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...

Latest updates: Boris Johnson says ‘no need’ to cancel Christmas events as UK reports 53,945 daily coronavirus cases

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...

An overcrowded ship with asylum seekers leaves Libya bound for Europe – triggering a high-stakes showdown between a Doctors Without Borders vessel wanting to escort it to safety and the Libyan Coast Guard fighting to turn it back. As the Libyans issue armed threats the tension grows below deck. With European countries' responsibilities toward refugees once again in the spotlight, here is an inside view of the desperate hope that is the deadly race for Europe Continue reading...

Dramatic footage released by the Japan coastguard shows the rescue of a 69-year-old man in rough seas after spending 22 hours drifting in open water.

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan’s love-hate romance, which spawned many later meet-cutes, is more eccentric than you might rememberErnst Lubitsch’s 1940 romcom classic is re-released: it stars James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as the two squabbling shop assistants, Alfred and Klara, who are anonymous romantic penpals falling in love without knowing who the other really is and who in real life can’t stand each other. It’s a parallel universe situation that effectively takes the dislike/love duality of the meet-cute scenario and perpetuates it through almost the entire drama.The Shop Around the Corner is based on the Hungarian stage play Parfumerie and keeps the Mitteleuropa setting of elegant Budapest: strange to think that this film was appearing just as Hungary was joining the war, on the wrong side. It inspired many remakes, most famously the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan weepie-romance update You’ve Got Mail in 1998 – with emails instead of letters – which shifted the action to New York. (My own personal theory is that the original’s ensemble set-up, with its gallery of shop assistants and a venerable father-figure boss, inspired the BBC TV comedy Are You Being Served?) Continue reading...

Inquest hears 18-year-old ‘seemed like he was losing his co-ordination’ prior to being ejected from New South Wales bar in 2019 before vanishing

Thérèse Coffey says people should not kiss anyone they do not know to limit spread of coronavirus

Inter-American court of human rights orders Central American country to reform harsh policies on reproductive healthThe Inter-American court of human rights has ruled that El Salvador was responsible for the death of Manuela, a woman who was jailed in 2008 for killing her baby when she suffered a miscarriage.The court has ordered the Central American country to reform its draconian policies on reproductive health. Continue reading...

Alan Tudge stands aside as education minister pending investigation; Greg Hunt gives valedictory speech as parliament moves to Christmas messages; epidemic thunderstorm asthma risk warning for Melbourne; Fair Work Ombudsman accuses Coles of underpaying 7,800 staff; Victoria records 10 Covid deaths and 1,419 new cases, NSW 271 cases and zero deaths – follow all the day’s news

Jane Campion’s Oscar-tipped Netflix period drama pits two opposed men against each other with thrilling, and surprising, resultsJane Campion’s The Power of the Dog is a film of reveals: some gradual and ruthlessly calculated, others abrupt and careless and hastily re-concealed. Bodies and desires are unwittingly exposed to others. Motivations are guarded until it’s too late to change them. When they slip, they show us the secret lives and minds of men who want to seem more straight and simple than they are.Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance is the film is a reveal in itself. It’s aggressive and dissonant and off-kilter in ways the refined British actor rarely permits himself to be on screen, and I spent a good portion of the film’s running time figuring out if I liked it or not. Whenever he plays American, Cumberbatch gives the appearance of acting more than usual, and such is the case here: cast very much against type as crude, caustic Montana rancher Phil Burbank, his growling drawl and wide-gaited cowboy swagger feel like put-ons, almost distractingly unnatural to him — even as his presence fixes your gaze with eerie insistence. Continue reading...

MPs from across the political spectrum raise human rights in Xinjiang and Hong Kong crackdown as they sign off on powers

Udall presents a less controversial image than Donald Trump’s pick, as US seeks to ease tensions in the Indo PacificClad in the cowboy boots and turquoise gemstone bolo tie of his home state, Tom Udall, Joe Biden’s longtime friend and pick as US ambassador, made a distinctly American impression as he addressed New Zealand’s press for the first time on Thursday.Despite the departure from the usual diplomatic sartorial tastes, Udall represents a less controversial pick than his predecessor, outspoken Trump selection Scott Brown, who left New Zealand in December. Brown had been one of Trump’s first political backers, with a colourful – at times controversial – history in and out of politics. Continue reading...

Military tattoo to be held in chancellor’s honour on Thursday but formal handover of power not expected until next weekAngela Merkel will ceremonially bow out of office on with a military tattoo held in her honour on Thursday evening, before she is expected to formally hand over her seat of power to Olaf Scholz in the first half of next week.Featuring torch-carrying soldiers in full military regalia, precision choreography and three songs of the outgoing chancellor’s own choosing played by a marching band, the event will mark the high point of Merkel’s leaving tour after 16 years of holding office. Continue reading...

Public confusion and distrust over vaccination have been fuelled by what experts say are crippling failures in authorities’ response to the pandemic

Doctor found guilty of gross negligence after marking wrong leg of 82-year-old man for operationAn Austrian court has fined a surgeon for amputating the wrong leg of an elderly patient.The 43-year-old surgeon said her actions were due to “human error”, but the judge found her guilty of gross negligence and fined her €2,700 ($3,060), with half the amount suspended, a spokesperson for the tribunal in the northern city of Linz said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Report follows French president’s complaint about PM’s behaviour after they discussed sinking of refugee boat in the ChannelThe French president, Emmanuel Macron, referred to Boris Johnson in a private conversation as a “clown”, according to reports in France.The political magazine Le Canard enchaîné, often described as the French equivalent of Private Eye, reported Macron as saying the British prime minister has “the attitude of a vulgarian”. Continue reading...

Police appeal for information after Mohammed Khan fails to return home from playing in nearby parkA young boy from Afghanistan has gone missing less than a month after arriving in the UK.Metropolitan police detectives have launched a high-risk missing persons investigation as they search for 11-year-old Mohammed Khan, who was last seen at about 4pm on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Amber Gibson’s body was discovered in Cadzow Glen park in Hamilton on SundayPolice investigating the death of a 16-year-old girl have arrested a 19-year-old man.Amber Gibson left her home in the Hillhouse area of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, at about 9.15pm on Friday and was reported missing later that night when she did not return. Continue reading...

The armed group broke into the jail in Tula and opened fire, injuring a guard and a police officerMexican gangsters used a convoy of vehicles – including a truck with homemade armour-plating – to ram their way into a prison before opening fire at guards and rescuing nine inmates.Several other vehicles were also set on fire in the spectacular plot targeting the jail in the central city of Tula. The escapees include José Artemio Maldonado Mejía, alias “El Michoacano”, the leader of a local crime organisation known as Pueblos Unidos. Continue reading...

In a preview for the actor’s first on-camera interview since the tragedy, Baldwin says he did not fire the gun that killed Halyna HutchinsAlec Baldwin says he did not pull the trigger on the gun that accidentally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust in October.Hutchins, 42, was killed, and director Joel Souza, 48, injured when the gun Baldwin was holding went off during rehearsals for the western on a ranch outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico – a rare filming fatality that sent shockwaves through Hollywood and has forced a reckoning on the use of weapons on set and cutting corners on production safety. Continue reading...

The EU must consider mandatory vaccination in response to the spread of the 'highly contagious' Omicron Covid variant across Europe, the European Commission president has said. Ursula von der Leyen said one-third of Europe's 150-million population were not vaccinated and it was 'appropriate' to discuss the issue

There have been no end of complaints about some of the trees being put up –from a metal one in Cardiff to a puny one in GrimsbyName: Disappointing Christmas trees.Height: As much as 25m. Continue reading...

Rights group criticise EU Commission over proposals for emergency measure to tackle crisisRights groups have criticised the European Commission after it proposed that three countries sharing a border with Belarus should be allowed to hold people in special asylum processing centres for up to 16 weeks, up from the current maximum of four.Top officials at the EU executive said the emergency measures would give Poland, Lithuania and Latvia the flexibility to deal with an unprecedented situation caused by what the EU calls a hybrid attack from Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarusian regime. Continue reading...

Home Office acknowledges people involved in tragedy may have tried to call for help as investigations continueThe occupants of a boat that sank last week in the Channel causing the deaths of at least 27 people may have tried to contact the UK authorities, the Home Office has acknowledged.Dan O’Mahoney – the clandestine channel threat commander – said he could not say with any certainty if those onboard had rung the UK for help. Speaking to parliament’s human rights committee, O’Mahoney said HM Coastguard was now investigating. Continue reading...

Duke of Sussex says on World Aids Day that vaccinating the world against Covid is ‘test of our moral character’

A bill before federal parliament would legalise IVF technology to prevent a rare genetic disorder – mitochondrial disease. In Australia, about one child a week is born with a severe form of mitochondrial disease, and many of those children will die before they turn five. While this bill has cross-party support, some MPs are opposed to it and it has also stoked controversy with religious groups.

Armed police arrest man who is believed to have entered over the walls of the Palace of WestminsterA man has been detained by armed police after breaching security to enter the grounds of the Houses of Parliament.The man is believed to have entered over the walls and was stopped in New Palace Yard. It is not being treated as a terrorist incident. Continue reading...

Marcus Lamb, 64, whose Daystar network reaches an estimated 2bn viewers worldwide, had pushed alternative therapiesMarcus Lamb, the co-founder of the leading Christian TV network Daystar who railed against Covid-19 vaccines, has died of Covid-19. He was 64 years old.Lamb, who was the chief executive of the conservative network that reaches an estimated 2 billion viewers worldwide, died on Tuesday, weeks after contracting the coronavirus. Continue reading...

People across Europe share their views on German chancellor and role she has played in the EUAfter 16 years in office, Angela Merkel is stepping down on Thursday as chancellor of Germany. The former UK prime minister Tony Blair said she had “often defined modern Germany” and Romano Prodi, Italian prime minister between 2006 and 2008, said a new European strategy and the next-generation EU would be part of the “great legacy” she leaves.People across Europe share their views on her leadership in Germany and the role she has played in the European Union. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from those who have been without power and have been affected by storm damageFor thousands of residents across the UK, Wednesday marks the sixth day without power due to damage caused by Storm Arwen. Fallen trees and electricity lines have leftmany residents without power, and it is thought that power may not be restored until Friday.If you have been affected by Storm Arwen and are still without power, we would like to hear from you. Continue reading...

Police search Albuquerque firearms supplier after owner claimed he ‘may know’ where live rounds came fromAuthorities are pursuing new leads on possible sources of live ammunition involved in actor Alec Baldwin’s fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of a western, as they searched the premises of an Albuquerque-based firearms and ammunition supplier.The search took place after a provider of firearms and ammunition to the ill-fated movie production Rust told investigators that he “may know” where live rounds came from, describing ammunition he received from a friend in the past that had been “reloaded” by assembly from parts. Continue reading...

Authorities retrospectively identified case of Covid variant from October, raising fears of global spread

Scribner has responded to the news that Anthony Broadwater has been cleared of the crime at the centre of Lucky by ceasing to distribute the bookAlice Sebold’s publisher Scribner is pulling her 1999 memoir Lucky from shelves after a man was cleared of the rape at the heart of it.Anthony Broadwater was convicted of raping Sebold in 1982, and spent 16 years in prison. He was exonerated last week after a re-examination of the case found serious flaws in his arrest and trial. Continue reading...

Exotic pet ownership in the UK has grown 60% since 2000, according to the wildlife charity Born Free. But escaped wild animals are also a growing concern for their potential to spread disease, and the impact an invasive species might have on nature. The Guardian visits BeastWatch, an organisation of volunteers that specialises in the safe retrieval of exotic pets, and Bristol Zoo to see how wild animals are kept in captivity and ask if new laws can address some of the issues

The cats and dogs that helped us through the pandemic are increasingly being dumped in the street or handed over to charities – and shelters are dealing with the fallout

Proposed amendments to Sex Discrimination Act may not be enough to see legislation pass lower house this week

Research suggests serious bouts of illness with coronavirus may significantly damage long-term health

Christian Porter announces retirement on Facebook; George Christensen and Llew O’Brien cross floor after question time; sixth case of Omicron variant confirmed in NSW; Indigenous woman dies in custody in Melbourne; Victoria records 1,179 new Covid cases and six deaths; NSW records 251 cases; ‘significant flooding’ across Queensland town of Inglewood – follow the day’s news live

Janette Beckman has spent four decades documenting underground movements from London’s punks and the birth of hip-hop to LA gangs and illegal girls’ fight clubs. How does she win her subjects’ trust?It was the tension between Janette Beckman’s shyness and her curiosity about people that helped spark a career photographing subcultures. “I realised that having a camera gave you licence to go up to strangers and say, ‘Hi, I’d like to take a picture of you,’” she says. This epiphany jump-started a 45-year adventure in street photography, documenting the punk and two-tone youths of 70s Britain, the birth of hip-hop in New York, Latino gang members in Los Angeles, bikers in Harlem, rodeos, rockabilly conventions and demonstrations from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter.As we talk on a video call, 62-year-old Beckman gives me a tour of her home studio in New York, just off the Bowery where the famous punk venue CBGB used to be. There’s a Salt-N-Pepa snowboard, a Keith Haring painting and gold discs from hip-hop stars Dana Dane and EPMD. On one strip of wall hang a selection of images from Occupy Wall Street in 2011, “for a book,” she says. And on another are pinned a vast selection of her images, for her monograph Rebels: From Punk to Dior. Continue reading...

Political officials and diplomatic and activist sources describe stealth campaignSaudi Arabia used “incentives and threats” as part of a lobbying campaign to shut down a UN investigation of human right violations committed by all sides in the Yemen conflict, according to sources with close knowledge of the matter.The Saudi effort ultimately succeeded when the UN human rights council (HRC) voted in October against extending the independent war crimes investigation. The vote marked the first defeat of a resolution in the Geneva body’s 15-year history. Continue reading...

Former attorney general will not recontest his seat of Pearce in Western Australia at next year’s federal election

1 December 1936: Crowds flock to south London to watch flames devour the vast glasshouse, which had stood on Sydenham Hill for 82 yearsFleet Street, Monday night

Longstanding plague of child abuse and extreme abortion laws fuel crisis, report saysAn average of two girls between 10 and 14 give birth every day in Paraguay, thanks to a toxic combination of widespread child abuse and draconian abortion laws, according to a new Amnesty International report.Paraguay has one of the highest rates of child and teen pregnancy in Latin America, a region that, as a whole, has the second-highest rates in the world. Continue reading...