Javiera Rojas was found buried under a pile of clothes in an abandoned house on Sunday in Calama in the northern region of Antofagasta. Continue reading...
As an athlete who spoke up about abuse, I am tired of seeing reputation being prioritised over safetyWhen I first experienced abuse as an athlete, I made a vow to myself to never tell anyone. Ever. I was worried that I wouldn’t be believed, but also the thought that anyone would know me as a “victim” mortified me. On top of that, I knew that even if I told anyone, nothing would change. I was both right and wrong. Years later, after I stopped competing in figure skating, I broke my own silence on the physical abuse inflicted on me in China, and it freed me. I talked about it to my close friends, to reporters, and to my therapist – extensively. It never got easier to talk about but each time I did, I began to heal a little more.The most powerful perpetrator of abuse is silence. It allows for abusers to continue to harm athletes, for athletes to continue believing that such treatment is OK, and for authority figures to continue to turn a blind eye without guilt. Every allegation of abuse that is aired needs to be investigated properly for there to be any hope of justice. Continue reading...
Friday: The ALP is expected to reveals its medium-term reduction target and measures related to energy economy jobs. Plus: La Niña brings more than just rainGood morning. Labor is set to reveal an emission reduction target. Biden and Putin are to hold talks about Ukraine. And energy debt in Australia is on the rise, as are spiders, mozzies, mice and mould.Labor is poised to unveil a new medium-term emissions reduction target and a suite of policy measures – including significant investments in new energy economy jobs – provided the package is given the green light by the shadow cabinet on Friday morning. Guardian Australia understands the shadow climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has prepared options in a range between 35% and 45% for a new 2030 emissions reduction target, depending on the underpinning mechanisms and policy measures the shadow cabinet is prepared to adopt. Continue reading...
Emma Tustin was convicted of murdering Thomas Hughes’s son, who suffered ‘unsurvivable brain injury’A father and stepmother killed their six-year-old boy in a “campaign of appalling cruelty” two months after social workers found no evidence of safeguarding concerns.An investigation has been launched into the authorities’ actions after Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was deprived of food, force-fed salt, and assaulted in abuse that was filmed and photographed by his stepmother and father. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Mone is alleged to have called man of Indian heritage ‘a waste of a man’s white skin’ in WhatsApp exchangeThe Conservative peer Michelle Mone has been accused of sending a racist message to a man of Indian heritage who alleged in an official complaint that she told him he was “a waste of a man’s white skin”.The phrase was allegedly used in a WhatsApp message sent by the Tory member of the House of Lords in June 2019 during a disagreement following a fatal yacht crash off the coast of Monaco. Continue reading...
Moscow defence ministry posts video of missile system arriving on Matua in Kuril island chainRussia has deployed coastal defence missile systems near Pacific islands also claimed by Japan, a move intended to underline Moscow’s firm stance in the dispute.The Bastion missile systems were moved to Matua, a deserted volcanic island in the middle of the Kuril island chain. Japan claims four of the southernmost islands. Continue reading...
by Andrew Roth in Moscow and Julian Borger in Washing on (#5SKGY)
The US threatened to deploy ‘high-impact’ economic measures if a Russian buildup of troops leads to a larger conflictJoe Biden and Vladimir Putin are due to hold talks “in the near future” after their top diplomats made no apparent progress in Stockholm towards defusing a standoff over Ukraine, amid fears of a Russian invasion.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov opted not to make a joint appearance after trading threats during a 40-minute meeting whose short duration indicated there was little chance of a breakthrough. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#5SKS7)
Analysis: a full-scale attack seems improbable – but the troop buildup is enough to have Nato warn of sanctionsIt is the second time this year that Russia has amassed forces near its borders with Ukraine, so why has the estimated 90,000 troop buildup left western governments and independent analysts more concerned?The stark warning by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on Wednesday that Russia has made plans for a “large-scale” attack is backed up by open source analysis – and western intelligence assessments. “There is enough substance to this,” one insider added. Continue reading...
Éric Ciotti wants referendum ‘to stop mass immigration’ and set up ‘a French Guantánamo bay’A hard-right French MP who wants to hold a referendum “to stop mass immigration” and set up “a French Guantánamo bay” to deal with terrorism, has topped the first-round vote to choose a presidential candidate for the right’s Les Républicains party, in a shock result.Éric Ciotti, 56, a politician from Nice who is known for his hardline views on Islam and immigration, went from outsider to the surprise top position in Thursday’s first-round vote by members of Nicolas Sarkozy’s party. He now faces a second-round runoff against Valérie Pécresse, the former Sarkozy minister who wants to become France’s first female president. Continue reading...
Peter Jackson’s eight-hour documentary on the Fab Four reveals Ringo is an amazing drummer, McCartney was a joy and their entourage were coolest of allThe concept for Let It Be was: no concept. The Beatles arrived in an empty studio and wondered where the equipment was. (And revealed that they knew very little about setting up PA systems.) What were they rehearsing for? A show on the QE2? A concert on Primrose Hill? A TV special in Libya? A film? What would the set look like? Would it be made of plastic? Why, George Harrison wondered, were they being recorded? Get Back makes clear that the Beatles didn’t have a clue what to expect from Let It Be. Continue reading...
Six customers and about two dozen staff spent the night in the bed department after a foot of snow fellA showroom in northern Denmark turned into a vast bedroom after six customers and about two dozen employees were stranded by a snowstorm and forced to spend the night in the store.Up to 30 centimeters (12 inches) of snow fell, trapping the customers and employees when the department store in Aalborg closed on Wednesday evening. Continue reading...
Film stars have long advertised beauty products, then they started their own cosmetics firms. Making products for their own personal use was the obvious next step
Stunning recreations of the original film’s New York retain the songs and the dancing in a re-telling that will leave you gaspingSteven Spielberg’s West Side Story 2.0 is an ecstatic act of ancestor-worship: a vividly dreamed, cunningly modified and visually staggering revival. No one but Spielberg could have brought it off, creating a movie in which Leonard Bernstein’s score and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics blaze out with fierce new clarity. Spielberg retains Maria’s narcissistic I Feel Pretty, transplanted from the bridal workshop to a fancy department store where she’s working as a cleaner. This was the number whose Cowardian skittishness Sondheim himself had second thoughts about. But its confection is entirely palatable.Spielberg has worked with screenwriter Tony Kushner to change the original book by Arthur Laurents, tilting the emphases and giving new stretches of unsubtitled Spanish dialogue and keeping much of the visual idiom of Jerome Robbins’s stylised choreography. This new West Side Story isn’t updated historically yet neither is it a shot-for-shot remake. But daringly, and maybe almost defiantly, it reproduces the original period ambience with stunning digital fabrications of late-1950s New York whose authentic detail co-exists with an unashamed theatricality. On the big screen the effect is hyperreal, as if you have somehow hallucinated your way back 70 years on to both the musical stage for the Broadway opening night and also the city streets outside. I couldn’t watch without gasping those opening “prologue” sequences, in which the camera drifts over the slum-clearance wreckage of Manhattan’s postwar Upper West Side, as if in a sci-fi mystery, with strangely familiar musical phrases echoing up from below ground. Continue reading...
Campaigners say government leaves major shortfall for those affected by housing built with too much micaHomeowners in Ireland living in houses built with defective blocks that “crumble like Weetabix” say a compensation scheme unveiled by the government will still leave them with devastating bills of up to €80,000 (£60,000).A long-awaited redress scheme for the estimated 6,000 people living in homes that have to be demolished and rebuilt was unveiled by the government earlier this week. The government says the scheme will cost €2.2bn and means homeowners will bear no upfront costs. Continue reading...
Musicians from Nile Rodgers to Johnny Marr, Moor Mother and Booker T Jones discuss Sly and the Family Stone’s drug-fuelled landmark in US social commentarySly and the Family Stone emerged in mid-60s San Francisco with a lineup that was trailblazing in its diversity and euphoric in its fusion of rock, soul, gospel, funk, jazz and psychedelia. After acelebrated Woodstock appearance in 1969, the outlandishly stylish bandleader Sly Stone retreated to a Los Angeles attic and much-mythologised drug-fuelled circumstances to record There’s a Riot Goin’ On, an album rich in militant social commentary and groundbreaking production techniques.It is now regarded as one of the 20th century’s finest albums in any genre. As a vinyl reissue celebrates its half-century, stars from different generations discuss the album’s impact on them, and how it continues to reverberate in pop music to this day. Continue reading...
Sebastian Kurz dominated domestic politics for five years before being placed under corruption investigationAustria’s former chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who has dominated his centre-right People’s party (ÖVP) and his country’s political life for the past five years, has unexpectedly announced he is leaving politics.Slick, suave and long seen as a political wunderkind, Kurz became one of the world’s youngest democratically elected heads of government at 31 in 2017, but resigned as chancellor in October after being placed under investigation on suspicion of corruption. Continue reading...
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